Tea Party

We invited some of our friends over for a fancy tea party. Addie had a fabulous time helping to get everything ready. We laid out the lace table cloth and got out some fancy teacups for everyone to use. Addie and I had fun creating place cards for everyone and then Addie spent quite a bit of time choosing where each person would sit.

Once everyone arrived we decided to have juice tea. I think the girls just guzzled down their juice, chomped their muffins, and then ran off to play. The mothers had a more leisurely time. Overall a nice afternoon with friends.

Snow Fun

How exciting to have a snow day. Over 18 inches of snow. Both girls had a fabulous time playing and trying out their new shovels. Lots of snow was eaten and lots of fun was had. Edith did have some trouble walking as the snow is up to her waist.

Creativity and Stuff!

The girls have spent the past two days just playing. Playing, playing, playing. What this means is that they take most of their toys and mix them all up and make things (piles) out of them. It is lots of fun for them but a little maddening to clean up when they are finished. What is the most fun for me is seeing how vast their imaginations are.
Here is how Edith dressed herself today. Can you guess who she is dressed up as?
Answer: Mary. I think she looks just like Mary traveling to Bethlehem. Didn't Mary wear a sequined top hat, silver robe, and a cowboy boot bandanna? The girls love pretending to be Mary. They each put their baby in a bin and listen to O Come all ye Faithful. I have to be one of the wise men and bring the baby a present every time the chorus comes on. Presents can be anything I find. After all, with a good imagination anything can become gold, frankincense, or myrrh.


After we cleaned up the giant pile of stuff (see behind Edith), the girls started up again. This time Addie built a tree house in the living room. Lots of kid furniture, some bins, a cradle, and a boot tray roof finish the project off. Her creations are always all lined up, neat and orderly. Future architect?
And it looks like she has made sure to use plenty of bolts so nothing falls apart.

Before and After

I am crabby because Mom makes me have my hair brushed.

Edith has been getting more and more resistant about having her hair brushed. It gets quite tangled and because she hates having it put up she gets a lot of gross crud in it. Today after she moaned through having her hair brushed, it was time to chop it off. I was disappointed because she had such lovely blonde locks. I did the preliminary cut today and will even it out tomorrow. She requested "short like Addie's, not bald." She is pleased with the new look even though I don't think she looked in a mirror. She reminds me of Ramona.

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park

After a very crabby morning the girls headed out to DeCordova Sculpture Museum. The museum always has interesting exhibits that change regularly and walking around the grounds on a warm fall day is quite relaxing. One of the exhibits was sculptures made out of rubber. The girls loved exploring the texture of the ginat rubber bands and huge tongue. They also enjoyed the recycled room.

Open Farm Day

We have enjoyed eating loads and loads of fresh veggies this summer as we participated in a local CSA. We tried some new ones to us and ate more lettuce than we could have imagined. We will miss our weekly bounty, but now our Tuesdays will be free again.
Today being the last day was open garden. We could walk around the farm and harvest what we wished. At first the girls were not enthusiastic. They munched on cherry tomatoes while I picked beans. Then I looked for eggplant, broccoli and squash. We finally managed to find 2 pumpkins so each girl could have one.
The highlight, other than the goats and chickens as usual, were the carrots. Addie had a blast using the pitchfork to loosen the soil and then picking out the carrots. If I let her she would have harvested them all. She also searched for the very few remaining onions left behind after the tractors had gone through.
Edith of course enjoyed munching her way through the farm. Cherry tomatoes, then a bell pepper, some chives and a carrot, dirt and all. She managed to soak her shoes, socks and coat and shed them all at some point.
Both girls were covered with mud, dirt, and veggies by the time we left. Messy but fun.
Now I have to get busy getting everything washed and stored.

Storyland and Caves

The Haynes clan headed up to the White Mountains for a weekend of camping. Unfortunately Brian had a fever and a cough so he did not come with us.

We had a great time exploring Storyland on Saturday and then visiting Lost River Gorge glacial caves on Sunday.

At Storyland the big kids were very into lots of the story props. They enjoyed the Three Bears House, seeing the three little pigs and the black sheep. Addie missed Cinderella because she was at lunch but still tried out her throne. Edith was just big enough to go on all the wild rides. She is 36 1/4 inches tall. She tried out the roller coaster, crazy barn and the raft ride. The poor girl fell asleep in my arms while waiting for the raft ride but didn't seem to mind at all being woken up by spinning and water splashes.

At Lost River Gorge we hiked down many stairs into boulder strewn caves. Each little cave had an entrance and an exit. We had to crawl, twist and squirm our way through. Only the Matterns made it through the lemon squeezer though. I wasn't quite comfortable going through a cave that had a clearance of only 18 inches. Edith was really funny in the caves because she was so happy at being the "littlest" and not having to crawl and bend like the rest of us.

More pictures on facebook.