Weekly Wrap-Up for the Week of Oct 19

Wow! As I sit down to write about our past week, I realize . . . NO WONDER I'm exhausted, what a busy week!

Monday we went to my parents' house to celebrate my grandma's 97th birthday and spend time with cousins. Lexie and Ashlyn had great fun "mothering" my cousin's 3 yr old and 1 yr old :) 

Making birthday cards for Grandma

They especially enjoyed getting to help with bedtime. They helped with baths, Ashlyn was very excited to give the baby her bottle, And Lexie read a bedtime story to Little Bit and C (3 yr old).

Tuesday was the actual birthday celebration. The kids all made a huge birthday banner to hang in the dining room.  As a part of the hanging process, Little Bit also mastered climbing up onto the loft. She's been climbing the footholds in the carpeted wall since she could walk, but this trip she figured out how to climb up over the top onto the loft itself and, thankfully, also how to get back onto the wall to climb down. Needless to say she was very proud of herself and spent a good part of the day climbing up and down :) 

I think probably Grandma's favorite part of the day was just watching the chaos that is 5 great-granddaughters running around.  As her health has declined she's seemed to kind of "zone out" a lot of the time and not enjoy people and activity like she used to, so it was wonderful to see her smiling and laughing at the antics of the little girls playing with balloons and generally being cute little girls.

Helping Grandma open presents

Another project that day was making, and decorating cupcakes. I wasn't close enough to get a picture but I hear Grandma even got to lick one of the beaters (Little Bit got the other one, there are advantages to being "little" but not little enough to nap) the big girls had a blast decorating the cupcakes with a fall theme and arranging them on a platter in the shape of a 97. 

Ashlyn lit the candles for Grandma's birthday cupcakes.

Helping Grandma blow out the candles.

Wednesday morning we said goodbye to the cousins then went to the orchard to stock up on apples before heading home. We recently got a hand-me-down second fridge for our basement, so now I have room to stock up!

Thursday was music lesson day.

Friday was GORGEOUS WEATHER so the girls were outside a good part of the day. While outside, Rodney was working on changing and cleaning the headlights on the minivan and needed smaller fingers than his to reach something-or-other, so he recruited Lexie to help. 

Sabbath, Lexie and Ashlyn had been asked to tell the Bible Story in the Kindergarten class. The lesson helps provided a "script" to include all the children in acting out the story of Jesus healing the blind man, so that was a fun, interactive activity for all of them.  Lexie was the narrator, Ashlyn was the blind man, and the kids (and teachers, because we didn't have enough kids willing to participate/have speaking parts) acted out the rest of it.

Little Bit agreed to be one of the temple leaders, but wouldn't dress up. The all around favorite was when the temple leaders (and, interestingly enough, several other actors "changed roles" and became temple leaders, hee hee) chased the (healed) blind man from the temple for saying Jesus had healed "him". 

Saturday night the fun continued with a bonfire/hot dog roast at the pastor's house followed by a local parade. The kids had a BLAST and it was a great way for them to get to know the other kids from church better. The parade was a fun, small-town parade with tons of candy thrown to the kids. I have to admit, I was just as glad that Lexie and Ashlyn had various other kids on their laps so weren't able to grab much themselves. My 3 girls had one bag they were all putting candy into so when it was over they divided it evenly amongst the 3 of them. Still more candy than they NEED, but not too horribly much. And yet another reminder that my baby is growing up, she did a great job of handling it when people threw candy toward other groups of kids but not near enough for her to get any of it :) 

Whew!! WHAT a busy week!! It was all fun, but abit much to have all crammed into one week :) Believe it or not we did manage to cram some normal school stuff into the nooks and crannies amidst all the other stuff, although Friday's (and today's) amazing gorgeous perfect fall weather has been one of those "this is why we school year round! Go outside and soak up the awesomeness!!!" things :) 

And we'll end with an amusing random quote from Little Bit. On Friday night the twins put on matching nightgowns, wrapped their hair in matching towels (after their showers) and wanted to see if we could tell them apart. Little Bit successfully identified who was who. When they asked her how she could tell them apart she shrugged and said "I don't know, you just look different . . .your eyelashes are different". The girls asked if she meant eyebrows but she insisted she meant eyeLASHES completely with pointing to her own, so there you have it . . . if you want to tell twins apart, just look at their eyelashes, hee hee.