I really need a vacation. Summer vacation. I am so totally on summer vacation. There is a part of me that is so excited to put together some unit studies to do over the summer, just to keep the kids from spiraling out of control...
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| "DOG PILE!" |
...but there is another, bigger part of me that just wants
to take two weeks off and do nothing but hang laundry to dry in the
sun. So I'll just call the next two weeks an unschooling experiment.
We will see how much interest-driven learning they get done.
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| Shane's snake-he made a "nature video" about it |
We took an afternoon and went swimming down at the pond. While there, the kids on paddle boards saw a large accumulation of rough-skinned newts. "Look, those two are mating!" we heard. Mark and I can't help it. When our kids point out mating animals, we snicker.
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| The New Pet (ew) |
Shane and Evie have "rescued" tent caterpillars from drowning in the pond (why???) and put them in jars. They have been very good at making sure the caterpillars have fresh leaves. Evie's is starting to make a cocoon! Daniel was very cute when he shouted, "I want to see the ra-coo-coon!" Raccoons are on our mind lately!
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| This bird crashed into the window and needed a minute to catch its breath. |
We lost a layer last Saturday night and then a guinea a few days later. The raccoon is getting inside the chicken coop at night and just pulling the birds off the roost. I'm surprised it got a guinea; those things are HARD to catch and they never sleep! We've been closing up the hens and the turkeys every night now, but yesterday Evie accidentally let all the chickens out of their yard... and one naughty hen decided to roost in the carport. The raccoon grabbed it, right off the shelf! The shelf is right outside our bedroom window, which was open, so Mark and I heard the commotion and the hen was saved! The creepy thing was I had just visited the bathroom and heard the raccoon on the shelf moving around when I turned the light on. I thought to myself, "That sure is a noisy cat! They usually aren't that clumsy!" The raccoon sat on the shelf, completely unafraid of us or the dogs. Mark wanted to shoot it, but there was no way he could without shooting the house, the windows, or the cars. He scared it off with the BB gun instead.
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| "When life gives you lemons...share them with Lula!" |
Lula cut a top tooth two days ago and now she is working on the other one. She has spent the last four days fussy, fussy, fussy! I give her a dose of painkiller before bed because I am really liking the whole sleeping all night thing. She is also walking all over the place! She will crawl if she has to, but she prefers to walk. She can even dance while standing! The only way to make her happy when she is cutting teeth is to take her outside. She loves to watch the chickens and play with my clothespins.
The girls' recital is coming up quickly and I have to figure out how to make their hair pretty! I put rag curls in again and they were cute. But once Fiona pulled out her curly pony tails and ran around in her bathing suit, she looked a lot like Hermione Granger:
Which is an improvement...I used to think she looked like Jack Black when she was a baby!
So, the kids are running wild and we are really enjoying ourselves. The weather is cooperative. It's a good time to just snuggle up and enjoy my children again *smile*
So, the kids are running wild and we are really enjoying ourselves. The weather is cooperative. It's a good time to just snuggle up and enjoy my children again *smile*
