Last Day of School!

Well, here it is. The last day of school, which was on June 5. I'm a bit behind on posting because my back problem has gotten everything all mixed up around here for the past couple of weeks. I actually missed their last day of school altogether, and the last-day-picnic, and everything. I couldn't believe it. But...I'm "back"! Get it? Get it? I'm back!! HAHAHahahahahhaha...
Ahem.

I always like comparing the pictures from the first day of school, which naturally makes me marvel about how fast the year has gone and how much they have grown.
I, of course, never seem to change a bit.

Wordless Wednesday

Memorial Weekend Dinner with Grandma

Hellooooooo summer!


JPD, we love you so! You always keep us laughing!

First Day of THE POOL!

We've been counting the days until our swim club pool opens for the summer. JPD's been snorkeling around in the tub, practicing. And it's finally here!! As you can see, MPD's going to be king of the baby pool this year.




Still a bit cold for this Texas girl, but the kids hardly stood still long enough for me to get their pictures. It's hard to believe summer's here already!

In Other News...

As I mentioned, there's a lot going on around here. Here are a couple of snapshots that I was able to grab as this week flew by...

The junior painter-in-training watching the master at work:

Smoothies to toast the end of head lice:
(Note the huge garbage bags in the background. They contain all of our linens and stuffed animals.) :)

Also, yesterday we picked up our third spring vegetable share from the farm. It was as delightful as ever, although a bit stressful, as today we officially kicked off the kitchen remodel by removing the kitchen sink and faucet and dishwasher. Monday the countertops will be coming in (in the meantime the old ones will be removed) and the cooktop will be disconnected. So really, the kitchen's out of commission. It's all pizza, sandwiches, cereal, and crock-pot only meals for a week. No doubt, you'll be laughing and I'll be crying this time next week when some unforeseen disaster makes our week-without-a-kitchen into much longer! Is there a patron saint of home remodeling? (Or a patron saint of head lice? Seriously on this one, there must be, because of the amazing amount of grace that has kept me from going completely insane this week. Oh wait--maybe that's because I already was completely insane...)

Lego Explosion

This week we have had record-breaking freezing temperatures here in our little corner of the midwest. I mean, sheesh--it's Wisconsin, not Antarctica! But you'd never know it, waking up to hear the radio weather guy announcing a temp of 16 degrees below zero, and windchills below 30 below. (Although, of course, I don't think a lot of meteorologists are hanging around doing radio shows in Antarctica.)

Schools have all been cancelled for the past two days. Not our homeschool, though--and in their free time, our students have been architecting a number of Lego masterpieces down in the basement. Check them out:




When the house construction was complete, they proceeded to play with their Lego people for hours. I didn't overhear too much, but my favorite part was hearing Mass being said for the little Lego guys!

We love our Texas family!

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year!!

We rang in the New Year with our Texas cousins!

Happy 9 Month Birthday, MPD!

Guess who crawled across the room for the first time today??!!

Breakfast in Bethlehem

This weekend our parish hosted Breakfast in Bethlehem for the kids, which is one of our favorite events of the season. Everyone dresses as their favorite character from the nativity story for an all-participation reenactment of the story. We had a little shepherd, a beautiful angel, a regal Magi, and the Blessed Virgin, complete with, of course, a babe in swaddling clothes.
They also have tables set up where the kids can get some hands-on experience of the activities, sounds, and tastes of a real Bethlehem marketplace. We sampled food like hummus and pita bread, olives, honey (with biscuits of course), dates, matzoh-ball soup, and other good stuff. The kids were busy with making pottery, sewing, making jewelry, carpentry (making wooden ornaments), art, games, and baking (decorating angel sugar cookies).
Here the kids are busily making their ornaments:
We love this fun event!

Happy Thanksgiving

Party of 12 at our place. It was great!

Autumn, We're Going to Miss You

Today we raked leaves, with MPD not too sure about the whole thing.

And KLD is already starting an icicle collection for the winter.

Science Takes to the Air

Our airport field trip this week triggered an impromptu afternoon of air- and flight-related science experiments. Each student led one experiment.

Here we are testing racecar aerodynamics:


"Must...get...tasty...racecar..."

Discussing rising air currents and discovering that mobile shapes twirl faster when placed above a heat source:

Making a hot-air balloon to think about heat rising:
(This one was JPD's but he was camera-shy.)

Investigating what happens to a glass-enclosed candle in water (when the flame goes out, the water rises inside the glass!):

Making spinning helicopter blades to discuss how the air currents work:

This was a detour from our "regular" curriculum, but it still fit in well with our science theme of "Earth and Space." All these easy and cool experiments came from the book "Air, Wind, & Flight", from the library.

Put Me in the Zoo

We celebrated our (probably) last 70 degree day of the year with an outing to the zoo. Goodbye warm fall days!

Can you spot the four wild animals camouflaged in their habitat here in the first picture? :)