Rainy Day Photos

It's been really rainy the last few days. And we've mostly been hanging out at home, doing school work and trying to catch up on the laundry. I think all the excitement from last week tired us out a little bit (especially Oliver). But my kids are still begging to go visit their cousins.

Yup, his arm is to that stick-out-the-side-of-the-cradle stage. I'm not really excited to put him in his big crib yet, but it's looking like we're going to need to get on that soon.

While I was snapping pictures of Oliver sleeping, Adelia kept asking me to take a picture of us. So here it is.

I've been playing around with some new photo apps on my iphone. I really like pictapgo. It has a lot of editing options, but it's super easy. So that makes it all the more fun. :)

For Math today, Lincoln was learning about all the different combinations that add up to make nine (9+0, 8+1, 7+2, etc). To show the combinations, he built a nine-fort out of his number blocks. He was excited about it, and asked me to take a picture.

Ivan and I have been doing letter S this week and learning about snakes and spiders. We made our letter S craft into a snake. Ivan told me that his snake is a python rattlesnake. It lives in green dirt and shakes it's red rattle while it squeezes you. Sounds delightful doesn't it?

I can tell we've watched a lot of magic school bus, because Adelia informed me today, "At my old school, we never let it rain!" To which Lincoln replied that rain was good for our garden, so he was happy it was raining. Then he drew me a picture of the rain watering our garden and the plants growing. This is our garden according to Lincoln:

Quiet time was a huge success today! My goal for quiet time has always been to transition it into a quiet reading time. Sometimes my kids like to look at books, but a lot of times they just play. Today I poked my head in to check on Lincoln and saw him sitting there quietly reading to himself! Yay! I'm definitely going to encourage him to keep passing his quiet time this way. Maybe someday we'll all be able to just spend two blissful hours quiet reading in the afternoons. That would be my ideal.

Our read alouds have been going really well too. We finished up Little House in the Big Woods awhile ago, and are now almost all the way through Little House on the Prairie. These are the first books we've read out loud together that my boys beg every time for "just one more chapter"...which is music to my ears. I remember being a kid, and listening to my parents read to us, and thinking I would do just about anything if only they'd read us another chapter. :)

Oliver is starting to be semi-predictable. He generally takes a long morning nap from about 10am til 1 or 2pm. I'll take it. That gives me enough time to get school done, as well as a few other chores. If he misses his nap, or if it gets interrupted too soon, then he gets cranky. But otherwise he is a happy camper. I just love this little bug.

Today the kids got a little bit restless about 30 minutes before Aaron came home. I had a pool noodle on hand, just waiting for such a moment. I cut in in two, and wha-la! Instant marble track. The kids were thrilled.