Day 31

Waiting for my cue.........

Oh the things I do for kids!! Wednesday night is always an adventure and I enjoy having the freedom to add something extra to the nights to make it more fun for the kids. I am still in the skit. My character is caving into peer pressure and wearing what other "friends" are telling her is very fashionable in the fabulous city of Paris. So for 4 weeks I have worn ridiculous outfits, each one more bizarre than the one before - all while I learn from Ms. Michelle about the effects of what peer pressure can do to a person. Our lessons are to teach the children that the only one we should follow for guidance is God. So tonight was week 4 of the wild costumes. Next week I will finally learn my lesson and wear regular, fashionable clothes. Every week, I would run and change my clothes in the rest room before class and I would get some pretty funny looks from people in the hallways and I'd just say I'm doing it for the kids. 

Ms. Michelle and I

The whole night was pretty wild and I sure do enjoy the quiet when I get home. However, I need to force myself to just let things be and sit down and relax. Once I dump everything on the kitchen table,I get distracted and want to finish this...or take care of that.... and I find myself getting more worn out instead of just taking the time to quiet myself. 
I also facilitated a game tonight that was like a relay-type race and involved the winning team to ring a call bell (like those at old hotels?). The children loved playing with the bell at the end of the evening and I was going to put it away so it would stop ringing. When I turned around to grab it, Mr. Ron, an adult, was the one playing with it! I couldn't bring myself to take it away from him. So I just had to continue listening to the constant dinging. While we are studying these 5 weeks on peer pressure we are also learning about the country of France. 
Tonight I brought ingredients for french fruit tarts for the children to eat. I prepared part of it at home and they were served cafeteria-style. 
   

I cut up pie crusts and baked them. We average between 30 and 40 kids so I baked 6 pie crusts for a total of 48 pieces and 6 center pieces. That didn't take long at all. And here's my advertisement for my Pampered Chef baking stone. One of the best investments I have ever made. I love my stone and bake so many different things on it.  

So I carefully bagged up all the pie crusts so that they didn't break. 

I bought 2 large cans of vanilla pudding (bad decision as we didn't even use half a can for all the kids). I will have to find somewhere to donate a large can of vanilla pudding. I also bought a large can of apple pie filling, a can of mandarin orange slices and a can of whipped cream. I enlisted the help of some of the adults and they served the children the tarts. Thank you Ms. Kathy, and Mr. Ron. The kids were not sure if they would like them, but I do believe most of the plates were thrown away empty. 

Here is the finished product. I have so much food left over that I will most likely send the rest downstairs to be eaten by the Brower/Morison family. They could have dessert for perhaps a month with what I have left. I thought we would use more than we did - oh well, I'm glad that the kids liked it. It was something different and I'm all about doing things differently so that kids will remember it. Same, old routine can be pretty forget-able. 


Wade's internet is back up now which is great. I got some nice emails today. He's having some back pain and got a supply of strong ibuprofen from the medic. Seems like that helped some and I'm curious to hear how his evening went. I am always glad to see when I have email from him in my mailbox and especially when he posts pictures too. He will be posting another newsletter on Friday morning. We are also planning another skype event for Saturday at noon. That will be fun. 
I didn't get much sleep last night - I was up until almost 2 am so I am not sure how long I will be awake tonight although it is almost 10:00 now. I seem to almost fall asleep in the living room, then when I get into bed I wake up again and usually end up reading until early in the morning. I am reading a very good book called "Stepping On The Cracks" by Mary Downing Hahn. Actually it is for teens but it's a good novel and I'm enjoying it.