Scarborough Faire 2009

Come on girls! It's time to go to the Student Days at the Waxahachie Renaissance Faire! Stop spinning in that chair and let's go or it will be over before we get there.

Wow! This is great! Our first friend? The town crier...

Dumpling was pretty offended for most of the rest of the day after she found out this jester named his dog, "Blockhead."

We stumbled upon this merchant selling psalteries. It was more of a financial commitment than we were willing to make, but she let each of the girls play with it for a minute anyway.

Cuddlebug stopped our conversation cold as we all heard a real song coming from her turn at the instrument! She quickly correlated the strings to piano keys and enjoyed a nice moment outside her sister's musical shadow.

Here we are waiting for the Birds of Prey show which turned out to be one of our favorite moments of the day.

On to the joust! The girls were concerned that someone might die.

And this moment was pretty spectacular!

Now to try her own hand at the rings. Uh...Dumpling...you might want to
l e a n out a little and reach for the ring.

This was her 3rd try...or her 5th...but isn't she sweet?

Cuddlebug rung them on her second try...

...it's what she does.

There were exotic animals to ride; Cuddlebug chose the elephant.

Dumpling picked the camel.

Fifi's dress kept her feet on the ground, so she visited the bows and arrows booth and ended up buying a pretty nice set up from this Christian man. His wife makes the arrows by hand.

Where to now?

Of course! The costume shop! Fifi sewed that dress she's wearing (that's another post entirely) and was intrigued by the professionally made costumes that were for sale. Well, she was interested until she discovered that they were for sale for many hundreds of dollars.


O.k....time is short girls! We had better move fast to fit it all in before the closing cannon boom!
Double time--here's a picture to prove that Mommy was there too...

Everyone but me riding the Crow's Nest...

Cuddlebug gets her brain tightened. Thankfully, when he finished, she was able to correctly answer that 2 + 2 = 4! *Whew*

$1 sanctioned opportunity to hit each other with big, padded sticks...

Cannon blast! Time's up! Get out!

King someone or other. Fifi could probably tell you who...along with his marital and blood lineage for generations in either direction.

And finally...the nobility bade a fond farewell to the common peasants. And home we went to the 21st century.

The Audition Ability She Gets Not From Me

At 13 years old, it's time for Fifi the violinist to find a reliable music group with which to play. She has one full semester and a couple of special projects under her belt, so she approached this audition with very realistic expectations. There are 5 levels of musicianship, from beginner to high school/college-aged touring group. She hoped to make the cut on level 2, but was prepared to be assigned to the lower, level 3.

The audition was over a week ago, and the results came by email today...


Read it aloud, Fifi! The suspense is killing me!

Uh...Mommy? It says...level...1.

Level 1? You didn't audition for level 1! Wha...? How...?

All I could think to say was that she'd better call her teacher. So, here she is calling her teacher. Her teacher said it wasn't a mistake.

Which caused me to look like this at random times, without warning, throughout the day. Fifi said she thought my emotional outbursts were sweet, cute and a handful of other darling adjectives--but mostly she just hugged me and said, "Oh Mommy..."

(And yes, this is really me. The cry didn't get any prettier as I grew, so...you know...let's watch it on a baby instead.)

Husband (who will heretofore be called Jim) handled it with more dignity. To celebrate, he brought home make-your-own-sundae ingredients. That's something we haven't done in...well...ever, that I can remember. Later, when the girls were bouncing off the walls during Bible time, Husband said something like, "I hope you enjoyed the ice cream girls, because we won't be doing that again."

And then Dumpling's retort went something like, "Oh Jim! You're playing."

And then he stared at me hard, trying to bite back the incredulous laugh that would forever cement his title as "Jim." I think he did it. I heard her call him Daddy again later.

Yum, Yum, sundaes! With a cherry or five on top.

I don't care if she is working on her first concerto. She's still my baby when she gets goofy like this.

All in all, a very delicious day!

Weekly Roundup: Thoughts I Thought and Things I Did This Week

Applying K9 Advantix to the cat, even by accident, and even for just a minute or so, will--hours later--result in a midnight trip to the veterinary ER, 2 nights in intensive care, and a lot of moolah. But you pay it--not so much to save the cat, but more so you can say you didn't kill the cat. And so the score still stands at Husband: 0 GB: 1

Two nights in intensive care with a staff of people who are living the childhood dream of working in veterinary medicine will spoil your cat silly, and finish the week looking like you fighting him for your late night snack of cereal and milk. There's nothing funnier than an emboldened cat that still has a fair amount of valium in his bloodstream and muscle atrophy to work out.

And, on a lighter note...

You'll get the principal of sharing through to young children best if you don't lecture with chapter and verse, but instead tell them about the time (just a couple of evenings ago, actually) when you were tempted to walk the treadmill for another 30 minutes just because someone asked you if you were done. Just don't forget to finish the story by telling them that because Jesus died on the cross, we have His power to overcome such fleshly sin, and in the end you wiped the machine down and disembarked with a friendly smile.

Also...

I think I'll be careful how dogmatic my opinion becomes about a government raid on a religious sect. The case seems always, eventually to be made with an equal dose of rhetoric as it is actual criminal offense. Now we're to sympathize with the prosecution because the women and children of the El Dorado FLDS compound had been taught that the outside world was sinful.

So, I'm half expecting a knock on my door at anytime.

And, in the homeschool...

I'm glad to have found a toned-down, way down, Charlotte-Mason-would-be-spinning-in-her-grave down, version of Homer's Odyssey. It was good for inspiring cyclops ketchup faces, as painted by Dumpling,

and an introductory archery lesson. No one got hurt, so...that was good.

Randomly now...

1500 mg per day of amoxicillin is hard on my stomach. It was yucky 17 years ago when I was in the hospital with pneumonia, and it has been this week too. I pray it works though, because I have no plan to put in place if it doesn't.

Which leads me to...

...kick myself for having missed the chance to develop and copyright "The Worst Case Scenario" game. Because imagining the worst is a talent I have.

And...

I emailed the winning entry, on Fifi's behalf, to her first photography contest on Wednesday. And then I drove to the post office to ensure a postmark on the entry form in time for the deadline date of Thursday. And then I had Husband drive downtown to the office with the entry fee that I forgot to include with the form on Friday. Whew. I'm glad that's over.

Frankly...

I'm glad there is just 1 more Tuesday dance class for Dumpling. She says she wants to play classical guitar next year. I wonder if she's ready for the work it will take; because once she starts, I won't be easy to let her off the hook.

And...

Now that Fifi--who is all about Ireland and Scotland right now--has discovered her clan according to my mother's mother's maiden name, I wonder how long it will be before she asks for red hair dye and green contacts?

Finally...

What is the chief end of ants?

Weekly Roundup: Results Not Typical

Notice the disclaimer in the title? This was a really nice week. We got done what needed to be done, and some besides. And there was a lot of beauty to behold. Some I remembered to capture, some I just relished from the inside.

Later, we will peek behind the scenes with Brenda's Keeping It Real event on April 1st, but for now...

We started last weekend like this, remember?

I. do. not. know what we were thinking.

I guess we were thinking it was a beautiful weekend and that it had been years since we did a community egg hunt. I guess we were looking forward to girls in their Easter finery while some classy denomination played Vivaldi's "Spring" softly in the background.

I guess now--on the other side of the Christian rap/rock music, the live band and the decibels--we're thinking it served as a good inoculation against how the "others" work out their salvation. None of us left intrigued or excited; just kind of sick and sad. Oh, and incredulous.

Blech.

Eeek! Get off the ground in your LIGHT PINK skirts girls! You don't need to crawl! You can squat! SQUAT!

Ah. Sunday morning. He is risen!

Plenty of pretty dresses to fit everyone in the hand-me-down closet. This is the hat Fifi assembled for herself, patterned after an Edwardian hat she and her Daddy found on a website.

Yes. I know. She really is the cutest 12 year old ever. I wish I'd been her when I was 12. I should stop now; I'll embarrass her. I can almost hear her say, "Oh, Mommy..." which, of course, is just--cute.

Later in the week, the Christmas ants arrived in the mail. This ant farm invention is fascinating! You must run right out and buy one for yourself! (And no one paid me to say that.)

"Look to the ant, thou sluggard!"

And let me tell you, we have been these last few days. And I feel like quite a sluggard about the 20 minutes I sat watching them break through another tunnel wall this evening. And somewhere, there is a load of laundry that did not get folded because of it. Something tells me I misapplied the Proverb.

There was the weekly trip to the library. Today we got there ahead of the government school children, so we went in and chose some books whereas we usually shop on line and send Fifi in to pick them up at the desk.

Cuddlebug is very amused by her Amelia Bedelia book. Apparently, in the story, the family is packing up to go somewhere and someone has shouted, "Come on! Let's hit the road!" So of course, Amelia picks up a stick and starts beating the pavement.

Here she is standing up to repeat the joke. Yes, Cuddlebug. We get it! So she hit the pavement. Bwa ha ha ha ha!
I just love this age. Just when you think you know them...

And finally...have I mentioned that Fifi is studying violin under a new teacher? And that Mrs. Virtuoso is fantastic! And that the chemistry between them seems good? And that this highly structured student has found a kindred spirit in Mrs. Virtuoso? And that I think a year or two down the line the whole business is going to cost her Daddy an upgrade?