Fun in a box

Anyone who has been parenting for more than a week knows that it is often not the toy, but the box that housed the toy that is the real hit. This particular box spent months sitting in my unfinished bathroom waiting for someone to come along with an idea. Ideas are usually generated by Annie in this house and she finally claimed the box for the rocket ship she intended to make. The box has taken many a child on many a trip to outer space in the past weeks. Yesterday Corban pulled it over to the middle of the living room to sit in while he watched the Ohio State Wisconsin basketball game - the box/rocket ship has a window, of course. From there, it became a little playground for Aidan. He was very happy for a very long time just playing in the box. For most the time, he didn't even have a toy. He just stood up, sat down, and played in the box. Priceless, those boxes are.





Aidan looked so stinkin' cute and big in there, I just had to keep snapping pictures!

Michael Jordan

Aidan's tongue is out ALL THE TIME these days!

Greek Week

We went light on the math, spelling, and grammar this week in order to spend time doing fun activities to close out our study of ancient Greece. On Tuesday, we made a volcano erupt. Making a volcano erupt is just one of those things that every home schooler has to do, right? Check it off the list. The kids also created some pottery (out of sculpting clay) on Tuesday - pictures of the final product coming up....




On Thursday, the kids painted their "pottery" and were on to mosaics.


Even Nate and Lauren got to join in the fun


Then, today, our final day of Greek Week, was a Greek Feast and Greek Olympics. This is the day the kids were most looking forward to for the week. Each of them chose a Greek god to dress up as for the feast.

Jakin is Hephaestus, god of fire. He made the hammer in his Dad's shop.


Corban made his own trident for his Poseidon costume.


We all thought Lauren would be a good Hera - she's kind of already bossy and angry and screams a lot.


Annie was Athena. Not to be outdone by her brothers, Annie also made her own spear.


My friend Julie pulled together everything for the crafts. I took care of food for the feast. On the menu: hummus with pita chips and veggies, Greek pilaf (from the Moosewood cookbook), lentils, Greek pizza, salmon (broiled with a nice crust by Jack), salad, and yogurt and honey on the side. Oh, and white grape juice to drink.


Rounding out the crew on Mount Olympus: Brandi as Artemis, Lainey as Persephone, and Nate as Ares. Aidan was supposed to be Hermes, but I never had time to get him dressed up. He didn't mind.


This one is just too cute not to include.


Posing with their finished crafts for the week. After dinner, we headed to the gym for some games, Olympic-style. A week well-spent, I think.

The winter that never was

Our ski boots have spent most of the winter here, sitting neatly under a bench in the mudroom.


And even though we haven't had great snow, we've had to embrace the "We'll take what we can get" philosophy in order to get some time on snow. Lauren, Aidan, and I did some stomping around recently while Jack and the big kids were off doing some more serious skiing. Lauren's doing great, Aidan loves the backpack, and I haven't fallen with him in it. A success, I think.

Before Ash Wednesday.....

.... comes Fat Tuesday. We told the kids they could put anything they wanted on their ice cream sundae. And they did. I thought for sure they would get full and stop eating their overloaded-with-candy sundaes. But they didn't. They just ate all of it and murmured, "I love Fat Tuesday."



They've never been able to do this before!

A visit from Grandpa

Though New England isn't exactly on the way from Hershey, PA to Philadelphia, PA, my dad added a few hours to his road trip to spend last weekend with us. No big plans, we just hung out. It was great to have him here.





He loves to brush the girls' hair (I remember him brushing my hair when I was a little girl). Annie really looks forward to it, too.

Sunday mornings

We take Sundays slow around here. Breakfast is usually eaten in the 9:00am hour in the living room by the fire. If Jakin has his way, we eat homemade "Sunday morning" cinnamon rolls. 10:30 Mass. Brunch - the same every week. And then naps for Lauren, Aidan, and I. Jack reads the paper by the fire. The other three do quiet things like games or puzzles. After dinner, we often watch family movies and eat popcorn. We try to say no to just about everything else on Sundays, which is sometimes hard. Sometimes we miss out on things that would be fun. But, ohhhhhh, what good days these are. Rest. Family. Good things. I'm ready for a new week after these days.

Happy Valentine's Day

While Jack and I have never made a very big deal of out of Valentine's Day, I have a daughter who ranks the day right up there with Christmas and Easter. Pink? Hearts? Candy? What's not to like? Annie couldn't understand why people still had to go to work today or why she still had to do school. But if she was going to do school, she was going to wear every pink and/or heart-themed clothing item in her drawer. And so would Lauren. They did their hair (well, I did that) and they dressed their dolls for the occasion.



Eating their Valentines treats after breakfast




Mary and Honey were happy to get all dressed up for the day along with the girls

Up and running

After doing dishes for a week here at the mudroom sink....


.... the dish washing moved back to the kitchen yesterday! Sweet new sink, faucet, garbage disposal. I tell you, washing dishes these past two days has been dreamy.


I even had a helper this evening.

Dot paints

Lauren was doing great for a while, painting with dot paints on paper. Then, quickly, probably without thinking about it very much at all, she dotted her lips!



Oops!

Snarky and sparkly

First, an example of what happens when Aidan plays in the girls' room for a while... They (Annie) dress him up. I wonder how long he will participate in this silliness willingly.


Aidan has a new "smile for the camera" face - he squints his face all up, his eyes, mouth, all of it. He's still smiling. It's funny!






Not snarky or sparkly... just cute!