Gardening
We finally tackled the landscaping in our postage stamp of a yard, and the entourage is very excited about this. I heard many requests to "go play in the dirt!" this week. We have a stash of sand toys that resemble our real gardening tools, but of course the entourage (including Goose) knows the difference and wants to work with the "grown up tools." All this dealing with the plants led to discussions about root systems ("these stringy things that suck food out of the dirt") and photosynthesis ("leaves soak up sunshine, so the plants can grow"). At some point most of the neighborhood crew (at least 8 adults plus kids) ended up in our front and side yard. The grown ups chitchatted, and the kids pulled out the riding toys and helped dig up our flower beds. Good times.

Prayer Beads
A few weeks ago I attended a prayer bead workshop at church (We're not Catholic, so we're not talking about the rosary--just different beads to help you focus and remember different things to pray about, like being thankful, confessing, etc.). My beads and prayer journal are usually sitting out in the living room when the entourage comes downstairs, and they are fascinated by the beads. Many mornings they touch the beads one by one and ask what I pray for with each bead. At some point Bug declared that she wanted prayer beads too. So on Monday we finally acquired an assortment of wooden beads and Bug and I sat down to make a set of prayer beads. I let her decide everything: which beads, how many, and what they stood for. She doesn't remember consistently which bead means what and she usually repeats one or two, but she wants to remember to pray for: something she's thankful for, something she's scared of, something she's frustrated about, something she wants help with, and people she knows. It was one of those moments that made me feel really good about Daddy and my ability to pass our faith on to our kids.

Projects

Monkey and Bug were feeling very crafty one morning this week (inspired by my cleaning out the craft chest and rediscovering what cool stuff we have in there), so they did some free style painting and sticker collages this week. They wanted to do something with the pom poms, so I suggested making caterpillars with craft sticks and pom poms. They turned out really well.

Water!

One day this week Monkey and Bug declared it warm enough to pull out the little wading pool. They were right, and they had a blast! They got a big kick out of being big enough to fill up the pool by themselves, but their favorite part was discovering that if you throw a basketball or soccer ball into the pool, it makes a really BIG splash!



Playdates

The entourage actually attended a playgroup without me this week. Since Daddy's deploying soon we had to get some legal things taken care of, so one of our neighbors took the girls during a morning when she was hosting a Moms' Club playgroup. Fortunately, the girls knew several of the moms and kids, but I was a bit nervous about leaving my little introverts (Monkey and Bug--Goose would be fine) in such a potentially overwhelming situation. They did beautifully, and Miss J said they did a great job of looking out for each other. Later in the week they went next door to Miss N's house to play with their friend LA while Daddy and I finished paperwork, and again when I took Goose to the doctor. (I actually intended to take the whole entourage to the doctor as usual, but Miss N wanted to keep Monkey and Bug because then they could keep 2-year-old LA busy and she could actually get something done. It's so nice that they've reached an age when it's often easier to have more than one!)

Library Day

We had another exciting library day. This week our homeschool group got cancelled, so we headed to the library on Wednesday and got to attend storytime at our little branch library with some of our neighborhood friends. As usual they were enthralled by the storytelling and merely tolerant of the get-up-and-wiggle times. Bug and Goose did the craft afterwards (gluing tissue paper blossoms onto a construction paper tree branch), but Monkey opted to sit on the floor and look at books with her teddy bear. The girls had fun, but admitted afterward that they like it when there aren't quite so many kids at the library. It's definitely a different atmosphere! This week we came home with these books:

Horton Hatches the Egg

It's Picture Day Today!

Perfect Pancakes, If You Please

I Will Surprise My Friend!

Aesop's Fables

Doesn't everybody have days when they want to get mostly naked and play with playdough?

Easter Flowers
Monkey and Bug made Easter flowers this week (construction paper hand & footprints + rolled construction paper + tape). They were supposed to be lilies, but these creative girls would never go so ordinary as white :-) It was Bug's idea to try it with footprints. I was skeptical at first, but she was right: they actually made nice pseudo-Calla lilies.

Games
I recently made several games for the entourage. Tic-tac-toe (white paper grid + contact paper + milk caps) is popular. They understand the concept of getting three in a row, but they fail to see the point of getting in each other's way. Mostly, they play with patterns and shapes on the grid and see how many milk caps they can stack without knocking them over. Good times. The alphabet game (ABC wheel + contact paper + clothes pins with abc's on them) was actually less of a challenge for them than I anticipated. Score another for unschooling, right? I had no idea they could match almost all the upper and lower case letters! The pom pom game (sour cream container with holes in the lid + half a dozen mini pom poms) is actually a bigger hit with the big girls than I thought it would be. Goose loves it of course, and Monkey and Bug having been using it to start teaching Goose her colors.

More Words
Additions to Goose's vocabulary this week: uh oh, balloon, all done

Music
I started a new thing this week. I put a couple of classical music CDs in the car to alternate with the girls sing-along CDs as we're out and about. This week I introduced them to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, and was very impressed with the reception it got. Not only did they want to hear every note (a challenge when I don't want to blast them out of their carseats on the crescendos), but I heard comments like the following from the backseat: "I like those loud cymbals!" "That trumpet surprised me!" "The bestest instrument is all the instruments" (translation: They prefer when the whole orchestra plays instead of the solo bits.) They also made their own music with homemade shakers (toilet paper tubes + pistachio shells + dry rice + paper + packing tape). Early in the week Bug noticed the nice sound that pistachio shells make when she ran her fingers through them, so I offered to teach her how to make an instrument out them. It was a very popular activity!

Bug also discovered the shaker could double as a "microphone" and put on a concert for me.

Computer Skills
Monkey's and Bug's computer skills continue to improve. They mostly play with Starfall and have discovered many more games besides the alphabet ones (calendars, nursery rhymes, counting, classic kids songs, holidays). I don't have to help them at all anymore: They discovered that the website will read aloud any word they click on, so they don't have to ask me for instructions, and they even know how to open the link to the website I put on the desktop. They've also figured out how to use the mouse for the desktop computer. Since Monkey and Bug have been playing Jumpstart games on the desktop, even Goose has figured out that fun things happen when you push buttons (or bang the keyboard).

Playing Tag
Needless to say, the girls took a good nap this day. (And Bug was just fine after her face plant. She jumped right up without even crying and kept running.)

Hooray for Pocoyo!
We discovered a new favorite TV show. It's about a 2-year-old, Pocoyo, exploring the everyday things in his world. For some reason (maybe the simple storylines and bouncy music?), he has the entourage captivated. I have no idea where it originated, but it's quite an international experience: The characters' names are Spanish, the animation style is Japanese, and the narrator who interacts with Pocoyo is British. (It gets additional Mommy points for each episode being only 7 minutes long.)

Library Day

Library Day was quite the expedition this week, because we decided to go to "the Big Library" instead of our little branch library. We went early in order to have time to play on the playground, but the entourage chose to all but ignore the actual playground. Instead they ran past the playground to the gazebo overlooking the turtle pond. We saw two turtles and two geese, which we got a better look at through the fence than we could at the gazebo.

They then decided to run all the way around the pond (even Goose walked most of the way). Following the path all the way meant we went past the amphitheater, and what preschooler can resist a chance to run around an empty stage!

We also discovered that Goose has the balance to handle shallow steps all by herself.

We returned briefly to the playground and ran into some friends of ours from church before heading into the library itself. Monkey and Bug insisted on going to storytime, and seem to enjoy it despite the fact that they don't participate in any of the hand rhymes/songs/get-your-wiggles-out stuff (I think they view those as merely tolerable interruptions to an otherwise lovely time). The theme was rainbows this week, and they got to glue together rainbow caterpillars afterwards. Actually looking for books to bring home is a little more challenging here, since there are so many distractions (lots of puzzles, stuffed animals, a puppet theater, oversize checker games, etc.), but we came home with the following:
Hey, Mama Goose
Curious George Gets a Medal
Circus Parade
Cat the Cat, Who Is That?
An Invitation to the Butterfly Ball: A Counting Rhyme
Little Red Riding Hood
Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changing Seasons
The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight
They also took some time to share the stuffed animals with the library statues.

Dinosaur DayMonday turned into a very dinosaur day, which started by watching Dinosaur Train. It inspired Monkey and Bug to pretend to be dinosaurs throughout our trip to Walmart, much to the amusement of the employees who thought two little girls stomping and roaring through the store was hilarious. The girls spotted a couple of T. rex sippy cups that in a weak moment I bought for them, and it absolutely made their day. Then during our reading time before nap we just happened across a dinosaur poem or two in a kids poetry book we got from the library last week. We talked a lot about dinosaurs, and Bug was particularly fascinated by the fact that some dinosaurs fly and live in nests like birds. Monkey concluded the day by wearing her triceratops PJs to bed.

Monkey accomplishing her first "all by herself cooking job." She made snack mix by measuring and mixing the ingredients I set out for her. Side note: she is also wearing the triceratops PJs here.

Aunt E Is Here!
Much to everyone's excitement Aunt E came to visit this past week. The entourage loved having the additional adult playmate to read to them and take them outside to play. And as usual, watching E practice clarinet was highly popular. Mommy and Daddy even got a date night!

More Words for Goose
Pleae note, these words can usually only be understood in context, and she hasn't said any of them frequently, but she has said them spontaneously (as opposed to repeating after me): chewie (pacifier), dolly, sisters, bear, book, thanks, cheese

We Can Ride Bikes Now!

Monkey riding her bike all by herself for the first time.
She had moved on to other things by the time I got the video camera out.
Bug was happy to show off her skills in the video below.

International Wednesday
Wednesday morning started off with the discovery of a fun new (to us) tv show to watch: Pingu, a Swedish cartoon about a young penguin. Pingu never actually talks, but we're not sure if the adult penguins are just making noises or speaking Swedish because the dialogue of the adult penguins is unnecessary to following the plot. The entourage was enthralled. Later in the morning some of our neighborhood friends came over for a Japanese-themed playdate hosted by Aunt E. We sampled really yummy Japanese snacks (Poky sticks and shrimp chips were favorites), let the kids paint cherry trees with dot paints, and the grownups tried origami. Monkey and Bug really loved helping Aunt E make things by creasing her folds for her. We followed that up with homemade Chinese food for lunch (egg foo young and fried rice--extremely popular with this crowd! I think Goose ate as much as I did!). To top it off, that evening at bedtime they chose a Spanish/English book for their bedtime story.

This is what our playdate looked like. The laptop is out so we could show the kids what real cherry trees look like. That's Bug's tree in the foreground (Monkey didn't make one; she was focused on the origami E was making.)

Even Goose painted a tree!

Library Day
Aunt E came with us to the library before she left, so of course she spent a good hour reading book after book to the entourage. Here's what we came home with:
Night Rabbits
Tiny & Hercules
Yoko's Paper Cranes (Aunt E found this one, and Monkey and Bug love that it has cranes "like [Aunt E] makes!")
Farm Alphabet Book
Toddlerobics
Counting Birds
The Elves and the Shoemaker
You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum (This is one of my favorites that we've checked out before. It doesn't have any text, but the illustrations are so rich you don't need words. It follows the parallel adventures of a little girl touring the museum and her runaway balloon finding recreations around the city of the famous works the girl is seeing in the museum.)
Night House, Bright House (The girls picked out this one, but it too incorporates famous works of art)

Projects, Projects, Projects!

We did lots of projects this week—mostly because we went to Walmart early in the week and some art supplies just jumped into the cart! The entourage was really excited about a pack of iridescent pony beads, and Monkey and Bug made necklaces. I decided not to trust Goose with the beads and pulled out the stringing noodles (dry penne + a few drops of food coloring) instead. Not that she can string them yet, but at least while she’s happily flinging them around the kitchen it doesn’t matter if they get lost or broken.

Bug says, "Look, Mommy, I made really cute bling!"

The project requiring the most Mommy initiative was the flower suncatchers (construction paper outlines + contact  paper + tissue paper squares). Monkey and Bug were puzzled by the circle I put in the middle, so we did a Google image search of daisies to prove that flowers really do have circles in the middle and talked about how that part of the flower helps make more flowers. We gave Goose a mini flower and some tissue paper too. It all ended up in a crumpled ball on the floor, but she had a great time.

Next we tried flower stamps (milk jug lid + foamy sticker = stamps; juice can lid + paint = ink pad). Monkey loved these, and Bug came around once we convinced her that the imperfect could still be pretty (I suspect this is going to be an ongoing issue). Of course once they realized I had used foamy stickers for the stamps, they just wanted to use the stickers. Bug stuck with the flower theme, but  Monkey was thrilled to discovered we’d acquired some sea animal stickers and picked out a piece of purple construction paper to be her ocean.

Milestones

Mobility: We took down the baby gates this week! Goose is pretty steady crawling up and down the stairs, plus we realized she was the one who most frequently opened and closed the gate.

Privacy: Monkey and Bug have started wanting their own stalls in public restrooms (so far nobody’s gotten herself locked in a stall, but I’m just waiting for that moment). Bug has also requested her own bathtime, “all by herself.” However, I suspect this has more to do with avoiding the boisterous waterplay of her sisters than privacy.

Speech: Goose has two more words: this and bar (as in, homemade granola bar). She’s also started pointing at objects to get Daddy or I to say them, then attempting to mimic them. She’s doing a lot more articulate babbling too—looking you in the eye and saying something. It just isn’t English yet.

Library Day

This week's excitement at the library was the great big puddles outside the library. Monkey introduced Goose to the joys of puddle jumping. The unstoppable gleefulness of two little girls stomping and kicking through a puddle was just incredible! (Bug, however, plopped down onto the sidewalk and cried because Monkey got a few drops of water on her *sigh*). We came home with these books this week:
One Potato: A Counting Book of Potato Prints
Read-aloud Rhymes for the Very Young
Felicity Floo Visits the Zoo
Little Red Riding Hood
The Post Office Book: Mail and How It Moves
Word Bird's Shapes
Oh, look!
Jubilee
Counting To Christmas
The Magic School Bus Answers Questions

On Saturday, the entourage decided we needed a second library day. We didn’t check out any books, but they all “read” lots of books, and Goose spent some time coloring while I worked on this blog. It was a great way to spend a drizzly Saturday morning.

More Puddle Jumping!
I had the entourage try on bathing suits today to see if we'll need new ones for this year, and Bug and Goose decided to try them out.