Spring Break - Day 4

If only I could remember that darn camera!!

Today we went to Wesselman's park and walk one of the nature trails. It's the first time that ALL my kids were big enough to actually walk! No baby in a backpack makes for a nicer walk for mommy!! We went with Vanessa and Jed, and we had a great time. I was surprised at how NOT muddy it was considering the rain Tuesday night.







After our walk, we played on the playground for a few minutes, but the little ones were getting pretty tired so we headed home around noon. We stopped at Sonic and got lunch (yum!) as a treat.

Hannah is really wanting to learn how to sew, so we took a little trip to the Walmart in Boonville (about 20 min away) so we could get some inexpensive fabric for a skirt. We ended up getting several different prints that are all really pretty, and we'll be able to make several skirts.


Don't you love the little baby hands in the photo??

We had another FANTASTIC day of our spring break!! Tomorrow it's supposed to be rainy, and I suppose I should take the kids to Chuck E Cheese like I said... We still have a ton of tokens left over from Hannah's birthday party.

Spring Break - Day 3

This wasn't taken today, but it's such a great picture I just had to post it! I took this picture because I have a picture of Hannah wearing the same shirt and hair clip...

Hannah looks like Hannah :)

***
Today was day three of spring break and we took a day trip to Metropolis, IL which is just across the Ohio River from Paducah, KY. My friend, Emily, from MN was visiting in Metropolis and we decided that was close enough to go see her and her kids. It took us 3 hours to get there, but it should have been shorter. One of the highways that I needed to take was not named on Google maps, and that caused us to take a US highway that meandered through several small towns... Our return trip was about 50 minutes shorter!

Elijah saw his first real live moving train! I'm not sure why or how, but he had managed to never see one before. He was pretty excited and amazed at how long it was, and it wasn't even that long of a train.

We crossed the Ohio River going from IN to KY, the Tennessee River, and the Ohio River going from KY to IL. We could have just hopped on a boat and gone west on the Ohio... if that were an option.

The kids were great at travelling, so I think we will be taking more day trips now!! That's pretty exciting because there is a lot of neat stuff around here.



Here are the kids: Helen, Hannah, Jane, Delia, Henry, Elijah, and Leah


And the mommies: Keila, Emily, and me.

We had a GREAT time!!

Spring Break - Day 2

We spent the morning cleaning, cleaning, CLEANING. Hannah had invited her friend over for the afternoon, and our house was disgusting (typical). Hannah went to her house recently, and not only was it a HUGE, beautiful house, it was immaculate... So, we cleaned.

Daniela arrived at 1pm, and all 3 kids were terribly excited. Leah followed her around constantly saying, "Yewa" [for Daniela]. Elijah had a few 3 year old moments... but I supose those should be expected.

Tomorrow we are headed to a suburb of Paducah to visit an online friend of mine who lives in MN but who has headed south to see friends.

Spring Break - Day 1

Elijah is sick. He has a fever and is sleeping a lot... and not eating.

I took all three kids grocery shopping this morning (before I was 100% sure E was sick) which is always interesting. Leah was the problem child, which is happening more and more frequently as she approaches her 2nd birthday. It was a short trip since I didn't need too much, and the kids all got kitty tatoos from the Walmart greeter.

As I was cleaning out the fridge so I could put new groceries in there, I found a little bit of whipping cream that was still in date (unexpected that it was still good!). I almost tossed it, but decided we could make some butter. Hannah and I (mostly I) shook and shook and shook that cream until it turned to whipped cream and finally to butter and buttermilk. We squeezed it in a paper towel to get out the buttermilk, and turned it into a ball of butter (it made more than I expected). During the shaking, I read aloud from Little House in the Big Woods about churning butter. Hannah and I each had a piece of bread with our fresh butter, and it was quite tasty.

Hannah has invited a friend over tomorrow afternoon (assuming everyone is well, of course) so she's been helping me clean the house a bit... I've been doing laundry as well.

Elijah finally woke up and Leah just went down for nap part 2, so now I'm wondering if she's sick too... That would explain the extra crabbiness!

Hannah and Elijah are currently playing Star Wars Lego on the Wii, and I expect Pete will be home from work soon.

If everyone is healthy, we are planning on driving to Metropolis, IL (aka Paducah, KY) on Wednesday to meet a long time online friend of mine. It could be a lot of fun!!

March pictures so far

Good grief! March is 2/3 of the way over and I have hardly taken any pictures, and I hadn't uploaded ANY.






Elijah practices his t-ball skills with Pete during "spring training"


Leah discovers her shadow




Leah models the hand-me-down dress that my mom made for Hannah. Yay for hand-me-downs!! I sold all of Hannah's clothes that were smaller than 2T, so these are the first that I had saved.












I was in charge of the St Patrick's day party for Leah's playgroup. Hannah and Elijah opted to skip school that day and come to the party! They are decorating the green cupcakes the day before.

Night School at Montessori

[once again I forgot my camera, and had to rely on the camera phone...]

Because pre-schoolers and even kindergarteners can't always explain what they did at school, once a year at Montessori they hold "night school" where the children can show their parents what they do every day. Elijah has been very excited about this for several days, but once he found out that Leah was getting a babysitter, he no longer wanted to go... However, if he didn't go to night school, I wouldn't have PAID for a babysitter. I think that logic was lost on him though. Hannah didn't think there would be anything worth showing me since everything is WAY TOO EASY for her these days.

I started off with Elijah, and he and his classmates showed off their knowledge of the map of South America. They know more countries than I do! Elijah picked Argentina and Peru to place on the map. When we were dismissed from circle time, Elijah demonstrated an odd/even number work.






At this point, the administrator came in to tell me that Hannah was ready for me to see her work before she put it away.


Hmmm... she's not even close to being done. Hannah and Daniela were simply guessing which number to put next... This is the 6 chain, and it's really ingenious. Each section has 6 beads, and the students put the correct number marker at the end of each section, to teach counting by 6's and multiplication. Then every 6th section (6 squared) the tag is a bit fatter and they place a 6x6 bead square there as well. At the end of the chain they've reached 6x6x6 and they put down a 6x6x6 bead cube. Of course, Miss-I'm-Ready-For-First-Grade-Because-Kindergarten-is-Boring-and-Easy, needed LOTS of help doing this. She's just not a number person and has a hard time counting above 30. With my help, she was able to complete it, and Daniela was impressed...




Back to poor Elijah who got left alone before his 1/2 of night school was done... He practically finished his work while I quickly visited Hannah (I helped her with the counting AFTER this).


Hannah and Walker (in pirate face paint, no less) show off how many books they've read this school year. Now THIS is where Hannah excels :) I think we'll be working on counting.

After it was over, Elijah didn't want to leave... He wanted to finish another work that he'd started. It was after 7:30 and the poor teachers hadn't even been home yet...

***
Walker's mom just sent the following pics to me, so I thought I'd add them because they are so cute!

Who knew potty training could be easy??

It certainly wasn't easy with the first two, especially Hannah! Leah on the other hand is simply amazing ;) She gives her I-need-to-poop-scream, I get her on the potty, and she goes! She's not even 20 months old yet... I just need to find a little more motivation and I could have her out of diapers in a couple of months. Of course, since it appears that she'll be pooping in the potty from now on, there goes most of that motivation. My mom always claimed that I was extremely easy to potty train and it was well before I was 2... Now, I believe her.

...in which a Tree Limb Falls on Me

We still have major tree limbs to take care of from the Jan 28th ice storm... Pete did drag what he could to the front of the house, and they were picked up (WHOLE!!) a while back. Everything else will have to be cut and tied in bundles so it can be picked up by the city. Tuesday, the weather was great, so I went outside and started cutting up a limb. I figured if I cut up one limb every nice day, we might get them cleaned up sometime before summer arrives. I was so impressed with my progress that I wanted to do some more yesterday. Pete came out and we pulled a few loose branches away from the tree, and we decided we could saw a few more down as well. We only have a hand saw because I don't want Pete to dismember himself with a chainsaw... He was able to climb up and saw two limbs, but they were still caught on another branch and refused to fall. I showed Pete which (GIANT, 8 inch diameter) limb I thought we could saw to finish the job. He sawed through 80% before he was too tired to do anymore, so I did that last inch or so. It looked like the limb should fall in front of me.... but it didn't! There was so much tension build up from the branches being bent that it sprung backward and landed on my shoulder. OUCH! I was lucky that it didn't land on my head because it was at least 100 lbs of tree. All in all I was barely injured, just an abrasion and a little muscle soreness. We will be a bit more careful when cutting branches out of the tree though :)

Today I disassembled a rather LARGE branch, and it took me 2 hours of lopping and sawing... It's nice to see the progress though, and I kind of enjoy it! The kids played outside while I worked... you can't beat that!

Early birthday present

Pete got me an early birthday present today, an iPod touch!!! It is SOOOOOO cool! I've spent the evening converting a ton of music to iTunes compatable files and downloading from the AppStore. I should have had a lot of music on there by now, but most of it was on the laptop so I converted it all only to have iTunes tell me I couldn't sync to a second computer... bummer. So now I'm converting it all again on the desktop. My new toy is so much fun :)

Secret Agents and Jumping Rope

Hannah and Elijah dressed up in our jackets and announced the were "SECRET AGENTS".




Leah wanted in on the action too, so Pete put her in Hannah's jacket...


She obviously thinks highly of her big sister.


On a whim, I pulled out a jump rope today and gave it a try. I don't think I've jumped rope since early elementary school! Hannah was so excited about it, she asked if she could get her very own jump rope for her birthday... I cut down this one for her and she worked and worked until she was jumping rope pretty well, if a bit slowly still. She jumped for a full hour!!! She said it's her new favorite activity! Now she has something fun to do when it's too wet or cold to go outside... Oh, to be six again!