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Leah sang with her choir again in November.

Back in November, Molly had her first middle school orchestra concert. It’s a whole new level of professionalism, complete with uniforms. They were great!

Now that Molly is in middle school, she’s moved up to the youth choir at church.

In 5th grade, Molly went on a field trip to Philadelphia to the Franklin Institute. She liked it so much, she wanted to go back with us (mainly with Leah). So, we took advantage of a day off of school and drove up.

We enjoyed lots of the exhibits. Sir Isaac’s Loft was my favorite spot (lots of fun physics games), but I didn’t get any pictures of it. I did get a couple pictures in the SportsZone, though. Molly and Leah raced their bikes with some arm pedaling.

The girls raced one another (yes, Leah’s faster).

The Franklin Air Show is also lots of fun. The girls climbed aboard this old Air Force plane there.

Molly was excited about the virtual reality experience (she’s currently swimming by a whale). It was her favorite part of her trip with her school, and she really wanted to do it again.

We also saw a planetarium show (probably Leah’s favorite part) and saw lots of other exhibits.

It’s a fun science museum. I’d recommend it if your in Philadelphia or not to far away like us.

Molly and I got to perform a song together for the first time in October. We first performed this on the Fall Youth Retreat, then did it a second time at Children's Worship at church a week later (which is what you see here in the video). Make sure to watch the whole thing so you don't miss Molly's solo.

Traditionally in the Methodist church, 3rd graders are presented with Bibles. Leah was excited to get hers from Pastor Mandy.

In that same service, Leah also sang with her choir. It was a busy morning for her.

We were determined to get to Auburn this year, and homecoming ended up being the weekend we could make work. We flew in to Atlanta late Friday, spent the night in a hotel, rented a car, and drove to Auburn Saturday. We met up with Jen’s family and had a great time around town.

The Wesley Foundation hosted a homecoming brunch, so we got to hang out and see old friends. The kids especially enjoyed the ping pong tables. Then we got lunch, did a little shopping, and wandered around reminiscing.

Of course, part of homecoming weekend is the football game. Sadly, just before half time they suspended play due to lightning in the area. We left the stands and hung out nearby during the ensuing downpour for a while, but eventually decided to leave when it lightened up a bit. We ended up seeing the conclusion on TV as the kids got ready for bed.

We stayed the night (thanks Julia, Earl, and Daniel), then got up early to drive back to the Atlanta airport to fly home. Hurray for getting to Auburn!

We celebrated Leah's 9th birthday with a Double Dare party. Jen and Leah were in agreement that a non-messy version was the way to go! Jen did the planning of all the fun "Minute to Win It" type games, and I created a display for the game show. It’s a QLab workspace for showing the scoreboard, displaying the graphics just like the TV show, countdown timers, and sound effects.

After watching an episode of Double Dare so everyone knew how to play, Round 1 Opening Challenge was a Hula Hoop Relay between all three teams.

The teams then rotated answering trivia questions. Because there were three teams, we threw in an extra "triple dare." The kids loved playing all of the physical challenges. Below are a few that we played.

Into the Hanger: Players attempted to fly 2 paper airplanes into the hanger. (Jen made use of the strawberry we made for a bean bag toss for one of Leah's previous parties.)

Elephant Head: Players stretched panty hose with a tennis ball placed in the toe end over their heads. They then tried to swing the balls around on their heads until they knocked down a dozen coke cans in 45 seconds.

Snowball Shake Down: With a dab of Vaseline on their nose, and without using their hands, players must transfer 10 cotton balls from one end of the table to the other.

Cool Shot: Players used the squirt guns to try to knock all of the balls off of the tees.

Final team challenge: Hanky Panky. The first team to empty their box got an extra 200 points!

The game was tight, but the Caticorns managed to barely defeat The Savage Kittens in the end, and headed to the final Obstacle Course!

The final Obstacle Course consisted of stations in which a small orange flag needed to be found and passed along to their teammate. First up, Duck Hunt.

While the two remaining teams caused a pillow fight, a flag had to be carried down the stairs to a teammate.

Someone then had to pop the balloons to find a flag.

Opening all the Easter eggs to find the small flag was little challenging because Jen put so many eggs in the basket. Oops!

After the winning team ran the course, we reset the stations to allow the remaining teams a chance to run it. They were all so excited to run through the house!

Finally, it was time for cake and ice cream. Jen and Leah designed an ice cream slime cake. This was the only slime allowed at the party, and it was delicious!

We sang to the birthday girl.

When the house was again calm and quiet, Leah opened her gifts. Leah has wanted a giant cat (a Beanie Boo) since Molly got hers. So, Molly got her one for her birthday.

Leah's best friend introduced her to Lost Kitties.

Panda + Unicorn = Pandacorn slippers!

The toy that has made the largest impact has to be Winston, a Squishmallow. He seems to constantly be with Leah. So soft, so squishy…

Happy birthday Leah!

Molly has joined the Youth Orchestra at church. Here she is in her first performance with them from back in September.

I find myself needing to apologize for failing to post things here for so long. Other than 1 post about Halloween costumes (which were so awesome it had to be posted), I’ve failed to post things for this entire school year. So, I’m sorry about that.

It’s been a rough year so far (with lots of awesome stuff mixed in as well). In September, we found out Grams has ovarian cancer. I won’t go into details about it (though you can find them over at CaringBridge), but it’s been a lot to handle. G’Mom has also been battling ovarian cancer (details about that are at her CaringBridge). She’s been on a break from that battle, but the battle is now back on. So, we’re pretty fed up with ovarian cancer around here.

Don’t think that has slowed us down from all the other activities happening in our household. Things are busier than ever here - so busy, that between those activities and cancer-related activities, I haven’t had time to post anything. But now it is time to catch up. So, sit back and pretend it’s September, and I’ll walk you through some of the stuff that’s happened in our household since then. It may take a couple weeks, but it’ll be fun to relive the school year so far.