Long Silence

I just looked at the date on my last post and realized it's been a while! I guess with all the days off school lately I've been busier than usual with kids these last few weeks. We've had a great month, though. Thanksgiving was great and time off from school was great too, although, I am glad to get back into a routine. Not that I didn't love not having to race to the bus stop in the mornings!

The Henry Ford museum has a temporary exhibit all about the Wizard of Oz so we had to go check that out. That was a lot of fun. It's all interactive and hands-on, so you rode the cow on the farm in Kansas, went into the house during the tornado, came into munchkin land on the yellow brick road (and could build an arch, but Benjamin would rather jump around on the blocks), got to dress the scarecrow, ride the witch's bicycle, climb around the wicked castle, man the controls to the Wizard's special effects, etc. Not the least of which time was spent on the couches watching the movie itself!




We also managed to find some other fun stuff this month during our time off:

Science/color experiments with shaving cream:


Got the idea from here.


Visits to the playgrounds:


Creating a mini city with painter's tape to practice reading and number recognition:


It was a lot of fun and sparked a lot of creative play in ways I hadn't expected - like when they pretended that a tornado tore through town and everyone had to be rushed to the emergency room. (Got the idea from here)

Painted with colored ice cubes:


First attempt used paper, but the kids just wanted to watch it all mix together, not so much create final works of art, so we ditched the paper and rubbed the colored ice around on the cookie sheets. Very messy (amazing how far colored water clapped vigorously between hands can spray) but very fun! See idea here. Oh, and that color on the glass - that's not from the ice - that's from our window crayons. We LOVE our window crayons.

Went on a long bike ride in Kensington Park:


That mostly means we played at playgrounds around the park with our bike gear on because we never rode for more than 5 minutes before we'd pass another area where the kids wanted to stop and play. However, I have to say that my favorite part of the day was the game of freeze tag at the end. Kelly played along too and he's just out of shape enough that he and I were well matched despite his long legs. It was super fun making him struggle to catch me.

And we of course, we ate our weight in turkey and yams on Thanksgiving, but we hosted so I was too busy with all of that to remember to take a picture! :( Should have given my camera to Benjamin. Then I'd at least have plenty of pictures of people's feet and rear ends to document the holiday. Alas, there's always next year. We did have some really fun families over and had a great time eating, racing RC cars, and making human tacos with the futon cushion. Ah the things that will entertain a group of kids. It's so fun.

Now school begins again and swim lessons and gymnastics and I just got made primary president today (in addition to Kelly being in the bishopric), so I'm in charge of all the kids at church 18 months to 11 years old, so we have plenty to keep us busy! Life is good.

First Solo Craft Attempt

I've been excited for Bella to have preschool so I could have some time with Christian and do things on his level. Today we attempted painting for the first time. He's finger painted with us while the older kids have worked on harder things, but today I wanted to see what he'd do with a brush. It was a lot of fun. He didn't last long at the activity - 5 or 10 minutes - but that's what I expected. He did seem to enjoy it, though.


He tried out a couple different brushes and then used his hands too. Then he grabbed some other supplies from my craft bag - markers, googly eyes - and wanted to try them out too, so we did. We rolled some big googly eyes in the paint and we stirred them around in a box with our brush. I tried tracing his hand with the marker, but he didn't like me holding his hand still, so I just drew his hand instead. I just loved spending the time just letting him investigate and seeing what he'd do. Such a fun little boy!

Things I Like To Do

Benjamin came upstairs yesterday with a stapled pack of papers in his hand and proudly showed me his latest masterpiece. He's been in love with writing lately and wants to write signs, letters, and books all the time. I thought his latest creation was so cute. It's "Things I Like To Do." Here it is in all it's crazy phonetic glory. For those of you who aren't as adept at deciphering his phonics, the translation follows the pictures.





Translation: "Things I like to do: swimming, gymnastics, school, and playing pretend, and eating, AND looking at the stars." (That's him looking at the stars in the illustration). I never tire of these little creations because I think it's so fun to see how he will write the various words. Like eding = eating. Makes sense, doesn't it? We don't really say it like a T, we are lazy and say it like a D. I struggle a bit in balancing praise with spelling correction, but usually I lean more to the praise because the spelling will come with time, but for now I love to see that he enjoys writing. And let's not forget Mark Twain's words, "He must have little genius who can’t spell a word in more than one way."

Beautiful Fall Weather

It was so beautiful a few days ago that we couldn't resist spending nearly the whole day at the park. We played at the playground


found various muddy water puddles (when don't they find muddy water puddles?)


went on a walk in the woods and around the pond


and collected some late-blooming wild flowers and interesting nuts.



It was a wonderful day exploring and reveling in nature. No one wanted to go home! So now the little bouquet of wild flowers sits (in a sippy cup) on my kitchen table to remind me of our day. Fall goes by way too quickly.