Happy Birthday to Megan

We went to Baltimore to see the wonderful Walters Art museum last week.

"We" was the kids and Nana and Kelsey and me.

I finally made it down to the kids area on the bottom floor. They had costumes.

They had a great and supervised kids craft area.

They had child appropriate art stuff generally.

On the top floor they had a Turner.

They are having an Art of Asia exhibit and a Martin Luther exhibit.

They were both excellent.

I really prefer D.C. to Baltimore for so many reasons but the Walters is a very strong argument for a city that I don't love.

I wish the Martin Luther stuff had been more in depth or even just more full but what they had was beautiful and whoever chose the quotes did a fabulous job.

I particularly liked this one of the last supper with Christ holding St. John...apparently Luther quite liked it too.

I think it appealed to the anxious in me but also to the gentle.

For lunch we took a recommendation from one of the staff that was helping kids do art.

We wound up at a cool place called Mount Vernon Marketplace . I'm not sure if it was because I with Kelsey (who also went to Denmark this year) of if it was actually just an issue of being out and about but it reminded me a bit of Paper Island.

I got a Belgian waffle with sugar pearls in it. YUM!

Megan found all the Halloween things. Here is Baltimore's own Mr. Poe.

When we got home we made Halloween style rice crispy treats.

Here is Kiernan's.

We put up Halloween decorations around the hot tub and soaked.

I have been thinking about the news of the severe decline in flying insects lately. Its really very bad. Its bad for the planet and it bad for us.

I decided to do something about it.

I'm going to be putting up bee houses (and a bat house). I want Mason Bees and local Bees and I am going to try to get my family and friends to also want them.

We will make you a Mason Bee house if you will put one in your yard. Please let me know.

They don't sting and you wont get honey and they are great pollinators.

Read about Mason Bees here.

We went to Gavers farm and got pumpkins.

It was super crowded.

Megan decided we were having a who can get the biggest pumpkin contest.

Oh gracious!

Kiernan had a Cub Scout hike the same day so we left Martin and daddy and Megs and took some donuts for the road.

There is a nice Audobon hiking place right here in Mount Airy and that is where we went. There still seems to be some tension between Kiernan and Alex. It makes me sad.

They have been on the outs lately and I wish it were not so.

Megan had Girl Scouts this week.

She gets dropped off and picked up.

I got off work and headed to her school and hung out in the parking lot reading my book.

Its so different than Cub Scouts. I have no idea whats going on in there. Its very encouraging and independent I still wish I could see her doing whatever it is they are doing though.

She earned her main petal and was inducted and got a pin.

I spent the next morning trying to get it to iron on right. She also got a few patches for the back. I had to text her troop leader to find out where to put those.

I took a friend to pick up a car. They place she was getting it from had 3 great things going for it. 1.I was out side and not in the lab. 2. look at the river!

I was really very pleased.

Because 3. they had this puppy!

Look at this puppy!

Then it was Megan's birthday.

I asked her what she wanted for breakfast on her birthday morning.

She said Ice Cream and broccoli.

Behold the Megan breakfast of doom.

For dinner it was cake and fondue and pizza and her presents.

This is her hatchimal.

She loves it so much she can even be distracted from cake by it.

Crazy child!

On the weekend we went to Baker Park/ Frederick High School for a 5k and fun run.

It was called the Headless horseman 5K'

Some of us were more ready to run than others.

The kids and David did a 1K fun run and it was clear that Megan was feeling pretty under the weather. She was coughing and tired.

She loved all the costumes and music and free candy though.

I broke out my wonder woman costume. I got my best time this year 35:47. On the other hand i got severely dehydrated and wrecked myself for the following 24 hours.

I knew that I was dehydrated early into it but a 5k has only 1 water stop. I kept looking for water fountains in the park but they were all turned off after Labor Day.

I got the worst headache and threw up and stayed in bed for about 15 hours. It was the pits. It also sent my heart rate all over the place so my anxiety decided to jump on the bandwagon...

boo

Mom did her first 5K!

Go Nana!

We threw Megan a friends birthday party the next day.

We went to Pizza Hut and Nana and Kiernan made a Volcano cake.

I was still not up to par when this happened and was super  nervous about being around people but Megs had fun and it mostly went well. I wish that she was more evenhanded with her attention as she spent most time monopolizing her bff and in my mind not paying enough attention to the other girls;. On the other hand she is 6...

6???

She got tons of gifts and she loved them all.

She barely ate her cake again but did start an impromptu Pizza Hut dance party.

We carved our pumpkins.

I got a white one that looks nice and spooky.

Megan's was too big to carve easily so David did quite a lot of it.

Kiernan went online and got a Mario to carve into his.

Nice independent actions from that one.

In the end they turned out  rather well.