End of the year fun

Well, the end of the school year is tomorrow. One more field trip is scheduled for Amanda to the ice skating rink and she's not that happy about it. She's nervous about ice skating in front of her friends. Last week I went with the 4th graders to Malikoff Diggins to learn about the town of Humbug and the mining that went on there. I was in charge of the candle dipping. There was a certain technique involved. Don't dip it too long or the wax will remelt off the wick, walk around the tree for the wax to set before your next dip, and try not to get smoked out by the fire! We had 45 kids go through in different groups and they all got some great candles! I think this will be a project for summer. It was pretty fun! I was also in charge of the Drug Store tour. What a cool place! They had all original bottles of old remedies, scales, living quarters, pill rollers, and household items. No wonder the life expectancy wasn't that great back then. "Oh here. Take this bottle of Creosote to help with your ailment." The comment on paper I was to read was that they either found out that the drugs didn't do anything, worked too well, were toxic, or are now illegal. Ahh, the good old days!

Here is my pretty girl, begrudgingly dressed up in the period dress I made her. She loved it last year at the Bernhardt museum in 3rd grade. What happened when she went to 4th grade? All of a sudden she's opinionated, is embarrassed by her mother, and rolls her eyes and has fits when she is upset about something. Sigh...She wanted to wear jeans and I told her over my dead body. I made that dress for her to wear and by George she was going to wear it. I'm sure you can hear the words coming out of my mouth, "Do you know how lucky you are that you have a Mom that can sew you a costume? I worked very hard on that dress and made one for me too so we would be authentic. You are WEARING THE DRESS!" Then all day I reminded her that she was one of maybe 3 girls that were actually dressed period correct while the other 75 kids were NOT and didn't make the effort. She'd just roll her eyes.

I know someday I won't be able to push her to do what I want her to do. That day is coming faster than I know, and I miss my little sweet girl. I do, however, enjoy watching my girl grow up into a beautiful, long blond hair, smart, sassy(I don't know where she gets that from), bashful girl that I hope someday will sew costumes for her little girl and smile, remembering back to 4th grade when she didn't want to wear her costume.