D's & B's

Chayce is reading, and it's been a fun adventure to get her to this point. We're book worms in our house, and our schooling really revolves around reading anything and everything we can about what interests us. One problem she has that I hadn't encountered (but now know is really common) is trying to differentiate between the letters D & B when they are in their small form (d &b). Often, the context of the story helps, but if just reading words, or doing spelling, there isn't a context. Anyhow, I found this great printables website put together by another homeschooler, and she addressed this problem. Here's the link: http://fivejs.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/d_b_coloring.pdf Her whole website has lots of great ideas on it for teaching. I sure hope this lesson helps my dear girl.

Do you want to eat some weasel?

Yesterday we went to water the plants of some friends, and picked some of their surplus herbs. Chayce carried the bag, and all the way home she kept asking Payge if Payge wanted to eat some weasel. Payge agreed to eating some weasel, and Chayce would proceed to feed her weasel from the bag of herbs. Now I worry about getting attacked by some furry little basil next time I walk next to the wooded area near our apartment.

How $15 Can Change Your Weekend

Our ward in North Carolina is pretty awesome. Our friends farther west would, I'm sure, LOVE to take part in our amazing little co-op. I'm pretty sure you could start your own wherever you live. Here, anyone who wants to can chip in $15, then one person goes to the farmers market (today it was Stephen) that morning (with Oomph in their buying power due to increased funds), and then comes home and divides it among those who chipped in. This is what we got this morning. I'll be freezing some, and eating some. Either way, for $15...well, you just can't beat that! Here's the list:
1 big watermelon
a full shopping bag of green beans (was four quart bags after cleaning)
five zucchini
five apples
10 ears of corn
two celery bunches
1 quart sized bag of radishes
8 large baking potatoes
11 bell peppers
1 pint grape tomatoes
three heads of broccoli
5 cucumbers

Yummy.

Happy 9th Anniversary!

Well, it has come and gone. There wasn't big fanfare this year because we ALL ended up with sore throats, coughs, runny noses, and extreme fatigue. Sigh. I suppose that means we're really, truly married now...a momentous event (like our wedding anniversary) can pass and we can be happy about just being together. I do have to admit, it was nice. Dinner at home, with our children isn't so bad. On the day we canceled the sitter (yeah, we were going to go out...), I decided to make the most of my heritage, since we frequently enjoy the blessings of Stephen's Swiss heritage (bratzelis! Mmmmm.) I thought perhaps a night in honor of the Polishness of me would be appropriate. Pierogies, fried onions, butter, some fruit, and Chopin playing on the speakers. You know, there are many amazing Polish people in the world, and I'm hoping to count our family among them. Especially since we can spend a night at home and not wish we were somewhere else. That's right, we like hanging out with our children, even if they do all have runny noses.

Welcome!

To the first {annual, weekly, daily!??!}


What started as a phonics lesson...

Became a car wash...


Then a face-painting extravaganza!!!


Who knew staying home with the sniffles could be this fun?

Why I can't WAIT to have my own backyard again...

This momma in VA (not too far from me!) has made the most of the wonderful outdoors and a play kitchen with this MudPie kitchen, and ohhh, how I can imagine playing along with my kids in it. Mixing playing in the dirt with pretend and cooking? How can you go wrong?

5 Years Ago...

We had a little baby girl. She was adorable, we loved looking at her cute little face, so squishy from birth. But time has passed. Too fast.

Now here, we are five years later...
Our sweet princess is having her 5th birthday. She's so excited to get older, that her birthday wish while blowing out the candles on her cake was that her next birthday would be her 10th instead of 6th. Slow down, baby girl!


She wanted her cake frosted with frosting that had real blueberries in it, not just purple food coloring, so I obliged. Of course, it became a little runny, so we stuck with a flat cake, rather than sculpting anything huge. She loved it. That's what matters.


Especially the sparkly hearts. I liked them, too.I love piping frosting. It's so therapeutic. And in the end, brings HUGE smiles.

Happy Birthday, Chayce! We love you!!