Maisie Update

Miss Maisie is enjoying the life  of a preschooler. Here are some high lights of the fun she's had:

This has nothing to do with preschool. She dressed up and told me she was getting married.

Posing next to her cute scarecrow

 She had an awesome field trip to a teacher's house for their harvest party. They played games, rode horses and "trains", decorated cookies and picked out a pumpkin. We all had SO much fun!

 Sadie and I took a ride, too.

 Maisie is ready for her train ride.

Yep-that's me oh so cozy in the barrel. Not. Sadie would only ride if I went, too. I was the only mom who rode in there, and I know why. My back was bruised by the end of the ride, but Sadie sure had fun!

She chose this pumpkin after examining several; she never has been one to make a quick decision.

Maisie was star of the week at school this week. She loved taking snacks (we even made "dirt" for D week.), and sharing her show and tell. She took a robot she made out of Trio Blocks, and the next day she took her favorite stuffed animals: Minnie and Waddles.

She also filled out a poster that was all about her. She loved working on this with me.

Here is some of her poster:

I was able to go into her class during her time of sharing about her poster. She remembered everything she had answered, which I was thankful since it had been a few days since we'd  worked on it. I wish she could stay in preschool forever. :)

Analise Highlights

Analise has been a busy girl. When her school offered the running club again this fall, we opted for her to run just one day a week. Thankfully it was such a nice fall that she didn't have many rain outs. A couple of weeks ago she came home with her half marathon shirt; it is neon yellow, and she loves it. She also informed me that she want to complete her marathon, and we were down to just a couple of weeks to do it. We decided to let her stay after school some additional days to run. And then one night while I was at an Arbonne party, Brandon took all the girls up to the school so Analise could run more laps. She had already run 2.5 miles after school and then ran another 3.5 miles that night!  That was just the boost she needed to complete it.

The next day at school we got there in time to watch her run her last lap.

She was a little like "Mo -om..." when I stopped her for this picture. :)

 She was excited to run through the streamers and not so excited I was taking another picture.

 She loves her medal. Way to go Analise! Now if you could just get your mother to enjoy running...

On a different note, Analise had some artwork that was chosen to hang on display at a middle school. It's the middle school her cousin, B, attends so we had him show us the board room where it was hanging.

Where Analise doesn't get her love of running or art abilities from her mother, she does get her love of reading! She can read about anywhere and tune everything else out. Ninety percent of the time, that's a good thing. Here she is reading away:

Speak With Good Purpose

Analise came home today with a writing assignment. The character trait of the month is "Speak with Good Purpose," and she is to write about someone she knows that demonstrates this trait. She is blessed to have several family members who do speak with good purpose.

To help her organize her thoughts, we worked together and came up with some ways family members speak with good purpose. The list was too touching to not share. (She targeted people who live in town, but then I had her share about Grandmom and Pops, too.)

She came up with most of these on her own; I prompted her with some ideas, and then she would state what she wanted.

Mom:

1. She uses nice words when angry. (Really?)

2. Says kind words to friends.

3. Never yells at dad.

4. She is nice to college kids that come over on Thursday nights.

5. Sends Analise nice notes everyday in her lunch.

Dad:

1. Doesn't yell at mom.

2. He talks nicely when he helps someone at work.

3. He is excited to tell the girls "hi" when he gets home from work.

Uncle D:

1. He is kind to people (citizens) when he pulls them over.

2. He tells his nieces they look nice.

3. Always happy to see the girls.

4. And a cute one: When someone has drugs, he asks them to get them while using a nice "tune."

Grandma:

1. Nice and kind

2. Encouraging

3. Asks me to go places with her.

Cousin K:

1. Encourages Analise when she trys something.

2. Kind to his younger cousins.

3. One time on a bike ride, he told the kids he wanted to ride up front in case he ran over a stick. He wanted to be the one to get hurt, not Analise.

Grandpa:

1. Kind

2. Always happy to see us

3. If we ask for his help, he helps us.

Grandmom:

1. She encourages my mom and dad to go on trips, so she can have time with the girls. (Woo-hoo!)

2. She asks Analise lots of questions when they talk on the phone.

3. She sends Analise fun notes in the mail.

Pops:

1. Funny

2. Happy to see us

3. He encourages his volleyball players

Again, we really are blessed to have so many people in our lives who speak with good purpose. If we had more time, our list would be even longer! However, after eight names, the second grader's mind was ready to think about something else. :)



Pumpkin Patch and More

A couple of weekends ago we headed out for our annual pumpkin patch visit. It was a beautiful day, and we went to a new patch. It wasn't very busy, so we could do whatever we wanted without waiting. It was great! As a mom knows, the pumpkin patch makes for lots of great pictures, so you've been warned. :)

The girls raced ducks with these water pumps.

One little, two little, three little Indians...

The girls crawled through a long, suspended tunnel while Brandon had fun shaking it.

Sadie loves jumping in the "kangaroo."

Corn maze

We had so much fun on the slide! I love the look on Sadie's face.

After sliding, the girls loved jumping into the hay pile.

And then they loved the trikes...

Analise and Maisie decided to ride the big bikes.

The girls fed the goats the food we found on the ground.

Analise and Brandon jumped and jumped on this big jump pillow. The other two weren't big enough, so we sat down and ate snacks while we watched. Analise and Brandon both had LOTS of fun, but they both had to go to the chiropractor a couple of days later...

Brandon is high in the air, and Analise is bouncing along with it.

We finally took the wagon ride out to the  pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins. We were the only ones on the wagon, so that made it more special.

It was such a family fun morning. I love those moments; I want to cherish them.  One of the reasons we went to this new pumpkin patch was because it was close to both of Brandon's grandmothers. So we met one grandma for lunch, and then we went and saw the other grandma. We hadn't seen them for a while, so it was good to take the time to visit.
Here is Grandma S

We got home around 3:30, and Brandon and Analise went turkey hunting. This was Analise's first time to go with Brandon, and she was SUPER excited! They met up with Uncle D and two cousins. The only thing that concerned Analise was the sound of the gun. She shouldn't have worried; no guns were shot.

One funny about the hunting: Sadie told Analise before she left, "When you see a turkey walking, you shoot him dead."  Yep, the three year  old knows what to do.

Cupcakes for a Cause

A few weeks ago, I read about a "competition" and knew God was nudging me to enter, even though it was completely out of my comfort zone.

A couple of friends from Bible study were putting on a cupcake competition to raise money for Project TLC - His Kids Too - an organization that sends money and supplies to the orphanages with special needs children in the Ukraine. If a child with special needs isn't adopted by about age four, then they are institionalized in a really SAD situation. I know of a family from church who has adopted a Down's boy from the Ukraine, and now I have another friend adopting a Down's girl from there. All this to say is that I admire these families, and I wanted to help this organization take care of these children - God's children.

All that being said, decorating cupcakes isn't a strong point for me. I enjoy it and share them with family and close friends. I admit to seeing others creativity in the kitchen and knew I didn't do nearly as nice of a job. God worked on me in this area and reminded me that it wasn't about be comfortable; it was about teaching my girls about this.

So I did. Our Saturday paper had a nice article on this event, so that was my launching point. As we sat down for lunch, I asked the girls if they knew what an ophan was. Analise did, so I then asked how they thought it would feel to have no parents. Maisie answered, "No one would make you lunch." True, though I was hoping for a little more than that. :)

To involve the girls in this project, they were going to raise their own money. Instead of earning a stone for good behavior or helping out, each girl had her own cup to collects coins. Then each one would donate her coins at the competition; they didn't keep a cent. They were so excited to earn their coins! Here they are with their cups:

So I had to make 48 cupcakes. I made chocolate s'mores cupcakes, with the cake and frosting made from scratch. I had my young gals from my Bible study be my taste testers; I don't think they minded too much. :) I had a few variations for them to tweak. Two weeks later I made the real deal, and even then I changed my mind on the frosting.

Analise and Brandon were my decorating helpers. I never would have finished on time without them!

Analise cut 90% of the marhsmallows. We averaged 23 marshmallows per cupcake.

23x48= lots of cuts!

48 flowers - I mean cupcakes all ready to take

If decorating cupcaked didn't stretch me enough, decorating the table about did me in! Again, my college/young married gals helped me out with ideas. And a couple of other friends loaned me their serving platters. I was going for the "don't stand out" table by either over/underdoing it. I think I did it. Simple yet nice.

Brandon brought the girls so they could see their cupcakes and use their coins to vote for their favorite cupcakes. They had lots of fun! And I was so thankful for a husband that instead of hunting, he made flower cupcakes and brought his girls to the competition.

My cupcakes didn't win anything, but I went home so glad I did this. Hopefully my girls learned something, I was a part of helping donate $2700 for orphan care, and I felt like a winner when I found a note in my packed things to take with me. "Good luck mom. I hope you win" Love Analise.