Claire turns 4

On November 17th, Claire celebrated her birthday with friends and cousins. She settled on an arts and crafts party, though it really wasn't her first choice. Actually, I lost track of what her first choice was- she changed her mind multiple times daily, mostly wanting the same exact Hello Kitty party she had last year or a Dora party. 

Guests were Brynn, Scarlett, Tessa, Brielle, Audrey, and Paisley.

The girls made 3 crafts. First was party crowns. I always envision things running more smoothly than they ultimately do. This craft was really intended to be mostly for keeping them busy while I helped a few at a time on the bigger, messier craft, but instead they all finished this pretty quickly.

The second craft was a canvas painting using a stencil of a heart. The contact paper we used for the stencil really didn't adhere to the canvas very well, so it made it pretty tricky, but I'm pretty sure the girls were still pretty proud of their art. This was definitely the most stressful part for me. 3 turning 4 year olds aren't the most patient people on the planet, and a couple had an incredibly difficult time waiting when I couldn't help them get started at that exact moment. My nerves may have begun to frazzle at this point...

Last, the girls made fruit loop rainbows. This was easy peasy and turned out really well.

After craft time, the girls ran off to go play while I cleaned up all the mess and set their crafts aside to dry. This began to deteriorate once everyone was upstairs. Let's just say that mean girl syndrome begins early and I may have flipped my lid, sending two party-goers home from the party.

4 year old birthday interview:

What is your favorite color? "Pink, purple, red"
Who is your best friend? "Tessa"
What is your favorite food? "Cheese and bean quesadilla"
Where do you like to go? "Mimi's house"
What do you do with Mom? "puzzles"
What do you do with Daddy? "Make stuff, muffins. Because once me and Daddy made some muffins for my class."
What do you like best about our family? "What does that really mean? That we clean up"
What makes you happy? "kitties"
What is your favorite thing to do? "Do a craft"
What are you really good at? "Riding my bike"
What is your favorite song? "I Am a Child of God"
What do you want to be when you grow up? "Veterinarian"
What are you scared of? "Shadows"

November

November 1st was a fine day for another play at the Peace Center. The show was Brown Bear Brown Bear and also included The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Papa, Please Get the Moon For Me. 

Afterward, Claire and I stopped by the mall, and, although it was like a summer day outside, inside it was like Christmas.

When we also happened to stop by the mall again the next day, Claire had her first encounter of the season with Santa. She wanted to get a good look at him, so we went right over to the ropes around his sleigh. As there was absolutely no one coming to the mall to see him at that time, he waved her over and invited her to sit down for a chat. I was surprised how willingly she did so. She wasn't too keen on climbing onto his knee, but she was comfortable plopping down beside him. I'm sure she told him she wanted a baby for the bath, a bathtub for the baby, and a kitty cat- a real one.

November 3rd was a great day to play with Tessa, as is just about any other day, particularly Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Tessa isn't in school. We made pumpkin waffles. Tessa wasn't a big fan.

November 6th I found 100 evolving selfies. If was the most entertaining burst of pictures to scan through really fast. I wish I could have made them into a flip book. But instead, here are #1 and #100.

It was also a fine day for a quick fishing trip in the neighborhood pond. Dad caught a fish. The kids posed. Nathanael was disappointed he didn't pull one in.

 

November 9th I don't know what we did, but she sure was cute.

November 11th was a great day for play dates! After the gym, Tessa and Brynn rode home with us. When these girls get together, it's ALWAYS pajamas for dress up. It's just part of the routine. After school, one of Sam's besties, Charlotte, came over. They played basketball and football and didn't come inside until after dark, when we got pizza. After she went home, we went to Nate's school for family bingo night.

November 12th Paul ran a race with his brother, John, and a couple friends.

November 13th Church. Finally snapped a picture of Claire with her surrogate church family. For weeks she had been leaving us as soon as her primary teacher walked in the door. She loves Sister Barzee (now Sister Tripp, but I don't think Claire will ever call her that) and I love that Alysia loves her back.

November 14th Claire chose Sonic as her special birthday lunch. She had a corn dog, tots, and juice box with a free Barnes and Noble kids club chocolate cupcake for dessert. 

November 15th was another baking play date with Tessa. Claire wore her new apron that I gave her for her birthday. She is ABSOLUTELY the cherry on top, just like her apron says!

November 16th was gymnastics with a side of Stella cuddles.

November 18th Grandma and Papa Washington came over to play. She brought all sorts of craft supplies to do with Claire. Claire, of course, loved it. The boys made wooden cars with Papa.

November 21st Sister Barzee made good on a deal she made with Claire. She told Claire and Brynn she would take them to see kitties, but really she ended up doing WAY more! She gave the girls a day straight from their dreams! First stop was Chick Fil A for lunch, followed by the humane society to play with kitties. She could have stopped there and made all their dreams come true, but she didn't. They then went to McDonald's for ice cream. And when they told her they wanted to see her house, she took them home with her. Claire was happy to help bake some cornbread and then weaseled her way into staying for dinner. She would have happily even stayed for a sleepover had she been offered a chance. Dinner was catfish stew, which Claire initially turned her nose up at. But facing the option of going home or eating catfish stew, she took the stew. 

November 22nd was an impromptu park birthday party for Brynn. We helped by making some cherry-almond vanilla cupcakes that Kristy put a paw print atop.

November 24th was Thanksgiving, at the Pelham Falls clubhouse, as usual. I tried to propose a change of tradition this year and travel somewhere mountainous instead, but nothing panned out and we ended up with the same old thing. As it turned out, most of the nearby mountains were ablaze with forest fires, so it's probably for the best that we hadn't reserved a vacation house.

November 25th

November 30th a tornado blew through our neighborhood. Literally. The kids all had a gymnastics class at 4:30 in Mauldin. Claire and Nathanael were with Robin, riding there with her. Sam and I were moments away from walking out the door of our house when a tornado warning, advising that we need to seek shelter immediately, blared on my phone. Thinking that it was just cautioning for the event that a tornado MIGHT occur, I called Robin to see what she was doing. She was already en route to gymnastics, so Sam and I hopped in the car. It was probably literally minutes after we left (15 minutes max) that the tornado hit our neighborhood. While we were at gymnastics, in a building constructed on thin sheets of metal that certainly would not have protected ANYONE had the tornado come through there, it was the loudest, scariest store I've probably ever experienced. It was pitch black when we drove home, because it was evening but also because ALL the lights were out on our side of town. What little of the area that was illuminated by my headlights looked like a war zone. Trampolines were strewn across the yards, siding was ripped off houses, garage doors were blown in, fences had been demolished. The streets were littered with debris and chunks were missing from many houses. It wouldn't be until morning that we would see how bad things truly were for many people. We were lucky; we had no real damage to our home, but had enough shingles blown off that we did manage to get a free new roof. We went several days without power, but thanks to Mark, we had a generator with which we were able to power our 2 refrigerators and 1 lamp.

October

By October, Claire was tired of her life revolving around errands, the boys' schools, and things that aren't fun. And she let me know it in no uncertain terms. After telling me, "why does everybody choose you to help? You never have time to play with ME! Everybody ruins our time together, everyday!" I cleared some time to get out her craft supplies.

Claire and I, as well as Robin and Tessa, went to Claire's first show at the Peace Center. We saw The Ugly Duckling which was done without dialogue using giant engineered light suits (giant wearable puppets, with neon lights outlining the figure).

Claire added other people's names to her repertoire of spelling/writing. Other than her own name, "Tessa" is her favorite to write.

On a day off of school, the kids and I took a little adventure. We set out in the morning for Dahlonega, GA to visit the Consolidated Gold Mining Company for some gold panning and an underground tour of the mine. They each came away with a few flecks of gold each in a little vial, and a rock candy.

Next, we headed toward Anna Ruby Falls and found a nice shelter for a picnic. If I'm being honest in my account, their may have been a bit of a breakdown at this point in our adventure. Actually, we had also had a breakdown about 10 minutes into our drive to Dahlonega, but all-in-all it was a fun day.

The hike at Anna Ruby Falls was easy enough. But Claire did eventually get tired, and I carried her a fair amount. The trail was paved, so it wasn't too much of a struggle.

After the hike, the kids had spotted a playground when we were driving in, so we stopped there and they really capped off our trip with a lot of fun.

This girl.

She added a new food to her list of bizarre eats. She decided she likes blue cheese...by the spoonful....straight from the container.

Nathanael checked out a cookbook from the school library. That day happened to be the day Mimi picks him up from school and it happened to be the week of Dad's birthday. Nathanael was determined that he was going to make Dad one of the recipes from the book for his birthday. And he convinced Mimi to help him get started as soon as they got home from school. He was so excited to present his birthday treat to Dad on his birthday.

Aunt Lisa came into town for a weekend and spent the morning with the kids. They got to have breakfast at IHOP complete with hot chocolate and whipped cream.

After breakfast that same morning, Claire was off to Scarlett's birthday party at a horse stable. They got to walk around the farm, seeing goats, cows, petting chickens and then got to ride the horse a couple times each.

For my own birthday, we headed off on our annual apple picking adventure. Unfortunately, this year, based on other families' pictures, I decided we'd check out Grandad's Apples, not realizing that all their fun activities are only available on the weekends and also not realizing how very small the orchard is, therefore being completely picked by late October. It was a big bummer for me, but the kids still found a few things to have fun on and we did manage to find 1 apple for each child to pick, still left hanging on the trees. Literally, we only found 3, and those 3 required quite a bit of searching to find.

I hosted another activity day for Claire and her girls, this time with a pumpkin theme, of course. This time we had Brynn, Brielle, Audrey, and Tessa. We read a couple Halloween books, colored Halloween pictures while they, one at a time, melted crayons on small pumpkins, and made a "pumpkin pie" treat.

For the treat, they all got to smash up their own graham crackers for the crust. Then they took turns mixing up the pumpkin pudding for the "pie". Some liked it, others not so much. But my girl doesn't mess around! She knows how to eat some dessert!

A stroll in downtown Greenville because it was beautiful outside.

Halloween was quite warm this year, which is pretty standard around here. I'm not sure why it's so surprising every year. And I don't know why I continue to buy costumes that they will absolutely roast in.
Per tradition, we once again did grocery store trick-or-treating before dinner. We met up with the Hills and Ludwigs and hit Food Lion and Publix, like usual. It's chaotic and Paul doesn't understand why we do it, but you don't go against tradition, even if it is like herding cats through a crowded supermarket!

Later on, we hit a few streets in the neighborhood until the kids were happy with how heavy their buckets were and were tired of walking. Then we headed home to check out the spoils and ended our October with a sugar high.