Moos: April 2014

Wooden Cars

The kids took on a spontaneous woodworking project on Sunday. It started when Mom was making a rack to hold the fishing poles in the garage, and Emily was helping her out with the hole-drilling (the girls LOVE to use the drill press).

Kate looked at the wooden circle cutouts and decided they would be perfect wheels for a wooden car. They had some rough edges, so she carefully put each circle in the vise and filed down the edges.

Then she found some plywood scraps and cut them to her desired size (with Mom's supervision, of course).

After a break (and changing out of their pajamas), the girls were back at the workbench. Emily had also been inspired to make a car after watching Kate's progress.

She nailed her wheels on, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the little car actually rolled pretty well! She promptly decided that it would be a Bronco, just like the one we used to own.

Meanwhile, Kate was accessorizing her car. She used scraps from the wood box to add a princess throne and some sloping side ramps.

When the cars were done it was time to paint them. Emily's was (of course) yellow and black, while Kate mixed up blue and red to make a pretty lavender color.

Later on, after bath time, the girls checked to see if the paint was dry. The cars looked fantastic!

The kids were quite proud…both of them planned to bring their cars to school on Monday to show their friends.

Good job girls!

Turkey Flock Recon

Today (Monday) is the first day of spring turkey hunting season, so on Saturday we did some scouting of our local flock. It was really just an excuse to get out for a family walk, but the girls took it pretty seriously. We wore orange, since Saturday was also Youth Turkey Hunting Day, and you can't be too careful.

We walked up through the woods, then down into Farmer Steve's back fields (Mama had previously asked him permission to hunt his land). When we had a light snow a few weeks ago, Mama had come out and tracked the turkeys back to their roosting tree, so she knew which trails they used, and she planned to set up her turkey blind somewhere along their routes.
As we talked about various strategies for setting up, Emily soaked it all in. On the way back home, she had all kinds of ideas, which she explained to us in great detail.

If you know Emily, you know that once she gets excited about a topic she can talk for hours. It was great to hear her come up with all kinds of different turkey hunting strategies.

Kate, on the other hand, was more focused on picking bouquets of flowers to give to us. Kate has a tendency to be completely unaware of what everyone else is doing, which can be good and bad.

It's always interesting to see how completely different our two kids are!

"Yoger"

We usually tell people that we don't have a TV, but in fact we do. It's big and gray and lives on the floor in a corner of the playroom, and it can play dvds or VHS tapes (yes, VHS tapes!). It is rarely turned on, but sometimes the girls will pop in a movie and watch it upstairs. They are supposed to ask first, since screen time for them is limited at our house.

Last weekend, when Mom was in charge of the girls and totally engrossed in a book downstairs, she heard the sound of the TV in the playroom. Surprised, she stormed up stairs to scold the girls for not asking permission, only to find them watching a yoga dvd (or, as Mainers call it: "yoger").

They had found the yoga mats in the closet (from before we had kids!) and were very attentively following along to the dvd, and attempting to do all the poses. They were really enjoying it.

Mom changed her tune after seeing that, and even joined in for a few minutes!

Healthy Kids Day

On Saturday Mom decided to take the kids over to the Alfond Youth Center in Waterville, for something called "Healthy Kids Day". We hadn't been to the AYC in awhile, but we're starting swim lessons here next week so we thought we'd get re-aquainted with the place.

There were lots of activities available (all completely free, which was awesome), but the kids knew exactly what they wanted to do first: Swim!

They love the "small" pool here--the water is nice and warm because it is used for physical therapy, and there is a sloping beach entrance….sweet!

After a quick shower...

…the girls waded on in. Mom was quite surprised to see that the place wasn't packed. In fact, for quite awhile we were the only ones there.

The girls (especially Kate) have somehow managed to become much better swimmers than Mom remembered. They went immediately to the deep end!

They did a bunch of jumping off the edge into the water, over and over, while Mom got to sit and watch (and not get wet).

There were also some balls and floatie toys to play with…fun!

When they got tired of swimming, they wanted to try the Football Obstacle Course. This was set up behind the building and manned by a couple of teenage kids, who explained the course to the girls and then got their stopwatch ready.

Emily went first, and she confidently told the kid: "I'm really good at football."

She wove her way through the cones like the flag veteran she is....

…busted through the big pads….

….caught a pass, high-stepped through some more cones….

…then made four attempts at hitting the monster with a pass. She finally hit it on her last try.

Next up was Kate, who wasn't nearly as confident as her big sister.

She did the cone weave like a pro….

…slammed through the pads...

…and even hurdled the last couple. Go Kate!

She successfully caught a pass, then high-stepped through more cones...

….and sprinted down the home stretch….

…where she met her nemesis, the monster. As you can tell from the photo below, Kate can NOT throw a football (at least one that big). Her hand is just not big enough to control it. The older kids encouraged her to move closer, but she didn't come near to hitting the monster. Regardless, Emily and Mom cheered her on anyway, and she seemed to enjoy trying.

By this time the kids were fairly worn out, but they still wanted to hit the bounce houses. The bouncing area was noticeably more crowded than the rest of the activities going on.