Woof woof, Moo moo, Quack quack, Meow meow!

For weeks now, Clarissa had been planning her 8th birthday party. She won't be 8 until Thursday, but because of scheduling, we decided to have the party early. Finally, the day came! She wanted a Pet birthday party. I had a meeting in the morning so I got up early and decorated this cute doggy cake. The party wasn't until 3:00 and it just about killed Clarissa to have to wait that long, but finally - her friends arrived.

The first activity they did was to color Littlest Pet Shop coloring pages. It was fun to listen to their conversations as they sat still coloring.

While they colored, they had snacks like animals cookies, goldfish crackers, and gummy bears in these adorable little doggy dishes, which they took home with them.

My favorite part of the party is that Clarissa planned the games. She made this donkey for 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey' and her friends didn't even mind that she spelled Donkey "creatively."

The next game was animal charades. Can you tell what animal she's acting out?

Finally it was time for presents! Clarissa got several Littlest Pet Shop sets to add to her collection and some other fun gifts that she enjoyed.

Two more things that I loved about this day:

- 1 Clarissa had set aside an outfit for her party weeks ago and I just assumed that it would be one of her really pretty, flashy, girly outfits - but was much surprised when she came out wearing this old T-shirt. Of course, it has horses on it, what was I thinking?

- 2 When it was time to blow out the candles, Clarissa gingerly blew them the first time (on purpose) and then said to all her friends, "Come on everyone, let's all do it together!"

Where O where has my little eye gone, O where O where can it be? Chris asked Clarissa what part of the cake she wanted and she said the eye, so Chris cut it out of the center for her. Poor doggy!

Well, Clarissa said that it was the BEST birthday party she's ever had. I'm so glad that it met all her expectations. Now she can begin planning for next year.

We love Miss Hannah!

Clarissa and Krystal take dance class from an adorable college student named Miss Hannah. We love what she does with the girls. Each day she teaches them a little dance and they do it for the parents when we pick them up. Because of all the snow days we've had, Saturday was a make-up day where both the little girls and the big girls danced together for 2 hours then did a show for the parents. Miss Hannah brought her old costumes and let the girls dress up. They did a ballet dance from the Nutcracker. Each of the older girls were partnered with a younger girl. Clarissa is spinning C in this picture.

Krystal and L are bowing in front of the big mirrors.

Clarissa and Krystal doing pase in their practice leotards.

My Pay it Forward project

A year ago today we got the news that my sister-in-law's mother passed away. Brooke's mother, Judy, was lovingly known by many as Grandma "J." Grandma J was one of those rare individuals who always thinks of others before themselves and she loved to craft. Having those two qualities meant that Grandma J was always making things for other people. My first experience with this was for Shane and Brooke's wedding when Judy sewed my bridesmaid dress, along with Brooke's dress and all the other dresses for the wedding party. The first time I met her was when I showed up to try on the dress and she made a comment about how she thought I was supposed to be 5 months pregnant and I looked so skinny, I loved her immediately (incedentally, the dress was gorgeous and fit just fine). I think I only saw Grandma J two more times after that, but each time she made me feel like a million bucks and she loved my children as if they were her own grandchildren. So, when Brooke invited me to join her in a Pay it Forward day for her mom, I said of course. The Pay it Forward day consisted of making something homemade and giving it to someone, as these are the two things Grandma J loved the most. I had a busy day planned on Wednesday, but figured I could probably make some cookies and deliver them to a friend or something easy like that. Then...I got a phone call from a friend who was supposed to make a cake for our Young Women's program that night and she told me that she couldn't do it because her kids were sick with the flu. I thought to myself, "I HATE making cakes, but I'd really like to help out my friend and this could be my Pay it Forward project. So, after school for the day and a trip to the store for eggs, I started the cake at 4pm (the program was at 7pm). Rarely do I have a cake come out of the pan on the first try, but this one came out beautifully and I figured that Grandma J must be watching out for me from heaven. Then came the time to dye all the fondant for the "Olympic" rings (yes, I know they're not like the Olympics, these rings correspond with value colors in the Young Women's program). I like using fondant, it fun like playdough, but edible. However, on a time crunch, working the dye into seven different clumps of fondant was getting to be frustrating. I made it through the work by thinking to myself, "this is for you Grandma J, this is for you." I also had to remind myself that Grandma J would have done the project with a smile, not begrudgingly, so I put on a smile, finished the cake and made it on time for the program. It's nothing fancy really, but I got sooo many complements on the cake for both presentation and flavor. I told everyone my story and I just have to say, "I owe it all to you Grandma J - We love you and miss you, but you're memory lives on in all the homemade projects we make and the service we give."

A Trip to Holland

Our most recent read-aloud was Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge. It was a long read, but a welcome distraction to the dreary weather outside. We all enjoyed the two intertwined story lines, but would have preferred a little less Dutch history. We especially liked the characters of Hans Brinker, Peter Van Mounen, and Jacob Poot. This book is full of heroic values as Hans is faced with many difficult decisions of moral magnitude.

Jared gave a presentation on one of the chapters from the book at our Book Group on Friday. For his persentation he researched three different items from the chapter. The first item was a foot stove. He drew a picture of the foot stove and explained that it was a wooden box that would have hot coals placed inside and warm air would come out of holes in the top. The next item was a Meerschaum smoking pipe that he carved out of soap. Meerschaum is a mineral that is skimmed off the top of some seas (like sea foam) and was used to make pipes because it doesn't burn or give off a flavor. So many Dutchmen smoked pipes that the distance a boat could travel was measured by how many pipes it would take the captain to smoke. The last item Jared presented was an ice boat. The picture above is the ice boat that he made from Legos. The ice boat had a sail to catch the wind and had runners under the boat with two triangles on either side, with runners, for balance. Jared did a great job with his presentation!

After a short activity about Dutch words and how many of our English words are of Dutch origin, we made some ice boats out of cardstock and paper clips and raced them on ice. Jared and his friend provide the wind for their boats.

While the boys were racing their ice boats, the girls made pinwheels to remind them of the Dutch windmills.

We finished the day off by making (and eating) wafels and windmill-shaped cookies. The Dutch were the first ones to introduce wafels to America. We also learned that the word easel is of Dutch origin and means donkey. Therefore an art easel is literally a painters donkey, which makes sense being that it carries the supplies just as a donkey would carry a person's baggage. So, with our minds full of ice skating, windmills, tulips, painters, guilders, and gold watches - we bid goodbye to the world of Hans Brinker and his sister Gretel...until the next looong, cold winter?

Vulture Feast?

You don't have to be in Radford long to notice that there are lots of vultures. In fact, Radford is home to more than 300 turkey and black vultures, the largest roost in Virginia and possibly the entire East Coast. So, it should come as no surprise that Radford holds an annual Vulture Festival to celebrate this oftentimes misunderstood scavenger. Still, Jared was surprised when he looked at our calendar for Saturday where I had written in "Vulture Fest" and he read "Vulture Feast." I had to explain to him that Fest is short for the word Festival and No we were not going to feast on Vultures, just going to learn about them. Three little buzzaaaaaaards, sitting in a tree. Actually, we learned that buzzard is the British name for hawk and Americans just adapted the name to label vultures. The festival was held at the Elementary school and inside we found many fun activities about vultures and other birds.

Clarissa was a little hesitant at first about dissecting owl pellets until I told her it was one of the things that I loved to do as a kid. Then, she jumped right in (that's my girl). She found two whole deer mice skulls and many other tiny bones. Apparently vultures also regurgitate pellets, but theirs aren't as "clean" for sake of a better word.

Amber stuck to a little more familiar territory, coloring.

Krystal is sponge-painting with vulture shaped sponges.

After the crafts and some free popcorn, we went outside to meet Buttercup. Buttercup is a vulture that was rescued from the wild when her wing was damaged by a passing motorist. She weighs about 3 and a half pounds and has a wingspan of over 5 feet.

I waited patiently for my turn to hold Buttercup. Yes, I'm actually talking to her. Up close she had quite a bit of personality and I even told Chris later that she was kind of cute. He added, "In an ugly sort of way."

Vultures weren't the only form of entertainment. The Chickenman showed up and gave the kids quite a show, Jerry Lewis style. Yes, that's a chicken on his head, and No, it wasn't always on straight.

In this photo, "Larry" (all of the Chickenman's helpers were called Larry) helps the Chickenman with his giant Yo-Yo. Jared was pretty sure he wasn't going to have any fun at this festival, it's a good thing he's not enjoying himself :).

And finally..., the crowning event of the day was that I won the Photo Contest with this photograph of a local turkey vulture sitting on our neighbors rooftop last summer. It was a warm August morning when the kids and I looked outside to see this vulture in full glory. We watched it for a while and finally I grabbed my camera and started snapping, never knowing what I would do with this picture, but we wanted to show Chris our mornings nature observations. Little did I know that in February there would be a photo contest of Radford's vultures. When I found out about the contest on Friday I was like, "Hey, I have a picture of a vulture." I promptly e-mailed the photo and informed my family that we were going to the festival to vote for Mommy's photo. I was pleasantly surprised when the director announced that I was the winner and even more surprised when she said that my photo won by a long shot, that meant more people voted for it than just my family. So...I won a T-shirt and the photo is going to be framed and hung in the Radford City Visitor's Center. I guess my quirky habit of loving all of nature's creatures is paying off. Here's to nature's clean-up crew - the vulture!

Mother/Daughter Date

On Saturday, Clarissa and I went to the hair salon to get our haircut together. This was Clarissa's second time to get her hair cut at a salon, but she probably doesn't remember the first time. She got a really cute cut with layers that curves around her face and she loves it. My hair had gotten way too long so I got about 3 inches cut off and lots of layers put into it. This picture is of us dressed up for church on Sunday.

Civil Rights Projects

Friday was a busy day. Before the Valentine's party, we got together with our history group for presentations. The theme this month was Civil Rights. Jared presented his project first which was a very thorough timeline of the Civil Rights beginning with 1808 when slave trading was made illegal and ending with 2006 when Coretta Scott King (widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) died. This was Krystal's first project. She wanted to talk about Helen Keller, who although she didn't participate in the Civil Rights Movement as we typically see it, did in her later years work for the rights of the blind and deaf in our nation and in Japan. For her project, Krystal dictated the story of Helen Keller to me as she remembered it. I then made a book out of it, which she illustrated and read for her presentation. She did a great job reading and even showed us how to spell doll in sign language.

Clarissa's project was about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott. She really liked the story of Rosa Parks and how strong she was to stand up for what she knew was right.

While doing some research about the bus boycott I found that in order to make money for gas and station wagons for those who were not able to walk, many women baked pies and cakes in their kitchens and sold them in beauty salons. I also found an original recipe for Baked Fudge from one of these courageous women and baked it for our history group. It was very delicious!

Some other projects presented were about Ruby Bridges, Jackie Robinson, Mohanndes Ghandi, and Harriet Tubman. We are grateful to all the amazing men and women who have fought peacefully for the rights of all. We know that we all have differences and that is what makes this life fun and interesting. We appreciate each individual for their differences whether it be in age, skin color, religion, political view, physical abilities, language, financial circumstances, or any other variety of traits.