Animal and Sea Creatures Club

One of the biggest challenges for our family about living in Lebanon is the lack of wide open spaces for the kids to play.  Being from suburbia myself, this has always been one of my biggest struggles.  Our girls have learned to get pretty creative and make maximum use of the space we have.  Over time they girls have really developed a love for clubs.  You name it, they've probably had a club for it.  American girl doll club, littlest pet shop club, Harry Potter club, No boys allowed club, etc etc etc.  They really get  creative with secret handshakes, knocks, rule books, agendas...   Typically the clubs mostly involve Abbey and Maddie with Naomi tagging along as a very willing sidekick.  Also pretty typical is for club time to end in tears as Maddie and Abbey argue over who gets to be president and set all the rules.  Abbey is pretty used to being allowed to be the leader but more and more recently, Maddie is demanding her own share of the authority.

Sunday morning, however, I woke up to a different scenario.  You see, when Jason travels, and it's for a longer time period, I try to have at least one "sleep-in" morning for myself.  Since we didn't have church until 2 on Sunday, I decided it would be the perfect day for it.  I bought donuts the night before for their breakfast, told them to have fun and just not wake me up.  When I did finally get up at 9:30 (believe me for a homeschooling mother of three, that IS sleeping late), this is what I found. 

Maddie and Naomi had estabilished their "Animal and Sea Creatures Club" and decorated their little balcony off of their room.  They have drawings of sharks, dolphins and whales, photo copies of their favorite pictures and even a list of the days activities.  Naomi is thrilled to be more than a little involved, and Maddie is thrilled to be in charge with no one fighting for that position. 

Here they are reading their favorite science books.  Especially after our trip to the Georgia Aquarium this summer, Maddie has loved studying about sea creatures and she was having so much fun "teaching" Naomi.  She even occasionally sent Naomi to me to report facts that she was learning.  Lest you think that this was a one time thing, they are faithfully storing their club supplies under the balcony table and they met again this morning.