Grace's birthday

Kathryn's friend Grace Spear had her birthday party at Chick-fil-A. Kathryn and Samantha were both in attendance.

The children started off by playing on the climber .
Kathryn, who hates to get her face painted, actually got a butterfly on one cheek ...
... and a cat on the other.
Ms Eva evenhad her face done. My talents were enlisted to make balloon sculptures. I really enjoyed making these for the children. Even those who were not part of the party asked for an animal. The manager got my number so I could do this for some of their events.

This was my first flower.
Kathryn gave Grace Geofrey and some Tinkerbell school suplies. Awhile back Kathryn promised Grace that she would get it for her birthday. Sam gave Grace a scrapbooking kit. The party was a lot of fun for everyone.

Last weekend the IMAX Theatre had a Pamdamonia Day. It was celebrating the upcoming Olympics and the release of the new Kung Fu Panda movie. It was free so it fit right into my budget. Kathryn and Samantha are enjoying a round of jousting. Sam of course knocked Kathryn off everytime. But they were both good sports about it and had a blast.

The girls also had their names written in Chineese. (I did mine too) It looks pretty cool.
When I saw this on their web site is was called The Egg Roll race. I thought they were coing something with eggrolls. Much to my surprise and amusement they had to roll the egg down the course....
...with their noses. Kathryn won this every time. I think it is because she is close to the ground and had better control of her egg.

In this game Sam and Grace excelled. They were to use chopsticks to move as many pieces of popcorn from one container to another. It is not a easy as it sounds. Espically if you do not know how to use the sticks to begin with.

We had a few minutes to kill before the movie began so I took them over to the Mary Brogan Museum. The wind tunnel is one of their favorite activities. The winds get up to 75 MPH which is Cat 1 force winds.

Grace has wonderful arm strength. The object is to lift your own body weight. She did this so effortlessly.

Grace and Sam both did well with the base ball toss. If memory serves they both tossed balls in excess of 20 MPH.
We finally made it to the movie and it was so funny and had some good teaching points. I recommend it to see when you get the opportunity.

Glamour shots

The girls and I were looking around the living room at Kathryn's pictures that I have had professionally done since she was a baby, they noticed there were none from last year and none from this year. Well I did them last year but did not like how they came out so I have not put up one. This year I decided to try something different. I had the girls get all dressed up and we went in the front yard and had our own photo shoot.
Every year I have had something in the picture that is special to her that year. When she was three it was land before time and at 4 it was 101 Dalmations. This year it is Sally. A few weeks ago she lost Sally. Sally is the little dog she got her from build a bear when she was two and Sally has had all kinds of adventures with Kathryn. We looked and looked and could not find the dog. I thought it was discontinued but I went on BAB and lo and behold I found another one. I ordered it and had it sent with a note to Kathryn that this is Sally too and she is going to keep Kathryn company until the other cane be found. Kathryn's face just lit up.

This is Sam posing with her bunny.


This is Grace. She and Sam have the same bunny.

Kathryn, Grace, and Sam were able to spend a lot of time together over this week while Grace's parents were packing up their house in Bristol to move into Tall. Yea for us they will be closer and we can visit more often.

Personally I think these turned out just as good if not better than any I could have done professionally. Enjoy.

Slumber Party

Kathryn has been begging me for a slumber party since her birthday. Be careful what you wish for... Kathryn and Sam's friend Grace is in the process of moving into town. Her parents have been busy painting the new house and moving stuff from 45 min away into town. Grace has been spending several noghts between here and Sam's house. The girls have been like the three Muskateers. They have played in the pool, done arts and crafts, made up a concert together, in all they have had a wonderful time together. Haddy and Hannah are Kathryn and Samantha's best friends since Orlando. Because they moved to Monticello we do not get to see as much of them as we used to so I arranged last week for the girls to come and spend the night. It turned into a party. They were so excited to see each other they were bouncing off the wall like a golf ball in a tile bathroom. They got here at 4pm and I just got them to lay still enough to try to go to sleep.
Kathryn and Hannah pulled out all her little pet shop friends and had them scattered all over her room. They were making cities for them. The older girls set up the tents in the living rooma dn made forts and then decided to play hide and seek. Let me tell you I did not think there were that many places to hide in my house but these are some creative children. They crawled into spaces I did not think they would fit into but some houw they did. Haddy won the most she is very good at this game.
Of course it was a junk food night. We made icees, and they had pizza, chicken fingers and fries for dinner, and popcorn and a movie into the evening. I am so glad I did this for Kathryn. She adores her friend and does not get to see her much so I felt this was important to do before school started again. Thomas of course hid out in the back room away from the giggles and the noise. his loss because we had fun.

On another note I go back into the work force tomorrow. I am not thrilled about it but we do what we have to do to survive. Will let you know how it goes.

St Marks

This morning Tom and Kathryn left with Amanda, Robert and Sam to go fishing in Cairo. By mid morning they decided the fish were not going to bite so they called me up to see what I was doing. I was in the process of straightening the office some more. They asked if I wanted to go to St marks lighthouse with them. Let's see cleaning vs field trip ummm tough decission...I of course went to St Marks.
It really was a fun and relaxing day. I did incorporate a few teachable moments into the day. We talked about why there are lighthouses and we looked at the animals that live in that habitat. After this picture they all went fishing and I found a chair and read a book from the embankment. I wanted to be with them but fishing is not my cup of tea. So I was there in my own way.

In these first two pictures the girls found a starfish on this rock. The starfish is easier to see in the second picture. They also found tons of hermit crabs. It took Kathryn a while before she would touch one let alone pick one up but by the end of the day she was an old pro at it.

There were many different types of birds to see.
This egret landed right in front of Tom and Robert while they were out fishing for crabs and scallops. In all honesty they only came up with a few oysters. It was not a good day for fishing all around. once we got there they realized that the tide was going out and that the fishing was going to be lousy. even though they did not catch anything we all had a great day together.
As we were leaving the park in the fresh water we found a few gators. Apparently people have been feeding them because every time we stopped instead of running away they would come toward the car like they were expecting us to throw some food out to them.

Look carefully on the horizen and you can see the shape of our last encounter.
Please post a comment if you read this so I can see who visits. Thanks

VBS

Last week was all about VBS. Because I was the director over the preschool I was kept hopping all week. Our VBS this year was called Power Lab. As you can guess it was all about science. To start off the week the kids made these Brainie Boppers to get their brains geared up for thinking and exploring. This one craft was the most requested one in all the age groups including the adults. It was officially done by the K - 2nd grade but several people went to Ms Nora at the end of the day asking for extra supplies to make one of their own. I proudly wore mine all week.Joshua came from South Carolina to visit and participate in VBS. Grace came for Wednesday and Thursday. Even though she is in a younger grade than Sam she joined Sam's group and had a blast. At night my living room floor was wall to wall children. I had Grace, Sam, Josh, and Kathryn. The giggle fest that went on before bed was fun and frustrating. But in their defence they got up each morning with a smile and no fussing. Kathryn also invited her friend Grace who came on Tuesday and Thursday.

Tuesday our story was about Jesus and Peter walking on the water, so this day our activites focused on sink and float activities. The children added baking soda to water and dropped in rice. as the bubbles attached to the rice it made the rice "dance" in the water.
In the preschool we filled a wading pool with bubble solution and had the children stand on a brick. Then we enclosed them in a bubble. We did this on Monday but it was so popular that we kept it up all week and the bubble solution only got stronger the longer we let it sit there.

Joshua is putting water into a test tube. They then aded several other ingredients and made lava lamps. Some of the other experiements they did was coloring a carnation, wave bottles, ooblek, germinating seeds, and goop were just a few. This was a very hands on week at VBS. WE also added Mentos to diet coke and watched it go boom. Kathryn won a prize for bringing a friend to VBS and one of the things in her bag was her own coke and mentos experiment to do at home. She and daddy will be doing it soon. I will post the resulting boom.
Our mission project was to restock the food pantry for the needy. The fifth grade won with 150 cans of food and the 1st grade came in second with 120. All together we had 149 children and they brought in a combined total of about 500 cans of food and other non parishables. This was one of the most fun VBS's I have ever participated in. It was so cool to watch the children to understand the connection between science and God's Awesome Power.