Swim Lessons

It's Rugrat's turn for swim lessons this summer. It's slow going but she is getting there.

You Might Lose Your Head Over the Clearanced Chocolate

If you buy your child a Frozen brand shaped chocolate from the Easter clearance, you might hear the same child loudly exclaim in the middle of the store -- "I can't WAIT to bite off Elsa's head!"

World Thinking Day

For World Thinking day, we had the country of Denmark. Or at least the Brownies in our troop did. We put together a booth complete with black licorice, legos (the inventor was from there and the word lego is a combination of two Danish words that mean "play well"), and the 'swaps' which are little pins with beads or whatever and a little card identifying the country.

Being a multi-level troop is quite an adventure at times but it's also very cool.

Valentine's Day 2016 Prelude

 Her Friday before Valentine's day "school party":

It occurred to me Thursday night that she would get a kick out of learning how to make the big tissue paper flowers so I picked up some tissue paper and green pipe cleaners.

I think they turned out quite well.

In what is becoming our Valentine's day tradition, I made heart shaped sugar cookies Thursday night and we decorated them. Well, everyone except Dude who just ate them.

Chick's primary goal was just to get as much frosting on each one. How it looked was secondary.

Quickie Last Four Months in Review

So -- I was not abducted or held captive. I haven't been ill or in a coma. I've just been busy. Which is not fun. At all.

But here's what's been happening.

Hubby's Birthday:

Christmas Pics:

Of the WHOLE family:

A Rugrat birthday:

Snowglobe picture for a Girl Scout craft:

Christmas came and went:

Along with a harried drive home from Arkansas hoping and praying to get home before the big storm hit. And we just did although we had to drive in pouring rain the whole way  -- at least it wasn't ice. No power for a day and three quarters then life returned to normal again.


Which included a Chick birthday.  Yikes she's 21 now!!!:

Finished a couple of her school subjects off early. This is her "Art Show" done at the end of the subject's lessons:

 Of course, school has been the main thing. I thought it might take less as she got farther along -- and it will -- but it will be MUCH farther along. For the time being, I'm trying very hard not to push things too fast and be content that we get to bond each day over little things like art projects and history facts and literature stories that are sometimes too dull for both of us and other times capture our attention.

So there it is. A little catch up.

Halloween Fun

As usual, we did Trunk or Treat on Halloween. Chick got there and disappeared to help in the haunted maze inside. Dude decided to stay home and hand out candy so it was just the three of us at our trunk. We had a superhero theme going this year.

Chick wore her medieval costume again since she didn't have time to put together the Pandora  costume she intended so she is determined to do it next year. It was supposed to be pretty cold so we ended up layering more than intended but we had a good time.

Pre-Halloween Fun Part 2

We got invited to our first Halloween party on the Friday before Halloween. Dude was gone to a Dungeons and Dragons party. But the rest of us donned our costumes and headed over to the Girl Scout troop leader's home for some food and fun.