The Toe

"My toe have giant crack"
Yes, Nicholas, it does.

Jeremy was giving the big boys haircuts in the basement Saturday night, I was upstairs and Nicholas wandered down to watch.  A bit later I heard a big crash and Jeremy saying "Oh no, Nicholas!"  Nicholas had grabbed the handle of the air compressor and not knowing how heavy it would be let it crash down.  On his left big toe.  It's not broken or fractured but it's too gross to post a picture.  We took him to the ER where the doctor glued it because there wasn't enough good skin to stitch together the big split in the tip.  The glue didn't hold long (because you try telling a 2 year old not to walk) and Nicholas dropped a box of crackers on his toe Monday night so it wasn't looking much better on Tuesday.  I took him to the same doctor he saw in the ER who told us to quit wrapping it so it could dry up and scab up.  It did dry up quite a bit yesterday and the nail came off too.  It actually looks better without it.  It'll be awhile before it's totally healed up though.  We're just hoping it'll be healed up enough to go swimming if the rain ever stops.  At least it wasn't Philip.

Family Time

We got together with my Dad and his siblings and my grandma over the long weekend.

Not everyone made it in the one picture I got.  See Philip there behind the flowers?  :) Oops.  A few others are missing too.  Now that I really look at it only half of us are in it.  Oh well.  We had fun!

Bugs

We tried out some more bug crafts.  The glowstick bugs were especially fun.  The kids needed a lot of adult help though so I'll have to think about how to make it a bit easier.

I liked the bug headbands too but only Nicholas would let me take his picture.

Park

We took advantage of one clear day and took bikes to the park.

 

Hoping for more sunny days soon!!!!

It's That Time of Year!

SUMMER PROJECT TIME!
(If you ask me I'll say I love summer but in truth, I have a love/hate relationship with it.  I really do love having all my kids around but it's hard.  All the togetherness, the mess of six (seven with Addy) people being in the house most days, plus some of my adult-time activities take a break in the summer so I mostly get kid time.  It's fun but not, make sense?)

Anyway, I'm teaching four two-hour fun classes this summer.  Our town calls it Kids Institute.  I got to pick the topic, activities, ages allowed in the class, length of class, day of class, how many are in the class  and I get paid (a little).  It'll be a fun use of my teaching skills and if I do it for the next couple summers maybe a little something to fill in the 15 year gap on my resume.  ;)  I'm doing a winter themed class, a sunflower class, insect class and a mystery class (we'll be solving a mystery, the topic is not a surprise) and so the kids and I have some projects to test out before the classes so I can see how they go.  We also have plenty of other projects just for fun.

We dusted for fingerprints on the foil above with hot cocoa mix, plain cocoa and corn starch (hot cocoa mix worked best).

Following the collage below, left to right and top to bottom:  Julia wants to rebuild all her Lego sets!  She started work last week.  We made "banana-pillars" which looked weird but tasted good!  We planted a few things which can finally go outside since the weather warmed up.  The littles helped me cut veggies for a funeral salad.  And we made coffee filter sunflowers which turned out pretty but since they took four hours to dry I won't be using that one for class. 

We have lots of other fun stuff planned.  I went back to having a project calendar so I have one project scheduled everyday.  That way we at least do something fun all together once a day! Samuel protested that he's too old for projects so I told him he's in charge of helping Nicholas with any project he doesn't want to do himself.  So far he's been good with that. 

Here's to lots more fun!

Last Day!

It was the last day of school yesterday!

Here's the first and last day comparisons (they're a little extra rosy after field day all day on the last day):

We had our traditional crepe paper trails after school.  Samuel, Thomas and Philip found foam rockets, Nicholas found a water squirter that I thought was bubbles and Julia found a Frozen journal with stickers.

The project schedule is ready, some extra fun is planned and anticipation is high- now all we need is some summer weather!

Bird Nursery

We're watching six nests in the windbreak (yes, this is only five, one is too high up to see).  Two robins, three blackbirds, and a sparrow.  One of the robins hatched four eggs last week! 

Band Concert

The 5th grade band gave a nice concert last week.

Samuel was very excited to play the wood block in one of the songs (they have 10 clarinets and only one percussionist) and kept a very steady beat.  The video is too long to post though.  He's going to keep with it and be in band next year- we'll see if any practicing happens this summer!

Happy Graduate

Philip is officially a kindergartener!

 He dutifully read his PreK diploma after receiving it

This was the first year we've been that the morning and afternoon classes sang together.  We'll just say they did a nice round.  :)

Congratulations Philip!

Pioneer School

Thomas enjoyed pioneer school last week.  The weather was much cooler than for Samuel last year.

 He wanted to pose like they would have in pioneer days so he didn't smile.

Happy Mother's Day

We got to stay home and celebrate just us. Jeremy made a lovely dinner and the kids gave me lots of wonderful homemade gifts.

Thanks everyone!

Self Portraits

I guess Thomas doesn't bother with selfies.  :)

This and That

Samuel made this poster of things that make him happy for a school assignment.  I love that Kindergarteners make him happy.  He thinks they are hilariously cute (of course they are!) and I think that's great. :)

Philip missed mushroom hunting with Daddy and the big kids because his tummy wasn't feeling good.  Before they got back he was feeling fine again and a little sad he'd missed the adventure. 
"Oh, you and Daddy can go on a different adventure sometime," I told him.  "What kind of adventure might you like?"  "Well," he says, thinking for a minute, "Not a hospital adventure, Daddy doesn't like those!"  Good call, kid.

Also from Philip:  As we're driving along the other day suddenly he pipes up from the back seat, "Mom, when are you going to get married again?"  Guess we need to revisit how exactly marriage works.

Nicholas got his hair cut last week, just his normal short buzz cut.  That evening he told both my dad on the phone and Jeremy at dinner, "My hair gone."  Then the next day at lunch he randomly rubbed his head and quite delightedly exclaimed, "My hair back!!!!!"

 Here he is, and as you can see, his hair is indeed back.

Now It's Really Christmas

My mother very kindly gave me this Kitchen Aid for Christmas while I was still in college.  Except it turns out that only being used a handful of times for 5 years before I got married and stayed home and had time to bake isn't so good for a mixer.  The oil doesn't get circulated when you don't use it and later on it will seep out the seams.  Then recently the tabs on the back cover (the one that is over the motor) broke off so every time I opened it the back flapped open.  It still worked fine but when Jeremy and I went to our Catholic schools' benefit dinner I halfheartedly bid on a Kitchen Aid at the silent auction just because.  I was quickly outbid, but my mother in law found out and decided she would buy me a new mixer  for Christmas (as in Christmas 2015).  Right.Now.  Like, pick your color I'm going to town in two days type of right now.

 And so I have a beautiful new red mixer.

And my sister sold my old kind-of-broken 15 year old one for $50 for me to boot!
I told you it was Christmas around here.