A birthday and a party

P turned 8 on Monday.  Where does the time go?  I'm having a hard time letting this little girl grow up.  In my mind she's always younger than she really is.  I'll have to be careful or I'll be guilty of not letting her grow up.

She got wonderful presents from family, to include: clothes for her doll, legos, clothes for herself, a new beach towel (she decided she was too old for the Clifford hand me down that was once B's towel), a watch, money to buy a wallet since now she will be earning allowance, and a mailbox for her doll.

She didn't want cake for her birthday since she doesn't really like cake.  She asked if I would make brownies instead and so I did... with mint frosting.

On Tuesday, she had her big 8 year old birthday party.  Before I tell all about it, a huge thank you to the many helping hands that made it possible.  The day we got back from our family vacation, I got sick from a tick bite that I had two weeks earlier.  So, the week that I was going to make all of the things for the party, I spent in bed instead.  R helped C make the doll sized mailbox that was for P's b-day, he cooked, did laundry, worked in the garden, and ran tons of errands.  One of my visiting teachers came over for 2 hours to help tie the tulle on the tutus.  C and P helped me with little projects throughout the week, when I had the energy to do something.  C also worked all day on Monday and Tuesday (up to the start of the party) finishing everything up.  Every Mom deserves a daughter like her, who can work non-stop, all day, with the only complaining being, "oh Mom, do I have to?" or "I don't really want to do this right now" and when I say, "Please, I really need your help" the complaining is finished and she goes to work.

The party was a huge success.  P,C, and I finished up the last details Tuesday morning, and decorated.

P had 5 friends come and join her for a Woodland Fairies Party.  The girls got their tutus when they arrived.  Then, once everyone arrived they earned their wings by sitting on a toadstool and then popping it to find their instructions, inside.  They had to demonstrate that they could do things that fairies do like leap and twirl, flutter and curtsy.

Then they came inside and put together a fairy puzzle while C painted their faces.

Here is the group of fairies after everyone got their face painted.

Since fairies love to find and collect things, the next thing we did was had a treasure hunt.  While C hid everything in the back yard, they decorated their goody bags.  Then everyone received a card with a list of items to find and collect.  They had to find 1 cold coin (the chocolate kind), 1 silver coin (also chocolate), 2 pixie sticks, a swirly flower (lollypop), a collection of pretty rocks (a bag of candy rocks), and worms (a bag of gummy worms).  They had a blast and C made the coins hard to find.

We played musical toad stools

and learned a fairy dance.

We came back inside for snacks....edible flowers, twigs, and berries.

P opened her presents.

Then we went back outside to play fairy tag until everyone's parents arrived.  Everyone got to take home their wings, tutus, goodies, their own fairy puzzle, and fairy dust (bath salts).

Vacation

This year we were so excited for the opportunity to return to the exact same place we vacationed last year.  Thanks to G and G Sparrow we got to stay in an awesome condo, feel like we were far far from home, and only drive 2 hours to get there.  We love the "condo" style of vacationing.  We plan fun and simple meals ahead of time, haul them up with us, and then "move in" for 5 days, to our home away from home.

The kids love the pool.  It has an indoor and outdoor section which they think is so fun, and it helps keep all of us with fair skin from getting sunburned.  They spent as much time in the pool as they wanted until, by the end of the week, they had their fill in the pool.

We spent one day at the Mountain Adventure Park right next door to the condo.  It was a blast.  We had fun on everything but it was pretty much unanimous that the Alpine slide was the most fun...a ride to the top of the mountain on the chair lift followed by a bobsled type twisting and turning ride down the mountain on a sled...so fun.

We also had fun on the mountain coaster.  Each person was in their own cart with a personal brake to slow your speed.  You could just "let it fly" or slow down for the corners.  We all got to where we just "let it fly".  The best ride was with R though, more weight makes you go faster so a two person ride was better than a 1 person ride...up to a point.  They told us that the ride had a max speed of 24 mph.

There was also a giant swing that C and I tried.  The first time we road it, it was a rush.  The second time we road it, it just about made us sick.  Each time we were first in line and got to choose our "side".  We chose the down facing side.  (When the swing was winched up, you are staring at the ground.)  The second time around we had 2 little girls behind us, who weighed practically nothing.  By the time we got to the top, we were basically parallel with the ground and that initial fall was a little wild.

The girls had fun on the bungee trampolines and even learned how to do a back flip.

P was brave and tried the "kid aerial adventure area".  (While R, C, and B were on the mountain coaster again.)  I was so proud of her.  She got to the top and realized that the only way to get down was to cross two sets of the obstacles.  She choose the wooden swings but it took her a little while (and lots of wide eyed expressions and shaking) to figure out a system but she did it. 

 Then she choose the climbing net for the next cross and made it through that.

Then we had to get R, C, and B to show them what she had done.  C decided she wanted to try it too, only to get up there and find out it was a lot harder than it looked.

 

You should have heard P, kindly but with authority, informing her older sister that she was just going to have to do it because it was a one way course, and then telling her the system she had figure out.  (And P did the course again with C, but flew through it with confidence this time.  She didn't choose a new route though, she stuck with what she knew.)

One day we also spent a couple of hours in The Berkshire Museum.  It had a little bit of everything and was really one of the best museums we have been to.  I didn't take many pictures but here is a quick rundown of what we saw:
1.  Aquariums with fish, lizards, turtles, snakes, and frogs.  We watched a chameleon uncurl it's long tongue and eat bugs out of a bucket.  That was fun.
2.  Dinosaur bones.

3.  The world in miniature, 100th scale models of environments all over the world... the Saraha, the Artic, the Great Plains, and other that I don't remember now.
4.  Bug collections and butterfly collections.
5.  Tons of stuffed birds.  Lots of stuffed mammals.
6.  Life size dioramas of plants and animals common to our area made many years ago by a man who took molds of several plants and flowers and then from the molds made models of the plants.  I tried to take a picture of one but it doesn't look half as impressive in the picture as it was in real life.

7.  An exhibit on paper with all kinds of cool things made out of paper.  The girls made shadow puppets.
8.  A place where you could be the art work.

9.  And then there was a room with a hodge podge of stuff from the museum's collection.  They are putting different things on display over the course of time so that people can see lots of the different items the museum owns.  It was a fun 4 rooms because there was so much variety.  We saw a Wigwam, a collection of pocket watches, more bug collections, more stuffed animals, a mummy with the x-ray of it's bones, a plaster cast of Winged Victory (we saw the real one in The Louve), a collection of Lotus shoes (those teeny tiny shoes, baby size, worn by Chinese woman during the practice of foot binding.)  I couldn't believe how tiny they were.  And we saw a lot of other things too.

Our last full day we spent swimming, watching a movie, reading books, and more swimming, until the kids were tired of swimming.

We had a great time with lots of great memories.  The kids are already asking when they get to go back.

4th of July 2013

We were happy to have last minute visitors come for the 4th of July.

We took them to the "candy parade" so we could watch R marching with the band,

B marching with the scouts,

and collect lots of candy.

We saw our favorites...the Revolutionary War Re-enactors,

Old Fire trucks,

and this year, a Gilligan's Island Float.

After the parade we had a great BBQ and then watched fireworks that were being set off across the river.  (Our own concert and firework show happened on Saturday and as usual, I didn't think to take any pictures...one year I'll remember.)