American Girls

So lately we've been super into our American Girls. I decided to pull mine out for the girls to play with, and I was immediately sucked back into my ten year old body. I absolutely loved dressing up my dolls and setting up imaginary situations, and it was surprisingly fun to set it all up again. On display here are Samantha, who Meriahna says has "passed away" meaning she's no longer being made, and a "make your own" American Girl Doll. We can't wait until the new store opens up at Oak Park Mall.

Sydney also helped me be a better wife to Johnny this week by helping me decorate cookies to send to him. Sorry to ruin the surprise Johnny. I hope they get there looking something like this. Notice Sydney's use of Christmas sprinkles and Valentine's Day sprinkles; very festive.

There are days when I miss my long hair (I cut off over a foot), so I make myself feel better by brushing and playing with Meriahna's. I think I learned how to do this in an American Girl magazine back in the day. Did anybody get the actual American Girl magazine, not just the catalogue? Oh I loved that. So much better than Hannah Montana. Yeah I said it.

Before I begin, please notice the sleeves of Silly Bandz going up and down both of Sydney's arms. I had nothing to do with that. So, Sydney is practicing reading and writing and ended up writing a book in the process. She wrote it herself and illustrated it herself. She calls it "Happy Day," and it is a compelling narrative about a girl who loses her toys and then finds them. Meriahna has one on the way about bullying. I'm pretty sure Pulitzer Prizes are in the mail.

Sweet Home Augusta

It's 6:13 am, and I am currently arriving into Augusta. But Rachel, you say, I thought you were leaving Augusta today. Well, I say, that's absolutely correct. I just sat on the plane for an hour only to hear that we have a pressure problem, and this airport is so tiny that they have to call a local mechanic from the nearest town to fix the plane, and they don't think he'll be up this early, so it might take awhile. So yes, I just walked back into the Augusta airport.

They just came on the intercom and said that there are no seats on any flights out of Augusta until 6:30 tonight. Well then I'll have plenty of time for this post.


My visit with Johnny was absolutely wonderful. I feel like I don't mention him enough here, so I'm happy to report that he is alive and well. He has a cute little hotel room where he lives with his computer all set up, and he gets up early every morning to go to PT and then to class. That's where he is right now. He's relatively content.

Augusta is a whole different story. When we got in the car this morning at 4:30, it was 85 degrees. It's been over 100 degrees every day that I was here. My dad's friend described Augusta as a 'God-forsaken place full of whore houses' and something about liquor. I don't know if I would go that far, but it's definitely desolate. It's just dry and hot and big. They have a nice Jo-Ann's, though.

The next count down begins. 23 days.

It's art week! This week has been spent focusing on the finer things in life. On Monday, we went to Kaleidoscope. This amazingly wonderful free arts and crafts place run by Hallmark. They basically send all of their extra paper to this place so that kids can do crafts with it.

The girls made crowns and glasses and puzzles and all kinds of stuff. Not as cool as The Please Touch Museum, but it'll do.

After Kaleidoscope, we spent another day at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. The highlight of the trip was definitely the mummy, or the mommy as Meriahna called it. The girls went to look at the thing four separate times in our two hour trip. They found it so cool and creepy.

When I was little, my mom would take us to the museum, and we would each get to buy one postcard with a painting or sculpture on it. Then we would go around the museum and try to find our piece of art. Sydney picked out this picture and was able to find it all by herself. She said her favorite part about her picture was the trees because they give us air. Yes, yes they do.

Here's Meriahna with her fruit buffet. She and Syd were talking in the car afterward, and she said that she loved looking at the paintings because they came to life in her mind, and she felt like she was inside of them. Yeah, um she's nine. Art teacher on our hands perhaps?

Classic. Contemplating life's difficulties. Meriahna was very moved throughout the whole tour by all the artwork portraying Jesus on the cross. She just couldn't comprehend why people would do that to such a "good guy." It was very interesting to see her begin to grapple with her beliefs. Sydney, on the other hand, was thinking about going to Subway for lunch....And you may notice that they both have on jean shorts under their skirts. I told them it might be cold in the museum, and they should bring a sweater. They decided to wear two t-shirts and jean shorts under their skirts in case they got cold. They were nice and cozy.

I'm sorry, it's how hot?

This pretty much sums up our weekend. It's been almost 100 degrees the last two days. Austin had a baseball game on Saturday morning followed by Syd's t-ball game followed by a softball game for Meriahna.

This was Sydney's first t-ball game. She did an excellent job hitting the ball off of the tee and standing in her ready position that her dad and brother taught her. She also ran to the ball every once in awhile when it came toward her. By the end of the game, though, she was singing to herself and dancing around her little spot in the outfield. Sigh, I've trained her so well.

Saturday morning we had an American Girl tea party at Starbucks with Sarah and Katie. The girls did the dolls' hair and our hair while wearing the pajamas that I made them. Yes I'm that obnoxious person who brings kids to a public place and lets them take it over. We had numerous elderly people smiling, however, and asking when they could get a hair appointment. Oh yeah and Sydney spilled her entire hot chocolate all over the floor; we are those people as well.

And for my one day off this week, the fam and I went to visit Jessie at her apartment in Lawrence. It's a cool old house; she shares the first floor with her friend, Natalie. Notice how Johnny and my apartment could fit inside of her dining room. She does realize that she'll have to get used to living in more of a closet-sized room once she moves to Brooklyn in a month. Alex walked around Lawrence with us today, and he and Jessie decided that we need to make English family t-shirts. Any ideas?

What a week!

What a week. I find myself saying that at the end of every week these days. Johnny is still gone down in Georgia and will be there for a lot longer. Meriahna did a volleyball camp this week as you can see in the action shot that Sydney took of her running around the gym. We barely made it through the four days, but her arms are finally healing from getting beaten with volleyballs.

This week was also my birthday. It is definitely hard to get used to birthdays as an adult. You find yourself counting your facebook posts, sad because they aren't nearly as numerous as your freshman year of college. But Johnny, his family, and my family did an excellent job of making me feel loved on my 23rd birthday.

The Adams always do balloons and some kind of cake for me. I lucked out this year because there's a new cupcake place in town, and Melissa brought me three cupcakes...which were promptly scarfed down by Austin and Meriahna. I managed to sneak one out and eat it. Heaven.

Silly Bandz, which I'm sure you know, are all the rage with the crazy kids these days. Sydney loves hers and photographs them often. Even my high schoolers had them. We went to the orthodontist this week, and yes, even the orthodontist had some to offer to Meriahna and Syd. A cowboy boot and a hot dog.

So later on in the week, Meriahna, Sydney, and I went to go get our nails done. The girls got manicures, and I got a pedicure. This smile never came off of Meriahna's face the whole time. She was very thankful, saying "Thank you Rachel! I'm so happy!" numerous times. It was nice to be thanked even though it wasn't my money!

The finished product. It came off about a day later because we went swimming, played with chalk, etc.

Next, the biggest little thing to hit Leawood since Town Center is Peach Wave. It's self serve fro-yo. I've gone with my fam and with the Adams. We LOVE it. Mitchell usually puts about six candy bars worth of candy on top of his yogurt. I usually follow that up with the classic, "You want some frozen yogurt with that candy bar?" Gets 'em every time....Ah I'm turning into my dad.

And to end the week on a strong note, we decided to have a lemonade stand. We went to the grocery store and got a whole bunch of lemons. I must not have communicated the fact that the lemons were indeed for the lemonade because when we got home, Sydney went straight to the pantry and got out the Crystal Light Lemon Drink mix.

Hard at work squeezing the lemons. The girls squeezed them all themselves. There was a lot of team work going on. Gotta love it.

Because of this picture, Meriahna had lemon pulp in her hair the rest of the day.

So here's how the lemonade stand went down. We made signs and named our stand, "The Lemon Tree." Meriahna and Sydney created the motto, Great Lemonade at a Great Price, or something along those lines. The girls piled into the wagon, and I dragged all of us up to the top of the hill where there would be the most cars. The wagon has gotten much heavier over the years. As the heat wore on and no one was stopping, Meriahna decided that we need a plan for how to get people to stop. The plan consisted of Meriahna going further down the street to act as a look out for cars. When she saw one, she would yell, "Wake up and smell the coffee!" to Sydney who would then start doing cartwheels down the sidewalk to get people to stop. It worked pretty well. Our first customer was a blonde girl named Taylor. Sydney is still convinced that it was Taylor Swift. "No seriously guys." Katie came to the stand, and when we told her about Taylor, she asked if Justin Bieber came by as well. Sydney just rolled her eyes like that was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.

Volleyball, birthday, and lemonade. Not a bad week. Johnny, I get to see you in six days!

The Adams Family and Worlds of Fun

Friday was our big Worlds of Fun day! For those of you who aren't in the know, Worlds of Fun is Kansas City's big amusement park. We go every year, but this was the first time it was just the four of us instead of a big group, so we had a lot of fun. Here's our day!



Group photo at the entrance to the park!

Where Syd had to stand for a lot of rides because she's not 48 inches. She was a good sport, though. She's brave, but I don't think she has the fearlessness of her sister who went with me on the Tower of Terror in Disney Land when she was six.

The Red Baron in Snoopy Land. The lady who ran this ride took literally ten minutes to get it moving. She checked each kid, which was a good thing, but she kept moving them around to different seats for no apparent reason, and then kids would get bored and would get off, and then she'd move kids to those new seats. The ride itself only lasted about 30 seconds. Mers and Syd seemed to like it, though.



My favorite quote from Sydney for the day: When she got off of the Red Baron, she looked at me and said, "I just really want to hug Snoopy. That's what I really want to do!" So we hugged Snoopy and Sally and Charlie Brown. I always have a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see people I know hugging characters. We spend kids' entire lives telling them not to talk to strangers, not to go with strangers, etc. Yet, we let them run up and hug random people in giant, creepy, costumes. There is something wrong with that, America.

This is my favorite area of Worlds of Fun. They created this giant room that's full of foam balls, ball vacuums, ball guns, ball everything. Kids can go around the room and collect the balls, load them in guns, and shoot them at people around the room. It's nice and cool in there, so we usually end up in there for at least 45 minutes on any given trip. The kids spent the whole time trying to find a gun that would shoot me in the spot where I was sitting.

The Viking Voyager! We didn't get very wet, but Sydney freaked out after we got off the ride. The final plunge scared her. She was able to cowgirl up and forage on.

And get her face painted! While Mers and I were on the Timberwolf, Austin took Sydney to get her face painted like a swan princess. Beautiful. It only took a few hours to get itchy and be wiped off.

So cute. Eating something like $15 worth of Dippin' Dots.

A perfect picture of each of them. Sydney: "Look at me!" Meriahna: "Goofball" Austin: "Why am I here?"

After we left, we drove home to their house, and guess the first thing they wanted to do when they got home? Read! Love that reading chart.

Sweet Summertime

This summer has been a blast so far. I'm back in the saddle again, babysitting for the Adams family. This is my fourth summer with them, and it's proving to be the most entertaining yet. After babysitting them for a little while, I kind of thought that all children were funny, but I've realized over the years that these kids are definitely unique in their ability to make a regular situation hysterical. Here's a little documentary of how we spend our days.



A lot of changes have been going on in their house, so we've been doing a lot of purging. Austin and I decided to go through his room and clean out anything that he didn't use anymore. About a thousand Pokemon cards and McDonald's toys later, Austin and I filled up the entire trunk of my car with bags of stuff to donate. We took it all to the Church of the Resurrection garage sale and then got him a grape slushie from Sonic and me a cherry limeaid from Winstead's. A beautiful day it was.

The big new addition to our regular summer activities is the Adams' Reading Chart. Now, of course, I am an English teacher, and I've seen how kids can fall behind in school because of lack of learning during the summer. Supernanny style, I created a reading chart where each kid receives one sticker for every ten minutes that he or she reads. There are different prizes for different goals, prizes which they helped me pick. Five stickers is a cool pencil; thirty stickers is a video game, etc. I did very little to promote this reading thing other than to put the chart out and let them pick the prizes. You may notice that Austin has something like 36 stickers on his chart in this picture. This was two days after we started the chart. These kids have become reading fools. I had no idea that the promise of a pencil would shut off the t.v. and video games for a week. Even Sydney is looking at books and making up stories, pretending to read. I highly recommend this method to anyone trying to get kids to read. Meriahna actually begged me today to give her an extra ten minutes to read her book...how can you say no?

One thing that's really important to me when I'm with them is to have family dinners. They usually help me make the dinner in some way. Tonight, Meriahna, the nine year old, helped me make beef stew. She used a big knife and cut up all the vegetables. And because she helped make it, she was much more willing to eat the new food. One thing that we always do around the dinner table is say the best part of our day and the worst part of our day. The kids always say nice things like, "The best part of my day was making stew with Rachel." But thanks to Sydney, after you say the best and worst part of your day, you have to make up a fake one. So tonight, the best part of Sydney's day was when she jumped off a cliff, and the worst part was when she had an alligator in her hand, and it ate her as she was falling off the cliff. And so it goes.

Today was also a big day in the English household. My baby brother turned 14. It's difficult to see in this picture, but he's walking around the house collecting presents from the birthday string. For every one of our birthdays growing up, my dad would string some string all over the house, and your presents would be placed along the string. You follow the string and pick up your presents. I plan to have the birthday string for my 23rd birthday on Tuesday. Mitchell is clearly very excited to be collecting his presents on his 14th birthday string. It's very odd seeing him as a teenager with the deep voice and his 5'5"ness. I remember holding him when he was only 2 hours old. Sigh. I guess growing up is a good thing.