Best Buds

I love these two kiddos. They have been the best of buddies lately, just playing together all the time. Originally, I was taking pictures of Adelia to show off her new summer hair cut. While I was snapping them, Ivan came outside and wanted to be in them too (which never happens!), so I told him to sit down by Del and we'd take a few. I love how they turned out. It shows the relationship between them just perfectly.

They are only 16 months apart in age, so I always hoped they'd be close. Sometimes they do fight. But Ivan is such a mindful big brother to Del. He often helps her, or gets things for her without being asked. And the other day, I was playing catch with Ivan in the backyard and Del was watching. Ivan decided he was done playing, and Del decided she wanted to play...so Ivan had her come over, he showed her how to put his mitt on her hand, and then walked her through all the steps I'd been teaching him about how to throw a ball, and once he was satisfied that she had it down well enough, he walked a few steps towards the house, then turned around and said, "Make sure you help her if she needs it Mom, ok?"

And...Adelia's summer haircut is adorable, no? I love it! I couldn't be happier with it. No more fighting every morning because she doesn't want to brush her hair. No more her walking around looking like an orphan with food and snot matting her hair all over the place and sticking to her face so she can't see. She can brush it herself and put a bow in if she's feeling overly independent of a morning. And it only takes a second to run the curling iron through it, if I'm feeling like I need to have it look really nice for something. Win-win.

Piano Recital

Lincoln's piano recital was today, and he's been working so hard to prepare for it. he played two songs. Ode to Joy by Beethoven and Duck on the Water, which is a song he wrote himself. He was a little nervous and the first one to go, so he played a little bit more quickly than he should have. But overall I think he did great. I was so proud of him. Especially because at the beginning when I told him that part of his goal was to memorize his songs, he didn't think he'd ever be able to play them without the music. But he did, and he did an awesome job. 

He also received a trophy for passing his first year theory test, and a medal for meeting (and exceeding) his goal to practice 400 minutes. (He practiced 486.)

Our kids have the greatest piano teacher. I just love her. She does such a fantastic job working with them and helping them set and achieve their goals. She makes learning fun, but also keeps them on task and progressing.

Chicken Update

Our chickens are getting big. They are still living in the garage, but Aaron is working hard to get them a coop built and get the outside permanently. In the meantime, one of our favorite things to do of an afternoon, is to take them out in the backyard and let them run around. 

I think we've done a pretty good job getting them accustomed to people, because my kids don't scare them at all. Not even Oliver. 

They probably should be a little more scared of Oliver. I would be, if I were them. Ollie can chase them around and catch them all by himself. 

**Also, please notice the GRASS. Yes, there is really grass. And I am ever so thankful for that.

The Perfect Evening

Why yes, we're all about slave labor in this family. Except that my kids like shucking corn, and practically beg to do it, and fight over who gets to shuck the last piece. :)

Me, I'm just glad that corn on the cob season is upon us. It's my favorite. I could probably eat corn on the cob every night. Mmmmmmm. Mmmmm.

Tonight we had a spectacular dinner. Shish kabobs, rice, salad made with spinach from our very own garden, and corn on the cob. We ended the meal with the first backyard s'mores of the season in our firepit. The weather was perfect. The food was perfect. And my little family was all there (except Ollie went to bed before I took this picture, but he was there for most of it). Nights like these are when life gets as close to perfect as it possibly can.

Funny Kid

I love this little goofy kid and his mischievous grin. In the top picture he's playing peek-a-boo with me using his new hat. In the bottom picture he is laying with his bum up against the school room wall, using his toes to play with the backpack straps. He played like that for 15 minutes, just giggling quietly to himself, so thoroughly entertained by his little game. Silly boy.

Preschool Graduation

Today was Ivan's graduation from Preschool Co-op. He's had a fun year. I'm glad we have such awesome moms in this neighborhood who have made preschool possible every week.

Ivan and his friend Paige. He always gives her hugs when he sees her. And we had to have a talk with him about kissing her on the cheek. ;)

Science: Weather Unit

We just finished up an awesome unit on weather. (Thanks to the Magic School Bus Science Kit) It has been really fun, and it came at the perfect time, because we got some rainy and windy weather to co-operate with us so that our experiments did what they were supposed to. 

First we built a wind vane, so measure the direction the wind was blowing. It was actually really cool and really easy. Basically, you take a shish kabob stick and stick it in a ball of clay, they you cut out arrows for north, south, east, and west, and slide them over the stick. Then slide a drinking straw over top of that, and tape a big black arrow to the top. Then you put your N, S, E, W facing the right ways, and the wind will blow your giant arrow so you can see which way the wind is blowing.

My favorite experiment of the bunch was making a homemade thermometer. All you need to make this is an empty bottle filled to the top with colored water. Stick a drinking straw in there so that the bottom of it sits under the water about an inch.  Then take some clay and put it around the drinking straw and over the top of the bottle, so that it's air tight. Next put some boiling water in a container and some ice water in a container. Put the bottle in the hot water and see what happens (the colored water should go up the straw). Them move it over to the ice water and see what happens. (The water will go back down again.) It's really cool. My boys played with this for a really long time, and would have played longer, but they got the clay wet and then it wasn't air tight anymore and wouldn't work. 

And I made them do some writing about it...

We also made a rain catcher that caught about a half inch of water, even though we had good rain for two days. But that shows that even though you think it's raining a lot, it takes a long time to collect water in a small area. We probably would have caught more if the mouth of our rain catcher had been wider. 

And we made a barometer, to measure air pressure. The water in the cup was supposed to move up and down depending on the pressure in the air. We had a little trouble with ours, because it was so windy, the bottle on top kept blowing away.

 Another experiment the kids really enjoyed was making rain. We took a sponge to represent the air. Then we took a medicine dropper and dripped water on the sponge to show how the air holds water. When the air, or sponge, gets too full of water, it starts to rain out the bottom.

 As always, we included some great books in our weather unit. As well as the Magic School Bus Episode on weather. :)

She Made Chalk Paste

Mother's Day was a Success...

Aaron helped the kids make this awesome card for me. It's huge, and I love it. I felt much loved and appreciated and pampered the whole day.

Alice in Wonderland

Great job Linc! It was so fun to watch you be a rock lobster and a cardsman. I thought you did really well in all your dances. And you had such a fun year with your theater class.