Three Ballerinas
Mar 8th, 2014 by ECM
Our Sketches (from Gardens of the World)
Mar 7th, 2014 by ECM
I was going to try to scan them in or something, but taking pictures was faster.
Tommy:
portrait of Jack
Elizabeth:
She’s itching to write!
Susie (note the footprint where she stepped on it):
Sketching at Gardens of the World
Mar 6th, 2014 by ECM
We try to do some kind of field trip with Katie and Jack every week or so. This week, we stayed in TO and visited the Gardens of the World Botanical Gardens with sketching materials.
A Walk Around the Culdesac
Mar 5th, 2014 by ECM
Frustrating Week
Feb 28th, 2014 by ECM
So yesterday it was 68 degrees and sunny–a perfect day to play outside, right? Not if you live in SoCal. Nope, we do indoor recess, cancel park day, and stay off the playground (unless you’re a crazy midwesterner)…all because it rained the day before.
This is not a joke. Early on in our time here, we went to the park the day after a rain. I had an old towel in my trunk, of course, and another mom at the playground commented as I wiped off the swings and slides for my kids. Yep, I am crazy. It’s just safer to wait inside until California resumes drought-like dryness before venturing outside with my kids. They might get…muddy!
Today it rained all day, so of course my kids had to run outside and play. With this amount of rain, we’ll probably have indoor recess for weeks! See, Janie isn’t the only one who makes the scrunchy face!
Tommy Blogs: My First Trip to the Symphony
Feb 26th, 2014 by ECM
I liked going to the symphony. First there was Mother Goose suites and then there was music for a Brazilian carnival. And then (this is what we have been learning about), Pictures at an Exhibition! It was music composed to paintings because a man named Victor Hartmann painted many paintings and then he died when he was a young adult. Then his friend Modest Mussorgsky composed a piece of all the paintings that were organized by another friend. The last movements in Pictures at an Exhibition were mostly played by the brass. In the intermission between the carnival music and Pictures at and Exhibition,we went to the back of the stage and met some of the brass musicians, and they told us that they really liked playing the last part. We listened to music and drew lines to the music. And there was a violist there too, and she played a part in Pictures at an Exhibition that represented a rich, grumpy man and a poor man.
This was the end, which represented the Great Gate of Kiev. I got this paper from the VIP kids club. It told me about the pieces in the concert.
It was what I expected, going to the symphony. The auditorium was a big room. We got to sit near the front. I could see the conductor, the first violinist, and the pianist (in the Brazilian piece). The cellos and the basses and the piano were in front of us. Jack was there with his parents, but when the intermission was being held, he was asleep! I didn’t fall asleep, even though the Brazilian piece was a little boring. But Pictures at an Exhibition was fun. I want to go again!
Tommy’s Lego-riffic Birthday Party!
Feb 24th, 2014 by ECM
Tommy had his Lego Birthday party today! We had to postpone a week so that Jonah would be back from vacation to come. I told Tommy it was going to be old-school and pretty simple, so we played some basic lego building games and ate cake. Janie miraculously slept through the whole thing (a benefit of having homeschooled friends is being able to throw parties during early afternoon naptime), so we didn’t even have to worry about her eating legos.
Susie’s idea of dressing up is to layer on as many clothes as possible and then pose.
Janie at 11 Months
Feb 20th, 2014 by ECM
Okay, so you may notice that I officially changed the category tag on the side from Jane to Janie. We just don’t call her Jane. She’s a Janie! Or Jane-Bug, or the kids’ newest invention, Bugaboo. I’d signed her up for CBS as Jane, but it is just weird to me to put that nametag on her every week. Like Tommy (and unlike Elizabeth and Susanna), I always end up introducing her by her nickname. Just wanted to let you all know where we stand.
So. She’s 11 months old! Still just the four teeth, but she’s laughing and giggling all the time now, so I don’t think any others are imminent. She LOVES it when some or all of the kids come to visit her in her crib when she’s woken up from a nap. They were going in and waking her up, so I kiboshed that and require them to ask permission before entering her room. Now as soon as someone hears her awake, they’re begging, “Please, Mommy, PLEASE can I go talk to Janie?!” It’s fun to see my kids so fond of each other.
Janie is cruising everywhere and has very little patience for the jumper I borrowed from a friend when our exersaucer bit the dust. Sometimes (like when the kids are playing with legos), I just want her somewhere safe, but she wants to be down on the floor, part of the action, so it’s probably not realistic to keep her out of mischief. She doesn’t really want to try to stand on her own or try to walk yet. She sometimes pushes the shopping cart a few steps, but crawling is so much faster and easier.
She’s clapping her hands all the time now. And she LOVES it when we clap our hands for her! She likes to do pattycake with anyone who will play with her. She shrieks and squeals to get our attention, and the last couple of weeks, she’s started saying “Da!” I just haven’t been good about teaching her any baby signs–I will have to get the kids to help with the please and thank yous.
We’ve had such a rough past month that her eating got all messed up. I’d started to wean her down to 3 feedings a day, but when she got sick, I figured she could use as much breast milk as possible, so we were back up to 5 feedings a day for a while there! (And even though I was super duper sick and lethargic, I craved dessert nonstop. Now that we’ve dropped down again, I’m no longer making cookies every day.) She didn’t really want to eat much of anything and really just wanted me to sp0on feed her purees again. Now that she’s on the mend, she’s back to eating bread, cheese sticks, tiny pieces of chicken, olives, pear quarters, bananas sometimes, and especially blueberries! I’ve definitely noticed that she’s not interested in peas, broccoli, or green beans when I steam them up for dinner. She’ll eat them in puree form, but I guess she must have a sweet tooth. She does like cooked carrots and sweet potatoes, but yellow veggies are sweeter. Hmm. This week, she had both a cinnamon roll and cake for Tommy’s birthday. Tommy never had refined sugar until his first birthday, then not again until his second birthday cake. Ah, the difference between firstborn and fourthborn!
