Sticker faces, Halloween jamboree

Saturday night's entertainment was 31 and sticker faces, we all wore stickers.

Rielee came over Saturday and helped with the girls' Halloween manicures.

Harper needed gold and blue to match her costume, Ava went with black.

I remembered at the last minute Sunday that the CR Halloween Jamboree was happening.

The girls had their faces painted, played some quarter games, and had their 

picture taken.  They really wanted to go through the haunted old jailhouse but the line was too long and the rain was too cold.

Rielee volleyball

We took the girls to Rielee's last 8th grade volleyball game last night at Kelso High.  It was a fun one, as they came from behind to beat their rival Huntington 2-1.  Rielee played great,  it was easy to see why she was awarded the co-MVP (shared with her friend Ruby) and "best front row player" at their banquet last week (this game had been postponed due to a false firearm evacuation at Huntington).

Rielee, fire pit, Luke homecoming

 The girls were happy to spend some time with Rielee Saturday, it had been a couple of weeks.  She played the Game of Life with them and soccer before she left to go to a birthday party.  

The girls played under the bridge. Ava hauled a bunch of rocks down there and they found some caterpillars again.  Harper told me that Ava is running for President of the wilderness.  We had a fire pit in the evening.

Toasting marshmallows is serious business, it takes concentration to get them just right (especially when you set fire to the first 10).

Kelly sent us pictures of Luke and Jenna all dressed up for Homecoming.  

Pajama Day

Wednesday was Pajama Day at school, Ava's are LOL dolls and Harper's is a unicorn.  They were hot when they got off the bus, said to run a lap in P.E., not good on such a warm day.

Their 4th grade pictures turned out cute.

After school, Ava asked Uncle Alan for a box and created a "sparkily" rock house.

Harper worked for a long time on this minion drawing for Ava and declared it the best drawing she's ever done.  Ava loved it.

 Last weekend Parker rented a mini-excavator and he and Dad worked on the sewer and water lines for the shop. 

Progress at the storage unit site, Gabe borrowed a Kelly truck and had Parker haul the retaining wall blocks for him. Parker said it was the heaviest load he has hauled so far.  

Switching it up, Ava's nature house

We heard an interesting story on the way back home from picking up the girls today.  It seems that Tuesday, the kids at Harper's table suggested that she and Ava should "switch it up" meaning dress and pretend to be each other.  So they did, and then spent the morning sitting at each other's table while all the kids at their tables played along, calling them by the other's name.  They went to math (where Harper had to finish one of Ava's papers) and P.E.  They seemed disappointed that none of their teachers even noticed, and switched back at lunchtime.  Needless to say, Mom and Dad weren't too thrilled about their experiment and they were told not to do it again.

 Papa was blowing off the driveway this afternoon when Harper took over and finished it herself.

 Ava made herself a little house under the birdhouse bridge.  She put rocks down the bank to walk down to it and situated several rocks to sit on.  She found several caterpillars and a worm and had made beds for them, but when we went to look at them after dinner, they had escaped.  

 She said in her world of nature, shells are coins and leaves are dollar bills, if you find a brightly colored leaf, it's a $50 or $100 bill.

She tried smashing cones and crab apples in her kitchen and cut up some mushrooms with her rock saw.  We had a talk about poisonous mushrooms, too.

Balloons and 31

 Ava made herself a balloon hat Saturday morning.  

Harper was the 31 champion both Friday and Saturday, winning both times with a winning 31 hand in diamonds, Saturday this lucky girl still had 2 quarters left, too.  

Baking lesson

 The girls chose cakes when I asked what they would like to bake.  I had half a box cake mix, so Ava made that.  Harper was impressed that Ava wrote "Love" in cursive on it.  

 She was happy with it.

Harper decorated with a fork and lots of little stars.  Hers was a scratch cake, which turned out pretty well even though we were halving a recipe. I didn't bake it long enough either so it fell a little.  It was also a lesson on what can go wrong with baking, but they still had fun.

Parker driving, lunch

 We were so surprised when we passed Parker on the freeway this morning.  He was hauling supplies to a job site in Hermiston, Or.  This was about 10 a.m., he had a long day, not getting home until 9.

We got to have lunch with the girls at school today.  We were there a little early and found them out at recess.

 Harper was playing jump rope with a bunch of girls while Ava played soccer with a 

bunch of boys.  Dorothy Fox seems like a fun school, they had a stereo playing outside.  Lunch was very orderly,  I was impressed with the way the lunch monitor instructed the kids with cards that she laid at the end of each table, when she stood the cards up, they all knew it was time to clean up and line up.  The girls said they sit at different tables at lunchtime.