And It's November, Now

Two princesses continue with engineering a proper dam....

 and succeed.

And there was the Da Vinci Exhibit.

And play at the museum, afterward.
And falling in love with cardboard Automata.

 

There was just about a whole week of friends, there...
and Pie.

There was science and snowflakes,

The reemergence of a passion for red glitter,

 and creating with nature.

We've painted with new techniques,

sewed,

prayed,

and voted in a Presidential election.
And--oh, yes.  This was all of us.  (We've spent many, many hours in our home discussing politics over the last couple of months.)
And it was a most excellent experience!
My facebook accounting of the moment, because I want to remember:  
Trev got his first look at a Presidential ballot, a little while ago. We were talking quietly (only three voters in there, and ten machines, so we went to the end, where there was plenty of room for us), we were looking at the ballot, and he was making sense of it, "Do you want to push the button for us?" I asked. "Yes!" "Here's the Presidential category, look closely and find who we want to vote for...."

It was awesome! Did lots of quiet talking about "straight party" voting, and the propositions, etc.
Maddie was included in our talk and ballott pointing, but she doesn't read well enough to know much about it.
A couple of minutes later, we were, done, and "Maddie? Do you want to be the one that sends our vote?" Oh, yes, she did!
I was kind of weird to get weepy about it, and I was supposing on the way out that maybe I was over-reacting, then I started asking the children how they felt.
"What do you think, guys? How do you feel about that? No big deal, or boring, or cool, or do you not have any feelings about it?"
"I feel really proud for voting! I"m happy about it!" said Trev.
"Yeah! I feel proud of myself, too!" says Maddie. "I felt all grown up, and I felt proud and like I was the one in charge!"
Well. [sniff] That will do.

We've snuggled by the heater,

had our first taste of winter

and discovered even more with paint.

We've sewed on the sewing machine,

 (this was Trevelyn),

 requested (and sung and loved) holiday music

and created with bangles.

We've measured,

spent the afternoon at the park, racing down tall snowy hills,

reformatted computer games and files (Trevy),

and wondered

 and raced some more.

We've laughed, and ran, and dove.

And it's all so,
so good.