Dog Bath & Music Toy

Now that A is no longer...ah... well, lets just say I have absorbed some new tasks. Bathing My Pathetic Doberman is now one of my latest duties. Here we are at bath time yesterday! Oh what fun! I had no idea how much fun bathing a dog could be. I had to drag her into the bathroom, but once I had her front feet in the tub she hopped right in. She stood perfectly still the whole time. She even let me dry one foot at a time as she was getting out of the tub. But once she was free... let's just say my rug hasn't been that rumpled in a long time! No other dog can do the After Bath Scamper like My Pathetic Doberman!

Now, does F remind you of anyone in this picture? How about this cutey-patooty? (This is an old picture of S when he was 11 months old) They both realized at a young age (11 months) that when one sits on this particular toy, the music keeps playing until one crawls off the blue screen. Does the fact that F seems to do a lot of the same things S did disturb me? Sometimes. S certainly gave me a run for my money when he was two years old. But we survived :)

Creative Time Out

This is what happens when I have a full day of shopping and schooling. They have to stay this way until they are giggling or they love each other again and can go play together.

The Water Cycle

Back to School! After taking two days off last week, the kids had a hard time working their brains up to sitting and focusing. I reminded them that they had no problem sitting motionless while watching each other play video games, yet five minutes of math drove them (and me) absolutely batty.

For science, we are studying the water cycle. IJ is learning big words like evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. S is learning that we get a lot of rain here, but other places don't. After reading about the water cycle from four different sources, I decided to make rain. I boiled a pot of water and showed them how the water evaporated and asked them, "What big C-word describes what is happening on the lid of the pot?" IJ answered, "Connecting?" S answered, "Counting?" F said, "Ba!" I said, "No... How about condescending? Uh, darn, I mean, (sigh) Condensing?" And that is how my day is going.

Sick Ward

Three kids sleeping on the couch with fever...My house has never been so quiet. L came over last night for dinner and we could actually hold a conversation at a normal level without saying, "Rule Number Six," or "Go back to the playroom! I can't hear!" S, who is feeling better than the other two, told us the couch was for sick people only. Well people have to sit on the floor.

Home Remedies and HAPPY SPRING!

HOORAY! I MADE IT TO SPRING!!!

Now my other two kids are sick. I'm just waiting now for my turn to come... but it might not. You may laugh, and my husband has, but I think I haven't gotten sick yet because I'm eating a lot of garlic. Whole. And raw. And I made a big pot of Virus Killing Soup (Google the recipe, its very good). M told his dad that he was going to carve me an alligator stick next. But we will see who is doing the laughing later... the one drinking so many boxes of Theraflu that I've been banned from Target or me! I haven't really been banned, but I've bought my limit and my ID has been scanned. And still M suffers. Does cold medicine ever really work?

Aren't these tulips pretty? They were a present from my favorite boyfriend-dating-one-of-my-children. I didn't know that boyfriends brought their girlfriend's mothers flowers! But I guess only the good boyfriends do. And can you see the latest secret ingredient for smoothies sitting next to the flowers? Ah ha- wheat grass! What fun! I feel like I should just send the kids out back to graze in the yard. I've always wondered if the phytonutrients in wheat grass are somehow different than the phytonutrients in regular grass.

What the Hail?

It always seems like we get the craziest weather in late Winter/early Spring. The other night we had a hail storm. Like usual, I let the kids go outside and play even though it was dark and cold and wet. They had a blast. You can't tell by looking at the picture, but the hail was just streaming down so fast! I was amazed.

I was going to write a book review for my latest favorite book. But since three of my kids (S, F, and M) are sick with fever and crankiness, I will settle for copying some info from Amazon.com. The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by Susan Wise Bauer "is designed for adults seeking self-education in the classical tradition." "...this readable book provides solid, step-by-step advice on how to read some of the world's great books with discipline and comprehension." And here is a funny picture of the arm of my chair. The Well-Educated Mind stacked with my first Classic: Go, Dog. Go! Watch out Plato, here comes P.D. Eastman! Go, Dog. Go! is by far the best children's sight word reader ever written. S has been reading it to me. I'm actually only reading how to read classical books, no actual classics yet. I'm sticking to knitting books until these guys feel better.

Bubble Boy, Pinewood Derby, & Hair

Friday we took a homeschooling field trip to a local marine center. The kids got to watch barnacles feeding and touch some local wildlife in the touch tank. The highlight was my son, the Bubble Boy.Yesterday we had the Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts. IJ's car placed 18 of 20. He really didn't care. The loss was felt deeply by the parents who built his car... M and I. Ugh. Maybe next year we will spend more time making the axles fast.And E has been asked me to cut her hair so she can look like her brothers. So here we are, before: and after:

You Know Spring is Coming When...

...you find half-naked kids playing in the half-frozen pond...


...when you find that all work has been moved outside to the sun, even though blankets are necessary for warmth......and when you find Pirate Booty on your porch!!!

Of course now we are back to rain...

Crazy Spring Weather

I tried to take a picture of the crazy Spring weather with sun, rain, and snow all at the same time. This is My Pathetic Doberman, trying to get warm in the Spring sun...
...but this is how cold it is outside!
Who else is looking forward to warmth?