Halloween 2011

C7 was a colonial girl, and if I do say so myself, her costume looked great! Yes, it was her nightgown with blue fabric wrapped around her waist. And we made a mob cap, which she kept on the whole of trick or treating (incredible!). Remember the outfits from Colonial Williamsburg? Her costume looks just like the ones we rented for Q5!!

Q5 was a cat, she looked great! She shortened her tail a bit from last Friday, but that was OK. No tripping!

Daddy

Sometimes C42 gets the short shrift from the kids because they are such mumma's girls.

C7 and I were reading a Highlights from last June (or the June before, I don't know, we got a huge wonderful stack from a friend) and found a little project for dads -- making a ~Dad Coat of Arms~

So, we decided to try it. I got a huge piece of cardboard from work, cut it into a shield shape, and the girls decorated.






C42 was surprised with it when he got home!

Introducing ...

It snowed today. It started as lots and lots of rain, but switched to big heavy snow, then back to rain, then back to snow and I think it ended up as rain overnight. But the ground definitely was covered for a little while.

C7 was in and out of the house, watching the weather on the computer, checking the temperature, yelling "it's so beautiful!" and generally just being extremely excited.







And all this reminded her that she wanted to take pictures and that she wanted to post her pictures to her blog. She created a blog a couple of weeks ago and this was her second post.

So, introducing Camera Kitchen Floor of Dogs! (we were worried the name might already be taken, but whew, it wasn't). Yes, it shows that I'm posting thing, but it isn't me, it is all C7. She took the photos, posted the photos, wrote the text.

School Halloween Parade

Make that ... School dress up as a character from a book parade. Not that that fools the parents who don't let their children participate in Halloween. Those kids still didn't dress up. But for the rest of us it caused a litte stir as we had to make sure our dress up was somebody from a book.

So, C7, who is going to Halloween as a colonial girl, chose to go to school as a 1940s girl from one of the Dear America books ... and wore a skirt with a sweater. Stuff she likes to wear every day [classic C7, right? Remember Kindergarten? And first grade?] C7 is next to her friend M7 who is dressed as Han Solo.




Q5 wore a cat costume. I'd found Trois Petits Chats and figured she was le petite chat noir. But she then found a Dorrie book, and went as Gink. Either way, she was a black cat, with a very long tail! There were 4 kitties in her class!! One of them is her good friend H5.




And ... them parading.

Here is Q5 with her awesome teacher!




And here is C7 with Han Solo. She appears to be looking for me, but I'm so right in front of her that she doesn't see me!!






**UPDATE**
Have another video of Q5 playing with her tail!

Rainy Day

The weather forcast is predicting snow for Western Maryland, and perhaps even the metro region. But I doubt we'll get any. Right now it is just rain, and we are having discussions about "raining cats and dogs" or when it rains "cows and horses" (thanks for that, C42)

So, instead of being outside we are inside, painting. What are we painting? We are painting the rain.

Party prep

Q5 went to a party this weekend, and wrapped the gift by herself. She asked if I would video her. Sure. So here it is. Four videos of Q5 wrapping a gift. Proud moments:

Q5 cuts out the piece of paper. Too small.




Q5 pulls off too much tape and then it gets tangled and so she rips some off and tapes it to the floor behind her back.




Q5 gives me a look and a "Mumma!" that means what the heck are you doing???!?? and attempts to tie a bow.




Q5 actually ties a bow using the "bunny-ears" method. I don't know where I learned this method. I thought it was C42 who taught it to me but he denies it. So I must have learned it somewhere. C42 thinks it is cheating, but, eh, they can both tie bows now!

Nancy Drew

I've been attempting to get C7 to read Nancy Drew since she started to read. Neither had been interested, so I brought the books down to give to a friend's daughter. Q5 saw them and told me she'd read them. And FINALLY one of them picked up a book (after I brought the books down to give to a friend's daughter) to read.





C7 saw that I took Q5's photo and she grabbed a book and started reading, to.





OK, it only lasted a day or so, and I suppose it doesn't matter what they read, and Nancy Drew isn't the best of reads but it has a lot of fond memories attached for me.

Quickie visit!

OK, so this was a couple of weeks ago. But, at that time, Ninoo and Papa were here. We went to the Navy Yard Museum, where we got locked out of the campus and had to walk around. But we saw some big ships on the walk, including this one, so that was fun anyway!





C7 got to see stuff about Pearl Harbor. Lots of it. She enjoyed the museum quite a bit, I was surprised, actually. But she's all about death and mayhem, and there was enough about Pearl Harbor to keep her interest piqued.

But best of all, I think, was that Q5 got to play on a big big big gun.





Wait, did I say that was best? No, best was the fact that after that we went for icecream.

I think these photos really represent our children: C7 has a dirty face and Q5 has a silly face. Oh, and see the sticker on my shirt in the background? When I said I was going to go change my shirt since I had a coffee-drip stain on it C7 gave me a pumpkin sticker to stick over it instead. Sweet.

Monkey

Q5 mastered the monkey bars this month!!! So proud.

Sunday morning

Just reading the paper. Q5 loves "Pickles" and C7 likes the KidsPost.

This is the better photo:




But this shows them all:

Talent show tryouts

As I'm sure you are aware, C7 did the talent show at HES last year. She did a GREAT job. Ever since then she has been excited about both she and Q5 doing the talent show together. Q5 has been steadily non-committal. Well, that's not true, sometimes she goes for it, sometimes she doesn't. But the one who was really excited was C7.

So this week the talent show the talent show the talent show! Tryouts. We somehow missed the permission form but at the last minute C42 procured one, and C7 got a spare from her teacher and we filled it out for C7. And C5, who had been saying no no no suddenly decided she'd do a puppet show for the talent show.

A puppet show. She had one paper doll and a few accessories (a toothbrush, watermelon, and a lemon) and she did her thing. I don't know what that thing looked like, exactly, since she decided to do it on the way to bed.

C7 decided to do a expose of facts about Pearl Harbor. She researched (her atlas and Wikipedia and her very own brain) then wrote them out on two large pieces of scrap paper. She refused to consider the idea of doing a monologue or dialogue with Q5. So I typed them out for her and then suggested we reorder them ...ha! We got them in order so they made sense.

I went to school at the regular time in case Q5 decided to back out at the last minute. She didn't. Plus C7 came and picked her up out of the classroom like C42 had told her to. So I walked home, and picked them up at 3:15.

When I got there Mrs. H. told me Q5 had done a great job ... but she only had one puppet (yup. knew that) and maybe she could make another one and have a little skit to go with the puppets. Great sounds great. She said Q5 did a great job.

Then she pulled herself together and talked about C7. And suggested to me the we do a powerpoint or something for behind C7 while she spews her facts. Great idea! I thought maybe we could combine the puppet show with the Pearl Harbor facts, but ... when we got in the hall to leave Q5 bust out crying and saying she never wants to go back to the talent show, she didn't want to go on stage alone (how about with C7?), she didn't want to go on stage with fewer than 10 other people.

Well, I understand. So we went out to Yogi Castle just to celebrate the fact that they both tried out, and that Q5 was so brave to even try out when this was difficult for her.

Oh, and C42 had a great if irreverant idea for how to do the Pearl Harbor facts ... lets see if it pans out.

Bathtime often involves princesses in dogs. Last bathtime C7 lined them up for a group shot.

Clown murder

Chalk. Scraped. Wet down. Stepped in. Painted with. Smeared on clothes, hair, body. Good fun.

Biking

Q5 has always been somewhat interested in biking. We had a little pedal-free bike for her that she enjoyed (the Skuut!) but she decided to give the pedal bikes a try last night. Yes, they were covered in mud. Yes, the tires were flat. Yes, the seat was too low, and the handlebars were too low. But we fixed all that (and by we I mean C42. Heh.) but there is just enough room for her knees.

We need to make this a priority to we can bike to the ice cream shop which is how I anticipate we may get C7 to attempt to bike.










Love the bell!!

Climb ev'ry mountain!

The girls put on some shows for me. As you can see we are still in the throws of The Sound of Music.

crankitude

Before dinner last night Q5 and C7 started getting pesky and irritable and really were being mean to each other.

After finally rounding them up and getting them calm and putting some fruit in their bellies (pear for Q5, apple for C7) (FWIW, we call these pre-dinner fruits and veggies "appletizers") I asked them to tell me what they liked about their sister. I started with Q5, then asked C7. Then Q5 again. And so forth. We went back and forth at least 10 times and by the end they both were in good moods and were feeling very affectionate toward each other.

Some of what Q5 likes about C7:
Her clothing choices
The fact that C7 was a good big sister
The fact that C7 made me and C42 a mom and a dad
C7s sweet voice

Some of what C7 likes about Q5:
Q5 is adorable
The fact that Q5 made C7 a sister
Q5's ability to make C7 laugh
The games they play together

Turn of phrase.

C5 is on the couch. Drawing. Q5 is in the tub. Bathing.

But C7 just yelled up: "You shook my world, Q5!"

When asked WHY Q5 shook her world C7 just said Q5 sounded really CRAZY.

National Arboretum

Yes, yes, I know, we go here all the time. This week we went with MEME, walked through Fern Valley. Q5 started kind of cranky, but did snap out of it. Here is grouchy Q5. I'm not sure what that really was about.






But C7 accommodated our quest for photo-ops




We tried to walk the whole way around, but kept getting distracted by things. Like our favorite spot, which for the girls was the same exact place.




After Q5 heard that this was C7s favorite spot, she made it her favorite spot.




As you walk the fern trail you go over a lot of bridges





Sometimes more than once. They ran this bridge at least twice, maybe three times.



By the long bridges you can take a detour off to the side onto the praire loop. We saw tons of black-eyed susans, asters, and other flowers that the butterflies were loving.





And from that spot we could see the National Columns, so we headed that way.





The sun was SHINING and the girls ran around a lot, getting hot. MEME and I hung out in the shade of the columns until it was time to walk back to fern valley. Both girls were drooping from the heat, but along the way back I saw what I thought were slug trails until I accidentally crunched something on the path. SNAIL trails! I pointed them out the the girls and C7 proceeded to removed every remaining snail from the path and toss it into the grass.

Back to fern valley and we had to take a break on one of the many benches.





We walked around the rest of fern valley, it was cool and lovely and we stopped at every bench.

There were a lot of mushrooms everywhere, as there are everywhere in the region because of the copious rainfall we've had this last month and a half. Lots of ferns (obviously).





We finished our walk looking for the frogs in the frog pond. Last time we took the walk I remember they were out and croaking away. Not this time. But Q5 was completely happy, as was C7.