Aleaha's Blog: Sisters Update

A mish-mash of a posting...lots happening around here lately....

Their school had a "crazy hair day" recently, as a reward for good behavior of all the students. We made up Miri in the style of Pippi Longstocking. She had to be careful going through the doorways!

And Aleaha made up her own hairstyle -- "The Bearded Lady," she called it!

The girls absconded a large cardboard box that was used to ship a piece of shop equipment, and they made a "house" out of it. After this giant thing had been in the family room for a couple of weeks, and then out on the back patio for a couple more weeks, Mommy was tired of it and it was recycled.

We enjoyed a visit to some friends' house one afternoon, and they loved getting into the very cool lego set.

Do you know what this is? Lots of elementary school girls can tell you...

It's a fairy house! It even has a hinged door (made with elastic pieces). Our enterprising eldest even made and laminated a "for rent" sign...they are still awaiting a fairy family to come take up residence.

Aleaha has been watching (read: obsessed with) the foodie show called Cupcake Wars. It's very competitive and overly dramatic, and they force people to use weird ingredients and themes. But she is very inspired by it. So they begged to make cupcakes one recent weekday afternoon. I agreed, but it had to be with a boxed mix - needs to be quick and less-mess! Aleaha insisted on homemade frosting, and I agreed on that front. So we found a recipe for a very simple, 2-ingredient frosting.

Each kid had to be supplied with her own baggie of frosting to decorate her own dozen cakes. Ay yi yi, this whole equal-and-fair thing is exhausting! (and frankly, it doesn't always happen that way, either!!)

OK, Mommy was the first to point this out - and you, internet, surely see this too....what comes to mind when you look at the frosting on these cupakes???

Prize to the first one to shout out "Dog Doo!!!"

So we called them Dog Doo Cupcakes. Like, who wouldn't want to eat those, right?

Thank heavens the crew in shop, where we quickly schlepped over a dozen, were not a bit queezy with that moniker.

Sprinkles helped, just a tad.

Aleaha had Mommy's phone and snapped a few shots of Miri playing in the pink petals of the cherry tree.

We took a walk at Peavy Arboretum recently. They were souped-up on sugar (must have been those doggone cupcakes), so it wasn't the in-touch-with-nature experience Mommy was hoping for.

Oh well, they were out in the woods, walking and exercising and burning off the sugar.

We made a stop at the Oregon Ag Fest in Salem one day. Miri wanted a picture of herself on the fire truck.

And we took a ride in the wagon being pulled by a tractor. (There was also a wagon being pulled by draft horses, but there was a sign noting a $40 fee, so we didn't do that. Nor did we do the pony rides, which had a line a mile long.)

There was a cool interactive display with a covered wagon. Aleaha put on the yoke for how the kids moved water. She noted it was not exactly comfortable!

They did love this!

There was also a cool display of chicks that were hatching. Many kids cramming to see it, so we didn't get all that great of a look-see, but it was pretty neat.

And of course we had to seek out the face painting. Miri asked for a butterfly. There was quite a bit of paint involved, and as it dried, it was itchy. So it didn't last long before she was begging to take it off.