Green Fingers...

We started our seeds a little later than usual this year, but they are growing happily anyway. Here are Katy and Darsie's garden plots (along the back fence). They each have wind chimes, so we built little teepees to hold the windchimes up. Their pumpkin vines (not planted from seed) are expecially happily taking over right now. The girls are hoping for a pumpkin by fall.
Katy's plot, with her hostas and marigolds

Darsie's plot, with her hostas and pumpkin vine

Here is our vegetable garden. We have corn, beans, carrots, green peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes and lettuce planted. It is so fun to plant things and watch them grow and then eat the fruits of your labors!

Terriffic Treehouses at Tyler Arboretum

Since we have been enjoying all of the Magic Treehouse books, we decided to visit our local arboretum to see their treehouse exhibit. The girls were especially excited to see and climb in several of them.

They loved the giant frog statues on the lawn!

Here's a beautiful rhodedendron thicket (or whatever you call it). It would be a great place to play in the shade! Lots of room for the imagination!

They gave me such a lovely pose in the Lenape Indian wigwam. :) They did think it was neat to see the long bark strips and to think that whole families lived in huts like these.

Lots of "Tree" Houses

Darsie especially had trouble with the hammocks and had to be extricated from one of them. She tried out another one and found it to be much better. :)


Here, the girls peer from a little "Cape May Birdhouse" treehouse.

We found the "treegloo" to be interesting.

Liam enjoyed much of the hike perched on Matt's back. He especially liked it when Matt would bounce up and down.

My and Matt's favorite tree house - very comfy! If only we had trees in our yard! The girls have never been in a hammock before, so it was a bit comical as they had to figure out how to get in and out of one.

Bells

This exhibit was pretty cool, with cowbells rigged hanging from the tree and ropes you could pull to ring them. All three kids really enjoyed it and would have stayed far longer than we did if we weren't hot and tired by then.

Build Your Own "Treehouse"

The girls especially enjoyed the build-your-own treehouse exhibit. Katy even impressed us by carrying an entire log (not just a stick!) in her arms by herself, though she quickly became concerned, saying that it was really heavy.

Levers and Such

The girls tried to lift this larger log, but they decided it was too heavy. Ever resourceful (and having learned it from watching Curious George), they turned two other smaller and lighter sticks into levers to push the log across the ground. Who says television isn't good for kids??!! :)

Liam, meanwhile, was glad to get a chance to sit on the ground. He happily crawled off after a crayon that had rolled down the path a bit and then, to my surprise, proceeded to try to color on the path with it. Amazing the things you learn from your older siblings! He was proud of his catch and wanted everyone else to admire it as well.

Love Note

Home Depot.....

Here are the girls, dressed as Home Depot employees. Notice that Katy even made a name tag for herself (and Darsie, and Liam, and her stuffed dog and .....)...
They had Katy's cash register out and every single book pulled off of their bookshelf (I guess that's what their Home Depot sells). Gotta go help them figure out how to clean up now....

Ahoy!!

This morning, Matt had to leave early to help friends move into a new home. It seemed a great opportunity to have some fun time with the girls. So, we packed up and headed to Home Depot together (the girls asking why we were going to Home Depot for a fun time). Home Depot has free (!) kids clinics the first Saturday of every month, with projects for them to make (using real tools!), aprons for them to wear and pins to put on the apron for each project completed. I found out about this from my college roommate, Kate, whose kids did this earlier in the spring. Thanks, Kate!
Well, the girls LOVED it! They got to hammer and use real nails (Katy was especially excited about the real nails, not just toy ones like she plays with at her friend's house!). Katy did great at following the picture directions step by step, and she hammers pretty well for a kid who has never done it before! Darsie needed a little help, but she was engrossed in it the whole time. After a loud hammering time, they came home with beautiful catamarans (you can see them below). I will post another picture after the paint dries on them (that's what we did when we got home).
And what are they doing now, after such a fun adventure? The girls are in their room wearing their aprons and playing Home Depot. :)

Parade!!

We went to a parade this morning with friends of ours from church and their son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. They had us over to a cookout Friday evening, and Katy and Darsie hit it off with their oldest granddaughter, Kendall. All weekend, the girls talked about Kendall. So, when they got to see her again today, along with her very adorable brothers, they were excited! All had a great time (I think just as much fun talking to each other as looking at the parade).
It was fun for the girls to have a new friend, especially one whose daddy is a pastor, just like theirs!

Katy in the Spotlight.....

Here she is...

Here's Katy...

Here she is...

Katy's Performance

Katy's girls' group ended tonight for the year. They had their annual end-of-year program, where each group shares a bit about what they have been doing all year. You may remember the Christmas banquet, where Katy faced the back during her group's entire performance. Well, we prepped her for this one, and she was excited about it and ready to go. We prayed with her in the car, asking for God to help her enjoy it and be brave. Well, she did GREAT!! She did everything the group did, from doing the "secret handshake" to sharing her special thought from this week (she mentioned me using my sewing machine today!) to even saying her lines for the "H" attribute. I will upload a video later (you can't hear her very well, but she does say "God is Holy").
Anyway, we are so proud of her! She has come a long way from the fall! Several friends of ours also came up and expressed how proud they were of her as well. I told her about it in the car, and she commented that God had helped her. Praise Him for answering the prayers even of our children!

Another First Recital!!

We have been attending a homeschool co-op every thursday since January. One of the classes the girls take there is a music class, in which they have been learning to play recorders, along with some basic theory and fun songs and games. This past Thursday was the last meeting until fall, so they were sent home with their recorders afterwards. Katy has been telling us for weeks about learning "Hot Cross Buns" and has been humming it and tapping out the rhythms. Saturday, when she showed Matt, he asked her to try to pick it out on the piano. She sat down and he showed her where E was. Well, she picked it right out! She has tried before and has not been able to figure out the pitch progression (up or down), but she did it! Then, she picked out "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and played a C scale (do, re mi...which she knows from The Sound of Music)! She was so proud of herself, giggling and beaming afterwards. She has since then gone back to the piano and played it again several times!, even finding the right starting pitch! Our friend, Gina, remarked that only two music majors would be excited that our 5 year old could find E on the piano! :) Anyway, just wanted to share a video of our proud daughter, taken by her proud parents! :)

Impromptu Science Lesson

I sent the kids outside for lunch today, because we had been indoors too long. After playing for a while, they were sitting eating their lunches when we noticed a baby (we think) mourning dove walking around the yard. It was not at all afraid of us and even ate off of Darsie's plate. Being the "super" homeschool mom that I tell myself I am, I decided that naps could wait and that we would learn about mourning doves for a while. We got out our science notebooks and drew the bird and read about it in our bird book and wrote down observations (it ate peanut butter and graham crackers, it drank with its head down, etc.). The girls were thrilled and named "her" Alice. It is funny that she didn't fly away at all and that there was no mom mourning dove nearby, so I am not sure what is wrong with her. She's out there in the yard still, walking around, nibbling on crackers the girls dropped, drinking some water and enjoying the sun. The girls were very hesitant to come in for their naps because they were worried about her. Hopefully, she'll be there when they get up.

PE Lesson

The weather being slightly warmer than freezing, we decided that it was a good day to take our bikes out for some exercise. Paige, Ellia and Ben accompanied us to Rose Tree Park near the church, and the kids rode bikes and then climbed the "huge" (it really is pretty tall!!!) hill there. They had a blast, and we decided that it counted for our PE lesson for the day. Here are the girls waving from the top of the hill.

Snow Day!!

What a great day! We had playgroup this morning at our friend's house and read a book By Lois Ehlert in which she had made some creative collage illustrations about snowmen. Then, the kids all made snowman collages. Katy and Darsie both enjoyed making their snowman and then showing them off to their daddy tonight! Then, we packed up and headed over to our first co-op experience down the street. The girls got to do music, PE, art and Spanish classes today and were both teary and sad when it was time to go home (a good sign, I think). It had begun to snow while we were at co-op, and by the time we left, it was a wintery scene outside. The girls were very excited and wanted to go out immediately, to which I responded that they had to wait for their daddy to come home (:0). When Matt got home, we ate a quick dinner, and then he headed out with the girls for a freezing family fun night. They rolled snowballs, made snow creations, and had a snowball fight (complete with Katy tattling on daddy for hitting her in the face with a snowball). Anyway, here is a photo of the scene. Wish you were all here!

What is real?

Katy has been trying to sort out "real" stories from "pretend" ones lately, from Super Why on TV to Pilgrim's Progress to Flat Stanley and stories about kings and princesses. She will often ask us if something we are reading or watching on TV or a movie is "real." Today at lunch we were talking about these things, and she turned to me and asked, "Are we in a story?"

I just thought it was a cool question. I told her that, yes, we are in a story, just the most real one of all, and, even though we know the end in one respect, we are still having to find out how it goes each day. Pretty cool to think about, though, being in a story. We are in God's story, and He is the Author and Finisher of our faith. It was just a good reminder to me that it is so not about me, but it is all about the REAL story and the Author of that story!

Sharing Favorite Stories

It is so fun when I get to share some of my favorite books with the girls! Last night, I began reading to them from Pilgrims Progress (one simplified a bit for children), and they were hooked. They both sat listening to the first chapter, and then they had to know how he got his burden removed, so we read three more chapters. Katy especially was interested and asking lots of questions - Who put the burden there?, how did it come off?, is the king Jesus?.... So neat to have that opportunity to talk with them! So, they begged all afternoon to read more, and Matt got to sit down with them tonight while I finished making dinner. Here is a shot (believe it or not, Darsie did sit still for it yesterday, but she was still listening for the most part tonight).