July update

We went strawberry picking toward the end of June, and Lucy and Gene were pretty helpful...





The child not pictured was not helpful. End of story. (Well, actually, the real story is she was almost falling-asleep tired and just couldn't be bothered to stoop down and look under the leaves like the strawberry-field signs said. She didn't even want to exert a little energy so she could pick one to EAT! She fell asleep two minutes after leaving the field.)

We did end up making a year's supply of jam out of our meager pickings, though:)

Here's one of Jane's favorite activities lately... giving her animals a bath in the sink. She's not supposed to use the soap (they don't need a real bath...) but it looks like maybe she was sneaking it here:


Jane and Lucy play with our blocks and animals every day, generally multiple times every day. I had to snap this picture because...look who decided one day to join in. And wasn't Jane jealous! But the carpet is so small that I decided she could do something else for a while, and let her two older sibs have fun together. Gene had a great time...but hasn't really been back since. Blocks are a girl toy, right?


Jane really likes puzzles, and can do anything under 50 pieces no problem. We've been trying 100 pieces lately, and she's doing okay...with a little help. But once she get's going, she's great! She does have some Donahue (Grandma Hendricks' family) blood in her (well, if you couldn't tell from the hair!)


Gene and I have been playing catch with the girls...after realizing they were growing up under a baseball star, and had no ball skills whatsoever. It's been fun, and they are getting really into it!





Speaking of balls, the girls have also discovered the joys of blowing up things. I mean, with their mouths, or a little pump we discovered somewhere. Lucy spent about a whole day blowing up a beach ball with the pump, squeezing out all the air, and blowing it up again. Of course Jane, the resident copycat, had to do the same. Then they started using their mouths as well...


Oh, and here's our door. A nice, regular door. We hadn't touched it since moving in, except to put up the lovely door knocker the first year. I think it has our last name engraved on it. Last year, we started to notice various houses with painted front doors in strikingly bold colors. And Brendan assured me there were a lot in Birmingham, which seems to be a trend-setting city. And maybe we were feeling trendy... so we decided to be bold and cover up all that whiteness...



The girls helped. I think Gene helped too, but he didn't make it into a picture.


There is no "finished" picture yet, because the third coat hasn't exactly been completed yet, but I will finish the door after we get back from vacation. And if I remember to take a picture, I'll probably post it. But here's an "in progress" picture, to give you the general idea:


I really like it:)

Ok, to finish up here...we had some really nice, not so hot weather...the girls had reading time outside for a couple days. We've devolved from a strict "nap time" 3 years ago, to "room time" the last couple years, to "reading time" this summer. No one naps, no one needs to (really!), and they get bored and restless up in their rooms. Since we signed up for the library reading program this summer, and some days reading was the last thing on their minds (well, for some of them) we instituted an hour every afternoon for reading. It will be really great once the third one can read. Right now, she is limited to looking at books, doing a puzzle, or coloring a picture. During that time, I also read her one book of her choosing, and work on some phonics with her.


Oh, one more picture that is completely random. The girls helped peel eggs for egg salad one day. It's so nice to have kitchen helpers! And to know that one day I can say to someone, "Please make some egg salad for lunch." And they can call me when it's ready:)

Testing...

The last two times I have tried to post a blog entry, something went wrong! So I am just testing to see if this will actually work. I promise I have been trying! And if it does work, here's a picture to look at just for fun:

Update since February...

A brief question before digging in...does anyone remember reading a post about our trip to New Mexico in the Spring? I'm pretty sure I wrote one, but it's not on the blog now. Hmmm...

Well, here are a bunch of pictures of what we've been up to, and I'll keep the captions brief for my own sake if not for yours:)

The kids all made valentines for their classmates...


We got some plywood and spent a Sunday afternoon painting pictures:



The girls have been enthralled with legos, and have built many creations with them. We have a shelf labeled "Lego Creations" and it is mostly filled.


We got Twister from Aunt Bekah for Christmas, and they all loved it:


Playdough...I think this is just after Valentine's day, if you notice the hearts on the wall:


Jane was SO excited one day when she tried to pull her own hair into a ponytail...she was sure she had succeeded!

Jane is in puzzle mode right now, and all on her own placed all the US states on a control map that came with our puzzle. Someone else had left it out...but she was pretty proud:)



Gene was interested in Long Division at some point over the winter. So we divided up our bead material (hundred squares, 10 bars, unit beads) between different numbers of people, to see how many beads each got. Pretty cool, and it actually translates to paper (the regular way to do division) pretty easily.


Lucy (and Gene) have been learning how to make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (Mac n Mac thanks to Aunt Reenie). Lucy in particular loves to do it, and can do almost every step by herself.


Somehow we got a pink electric blow-up guitar (a birthday party favor?). At any rate, Jane was jamming one afternoon...


Uncle Owen came over one night and built a tower with Gene and Lucy. Gene finished it after Owen left, and insisted it be left up overnight. He was very proud of it, especially that it was taller than any of us could reach to finish.


We walked to the Saline Memorial Day parade. It was hot and sunny, as usual.



Jane celebrated her "summer birthday" during one of the last days of preschool. Watermelon and choco-chip cookies. And some Irish soda bread thrown in for good measure (I had given a presentation to her class on Ireland that same morning).


Lucy graduated from Kindergarten, and has a diploma to prove it. I hope she always remembers her two teachers, whom she fell in love with this past year.







The kids posed in front of a backyard tree so I could slip pictures into their teachers' thank-you cards on the last day of school. You all can see what they looked like on the second-to-last day of school!






Gene and his class went to Greenfield Village during the last couple weeks of school. I volunteered to drive, and it was a great day all around. Albeit very hot. A nice day to walk into the glassblower's shop, which is what a fellow parent and I did...it was a cool 150 degrees or so (at least it felt that hot). The men heating the glass were wearing long sleeve shirts and pants. I don't know how they did it.

Gene (and his classmates) are dressed in period clothing from the late 1800s.


A carousel ride.


Jane and Lucy have been eager to do their own hair, and are thrilled when they are able to (i.e. we aren't going anywhere that day!)




The ledge under our dining room bay window is a popular place for projects, pictures, and letters. I'm not sure what Lucy's doing here, but one of those three I'm sure. You never quite know with Lucy, but she always comes up with something creative.



Gene still pulls out his baseball field and people occasionally...


Gene and Lucy can make their own sandwiches now, and I am learning to let them (sometimes).


Jane is (still) fascinated with wet washcloths and shoes, and here is a picture showcasing both. Yes, they are black party shoes. And she insisted on wearing them last Sunday to church...although she explained to someone on the way in that they were pretty old but she still wears them anyway. (She wore them last spring, they must be too small, but she says they feel fine. She has grown 2 inches in the past 3 months, but maybe her feet are waiting their turn to grow...


Jane completed (with just a little coaching) her first sewing project. Yet another favor from someone's birthday party. She was pretty darn good with the over-under basic stitch (is there a real name?) in my opinion!


In the snow, Gene practiced his pitching with snowballs.


Then he would randomly lay down and hug the snow for awhile...


The older two have been learning to use a sharp knife, pretty successfully on soft foods...


All three have played Sorry with each other...


That's all...more to follow. We're getting into the swing of the summer now...

Back from oblivion

So, with a month's long hiatus under it's belt, this blog is going to resume posting. Maybe...daily! Maybe. At least better than it's past record this school year. But it started out as primarily a home-school blog, where I would record what went on during our daily lives. And I've got to admit, during the school year our daily lives at home were pretty boring. Here's a sample day:

-everyone up at 6, clothes on, breakfast, brush hair and teeth, out the door
-Jane and I home at 1, she played quietly, I did housework
-got in car at 3 to pick up Gene and Lucy
-got home at 4
-everyone put things away, showed me schoolwork, unwound a bit before dinner
-dinner around 6:15
-cleaned up dinner, maybe played a few minutes, then started the getting-ready-for-bed routine
-bed by 7:30 (girls), 8:00 (Gene)

And that, folks, was it. The weekends were mostly kids playing with same-old, same-old toys (not much time to get new things...in the past we used to get new things mainly for holidays and from garage sales), and parents making (and freezing) lunches for the upcoming week, doing laundry and a bit of house and yard work. We squeezed some exercise in, but that lagged a bit in the time crunch.

So, now school is over. Yeah! We are going back in the fall, however. We'll have a slightly easier schedule this time, with me working only 3 mornings a week, and Jane staying home for a year (she'll go to Kindergarten the following year). In the meantime, I'll post as much as feasibly possible to make up for both the past year and probably the future year as well:) Maybe this needs to just be a summer blog!

Comments

I have no idea how many people read this blog, mostly just family and a few friends I think. I haven't been faithful to the "daily" blog anymore, but I'm doing my best. I'll go back to "daily" as soon as school is out for the summer, I promise:) Please feel free to write a quick comment in the comment section once in a while so I know you are reading...it would probably encourage me to write more often. And I will share the comments with the kids, if appropriate. Thanks!

Of girls and pets...

Lucy has been asking for a pet for a long time...and she specifically wants a fish. We have pushed the pet issue off until the summer, since this year is way too busy to add anything else to the picture. Anything else that requires attention, that is. And thought of any kind. So, the topic comes up every few weeks but conversation about a pet never lasts long.


Until tonight. Somehow Jane was thinking about pets, and picked out the perfect pet- a hamster. But then she reconsidered and decided a family of hamsters would be better. Babies, a brother, a sister, and a mama and papa. We would have to have a cup of water in their "tank", she said. So they could drink whenever they were thirsty. And then her thinking went off on a strange tangent..."And when we get the family of hamsters, don't let the babies come out...When she (the mother) gets married, then they can come out."

This is for you, Aunt Emily!

Emily, for some reason I remember all the interesting outfits you used to put together when you were little. Now, you have gotten more sophisticated in your clothing choices, of course. But I think some of your genes have passed down to Jane and Lucy...these were the play clothes they chose today:



It's a SNOW DAY for us!!! Like much of the rest of the country, it sounds like. I won't be the only blog posting those words today:)