Weekly Wrap-up - April 14

Another fun, busy week. And GORGEOUS weather!! Woo-hoo!!!

On Sunday we went to a "Dairy" near our house. Penny and the boys had gone before, and invited us to go with them. What a fun place! There's ice cream, and a playground, AND a little "zoo".

You can buy crackers to feed the animals, and all the kids had great fun with it.

MiniMe spent forever trying to coax the fallow deer to come to the fence to be fed, and finally succeeded. E thought it was great fun that if he walked along the fence of the goat cage with a cracker and have all the goats follow him LOL.

*I* thought the wallaby with a baby in her pouch was the coolest part :)

Monday was practically perfect weather, and by afternoon it was warm enough that the girls asked to go wading in the creek. They were out there ALL AFTERNOON.  After I had confirmed that they were really going to stay in (and not dip a toe in and declare it too cold LOL), I called and left a message with Penny letting her know they were wading in case the boys wanted to join them. J was napping, but E came over and spent the afternoon, and Penny brought J over when he woke up from his nap :)

 Tuesday was gorgeous again.  We gathered up our school books and headed out to the gazebo. What a perfect place to have circle time and read alouds!!

 Wednesday, Penny and I "traded kids". She needed to do some packing at the house they're getting ready to put on the market, and I needed someone to administer the CAT (standardized test) for the girls, since PA law requires that someone other than the parent administer it. So, she left the boys with me and she took Sassy and MiniMe with her. They took the test while she got packing done.  Then she took them out for lunch :) I wasn't sure how they'd handle the whole "testing" thing, since we don't "do tests" per se AND I most definitely have not "taught to the test" like some schools do. But, they declared it "easy" and finished all the sections within the allotted times.

Meanwhile at our house, I was being reminded how much I appreciate my big kids LOL. The 3 littles were great, but aren't big enough to leave by the creek alone, so I got to hang out on the creek bank while they played in the creek. The biggest challenge was them not all wanting the same thing (shocking, isn't it?). Little Bit and J were ready to leave the creek before E was, but I couldn't be 2 places at once. Then later Little Bit wanted to blow bubbles outside but E wanted to build with Legos. It all definitely runs more smoothly when the big girls are here too :)

Wednesday evening, Little Bit and I finally got around to coloring eggs for her "color unit" in school. We used beets, turmeric and purple cabbage and died some white eggs and some brown eggs in each.  The beets weren't as impressive as I'd hoped, they didn't really dye the brown eggs much at all, the white egg was kind of a brownish pinkish color. But the turmeric and purple cabbage was great! Since yellow is her favorite color, the turmeric was a hit with Little Bit, and I love the "surprise" of the beautiful robin's egg blue from the purple cabbage!

Thursday was, at all long last, Sassy's first violin lesson. Needless to say she was VERY excited LOL.

Since Little Bit got antsy enough during MiniMe's piano lesson, I figured it would be pushing our luck to expect her to sit quietly during BOTH lessons, so I made sure it was ok with the teacher, and then dropped Sassy and MiniMe off (with homework to do during the other one's lesson), then Little Bit and I went to the farm where we get milk and eggs, and picked those up during the girls' music lessons. Even with that, we got back for all of Sassy's lesson, so I think next week we may do some grocery shopping too.

Sassy's first lesson was mostly how to hold, and care for,  the violin and bow, but she did learn to play 2 notes, and has been practicing them non-stop ever since LOL.

Friday we had hoped to go to the zoo with Penny and the boys, but our gorgeous weather ended, and it was cold and rainy. Since the kids were all expecting to get to spend the day together, they couldn't bear the thought of NOT being together, so we ended up playing at Penny's house most of the morning LOL.

One would THINK the kids might be starting to get tired of each other, but E was disappointed when I said that the girls needed to do some school Friday afternoon, instead of staying to play, and he was disappointed that we weren't staying to eat lunch at the church on Sabbath. Almost every day that Penny works, Little Bit asks me about seeing the boys. This week, she asked if Penny was working that day, and when I said yes, Little Bit's response was "I don't like Miss A" (the boys' babysitter, who also goes to our church, so Little Bit knows her too). When I asked why, she explained "because WE should be watching the boys, not her!" LOL.

In between enjoying the gorgeous weather, the girls have been learning some Spanish (a review product), and learning about composers. Sassy has declared it "unfair" that Mozart was able to play musical instruments so effortlessly LOL. They're also wrapping up a "literature study" that we've been reviewing, and that I'll be writing the review for in the next couple of days.

We're reading our LAST book for the Civil War part of American History, then we will "jump back in time" to learn more about westward expansion since we skipped over that last summer. They're continuing to enjoy the Astronomy unit we reviewed, though now that it's not a "required review item" it isn't a priority to do EVERY day, this time of year, I try to keep "school" to a minimum to allow for plenty of outdoor time :)

That "plenty of outdoor time" has meant we haven't done as much with Little Bit's school lately either. In another week or two we'll be starting my FAVORITE unit from this curriculum though, so will be making it more of a priority LOL. It's all about insects, and soo fun!!!! I'm hoping she enjoys it as much as the big girls did at her age (and who are we kidding, *I* love it too!)

So, life's busy, and fun, and going great!!! :)