Talents

Monday morning's hike was good. The weather is great. Alicia (and her dog) joined up with us, so that was fun to have another person. Before long, we'll have a train going up the mountain! I tried running on some of the up parts at the end, so that'll be a challenge to keep doing that. I came home and waited for everyone to wake up and helped get everyone ready for school. After the school girls were off, I started cleaning out Ellie's and Hattie's closet. I took out what didn't fit and boxed it up and I got out their clothes for winter. Next chore will be doing that in Eliza and Libby's room. Kari brought her girls over to play for a little bit, so Ellie and Hattie had fun playing. The rest of the day was spent at gymnastics (the last day of class) along with getting ready for my first activity day and sewing and sewing. I had some baby gifts to do, so I hurried and got all those finished.

Eliza did our lesson for family home evening last night. She did a "talent" game. She had written everyone's name on a paper and on the reverse side had written and drawn a picture of their talent. One person had "no talent" on her paper, but that just meant that she got to try to guess everyone's talents. My parents had come over so my mom could help me make peanut butter balls for the baby shower tonight, so Eliza hurried and made them papers. Here is what she thought our talents were:
Brian--making things fun
me--singing (I totally laughed as I am not a singer. Glad she thinks so!)
Ellie--coloring
Hattie--making funny faces
Libby--she had the "no talent" but Eliza said she is good at making things fun, too.
Grandma--knitting
Grandpa--having fun (she drew a picture of him doing steamroller).
At the end she taught us a lesson that we shouldn't "lose" our talents and that we need to keep working and practicing them. And sometimes we need to take a break (think piano) and try again. It was a cute lesson.

Today Brian left early for biking, but the morning went on as usual--getting ready for school, breakfast, etc. Then we headed to aerobics. Today was interval training...lots of short, intense exercises most of the time. We came home, Hattie took a nap and I did some last minute prep for activity day along with getting myself ready.

So today was our first activity day. I was just a little nervous that the girls would think it was boring or lame. We had 10 girls show up. Let's just say that 10 & 11 year olds are a lot different than my laurels! HA! They were just giddy and silly and chatty, etc. I had a couple "ringleaders" that I'll just have to get on my side and give assignments to keep them from being too crazy, but most all are so sweet and fun. Here is what we did...when the got here, I had them each fill out a little getting to know you form. Then I gave each girl a Ziploc bag of M&Ms and each girl only had one color. I talked about what if we were all the same, had the same talents, etc. Then I talked about how we all have different talents, etc. etc, and how that makes things work better. Then they each put their M&Ms in a bowl in the middle and we played the "Been There Done That" game. I read a statement and if it applied to them, they took an M&M. It's a fun way to learn more about the girls. Then at the end, they enjoyed the mini dipped apples I made. Rachel saw that idea in a magazine about the same time I saw it online, so we both tried it. I think they must do some trick photography to get theirs to look nice and round. When you use a melon baller, the bottom is really round, but the top with the skin on it is flatter. They still turned out pretty cute and the girls downed them!


(sorry--the screen on my little camera doesn't work, so I can't tell what I am getting in the shot. You get the idea though.)

Tonight I went to a friend's baby shower, so it's always fun to sit and visit after a busy couple of days!