Merida, my Merida

I am advised that my Grandbaby was in a foul mood this morning. It seems she does not think there should be school on Halloween. I've yet to find out exactly why she has taken this position but I know I want to hear the rationale straight from her.  Her logic amazes and amuses me. I can hardly wait to see her tonight. To talk to her...and to see her all decked out for trick-or-treating.
I've yet to see her in full costume. There was a parade costumes at her school last week. I did not get to attend but the pictures I've seen are darling.
 I am tickled that she ultimately settled on the first Disney/Pixar princess, Merida, from the movie "Brave." Her costume suits her. Her ginger coloring just goes with the wild red hair wig that goes with the costume. She did not carry a bow and arrows to school and likely won't tonight, though I intend to get pictures of her with those, too.

I am posting a photo here for you to see. i think she is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen...and a dead ringer for the heroine of "Brave."

 Merida

My Merida

Scarecrows

It took the better part of two weekends but we made scarecrows at our house. The results are happy enough. At least I am happy with them.
At our house there is one on the inside, one on the outside. The grandbaby wanted one for her house so naturally we made one for there, also. Two are girls. One is a boy.
We started with a scarecrow "lady." She is quite the belle. She has a ruffled top and flowing white skirt fitted onto a garden trellis. Her hat was fashioned from a flower pot. Her hair is made of  sprigs of parsley, rosemary and thyme with a but of lavender and wild onion thrown in. Her jewelry is made of acorns and wooden
beads. Her pocketbook is fashioned from a miniature pumpkin. We like her so much that we've left her in the breakfast room. The little boy scarecrow, recycled from years past, is on the porch.  The cool girl pumpkin is in the flower bed at Grandbaby's house.
I was left fully satisfied with the results but a longing to see Leonie Ledy-Lepin, the french foreign exchange student who participated in our first annual scarecrow making fest...

halloween tea party

 

I've blogged about my girls and their tea parties before. My Amy hosts a "tea" to celebrate most holidays. She started on her sister Katie's first Christmas, though she was just barely sitting up. Her little niece Emma is now her Aunt Amy's best tea partner.
They had gingerale and apple cider rather than tea this time. Hay stacks, kiwi fruit and tea biscuits along with Amy's favorite harvest mix were also on the menu.
I chose the theme for the tea table, being a big fan of Frank and his bride, and all.
We used the little lantern our friend Linda Robinson Bailey sent us, for the doll's/bear's table.
They had not even gotten done with this one before they started discussing a "Thanksgiving Tea."

Traditions, traditions...

My first born is the ensurer of traditions in the family. In her economy, anything done more than once, must be repeated thereafter. If it's fun. To her.
My own personality causes me to be drawn to repetition, pre-planning...
so I appreciate this about her.
This time of year is her favorite because it is rife with traditions. Our annual autumn schedule begins in earnest on the fourth Saturday of October with the Sorghum Festival. This year, the festival was the only good thing about us having to miss a family reunion in Natchez, Mississippi.

This year, we were all about the annual scarecrow making tradition. It was not until Halloween night that I realized we had not carved a single pumpkin though we did some intensive pumpkin decorating.
In October, we are all about caramel apple cider and candy corn.
We always take at least a day halloween costume selection and purchase or a weekend to  make them.
The first weekend in November, I go shopping for flower bulbs and other holiday essentials with a close friend. We go as soon as the Halloween things are cleared away and the Christmas goods are on the shelves.
We always take at least one long drive just to view the foliage. Amaryllis and paperwhites are planted to bloom for Christmas. The final touches are put onto whatever we make for the Indian Museum Bazaar, held the Friday before Thanksgiving.
The weekend after, the tree goes up and I go with my sisters for our Annual Christmas shopping trip.
Everything else that happens the months of October and November are scheduled, when possible, around those events.
It suits my personality, her need for order and both our birth order propensities!

Tennis, anyone?

My daughter was in the seventh grade when she decided to be an athlete.
She had taken dance for several years by that time but had not danced competitively. Neither had her career as a gymnast been particularly serious. Had she opted to get serious in either of those areas I would not have been surprised. There was some precedent. For her  chosen sport  there really was none.
She decided tennis was her sport. She had batted a ball around the court some with a cousin who played. But she did not own a racquet. She had never taken a tennis lesson.
When she told me that she intended to "try out" for the junior high tennis team, I suggested lessons, in fact. A tennis club located nearby offered lessons after school and all summer.
"There's no time," she told me. "Tryouts are just in a few days."
Try as I might to convince her she needed to learn the sport better before she played it, she was determined to go for it.
And go for it, she did.
Waiting until the fall would not work, she explained, because only a single seventh grader would likely be selected for the team.
After school lessons would not help. she reasoned, because there was not enough time for them to make a difference.
Oh, and she made the team. 

Of course.
She was determined...
the next year, she made the JV team.
the year after, she made the high school team.
She played in the state high school championships more than one of those years.
She attended her first year of college on a tennis scholarship.
She played at the national collegiate level.
This is why I am not concerned about her ability to navigate the rough waters of law school. She is determined...

Playing games

My sister convinced me to order vintage sets of jacks and and pick up sticks. She said we were long overdue. Perhaps becoming a grandmother has made her uncharacteristically nostalgic.

We spent many hours playing jacks and pickups sticks when we were children. While our elders played canasta and dominoes at family gatherings, we entertained ourselves and each other playing simpler games.
We looked forward to the time we could join the adults.
I have happy memories of telling ghost stories with a host of cousins while in the background the voices of my childhood were heard in the background making "bids" and "downs" and talking about being "set."
Both my grandmothers were avid Scrabble players and were patient enough to play with us almost as soon as we could spell.
My grandmother-in-law kept a wahoo board set up on her dining room table most of the time. We seldom visited her that we did not play at least one round. But none of those games, nor any of the card games we played... not even chinese checkers, which I still love to play,  are endeared to me, and apparently to my sister, like jacks and pickup sticks.
They've just arrived, by the way.  A game marathon is in the works.
P.S. I plan to best her...