Bye, Daddy
We took Daddy to the airport on Sunday for his "great big trip." And we all miss him already! Fortunately,Daddy had the foresight to create some "Daddy TVs" for the entourage to watch, and I think that held off some of the early meltdowns. Using a webcam, he recorded himself reading some of their favorite books aloud, and we have watched at least one of these everyday. I also made a couple of videos of Daddy and the girls rough housing (like the one posted last week). Monkey had an "I miss Daddy" moment today that involved really wanting to wrestle with him (Mommy wasn't good enough--no surprise). We broke out those videos and she loved them! She laughed hysterically every time she saw herself "squish" Daddy. Unfortunately, it kind of backfired with Bug; she ended up curled up on the floor crying that she wanted to really rough house with Daddy. We snuggled for awhile, then I distracted her with the possibility of helping me cook dinner.

Adventures!
We went for lots of walks this week--often two a day! With the exception of Wednesday, the weather has been gorgeous, and the entourage loves nothing better than pulling out the trikes and stroller and going for a long walk in the neighborhood. One day the girls declared that we were going on an adventure. This seemed to mean that we would stop frequently to pay attention to things like wild flowers, prints and tracks on driveways, broken sidewalks, spilled birdseed, jet skis, and other people's chalk art. Monkey and Bug insisted we take pictures of all of it, so here is a photo collage of one of our walks:

Bible Verse
One of the things I value most from my own education is the numerous Bible verses I was forced to memorize and still remember. I've been thinking about when to get that started for the entourage, and this week I decided to give it a try. Our first verse (posted on a card on the fridge) is Psalm 56:3: "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." It seemed appropriate given that last time Daddy was gone for this long their fears of everything escalated. We sat down, read the verse from the Bible, talked about what it meant, and repeated it several times (we've repeated several times everyday). So far it's going well, and the girls are definitely learning it, although they can't say it by themselves yet. It helped that one of the books they picked out from the library this week dealt with being afraid, and they noted that Piglet should have "trusted in God, so he wouldn't be scared."

Projects
Once again it was all freeform art this week, and mostly the girls decided to paint with a few stickers thrown in for good measure. Previously the girls have always just picked one color each, but it suddenly occurred to them this week that they could paint with more than one color per painting. A new era in the entourage's artwork has begun! Of course, Goose insisted on getting in on the action. She even figured out the logistics of using a paintbrush; although she kept calling it a spoon and did in fact put it (and a glob of non-toxic paint) in her mouth. She won't be doing that again! All this painting made me very thankful for the plastic tablecloth I bought from Walmart a few weeks back and for not having to scrub all the paint off our kitchen table!

The entourage beginning their projects

The projects completed

Library Day
We actually managed to visit the library without making a complete mess of the children's section this time. We came home with these books:
Jack and the Beanstalk (a favorite, Monkey requested we check it out again)
Circles of Hope
The Busy Body Book: A Kid's Guide to Fitness
Don't Be Scared Piglet and Roo
Don't Let the Pigeon Stay up Late!
The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog
Snow Friends

Reading books at home. Bug actually had memorized
whatever book it was she's reading to Goose.

Pigeon at the Wheel!
Daddy wasn't around to take them to the playground this week, but we still made it there. They did the usual playing on the slides, bouncy toys, and monkey bars, but this time they were also inspired by the mounted steering wheel to pretend to be characters from one of their favorite books, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Bug decided to venture outside the storyline, though (in the book Pigeon never succeeds in driving the bus; he just "interacts" with the reader in trying to convince them to let him). At the playground however, Pigeon/Bug snuck onto the "bus," grabbed the wheel, and shouted "Pigeon at the wheel! Oh no! Crash! Bang!" Bus Driver/Monkey came racing across the playground and took back the bus. After some friendly and hilarious negotiation, they decided that Pigeon could still ride the bus--if she paid for the ride in bits of mulch.

I declared it too chilly for the pool, but the entourage desperately wanted to play with water.
We compromised.