Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

See - I'm going to catch up.

Wednesday.
This was just a busy week and Wednesday was no exception. We took Gracie off to school then met with a friend at the doughnut store so we could talk about Vacation Bible School (did I mention that I agreed to direct it at our church with my friend Julie?). We hung out there for a while (John Michael tried sprinkles off his sister's doughnut - that wasn't my plan, but he was faster than me. I'm happy to report he didn't like them) and then went up to the church to take care of a few things there. Then it was time to head back to Holy Cross to pick up Gracie from school. We headed home for a little R&R and then it was off to ...

Strawberry Pickin'


Those girls were good strawberry pickers - we came home with 14lbs of strawberries! JM did his work on the consumption side - not strawberries though (maybe in a few more months) - he just ate crackers!


We went to the farm with the Mom's Club group, so here is our attempt to get a picture of all the kids! Can you tell how windy it was??

Thursday.
Normally a day we can stay at home & catch up on things (laundry, rest, laundry, housecleaning, laundry). Not this week! Gracie's big performance for school is next week, so there were extra rehearsals this week on Thursday and Friday to allow for the morning and afternoon PreK to be there at the same time. Oh - and for some reason I thought this would be a good week to start working out again in the mornings with my trainer. So we had to rush and be at the gym by 8:15 and then rush over to Holy Cross. But it was great fun to see Gracie and the other kids practicing. John Michael and Clara were mesmerized - too bad I couldn't get a picture of them!


Here's the hopping part of the Hallelujah Hop (Gracie is at the close end of the front row)


Wish I could have gotten a picture from the front - the girls are all supposed to be looking sweet and singing "oooohhh." Gracie looks so sweet doing this! Maybe the night of the performance I will get a better shot! It's a very fun, upbeat 50's performance. Gracie is having fun doing it, so I'm glad about that. She seems to love to be up on stage and the dancing, singing and motions are right up her alley!

This was also the day that Gracie and Clara played their own version of Blue's Clues (a kid's show) in the afternoon. Clara & her (blue) stuffed animal were Blue and left clues; Gracie was Steve and used her notebook to draw all the clues and then try to figure out what "Blue" wanted to do. That part was a little confusing, because I'm not even sure that Clara knew exactly what her clues were supposed to mean.

Oh -and a last exciting thing. When I was unpacking artwork from Kids Klub (the gym nursery), I discovered that Gracie has moved on to the next level of people drawing. Check out this guy in her picture below - arms, legs and feet (and they're not all sticks!). Pretty cool!



Friday.
A little less hectic today. Holy Cross for rehearsal. Church for a quick meeting with Father Mel about VBS. A quick run through the church garage sale (we were there anyhow, right?). And a few dollars later we were back home. Where we stayed the rest of the day, thank heavens!

Here is what I think our best buy (50 cents) was at the garage sale:

Yes - it's Parcheesi! I wondered if maybe I was a little crazy to try and have a 5 & 3-year old playing Parcheesi, but it worked out very well. We only played with 2 men apiece, but I didn't modify the rules other than that. I wasn't planning on including burning and doubles rules, but I mentioned the burning and they wanted to do that! Of course, Gracie referred to it several times as wanting to "fire" my man or Clara's. I chose to make some less than wise moves, so Clara got to burn me twice (she was quite excited to learn that she got to move 20 places!) and Gracie once. Clara was the big winner and Gracie came in a close second (I think just one roll behind). I think I still had one man at my home base...

Clara amazed me with her patience and I was impressed with Gracie's ability to know all the numbers on the dice and to do quick adding of the two. I love playing board games, so I'm very happy to know my girls enjoy them, too!!

Last - here's the little man. He was just so darn cute and so good, entertaining himself and letting us finish our game.