Just realized it's a long time since I've blogged! I find it completely impossible to write anything comprehensible when the kids are around. On the rare occasion when they're not around I tend to try to catch up on things like laundry and dishes.
OK, and surfing the net. Shoot me.
Anyway, we've been quite busy, as all our lessons are in full swing now. Pretty sure I am at my limit of outside activities. We have:
Monday: free
Tuesday: fiddle lessons
Wednesday: Sacred Dance
Thursday: free
Friday: library in the morning, swimming in the afternoons
Saturday: gymnastics
Sunday: church
We are all loving the fiddle lessons with Gretchen Koehler. They're at 1pm, so Isaiah sleeps in the car (Thank you Jesus) and Gretchen is just awesome and makes it very fun. She so kindly includes Levi as much as she can, and last week surprised us by lending him a tiny fiddle to take home! He had been asking to do lessons too, but at 5 years old I wasn't quite ready to shell out another pile of money for him to try it, only to lose interest. I should remind myself here that Levi is not the kind of kid who loses interest easily, though. Anyway, we're very grateful for the use of the little fiddle, and for the teacher's kindness.
Lydia loves to swim, but I had to do a lot of cajoling to get Levi to agree to take lessons. I finally won him over when I told him he could use his life jacket. Well, this year there is a different teacher than the one Lydia had last year, and the first thing she told him was to take off his life jacket. Oh dear. By the end of the lesson, the kid was (willingly) jumping into water over his head like he'd been doing it all his life! Swimming is only 6 weeks long, and I am actually REALLY looking forward to not dragging us all into town on Friday afternoons. We're doing the 4 day Sonlight, and I was hoping to do some art and music from
Harmony Fine Arts on the fifth day, but so far we've only been able to complete one lesson. Fridays are just too crazy!
Last week we had to make a trip to Syracuse (3 hours one way, screaming toddler who would not sleep = fun times) for Isaiah's post placement visit. I took the kids to the zoo, not expecting much, as I had heard the zoo in Watertown was nicer. Well, I don't know what that person was smoking, because I thought the Syracuse zoo was fantastic. We loved the 'bird room' where you walked through the birds' habitat with no cages between you and the birds. It was beautiful. We also LOVED the penguins! They had several areas where we could watch them swimming and playing underwater, and also where we could see them all on top of their (concrete) 'iceberg'. Of course, I forgot the camera. Bummer.
Lydia had her birthday last month, (NINE!) and we gave her a book,
Fleecie Dolls
.
It is totally her thing. I don't even know how many she has made, but she made these three in the first week and a half after receiving the book:
I am so thankful my kids have time to explore and play and just be kids. Everyday when that bus goes up the road in the dark of morning, and comes back at 4pm, I just can't imagine having to pile an hour's worth of homework on top of that, and try to get everyone fed supper and to bed at a reasonable hour and still try to get in some quality family time and just kid exploring and playing time.
And just to include the boys, gratuitous pizza dough making pics:
on Wednesday. It was supposed to be her reader for the next two weeks. :)
as a read-aloud. It's very different from any other book I've read about American Indians, about a young teenage boy who leaves his tribe to travel with Cabeza de Vaca into Mexico. We're both really enjoying it. She keeps trying to make some sort of Indian dwelling. This is the closest she's come:
