In Which You Just Have to Take my Word for It

Although I have plenty of beautiful pictures to share, my camera cord and I are about a thousand miles apart, so they will have to wait.  Yesterday we visited the Petit Jean State Park near Morrilton, Arkansas.  We were blessed with a beautiful, mild winter day and completely enjoyed it.  My brother lives near both Pinnacle Mountain and Petit Jean Mountain.  We picked Petit Jean because it has a spectacular 90 foot waterfall.  The trail to the waterfall was 2 miles roundtrip and listed as "moderate to hard."  If you are thinking we were a little fool-hardy to go on such a trail with 3 little kids...well you would not be too far off base...and not only because significant portions of the trail were flooded.

The trail started off with a steep decent down the mountain - about 1/2 miles worth - all crude steps made out of uncut stones by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.  At the bottom, you cross a footbridge over raging rapids and then follow a winding, rocky (and by no means flat) path up the river to the waterfall.  During this time of the year (and especially because we had heavy rains the day before) the waterfall is at its biggest - and it was immense and amazing and worth the effort it took to get there, which is saying a lot!

You can also view the waterfall from an observation deck down a wheelchair accessible boardwalk at the top of the mountain (about 0.1 mile in length) - the waterfall is just as impressive, but it was somehow extra satisfying to look down on it knowing that we had just been at its feet. 

The kids held up pretty well.  I knew Caleb had the stamina to walk 2 miles, I wasn't expecting it to be so rugged, but he walked the whole thing pretty easily.  Annalise I thought would need to be carried some, but she didn't start asking until the return trip.  Most of the trail though was difficult enough that it was really too hard to carry her far (a job we heaped on my brother!). They both liked the waterfall and the trail, and were very tired when we got back to the van!  Rob carried Natalie the whole way - again, maybe not the wisest decision we've ever made, but she sang the whole way, had a fabulous time and Rob is an experienced enough hiker that it was ok.  The pictures, I hope to post next week, but you can always find pictures of the waterfall online.

Early Christmas Morning

As we usually do, we had our Christmas morning a few days early since we will be going out of town. This was the first year that Caleb understood enough about time that he knew it was the wrong day...but he didn't let that get him down :)

Cinnamon Roll Tree!

I learned two things today:

1. If you have a same-sex younger sibling, who is young enough to think tearing paper is super fun, but too old to get rattles and teething toys, you pretty much get double the toys.

2. Packing winter clothes make me sneeze...a lot!

I kind of already knew that about the winter clothes.  And seriously, packing winter clothes makes me so thankful to live in Florida.  It is so nice to not have to layer clothes on little kids.  But the packing is very haphazard - I don't know how much winter weather we will have, so I'm packing coats and hats and jackets and this and that to layer - tights, but also socks in case it is too warm, etc.  And of course when we come back, we will get home in the afternoon and any winter clothes we are wearing will be sweltering, so a warm weather outfit too.  And Dana, I don't mean to make you jealous, but we have plans to have lunch with some very good friends with alliterative names who happen to live in the same town as my brother.  Merry Christmas to me! 

And Merry Christmas to all of you too :)

"Snow"

Delaware...briefly

I could not get excited about Delaware, but I didn't want to get bogged down, so we did a quick week with Delaware and looked at five things:


It's shape - there are only 3 counties in Delaware and at it's widest it's like 35 miles across.  At the narrowest, it's less than 10.



State bug: Ladybug...not very Christmas-y!

State beverage - milk.



State flag...we colored this page while we drank milk.



Point of historical interest - first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, so we made feather pen(cil)s.

State dessert - peach pie, we had spaghetti with clams in the sauce for dinner.

Connecticut

We have gotten a little behind on our state studies - Fridays were hectic and I had some other things distracting me too. But we did study Connecticut in October and I never got around to posting about it. Connecticut - was so much more than I expected it to be. Lots of companies are based in Connecticut - Pez, Pepperidge Farm, Legos, ESPN - I'm sure because it is close to New York and the taxes are lower - a lesson that would be over my kids' heads for now!

Just as we started our study, it was prime fall leaf season, I think by the end of the month it had snowed in Connecticut.

We got this craft from High Five magazine - they are play-doh leaves.

Connecticut - birthplace of the lollipop.  We made our own in the microwave - suprisingly easy.

Our Connecticut meal - I don't remember what all this was called - it was leeks and potatoes.

This was a kind of pot pie with chicken and clams.  Both of these were good, but not very pretty!

For dessert, I took the easy route and supported the Connecticut economy :) Mystic is a city and seaport in Connecticut...and these cookies were BOGO that week too.

We did make our state outline like we usually do, but I didn't take a picture.  We are doing an abbreviated study on Delaware, a state that I am having a very difficult time getting excited about. 

A funny note about the "Fifty Nifty" - we sing a song that lists all the states in alphabetical order and it absolutely puts Natalie to sleep - that is she loves to hear it at bedtime.  My parents can attest to hearing her cry over the phone only to calm down as soon as I start singing , "Alabama, Alaska..." by the time I get to California, she is down for the count.

Typical Stuff

Bugs, flowers, dirt, bubbles...you know, the stuff we are known for.

Ah,  ground orchid finally in bloom again!  I love them...too bad Natalie loves to pull the flowers off too.

A superworm.  We didn't catch this one though.  Yesterday I had an errand near a reptile store that the kids have only seen from the road.  They really wanted to go in - I mean really really really really wanted to go in.  I hesitated at first and then decided, that since I NEVER stop in that strip mall, we might as well go.  It turned out to be a very nice reptile store with extremely friendly staff.  Caleb made friends with the guy at the counter and he gave him this superworm.  I don't think this bug knows how lucky it is to be given to someone who is going to coddle it.  Most of them end up as a reptile's meal!  Just FYI, it's the larval stage of a beetle.

Countdown candy canes - we're counting down until we leave for our trip.  "Christmas" will be a day earlier.

Bubbles!

Building a river in the backyard.

This is "over the top" any way you look at it!

Encouraged by Eggs

Gettin' Christmas-y

Putting up the tree on Thanksgiving - notice the turkey in the background.



Usually the bottom 1/3 of the Christmas tree is such a hassle to keep decorated that I just leave it bare, but this year, it is very important to Caleb to keep it decorated and he has been policing it!  I say, let him have it!



The only kind of snowman we'll see in our neighborhood!

Oh look!  A puppy for Christmas!

Annalise admiring our outdoor lighting.  I bought some white lights at a yard sale for $1.  All I knew was that they worked.  When I got them home and really looked at them, I saw it was a net light!  Which means when I realized I'd put it on upsidedown, it took 3 seconds to fix.  I LOOOOOOVE it.

Sleeping in a multicolored glow.

For all this decorating, I do not feel like Christmas is so close.  I don't think it's the weather, I think it's just come so quickly this year.

Peek-a-Boo!