A Day Out

These are friends of ours from Israel. Baruch Maoz, with his wife Bracha, is a national pastor in Israel (until he retires in December). They were in the states for several months to visit with family (two of their daughters currently live in the states) and to visit their supporting churches, and we got the privilege of spending a weekend with them. We spent some time Saturday evening together and then Sunday afternoon at some other friends' house, and then yesterday we planned to have lunch together and then go to the Art Museum.
We were really excited about the museum, especially since the girls and I have been doing picture studies with a different work of art each week (we are currently doing Renoir). The museum has several Renoirs, as well as other works from book we have read, so we were excited to see them in person. We researched where each work was, where the handicapped parking was, etc. and planned our visit. The only thing we didn't think to check was......the days they were open. Turns out, museums in Philadelphia are closed on Mondays. Hmmmm....who knew?! We, of course, found out as we walked up the (back) steps to the entrance. :) So much for impressing our out-of-town friends and having a cool field trip.
Anyway, we went to the visitor center instead and watched a movie and saw the liberty bell (the girls really wanted to see it) before bidding good-bye to Baruch and Bracha. We told them that, maybe next time we would take them to the art museum on a non-Monday so they could actually see the inside of it. :)
(We also had to schedule a day on our calendar to go to the museum, since the girls were so disappointed about it.)

A New Friend

Matt came home Saturday to a new friend on our outside basement doors. He called us out to see, and we grabbed our nature journals and sat and drew him and watched him move around. Pretty alien-like, huh? Tomorrow, we are going to research our praying mantis friend here and see what we can learn about him...

Household Tasks

This month, the girls have been learning how to rinse and put the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, in addition to washing whatever is non-diswasherable in the sink. They are very proud of their new skills and have been taking turns at the sink each morning.
They also have jobs of wiping the table and sweeping after each meal. As you can see from these pictures, Liam is ready to get in on the action a bit. Yesterday, Darsie let him walk with her, holding the handle. Today, Katy repeated this new treat, and he loves it! He has always loved the sweeper and would follow it around when in use (much to the delight of its operators!). Now, it seems, he needs his own chore chart and is ready to pull his weight around here. :)

Pumpkins!!

Katy and Darsie harvested their pumpkins a week ago when we noticed that the vines were dying. They have been so excited about these pumpkins ever since they planted them in May. It has been fun to watch their progress, from just flowers to little baby pumpkins to nice sized ones for picking. We have had them on display on our table, but they were starting to smell really pumpkinny, which I took to mean that they would not last much longer. So, today we learned about pumpkins, observing the outside and drawing it, observing the insides and drawing them, and then carving the faces they requested into each pumpkin.
Here are the before and after shots.


And here are the after shots, with the girls modeling their best pumpkin faces as well. :)


We harvested some seeds to dry and save for next year and the rest are toasting as I type (Darsie has been particularly excited about this step). You should have seen Katy's face when she tried to get seeds out of the bowl and touched the stringy pulp. Classic Katy. :)

Our Budding Musician

Katy has been working on figuring out this song for weeks now. I think she must have heard the clocks at various houses where we stayed on vacation and wanted to copy the song. So, she has figured it out all by herself! Lately, she has added the left hand because she notices that we play with both hands when we play piano. Our plan with the kids musically is to wait until they are about 7 to start formal lessons, so it is really neat to see her trying to figure stuff out on her own! Matt showed her how to locate C on the keyboard, and she is so proud of her new skills. (Of course, being the music majors that we are, we think it is one of the coolest things in the world that our 5 year old can locate C!)

Computer Skills

Katy is so proud of herself that she has figured out how to maneuver the cursor on the laptop. Here, she is watching her friend Joel ride his bike without training wheels (on his mom's blog). She probably watched it at least 10-15 times, smiling and laughing and talking to him throughout to offer encouragement ("Oh, Joel!" "I just can't stop watching this!",.....) She thought it was pretty cool to be able to click to start it on her own, to click on pictures to see them up close and scroll through them, and to scroll down to also watch the cool video of cicada killers (also on Joel's mom's blog). All in all, a very satisfying Friday afternoon. :)

Playgroup Nature Hike

We headed to the Newlin Grist Mill with our playgroup this week. I have heard about this place and wanted to visit and have just never gotten around to it, so, thanks to some organizing by my friend Gina, we finally got to explore it this week! It was a wonderful fallish morning, so nice to enjoy wearing long pants and sneakers! We hiked along the mill run, then crossed several streams, stepping on rock trails (this was both girls' favorite part!). Come on up and we'll take you there!

Our hikers, minus Liam and Tabitha (on moms' backs), Sam (happily clinging to Michelle) and Rachael (cushy in the stroller)

One of the crossing points. I had my jogging stroller, which fortunately forded two of the three streams very well. Dawn's, however, had to be carried across. I am sure we looked quite interesting, with 6 moms, 8 walking kids, four babies, and two strollers all trying to cross the streams. :)

Liam's vantage point on my back. The new back wrap I learned in Atlanta finally worked for us!
There were fish with large black spots on their sides down in the water, and Ellia and Katy watched them for quite a long time.