Where It Happens: Mid-Atlantic Edition

Music Room: When we started house shopping, the girls had a few requests, and one of the big ones was a dedicated music room. They got their wish! It's not yet fully furnished, but it's a lovely room just inside the front door with the keyboard, Monkey's snare drum, Daddy's bass guitar, and a bookshelf for music books and additional instruments (bongos, glockenspiel, and a variety of whistles and rhythm instruments).

(The keyboard is in the opposite corner of the room.)

Study: Now that the girls are a little older (and formal lessons take more precedence while playtime requires less supervision), we've located the study downstairs, conveniently just off the kitchen. Of course, it's still chock full of books, arts & craft supplies, educational materials & manipulatives, etc., etc. We are loving having the additional elbow room in here though! We even have space for the girls to have a shelf reserved for their nature collection: bones, feathers, neat rocks & sticks, even a pressed lizard (thanks, Granddad!).

The study gets used for art projects just as much as it does for lessons.

Kitchen: I love my new spacious kitchen! And the girls love that there's adequate room for helpers in here! We've got lots of counter space, and the island is perfect for pulling up a stool to help me chop, measure, or mix. You may notice the "centerpiece" in the kitchen: a tray full of fresh produce surrounded by everybody's water bottles. This arrangement has made for much more consistently healthy snacking choices, and Bug has even designated herself as the person in charge of making sure everyone's bottle gets refilled (we'll see if she keeps this up once the novelty of the water dispenser wears off).

The Nook: Perhaps the smallest "room" in the house, it just might be the girls' favorite. It's actually a balcony overlooking the stairs that's lined with bookshelves (most of our household's picture books and novels), and further filled with a cozy butterfly chair, a nest of pillows and blankets, and my favorite Ikea chair and ottoman.

Living Room: The primary venue for game days (once a week we set aside formal lessons and play board games instead), movie nights (a Sunday night family tradition), and wrestling matches with Daddy (so much fun).

Playroom: The girls are thrilled to have a playroom that is actually it's own room--with a door and everything! (Previous editions were thoroughfares or a back corner of the living room). They have tons of floor space to create sprawling cities, host a crowd of stuffed animals for a show, set up a restaurant, etc., etc.

Bedroom: Once again, they are loving the wide open spaces! In fact, their bedroom is big enough to unbunk all the beds and still have room for three dressers and three bedside tables (typically stacked with books for bedtime reading).

Outside: Speaking of wide open spaces, we have a real backyard this this time that even has room for their climbing dome and a small vegetable garden! Bonus feature: a screened-in gazebo surrounded by roses. We've definitely grabbed our school supplies and a few snacks and spent the entire morning out there.

How Does Your Garden Grow?
Mostly great! The girls have loved watching it grow, since we're finally getting the right mix of rain and sunshine. We had a few worrisome weeks with all cloudy days, but everything seems to have recovered except for one tomato plant. We even had a little pepper growing for a while, but some passing critter decided it was just too tempting to resist and nipped it off at the stem! We even installed a little rain gauge to help us determine when we actually need to water (not often at this point). The girls have gotten a real thrill out of reading it every few days and keeping track of the measurements in our rain log.

We decided to throw in an experiment in the dying tomato plant's square: One day at lunch,  I sliced into a tomato that had been sitting out on the counter only to discover that all the seeds inside had sprouted! I showed the girls this fascinating find, and they immediately declared, "Let's plant it!" So we pulled out  a trowel and planted the entire tomato. Now we wait!

So sad for the poor tomato plant!

Let's Play Pretend!

Bug even provided reading materials
for her clients.

Rather than setting up elaborate storylines with figures, the girls have lately been creating their own settings to play grown-ups in. Around the house we've had a hair salon, library, church, and a child care center (like at the Y). Some of these have been pretty involved set ups with handmade signs, sign-in sheets, and check-out processes.

I think my favorite of their pretend plays to eavesdrop on is "spyentists." They don their swimming goggles, commandeer the downstairs bathroom (because it makes a convenient time machine), and pretend to be time-traveling scientist who stop the bad guys before they can commit their crimes. Monkey and Bug started it, and at some point Lion joined them as "May O'Neil," a scientist/ninja and daughter of April O'Neil and Michelangelo. Oh, they make me laugh!

Household Responsibilities
Part of our family culture has been that, well, we are one family, we live together in one house, so we all need to work together to take care of it. Recently, in an effort to do a better job of keeping up with the housework, the girls have been given a few more routine responsibilities. For awhile now, they've been picking up their room and the playroom, clearing the table after dinner, and cleaning their own bathroom (supervised, of course). Now, the big girls are also responsible for vacuuming the playroom and their bedroom and Lion helps me sweep the hard floors downstairs. They also fold and put away their own laundry, and I've started teaching them how to sort it. (This is the part of education formally called "home ec".) In fact, lately we've been designating one day a week as chores and games day--we do all our weekly cleaning jobs, go grocery shopping and spend whatever spare hours we have playing board games and working on special projects (liking pulling out the painting supplies last week).

Fun at the Y!
Swimming lessons have finished, but we've still made it to the pool one day week. We've been going during the day, when we practically have the pool to ourselves, but sometime we'll make it to the family swim time when the splash pad is turned on. The girls have a fantastc time practicing their swimming and just messing around in the water. Bug has made it her goal to swim the length of the lap pool (the official goal she has to meet in order to move up a level in lessons). She's got a ways to go, but she's planninng to practice and make an attempt every time we go. Lion has also set goal for herself: to swim the length of the therapy pool. She's almost there! Monkey is also making progress in the water--gaining confidence and slowly improving.
The girls have also spent some time in child watch (the Y's childcare program). The big girls are almost too old for the nursery, but we made it more enjoyable by timing it for them to attend a Music & Movement class. Next week they're going to try a kids' yoga class.

Three R's

One of the joys of home schooling: lessons in the screened-in
gazebo on a beautiful sunny day!

In the past couple of weeks, I've refilled their binders and we've picked up our normal full schedule of formal lessons. Nothing terribly exciting to discuss here. We transitioned back pretty smoothly and everybody's making progress! If you really want details on what the day-to-day academics look like, message me and I'll happily fill you in! I haven't been detailing those here because I have actual records of those lessons elsewhere, and I figure it's just not as interesting to read.

Nana's Visit!

We knew it wouldn't take long: a few weeks ago Nana made her first visit to our new house! As usual, we went shopping. The girls were very excited to acquire their summer wardrobes; it's been over two years since they've needed to wear shorts! We also went antiquing and found some fantastic furniture for our new house. The girls were great sports about wandering around antique malls for an entire afternoon (it probably helped that we acquired a few new female action figures along the way).

Why, yes, I think we will buy that bench.

We couldn't miss another Nana visit tradition: pizza and movie night for Nana and the girls/date night for Mommy and Daddy! The girls had a great time introducing Nana to one of their current favorite movies, Home. They quote that movie on a daily basis, so they thought it was important that Nana get the jokes.

For little Lion, though, the real highlight of the weekend was getting to run a 5K with Girls on the Run. This was her biggest race yet with 1500 participants, mostly other girls between the ages of 8 and 13 along with their coaches, parents, and some siblings. I think it rained for most of the race, and true to form (and unlike most of the other runners) Lion ran straight through the puddles! As a result we spent a fair amount of time in the bathroom afterward, laughing as we wiped the mud off her legs. She had a blast!

Stretching before the race

Lion triumphant!