Weekly Wrap-Up for the Week of November 2

Whew! Nothing like sitting down to write a wrap-up to help me figure out WHY I'm so tired . . . let's see . . . at church a week ago a friend noticed Lexie knitting and after church asked both Lexie and Ashlyn to make her some washcloths to give as Christmas gifts. So that meant that Sunday needed to include a trip to the yarn store and while we were out, we hit a few other stores. Lexie had suddenly realized that (a) skirts are comfortable too and (b) she likes autumn colors, so the result was her new outfit, she was pretty excited about it LOL.

Ashlyn didn't need any new clothes, but she was as excited as Lexie to find scarves for sale at the craft store and has been wearing them most, if not all, days since.

On Sunday afternoon my parents got here for their last week of fall projects here. We had wonderful weather for it!! Including one day with warm enough weather for Dad to remove the back door from the hinges and get it painted. It had never been painted, it was just the primer that comes on it, so it desperately needed some paint. Dad humored me and painted the inside with chalkboard paint. I have to admit, it's hard to get used to the door being black instead of light gray, but the kids (and I) are excited to be able to use it as a chalkboard. We're semi-patiently waiting for the paint to cure sufficiently to be able to write on it, sigh . . .

Ever since Little Bit was itty bitty, it's been a "thing" between her and Papa for him to draw, paint, etc. on her tummy, so I wasn't too surprised when she came up from the basement, where Papa was painting the door, with a big blue heart on her tummy.  . . and that's the color I chose for the outside of the door. Dad also painted the outside of the basement door the same color and we'll probably use it to paint the metal garage roof (currently green, but desperately in need of re-painting) next summer.

Another project that we were thankful to have nice weather for was filling in the ditch across the driveway with concrete. The girls are thrilled to be able to ride scooters and bikes over it again! And I'm hopeful that before TOOOO much longer my hubby will find time to clean out his no-longer-driveable minivan and get rid of it which will then allow us to DRIVE and PARK on our whole driveway as well. Though knowing our luck, he'll get that done just in time for a big snow and we never bother to shovel the whole thing so we'll be back to just using the ends of it till the snow melts. Most winters, that's only a few days, last winter, I think the drive was snow-covered for most of January to March, so we shall see!

The other piece of the "clear the driveway" project, was moving the pile of rocks that we collected from the ditch when we dug it. We are hoping to use it for a landscaping project next summer but in the meantime, needed it off the driveway. The big girls, my mom, and I filled many wheelbucket-fulls of rocks that Dad took and dumped out of the way behind the garage. I must say those are arm muscles I don't normally use! But again, so nice to have the driveway cleared and available for bikes and scooters.

On Wednesday we sadly waved goodbye to Mama and Papa AND their motorhome, otherwise known as our guest house. With the guesthouse gone they aren't likely to be up here very much between now and next spring, though of course we'll still go visit them, and we have holidays coming up and such.

Thursday, in addition to the girls' normal music lessons, they had a short recital. It was mostly for one of their teacher's other students, who had just finished a book, but Miss Pat asked us to attend and had each of her other students play one piece as a part of the recital.  Lexie was happy to play her favorite piece, Perpetual Motion (anyone who's been around Lexie can see how fitting that piece is for her LOL). I wasn't at an angle to get a decent picture of Ashlyn,  but she played a piece as well.

Friday, the girls all headed to Grandmom's house with Daddy. I had an exciting day of catching up on errands that I'd put off all week because of everything else going on, and soaking up the quiet of having a house to myself (I even snuck a nap!!!).

Sabbath was "Jean Sabbath" at our church. Which means that those who choose to participate wear red t-shirt with the church's name on them and jeans. After church, and a quick sack lunch, people head to various community service projects. This was our first time participating (we've only been attending thsi .church for a couple of months and weather, sickness, etc interfered the last couple months). The twins had their shirts, and had gone to great pains to make sure they were dressed exactly the same! Same white long-sleeve t-shirts under the red shirts, same jeans, same sneakers, hair in buns, held with the same hair clips. To see if they could fool anyone at church. Most people have figured out little freckles and such that they use to tell them apart, but much to the girls' delight, the pastor, who also happens to be their Sabbath School teacher, couldn't tell them apart. And to further confuse him, after he thought he knew who was sitting where in Sabbath School, they changed seats when he left the room for a minute, and confused him again.

Little Bit was sooo excited about the idea of Jeans Sabbath, but they don't have any kid-size t-shirts right now. Some of the kids who've been attending the church from the beginning have shirts that one of the moms made for them, so she sent me pictures of their shirt and I m made Little Bit one.

She had to make sure I took a picture of the front AND back so everyone could see her whole shirt.

The community service project we chose to join was taking soup, water, and some warmer clothes downtown to hand out to those in need. The group for the church goes to the same corner every month, though don't I think they usually have the clothes, usually just food and water. So people have learned to expect them. When we first got there and I saw the boxes of clothes I couldn't imagine we'd give away ALL THOSE CLOTHES in the time we were there, but it went quickly. I mostly helped sort the clothes and find the sizes people wanted. Little Bit and Daddy passed out water to people. The big girls helped serve up soup and fruit salad to people, and then handed out granola bars once the soup and fruit were gone. You can see pictures of it on the church's facebook page.

Now the girls are talking about knitting scarves and making mittens to take next month. I'm sure we won't have very many, in only a month's time, but every little bit helps :)