Visit to B-Town

You know, I have this friend.  She's the one (to my South Bend friends) that I mention once or twice a minute to talk about the creative things she's doing.  She's the one (to my Provo friends) that I battled through the teaching trenches with.  She's the one (to Olivia's friends) that's Libby's mom--and Liv and Libs have been besties from birth.  (Olivia actually visited Libby in the hospital.)  We've each moved two or three times each since our Provo days, but we're still within driving distance, and since I needed a small vacation this last weekend, the girls and I headed on down to visit the Soelbergs in their new Bloomington digs.  John was on call or moonlighting all weekend, and Joe, in his hard-working MBA mode, was in California, and so we had a houseful of little girls and happy moms.
We did so many things they need to be listed in number mode.
1. Sara and I worked on cutting out blocks (from our scraps) for a Paintbox Quilt.  I am not a quilter, but I am a mathematician, and I thought that I could honestly figure out the fabric needs for this little quilt.  I was wrong.  Last time we attempted the math for this, we were honestly coming up with answers like 67 yards.  12 yards!  15 yards?  Obviously, WAY off.  This time, since we were using scraps, we were just cutting what blocks we could, but I made about 10,000 mistakes on 10 blocks.  I can see that this is never going to be my talent.
2.  We had the girls make Homemade Taffy.  There are no pictures because we were, quite literally, up to our elbows in both sticky taffy and greasy butter.  There may actually be a 1:1 ratio of taffy:butter in the finished product because it takes that much to keep the candy moving in the little hands.  But I absolutely recommend this activity for anyone with five- and six-year olds.  (File it away for a rainy spring afternoon.)

3.  We visited "Suesspicious Behavior" a birthday party for Dr. Seuss at the Bloomington Public Library.  We fish for "Red Fish and Blue Fish".

We made fun Cat-in-the-Hats.

Livi and Libs opted to be Thing 1 and Thing 2.  (Perfect for them).

Bella begged at least two extra cupcakes off the cake server lady while I was dealing with Mimi meltdowns.  Awesome. 
4.  The girls played and partied and pulled every toy out of every box and basket and then crashed.

Hard.

5.  Bella smeared toothpaste in Sara's carpet, dumped cat food all over the floor, alternately chased and ran away from Phelpsie (the sweetest cat in the world), emptied Sara's pantry, begged for animal crackers incessantly, cried herself sick after being put to bed (she NEVER cries when being put to bed), and loved the freedom of eating at the big table (too much, really).  And Sara still loved her.  That's why we love Sara.
6.  We partied hard at the Big Hill.  (Reminiscent of our Big Hill from Toledo.)  The girls rolled, and ran, and fought to their hearts' content.

I reveled in the beginning of spring weather and relished not wearing tights to church. 
7.  Mimi and Jenna had their best interaction ever.  They've been frenemies since birth--both strong-willed, both determined to be the big girls and not the little girls, but this time, they hit it off perfectly.  It was wonderful.

8.  We drove home, sad to miss our friends ("I wish we could have our dad and school and Libby and Jenna all in the same town," Mimi sobbed as we drove away.")  We planned some excursions for later this spring, and wished Joe congratulations (Congratulations!) on his new exotic San Diego internship.