This and That

The past two weeks have blown by and here are few excerpts from those days.

On my Thursday morning in the classroom a week ago we made butter with a butter churn from Papa's family farm in Kansas. Chloe and Claire had taken it to class to share as they are studying some about the pioneers and times past. It turned out to be a huge success and I was surprised at how fast the process went. I'm sure we will do it again as a family...maybe even make the butter for this year's Thanksgiving! We have had the churn for years and only used it for displaying!

 

 

That same afternoon was another cross country track meet. Claire rounds the first curve and Chloe is on the home stretch. Chris is enjoying just being outdoors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After patiently watching the girls run, Chris got in some playground time.

 



 

Last Sunday after church Chris came home with us for a couple of nights. We had a good time with him playing with his little remote control boat, building with Lego's and blocks, reading books, and just spending time with him.

 

 

 

 

The picture below shows Papa and Chris watching the game and snacking on guacamole and "Mary's Gone Crackers" crackers which seem like nothing but bird seed to me...but hey they like them and they are pretty healthy as crackers go!

 

 

On Wednesday of last week the 1st graders were scheduled to visit a pumpkin patch and wear pioneer clothes. Unfortunately the weather wasn't good so the adventure had to be postponed. The good news is that they are going this week so they get to wear their pioneer clothing to school another day. Thank you Paula for the picture so we could see how they looked!

 

 

Another cross country meet on this most recent Thursday and here is how Chloe arrived at the meet. Needless to say the hair was "lost" before the race, Mike made sure of that. Claire was deemed the disco track star in this picture.

 









 

Friday night brought the school's annual fundraiser pig roast. We attended and enjoyed watching the kids with their friends. Here Chloe poses with her BFF friend, Mia. They are so cute and sweet together. Chris is taking a walk on the cake walk and ended up with a plate of cookies. Claire won a cake and Chloe won some Carmel apples. There must have been a sugar high at their house! :):)

 

 

 

Will miss these kiddos while we are gone for a few days beginning mid week. Papa and I are taking a trip to the Islands as part of our upcoming 50th anniversary celebration! Aloha~!!!

 

Girl Power!!!

Following Thursday afternoon's cross country meet, and with a no school day on Friday, Chloe and Claire came home with Papa and I for an overnight stay. We had a couple of missions to tackle and it seemed the right time to do them. Chris didn't come this trip and as it turned out he came down with a fever on Thursday night so it gave Mike and Paula time to fully concentrate on him and it allowed the girls to stay until Sunday. Hopefully they will escape whatever bug he had. The first pictures are of Claire and then Chloe participating in their lap of the cross country meet. Claire has a long, strong, stride, and comes in usually around 3rd place in the race, but usually 1st place of the 1st graders. The lap includes 1st and 2nd grade girls. Chloe doesn't fair quite so well in placing, but she is a strong determined little girl and we love it that she keeps going!!! So proud of them both!!

 

 

As I have mentioned previously in these blogs, we have a fancy box here that the kids use items from to play dress-up when they visit. The two dresses below I had found at a small consignment shop that I just happened to see a few weeks ago. The girls were thrilled with the new additions and had the outfits on several times over the weekend. They took turns wearing each of the dresses and we love how they manage to negotiate their situations. Rarely, at our house anyway, do they argue or fight over "stuff", they really seem to work things out well.

 

 

Our mission for Friday was to do some food shopping for a local center that feeds homeless and poor people. We have done it before with the girls, and they really seemed to understand the concept of helping hungry people, and they throw themselves into the shopping. We had a great time making selections and then taking the items to the Jesus Center. The pictures below are at breakfast time before taking off on our outing. We also did some shopping for the girls picking up just a couple of items that they wanted and/or might need.

 



 

 

 

Believe it or not, they swam after coming home both Friday and Saturday afternoon. Yikes...I couldn't believe it. The air was plenty warm but the water was cold!

 

 

On Saturday, Papa had a commitment and we girls decided to do some more shopping. This time we went North to the outlets and were able to pick up a few additional items that we wanted or needed. :)

After our shopping we decided to have lunch and by accident happened upon a very fun place. I thought we were going in to a place that you buy pizza by the slice but when we entered it was a sit down restaurant. We decided to stay and one of the menu items was to have children make their own pizzas. Claire and Chloe both instantly got excited, so of course, that is what we decided to do. A very nice young man who is one of the cooks eventually came to our table and escorted the girls back to make their pizza.

 

The first step was to wash their hands....

 

 

Next they prepared their dough....

 

 

They learned how to stretch and toss  the dough. The cook caught it once just before it hit the floor....

 

Next came the sauce and the toppings. Claire chose sausage and pineapple and Chloe wanted only cheese....

 



 Enjoying the final product...both girls claimed it was yummy!!

 

 It takes special skills to eat pizza without your top two front teeth, right Claire?

 

It was a great experience and the cook had oodles of patience and personality. Thank you Mary's Pizza Shack !

 

Our weekend was busy but fun and we were sad to say goodbye to our granddaughters after church today. I will say, however, I did have a long Sunday afternoon nap when we got home. We had a few minutes visit with Chris when we met Mike for the handoff of Claire and Chloe, and he was in good spirits and seemed to be feeling somewhat better. Looking forward to a visit for Chris very soon!