Reading is Fun-Time

This is the pile of books that collected in our main living areas throughout the past week. Obviously, I have not done a fantastic job of teaching my children to put things away. They will be sorting and shelving these tomorrow; they just don't know it yet.

In a way, though, it makes me a little bit happy to know that my kids are readers. Granted, there are a lot more comic books in that pile than I would like, but there are also science books, history books, and stories of all types and levels. Some days I feel more successful than others in our homeschool journey, but if I haven't accomplished anything else in the last year-and-a-half, I have at least provided the kids with plenty of time for reading, and plenty of books.

Maybe they'll be more suited to be Jeopardy contestants than functioning members of a professional society, but hey, it worked for Ken Jennings.

Catching Up

After a long week of spring break, it's time to get back to schooling. The kids are trying to put it off for as long as possible, and begged to be allowed to watch a Blue Planet video before class started. They knew that if they chose something educational, there was a chance, whereas if it has been Garfield...

Well, it's science, right? OK, so we aren't actually studying Oceans right now, but maybe we can call it...geography? Anyway, they're happy, quiet and learning, so I'm going to call it success if nothing else. We'll get to boring, old math and English in a little while.

For a report of the first half of our spring break, check out Grandma Lilibeth's blog. While we were enjoying our next round of visitors, she was spending some time writing about our adventures, for which I'm very thankful. Not only have I been pitiful about remembering to blog, I've hardly even taken out my camera.

Thankfully my new phone has a camera that is worth using, so I do have a few captured memories from our trip with M, L and baby E to the Science City in Kansas City's Union Station. When I say, "few", I mean few. Now if I could just figure out how to get pictures from an iPhone onto my PC.

Instead, though, I'm going to take this time to work on the kitchen and start my laundry. Blue Planet only lasts so long.

Hello Kitty, Hold These Craft Sticks for a Second

This is what a little girl needs to go on an adventure.

Kleenex, Band-Aids, notebook and pencil, hand sanitizer, crackers: all these things make sense to me. In fact, these are all things that you will commonly find in my purse.

Ear warmer? Well, not quite as necessary, perhaps, but still reasonable, especially since the winter we didn't get in December and January has decided to show up late and visit during February and March instead.

Wood-burning tool and dirty craft sticks? Now these raise more questions. Where would one be going if decorative wood-burning was likely to be necessary? Were the craft sticks there to be decorated? How many times does a woman look through her purse with that familiar burrowing motion we've all seen (or done) and mutter to herself, "Where did I put that wood-burner?" or, similarly, "Where did I put those dirty craft sticks?" And on a more common sense note, do adventures typically take place near an outlet?

These questions may never be answered, because it was several months ago when this bag was packed, and the destination of it's owner is probably lost in the mists of time.

Trampoline Sword Fight

I'm not sure what's worse: The fact that my children are jumping on a trampoline with foam swords, or the fact that my instant reaction to seeing this was to take a picture and post it on my blog rather than, you know, tell them to stop.

That trampoline has been a wonderful investment. Zaya has spent literally hours and hours jumping around on it. He uses it as a place where he can be alone and imagine while also moving around. Before we had the trampoline, he just walked and skipped around the house imagining, but the trampoline adds that little extra bit of fun.

Mim likes it when there are other children to play with. She wants to play games, have contests, or, apparently, fight with swords.

Isn't it strange that my shy child is an extrovert and the boy who never met a stranger is an introvert? I would never have thought that was possible before I had children.

But I digress. I will probably have to go make them stop sometime soon. The trick is to find just the right moment when they've had lots of fun, but no one has actually been hurt yet. It's a fine and delicate balance.

And if you're unsure, yes, Mim is wearing a Davy Crockett hat. No, I don't know why. Do you need a reason to wear a coon-skin hat?