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| Our garage has never ever been clean. When we moved in it was a disaster and we could never seem to dig ourselves out from under the piles of extra wood and siding and stuff. Until this summer when Marc was a hero and he did a number on it. Now we can open our car doors without worrying about hitting stuff on either side. Now we can find stuff. Now we can go out there and wander around and look at it and smile and burst with satisfaction. Or that's what Marc likes to do. The tool bench in the picture is Marc's from the 90s when he began his wood-working days out in Indiana. Carol moved this bench with her to Utah and then she and Doyle drove it up here a couple years ago. |
Monday, November 30, 2015
Blurry Bench
Activity Days
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Granny brought the instructions and supplies and sat down with Harper and Margo for a witches' broom-making activity.
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| We drove out to Wahpeton to go to the zoo. The baby monkey was a favorite. And these monkeys are my favorite. |
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| We drove out to the Dakota Fiber Mill on a different day and visited with this friendly camel and his friends: yaks, sheep, goats, alpacas, and llamas. Chris, the very friendly woman that owns the place, lead us on a tour of her fiber mill. What a great lot of work it is to spin animal fiber into yarn. Amazing. |
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| Suddenly Abe the camel was in my face. It was very scary. And very fun once I calmed down and realized he wasn't going to hurt me. |
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| Granny pulled out instructions on a different day for vampire teeth and we |
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| Carol and Doyle showed us how to prep a garden. They helped us plant some trees and shrubs as well. |
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| Doyle painted the compost box. |
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Dishes in the Bathtub
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| Our kitchen faucet broke and we were without a kitchen sink for a week while we waited for the new faucet to arrive. We did the dishes in the bathtub. |
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| Soaking wet after doing the dishes and still smiling and having fun. It alway seems strange when my kids want to do the terrible jobs like washing dishes in the bathtub. But they don't want to do the much easier jobs like loading the dishwasher. |
All About Me
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| Margo was the spotlight kid at school a couple weeks ago. Here she is getting her poster ready by cutting her picture down to just the right size. |
Ain't It Great To Be A Rat
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| All second-graders participated in a little musical show about the pied piper of Hamelin. Harper was a rrrrrat. |
"Do You Have Your Clothes Picked Out for Tomorrow?"
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| The bedtime routine involves "choosing out" clothes to wear the next day and putting them in the bathroom. Margo couldn't decide what to wear so she laid a few of her options out for the next morning. |
East 117th, Between 1st and Pleasant
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| Marc and I decided it was time to hang up some of our old pictures and things. So we started in the garage with our old posters. We found this old poster map of NYC and I tried to zoom in on our old street. Better luck to me next time. |
Costumes and Candy
Harper and Margo were bats for Halloween this year. A couple black shirts, 2 yards of black fabric, and a lot more time than I thought it would take and—voilà—bats.
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| Harper made this trick-or-treat bag out of an old sleeve she inherited from Grandma's alterations' scraps. She sewed the sleeve to a handle that she had sewn to a bag that she also made out of scraps of fabric. This bag is handy because you do not need to hang on to anything; the bag's strap is sewn to the hand-warmer sleeve so you just need to put on the sleeve and you are ready to collect candy. |
Halloween Decorations
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| Besides carving pumpkins we don't do much decorating for Halloween. Harper didn't think that was okay so she gave our watermelon a costume. |
