Paul is 1 - Matthew is 6. - Late March

Paul's birthday was March 13.

Matthew's is April 28.

Usually Matthew does his party with Joel in May.

But this year, he wanted to do it with Paul.

Birthday Boy - Paul

Birthday Boy - Matthew

Larue found a WHOLE box of sand!

Joel found a "big brother" to swing him.

I think he stayed there nearly the entire party.

Beautiful Bethie!

You wouldn't know she had any 

learning problems from this picture.

Matthew

and he is SMILING!

Esther

Joel is rather attached to her.

LaRue 

LOVES

swinging.

Homeschooling with a Toddler - Late March

LaRue has her own "cip boar"

and if Joel is doing school,

so is she!

Vannan took the above picture.

There was so much purple and red in the sky.

LaRue loves this hat.

It is Joel's hat.

She will snitch it every time that she sees it.

Nobody else's hat.

And not any other hat.

Just this one.

"mi yad"

Joel is doing kindergarten

with Horizon.

We purchased ours through

AlphaOmega

http://www.aophomeschooling.com/horizons/grade-k/

for both Math and Phonics.

Joel really enjoys it,

but

it is NOT easy.

And I do not know if we will use it again for LaRue.

We were very pleased with their Preschool program.

But this one seems to be quite advanced.

I will be doing Rod and Staff kindergarten with 

Marriana - as it is more "hand work" based with cutting 

and coloring.

Joel will be doing the Rod and Staff 1st grade Phonics next year

because I love the Bible based part of it.

But we looked at the Math workbooks -

and I'll just be saving them for LaRue.

Considering anew how to handle Joel for

Math next year.

Possibly will just do computer games

and print worksheets for him

and let him practice what he already knows.

Big Kid Basketball Hoop - Late March

Tim's dad came by one day, 

and tried to help the boys fix

that orange and blue basket ball hoop in the background.

A few days later he 

called to ask if we would like a bigger one!

He found this one for us,

and brought it up to the house.

It's not new,

and really needs new bars

to hold it up.

Or maybe somebody who

knows welding could fix it.

But we just tied sticks

and got them to hold up.

It was a LOT of work

to get it adjusted properly.

The girls found a basketball

and a pump.

And then they spent

the next hour tossing basketballs.

Can you see how they

so cleverly braced the back

to keep it steady!

Late March - Favorite Things to Do

Joel drew this picture of his house.

Can you see the clock, his bed, a broom, a bathtub, a comb, the dustpan,

and I don't remember what else is in there.

It was quite the elaborate picture.

This has got to be one of our favorite toys!

And this is LaRue's favorite toy ...

the air vent.

Joel was missing most of his pencils - 

then I caught LaRue dropping one down.

So Joel got his flashlight ...

and started removing pencils

and pens

and crayons

and toys

and spoons

a fork

and a few other odds and ends.

We really should try to check all of the other vents 

in the house.

This is Kendra's favorite toy.

She doesn't get it out much anymore,

but we had company,

and they spent close to 4 hours 

building with her Ellos.

Kendra is always wishing she had a lot more,

but they are long gone from stores - 

and all we can find are overpriced sets.

We saw them going out for 70% or more marked down a 

few years ago - but could only afford to buy a few.

Another favorite activity 

trying on other people's clothes.

LaRue was trying on Joel's shorts.

Her favorite though ---- shoes!

Joel put his Easter basket on his head.

He played soldier for nearly a week!

LaRue likes to find somebody 

usually a sibling

and SIT on them!

I bought this towel for Joel,

because he LOVED Blue's Clues.

He screamed when I first put it on him, 

but 8 or so months later,

it was a favorite.

LaRue just loves it.

It's been declared too small for Joel,

as it no longer covers the important parts.

We spent several days sorting clothes.

That is LaRue's pile ...

and ONLY LaRue's pile.

I took out almost half of the pile - 

just based on styles or colors that 

were not good for LaRue or for me.

We mated up most of it -

then put it away.

As she has worn it,

nearly another dozen outfits have been pulled,

some put in the "too big" drawer

and others in the "give away" box.

It was really nice to have "more than enough to share"

with the 2 other babies this size 

and still plenty for Jade to choose from in a few months.

Already, I'm pulling 18 month sizes,

as she wears 24 months almost exclusively

and a size 6 shoe!

We also sorted Joel's clothes.

These are mostly summer,

but you will see a few long sleeves if you look closely.

About a dozen or so have been pulled - 

bad colors for Joel,

or really a bit too small when he has so many more

that fit so much better.

Joel wears a size 6/7 (closer to a 7)

as he has broad shoulders and hips.

Many times what is snug on him,

fits A3 and Matthew just fine for several more months.

He's also in a size 13/1 shoes

depending on how wide the toes are.

He even has one 12 1/2 that he can wear!

But pants are a different story,

most of his shorts are size 5,

so they are too tight.

He's got enough jeans for the summer 

you only need 2 or 3 in this heat

but he's only got 4 or 5 shorts that fit him well,

and another 2 that are very "dressy" for 

going to town dressed nicely.

Anybody have some size 6/7 blue jean shorts

to hand down for the summer?

Box Heaven - Mid March

First picture was just too cute to not share.

Ruezy is always stealing somebodies shoes.

This time I left mine behind and she was bringing them to me.

My sister got some bunk beds for her kids.

This created a bunch of boxes.

And boxes and kids

means lots of creative juices.

They had clam shells.

Canoes.

Tents.

Cities.

swords

armor

Caves

Tunnels

and much much more!

But mostly they had a ton of fun

destroyed all the boxes

and made a humongous mess.

Mapping the Solar System ... Mid March

One Thursday morning, my sister called me up

A1 had a solar system project - she knew my girls had a similar project

would we like to join her?

So up to the church we marched.

Kendra set out all of the items as Rhoda read them off.

The sun was a soccer ball.

Mercury was a cake sprinkle.

Venus and Earth were mini MnMs

Mars was another cake sprinkle.

Jupiter was a ball part from Kendra's Ello set.

Saturn was an acorn.

Neptune and Uranus were chickpeas.

and little Pluto was another cake sprinkle.

We lined them all up for the little ones to see and talk about for a while.

We also had an asteroid belt.

Can you tell there is salt all over the steps?

Alex carried the Sun to our chosen location and wrote "sun" on the parking lot.

We carefully measured from one planet to the next.

The older children took turns measuring.

The younger ones took turns writing and putting out the right planet.

Matthew and Joel became quite dedicated to the task of keeping up

with each of the words and their planet.

Vannan measured Earth.

Can you see how far away that soccer ball looks?

Joel is at the soccer ball.

Matthew is at Venus.

Mercury is someplace between the two boys.

We were only on Earth, and already we were halfway across the church parking lot.

And this was taking a LOT longer than we thought.

We measured out Mars and decided to turn and head down 

our street instead.

I was standing at Mars.

They were carefully measuring out to the asteroid belt.

Standing at Mars

looking back to where the Sun 

had been located.

We collected the sun - since we didn't want to walk all the way back

to get it when we were finished.

We didn't pick up the sprinkles - couldn't find them.

And Matthew squashed Venus and Earth.

Finally - we reached the asteroid belt.

We realized that the farther out these planets were getting - the bigger the gaps were between them.

It wasn't much farther to the Sun 

as it was to that asteroid belt.

The kids talked about how far it was getting

and how HARD it was making measurements with our little

tape measure.

We had moved it 5 or 6 times at least to get to the asteroid belt.

We were getting tired of bending over and moving it.

At that point, I considered my band days.

Marching band practice was about to come into good use.

I got the kids marching!

And we counted each and every step that we took.

We measured the first few efforts, and we figured we were "close enough" 

for the purpose of our project.

So ...

we aSALTed the road

and called it our asteroid belt.

A1 and Kendra ran back to Mars.

We commented again, 

it was about the same distance as Mars

was from the Sun.

We found this mind boggling as we also

considered just how TINY our planets were.

Jupiter came next.

and then Saturn.

We could barely see the church,

and A1 and Kendra were not enjoying their 

sprints to the last planet to take a picture anymore.

Finally, the distance grew so much,

that we really couldn't see

the kids when they ran back to the last planet.

At Neptune,

we had finally reached our house ...

we debated...

do we stop or keep going?

I think we walked nearly a mile to where we finally laid Pluto.

It was a good thing we stopped - because 

there were only a few more steps left on the road.

As it was, we were walking up the last houses driveway!

They were VERY tired when we finally got back to the house.

The efforts took us most of 2 hours.

Maybe a bit longer.

And somewhere at the end of that road

was lonely little Pluto.

This activity was from Apologia Astronomy.