Serenity in October We’ve started having dates with the older kids so they get more one on one time. Serenity and I had our first date, shopping at the book store! We browsed through the books, found a few we just had to have for our library, and then had a treat at the café. It was so much fun! She is really great company =) Her first date with Eric they went to the botanical gardens. It was so beautiful! They had a long walk and a lovely conversation. And they sent me pics of flowers to ask what they were. On our second date, we went to the flower store to select the tree she got me for my birthday, and we bought a flat of pansies and a bunch of daffodils. The tree we selected is a Cherokee Princess Dogwood, and we are really excited about it! It has been planted now and it has berries on it the birds love!
She’s doing great in school. She has tests over the books she reads, and the morning before the first one I came home from yoga at 7:15 am to find her on the couch studying! She’s still doing great with spelling, and they have added book reports this year, which are fun. I made her do a rough draft, because English major, but she was happy to do it, at least for the first one. And her teacher remarked that her handwriting was particularly good, which is something she struggles with, so yay! She still reads piles of books. She loves the Tuesdays at the Castle series, her Rainbow Magic Fairy books, and a new series of silly school books she got from her cousin Barrett. She cartwheels all around the house these days. We had to institute cartwheel rules. She has to announce her cartwheels and can only do them when no one is nearby, as she kicked several people. She loves it! Her friend Wren taught her to do a one-handed cartwheel which is pretty cool! She needs to visit with her cousin KaLynn =)
We have had a couple of girl scout meetings so far. The first one was chaos as I let the girls debate what badges they were interested in doing. We have instituted a Kaper chart, which they seem to love. Everyone gets a turn having one of five jobs: Song Leader, Photographer, Snack Leader, Activity Assistant, and Friendship Squeeze Leader. It makes me feel nice and organized, especially with the Friendship Squeeze as they all begged me for a turn at that, and I couldn’t keep track last year. We are currently working on the Outdoor Artist badge, the World of Water journey, and the Household Elf badge. They drew pictures from different perspectives. Some climbed trees, some lay in the grass like bugs, some drew a butterfly’s perspective. I let them take pictures on my phone too, and it was fun to see what they noticed! At the second meeting we played outdoor music on the new school xylophones, and we also did a science experiment/outdoor art project. I had more of the light sensitive fabric squares, and the girls used leaves, flowers and sticks to create designs. Ashley and I divided up the girls into two groups, which worked great. Oh, and the girls voted on their Troop Crest. They ended up as unicorns. Not surprising =)
Serenity is in chess club with Eric! She has always liked reading about chess, so we will see how she does with actual competition. So far he’s loving the coaching part! First tournament in December.
All the kids are in swimming lessons. Serenity is getting fast! She can swim the whole length of the pool and has a real dolphin kick, which impresses Eric as he never mastered it.
Serenity loved the butterfly house at the pumpkin patch. She very patiently coaxed butterflies onto the q-tips. At one point she was holding two at once! She was fascinated. She still loves riding the ponies, and chose some really cute “Pokemon pumpkins” to take home. They were the white and orange stripey kind, they just got the new name to appeal to the Pokemon go crowd. =)
