October, Part 2

For the third year in a row our church and a public elementary school in downtown Reading have teamed up to host a trunk or treat for the kids from that school and surrounding area. This is a school where almost all of the students qualify for free lunch. It is soo awesome to see these kids and their parents enjoying a family afternoon, appreciating the simple games and candy. Last year a local police officer had a trunk.This year we had two police car trunks AND the Bomb Squad truck as a "trunk"!! Of course, they passed out fire balls as their candy LOL. It was so cool! And great to see the kids high 5'ing and fist-bumping the officers, and getting their pictures taken with them. 

Little Bit had planned to be a unicorn, wearing her unicorn jacket, but it was HOT! Much too warm for a jacket. Thankfully one of the trunks offered face painting, so she was a cat instead LOL. 

A friend was manning her trunk alone with her baby & almost 2 yr old. Needless to say, it didn't take much arm twisting to convince me to help her out by cuddling the baby. Between Lexie, Ashlyn, and me, we kept her most of the afternoon! I think her big brother enjoyed getting some extra mommy snuggles and we ate up all the sweet baby snuggles!

The next day our homeschool co-op had a field trip to Paulus Orchard. We had a wagon ride through the orchards, then each kid got to pick 3 apples and choose a pumpkin. After that we could enjoy the "play area" for as long as we wanted.  

There was a "bounce pillow" that everyone got a turn on, then there were slides, "hamster wheels", pedal cars, a play house, rubber duck races, a "sand box" of corn kernels, a spider web to hang out on, giant hay bales stacked up so they could be climbed . . . It was a very fun day!  We finished up with Apple Cider Donuts from the shop, yum!

Later that week my parents came up to replace our second garage door. The one we replaced in June was rotting away and definitely needed to  be replaced. The other one was starting to rot  but could have survived another year or so BUT the original doors were dark green and the replacement door was white so we wanted to go ahead and replace the second one so they'd match. 

After that was done the girls and I went back to my parents house with them and, on Friday, headed to Summer's Farm Corn Maze in MD. It's a big corn maze that I took the girls to when they were toddlers but we hadn't been back since we moved away the spring Lexie & Ashlyn turned 5. So, 10 years later, we came back! 

While the kids loved all the extra activities when they were little, the corn maze itself was a bit frustrating. The theory is that every time you come to a decision point there's a numbered sign and you can answer a question to know whether turn left or right but in actuality there are a lot of unmarked decision points. With two toddlers, that was a bit of a disaster. This year was much more fun. They were bound and determined to "beat" the maze so all I had to do was follow along and not worry about getting lost since, after all, we'd get out eventually. It took us about an hour to make it through the 12 acre maze, so we'll call it a success :) We also enjoyed the activities they had like the "hamster wheel" (similar to the ones at Paulus Orchard except those weren't built into a "house' they traveled back and forth on a track, which was more fun.

Jumping on the bounce pillow. There was a group of boys playing football on it at one point. But they did pretty good at not plowing into other people so everyone had fun :) Can't believe even my "baby" is too tall for the "little kid" jump pillow now!

The "big slide" doesn't look nearly as big as it did when they were 4 either, and Lexie declared it not fast enough but Little Bit had fun and went down several times. 

We finished our time at Summer's Farm by visiting the petting zoo. The cow was soo friendly, and happy to have Ashlyn cuddle it :) 

Saturday we went to Woodlawn Manor in Sandy Spring, MD to go on an Underground Railroad trail and tour. I had assumed, based on the website, that they would show us routes and hiding places that were documented as having been used in the Underground railroad, or at least were strongly suspected of having been used, but in reality, the original owners of Woodlawn Manor were slave owners so, in a community that was predominantly Quaker, and therefore anti-slavery, they chose the one site known to NOT have been sympathetic to slaves, as the starting point of their tour. It was mostly just a hike through the woods, and meadows, stopping occasionally for the tour guide to talk about how things might have been, and tell stories of specific slaves who escaped (but in most cases went nowhere near the area where we were). It was interesting, just not what I was expecting, and I didn't feel it was worth the price. The tour ended at the site of the historic Sandy Spring that the town is named after. Land development in recent years has re-routed the spring so it no longer flows from it's historic point, but the monument is still there. We then hiked back at our own pace, and visited the small museum that is a part of Woodlawn Manor. 

On our way back to mom & dad's, we stopped in Gaithersburg to walk around a lake there. We didn't make it very far around the lake because the Hero Dogs organization was outside a restaurant soon after we started. They had dogs from a 7 week old puppy up to a 3 yr old ready to be placed. And were happy to let us love on their dogs, and have those old enough to have at least started the training process show off their "tricks". The dogs are trained to do things like pull a wheelchair or crutches over to you (which involves training them to pull without shaking their head like dogs instinctively do) pick up your keys or their leash, open and close drawers and cupboards . . . and they are also trained to help with anxiety. So if the trainer tapped his foot like someone might do subconsciously if they were worried, the dog would put her paw on his foot to calm him. When the trainer put his hands up to his face like he was scared or depressed, she jumped up into his face to get his attention. It was really interesting and the dogs were all super sweet :) 

After talking to the Hero Dog people, we headed on up the road to make sure we got to South Mountain Creamery by 4pm to help feed the calves. This never gets old! Since it was the weekend it was busier than we're used to, but each of the girls got to feed at least one calf. Ashlyn was frustrated that the calf she really wanted to feed (an adorable, TINY, Jersey calf) someone else had "claimed" but then just put the bottle in the "bottle holder" and stood there watching it eat. 

Rodney joined us at my parents' house Saturday night and Sunday we headed down to his mom's house to visit with her and Rodney's sister and brother-in-law. 

In other October news, all three girls joined our homeschool co-op's Chorus, so we're immersed in the Christmas songs they're learning. Little Bit is once again taking art classes twice a month, and we're hosting an American Girl Club once a month. Lexie & Ashlyn joined the tween/teen book club at co-op which meets once a month . . . so we're staying busy.

Other schoolish stuff this fall:

Little Bit is enjoying Waldorf Essential's Second Grade Curriculum (adapted to fit our eclectic style, of course)

Lexie and Ashlyn chose a "Who Dun It" writing course for this year. We're having fun reading classic mystery books and watching classic mystery shows while they plan out the "who dun it" novel they will complete by the end of the course. 

We've cycled back around to Ancient History, using Story of the World Vol 1 as our spine. The older girls are digging deeper into the more "scholarly"books on the topic and I get to hear tidbits of what they read. I had figured we'd just use the Saint and hero stories included in the Waldorf Essentials curriculum for Little Bit's history, but she is enjoying picture books related to what her older sisters are learning about Ancient History. 

Lexie continues to be fascinated by genetics and read horribly long books on the topic :) 

We're finishing up the Little House series of audio  books in the car, in between CDs related to Ancient History.

We're introducing Little Bit to the earlier Harry Potter books. We're all enjoying listening to the audiobook of the Sorcerer's Stone for bedtime, along with audiobooks for the teen book club and/or the Who Dun It course.

October, Part 1

Obviously I'm better at remembering to blog when I'm traveling. So . . . we got home from our epic Little House trip in late September and spent the rest of the month getting settled back into our normal routines.   Tracy, the cat who's been banished to the front porch for repeatedly peeing everywhere but the litterboxes, was very glad to have us home again! Daddy wasn't willing to go hang out on the porch and give her love. Of course, 5 seconds after I took this picture she BIT my toe because I wasn't giving her ENOUGH attention! Silly cat.

As if we hadn't done enough traveling in August and September, the second week of October we headed to Pittsburgh for Rodney to work and the rest of us to play! Unfortunately, our beloved Carnegie Science Center was closed that week, so we didn't get to go there, but we did go to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. Lexie and Ashlyn have "aged out" of it for the most part (I think someone their age who had never been there would still find it interesting, but after going so often when they were younger they mostly just found a corner and read a book. Little Bit still enjoyed most of it though. Painting, playing with water, and checking out the new (awesome) chairs they have in the "garage". These chairs are soo cool! I went hunting online to find them. I did, but they're over $700 each, which is beyond absurd for a hunk of plastic!!! Here's hoping someone makes a cheap knock-off LOL.

Can't go to the Children's museum without a picture of Little Bit next to the giraffe sculpture :)

We also got lots of swimming time while we were in Pittsburgh. Little Bit hasn't had as many opportunities as her sisters did to practice swimming since she's been tall enough to be in the pool without floaties, so this was a wonderful opportunity. She definitely took some solid steps toward being more comfortable in the water. Wish we'd had longer.

The next day we went to a small zoo near where Rodney was working. It was overpriced for what it was, but we had a fun day. They want you to buy food to feed the animals (can't bring in your own baby carrots, have to buy a bag from them for $4! I don't even know how much the bucket of "nuggets" were. After what I'd paid to get in, I wasn't paying anything extra. BUT because most people do, the animals tend to come running up to the fence in hopes of being fed, so we could see the animals closer than most zoos.

There was a baby giraffe that only came out at certain times, but we managed to get a "front row" spot to see it. Little Bit was over-the-moon :)

They also had "baby animal feeding time". There were several young animals in the pen (a Sabu, and I don't remember what else) but only the camels were still being bottle fed. They definitely knew when it was feeding time. So cute! Little Bit said the camels are easier to feed than calves. They don't butt at the bottles like the calves do. So all in all, it was a fun day :)

When we got home, Little Bit had a fun surprise! One of my parents' "National Park friends" is a geologist and posts pictures of rocks and minerals on facebook every day. When we were on our motorhome trip, mom was showing those pictures to Little Bit, and let the friend know that her granddaughter enjoyed his pictures. He asked if he could send her some rocks and they had arrived when we got home from Pittsburgh! She was very excited! It was really cool! A box of rocks, each marked with what it is and where it's from!!!

Wrapping Up June

I started writing this at the beginning of July and then got side-tracked, and the window got closed, and I forgot that I hadn't finished it so now it's the middle of July, oh well . . .

How is it July already? It seems like June just started! We started our summer by going to Lititz (a nearby town) to visit our favorite book store, go to the farmers market, feed the ducks (if you look close at the picture you'll see the baby ducks in the grass), and eat ice cream :)

I snapped the picture of Joy on Little Bit's loft one night at bedtime. He often sleeps up there with her, and sometimes goes and wakes her up in the morning. One morning she said he wouldn't let her get to the ladder, so "trapped" her up there with him for awhile. 

And while we're sharing cute pictures of Little Bit and our critters. Both Tracy (pictured) and Mi'Lady (the other black cat). Like to lick Little Bit's face. Maybe she should wash it better after lunch LOL. Or maybe they just think she's a kitten who needs to be groomed :) Tracy is a sweet, friendly, cat, but ever since she had kittens last summer (and maybe before? I don't remember when it started, I know I was hoping that getting her spayed (after kittens) would solve it) she's insisted on peeing everywhere BUT the litter box. She likes to pee on fabric . . . so any clothes on the floor, the bathroom bath mat, etc. . . also shoes apparently are close enough, because the last straw was when she started repeatedly peeing on our shoes by the back door URGH!!! And then, we were leaving for a week for campmeeting. I told the girls that Tracy was going to HAVE to live outside, at least while we were gone. Rodney wouldn't be home enough to notice, or clean up, any cat pee and I didn't want to come home to week-old cat pee who knows where. . . So we put her outside with food & water for her on the porch. And headed to Campmeeting.

Lexie and Ashlyn divided their time between their class (which included tubing, and attempting to waterski at the lake, listening to mission stories from Papua New Guinea, and playing games) and helping in Kindergarten (age 4-6) and the craft tent for ages 7-12. Little Bit was disappointed that most of her afternoon activities were off-site, and I wasn't comfortable with allowing her to go off-site with the supervision and organization I had observed, but I think it worked out, even with skipping most of the afternoon activities, she was pretty exhausted by the end of the week. We have always put a priority on keeping downtime in our schedule, so our kids don't handle the constant stimulation that is the norm for many families in our current culture. Being able to just hang out with me and read stories, or paint or draw, gave her some downtime between the morning activities and the evening meetings. I remember observing the same thing with Lexie and Ashlyn at this age. It's just too much . . . even though they aren't actually getting to bed much, if any, later than they normally do, we normally start "winding down" by 8pm, and have a nice long storytime each evening. When they get back from meeting at close to 9pm, they're wound up and we don't have that nice, gradual, wind down to our day. Anyway . . . I didn't take any pictures during campmeeting, but linked to a couple pictures from Facebook that have my kids in them :) 

Also during campmeeting, my Dad helped us replace one of our garage doors. The bottom was rotting, so it needed to be replaced. So now we have one green door (old one) and one white door, but at least critters can't get in through the hole in the bottom of the door :) At some point we'll replace the other one so they match again :)

I figured, with the garage wide open while we were installing the new garage door, that Tracy would sneak back in. But apparently she's accepted her fate as an outdoor cat. She looked like she was considering coming in a few times, but never did (and certainly COULD have snuck in easily enough). And, since we've come home, while she's happy to have us come out and love on her (the morning that the weather was nice enough that I drank my coffee on the front porch, she happily came and rubbed around under and on my feet the whole time I was out there), and sometimes looks longingly in the door when we come out or go in, she hasn't even tried to sneak in. I think, since we have another extended trip planned this fall, we'll just stick with her being an outdoor cat at least until after that trip, and then may try again and see how she does, so she's not stuck outside in the cold this winter. . .

Ever since Lexie and Ashlyn turned 13, we've talked about getting them their own checking accounts (our bank offers a teen account) so they would have a debit card available when they go places without us. So, the money they received for helping at campmeeting was the incentive we needed to finally do that. While we were at the bank, there was a tornado warning, which freaked Little Bit out, but since it didn't even look stormy where we were, we just kept a close eye on the radar maps, and finished what we were doing, then headed home. The tornado warning had expired by the time we got home (and we still had blue skies), but we did get some good thunderstorms later that afternoon.

Lexie and Ashlyn "graduated" from 8th grade this fall. When I asked if they wanted a graduation or party or something, they had no interest but when I asked if they wanted to go out to eat to celebrate, they thought that sounded like a good idea. After much discussion, they had narrowed it down to The Melting Pot and Cheesecake Factory. We decided that, since if they weren't twins, they'd each get their own graduation meal, we should do two graduation meals this year. I'm pretty sure Little Bit is too young to enjoy the "experience" of The Melting Pot so arranged for her to have a playdate with a friend while we took the big girls. Got there, sat down, ordered, and . . . they came and said they had smoke pouring out of a vent in the back and were going to have to evacuate the restaurant. Sigh . . . We decided to wait and see if they re-opened after the firetrucks came to see what was wrong (and as it turned out, the firetruck blocked our car in, so we were stuck even if we hadn't been planning to stay), but they determined that the storms earlier in the day (the same ones that scared Little Bit at the bank, but apparently they were worse in Harrisburg) had messed up their electrical system, so they didn't re-open and we had to go to Qdoba for supper instead. I tried to convince the girls that it still counted, since there was cheese to dip the chips in, but they are insisting that we still "owe" them a trip to The Melting Pot LOL.

Apparently we are becoming more "known" as the dog watcher family. When one of Rodney's coworkers needed to make a last minute trip, he remembered hearing that our girls like to watch dogs, so called Rodney and asked if, by any chance, we could watch their dog.  She's TINY which Little Bit liked, because she could handle her on the leash to take her out by herself. And she's a cuddle bug, so we all enjoyed cuddling her.

As usual, our cats stayed out of sight, though a few times Moccasin poked his head out, and Tara growled at him and he ran way. Which I found amusing since Moc is probably twice her size LOL. Figured it was just as well that he was afraid of her, rather than thinking she might be "prey" :)

One of the things Lexie and Ashlyn love about church is helping in the 0-6 year old class and getting to steal help out by snuggling the babies. When I saw them both holding babies after church one week, I had to snap a picture, even though the babies were both fussy (that's why B looks like Lexie's squeezing him too tightly LOL.

Ever since mid May, we've been trying to figure out and visit our friends Tom and Charity and meet their sweet new baby girl! But campmeeting and such got in the way, and then I had a cold . . . but FINALLY we got over there! A dog, a baby, and a toddler (who didn't make the picture)! What more can you ask for?!

They are also hosting a 13 yr old from the Ukraine for the summer. She doesn't speak English (Google Translate is a very useful thing!), but that didn't keep all 4 girls from having fun playing Uno. No need to speak the same language :) (bonus, since all the girls were busy playing their game, *I* actually got to snuggle the baby for a little while, woo-hoo!)

Once the Uno games were over, we all headed to Oley Turnpike Dairy's petting zoo! As a fun bonus, since it's only a few miles from our old house (and loading an 8 yr old and two 14 yr olds into a car is much faster than loading a baby, a toddler, and a teenager, so we left ahead of them), the girls and I detoured by our old house. . . they removed the gazebo :( If I'd known they weren't going to keep it, I'd have taken the (in better repair than the one we have) porch swing for our porch now, sigh! Ashlyn was excited to see a big dog pen in the back yard, and was wishing we still lived nearby to go meet their dogs LOL.  

The petting zoo was fun. It's been awhile since we've been there, and now they sell bags of dog food (or something similar) to feed the animals instead of crackers. At first V wasn't sure what she was supposed to do with the pet food, but by the end she figured it out and all three teenagers had fun feeding the baby goats :) 

I'll finish off my June Wrap-up with a picture of Ashlyn with one of "her dogs". We went to visit Maggie and her family. I'm not sure who was happier to see who, Maggie to see Ashlyn or Ashlyn to see Maggie :) 

Wrapping up May

After our whirlwind of field trips in Maryland, we headed home. . . and continued to stay busy :) A few days after we got home, we went to Hopewell Furnace. They offer a free field trip for school (and home school) groups in grades 3 and up where they take the kids on a tour of the park, explaining how the cast iron was made then they let the kids make their own sand molds of a model of the stove doors that were made there. The ranger pours plaster of paris in the molds and the kids get to take home their own casting! We had a good sized group from our homeschool coop join us for this field trip. Little Bit isn't in 3rd grade yet and her bff in the homeschool group was also there with her younger brothers so their mom and I took the younger kids on their own "tour", and did the Junior Ranger with them.  

The highlight, however, were some caterpillars they found. By the end of the Junior Ranger, Little Bit and B had collected 6 or 7 caterpillars and decided to create a "caterpillar hotel" in a tree near the visitor center.  In the end, those silly caterpillars kept them occupied for most of the 2+ hours that the big kids were busy on their field trip! Since I was with Little Bit, I didn't get to actually see the big kid field trip, but Lexie & Ashlyn said it was interesting. I'm hoping to organize another group in a couple years when Little Bit is old enough to participate as well :) 

Ashlyn finished up a subscription to a ArtAchieve at the beginning of May, so is doing her own thing for art now. At the moment, she's having fun making jewelry with oven baked clay. She made coffee bean earrings for herself, Lexie, and me a few months ago. And made Little Bit a penguin bead to try out some other techniques, but her "big" project was a TARDIS necklace. She did tons of research to figure out what techniques to use to get the look she wanted, and it was a multi-step process, but the end result is pretty cool! So far Lexie hasn't convinced her to make her one though, she says it was too much work :) 

Meanwhile, Little Bit finished the finger knit jump rope she'd been working on. Unfortunately, despite following the directions for determining the length, it was way too short. We may try again at some point, but for now, we moved on to some hand-stitching. With campmeeting coming up soon, and our plans to take a long motorhome trip this fall, I liked the idea of having a pouch to keep her block and stick crayons in. So she chose some felt she liked, and she hand-stitched it into a crayon pouch. I'm so tickled with how well it turned out and she's been having fun being able to carry her crayons around :) 

May is the start of park days with our homeschool co-op. We attended some last summer but since we only knew a couple people, and not everyone comes every week, my girls hesitated to join in the group games. Now that they know most of the kids they have no such qualms. One of the main games is "sword fights". A couple of the kids have a whole arsenal of foam swords/weapons and are willing to share, so all the kids get in on it. I love that everyone from the teenagers to the preschoolers get to participate! Once my girls had played a couple weeks and had determined they want to continue, they made their own "weapons" with pool noodles, pvc pipe and duct tape :) 

We got to dog sit one of "our dogs" for a week while his family was out of town. Always love having a Cavalier King Charles around again. And he's sweet as can be! In general he's more lovey with the girls and me, and ignores Rodney, but  he was very certain that Rodney should share his chicken with him :) 

One Saturday afternoon each month during the school year, a group of us from church goes to the Boys and Girls Club downtown and play games in the gym and do a craft with the kids. May's craft was string art. The kids LOVED it!Some of the crafts they rush through and want to go back up to the gym, but this one even the boys asked if they could do a second one. Little Bit had fun with it too :)












Lexie and Ashlyn take turns teaching in the 0-3 yr old class at church so they get to be friends with all the little ones at church. After church last week Lexie was "helping out" by hanging out with one of her buddies while his mommy was busy, and I managed to snap this picture, isn't he a sweetie!

This past week, Lexie and Ashlyn spent a couple days helping with a project at Rodney's office (photocopying and putting packets together and such), so Little Bit and I got to hang out together.

Recently Little Bit has gotten very into looking up bugs, plants etc. to learn more about them. She had started carrying around a whole stack of field guides in her backpack so when I needed to order an "add on" item from Amazon, and therefore needed to order something else to get up to $25, I took the opportunity to order her a combination field guide for our area. She's been having a blast finding things to look up and had to get a new purse at Goodwill that was just the right size to carry her book with her everywhere she goes :) In this picture she was looking up some bug she'd found on the railing, and glaring at me for taking her picture LOL.







One of the days that Lexie and Ashlyn were at work with Daddy, she spent the better part of the morning sculpting things with clay (Ashlyn's current interest in making the baked clay jewelry has sparked Little Bit's interest in sculpting as well. Her most elaborate sculpture that day was a gnome.

Wrapping Up Most of April

We've started into one of our marathons of field trips, so I decided, before we get into that, to go ahead and wrap up most of April, and then another post (or two) about all the field trips.

We started April by celebrating the girls' birthdays with the grandparents. Which I, apparently, didn't take any pictures of.

For school, Little Bit and I are learning about "form drawing", a pre-writing skill (that grows into some rather complex drawing skills as children get older) taught in Waldorf curriculum. To help practice the form before writing it in her book, she draws it on the sidewalk with chalk.

Then, after I've smoothed out the form, if needed, she practices walking the form, using movement to help her brain remember it better :)

Another event that I didn't get any pictures of was the little birthday party Little Bit begged me to do. In general, we keep birthdays simple, and family-centered, but this year she begged to invite a couple friends over for a party. She argued that we could do an "American Girl party" that was the same as what we do for co-op each month. So I gave in. And then I was sick on her birthday, and had to postpone it. So finally, 2 weeks later, we had a fun little party for her and 2 of her friends. They made glass paperweights, and Lexie made petit fours that they ate with ice cream and lemonade. Then they played outside, and with their dolls.

With spring finally here, we met friends at a nearby (ish) zoo! There's a playground at the zoo, so all the kids convinced Lexie to push them on the merry-go-round and generally took a break from animals to play.

The zoo doesn't have giraffes yet, but they're working on building a place for them, and taking donations to be able to get them, so Little Bit had to pose as a baby giraffe. We enjoyed the animals that were there, ate our picnic lunch, and then the kids spent an hour or more pretending to be wolves at the "wolf den" (rock overhang for kids to play on), and rolling down a grassy hill while us moms (and teens) got to visit.  It was a pretty awesome day!

There's a store near us called "Art of Recycle" that sells recycled junk as art supplies, and also has various workshops and classes. Recently they had a "miniature fairy garden class" that the girls thought sounded fun, so all 3 of them went to it. It was really cool. For $5 each, they got to choose a teacup (or similar) with a succulent in it, and some small "toys" as props and some sea glass/marbles/rocks etc for additional decorations. Then at each table there was additional plants and dirt and water.

Each of their little fairy gardens turned out different, reflecting their different interests, but all 3 are really cute. I should have thought to take pictures of the final products.

We've been enjoying lots of park days while the weather's nice. One of the parks near us has lots of paved paths right near the playground, so I can sit on a bench and read while Little Bit rides her scooter on the paths and plays on the playground. Ashlyn can sit on the bench and watch for people to walk by with their dogs :) Lexie can read her book, or swing on the swings, because even big kids like swings, and that park has some swings that are tall enough to be worth swinging on.

Now that Lexie finished making the pioneer  doll dresses for Little Bit for her birthday, I thought maybe she'd sew some wipes I've been wanting done. I cut them out for her, and left them for her to do. I heard the sewing machine going and thought she might be working on them, but no . . . a little while later, she came down and showed off the doll dress she'd made. Rather than just making one she had a pattern for, she'd taken pieces of various patterns and put them together to come up with this dress. I had fun giving her a hard time about making a doll dress instead of the wipes I asked her to make. Her response was that sewing plain squares are boring :)

When Little Bit was younger, she watched quite a bit of "tv" but it was mostly things like Wild Kratts and Martha Speaks and other shows that were teaching her something. As she's gotten older, she's tended to prefer less educational things, which means I'd prefer she watch it less. So a couple weeks ago I made up a system (putting together 2 or 3 different ideas I saw online and then tweaking them) where she earns "jewels" (the little flat marble things that we seem to have millions of) for doing the things she's required to do anyway, like feeding the cats and putting her toys away, and also for doing things I'd rather she do instead of watching tv. Like playing outside or "creating" (drawing, painting, etc), provided she cleans up after herself when she creates. Then the idea was she could use those jewels to "buy" tv time. The one exception being, if the whole family is watching tv she can either watch what we're watching, or watch something she'd rather watch on her tablet. That was the system as I designed it. When I presented the idea to her, I also pulled a small mug out of the cabinet for her to keep her jewels in until she used them to buy tv. I was fully expecting her to pretty much "spend" the jewels as quickly as she earned them. . . She asked what would happen if she filled the cup? Could she have a "second date" (each month each of the girls gets to choose to go on a "date" with either their daddy or me. Little Bit generally goes for instant gratification and the first time we're anywhere near Auntie Anne's pretzels or an ice cream place, she decides that's what she wants for her date. Then she spends the rest of the month planning elaborate things that will be her next month's "date"). I said sure! Still didn't really think she'd be willing to give up tv enough to fill the cup, and figured if she was willing to do that, I'm more than happy to buy her an ice cream cone or pretzel to help her break the tv habit. Ummm . . . I think she only "bought" 2 or 3 shows since then! She still gets to watch tv in the car (but that's usually What's in the Bible or Friends & Heroes). She started asking for audiobooks a lot more. . . and the commented that she wished there was a way she could listen to stories while she played with dolls in her room, so I set up my tablet so that she could listen to audiobooks on it, and once she could do that, she's been perfectly happy to listen to librivox audiobooks instead of watching tv. It's meant I've spent more time reading to her, and on the nice days she gets me to go sit on the porch swing while she plays in the yard.

One afternoon she brought her paints out to the front porch and painted the Mary, Joseph & Donkey who are traveling to Bethlehem for the 40 days of counting the Omer.

It's been great and she doesn't seem to miss watching tv in the least. Within a few days she had filled the cup to the top and we stopped for pretzels the next time we were near Auntie Anne's. Since then, she hasn't even bothered to collect her jewels. I'm still a bit in shock at how simple it was to break the tv habit!

And that gets us caught up to the middle of last week, which is when I STARTED writing this post. The rest of the month, is pretty much back-to-back field trips, so those will get their own post :)

Wrapping up March

Sigh, I'm behind again . . . March . . .

Starting in January we've been hosting a monthly American Girl Club for our homeschool group. In January, one family came. In February, 2 families came. In March . . . there were 21 people at our house! It was awesome! I have to admit, I was a bit nervous about how that many people would fit . . . and if/when we end up having a rainy day, it will certainly be loud, but it really worked out wonderfully! Altogether there were 8 girls there for the club, which is the maximum that will fit around our table. We were focusing on Samantha's time period, so we did a craft and ate a snack from 1905. Meanwhile the moms and younger brothers hung out in the sunroom, and the older siblings hung out in the living room. Once the craft and snack were done, the girls played with their dolls in the living room for awhile and then most of the kids migrated outside for the last while. We had a great time, and I was happy to see that our house can handle a "crowd" without feeling claustrophobic.

The next day, it snowed! After a winter of no real snow, we got a BUNCH in March! Go figure! I really didn't mind. It came when we didn't need to be anywhere, and we could just enjoy it's beauty while snuggling up indoors and staying put. And the nice thing about March snows is they tend to melt pretty quickly :)

I had to laugh at Moccasin. We had set a bowl out in the snow to catch snow for snow ice cream. After we brought it in, I walked into the sunroom to see Moccasin waiting to come in, sitting in the indentation from the bowl. Guess he thought it was a cat seat LOL. I'd say it was because he didn't want to sit on snow, but pretty sure there was still snow under him, so who knows . . . he's a silly cat!

The girls took advantage of having Daddy trapped at home with us, to play Monopoly with him. It's fun to listen to them argue . . . Daddy's risk-taking and Ashlyn risk-aversion tend to clash . . . it amuses me :)

Our church hosted a game night at the school gym one Saturday night. The "main attraction" was human hungry hippos. People also brought board games and Lexie and Ashlyn helped with setting up and supervising minute games (I think that's what she called them). Quick little challenges. They were a hit. My kids won't let me post the rather amusing pictures I have of them participating :)

 One of the snacks was sour patch kids. Not sure any of my kids had ever had them before. Little Bit's face when she tried one for the first time was PRICELESS! :)

It was a fun evening.

One night when I went to tell the girls goodnight, I found Tracy sleeping on the American Girl doll bed. Apparently she thinks she's an American Girl doll. Or maybe she just thinks that everything in this house is for her pleasure and comfort LOL.

I managed to not take any pictures of birthdays this year. They were pretty low key. I came down with a bad stomach bug 2 days before Little Bit's birthday, so lost my final "prep time" completely and was still moving pretty slow on her birthday. It was a nice day, just quiet and low key. Lexie & Ashlyn's birthday was also "low key" because they don't like a fuss being made AND don't like pictures taken, so I didn't push it this year.

We'll finish up this brief summary of March with a couple pictures from Little Bit's school. We're doing a slightly structured waldorf-ish approach and she seems to be enjoying it. In January and February we did a math gnomes block that I'm still planning to do a separate post on. Once we finished that we moved on to Form Drawing. This is something I didn't know much about, but it's recommended that we "catch up" on the first grade forms before we start the second grade curriculum that we're planning to start in July, so we'll be doing a long Form Drawing block with breaks for holidays and such, from now until July. We read stories, and I draw the form on the chalk board. We practice it in the air, on each other's back, in a "fairy sand box" (that is actually salt & glitter), Little Bit practices "painting" the form with water on the chalkboard, and drawing it on the chalk board. We also go outside (weather permitting) and draw the form on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk big enough that she can walk the form. Once she feels confident that she can draw it accurately, she adds it to her school notebook.

One of the things about Waldorf that I knew would be a good fit for her is all the art. We are learning the wet-on-wet watercolor technique as well as drawing with block crayons, and some days I'll draw a picture on the chalkboard that she copies into her school notebook with regular crayons of colored pencils. We will also eventually be sculpting with modeling beeswax, but I have to admit, *I* am still really struggling to figure out how that works, so don't want her getting frustrated with it until I understand it better.

She still has days when she doesn't want to do school. And of course, with it being spring, on gorgeous spring days we forget about book work and go outside and soak up the spring! But I feel like we're getting into a good groove. With the modifications I've made to the "prescribed" Waldorf method, it provides the structure that she needs but tons of creativity and the block schedule means it's not always the same (the block schedule would have not been a good fit for Ashlyn, but seems to be working well for Lina. Lexie just wants to be moving and doing hands on stuff, she doesn't care if there's structure or not LOL).