Back in time, again. MARCH.

MARCH. Biggest thing in March was that I went down to Florida to visit Meme71 as a late birthday visit.  She picked me up from the airport, we visited botanic gardens, we ate out all of the time,  we went to a play, we went swimming, and basically had a lovely time.

Back in Maryland, Q10 and S10 worked baking cookies to sell. They are working to save enough money to send a girl or some girls to school from countries where girls are disadvantaged. They are doing great, making a lot of money. After baking and selling we all walked to Yogi Castle for a weeeeeeee little snack.

And the neighbors got a cute adorable Portugese Water Dog. I took him in during telecommute days a few times so she could be walked during the day to bridge the gap between them being home and when the dogwalker could start coming.

And, as a finale: Me in Crazy I'm on the PLAAAAANE to FLORIDA mode!

Feruary 2017

Not much happened in February, apparently. There are lots of selfies on my phone that I send to Q10 over the Google Hangouts from work if she shoots a "Hi" from school. Like this:

Also, C12 got new glasses. Whooo. OK, I didn't need to buy those, I don't know that her prescription changed much, and I spent too much money on them, but she can see, and THAT's good.

Q10 was walking L3 and found this little white dog. Q10 dragged C12 outside to help her corral the dog, who we put on our porch. We created a little cozy area for the dog, and then overnight I didn't want him in our house (He was kind of gross. So cute in this picture, but he humped everything. I mean, everybody. Yuck.). So we put him on our back porch overnight and I do not know how, but he managed to escape over  a 3.5 ft wall. Q10 was quite worried about him, but I think he's OK. He's a little survivor.

January 2017

Um .... I'm a little behind, so I'll be doing some retroactive updates:

We made a Rainbow Gummy Mustache:

W sniffed and touched books blindfolded to determine which book they were:

And most importantly, we protested:

And Q10 was an alternate on the Science Bowl. She disappointed that she wasn't on the team. The teacher told her that she basically picked alphabetically (WHAT?) and so my Q didn't get on the team. But they won, and are going onto the next round in a month or two!!!

Botanic Gardens

Every year I want to go to the Christmas Train exhibit at the US Botanic Gardens in DC. I love the Botanic Gardens a lot on regular days; it is even better at Christmas. They have a Christmas display of trains that go around an exhibit made of plant materials. This year the exhibit was National Parks and historic sites. Loved it.

The wait is long. We waited probably almost an hour? I'm not sure. It was certainly not bad, though, with big kids.  Neither C12 nor Q10 wanted to go, but I really did. I've been trying to get motivated to go all December, and I FINALLY did it. And we took the Fiat, so parking was EASY. Thanks, TCR.

A little bit of snow

First snow of the Hyattsville season ...
The girls got VERY excited and ran outside without shoes and coats on, only to return for shoes and coats and a dog ...

Christmas 2016

Christmas proper we went to Massachusetts for a visit. I begged and MeMe let us bring Lucy. She managed the car ride, despite the stress for her. The car got a little doggy smelling, but that was all. 

Christmas Eve and Meme's house, Christmas morning with EVERYBODY at Meme's house, then to visit Pep's brother's family in Leominster and then Meme's sister and family in Westminster.

A few Christmas Eve photos.

 

Including ... a 4 cousins photo ... here is the most recent iteration of the hammock photo. 

Back home in Hyattsville I couldn't get a non-red eye on Q10 .... that girl looks like she has crazy eyes. New socks and hats, both of which I want to steal from them.

Gingerbreading, 2016

Gingerbreading, we did it earlier this year and I just let the kids eat their houses. C12 asked for a Tardis, which was fairly easy to make. Although she looked at it and went ... that's smaller than I thought it would be (smaller on the outside, perhaps??). She made a Dalek, an old-fashioned Cyberman, "Cassandra," a weeping angel, and a Zygon. And then stuffed the Tardis with candy.

M12, C12's best friend, wanted the Tardis console. She tried to console me with the fact that she wanted the console from a certain season, but it didn't really, because creating a hexagonal anything is difficult. Hence, this:

To be fair, it was bigger than the Tardis, so  ... that was good.

Q10 wanted ... a giant gingerbread man and then she changed her mind and asked for a tree. We've done the tree before, but it still looks good. And easy to break off bits of the gingerbread to eat. TCR got a lot of that one, I think.

A9, M12's sister, asked for a house, and so did I. So here they are:

My girls just ate their houses within a week, and the other girls brought their "houses" home.