Naturally Optimistic

Last night was the annual "Transportation Night" for ECFE. A night when any kind of vehicle that can, shows up in a church parking lot for all sorts of young kids to crawl all over, into, etc. There was a firetruck (HUGE hit), a police car, an RV, a garbage truck, a canoe (on wheels!), a tow truck, a MN Power bucket truck, a zamboni, the Hazmat truck, a school bus (also - HUGE HIT!). There were supposed to be more but due to the tornadoes in N. Mpls, a lot of the vehicles were out of the area. It didn't matter. Except for the fact that we were promised ponies which were a no-show (& I was stupid enough to mention it to get Dahlia out the door), the night was a success! Dahlia's self-proclaimed favorite was the canoe. I'm so shocked....

Last Thursday we had our annual ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) fundraiser which was a dance. It was a "dress up" dance so Dahlia went as a Fairy Princess (duh!) & I decided at the last minute to put together a "gypsy" costume. Steve wasn't feeling well so stayed home, August, Dahlia & Steve's Mom Carolyn had a great time! I even "won" a Cooking With Kids basket during the raffle.

Our ECFE school had their yearly fundraiser last week. It was a "sock-hop" dance w/a raffle for fabulous prizes! Dahlia's class (technically the "1's") were probably the youngest there - well, no there were some infants, but probably the youngest who 'knew' on some level what was going on. It becomes very obvious in settings like these that Miss Dahlia is an observer to the core. She loves to dance & run around, but she will stand, probably for an hour (if we let her), in one place, just soaking it all in. I think the gym full of kids, the adults, all the loud music were enough to overwhelm her. She did great. No melt downs (til we were leaving) but she wasn' 100% in her comfort zone. Towards the end of the night she finally decided she would join in & took Steve's hand & joined the limbo line. She didn't make it to the limbo stick (got bored in line) but I was impressed that she made the move. The animal crackers were the hig...

We went to the ECFE "Sock Hop" (photos soon) last Thursday night. The yearly fundraiser. AS part of the festivities there is a raffle of gift baskets. 50 cents a ticket. I bought 20 tickets & had fun deciding what I'd (& we'd) like. I was hoping for a night in some swank hotel or a family membership to Hartley Nature Center, but it was not to be. BUT today at ECFE I found out I did win something! This lovely Aveda basket + $5 at Caribou. Now I can say I am a winner & not a loser. haha.

I participated in a cookie exchange with some ECFE Moms on Monday. I was happy to be apart of it because I've always wanted to do one, but never been asked. There were 6 of us participating and we decided on doing 6 cookies for each Mom. That was a great number. I made a normal sized batch of cookies and it worked out perfectly. Of course I think my cookies turned out rather ugly. They were a bit better when I packaged them but still I was rather disappointed with their outcome. Oh well! Hopefully they will be enjoyed regardless.