Pancake Goddess in the House of Boys

around the house

New painting for over the piano.

busy little boys

 

 

quiche, garden, lily of the valley

I've aways wanted a nice bed of lily of the valley on the side of my house like my Grandma had when I was young. The quiche was yummy (enough to be eaten cold by Ryan the next day), and the garden is still fine although the rabbits ate every single small green tomato about 5  minutes after we planted my one big plant with fruit already.

why is it so cold outside?

Isn't it supposed to be warm outside, when there are sweet things like this inside?

Also, I know this belongs in the last  post, but an alphabet song from  Ryan:
"H I J K ello mello Peeeee."

spring

These were actually what came up in the yard at our old house before we moved. Yesterday, we discovered daffodils in the new yard.

Jeremiah is anticipating the permanently warmer weather, so that he can be outside every day doing his normal things - taekwondo on the roof of the shed, biking, trampolining. The littles are loving this new concept - a sidewalk! They have two very easy boundaries at the edges of our front yard, and they ride back and forth, back and forth on their bikes.

Yesterday, Jeremiah had a major accomplishment. He learned a back handspring without any help or spotting. He's a tumbling master!

This weekend, I made my first pizza dough in the new mixer, planted 24 little cups of tomato seeds, and other house-y things.          

Snow!

Today we have a few inches of snow, the kids' pals are off school, and we're all in good moods. Yay! Ryan has been out twice, getting lots of exercise, practice dressing himself, and a little science in the process. He decided to bring a snowball inside, so it's sitting in a cup melting. We check on it periodically.

JJ's friend N is over and they were outside building a snowman city (think Calvin&Hobbes). Ja has invited a friend over, and I think we'll all have lunch and cookies.

a post of photos

We had a nice visit with Uncle Josh and Aunt Caryn (I'm not sure who took this picture, but I wish we could have seen all of Caryn!)

Some cute we spotted at Carillon Park

Jeremiah's latest feat: eating an entire apple except the seeds. Entire apple.

We have more spiders this year than ever. It's difficult to tell from this photo, but this beautiful spider web near the roof of our house is about 2' in diameter.

And we don't get to see a lot of the papa around here. This is after-work hanging out on the couch. The very serious cuddling going on under his armpit is pretty adorable. Maybe we could get Evan to be a guest-blogger here. I know he has things to say about his kids, his job, and his aspirations.

museum center

Last week, Grammy and the boys and I met with Katie at the museum center. There is a spot in the climbing area where Jeremiah had his picture taken many years ago - he was 5.

He still fits! But barely.

Fynn and Ryan enjoyed watching the fish from within the tank.

K watched from the outside.

and in case you need an extra bit of sweet for today:

friday update, recordkeeping

We've definitely bagged the curriculum. It was good while it lasted, appropriate at the time, and a big snooze now. We're happily eclectic-ing our way through days now, which is great, but makes it harder to keep track! I know there are many interesting conversations I'm forgetting, but this is what I can come up with.

 

Jamie:
explored the reference section of the library, particularly enjoying the Yellow Springs budget, Ohio legal documents and a thick dictionary of Biographies.

regular math/reading/Calvert HS vocabulary CD/writing (blog, BW, emails, his "life list"), will do Bravewriter freewrite today

copywork from Eragon

read from Hakim's A History of Science

used OPIN website to identify several trees in our yard, began a map to show their place on the property

observed house spider hatchlings

Jeremiah:

cursive, Iknowthat.com math

continuing Harry Potter, read 6-7 graphic novels and 2-3 magazines about video/computer games

explored the reference section of the library briefly

dictated a "Life List"

used OPIN website to identify several trees in our yard, began a map to show their place on the property

Re-learned analog clocks (the Nintendo DS has an analog clock for the clock display, oh, the irony)

observed house spider hatchlings

Ryan:

storytime on Tuesday. He was up at 5:45am and so had a morning nap, arriving just as toddler storytime ended. But Ann, our fabulous librarian, took him over and read to just him.

Played with homemade playdough, did lots of painting, also learned to use rubber stamps and spent a lot of time with that.

We also talked about his favorite color, which I think is the only color he consistently recognizes accurately - orange. He said "Jeremiah's color is deen."

 

the spider babies have arrived!!

One egg sack down, one to go. The pictures were really hard to get. This is the best.