Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Sunday, October 20th

The sleepover fun continued on Sunday morning, as the kids played and ate a hearty breakfast.  Then the dads (Jim and Stevens) took the four big kids to free kids movie screening at our local theater!  Back home we somehow managed to achieve napping nirvana, with all four kids going down at the same time and snoozing for two hours straight which meant that Jim and I could both indulge in a long nap, too!  Ah... bliss :-)  In the late afternoon it was time for baths and AWANA, which the kids once again enjoyed immensely - even more so as Charlotte was able to go with them!


Breakfast of champions: Hot tea, orange juice, piles of pancakes and bacon.



Three lovely girls cleaned up, dressed and hair fixed, ready for the movie!


Waverly and I didn't go, but reports are that they did an excellent job at the movies (and a so-so job at lunch afterward) seeing "Turbo."


Lincoln and Mr. Young~



Mid-morning, Nana kept Waverly entertained while I met Amanda P. at the gym for a good workout.  Nana snapped this picture of the baby in her exersaucer and it's so cute!  She is just so smiley all of the time - I love it!!



An update on Cupcake: she's still here, still thinks she owns the place ;-)

Saturday, October 19th

Saturday was a very full day - Jim and Grammie took the big kids on a 5-mile hike, while Waverly and I ran errands and eventually met up with Nana for lunch.  For a change of pace, Jim is going to narrate the hiking pictures and I'll pick up below.

Jim:



Gram, the kids and I headed to Sope Creek Park, which has a maze of trails.  This is at the primary trail head, where the girls demonstrate that it's chilly while Lincoln demonstrates his complete disinterest in cooperation.  


As a useful point of reference, the green lines are the park boundaries, the purple is the primary biking/hiking trail, the black are the "no bike" trails, and the red outline highlights our chosen path.  Note that this is about 3x longer than I had originally planned - around 5 miles in total.


One of the key reasons our hike was so lengthy is that Scarlett took charge with the maps, which were conveniently located at every trail intersection.  She would point out where we were and which direction we needed to go to stay on course.  We pre-planned the route, and a quarter of the way through everyone (Gram included) asked to change course and extend the hike.  Once decided on, Scarlett faithfully kept us on course, with Victoria "taking point" once we were headed down a path and following the appropriate blazes.  They're getting to be such experts!


At first the kids all hiked ahead of Gram and I quite a ways, but eventually they fell in.  Lincoln spent a good portion of the hike walking with Gram.  Note here that he's carrying one of many sticks he would encounter on the journey, while Gram is holding the walking stick he chose and provided for her at the beginning of our trek.


At one point, Lincoln just had to show me this specific stick, which he explained excitedly looked "just like a dun (gun)".  We later worked on the appropriate way to hold a gun stick.


About 2/3rds of the way through the hike, we reached the top of a particularly severe climb and chose to take a brief rest by this fallen tree.  The kids all failed to see the humor in my exclamation that "there's a fungus among us," no matter how many times I repeated it.


One of the very cool things about the Sope Creek park is the numerous intersections with various creeks along the way.  This was a little ways off the path where we took a rest and the kids spent a good amount of time finding various objects to hurl into the 12 inch-deep creek.


Near the very end of our hike, we came upon this large pond and took an opportune moment to capture approximately 57 photos of Gram with the kids, of which this is the best.


Near the pond and a little ways off the trail, we came upon this turtle.  He was a bit camera shy and seemed to have a broken leg (perhaps from some previous camera trauma, explaining the shyness).


The girls pausing briefly to take in the beautiful scenery.  


After lunch at IHOP, we stopped by The Home Depot to pick up some pumpkins (more on them later), but had to check out the new Christmas area.  When we got to the rocking horses, there were a couple other kids with their parents, but they somehow found their way off the horses as my crew descended and took over.

And I'm back (Amanda):


Meanwhile, Waverly and I played at home for quite a while, then Nana kindly chatted with her while I got dressed.  As soon as I had her strapped into the carseat, she was fast asleep and so I ran all of the errands I could that didn't require me to actually exit the vehicle (Starbucks is an errand, yes?) and then spent a blissfully quiet thirty minutes in the parking lot of Hobby Lobby sipping my iced coffee and scrolling through news stories on my phone.  As previously noted, Waverly is not a fan of falling asleep, evidenced here with full pouting lips as she snoozes ;-)


Once awake, we headed into Hobby Lobby to browse for a few craft items I was hoping to find for our upcoming Passport Club gathering.  Because I'm a chatter, I ended up in a lengthy discussion with a 70-year-old woman about her travels to Russia and was quite late to meet Nana at IHOP for lunch, but she was very forgiving.  She snagged a booth for us and we were able to enjoy a nice lunch out together which was a nice treat!  I was so sad this picture came out a little blurry, but I love it anyway!  Nana was wrangling Waverly, who is in that in-between stage where she neither wants to sit placidly in someone's arms, nor is she quite big enough for a highchair.



But when she got out of line (she didn't), I was sure to show her who's boss by schnuffling (this is a technical baby term that you may not be familliar with) in her neck.  You can see this straightened her right out, hehe


Friday afternoon, the kids had started in on "Can Charlotte spend the night tomorrow?" and with our calendar wide open, it was hard to say no.  Especially when Scarlett goes through point for point on all exactly why this weekend makes the most sense.  She gets all into her persuasive, logic-based pitch and starts talking rapidly and ever more earnestly.  Anyone who knows her can picture it now, lol.  While sometimes it can be exasperating, I actually kind of like it - I like the tenacity it demonstrates and also appreciate her coming to the conversation with all her ducks in a row.  To any extent, I was happy enough to let them invite their friend over and from 4:15 to 5:00 p.m. the kids buzzed around the house watching the clock in eager anticipation.  Waverly loved all the excitement in the air, and especially how they all kept gathering around her as she played in her exersaucer!


Once Charlotte arrived all the way from next door, I let the kids run around for a bit and sort out their sleeping arrangements while Waverly rolled around on her blanket.  She has been rolling from belly to back since she was two months old, but she just mastered the back to belly roll and is now rolling all around!  I think she looks quite impressed with herself.


We had planned to carve pumpkins this weekend and it was easy enough to incorporate our friend into the fray.  They were more than excited to get underway but humored my request for a couple of quick photos first ;-)


Charlotte was quite amused with Lincoln's "casual photo pose" faces.


The first thing we did was let the kids select the pumpkin faces they wanted via some options online.  Scarlett and Charlotte both picked a cat, Lincoln picked something (can't recall what it was and it became irrelevant anyway), Victoria picked a semi-scary face with crazy eyebrows and we picked a cute face for Waverly.  Once the tops were cut open, it was time to dig out the pumpkin guts!  All of the kids both loved and were horrified by this, hehe.


"Ewwww!"


"GUTS!"


Jim was in charge of cutting the tops or "lids" as I refer to them, and I drew the faces.  We all worked on gutting and skinning the insides of the pumpkins.  Victoria watched her daddy like a hawk as he was cutting into her pumpkin - supervising to ensure it met her standards.


The kids were all shrieking in disgust! lol


Scarlett really liked squishing the innards in her hands.


Victoria was the last kid to gut her pumpkin, as she had spent the longest searching for just the right pumpkin face to select.  She was just about to take the first gooey handful out...



"Nasty!"


As the pumpkins were finished being cleaned out, I was busily carving away - I'm far from an expert, but I really enjoy the process of drawing/carving up the face.  I managed to still get a few more pictures though, even with icky pumpkin hands.  I loved looking over to see the boys both diligently working together.


Charlotte had a BIG pumpkin, and it took her quite a while to get all of the insides out of that sucker!


I'm all for kids doing their own carving... however, while pumpkins aren't super expensive, they also aren't exactly cheap. So I had told them at the beginning of our endeavor that they were welcome to do any and all carving that they wanted, BUT, I could not fix anything they did; once you cut, you can't un-cut as it were.  The girls decided they all wanted me (or later Jim) to do the actual face carving, but Lincoln... well, of course he wanted to take a knife right to his ;-)  The girls were all more than willing to help him mangle his pumpkin.


Over the next hour the poor pumpkin was made into a boat, a salad bowl, and more, but everyone's favorite was using it as hat :-p  Pumpkin Head #1~


Pumpkin Head #2~


Pumpkin Head #3~ 


Pumpkin Head #4~


He piled some of the pumpkin guts back into the "bowl" and mixed with copious amounts of leaves, dirt and other random yard foliage into a "salad."


Jim offered to do the clean-up outside so that I could head in and make dinner for the pumpkin crew.  I was unsurprised to find Grammie and Waverly performing acrobatics in the kitchen ;-)  Those who have spent much time with Waverly know how she loves to be flipped upside down and you have to watch, because if she's sitting in your lap facing you, she is prone to just sort of heave herself backwards whether you are prepared to assist in a flip or not! lol


Nachos for dinner, as requested.


For dessert I let the kids pick two chocolates each from the remaining Ghiardelli chocolates (their treat from the outlet mall the previous weekend) - they had fun making their selections.


Finally it was pitch black outside and we traipsed back down to the pergola for the grand reveal.  Jim was waiting with a lighter stick and I had the kids line up and turn around away from the pumpkins while he lit them.  Then they turned around to see their creations!  So much fun :-)  From left to right: Scarlett's, Victoria's, Waverly's, Charlotte's, and Lincoln's (of course we had to stick a tea light in his pumpkin-salad-bowl-hat, lol).


Then they spent 10 minutes dancing/hopping around the pumpkins in glee :-)


It was pretty chilly out, so we went inside and they warmed up with hot chocolate, air-popped popcorn, and a movie - a great sleepover evening!

Monday, October 21, 2013

Friday, October 18th

Our attending the Wizard of Oz show at the Center for Puppetry Arts was sort of a happy accident.  I had signed us up 6+ weeks ago, but then the night before $$ was due, I canceled our commitment to attend, because we'd been to a few shows recently and I certainly don't want the kids to lose their enthusiasm for going!  However, the tickets had already been purchased and I didn't want the organizer to be out any personal funds, so I opted us back in and I'm so glad I did :-)  What a fun, well done production by the Frisch Marionettes - a twist on a traditional tale that had the kids swaying to the music and clapping along, and even Waverly watched attentively!  

Post-show we headed to Chick Fil A for lunch and play time.  The baby was *so* good the entire time (drive there, show, drive to CFA, during lunch) and then when we went to leave, my sweet, overly tired WaverCakes just pitched an absolute F-I-T!  At first I was just going to go ahead and leave anyway and deal with the yell-screaming as I drove, but that's always stressful and not to mention more than a little distracting.  So instead, I got her out of the carseat and brought her up front with me where we just played and snuggled for about 15-20 minutes.  I was way ready to be home, but sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and enjoy sleepy snuggles with a little one while your other three chat your ear off about all the awesomeness that has transpired.



Ready to depart and drive in-town to the show with my goofballs~


My three lovely ladies and handsome dude.  Please note how my four-month-old is roughly half the size of my 6-year-old :-o



This blurry picture of some of our SASCH group kids running around is indicative of how it actually feels when you're there, watching in person.  Just a blur. lol  It looks like we had the place to ourselves, but on the opposite side of the wall (on the right) was about 100+ school kids.


Olivia wanted to hold Waverly when they were seated - so sweet :-)  But she was all, "I'm done, she's heavy" lol


Post-CFA, post-angry fit in the carseat, post-27 rounds of "Old Rugged Cross" which the kids call either "that song that calms Waverly down" or "On a hill."  Much calmer and self satisfied :-p


Finally chilled 100% and ready to go back in the carseat - she fell asleep about 20 seconds into our drive home :-)