Little House on the Prairie Live

The first major activity we did to go along with reading Little House on the Prairie was to wash some clothes by hand.  The kids thought it was a lot of fun!  I don't have a washboard (do you?) so we used a cooling rack.

I bet Caroline Ingalls washed clothes in her tutu too.

Natalie had so much fun, she stripped off her dress and washed it too.

Not just women's work!

Solar Powered Laundry

Natalie's "Best Ever Animal"

You can tell it was cold because Floridians usually don't match on cold days.

How Girly Girls....Play with Cars

A Surprise for Me

Sooooo....the other day I was at the church office and the secretary said she had something to ask me.  I have been procrastinating about organizing a baby shower for a friend (who goes to our church) and for some reason I assumed it was going to be about that.  But instead she asked me if I would be the VBS director this summer.  She asked me because right now we have no pastor and she ends up being the one in charge of all the details right now.  I totally was not expecting that - in fact last year I taught a very rowdy 5th grade class and after VBS I told Rob that as soon as the dates were announced, I wanted to plan an out of town trip to coincide with VBS.  Well, now I'm the one picking the week.  I mean I could have said no - and I didn't hear an audible voice from God on this decision, but Rob said I should do it and I have no real valid reason to say no.  At least I won't end up teaching the 5th graders again.

But I look towards all this with heaviness.  There are some things that we have "always done" at VBS that I've never really liked.  There are some people in our church who feel very strongly about not changing tradition.  Rob - never fearful of confrontation - says, do what you want, change things!  And really there are things that need to change.  I just don't want to be the agent of change.  I don't enjoy being on the defensive.

Well all that aside - here are some issues that I'll be dealing with:

Our VBS is at night and at some random week in the summer.  I am of the opinion that which week is not very relevant - except not the very first week or the week of the 4th of July.  Both off the table completely.  The first week is a no because most of the churches in Miami have their VBS that week - most of the day camps do not start until the 2nd week and it is seen as a free week of "camp".  These VBSes are always 9 to noon - ours will be 6:30 to 8pm.  At least I think this issue cancels out the first week.  Even our kids will probably go to another church's VBS that week.

Another issue is that for several years now, the kids have done a musical at the end of the week - in my opinion the musical eats too much into the other nights of the week - they have to practice and have a rehearsal on Thursday night.  To me - a musical put on in a week would be good for a music camp, not VBS.  I'm not sure what kind of reaction I'm going to get to cutting it.  I'd like to find ways to add to the worship rally and in the musical's place have some other parent involved event on the last night.

We have never done recreation - due to time.  I'd like to include it, even if it isn't an every night thing.  We do have crafts, and usually they are Oriental Trading Company crafts that I throw away as soon as they get home.  I would really like to see something more come out of craft time.  I know crafts are messy and OTC projects with all their stick on foam are easy, but I throw that stuff away as soon as it gets home.  I bet most of the other parents do too.  So I'm thinking maybe we could rotate crafts and rec so that each class gets two nights of each and Friday they'll do neither.

I guess those are my biggies.  When I was a kid I remember doing turtle races the last night of VBS and that was a lot of fun, but I don't think that's a very practical suggestion :)

Quotable Natalie

Natalie:  Mommy!  I can't find my sandals!
Me: Oh?
Natalie: Say, "They'll turn up Natalie!"

Back to School

Today was our first day back to school.  Although our pleasant weather has persisted longer than I could have hoped, the dog days are very near and that means it's time to put our noses to the proverbial grindstone.

C&A with their neatly organized school books.

Their books are basically math, reading, phonics and a cursive tablet.  We are also doing a supplemental study using Little House on the Prairie for the next 4 weeks.  So we also have the footprint of a covered wagon on our floor in masking tape.

Annalise has been very excited to get started learning cursive!

Today's recess - run barefoot in the field.

The kids also built another bird trap - not an assignment.  P.S.  the stripes were not planned.

Also they made magic mud - also not an assignment - more of please Mommy, please please please.

Natalie getting in on the action.  She was feeling left out!

I am very pleased with how the first day went.  Both C & A finished their independent work in record time and got all of their math facts right :)

And I want to show off my new toy:

Last year pencil sharpening was my personal bane.  I was determined to buy a pencil sharpener that: A.  The kids could use and B.  worked.  I read a bunch of online reviews and decided to invest in the Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener.  It came Friday and is everything I dreamed.  The kids sharpened every pencil they could find.  I love this thing.  They are $25, but I got this one for $20 because it is cornflower blue...which just happens to be my favorite color!

Catch of the Day

Behold! THE BUTTERFLY PEACOCK BASS!

The bottom one is a peacock bass too.  The middle one is a regular bass.  Just the behemoth fed us for dinner.

The daily limit for Peacock Bass is 2 per day, and of the two only one may exceed 17 inches in length.  They are not native to Florida, but were deliberately introduced to South Florida.  Rob has been wanting to catch one for a very long time!

Accomplishments

This week...

Caleb dug a river.

Annalise made a self portrait out of "materials".

Natalie ate almost ever edible molecule off of her apple.  This is not a first for her :)  Sometimes she just eats straight through to the other side.

Ballet

I feel compelled to note that we had a garage sale over the weekend!  It was Annalise's turn to pick a library video and she picked a ballet video by Prima Princessa.  When I saw it, I blew it off as just another pink and princessy girly video, but it was a nice video that showed an actual performance of Sleeping Beauty and clearly explained all of the story.  Between each act, there was a short ballet lesson that taught specific ballet moves.  The girls had a lot of fun doing the moves...as you can see :)

Urban Garden

As a part my effort to embrace where I am, I decided to make tracks into urban gardening.

Rob put up these lengths of gutter for me a couple of weeks ago.

They are level, the ground is not.

I planted lettuce on the top row, onions on the middle, chives and some zinnias for fun on the bottom.

The onions and chives are pretty puny.

Although Florida gets it's nickname (the Sunshine State) pretty fairly, our yards (front and back) get insufficient sun (6 hours of less) or torrential rain.  I'm no master gardener and I have plenty of distractions, but I think these two things are also working against me.  Regardless, my gardening efforts are not that stellar this year.

***
Natalie did a little painting in her pajamas this morning.

We are listening to Beezus and Ramona in the car and there was a chapter about a painting class.  Natalie told me she was making animal tracks on her painting (which is what Ramona did in the book).  Do you listen to audio books?  The kids are enamored with them. 

She told me a lot of other things about her painting (Baby Jesus and a bear were in there too).  Natalie has a lot to say.

Les Miserables

Well I am here to say that I am nearing the middle of Les Miserables!

But that is only because I am skipping pages.  I have never been tempted to get an abridged book before, but this one is calling my name.  The story is really really really good!  The characters are great and I really want to know what is going to happen...but at the pace I am going this is the only book I will read this year!  Doesn't that seem a little ridiculous?  There are soooooo many pages that seem irrelevant to the story.  If I had some obsession with 19th century French culture this thing would be horribly addicting.  So I have been flipping ahead and reading a little to see if it seems like it is just describing how the streets of Paris are now compared to how they used to be or it he seems to be making some political point.  I guess the bottom line for me is I don't have time to read a 1200 page novel this year and if I don't read this one exactly as it is written...I think that is ok.

Water Birds

We have been pretty spoiled getting to have Rob's parents less than an hour away for a whole month.  They are getting ready to head back to the frozen north, but we spent a very nice morning in the Everglades with them yesterday.  There were tons of birds out and plenty of alligators, plus it was in the 60s!

I like water birds.  I think I like them more than birds like blue jays and mocking birds.  I really don't know why I like them.  In addition to these I've posted we saw the great blue heron, the little blue heron, a white heron, a purple gallinule, and some moorhens.

Comorant - note the hooked beak - their trademark.

The birds were really comfortable with all the tourists!

Anhinga - a bird I just don't see how you can't like.  I've never seen one so close so I didn't know their beaks were so sharp.

Baby anhingas :)  awe!!

Roseate Spoonbill!!!  I've never seen one at this location before yesterday.

Terrible picture, but you can see the spooned bill. 

And they weren't cute...but there were some non-water birds showing off their feathers too.  I wasn't interested in taking their picture!