Family Fun Saturday

This weekend we did something I'd always wanted to do: take the girls to one of the Family Fun Saturday activities as the North Carolina Museum of Art.  In the past I've either gotten the date wrong for the activity or been too late to sign up (as the events are really popular).  So a few weeks ago when I saw the mention of it in the paper on a Friday, I saw that the event for that weekend was already sold out.  I looked for the next event and bought tickets anyway, figuring that the price wasn't bad enough that if something happened and we couldn't go, it wouldn't be the end of the world.


Lucky us, as this weekend's event was sold out by the time it appeared in the newspaper on Friday as well.


The activity started off with a performance of OPQRS, Etc. by Raleigh Little Theatre.  Then we did a short tour of some sculptures in the museum, followed up by an activity.  In the studio, we were given some materials to build a sculpture with some of the elements we talked about during the tour.

Our sculpture will be on exhibit at the Raleigh Little Theatre during the run of OPQRS, Etc., and we were given free tickets to the preview showing of the play.  The girls are really excited to go.

I just wish the next couple months weren't so busy so we could attend more of these workshops.

Winter Wonderland

We spent three days at home this week thanks to Mother Nature.  Wednesday school was closed, so I stayed home with the girls and worked from the kitchen table.  It started coming down around noon and started piling up right away.  In my 25 years in NC, I'd not seen snow accumulate that fast.  Quickly, everyone in the county got stuck as they were trying to get home from work.





We did some crafts and took care of Valentines for school.  I hope they let them pass them out this week.





We did three science experiments from Maddie's library book.





Snowman!





Snow fort





And the Friday their gymnastics school held an all-day camp, so they got to do that while we went back to work.  Much more fun than watching the ice melt.

Merry Christmas

Christmas brought good things to the Goodman household.  First up:  Christmas jammies.  Santa had left the boxes in the girls' room for them to open and put on.  But instead we found the girls upstairs Christmas mornings with the boxes in tow.  They were waiting for us.



Santa also brought he much-asked for Kindle Fires.




And a chemistry set




Boredness did set in, so they did head out to the YMCA camp for a few days.  It's been nice to get a chance to clean up some without them running around.

Note: this post is not Pinterest-worthy

Lily and I made baklava today.  It may not be authentic, it may not be pretty, but it worked for us.

Last weekend when we went trick-or-treating at Waverly Place, Taziki's was giving out samples of baklava.  Madeleine was having none of it, but Lily tried it and liked it.  She asked if we could buy some at the store.  Of course I didn't see anything at our local HT.

So this weekend I had a coupon for puff pastry and thought we'd try it.  Well, first of all "puff pastry" isn't the same thing as phyllo.  So a phyllo recipe isn't going to work the same.  Then I would have had to remembered to thaw phyllo 24 hours ahead of time.  Which I hadn't.  So I visited puffpastry.com and luckily they had a baklava recipe.  And the dough had to be thawed only 40 minutes ahead of time.  Winner!

So Lily and I set to work shelling pistachios.  I think I have shells and errant nuts throughout my kitchen.



It gave us some good time to chat.


Then we got all our ingredients together.  By then the dough had thawed enough to roll out.

She loved chopping the nuts with the food processor.

Lily paints on the egg wash.

We combined the nuts, butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a sauce pan.

Baked pastry.

The tough part was splitting the pastry in half to fill with the nut mixture.  The outside was crisp and wanted to flake off.  Sometimes it was hard to pull apart.

The honey/sugar glaze has been applied.

Lily with her final product.

So this happened today

After only about an hour

You go to school to learn, not for a fashion show

Thanks for letting me get that out.  It's been stuck in my head since I signed the girls up to participate a couple of weeks ago in a small, informal fashion show.  Sponsored by a local baby boutique called Green Pea Baby, I saw their call for models on Facebook and thought it might be fun.  I don't usually shop there since we're on the upper end of their sizes, and I don't know many folks with wee ones anymore.

The clothes fit great.  If we needed anything more this season, and they carried anything higher than a 7, I would have bought something.



I was surprised at how confident Lily seemed.  They really enjoyed themselves.



After it was their turn, they hung out in the tent some and talked to the adult models.  I managed to snap a few more pictures in there.



But *this* is my hands-down favorite.

Fall Goings On

October is always a busy month - first with the birthday and then the Halloween-related activities.

Instead of going to our old standby pumpkin farm that we've been going to for years, we went to Green Acres in Cary.  It's more about the corn maze and less about the pumpkins.  But what I was really there for was the horse rides.  It was only $10 a rider for a fairly decent ride around their trail, so Lily, Maddie and I all went for a ride.

Here's Lily's horse.  She "named" her Midnight.  I have no idea what her name really was.



Then on Sunday we hit up the North Carolina State Fair.  It was CRAZY crowded, but I wanted to make sure Lily got to see her photograph hung up for display.  She only got a participation ribbon, but I still think it's a great picture.


I spent the same amount on ride tickets that I usually do, but since I bought them online before the fair, I had a lot more tickets this year.  Combined with the long lines, the girls tired of rides before we could use all the tickets.

So Eric took the last slide with the girls.