A fine game of "Alyssa Says"

Alyssa has turned into quite the little game master. On Friday night she moved all of the chairs into the living room and invited everyone to sit, which we did. She then proceeded to play a game something like Simon Says where she told each of us to stand up or sit down, and to put our hands on our heads or noses or ears. She did a great job directing the game. The only real trouble was keeping Anna from trying to take over.

Tonight we found that four chairs had been set out, back to back, for a game of musical chairs. Anna, of course, didn't want to play. But with Alyssa asserting herself like this, we insisted. I put in Mary Poppins and skipped to one of the songs, so I could start and stop the music via remote.

For the most part, we played with enough chairs for everyone, but we played a few rounds the "right" way. I made sure that everyone had a chance to win, and managed to bump Anna onto the floor a couple of times, which she thought was hilarious. In the end, Anna was the one who had a fit when it was time to finish.

Today was a gorgeous day, and I just couldn't stay inside. I thought about taking a walk, but that just didn't appeal to me. So I invited the girls to go into the back yard with me to look for fossils, and they were both all over it. I went out to start looking while Anna got her shoes on. She ran out into the yard and screamed, then started laughing - she had nearly stepped on a little brown rabbit.

It's been raining quit a bit this winter, and when it does the limestone breaks down rather quickly, exposing new fossils. We found quite a few. Not all of these were from today, but most were. In the photo is the ammonite Kara found last year, three spiral shells still in limestone, a clam, 16 sea urchins (no spines, just the shell), something that looks like a scallop, another kind of spiral shell, and something that looks a bit like a cornucopia.

According to CretaceousFossils.com, these fossils are all about 101 Million years old. It's been quite fun for all of us to go out and look for these things on a nice day. And it gives us a good excuse for not filling in the yard with grass.

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