Wrapping Up The Week of January 11 - 17

Whew! I think I'm still catching my breath from this week . . . on Sunday my parents came up and we went to Longwood Gardens. It was cold, but beautiful!  Little Bit had fun with the "seek and find" they had there, and it kept her hunting everywhere we went. 

Lexie and Ashlyn had been there earlier, with a friend, but they had fun being our "tour guides", and generously let Little Bit be the "tour guide in training" so we were well guided. 

After dark, Little Bit was FASCINATED with the lights that looked like "flower bushes" if she'd had her way, we'd have stopped to look at every. single. one . . . but that would have taken forever! The fountain that danced to music was a big hit too! 

Mom and Dad's plan was to head home by noon on Monday, grabbing a break between Monday morning's freezing rain and Monday evening's freezing temperatures, that would turn the wet pavement back into ice. BUT Lexie wanted Mama to help her sew an Anna (from Frozen) cape for Little Bit for her birthday. Originally, that seemed simple enough, her birthday isn't until the end of March . . . then last week, she found out that our church's January social will have a Frozen theme, and the kids are invited to dress-up. So OF COURSE both Lexie and Little Bit decided that she NEEDED an Anna cape (she got the Anna dress for Christmas) for that party! 

Our hope was that on Mama could get Lexie STARTED on Monday morning, enough that she could do the rest on her own (with my help, but I can only do basic sewing). But when Mom looked at it, she said the part that Lexie was going to need help with was the LAST part. . . so THEN we decided to kidnap Mama and keep her at our house, then bring her home later in the week (Papa needed to be back by Tuesday morning, but Mama didn't). Monday afternoon we went into town to get the pom pom trim that I hadn't found at the store where we got everything else, but 3 stores in town didn't have it either, sigh . . . 

SO we changed plans AGAIN, and Tuesday morning, we headed to Mama and Papa's house, stopping at a store en route that I figured would have it (it did!).  In between the sewing, all 3 girls worked together to write, direct, and perform a play for Mama and me. Lexie directed, Little Bit was the princess, and Ashlyn was . . . everything else :) It was quite creative :) 

Lexie and Mama spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday sewing while Ashlyn did school and helped Papa with projects. Little Bit played with the dollhouse, and other toys at Mama and Papa's house (a current favorite is a bunch of dry split peas that she drives my brother's old hot wheels through and uses as the "mulch" in the Little People playground. 

By Thursday morning, the cape, and matching hat, were DONE! We visited our friends in Berkeley Springs on Thursday and Little Bit had to wear her costume LOL. As always we had a blast. The kids played together inside and out. Little Bit and 7 yr old, M, played tag and chased each other for HOURS, needless to say she fell asleep quickly that night! The big kids all sat around crocheting and knitting and talking for awhile, and all the kids did various crafts. You can see a couple pictures of our day here.

Friday we just hung out at Mama and Papa's house for the day. Mama and the girls made homemade pizza for supper.

We finished our week of with a trip to the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space in DC.  I realized that we haven't been there since the twins were toddlers, and decided we were well overdo. I think Little Bit's favorite thing was riding the "escagator" (and my favorite thing might be that she calls it an escagator LOL). Mama humored her and they rode it over and over and over . . . The big girls were horrified at the requirements to be a stewardess in the 50's (height, weight and age requirements, plus their weight had to be "proportional" and they had to send in a full length picture with their application). Lexie also wondered why their nails had to be trimmed and polished when they also had to wear white gloves . . . the next horrifying site was the styles the stewardesses wore in the 70s LOL. 

I'll wrap up this post (ha ha) with a few more pictures from the museum:

"Flying" an airplane

Learning about torque

I'm not sure why, but the dog statue was under the table in the "ship" part of the "time" exhibit. Little Bit loved it!

While Little Bit played with the dog, her sisters were learning how a sextant works (but someone else came and kind of pushed in, so they gave up . . .we'll go back sometime when it's less crowded)

I was amused that they both were playing on "computers" . . . but they were "running" a space mission or something so it's all good. Also thought this picture did a good job of showing how LONG Ashlyn's hair has gotten!