Random but Fun

While it appears first, this is the last of my marathon of blog posts! I decided to do shorter posts instead of packing everything into one too-long post.

Back in May, our church hosted an all-ladies tea. It was all ladies because the men were needed to do the serving and clean-up! Great plan!

As part of the event, a group of ladies participated in the General Store Fashion Show. Here are some of my faves with a brief description. You can probably double-click on each photo if you want to see it enlarged.

Cathie, in her all-cotton dress (complete with cotton balls)

Kirsten in her box dress and literally topped off with a pill-box hat.

Jayne in her seer-sucker outfit

And some of the good sports who served us--Pat

Bob

Roger

The girls doing their own fashion show after

All of us at the Ladies Tea (Dan took photos and watched Meg...)

The Mother's Day cake that Dan made for me--Em and Meg chose strawberry

Blackmail photos and disclaimer--Lauren dressed herself

as did Emily...

And here's for the really random...Read both headlines

I have it from a good authority that the Granny Bandit is NOT my mother. These two were headlines in our local newspaper somewhat recently...

The World as my Canvas

The girls have greatly expanded their sidewalk chalk art renderings and have found a new canvas as well--our neighbor's driveway. As you can see by scale, these drawings are quite large--bigger than Emily. Lauren's is obviously a rainbow. Annika's was inspired by one of the suns in Disney's Tangled.

One of the benefits of having all girls--and having the first set and second set about the same ages apart (Annika and Lauren=16 months, Emily and Megan=just under 1 year) is the fact that the second set wear the same sizes at the same time, just like the first set. See below.

I'm currently working on a story for a candy magazine. One of the companies I interviewed for the story, Hammond Candies in Denver, sent me some really cool "samples" of their products which include ribbon candy, chocolate turtle-like Piggybacks and seriously neat handmade lollipops. We decided to have fun with these so the Wheeler girls did the photo shoot at Heritage Acres in Fairmont. Here are some of my favorites.

Quick Trip to Near-ChiTown

This last week, our entire fam made a quick trip to Arlington Heights to visit my aunt, uncle, two doggies and my cousins Judy and Vicky. We left Wednesday from Rochester after Megan's appointment for her diabetes (everything is just fine, thank you. We just have to break her of her 'grazing.') and spent the night in Wisconsin Dells at the Polynesian because of their waterpark and it's half-way-ness to our final destination. We had a good time in the pool, but will probably try another resort next time.

We did drive around the Dells to see what we could see. Below is a rather interesting architectural wonder--the White House upside down. We did not do the attraction inside; six times the cost gets expensive fast. Leslie Lencioni, we took this pic just for you!

Thursday was a low-key time at my Aunt Rosalie and Uncle Brian's house. It took Megan awhile to warm up to their two tiny dogs, but by the end of the trip she was saying, "She's my friend and she's my friend" to Lucy and Jennie (I think they're Bichons...there's a pic down below).

That night, we had a regular dinner party with Vicky, her boyfriend Jean-Charles (who I accidentally called Jean-Claude--too much VeggieTales, I tell you!), and some of his relatives who were visiting from France. The girls pretty much kidnapped JC's cousin Chlamos and hid her in the "French room" at the house where they were educating her on the English names for various animals. Poor girl.

Friday was spent at the park and Chuck E. Cheese. The girls had a great time! It's still strange to see Chuck E. Cheese offer Miller, Miller Lite, Red Wine and Chablis on tap. I can only imagine how good it is.

Cousin Judy with a few of the girls

Me in "the clubhouse" which apparently is nicknamed "Tre's Hood" (as noted in etchings above the Club House)

Annika

Emily

Monkey Megan who got up there by herself

Some really pretty blossoms on Aunt Rosalie's plant

Kid quotes:

"It's the human mushrooms," says Emily, talking about garden gnomes from Gnomeo and Juliet
"My toes are hiding," says Megan as she walks around in her slippers.
"See? They're sparkles," says Megan about her many concrete-caused scabs on her knees.

Annika's Birthday Parties...Plural

Annika kind of had four birthday celebrations this year. The first was with her classmates on June 2 when they trooped down from school to celebrate her birthday and the freedom that comes with the end of the school year. After school, Annika opened her presents with just the family and before Dan went back to work after the class root beer party.

After that, we then drove to our friend Mary's house because Emily and Megan felt left out--Lauren's class had gone to a farm earlier that day and Emily knew about it. Annika had requested brownies for her birthday dessert--with chocolate chip chunks--so we brought some of our treats with to Mary's--not knowing Mary had another friend of ours (Amber) and her mother, daughter and granddaughters. Presto! Instant party! Which also explains why some of the brownies are missing as Annika blows out her candles.

The last day of school, June 3, is when Annika had her real birthday celebration with friends--rather, I should say "formal" celebration. Annika wanted a full-blown tea party. She hand wrote her invitations inviting the girls to wear their best dresses. She invited six girls and her teacher, Miss Wubben. We even were blessed with two additional girls. This is where the training I received working in junior high ministry comes in handy--I'm much better prepared to fly by the seat of my pants!

High tea included orange sherbet for round one, finger sandwiches (peanut butter and jelly...), cream puffs, and fillo cups filled with cream cheese/powder sugar frosting and raspberries. We had enough tea cups for everyone and tea (with cream and three lumps of sugar) and hot chocolate. Emily, Megan, Lauren and our neighbor Nena had their own table in the living room. Unfortunately, this means Megan was not completely supervised at all times. And took about 22 lumps of sugar in her tea. Fortunately, she didn't drink the sludge.

Some of the comments heard? "This is the best tea party I've ever been to. I've never been to one before."

Weirdest thing to happen? I didn't think about the fact lemon and raspberry teas might curdle the cream. Oops. Yes, dear, I can see why your tea doesn't taste very good.

Megan getting ready to help make the brownies.

Annika displaying her new dress from Papa and Grandma Wheeler--she wore it to her tea party the next day.

And the jacket from Grandma Barb

I just like the look on her face. She already has been sunkissed--so early in the season.

Bargain of the century: this pink bow is around $60 at our local sporting goods store. We don't usually spend that much on single birthday presents. However, one or two weeks before her birthday, one of our neighbors was having a garage sale. Her granddaughter had outgrown her pink bow. Price? $5. Annika's joy? Priceless.

All of the girls who attended the tea party were thrilled when their teacher Miss Wubben was able to make it. We were thrilled because we invited her to stay for dinner and she did! It wasn't delivery. It was DiGiorno's. You gotta love a teacher who is willing to stay for frozen pizza.

On Your Mark, Get Set...

Of course, the last few weeks of school wouldn't be complete without the advent of Field Daze. However, unlike my upbringing, Field Daze at Annika and Lauren's school isn't an individual competition, which is good. My kids would probably do as well as I did in the long jump--took the fifth place ribbon. Out of five competitors.

The kids have a few different stations and all of the kids in one grade are on the field at the same time. Fortunately for us, Lauren's group was first and Annika's second with the third group (first graders) going after lunch so we could just stay. Dan was also able to attend which is fun, too! I appreciate the sometimes-flexibility of his job.

The stations consisted of things like jump-rope relays, three-legged races, tug-of-war and water games, of course. During the three-legged race, I was even able to participate since one of Annika's classmates needed a partner. That was fun. The girl, Ashley, is one of Annika's closest friends in school.

So here are a few pics of that day...and, no, Lauren's pink leggings will never be the same again.