I'm "HOME ALONE" this weekend!! Rick's playing a golf tournament down in Eureka with friends and I don't even mind that I didn't have a chance to say, "No, thank you for asking, but I don't want to go with you." Cuz he didn't ask!!! Probably because of that retired "mind meld" thingie! LOL! We have to be apart sometimes because we need things to tell each other!!
I had BIG plans, you know the kind - reinvent the universe or at least clean the sewing room ... but the first day is almost over and I've done - mostly nothing!! And it feels great. Just what I needed!
We just got back from Portland yesterday. Felt the need to go up and see the kids one more time before school starts. We drove up Tuesday (6 hours) Picked up Popeye's for dinner - one of our favorite parts of heading for Portland - FOOD!
Wednesday Rick went to Salem to play golf with the TIMMS group. I'm happy to report that he did NOT win the shoe! [and the crowd goes wild!!] L had to work and J had a work meeting ... left me alone with the kiddos.
You know I just had a birthday, and it has now been proven that 60 yr olds should not be in charge of TWO preschoolers!! I told Miss P I had a surprise. The surprise was that we made melted crayon witches fingers. I was told that under no circumstances is an activity considered a surprise. I was told repeatedly!!
First we sorted all the broken crayons out of the crayon container. Then we ripped the papers off of them. [this was when the 'activity is not a surprise' statement came up the most often!] We then sorted the colors into a muffin tin. Everyone got to pick colors to melt together. I made a cutting chamber out of a box - highly recommended unless you love seeing bits of crayons fly across the room. If you slice those crayon pieces they will melt so much faster and that's a good thing.
I filled the little witches fingers baking pan with the crayon pieces and put it into a 250 degree oven. They baked for 5 minutes. [set a timer] I'm happy to report we did not spill wax in the oven, nor did it smell like crayons in there when we were done. Fill the molds as high as you can - wax does not rise like cookie dough! [ya think???] Each finger ended up concave; but it made it easier to hold and color with, so no harm done! They were awesome to behold!! And I didn't hear anymore about how an activity is NOT a surprise!
I took the baking sheet out of the oven, let it cool down to room temp and then put it in the freezer for a minute or two. Flipped it upside down and those new crayons came out of the pan slicker than you'd think!
I also brought our electric pencil sharpener and we sharpened all the colored pencils. Who's an awesome [and very tired] Nana??
Miss P also got out the shrinky dinks - what the heck, the oven was on!! And we made 4 charms which we did NOT then put on the coin purse. I suspect I was 'had'. The coin purse was the draw - and mommy said she couldn't have it until she made the charms. There was apparently a loop-hole that I fell into about the charms could be placed inside the coin purse for a few seconds; and then Miss P could do whatever she wanted with it!!!
Believe it or not, it was only 10:30 am when we were done!!! So I walked everyone to the park to wear them out - er - let them play until lunch. A nap was had by all after lunch!
Thursday Beach Papa and I took both kids to Newport for the day. There is a theory - mostly during bad weather days - that we could possibly move to Portland. And in order to keep our "Beach" papa and nana status, we could take the kids on day trips to the beach. Thursday was when we tried this out!
Newport has a new special exhibit - the 'Sea and Me'. Whereas we LOVED the first exhibit we saw there - Oddwater, this one is awesome for the kids. Good luck getting them out of there!! Luckily we first went to see the outside exhibits and the Passages of the Deep and the birds. All great fun.
The first room of the 'Sea and Me' is a fishing boat with life preservers; magnetic fishing poles and lifesize fish with keyrings on their mouths. There are buckets to carry your caught fish to the store. There is a cash register with laminated play money in it. And there was 10-20 kids doing all of it until they were positively dragged out by parental units! Delightful utter chaos!
Then we had lunch at MacDonalds [play park] where Miss P was taught how to climb the cushioned pole by an older girl who must have been part monkey!! The most fun was taking a picture of Miss P almost at the top of the pole and showing it to her mother!! That shriek was by far the most fun part of that!! But, no - we weren't banned from the house because of it!
After lunch and 'gymnastics' we headed to South Beach. Mr M loves to throw rocks into the ocean. It's gotta be a male thing!!! And Miss P loves to collect rocks. Papa was in charge of Mr M and I followed Miss P around 'oohing and ahhing' over her choices.
5 minutes after we'd hit the beach, Mr M had already tripped and been half submerged by a wave!! It didn't discourage him at all. Note to self - bring extra clothes next time! Luckily it was warm enough it didn't even slow him down. Of course, with wet jeans a LOT of sand adherred to his jeans. More than you'd think!
After an hour or so, Miss P had some sand blow into her eye and it was time to load up and go home. We were at the complex where we used to live, so we made a quick pit stop at T&Ls to wash faces and hands and use the potty.
Thanks T&L for being so gracious about beachcombers invading your house!! Got Miss P's eye washed out; Mr M's hands washed - we had already beat about his jeans with a sweatshirt to get the excess sand off. He had to go potty. And there was a 'ring of sand around his butt'!! It couldn't have been too comfortable with all that sand on his skin going home. We did the best we could ... but it wasn't much against the power of sand and wet body parts!
L kept each kid busy while I was in the bathroom with the other. And I'm not saying she did anything out of spite ... but when I came out with Mr M; Miss P was already telling me that L said 'that Beach Nana could polish Miss P's rock collection!!' LOL! That was one little detail that she didn't forget! Needless to say, there are rocks in our tumbler as we speak!!
First thing their mom did when we got home, was throw them in the bath. Miss P complained that the tub was 'crumbly' and I'll bet it was!!
Friday we drove home down the I5 corridor. We'd actually forgotten how gorgeous that route is through the mountains. It was a beautiful day for a drive.
I'm happy to report that Miss P's kindergarten quilt is finished! I'll do the big revel next post - I wasn't thinking and let DH leave town before he could hold it for me! Until then ...
No comments:
Post a Comment