Glendale Memorial Day

For the last four or five years, we've made the trip down to Kentucky Lake for Memorial Day weekend.  We decided to stay close this year because we hated to ask somebody to take care of all the animals (with Tucker's insulin and the chickens needing to go in and out of the coop, it requires two trips daily). 

We had a lovely weekend.  The weather was gorgeous.  We had some downtime...

Lots of card playing and loaded sandwiches...

LOTS of bike riding.  And guess who learned how to ride her bike after about 15 minutes of Daddy working with her?!  She was so, so, proud.  She only had one spill and by the end of the weekend, was riding all the way to the playground with Jenna (no adults!.

And this big sister was so happy and so proud!  She exclaimed, "YES!  Now I have a riding buddy!" 

There was lots of friend time too...
On Saturday night, we went to the Quints for a potluck dinner and party.  Bryan and I were talked into being the cops and chased a slew of kids all over the Quints' yard.
We spent several hours swimming at the lake on Sunday (no pics!) with some friends the girls met up with that we recognized from the Paducah Homeschool group. 
On Sunday night, the Turners came up for a visit.

Cozy camper at night...  Jenna took these two pictures of a card game right before bedtime.

Sweet Holiday

Just an ordinary day

I swim this morning at the gym with my class of smiling friends.

I talk to my dad on the way home.  We laugh about our dogs and about Ruby being trained to learn “chicken.” 

Bryan is buying two businesses.  It’s an exciting time.  He and the girls clean the house before I get home so I will have time to sit down and do some reflective listening/brainstorming with him.  

I organize some clothes.  I have a full sack of clothes to donate.  I inwardly sigh at saying goodbye to the little patterns and pockets I used to see all last year.  Why must my daughters  grow so fast?  On a positive note, I’m also relieved to see less mess and less clutter in this house.

We eat quiche I made yesterday from our chicken eggs.  We read at the counter, a little one on either side of me.

“Thank you, Mama,” Jenna says when I finally get around to sewing the hair on the pocket pixie she made a few months ago.  I sewed on the front porch, in the swing, the breeze blowing and the bee book I’m trying to read open beside me.

“Mama, my tummy hurts, and I burped and it still hurts,” my little six-year-old sniffles.  “It’s snot, Baby.  It hurts your tummy.”  

A friend calls and asks me to ride with her to the baby shower we are going to tonight.  

All three dogs bark when someone shows up to fix our air conditioner.  Tucker barks the most, of course.  Silly old puppy.

“Mama, pretend we are your babies and you have to take care of us.”

It’s time to put on some makeup and then cook some taco meat. 

Little House on the Prairie School

At the request of the girls, school today was Little House on the Prairie Style.  Jenna packed a basket of their journals, chalk, and a lunch snack.  Nellie and Willie and Baby Carrie were there.  Nellie threw notes about Ms. Beedle at the end of writing (Caroline kept her note to bring home to show "Ma"...she told me what to write in it).  After Math, Laura and Mary were punished with the rest of the class for being rowdy and had to fill the board with writing (this again was per their request). 

They walked to and from school through the snow and cold, home to "Ma." 

P.S.  This is March!  A MARCH snow.  Haven't seen that in a long, long time. 

Maple Syrup Tapping

Some Projects and Interests in January, Plus a Graduation

1.  Jenna wanted to re-visit her interest in volcanoes after she picked out a documentary on Mt. St. Helens at the video store.  It was old and not that well done, but we still enjoyed parts of it as we watched on Friday night family movie night.  It's so cool when everybody gets swept up in other's interests.  We've all gotten more interested in volcanoes.

 Girls watching youtube videos of volcano explosions while eating lunch.

The girls made volcanoes with water bottles and paper, baking soda and vinegar.  Caroline wanted her volcano to explode out the top:

 "John" getting ready to feel the lava.  He's back in the play mix after the chickens dug him up out of the ground a couple of months ago.  He'd been missing for several years; Caroline didn't even remember him. 

Jenna wanted to make a lateral blast like Mt. St. Helens:

 

We watched how to make an explosion with mentos and Diet Coke and tried that too.  It made a big explosion, but was over quickly (no picture).  Daddy was home to watch it.  Jenna asked about what baking soda does in food (does it make bread rise?--yes, we found out it does).  That led to us watching this youtube video :  A Colorful Magic Trick with Acids and Bases:



That led to us replicating the magic trick on our own and then performing it for Daddy:




 

The diet coke was most acidic ( deep red) and the dishwashing Cascade soap the strong base (Caroline's suggestion for us to try and it turned green and then yellow--super cool).  Girls really enjoyed this!

We also found a riveting,but dark video on Pompeii:  (Pompeii:  The Last Day).  There was some adult content I had to edit and I ended up fast-forwarding quite a bit at the end because it was too disturbing.  Seeing how the volcano erupted, though, and what the city looked like, had the girls begging to keep watching.  We piled on the bed and talked the whole time about was what happening.  Fascinating!



2.  Kids got into designing clothes for their polly pockets.

Caroline found a design that made a lovely dress and she made a how-to video about it.  She also helped Jenna make one.

Caroline also tried making a little shirt for herself and she made a poncho for her AG doll.

3.  The girls and I played vet one morning.  I printed out some vet forms I found on Angry Chickens blog and we worked on the animals for a couple of hours.

4.  Jenna graduated Book 2 on the violin.  She practiced and performed ALL of the songs from book 2.  It was also our last lesson with Olivia until she comes back from Uganda.

5.  Caroline and I have been playing some reading and writing games I did with Jenna.  She's also working her way through the Bob books and playing a kindergarten app Jenna really liked.  :)
 

A visit with Grandma and a Book

This past Saturday, I went to visit my Grandma at the nursing home for a couple of hours. 

I brought a book to read.  She smiled when I said, “we’ve spent lots of hours reading together, haven’t we?”  Yes, she nodded.

She can’t communicate with me like she used to, but I still find tremendous comfort just being in her presence…patting her hand, making her get tickled, helping her in any way I can. 

I read Staring at the Sun:  Overcoming the Terror of Death (sounds really uplifting, huh?). 

It was beautiful reading though.  Her at the end of her life, me nearing the middle of mine.  One of my favorite ideas from the book is “rippling.”

“Rippling refers to the fact that each of us creates-often without our conscious intent or knowledge-concentric circles of influence that may affect others for years, even for generations.  That is, the effect we have on other people is in turn passed on to others, much as the ripples in a pond go on and on until they’re no longer visible but continuing at a nano level.”

One of my grandmother’s ripples?  Her unselfishness.  Toward the end of my visit, she pointed to G and O on the alphabet I wrote out.  “You want me to go home?”   “Yes,” she nodded. 

She wanted me to go home to be with my family. I had been there long enough "bothering" with her.  

 Often I wished I visited her more, but in her way, she let me know that being home with my family is where she wants me to be.

That’s a memory I want to treasure.  

Learning and Playing January 2014

 
1.  We got a short-lived blast of arctic cold.  We all loved it.  We went outside (briefly) to blow bubbles and watch them  freeze and bust..

Cuddled up inside with blankets on all of the windows...

Ruby enjoyed the cold weather too...
 

2.  We had a no electricity night on the first frigid night (and then had another one the very next night because we all loved it so much). The kids pretended it was the "olden" times.  Jenna wore her "Laura and Mary" dress and the three of us wrote with quills by candlelight.  Daddy started reading The Long Winter.

3.   Attended the once-a-month Homeschool skate at Kingsway.  Daddy got to go too.  Girls got to try out their Christmas skates at the rink for the first time. 

4. Bryan and I watched Season 2 of Game of Thrones.  We are seriously hooked and have no self-control about going to bed.  Mid-month, we watched about 12 hours of the Walking Dead in two days.  Yeah, we got hooked on that too.  We have lost a lot of sleep watching these shows, but we've also luuuuuved it.  

5.  I surprised the kids one day and brought Maddox home with me after my morning swim.  They played outside a large part of the day. 

 Kids made pretend laptops

6.   Girls got a lesson in sharpening the chainsaw and have played outside a lot while Daddy cuts down dead trees. (not sure what happened to pic of Caroline doing it?)

7.  Lots of enjoying the ice and light snow...

 

Jenna and Caroline took a bunch of pictures on my phone of the ice outside