Themes...

This last week, all on their own, the two oldest girls decided to dress in "themes".  Their wardrobe choices are usually eye-watering, often dubious, and rarely what anyone else would choose to wear.  But I try to go by the mantra of "Those who matter don't care, and those who care don't matter" to make me feel better about all the people who look at my girls and wonder why their mother lets them leave the house dressed like that.

 Miss M's heart theme.

Miss A's woodland theme.  Hard to see, but there are deer on the dress, owls in the ears, and wildflowers in the hair.

 Miss M's ocean theme.  All blue and turquoise clothes, coral reef headband, and sea urchin flowers.

 Miss A's lightning theme.  All blue and yellow clothes and bow.

 Miss A's meadow theme.  Butterfly skirt and shirt, green grass shirt, wildflower hair clips.

 Miss M's red pink theme.

 Miss R wore this red shirt to match Grandma.  It was a perfect match- Grandma was indeed wearing a red thermal shirt.  Sadly Grandma did not have orange heart leggings and a fluffy short denim skirt to complete her ensemble...

 Miss A's mermaid theme.  Mermaid skirt and shirt; unfortunately you can't see the "dorsal fin" pony tail sticking up on top.

I don't know what Miss M's theme this day was, but it involved two buns, each with four big flowers surrounding them.  She looked like an errant flower pot.

Snow!

While we were in church today, it started to snow!  (Which made the primary kids about as reverent and still as caffeinated jack rabbits.)  Now, somehow my time in Guam has apparently permanently done away with my cold tolerance.  Although, to be fair, humid Virginia cold is much worse than the lovely dry mountain western cold I grew up with.  So I pretty much hate winter now.  But if it's going to be cold and damp, as it looks to be for the next couple of weeks here in VA, it may as well snow!  After church we dug out the hats and boots, and the girls went out to play.

Yorktown

 Yesterday we took Grandpa for his first visit to Yorktown.

When Grandma and her sisters came for a visit in September we took them to Yorktown as well.  That means that this little girl has been on two very long, very detailed, very excellent ranger tours of Yorktown battlefield.

 She knows all about how tall George Washington was, and has seen his actual tent.

And has explored lots and lots of cannons.

She has been very good natured and very patient.

And probably knows more about history than the majority of American grown ups.

Yesterday she got her Junior Ranger Patch.

New Years Walk

 I wanted to take a nice walk to start the new year, and a friend suggested the Capital Trail.  I had never heard of it (Virginia is not good at organized self-promotion...), but it is amazing!  A new, totally paved trail that runs from Virginia's first capital, Jamestown, past it's second, Williamsburg, all the way to Richmond, the current capitol.  We walked the first two-ish miles, and looped around for a four and a half mile trip.  The girls rode their bikes.  We all had a wonderful time!  Everyone we met on the trail was very friendly, wished us happy new year, and it was a very positive experience.  A few day later B rode his bike most of the 50 miles to Richmond.  That is definitely something I want to do too.

The trail goes past open fields with horses, then into the woods.

It was great getting into some open rural country again.