The weather has continued to be PHENOMENAL!!! Windows open, chilly enough to appreciate a nice hot cup of coffee in the morning, beautiful, sunny, I wanna stay outside all day, weather!!
But we HAVE managed to fit some inside school in between enjoying the weather :)
One of the "art" projects the big girls remembered fondly from when I did this preschool curriculum with THEM, was finger painting with chocolate pudding, and that was on this week's schedule. I decided, since our table is a drop-leaf table, and therefore has cracks in it, to keep the mess contained by giving them each a baking sheet as a "canvas". So basically I plopped a spoonful of chocolate pudding on a cookie sheet for each kid and told them to go to town. Then when they were happy with their "masterpiece" we laid a piece of paper on top of it and so that it was kind of a "stamp" onto the paper. And of course, we had chocolate pudding for snack that day LOL.
It was a rather art-filled week overall. Ashlyn and Lexie both did salt dough projects for a mission unit study I'll be reviewing soon. And coincidentally, this week, one of the suggested art projects for Bible Road Trip was to make a camel caravan out of salt dough. So, while I read the Bible chapters to the kids, they worked on that, though I don't think we have anything even remotely resembling a camel caravan from any of them yet. It does seem to work pretty well to keep they quietly occupied while I read LOL.My parents came up for a couple days this week as well. Dad helped us remove the window a/c units for the winter, installed a motion sensing light on the garage, did abit of rewiring so that their motorhome can be plugged in, on it's own breaker, instead of sharing a breaker with our washing machine. AND built the trundle for the girls' bed. Several trips ago, he built their bed, a double bed that the twin mattress can slide under, and we've just been sliding the mattress out on the ground, but this time he built the trundle, so now it's a little easier for the girls to slide it in and out on their own.
It doesn't look any different during the day, so I snapped a picture at night, after I'd tucked them all in. When we first moved, the big girls took turns sleeping with Little Bit in the double bed, but now they've pretty much settled on Lexie and Little Bit sharing the double bed, and Ashlyn on the trundle. It seems to be a win-win. Lexie says she sleeps better with someone, and Ashlyn gets too hot, easily, so doesn't like "cuddling".The other HUGE project we tackled while my parents were here, and the weather was AWESOME, was reorganizing the garage!!! When we moved here, we stacked most everything in the garage, and my plan was to go through the boxes, put away things that I wanted in the house, and then store "extras" in an organized fashion in the garage. BUT by the time we got everything in the garage AND the tools Dad needed to put in the shower and all the other projects he's been doing for us, it was a sort of gridlock. There were boxes that I knew I didn't need right now, blocking the boxes I hadn't been through yet, but I didn't have anywhere to put them that wouldn't be in Dad's way . . . and then spring came and we had to have a place to park the riding lawn mower TOO, sigh . . . So all summer, I've just ignored that huge pile of boxes. Now with beautiful weather, and mom there to help, I decided to tackle it all. We pulled EVERYTHING out of the garage onto the driveway, sorted it, and then put it back in the garage in a way that the only boxes that are "blocked" are ones that are things from the candle business I used to have. The girls love the idea of doing something with that someday, and I'd love for them to, but it's not going to be today or tomorrow, so as long as I know where that stuff is, it can have other boxes in front of it.
In the process, I found a TON of winter clothes for Little Bit for this winter, she's having great fun trying stuff on. It amuses me how often, when she tries on something that was one of Ashlyn's favorites when it fit her, Ashlyn will, without me telling her that, and, without remembering it specifically, exclaim over how CUTE that is. So apparently, her "tastes" haven't changed LOL. This batch of clothes also includes a few things that Ashlyn and Lexie remember, so they're having fun with that too.
To wrap up our week, the neighbor boys, E & J stayed with us all afternoon on Sabbath, while they're parents were at a wedding. I took the opportunity to try out a project that I'd had on my "fun things to do for school" list for quite awhile. I got out the water half of our old sand and water table and sprinkled it full of baking soda and glitter, with some glass "gems" hiding under the baking soda. Then I gave the kids each a spray bottle full of vinegar and let them go to town with it. They ALL had fun for awhile. The big girls decided it was more fun to encrust themselves with the glitter, then to spray the baking soda LOL.
Later, I added more water and some sea shells and bath toys and the three little ones continued to have a blast with it, for the most part without arguing or grabbing, YAY!!!! (I did supervise it pretty carefully, to make sure that vinegar didn't get sprayed or splashed into eyes, but all went well).They had a blast, and the water table got cleaned in the process, woo-hoo!!!
While the little ones were all busy at the water table, I glanced up to see where the big girls had disappeared to, and found them both, reading, outside! I LOVE this picture!
For the past couple of years, in the wintertime, our Saturday night supper tradition has been popcorn and hot chocolate (made from scratch, I should add that recipe on here soon, shouldn't I?), and fruit, and, if anyone's hungry enough, sandwiches. Ashlyn has been itching to get back to that tradition so that's what we did for supper this week. AND the girls decided, on their own, to have E & J help them. Little Bit was overly tired or hungry or SOMETHING and melting down at every.little.thing, so it didn't work to have her "help" too, but Ashlyn did great at finding ways for J to help her make hot chocolate, and Lexie found several things for E to do to help make popcorn. I think his favorite part was just watching the popcorn "bubble up" and spill over in the air popper LOL. We also tried pumpkin pie popcorn (another recipe I should add here) this time, and that was a hit too. So, all in all a fun week! (and obviously, since I'm not getting this posted until Tuesday, THIS week is busy too!)
No comments:
Post a Comment