Hanging with mom,

Been busy making vids with my AG dolls coming soon to youtube.

Great Holt Quote

"We made a terrible mistake when (with the best of intentions) we separated children from adults and learning from the rest of life, and one of our most urgent tasks is to take down the barriers we have put between them and let them come back together..." ~John Holt

Lexie turns 9! 24 hrs of a birthday...

It started at little before midnight on Sept 8th: We decorated and put out her presents.

At midnight we sang "Happy B-day to Lex ..while she a had a bowl of strawberry ice cream served with a candle! She then decided to open one gift...it turned out to be...

Picturecka! which lead to a few early morning rounds of fun game playing .

She also was the winner of our first jelly bean game...Guess How Many...she guessed 99 and was spot on...Hooray Lex...they where the sour variety her all time fav!!! I think we all where in bed by 2am!?! I think...Wilks and Liv are the real night owls in our house.

In the morning I baked cupcakes and set out our first activity: beads for making wishing bracelets.

Liv just waking up and ready for breakfast...is checking out her goody bag!

Wilkes makes a cool necklace that says "Will is cool"

Here's Lex's bracelet which says Laugh, Believe, Dream....all that I hope she is blessed with for all of her years...lots of laughter, always to believe in herself, and to never give up on her dreams!

Next came opening presents... make-up, webkinz and clothes oh my!

she loved the clothes and was so surprised to get a webkinz deer from Liv ( it's retired and very hard to come by) we filmed most of the gift opening and her reactions and commentary was priceless

A blue glass prism..paper weight...she'd been conveting at a local museum gift shop for about a year! We start to make plans to go to Target so she can pick out her camera later in the day!

Time to play with all the new stuff...

About a hour later she decides to get dressed in some of her new b-day fashions...including a new knit hip hat!

Next came our jelly bean tasting challenge...13 flavs in all!

Eeew....not liking this one...it turned out to be root beer flavor!

Liv takes her turn........

and Wilks...the consummate chef must cleanse his palette in between each taste...too funny!

and the winner... by one point.... the b-day girl... now with her new fake hair in!


More exploring of her new stuff...this is a cool make -up sketching book.

We went to CC's to do the arcade thang...it wasn't crowded (first day of school for most and heavy rains) we had a ton of fun...and what made this sooo great was the girls each had way over 2000 points (from all the past visits over the years) to trade in... they both chose great prizes, Liv got a cool water ball and Lex got a Bratz baby animal set and they still both have about 1000 points left.

After CC fun we headed to Toys R US because Lex had wallet full of b-day money and her $3 Geoffry B-day club gift card....long story short she circled the store about 4 times...with no clue of what she wanted...she ended up at the clearance shelf in front of the registers...she bought 3 boxes of Kashi cereal and a large bar size Reece's' for a grand total of .20 cents after her GC...no kidding...LOL...I think all this couponing is rubbing off on her! Next we headed to Target...and after much deliberation...she went with her 1st choice and got a cool Sony camera!

By the time we got home it was dark out...I put Lex's B-day dinner choice in the oven, to heat up and we got busy with the decorating of the cupcakes...yummy fun...Lex had fun making cool colors with the frosting!

Here's our finished product....later we added candles and a darkened room and some joyous singing voices!

Baked Ziti dinner hot and delish!

After dinner and b-day celebration song its cupcake eating time...oh yeah!
Then outside for our last game: a jelly bean race...nine on a spoon held by the teeth...Liv was the big winner this time...all though Wilkes and I impressively dropped none!!!

One last card around 10:30 pm this one sang to her..."yoo make me feel so goo ee goo ee goo."

This was the last scene I saw...the girls.... happily playing......before I headed up to bed just around midnight.

Happy 9th Birthday ! Baby Girl!

Momma Love

Momma and puppy on a picnic. By Lexie

Jellyfish One Lex Zip!

Ouch! Poor Lex got stung last night swimming at York River Beach. We tried the pee thing..but (it) did not give her much relief...we ended up calling from the Help Box...EMTs followed shortly after...and fixed her right up! The pic above was taken this morning...looks so much better, just an oblong discoloration...last night it was quite swollen.

This was about 45mins before the sting!

This was 45 mins after treatment....enjoying our outdoor supper!

Petting Sharks and Gel Putty Farts!

Today we went to the Richmond Science museum...to check out thier new Shark exhibit...they had some wicked cool sand sculptures on display and the girls got to pet a white spotted bamboo shark. We enjoyed ourselves... on the way out we stopped at the gift shop...we found and purchased some sea putty with little sea creatures in it...It's so cool and cold to the touch...its providing hours of fun this even. Among it's many amazing abilities...is it's fart noise making one, when pressed it into a container.

Swimming with the Sharks!

Sharks have supper sensitive sense of touch!

The Sand Sculptures were amazing!

Liv and Lex got to do some sculpting of their own, at the outside sand boxes and Liv found about 10 more shark teeth to add to her collection!

Lex made jewelry with her putty among other things...it's definitely some of the best slime/putty we ever played with.

"B" Campy

That's the name we have come up with for our new to us 1988 Xplorer RV Van. It fits in so many ways....for one, smaller RVs are called B Classes in the RV world. Two, the previous owners' grandsons had nicknamed it 'Campy'...ta girls liked that and decided to add our initial for extended ownership...and three 'Be Campy'...it's cheesy funny....just like us!

Since we bought it home, it's been a home away from home for Liv and Lex....we all love hang'n out in it....could use some air con....but it meets our criteria.....we can't wait to go on our first trip! We have to conserve our funds so it may be a while..but for now we got it juiced up...curbside...gives a whole nother meeting to staycation.

Closer to the Dream!

Ok...fingers crossed in a few days we should be the proud albeit totally green owners of this Dodge 1988 Class B RV 19' long...

NJ Hightlights!

Great week in NJ! Here are just a few of highlights!

Hanging with the fam at Grandma M's.........

Making and eating Smores!

Buying new shades!

Trenton, NJ State Museum....Liv toke some great pics...me not so much. We were so taken with the global warning exhibit and the the kindness we encountered that day!

The wedding......

this is the beautiful, fabulous Grandma M. !!!

It's was a beautiful event....the extra touches really spoke of Aunt Rhea's talent. It's was great to see all the Fluhr's in one place.....Dad and Mary K you are soooo missed!

We also got to see the movie "Ice Age ...Dawn of Dino"; do the "Mall" and get lots of Cuz'n playing time, during this visit. Liv and Lex had a wonderful time with Aunt Joy and Alyssa in Ocean Grove and overnight. Joy took them to visit Nanny & Pa, they always enjoy the ice cream treats Nanny buys for them...and seeing Pa and giving him their gift, they made....made their visit! We'll be back...real soon!