The Grapes of Grump

 The cold that Alison had a couple weeks ago went through all the kids this week. They took turns being super whiney and grumpy and such, so it lasted all week. We ended up keeping them home from nature group and church. Unfortunately, we played with the Plastows right as Boo was starting to get sick and we didn't realize everyone was getting it, so we may have given it to them. (And then Mike decided that since we'd already probably infected them, the kids could keep playing with them all week.) Sorry, Amy!

So it was a grumpy week. That wasn't much fun.

Saturday morning we had a power outage for an hour or so! It took the kids quite a while to catch on to what had happened (Saturday morning is their screen time, and apparently they were all using apps that didn't require the internet), but when they did, they were excited and a bit concerned. Alison told them to collect wood for a fire, and we had a fire in the fireplace. That's always a good solution to power outages.

Then we were invited to Grandma Sheila's for lunch and to help them load things to take to the DI. We got a really nice bookcase to bring home, too. It was fun.

We also celebrated Rea's birthday on Saturday, when everyone was starting to feel a little better. She wanted a Redwall feast, and she made a whole menu and a shopping list and did most of the cooking. We had carrot stew and a veggie tray and a cheese platter with fruit, and a cheesecake parfait and a chocolate torte for dessert. It was delicious and she had a lot of fun making it. It was very cool.

She got jump ropes, candy making supplies, a doll table, a toy tea set, and a reading light as gifts. She also got lots of birthday cards and wishes. It was a good eleventh birthday. She's excited to start Young Women's in January.

Sunday afternoon we walked down the road to where a family had given us permission to pick the grapes on the outside of their fence. We made several quarts of white grape juice. It was very fun.

The grape house was very near the Little Free Library in our neighborhood, so the kids got books. Timmy got one about frogs and was really excited. Alison is encouraging him to do a project about frogs for school this coming week.

As we walked home, Sara spotted a mushroom and pointed it out to Mike. It was a perfectly ripe shaggy mane, so he was pretty excited. He put it in the stromboli he made for dinner (which of course prompted an outcry from the children, but oh well).

Rea sewed a cool bird Sunday afternoon. She is getting much better at being precise and following patterns and using finishing touches; it looks really, really good. We were impressed.