Amazing

Julia, as she got off the four wheeler after a ride with Chad (Please try to do her little voice in your head as you read it, it makes it even better.):  That was AMAZING!

Sheesh, I don't think I've gotten a nice picture of the girl all year.  She always makes some face...

Germs

This was definitely a blog-worthy project.  We grew germs in Knox gelatin.  We swabbed different areas with  Q tips and then rubbed the Q tip on the gelatin. 

After predicting what we thought would grow the most germs we let it sit for about a week and then compared the results to our predictions.  (I know, it's not perfect, there's some plain old mold in there too.)

I was happy to see the toilet was not very germy (thank you Clorox wipes) however I was a little grossed out to see the two places with the most germs were the floor beneath our kitchen table and the bottom of Samuel's foot!  Ew.

Good Day

If you judge the quality of your day by how dirty you get, Philip's day was AWESOME! 
The picture really doesn't do his dirtiness justice...

Track

The boys participated in their first organized sport this spring:  track.  Samuel loved it.  Track may be his sport.  He's pretty good at it and it fits his personality.  Thomas liked it too and did pretty well.  Their track club sponsored a track meet yesterday.  Julia and Philip's favorite part was sitting in the bleachers eating freeze dried berry melts and bacon flavored sunflower seeds.  Those sounds gross to me, especially since Philip doesn't exactly understand about the shells.  Oh well, it kept them busy.  Each kid could participate in three events.  Samuel chose long jump, the 400m and the 800m.  At the last minute he signed up for a 4x100 relay (the relay didn't count toward their three events) which turned out to be right before the 800.  Mommy should have thought that out a little more before she encouraged him to run the relay.  Oops.  Samuel got 4th in the long jump with a jump of 10 ft 5 in.  He got third in the 400 with a time of 138.7.  He says we have to go pick up his relay ribbon, but he doesn't know what place they got.  "Mom there were only four relay teams, so we had to have gotten a ribbon."  Good point.  Thomas did the long jump, the 100m and the 200m.  He didn't earn any ribbons but he was happy about the jump and the 200.  He was a little disappointed he came in second to last in the 100 but he hadn't practiced it much.  We started track a week late because I didn't put the parent meeting on the calendar and then they missed another week of practice when they had hand, foot and mouth.  Plus Thomas mostly practiced long jump at practices because the kids could choose what to practice and he was more comfortable there than joining a new adult to practice running I think.  I was impressed with how he knew the steps to long jumping.  He was the only kid I saw in his age group start at the jumping line and go back 14 steps to find his starting place.  Jeremy went to one practice with the boys and said Thomas was doing some of his personal best jumps at the meet.  Track is over now (unless we want to go to an out of town meet or two, which I don't) but both boys say they'd like to do it again next year.  It was a good start to organized sports.  :)

Love

I found  a pack of five 8x10 art canvases half off at Michaels so we did a little painting.  Philip especially enjoyed it.

Our First Adventure of the Summer

I love summer time!  And I love that my four kids are well enough behaved that I can take them fun places by myself!

Kitty Cats

We found three kittens in our bushes on Mother's Day.  The kids were super excited and got attached really quickly.  Samuel named his Captain Climb up, as in a pirate captain because one of his kitten's eyes was matted shut when we found it.  Thomas settled on JD (as in John Deere) and Julia changed the name of hers every time you asked.  She played with her little black cat as if it were a real live baby doll.  And it didn't mind a bit.  Which made me realize that perhaps three very friendly kittens weren't born in our bushes but came over from the neighbors.  And sure enough, they did. The kids there (and by kids I mean teenagers) were very attached as well.  They took them back home to their momma kitty the next day as the kittens weren't quite weaned yet.  They said we could have the black one back when it was big enough and two others, just not the striped ones Samuel and Thomas had claimed.  The kids took it better than I thought they would.  We'll see about getting some back later....

Happy Mother's Day!

Turns out we forgot to take a picture of me and the kids on Mother's Day, oops.  This one is from before we headed out to Mass on Ascension Thursday.

We had a quiet Mother's day as we were on our last day of self-imposed quarantine.  Everyone is totally better now, even though apparently we could be contagious for a month after our symptoms are gone- but the good news is you'd have to change Philip's stinky diaper and not wash your hands to get it from us.  (I hope...)
Anyway, Jeremy got me a Kindle for Mother's Day and my birthday!  I was VERY surprised.  It's pretty cool but every time I read on it I feel a little like I'm cheating on books.  Don't get me wrong, honey, I love it and will happily use it.  But the books I really love I'll still need a hard copy of, okay?  A Kindle just doesn't have the same feel or smell and it doesn't seem like a friend the way an old copy of a book you've read a hundred times does.  But for now I'll guiltily read from it and happily enjoy all its other cool features.  (I sent my projects document to it so if I can't remember the exact instructions for a project I can just look on there instead of firing up the big computer!  That, I REALLY like!)  And maybe after I've read a hundred books on my Kindle I'll even be able to try starting a friendship with it.  :)

Mini Golf

A big success.  Mostly because we actually buried yogurt cups to be the holes.  Much more fun than yogurt cups on their sides.  We picked spots that didn't have any grass so it didn't hurt the yard. Another advantage to having 2 acres!

Since We Started Summer Early

We went ahead and did some projects!  What else are contagious-but-feeling-fine kids going to do?

We made wax crayon batik art.

Draw, pressing very hard, with crayon and outline the drawing in black crayon. Crumple it up really good.

 Paint over with watered down tempera or acrylic paints

 
Finished product:

Samuel's

Julia's

Thomas's

Today we made cards.

For their teachers:

(New blogger won't believe me when I want this picture horizontal.  I took it vertical, therefore it must stay vertical!)

Mother's Day cards:

Thanks for the ideas Family Fun!
Later we're planning on making a mini golf course.  Want to come play?  Oh wait, we're sick.....

How to Start Summer May 4th

1. Go to a school that gets out really early, say May 10th.
2.  Have a party after your 1st Communion in late April.
3.  Play with your cousin,who recently had hand, foot and mouth disease but whose doctor says is no longer contagious, at the party.
4. Get hand, foot and mouth disease from the "non-contagious" cousin.  (Not blaming the cousin here, just giving the facts.) The rest of your siblings might as well get it too.  Why let them start summer late?
5. Since hand, foot and mouth disease is a very contagious virus that takes a week (or apparently longer) to run its course, stay home from school for a week.

You will now have missed the last week of school, making your summer start May 4th.
Hooray?

Some Smiles to Brighten My Day

As I took the big heavy blanket off Samuel the other night he woke up groggily and said to me, "Mommy, don't take that off, my bottom two legs are freezing!"

Philip is experimenting with not going right to sleep when we put him down at night.  Last night Samuel came down to tell us Philip was being noisy so I went up to see what was going on.  I found his crib full of chapter books off the shelf next to his bed.
M: Philip!  You have books in your bed.  Are you supposed to have books in your bed? 
P:  Read!
M: You were reading?
P: Read bed!
And he sat down with a book to read in the dark room some more.  I wasn't convinced so we put the books away. I know, I'm no fun.

Recognize this Hat, Grandpa Mike?

Brothers

Guess which ones were cooperating best...

Projects

As you know, I'm a project dork.  We try to do a project a day during the summer.  That way we do something educational-ish together every day.  I make a calendar scheduling the projects and vary the topics so we don't get bored, basically crafts, science, outdoor games, baking and religious stuff.  The boys love looking at the calendar to see what I have planned but they know it's all subject to change if something comes up.  So anyway, I've been collecting projects for awhile now and have a Word Document of the all the instructions.  Since I have it I thought I'd offer to share.  They aren't organized, I just copy and paste the instructions or web addresses as I find them.  (I'm really excited about this one.  It's a giant water bag to jump on!  Most of the projects are much more simple though.)  So if you'd like use the fun I've collected email me or leave me a comment.  I'd be happy to send them your way.  :)