And now, fall is here! We had a wet (off and on), weird weather kind of week. The first few days, it was hot again, to the point that I grudgingly shut the windows and turned the a/c back on. And then, just like that, it went from hot to COLD! Grumble, grumble . . . I wanted more open-window time! Maybe we'll still get some, I hope!
This week was our first week of our new co-op. I have to admit, I wasn't sure how it would play out. I knew Lexie and Ashlyn would have great fun being helpers. But I wasn't sure how Little Bit would do. Our age range is 2-6, with her being the only 6 year old. Naturally, things need to be geared more toward the younger kids since she can do easier things but they can't do older-kid things. Some days she loves being the "big kid" other days, she doesn't. . . This time, at least, things went well!
The music part of our co-op is Musik Garden (similar to the Kindermusik my older girls did when they were preschoolers, but with more of a Montessori feel). Given the age span, the program she's using is the 4 year old program. Which I kind of liked getting to listen in on, since it reminded me most of the program the older girls were in :) Lexie and Ashlyn, being the awesome helpers they are, joined in as 2 of the "kids" so that the littler kids would have other kids to mimic. And Little Bit participated better than she usually does with singing in her class at church (interestingly, she also seemed to sing better in church this week, so maybe the combination will encourage participation both places, or maybe it was all a fluke, who knows . . . Later in the week she was telling my mom how much fun Musik Garden was, so it was a hit :) (on a side note, one of the things she loves about going to Miss Sonya's house is all the baby stuff. The "baby" you see in the swing in the background of this picture is actually her (well, technically Ashlyn's, but Little Bit's kind of adopted him) doll, Marco. Whenever we're over there she happily moves him (or whichever doll(s) she brings) between the swing, pack-n-play, bouncy seat . . . ).
Then the kids had "PE" time. Lexie and Ashlyn tried to get them to play tag, but most weren't interested. The 2 year olds didn't like the wet grass (it wasn't raining, but had been earlier), and came back inside to play with toys. Little Bit and N (4) decided swinging was more fun. Ashlyn pushed them on the swings while Lexie played tag with D (4). But at least they got some wiggles out. We'll play with various ideas over the next few weeks, but I'm wondering if, at this age, they'll do better with unstructured outside time after the structure of music time. We shall see.
Next came art/craft time. Little Bit is always happy when she gets to use paint, so she was happy as a clam, and again told Mama all about how fun it was. So the day was a success :) I'm definitely getting the easy deal out of this whole co-op thing, since Lexie and Ashlyn happily plan the PE part that is supposed to be my contribution. I got to cuddle the baby and just hang out :)
Thursday, after much debating back and forth, and constant watching of the ever-changing weather reports, we decided to chance the rain and head to Longwood Gardens as planned. The weather reports actually gave a very low chance of rain, but it did kind of drizzle all afternoon. Our friend Denise came with us and, in the world of tweens, Denise is much cooler than mom and grandparents, so Lexie and Ashlyn happily headed off to do their own thing with her. Which worked well, since it meant we could go at Little Bit pace. I have no idea what Denise and the big girls did, we spent most of our time inside, but Little Bit and Mama did have fun checking out the giant lily pads.
We went out for pizza and then came back to Longwood for their lights display. By then it had stopped raining though it was still kind of drizzly. The lights display was really cool, and the bad weather meant there weren't any crowds. It made for a late night for the kiddos, but was a great day, despite the rain!
Sabbath was a busy, but fun day. In addition to all the normal stuff, I walked into church with Little Bit and a friend we hadn't seen in several years was there with her little girl we'd never met! Little Bit didn't remember her, but we had great fun surprising the big girls :)
Sabbath afternoon a friend texted me and invited us to go geocaching. It was kind of cold, and the ground was saturated, but it was nice to get outside after all the rain. And the kids had fun finding geocaches that had stuff in them to trade :)
So a busy, fun, fall week!
In other news, things continue to move forward with the new house. In between all the fun stuff, I've been attempting to get some packing done. I have to admit, it's challenging. There are just no "corners" in this house for me to stack boxes in that they won't be completely in our way, and there's nowhere to stack boxes in the garage that won't be in Dad's way. So, I'm packing some stuff, but think to a large extent I'll just be REALLY busy once we do close on the house and I can start moving stuff straight from this house to the new house. If all goes as planned we'll be closing on it on the 20th.
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