Wrapping up Last Week, Including Lexie and Ashlyn's 13th Birthday

Technically speaking, we celebrated all three birthdays on Sabbath. But in reality, since it was Little Bit's actual birthday, and she's much more into being the center of attention, it was mostly about her.

When I asked Lexie and Ashlyn how they wanted to celebrate their birthday (on Monday), they didn't have any major requests. Lexie decided she was going to make cinnamon raisin bread for breakfast, and was so excited when it turned out great! Lexie also wanted to make meltaway cabbage for lunch, and Ashlyn requested beans and rice for supper. I had to laugh when I looked at my menu calendar and realized that the normal menu for Monday was . . . meltaway cabbage for lunch and beans and rice for supper. Guess I don't have to worry about my kids getting bored with our normal menus when they request the same things LOL.

Two thirteen year olds and their cats! Monday was a nice quiet day at home. The girls read, and did some school, and snuggled their cats LOL.  Lexie's birthday gift was part of the cost of her new violin, and a couple weeks ago Ashlyn asked for a set of caligraphy pens and picked out what she wanted last time we were at a craft store, but she also requested some Lord of the Rings Legos. I have to admit, having Amazon Prime has made me lazy. I procrastinated, figuring I could order them a few days before their birthday and get the 2 day shipping. Only to realize that in this case, other sellers were a good $10+ cheaper, including shipping, but NOT the 2 day shipping of Prime. So I told Ashlyn that I'd ordered her Legos, but they'd be getting here late. Monday morning I was sitting in the sunroom and noticed a box by the back door (I think our postman makes a game out of putting packages by different doors every time he delivers something too large to fit in the mailbox). 

I went to get it, and it was the Legos! So I left the box in the laundry room and when Ashlyn walked through the kitchen I casually mentioned there was a box for her on the freezer. She and Lexie spent a good part of the afternoon putting "Weathertop" together.

Tuesday was music lessons. Wednesday was co-op, and an afternoon of yard work at our old house (it will hopefully be on the market very soon!). 

Friday while we were doing school in the living room, one of Ashlyn's cats, MiLady Underfoot, came around the corner with a dead rabbit dangling out of her mouth! EEK! I'm beginning to re-think my plan of leaving the garage door open enough that the cats can come and go as they please when the weather is good. I love that they can come and go as they please without us having to let them in and out, but I do NOT love them bringing dead critters into my house! Ashlyn tried to catch her to put her outside, but she went back through the cat door into the garage and we decided it was easier to just let her eat the rabbit in the garage.

A little while later I walked past the laundry room and saw MiLady sitting in the doorway with a dead rabbit on the floor next to her. As I called Ashlyn to come get the rabbit OUT OF MY HOUSE, Little Bit, went a little closer and said "Mommy, it's foot moved!" figured she was imagining things, assuming it was the same dead rabbit she'd had earlier and she'd just brought it BACK into the house. But when Ashlyn went to get it, sure enough . . . this one was ALIVE! And appeared to be unhurt. The girls thought we should keep it, but I vetoed that idea and Ashlyn took it back outside and let it go. 

We finished up our week with Little Bit's first week in Primary Sabbath School. She was a bit nervous about the change, but when Sabbath School was over, she came bubbling into the Kindergarten room where I was cleaning up. She had a BLAST, it was the best class ever! She loved it, and can't wait for next week. Whew! My baby's growing up . . . :) 

Little Bit and her cat, Joy

Little Bit Turns 7!

I'm behind again . . . sigh . . . after traveling, we spent Thursday and Friday settling back in at home , and getting ready for Little Bit's Birthday.

Her birthday was on Sabbath this year, so this made it a bit different from normal. We eat breakfast at church since Lexie & Ashlyn help serve it, so rather than having breakfast ready for Little Bit, I just fixed some strawberries and hot chocolate for a special birthday morning treat.

I also got her some cut flowers and a tiny little potted rose bush.  Lexie made her a "rosebud circlet" to match the one with Samantha's birthday outfit. Her "big" gifts were all the American Girl stuff, but she still got her annual teacup from us. And, a couple weeks ago someone offered Lexie and Ashlyn some old costume jewelry they were getting rid of and one piece was a heart shaped necklace that the girls, correctly, thought Little Bit would like since Samantha wears a heart shaped locket, so that's the little white box.

Little Bit and Lexie dressed Samantha in her birthday dress, that Lexie made, first thing, since of course, Samantha was coming to church with us.

At church, I asked Lexie and Ashlyn to play the parts of Abraham and Sarah and act out the Bible story for the Kindergarten class.

We also celebrated Little Bit's birthday in Sabbath School and then, at the end of class, had a special prayer for Little Bit and her friend, K, on their last week in Kindergarten before promoting to Primary.

After church we hurried home to greet the grandparents and get lunch on the table.

Little Bit's first request had been for petit fours like Samantha had, but Lexie convinced her to go with one "big petit four", otherwise known as a square layer cake. Lexie made the cake on Friday, and then when we got home from church, she made whipped cream and sliced strawberries. She put strawberries between the layers, and then used strawberries and M&Ms to make flowers on top, as per Little Bit's request. I thought it turned out great!

Meanwhile, Little Bit was busy setting up all her Samantha goodies on the hearth to show the grandparents.


After lunch, and cake (with candles, but no singing, because she does NOT like being sung to!), we enjoyed a nice afternoon visiting with the grandparents. Lexie showed off her new violin and gave the grandparents a nice "concert". Little Bit showed them her American Girl goodies. A good time was had by all :)

Wrapping up the Week of March 20 - The Traveling Part!

Whew! What a busy week! 

We had planned to go to my parents' house on Sunday, but then there was a chance of snow on Sunday, so we decided to beat the snow (we didn't get any) and drove down after church on Sabbath.

The nice part of that was that we had a nice, quiet day at Mama and Papa's on Sunday. "Mr Cat" came out to say hi. He's a brother (I think) to Ashlyn's cat, Moccasin, and it's funny because their coloring is so similar, but his face is very different. He seemed to enjoy getting lots of love from the girls.  Little Bit also enjoyed riding her bike a bunch. She almost got up the courage to learn to ride without training wheels. 

Monday was "Ice Cream for Breakfast Day" normally I just buy some ice cream and call it good, but Mama made chocolate waffles to have with the ice cream. Yum!  After breakfast Lexie and Ashlyn and I headed out for a fun day at friends' house. As always, the kids spent the day playing in the woods, and with the animals.  This time Little Bit opted to spend the day with Mama & Papa instead of coming with us. They rode metro into Washington DC so Papa could get some National Park stamps he wanted. And while they were there, they went to the Rosslyn metro station to ride the really long escalator (207 ft) there (because what kid doesn't love riding super long escaltors?!?). So she had a fun day too.

Tuesday was the reason for our trip to Mama and Papa's! Little Bit's seventh birthday (which was the 26th). When her sisters turned 7, we went to the American Girl Store in NYC. So we had to follow the tradition and go to American Girl for Little Bit's 7th birthday too. But now there's also an American Girl store in Northern VA which has the huge advantage of being to drive to it instead of navigating the subways of NYC.  As an added bonus, it meant my Dad could drop us off and go do his own thing, since spending a few hours in a 100% pink & girly store isn't really his kind of thing, he went and collected National Park passport stamps instead. Little Bit spent the first while just running around looking at everything. One thing I liked a LOT better about the NY store (when we were there, they may have changed it), is that everything for one doll was in one area. So we could go to the Kit area and see her and all her accessories on display, and then choose the doll & accessories Lexie wanted and be done with it. The DC store had things scattered. I think the idea was that similar accessories were in the same area. For example, in one area there was a display of each doll wearing her nightgown/pajamas with her bed and "bedtime accessories" set. But that meant that, to find Samantha (Little Bit's doll of choice) and all her accessories, we had to go all over hunting down the various accessories. It wasn't a big deal, since Little Bit and Lexie had gone online ahead of time and figured out what she wanted, but if we'd gone in there without having researched, it would have been very frustrating. 

After we made our purchases, we went to tea at the American Girl Bistro. I had called and made a reservation and I KNOW that not only did we say our reservation was for tea, but the woman on the phone repeated back to me that it was for tea. However, apparently that information was not passed on to the actual restaurant. The website says to call an 800# to make reservations rather than calling the individual store directly (after this experience, if I ever do it again, I'll be calling the store directly).  The people at the restaurant did their best (and said we were actually the second table that day who'd made reservations for tea and that information hadn't been passed on. Our reservation was for 2:15 and "tea time" doesn't start until 2:00, so it sounds like ALL the reservations were not being made properly), but because the "tea treats" are typically prepared in advance AND to further complicate things, we'd requested vegetarian, we did have quite a long wait. I was impressed though, I was expecting that "vegetarian" would just mean they'd leave off the meat items and maybe give us more of the non-meat options to make up for it but they actually created a vegetarian equivalent for the meat options. There was a miniature veggie burger to replace "Josefina's rancho burger" and a little heart shaped grill cheese sandwich to replace Julie's "pigs in a blanket". 

After we left Tyson's Corner, we took a rather circuitous route back to Mama and Papa's house by way of Columbia, and our all time favorite Chinese restaurant, Hunan Manor! YUM!!! While the heavy beltway traffic is something I most definitely do NOT miss about living in Maryland, I do, very much, miss getting to go to Hunan regularly! When Rodney & I were first married I worked a few miles from the restaurant and when I wasn't traveling, my co-workers and I went there often for lunch. Now it's a rare, much appreciated treat.

Once we got back to Mama and Papa's house Little Bit, with help from her sisters, got right to work checking out all Samantha's accessories.  Once they'd opened everything up and set it all up and generally checked it out thoroughly, it was bedtime.

So, they changed Samantha into her new nightgown (that Lexie sewed for her) and made a bed for her on the sofa.

Wednesday, the girls packed up all of Samantha's stuff and all of their stuff and loaded it all into the car, and we headed home.  . . and I think I'll stop here and do a separate post about the rest of the week :) 

A Belated Happy 12th (how is that possible?) Birthday to Ashlyn & Lexie!

Lexie and Ashlyn turned TWELVE! on Sabbath!! I'm really not sure how that's possible . . . They are most definitely not little girls anymore, sigh . . . 

The evidences of them not being little girls started the night before, when Lexie explained to Little Bit that, "on your birthday, you got to wake up, and wake us up, whenever YOU wanted . . . on MY birthday, I'm going to sleep in! You can't wake me up tomorrow morning." 

Little Bit grudgingly agreed . . . And came downstairs Sabbath morning wanting to do something to surprise her sisters. I humored her and got out some window markers I picked up on sale awhile back. She had a BLAST decorating the windows for them. And, being the good big sisters they are, they were properly surprised and appreciative :) 

They also humored me with the pictures, and Rainbow Bridge story and even wore the crocheted bead tiaras I'd made, though they were happy when I pointed out that they could later be worn as headbands, necklaces or bracelets. BUT the second I got the camera out they ran back upstairs to get dressed . . . no pictures till we look good :) 

Little Bit was happy to help with presents, and she gathered up all the playsilk wrappings when we were done :) 

After presents, we had a special birthday breakfast of crepes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, YUM!!!

Beyond that, their birthday wasn't very . . . birthday-ish. My grandmother passed away the week before and the memorial service was Saturday afternoon. So the rest of our day was spent getting ready for, and driving to, and attending her memorial.

The girls have always loved hearing stories about people, and the memorial included a wide variety of stories, including some that made Lexie and I realize, for the first time, that Lexie has alot of her Great Grandmother in her :-)

When we got to my parents' house that evening, we discovered that my cousin and his wife, upon hearing that all 3 girls' birthdays were so close, had gotten them birthday presents, so that was a nice ending to their day.

We've talked about possibly having a "Lexie day" and, separately an "Ashlyn day" sometime in the next few weeks since their birthday, in addition to being shared, wasn't very much about them, but we shall see . . . April is shaping up to be pretty jam-packed already.

We ARE still having a birthday celebration with all the grandparents on Sunday, so we still have that to look forward to, as my babies begin their thirteenth year, sob!

Happy 6th Birthday Little Bit!!!

Yesterday was Little Bit's 6th Birthday!!! It's mind boggling to me that she's already as big as her sisters were when she was born!

She had a very busy schedule planned. In fact, so busy that it spilled over into the day before.

Normally Thursday is music lesson day but she didn't want to have to spend her birthday going grocery shopping and playing quietly while we waited for sisters SO our ever-accommodating music teacher agreed to let us switch music lessons to Wednesday this week.

After music lessons we were planning to meet friends at the "dragon playground" (a playground near our old house), but it was cold and rainy so we went to the friends' house instead. Little Bit had a great afternoon playing with K & T, and having blueberry muffin/cupcakes for snack.

Yesterday was all about Little Bit.

She woke up to a trail of pink hearts leading her downstairs, where more pink hearts decorate our big front windows. The table was decorated with a pink cloth, pink balloon, her presents and . . . because I still haven't forked over the money to buy a birthday ring, and I couldn't find any of our modeling clay to make one out of clay like I've done in the past, I made it out of tinfoil this year. Not ideal, but it worked . . . which reminds me, I need to find the clay TODAY or we'll be using the tinfoil again tomorrow morning for Lexie and Ashlyn. We read her "rainbow bridge story" (you can read last year's story here, for this year I added "When she was five years old she learned to write and draw and make scrambled eggs. . . . And now Little Bit is SIX years old! She loves giraffes and Frozen and playing with friends. . . ") and she blew out the candles. Then, for my sweetie whose love language is, without a doubt, "gifts", it was time for presents!!!!!

We continued the tradition of getting a tea cup each year.

She was very excited to get the Elsa doll she's been drooling over every time we go to Target (well, she's been drooling over the bigger dolls too, but Mommy has a limit on what she'll spend on silly, trendy, we'll be tired of it a month from now, toys), and she was happy with the little one.

When all the presents were done, she was pretty happy with her new Frozen stuff :)

At her request, we had ice cream for breakfast . . . then, also at her request, we went bowling.  But before we went bowling, she had to "put on makeup". When we were at K & T's house on Wednesday, they were playing dress-up and K had some of her mom's old makeup that she can use for play, so Little Bit got to try it out and now she's hooked LOL. We talked about how normally makeup is just for dress-up, but agreed that, for her birthday, she could wear some eye shadow (conveniently, of the colors I have, she wanted pink, which doesn't really show) and lip gloss.

I found it absurd that, in a practically empty bowling alley (being 11am on a Thursday), they put us sharing seating and ball return with someone else GRRR . . . they were in lane 1, we were given lane 2, the next lane in use was lane TEN, so I don't know why in the WORLD they didn't give us, oh, say . . . lane 5 (or 3 or 4 or 6 or 7 . . . ) Thankfully, after they finished the game they were in the middle of the boy wanted bumpers for their second game and for whatever reason lane 1 doesn't have bumpers so they moved to a different lane. It wasn't a huge deal, they ignored us, we ignored them, but struck me as odd. . . combined with the fact that she also spelled 2 of my daughters' names wrong DESPITE having them spelled to her as she was typing them (oddly enough, Ashlyn, who is typically spelled wrong (second n) or changed to Ashley, was the one she got right).

Little Bit had a few minutes of whining because she isn't as good as her sisters and daddy (which she noticed more this time, because, much to Ashlyn's excitement, she beat DADDY both games! (and Lexie tied him one of those games). So there was more focus on score then there had been when we went bowling for E's birthday last week. But a fun time was had by all.

A quick lunch out and we headed home, where Lexie attempted cake pops (they need some work, I love that she's all about experimenting in the kitchen! And keeps health in mind, even when making "treats") for the "tea party" that Little Bit had requested for snack time.

We had limeade (because Little Bit doesn't actually like tea) and cookies for tea, and I somehow didn't manage to get any pictures of that, grrrr . . . Little Bit was all decked out in her Anna costume too!

The rain stopped and it was WARM for the first time in forever so the kids rode scooters and worked on the garden and generally soaked up spring in the late afternoon/evening, before coming in for a quick supper before bedtime.

As we were doing bedtime stories, Little Bit asked "why was my birthday so much shorter than other days?" so we talked about how the time seems to go faster when we're having fun . . . I'll take that as a sign that it was most definitely a success :) And now she's SIX!!!!! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!?! And how did turning six make her suddenly look so BIG GIRL instead of my sweet cute LITTLE GIRL?

Weekly Wrap-Up - March 30

This week can pretty much be summed as birthday and sickies . . .sigh . . .

We did manage to fit some school in amongst the rest. Ashlyn is LOVING, the art curriculum we're reviewing (check back in about a month to read our review of that!). So pretty much an free time she has, finds her working on that. Lexie is enjoying the curriculum as well, but isn't quite as . . . obsessive about it. It's interesting to see, not only their different interpretations of the assignments, but also their different overall approach to it. Just because they're identical twins, they are most definitely NOT identical, I love it!!!!

At the BEGINNING of March, we got fabric to make Bible-time costumes for them to use in Sabbath School. All month, the Bible stories were about Abraham and all but one of them, suggested having an "adult" dress up as Abraham and/or Sarah to tell the story. Since this is the little kid's Sabbath School class, and Lexie and Ashlyn are my helpers, they get to pretend to be "adults" when the program calls for this. But life's been busy, and it wasn't until this week that we found time to make the costumes, sigh . . . we DID get them both done (but haven't had 2 well "models" to model them both at the same time. Their Sabbath dresses are short sleeved, so the pink sleeves aren't there when they wear them at church. I just made it up as we went. The head dresses were easy, 2 remnants of different brown striped fabrics, they just hemmed them and were done. Lexie finger-knitted brown yarn to make the ties for both the head dress and the robe. For the robe, we took 2 rectangles of fabric, the length we wanted the robe, and for an estimated width I had them hold their arms straight out to the sides, and took approximately from elbow to elbow. Cut one piece in half (down the length), then seamed the sides, up to where the arm hole would start, and the shoulders across the top. And that's it. we may hem it at some point, but the rough edges kinda add to it, and it's a fabric that I don't think will unravel too badly with occasional use.

After the lovely spring weather last weekend, winter returned this week, sigh.  We even got snow flurries a couple days, but thankfully nothing that stuck. It WAS cold enough to require coats when going out, sigh. Here, Lexie and Little Bit are posing with their new tote bags from Miss Judy before we head to the store. 

In addition to Wednesday being Little Bit's Birthday, it was also the day Ashlyn got sick, sigh. Little Bit had been planning, FOR WEEKS all the things sissies were going to do with her ON HER BIRTHDAY! And Ashlyn spent the day sleeping, which left Lexie to be bossed around by Little Miss Five! She did awesome, helping with meals and such, and not complaining at all, about playing 5-year-old games all day.

Thursday, Ashlyn was still sick, so we hung out at home. 

Friday was Lexie and Ashlyn's birthday.  Ashlyn was feeling better, but still not 100%, so it was abit subdued, but still a nice day.  Little Bit had the brilliant idea that "since it's your birthday, you should play with me!" but handled it ok when they vetoed that idea LOL. We finished sewing the above-mentioned costumes. And got ready for the grandparents to come celebrate birthdays with us the next day.

Little Bit had declared she wanted a strawberry heart-shaped cake with pink sprinkles and, once the Easter candy started appearing in stores, she added that she needed Peeps and eggs too. . . Conveniently, mom had a heart shaped pan that she sent home with us last time we visited them. I had good intentions of making a healthy-ish strawberry cake, but when Ashlyn being sick meant all grocery shopping AND preparations had to be done on Friday, with her still not feeling good, I caved and just bought a strawberry cake mix. I love that, while we aren't nearly as healthy as I'd LIKE us to be, Lexie's reaction to the bright pink cake batter was . . . that is PINK! YUCK!!! LOL. Little Bit was thrilled, however (sigh). . . I DID convince her that the pink sprinkles would show up better on white frosting, so at least avoided adding MORE food coloring that way, and the finished product did turn out cute! And most importantly, SHE was thrilled with it.

Initially, we'd talked about just getting a Dairy Queen ice cream cake for the big girls, but then, Thursday evening, I found a recipe online, to make you own ice cream bundt cake, with a crunchy layer like DQ's cakes have and it sounded easy enough to be do-able. The girls loved the idea so we made their cake. They chose Chocolate Moose Tracks for the bottom, the middle crunchy layer was crushed Oreos and Magic Shell, and teh top layer was Peanut Butter Carmel Brownie ice cream. It was kind of messy to get out of the pan (by the time I melted it enough to get it loose, the top was too melty - if we do it again, I'll get it out of the pan a day ahead & re-freeze it on a platter) but overall easy enough and YUMMY!!

So, in addition to the above-mentioned cakes, the plan was to come home after church and have all the grandparents at our house for dinner, and present-opening. BUT Ashlyn woke up Sabbath morning feeling worse again, and opted not to go to church. The plan for Sabbath School had been for Lexie to be Abraham, and Ashlyn to be Sarah, and each had memorized her parts (about 1/3 page each). When I pointed out that, as leader, I couldn't hide away in the (too small for me to fit) tent, like Sarah was supposed to do, Lexie decided she better be Sarah (she didn't like my idea of just saying that Sarah was SUPPOSED to have been in the tent, but wasn't), so Sabbath morning, in about 15 minutes, she memorized those lines so I could read Abraham's part and she could be Sarah. 

Grandmom (Rodney's mom) decided she didn't want to risk catching whatever Ashlyn had, so it was just my parents and grandmother.  Apparently 11 is the age where we glare at people who want to take our picture with the cake, but oh well . . . After lunch, dessert, and presents, I noticed that Lexie had disappeared upstairs, but thought she had just taken one of her new books upstairs to read in peace or something. When my parents were getting ready to leave, I called up to her and got no response, so went to check on her, and she was fast asleep. Uh-oh! I let her sleep . . . at some point that evening she woke up and said she had a headache, drank some water, and went back to sleep. When I went up to tuck Ashlyn and Little Bit in, Lexie had a plastic bucket next to the bed, so I asked if she had thrown up. She said no, but she felt like she might, and in the middle of the night, she did (but had that bucket handy, so no big mess. I still don't know if she had a headache that caused her to throw up (some of my headaches do that), or if she has what Ashlyn had, but needless to say, we are taking a very relaxed start to this new week, sigh . . . conveniently, it's a NOTHING PLANNED week, so if we need to take a sick-week, we can.

In positive news, Ashlyn seems fully back to normal, finally, today!  

I Blinked . . . and Now They Are 11!!

How in the WORLD can my babies be 11 already? Seriously, I don't understand!!! They have matured so much in the past year. There's not much "little girl" left in them *sob*, but they're growing into lovely young ladies, and are so much fun!

We do a similar birthday routine, to what I described on Little Bit's birthday, though they informed me they didn't need crowns, or a "path" this year, and I just left the same hearts on the window and balloons at the bottom of the stairs, that were still up from Wednesday :)

A tradition I started with all 3 girls 5 years ago (because that's when I read about the idea, online), is to get each of them a teacup each year for their birthday. That way they'll each have a nice big collection of teacups by the time they're grown. Each year I browse Goodwill, and stores like TJ Maxx, to find their teacups, so each one is different. this year we also gave Lexie a teapot that matches one of her other teacups, and Ashlyn a cute sugar bowl that I found. And of course, we read their rainbow bridge story this morning, and lit their candles :)

Here's their story:

Once upon a time two tiny babies began growing side-by-side in a warm little nook. They snuggled together, and sometimes they  played together. The second one loved to do somersaults. The first one was anxious to get out and explore the new world they were getting ready for. But every time she asked the special rainbow fairy if it was time yet, the fairy shook her head. Finally the first baby got tired of waiting, the second one told her they should wait, and follow the rules, but the first baby just wiggled and giggled and danced her way across the rainbow bridge. As she reached the other side, her new mommy and daddy excitedly welcomed her, and called her Lexie.

The second baby sighed, and slid, feet-first across the rainbow bridge, and the Mommy and Daddy excitedly welcomed her, and called her Ashlyn.

(light the first candle)

And then Lexie and Ashlyn were one year old and they loved to slide down the stairs on their tummies, and they were giggly and happy.

(light the second candle)

When they were two years old they loved to splash in the water and swing on the swings.

(light the third candle)

When they were three years old they loved all things Princess.

(light the fourth candle)

When they were four years old, they liked to visit Daddy at work, and play on the playground.

(light the fifth candle)

When they were five years old, they moved to Pennsylvania, where they could play outside all day long.

(light the sixth candle)

When they were six years old, they welcomed their new baby sister into their home.

(light the seventh candle)

When they were seven years old, they loved visiting science museums and picking raspberries.

(light the eighth candle)

When they were eight years old they helped their Papa build an awesome playhouse.

(light the ninth candle)

When they were nine years old, they moved to a new house.

(light the tenth candle)

When they were ten years old, they enjoyed outside time, handwork, and learning.

(light the eleventh candle)

And now Lexie is eleven years old! She loves to read, is great with little children, and has an answer for everything.

And Ashlyn is eleven years old! She wants to know how everything work, and always does her best. 

Lexie and Ashlyn are turning into lovely, intelligent young ladies and we're so happy to be a part of their eleventh birthday.

(make a wish, blow out the candles and sing Happy Birthday)

Happy Birthday Sweet Little Bit!!!

It doesn't seem possible, but my BABY turns 5 today!!! So I thought, in honor of her birthday, I'd share a little bit about how we do birthdays at our house! We don't do the big "kid parties" that most people do. On the weekend closest to all 3 birthdays (the twins' birthday is 2 days after hers, so they're all close together!) we invite the grandparents to come for Dinner and cake and presents and enjoy a nice family birthday celebration that day.  On their actual birthdays, we borrow some ideas from the Waldorf education method, and adapt them abit, and here's what we've come up with . . .

Last night, in addition to our normal bedtime song, I recited the following poem with Little Bit:

  When mommy switches off the light,
  I'll still be 4 years old tonight.

  But from the very break of day,
  Before the children rise and play,
  Before the darkness turns to gold,
  Tomorrow, I'll be 5 years old!

  5 kisses when I wake!
  5 candles on my cake!

After Little Bit went to sleep, I set up the present table and birthday spiral.

We wrap presents in playsilks, it's a great re-usable way to wrap things and avoid the mess and waste of all the paper!

Birthday rings are a typical part of Waldorf birthday celebrations, but I like the spiral shape better, I'd love to get an Advent spiral, that we could use for birthdays AND Advent, but for now, I just make my own out of modeling clay, and use birthday candles in it. I decided to go ahead and put enough candles in to use again on Friday for the big girls.

Little Bit is very into hearts, and pink,  right now, so I taped pink and white hearts all over our big front windows (no picture of that, I'm not a good enough photographer to be able to take pictures of a window).  Then, I hung balloons (pink, of course) at the bottom of the steps, so she'd have to walk through them to come downstairs this morning, and taped a few more hearts to the yarn holding the balloons.

 The other piece of "decorating" we usually do is a "path" of hearts leading from her bed to the birthday table and I was soo proud of myself, this year after Valentines, I'd found a bag of pink plastic heart "scatters" that would be perfect for that path, and a nice change from construction paper but as I was hanging the balloons last night, and the cat was watching intently, I realized that all those little plastic things on the floor would be irresistible to the cats, so I waited and put the path down when I got up this morning (even so, MiLady swiped a couple I think!).

When Little Bit got up, she gathered the hearts as she followed the path. And then she was ready for PRESENTS!!!

After her presents were all open, we read her "Rainbow Bridge story" and lit her candles. This is another Waldorf tradition that I LOVE! Each year on the child's birthday, we read the story of her life, adding a new line each year.  Here's her 5th birthday story:

Once upon a time a tiny baby began to grow in a warm little nook. As she grew she heard noises outside her little nook. She heard laughing playing little girls, and she heard a mommy and a daddy, and she wiggled and squirmed in her little nook, excited to meet the people she could hear. Finally, a fairy whispered in her ear "Today's the day, you can go over the rainbow bridge and join your new family . . . 

The tiny baby was soo excited, she wiggled all over, anxious to meet the people she'd been hearing. And so, quick as a wink, she danced over the rainbow bridge and there, waiting for her, was a Mommy and a Daddy, and twin sisters, soo excited to meet her! They called her Little Bit and cuddled her and welcomed her into her family.

(light the first candle)

And then Little Bit was one year old and she loved to feel the wind in her face, and she smiled at everyone she met.

(light the second candle)

When she was two years old she loved to play outside and follow her big sisters.

(light the third candle)

When she was three years old, she went on lots of trips and moved into a new house, across the street from her friends, E & J.

(light the fourth candle)

When she was four years old she started circle time. She learned to pump the swing all by herself and loved riding her bike and scooter.

(light the fifth candle)

And now Little Bit is FIVE years old! She is smart and helpful and caring and loves to dance We are happy to know Little Bit and to be a part of her fifth birthday.

(make a wish, blow out the candles, and sing Happy Birthday).

Weekly Wrap-Up - April 2

Last week was insanely busy (LOTS of fun, just REALLY busy!)

Sunday:  Rodney and (neighbor) Brian, worked on setting up the basketball net the big girls got for their birthday, with some help from MiniMe. Despite the claims that it included all needed tools, ummm . . . not so much. But they eventually got it up and the girls have been enjoying it!

While they were getting sand for the base of the basketball hoop, I suggested they go ahead and get enough for the sandbox too. We've had it since the twins were toddlers, had it set up for awhile at the last house, but the big girls kind of out grew it, AND left the lid off a few times too many, so it hadn't been usable since Little Bit was old enough. She was very excited with her new toy :)

Penny and the boys (Brian's family) came over to play in the sandbox, and they all ended up staying for supper.

As they were leaving, Sassy pointed out that, if it snowed the next day, as predicted, we NEEDED to get together to play in the snow. And so, that brings us to . . .

Monday: it DID snow. We DID get together, and a great time was had by all! (except the poor men, who had to work instead of staying home to play with us LOL).

It's a good thing, the kids were impatient and insisted we go out and play in the snow that MORNING, because by afternoon, though it was continuing to snow, it had warmed up enough to melt what had stuck in the morning, as well as the new snow coming down.

All 5 kids worked together to build a snowman (though in some cases the help was . . . not real helpful LOL. Still, they managed to get one built, and it stood for at least 30 seconds before someone knocked   it down LOL.

Since we don't have any hills around here, the big girls decided to get the sled out and give the little kids rides. They wore out alot faster than the little kids did (especially when E wanted his turn since he's bigger than Little Bit and J), but it worked well, just the same.

After the big girls declared the sled-pulling-service to be ka-put, Little Bit and J figured out that the saucer worked pretty well on the handicap ramp that goes off our deck. 

Monday at sundown was the start of Passover. Daddy was working late that night, so it was just the girls and I for our seder. It was really nice. We opted for a simple meal of beans & rice, and used a simplified program to keep it from being too long for Little Bit, and it worked out very well. Even Little Bit enjoyed it :)

Tuesday was Little Bit's actual birthday.  When she woke up she discovered a path of yellow hearts leading from her bed to the "Birthday table". Yellow is her current favorite color, so I covered the table with a yellow playsilk, and made her a yellow felt birthday crown.  I'd LOVE to be able to afford a birthday ring or spiral, like this, but since I can't, at least for this year, I just made one out of modeling clay (it worked well, I may make one out of some type of air-dry clay so it can be permanent), and stuck birthday candles in it. For Little Bit, I used 3 yellow birthday candles and her "4" candle that we'd had for her cake. I set that on a pretty plate and had it on the table along with her presents and crown. She LOVED it all!!! 

She came downstairs and dove right into the presents. Once she'd torn through all her presents, she was ready to see what the candle ring was all about. Since her preschool curriculum is Waldorf-based, I've been reading more about Waldorf. One thing that is a part of birthdays in Waldorf schools and homes, is a "Rainbow Bridge" story. The traditional story starts with the child being an "angel, waiting to come to earth", which I wasn't comfortable with, so instead I modified it to start with a "tiny baby in a warm little nook" :) The story proceeds, personalized for the child, so in Little Bit's case, I mentioned how she wiggled alot. Then, when it was a time a "fairy whispered in her ear" that it was time, and she crossed the rainbow bridge and met her family. Typically, Waldorf schools use a large rainbow playsilk as the bridge (or might even have a wood bridge as part of their classroom), and I WOULD like to make a rainbow silk at some point (first I need to find my stash of undyed silks . . . ), but for this year, I used our large rainbow stacker, and just split the pieces up and lined them so that they formed a "path" for her to walk across. After that I lit the first candle, and said a couple quick things about when she was one, and so on for each year. When we had lit the 4 candle, she got to blow them all out. She LOVED it!! We ended up doing it at least 3 or 4 times LOL. The rest of the day continued with meals of her choice and, at her request, a trip to Target to spend her birthday money on LaLaLoopsies. 

Wednesday, Penny and the boys had invited us over to play (E was sad that he would be at the babysitter's on both actual birthdays, so we agreed to get together on the day in between). Sassy and MiniMe had told Penny about the miniature daffodils that grew wild by the creek at our old house and usually bloomed just in time for the girls' birthday. So E helped Penny pick out 3 pots of miniature daffodils to give to the girls for their birthday. They were very excited!! Penny also had a special birthday dessert ready for them. We had PLANNED to only stay until after lunch, but the kids were all playing outside so nicely that we ended up staying most of the day.

Thursday was the big girls' birthday. I did pink and purple hearts and pink & purple playsilks, and pink and purple crowns, and TEN candles on the spiral. Even though they didn't make a big deal about it, I think they enjoyed having all the same fun, Little Bit had :) 

Thursday is Piano Lesson & Errand day, so piano lesson took up part of their birthday (MiniMe was ok with that, but Sassy was rather annoyed, though I DID make a point of contacting the violin rental place that day to at least get the ball rolling on the violin lessons, STILL playing phone tag with him, sigh . . .), then we went to Chipotles for lunch, at their request. Instead of stopping to get groceries on our way home, I opted to go home first, figuring I'd have to run out on Friday to get groceries. But Rodney was working from home, so it worked out to leave them home, to play Legos all afternoon while I went back out to get groceries and such. We wrapped up the day with the supper of their choice :) 

On Friday E & J saw the girls playing outside and decided they needed to come play :) So they brought their basketballs over and all the kids played basketball and E, J and Little Bit played in the sandbox, and they all went out and threw sticks in the creek or somesuch. Since they were still here at lunchtime we decided to combine resources for lunch.

After lunch Sassy and MiniMe had to get ready for Miss Denise to pick them up to take them with her to rehearsal at the church for the Easter program.

So, Sabbath for church was an Easter program. I didn't have time to figure out "real" costumes for Sassy and MiniMe, but they used their baby wraps as headcoverings, and wore solid color dresses, and I think it worked. They passed out rocks (that everyone took up to the front as a "laying down of burdens" kind of thing, at the end), and then dismissed the rows at the end. AND it occurs to me, that I don't have any pictures yet. A friend who was already taking pictures said she'd e-mail hers to me, so I'll have them eventually :) 

Sabbath afternoon, since we hadn't seen Brian and Penny much (ha!) we went to their house for lunch, and finally went home at suppertime LOL. When the kids were all playing outside, J got out his motorized "motorcycle, and was taking Little Bit for rides on it :) 

And then, Little Bit got a turn driving :)  Once she figured out what buttons to push, she did pretty well, though she struggled abit with the concept of lifting her foot off the pedal to stop LOL. I think that smile says it all :)

And as proof that even after spending significant parts of FIVE days with Penny and the boys, on Saturday night we got home, ate supper, and Little Bit immediately asked "now can E & J come over to play?" LOL.

So, a fun week! Believe it or not we DID manage to squeeze school into the nooks and crannies of our packed week, AND do a relatively good job of keeping up on chores.