It's the classic children's museum
big chair photo!

Back to the Routine

Well, not quite. The routine is sometimes interrupted by awesome things like visiting the local children's museum with "long-lost" friends we followed her from the west coast. The girls had a blast exploring the museum that included things like a bubble zone with people-sized bubbles, theater with a light & sound board they could control, a physics-based circus where they could lift an elephant using a lever among other cool activities, a town with a bank, library, store, fire station, etc., etc., etc.

When we are attempting to establish the routine, we've been slowly easing ourselves into it. The girls have been learning tons of practical housekeeping things  as we've been settling in, and of course we had a "science intensive" with Grandma's gardening visit, but here's what we're up to in some other topics:

Reading: At the girls request, this was the first subject to be added back into the routine. Lion continues to insist on primarily sight reading and has been avidly reading our anthology of Dick & Jane stories. She's also picked up a few easy readers (like Bears on Wheels) that we found at the local library. Monkey is still not a completely confident reader, but we've changed tactics and so far have met enthusiastic success. Rather than looking for something mildly interesting among   easy readers, we checked out a book I knew she'd love--the first book of the Spiderwick Chronicles. It's certainly beyond her ability to read on her own, but with assistance on tough words and my reading every other page outright, she's cheerfully struggling through and her reading skills are definitely improving! In fact, her reading lesson is usually the first thing she wants to do! Bug doesn't actually have reading lessons per se. We just have an understanding that she should spend some time reading every day. That's never a problem: she blitzed through all five Spiderwick books in a matter of days, read an anthology of Aesop's fables, several stories out of a book of Norse mythology, a Kate DiCamillo book, most of my complete collection of Beatrix Potter stories, etc. etc.

our happy little drummer!

Writing: We've been working on composition lately, though we haven't been doing much actual writing on paper. We've done lots of rounds with Story Cubes  (roll picture dice and tell a story based on what lands).  Monkey and Lion enthusiastically weave elaborate fairy tales; Bug groans when I pull them out, but she can usually come up with at least a few sentences. I also recently pulled out the story cards, and taught the girls about the 5 Ws. This exercise seemed particularly helpful to Bug, who often struggles to even get started with story prompts. We did recently pick up a spelling unit at Bug's request (She was writing something on her own and getting frustrated with having to ask me for help spelling things: "Mom, if you teach us spelling again, I'll know more of these words all by myself." Well, ok then.)

Math: Since we don't yet have internet or a functional printer, the big girls haven't been doing their usual combination of Khan Academy and math drills worksheets. However, we've been doing lots of flashcards, and I've been throwing in practical math at every opportunity (for example, at the grocery store the other day, I had the girls pick out four pears and figure out about how much we'd have to pay for them--find the price per pound sign, weigh the pears, then round both numbers to easy-to-work-with numbers and multiply to find the total). Meanwhile, Lion and I worked our way through a kindergarten math assessment (I was reading through a list of published standards, and would occasionally call her over, "Hey, Lion, can you . . . ?" She would prove she could do it or admit ignorance and move on.) As expected, she's all but done with kindergarten math, and I now have a short list of topics we ought to focus on.

(Because a frame on my desk needs
a new photo and it's too cute not
to share!)

History: For history/civics we're continuing our study of the U.S. Presidents by making our way through a workbook and getting some additional sources from the library.

Bible & Religion: Now that we're no longer travelling and keeping crazy schedules, we've been much more consistent with our morning Bible readings. We're now in the book of Acts in their story Bible. Our church here doesn't have a program for kids' to memorize Bible verses, so we're on own again. Now that we're in a liturgical church, the first thing I had us work on was the Lord's Prayer. We talked through the meaning of every phrase as well as why we say it together in church every Sunday. It took a couple of weeks, and now the girls can proudly participate in another part of the service! Speaking of which, the girls and I also took a little time one morning to go through an order of worship, so I could explain each aspect of the worship service and why we do it. I also made the big girls ribbon bookmarks to bring to church with us: they spend the prelude and welcome/announcements time looking up the hymns we'll be singing that morning. Lion loves hymnals! During the service she follows along with me and does her best to sing along, then frequently spends part of the sermon leafing through a hymnal. In fact, since our church is getting new ones, Pastor R even let Lion bring one of the old ones home to be her very own!

Personal Projects: Of course, the girls always have their own things they're doing. The three of them together have been regularly organizing restaurants in the playroom, coming up with elaborate story lines involving ALL of their stuffed animals, and performing readers theater versions of Elephant & Piggie books (hilarious). Monkey has spent lots of time drawing and practicing her new drum (she is so excited about having her very own real snare drum). She and Bug even collaborated on a duet with one of Bug's songs from her piano lessons. Bug has lots of interests: she's still practicing typing, she's watched several silent films, she had me teach her a basic crochet stitch and made a cape for one of her dolls, she and I are both learning how to use the sewing machine, she reassembled her balsa wood house and finished decorating it (she even designed and built a poolside pergola out of clothes pins and Popsicle sticks).

Grandma's Visit! (May 3-5)

We packed a lot of fun into just a couple of days! Grandma was here for a purpose--as a "guest lecturer" to help us set up our first vegetable garden. She arrived Tuesday afternoon and was excitedly given a grand tour by the girls. We spent the afternoon hanging out, chitchatting, and starting to think about gardening things. Then she accompanied the girls and I to their first music lesson here. Her presence was invaluable! This music school is much bigger than their last one, and  I was supposed to be in three places at once!

That evening we pulled out the books and charts she brought, and really set to work planning the garden and writing our shopping list. We spent the next morning at Lowe's filling the trunk of my car with various bags of soils and tomato cages, every cup holder with a plant, and a small plastic bag with seeds and gardening gloves. We were set to go!

The girls and I spent a good part of the afternoon digging up the garden plot. Lion was a great little digger, and worked really hard to help me get it all turned over and broken up. Monkey and Bug did a little digging, but they quickly decided it was more fun to rescue earthworms (which they kept in a flower pot with some dirt until the worms could continue doing their good work in our garden) and to kill "greedy grubs."

We topped off the day with swimming lessons, followed by Wednesday night supper and a hymn sing at our new church. This was particularly fun to take Grandma along to because there were still people who remember her from when she was a member decades ago! (I have to admit it's fun--and a little weird--to be in a church where people remember me as a preschooler!)

The next morning the real planting began! We put down hardware cloth to keep out the moles we discovered at the other end of the yard, mixed in the gardening and topsoil (Lion and I had to make another run for a few more bags, while Monkey and Bug stayed to help Grandma pour it in), and planted our plants! That day we planted three pepper plants, three sweet potato plants, and four tomato plants. The girls were great gardeners: they helped cut off the pots and followed instructions about how deep and wide to dig and much of the plant to bury. It was a bit of a chilly, wet day so we decided to go inside for hot tea and hold off on planting the seeds until we had nicer weather. (We have since planted cucumbers, cilantro, and basil.)

The girls have been diligently checking on and when necessary watering our garden. I'll confess now to having a black thumb. The girls are really excited, though, so I hope we can pull this off!

Settling In (April 18th - May 3rd)

"Today is best day ever! Why? Because today is moving day!" --Lion, spontaneously quoting Oh from Home during our drive to the new house.

They were so excited to be moving into our new place! They were bouncing like it was Christmas morning on the front porch before we let them in to see it for the first time. They immediately rushed through the house, naming all the rooms and marveling at how much space we have now (literally twice the square footage of our townhouse on the west coast).

We arrived on Monday afternoon in order to receive the fridge on Tuesday, but the moving truck wasn't going to arrive until Wednesday. Rather than wait around an empty house all Tuesday morning, the girls and I acquired library cards and YMCA memberships,  got them signed up for swimming lessons, and came home with a stack of books to read! As usual, we hit the ground running!

Move-in day was just as exciting as Lion anticipated! The girls were particularly excited about figuring out where their beds and dressers would go: their room is big enough to accomodate three twin beds (nobody had to be bunked this time!), and we were able to buy them each a new dresser to replace the two they'd been sharing (which had fallen apart and been ditched before the move). Also for the first time ever, their playroom is an upstairs room (with a door and everything!), so we put them in charge of arranging their playthings. I did eventually pitch in to help them sort out the bins and organize the closet, but they were thrilled to be taking responsibility for some of the unpacking!

(Just a note about our move-in process: We make the movers unpack and take all the empty boxes with them. Not only do we not have to deal with discarding a ton of boxes, but I'm much more motivated to clear the piles of stuff from the middle of the floor--or our bed--than I would be to empty neatly stacked boxes. Within a week we had it all put away and most of the pictures hung.)

Among the prioritized settling-in projects, the girls were also able to help Daddy construct their climbing dome (we haven't had room for it in two years!) and a raised garden bed. Unfortunately, since then it's rained too much for them to get much use out the dome yet. (I'll talk more about the garden bed in my next post about Grandma coming to visit.)

The climbing dome in progress!

The girls contemplate the tools for the job while waiting for Daddy to help with the garden bed.

While the girls didn't actually get to help with the next project, they were very enthusiastic observers of the process of Daddy finishing their dressers. We decided to buy good quality unfinished furniture, then Daddy found a stain that reasonably matched their beds. Everyone is very pleased with the results!

(At some point I'll do a "Where It Happens: Mid-Atlantic Edition," and you'll all get to see photos of our new digs!)

Now the round-up of new activities:

Church: We surprised ourselves a bit, and already found our church home! It's a liturgical church only a mile from our house (and coincidently, the one I was baptized in as an infant). The congregation is small and friendly, and the girls immediately made friends with the pastor's kids, who interestingly enough, sat with us our first Sunday there! The pastor's husband was out of town that weekend, and when their mom instructed them to "find a grown up to sit with during the service," they beelined for the new family with three little girls. (What's a couple more, right?) On our second visit, we attended Sunday school (They have that here! Hooray!), which includes children's choir for the kids. The girls went their separate ways with their new teachers without hesitation!

 Swimming: The girls are thrilled to be back in the pool! I even managed to get them signed up for back-to-back lessons two nights a week. Their first lesson was all very basic, and they were a little disappointed. I assured them their teacher was just figuring out where everyone was, and sure enough their next lesson was more challenging--just enough to keep everybody interested. By far their favorite part about this pool is the indoor splash pad! Mr. C turns it on for free time, but there are also family open swim times that we'll be getting in on!

Music: We also got the girls started with their music lessons already! God worked another miracle: not only did we find a music school where all the girls can study, but they're even scheduled for the same thirty minute time slot! This, despite the fact that two of them are now playing piano. Bug decided to break off her love/hate relationship with violin and try piano. So far she is loving it, and she and Lion both really like their teachers. Monkey is cheerfully sticking with drums (and thrilled that we finally have room to get her a real drum); however, she's less than cheerful about her new teacher. Mr. R is actually great, but he's very high energy and talks loud and fast. He's going to take our introverted Monkey a little getting used to. Also, he had her trying to play standing up at a real snare drum, when she's only ever played sitting with either a full electric kit or drum pads. It was just too much, and the poor girl broke down. We discussed the situation, and next week is going to be much better. She's been practicing enthusiastically, so I have high hopes for a relatively smooth transition going forward.

Library: Our local library is a mere mile away, and right next to our church and the Y! It's a nice little branch library with a kids' wing that has several kid-sized tables along with lots of armchair seating and bean bag seating. The girls have decided (accurately, I believe) that they are too old for storytime. However, we're still there every week for our usual large stack of books!

Martial Arts: They're not actually signed up for any yet, but Daddy visited a couple schools. We think we'll be going with Brazilian jujutsu at an MMA school. We were hoping to find another Japanese-style dojo, but sadly that doesn't seem to exist around here. I'll keep you posted!

Coast to Coast (March 26-April 18)

Time to hit the road! This time around we decided to take the northern route all the way from the Pacific coast to our final destination on the Atlantic coast. That is a lot of driving time! For their actual time spent in the car, I prepared a binder for each girl containing a set of Easter coloring pages, an itinerary and map of our route, a coloring page for each state we'd be traveling through (featuring a state map, state bird, and other local icons), a road sign scavenger hunt, a license plate check list, and a set of mazes, dot-to-dots, sudoku and kenken puzzles. They also had the usual collection of small toys and travel games, books to read (including a fully-loaded nook for Bug), and they acquired a couple sets of paper dolls along the way. By far one of their favorite activities was creating things out a massive bag colorful pipe cleaners. Proud parenting brag: They didn't watch a single in-car movie for the entire drive! Instead we listened to Adventures in Odyssey and Chronicles of Narnia audio dramas (the first four books). They loved them! (which is especially good because my lighter went on the fritz a few days into our trip, and I couldn't have powered the DVD player anyway).

Of course, we had to have adventures! We turned this into a three-week road trip in order to visit friends and family and see the sights along the way. Here's the itinerary:

Reno, NV: We met up with a college friend of Daddy and mine and his family at a local park, so all the kids could play, then went out to dinner with them.

Nampa, ID: The girls were thrilled to get in a quick visit with some of their friends on this stop! Our former pastor and his family recently moved there, and we got to catch up with them before they headed back to church in the evening.

Craters of the Moon: This was an unplanned stop along the highway. We started noticing increasing numbers of distinct, starkly black rocks. Monkey and Bug called it: These looked like volcanic rock formations! Sure enough we soon noticed signs for Craters of the Moon National Park and stopped to tour the visitors center and take a walk around.

Yellowstone National Park, WY: This was another visit with a college buddy, who happens to live and work inside the park. It snowed overnight, which made our morning walk to admire the hot springs quite chilly and a little slippery. It didn't take them long to figure out which spots on the boardwalk were above the hottest springs! We also enjoyed the visitor's center, which had lots of good info about local history, geology, and wildlife as well as taxidermied specimens of the latter. Since the bears were just waking up for the spring we decided not to risk any actual hiking, but we did drive through the park to admire the scenery and look for wildlife. During our driving in and around the park we spotted bison, elk, coyotes, magpies, pronghorns, and bighorn sheep. We also went looking for owls: we spotted their nest and poked through some pellets, but we think the owls themselves were probably hunkered down in the nest to escape the biting wind.

Bison own the road!

Everyone enjoyed the warmth of Mammoth Hot Springs.

 Bozeman, MT: Another meet-up with old friends--this time one of Daddy's friends from high school and her family. It was also another chance for the girls to get some running around and playground time.

A Highway in South Dakota: I don't remember where we were exactly, but we drove into an unexpected snowstorm and discovered my car does NOT handle snow well! Two of the girls and I skidded across the left lane and ended up in the median. Fortunately, there were no other cars around, and Daddy pulled over to wait for us to get back on the road. We said lots of prayers and drove very slowly to the next exit with a hotel. (FYI, Daddy parked the car at the hotel and confirmed that I wasn't a bad driver; my car really, really can't handle snow!) So, what does one do when snowbound in South Dakota? Go swimming, of course! The girls had a blast in the indoor pool, and by morning the roads had cleared up.

Mount Rushmore: The girls were skeptical about this stop, but when we rounded a bend in the road, and saw the four massive heads of Presidents looming above us, Bug exclaimed, "That is the coolest thing I've ever seen!!" Mission accomplished. Of course, we stopped to get a closer look at the monument, watch a video and wander through the museum about its creation, history, and maintenance. We decided to stick around for lunch and sample some buffalo! Between the five of us we tried buffalo burgers, hot dogs, chili, and stew. Yum!

Jewel Cave: That same afternoon we took a guided tour of the third longest cave in the world. The tour covers a mere fraction of its depths but features some very cool rock formations and taught us not only about its geologic formation but also its history as a public attraction and national monument.

Badlands National Park: The girls loved getting to do some rock climbing in this impressive park! We had to cut their rock scrambling short and have a good conversation about stewardship and conservation when we realized how much damage our explorations were doing to the formations. They were disappointed, but they perked up when we headed for a mile and a half hike that began with warning signs about narrow ledges and a long ladder. Once again they proved themselves awesome hikers and conquered another tough trail! This was also the first trail they've been on that involved the necessity of looking for trail markers and the practice of walking as far as you can within sight of the last marker to try to find the next one. As usual we also toured the visitors' center and learned about fossils, ancient local wildlife, erosion, and herbivores vs. carnivores. During our hiking and driving around the park, we also spotted rabbits, pronghorns, and innumerable prairie dogs!

We conquered another tough trail!

Wall Drug: You can't see the Badlands without stopping in at Wall Drug! The girls were highly entertained by the endless billboards leading up to it, and had a great time exploring the little shops and displays and getting in a few fun photo ops.

Minuteman Missile Historic Site: We happened to spot the sign for this site and decided to stop in. It turned out to be an unexpectedly neat site, featuring a tour of the missile command center by a former operations commander. A few days later, at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, we got to see one of the actual minuteman missiles.

Wheaton College, IL: This was another stop to see friends from college (both now professors at Wheaton). Daddy actually gave a talk to one of their classes about his career path (he majored in the subject she teaches), and we also got to view the college's extensive geology and taxidermy exhibits as well as explore the Wade Center, which features things like the original wardrobe that inspired C.S. Lewis to write the Chronicles of Narnia and his and J.R.R.Tolkien's writing desks. We ended our visit with dinner at our friends' house and more time for the girls to play outside with their son.

Sadly, you can't actually climb into the inspirational wardrobe.

Uncle P & Aunt S's house! The girls had a blast getting to play with their little cousin R, and just hanging around the house with family. We also took the opportunity to take a short, brisk hike through the woods and along the shore of Lake Michigan. Then we experienced the local delight of shopping in Grand Haven and eating at Calvers.

Cousins!

Ann Arbor, MI: This one wasn't an overnight--just an extended pit stop to eat lunch with some friends we knew from a previous location who moved there recently. Good times!
National Museum of the U.S. Air Force: This was a huge museum that traced the history of flight from the Wright brothers to modern stealth bombers and space flight by having us walk through hangars full of representative aircraft. We had fun comparing the different planes and seeing how and why the technology developed.

Wright Brothers Museums: This stop was actually two different locations: one near the flight field where the brothers did a lot of their work and featuring a flight simulator of one of the first  successful planes. All three girls got to try it out with some assistance from the docents. The other museum located at the brothers bike shop in downtown Dayton was much more extensive and went into their personal history and the development of their work in flight.

Grandma & Granddad's House: Our penultimate stop and certainly our most extended--the girls at least got to spend about a week! (Daddy and I left for a couple of days in the middle to close on our new house and buy boring things like a fridge.) Aunt K and her son H were also able to drive in for a visit, so they got to see both their cousins on this trip! The week's activities included: exploring all the old toys and Aunt K's old dance costumes, playing on the playset and around Grandma's little pond, harvesting dandelion greens as an addition to dinner, helping Granddad plant a tree, decorating and eating a belated Easter bunny cake, going for walks along the River Walk, exploring the local science center (including getting to release the new butterflies into the butterfly garden! Grandma's got connections!), and exploring the trails in Grandma and Granddad's woods (they identified lots of plants including wild grape vines and blackberry bushes, found beaver-gnawed sticks and tiny river clams, watched preying mantises hatch, and spotted minnows in the creek). We even got to visit their church on Sunday and see more college friends! Last, but not least: Bug donated 12 inches of hair to Locks of Love! She was so excited and loves her new do!

She was very hesitant about touching butterflies, but look at that sweet little smile!

Aunt K has the best dress up clothes!

My outdoorsy girls LOVED exploring the woods with Granddad.
(And, yes, that is indeed Granddad's machete Monkey's holding.
Proper safety precautions were discussed.)

 Just for the record: For homeschooling purposes, these were not wasted vacation days. I actually counted most of our days as school days. By my count we covered the following subjects: geography, art, reading & literature, math, life skills, Bible/religion, character building, geology, natural history, biology, physics, history, civics/social studies, and music. And chances are good I missed a few!
On to the next adventure!

There's a woset in my closet &
a zelf on my shelf!

Settling Out (March 16-26)

That's right. We've moved so many times that Lion coined a term for that phase when you're moving a away, but not actually gone yet. Since our packers were scheduled a full 10 days before  we left the West Coast, that transition lasted a long time this go round. But we made the most of our time! Besides the combination of excitement, anxiety, and boredom involved in watching all our belongings get packed up and loaded into a huge truck, here are highlights:

St. Patrick's Day The girls had an all-day playdate with some friends of ours that also involved eating green food for lunch and attending a neigborhood St. Patty's Day celebration with crafts and games.

Paths of History The downtown of our little city has a self-guided historical walking tour that girls and I had just never gotten around to. It's about two miles long, and features visits to sites like the first custom house on the west coast, the first brick house, the first Protestant church, the first theater, the first general store (it still has the safe where 49ers stored their gold), and a number of historical gardens and courtyards.

Baja California No, we didn't visit the place, but we did see the new exhibit at the aquarium featuring creatures of Baja California's deserts, mangrove forests, and coral reefs. The garden and moray eels were definitely the girls' favorite. Of course, we hit up a few of the girls's favorite spots as well.

One last picture in the clam shell!

Big Basin Redwoods State Park We decided we needed to get in one last good California hike. We decided to try a slightly longer hike this time, so we packed a lunch and headed out for a supposedly 7-mile loop that would take us by Berry Creek Falls. Along the way, we spotted lots of little waterfalls, huge redwoods, 6 lizards, and 13 banana slugs! The woods and the falls were lovely, but it was definitely not 7 miles! Knowing our usual pace, we felt like it was a lot longer: GoogleMaps estimated the trail to be about 9.5 miles and the step tracker on my phone says I walked about 14 miles. We had not planned on pushing our little girls so far, but they were awesome! We decided we all deserved Cheese-on-a-Stick and Blizzards on the way home.

!

They conquered another hike with a warning sign!

Graduation & Papaw Of course, we had to attend Daddy's graduation ceremony before we left. The girls sat so patiently through the hour-and-a-half ceremony! Realizing they knew some of the other graduates definitely helped keep them interested. Daddy's biological father also came into town for graduation, so the girls got to meet their Papaw for the first time. It was a good visit that also involved an outing for ice cream and a favorite rock scrambling location.

Last Things These were bittersweet recognitions: our last Sunday at our church, their last Awana Club, our last night at OCF, last visit to the library. Perhaps their favorite last thing was a last picnic park date with a couple of other families. We will miss all our California places and people!

The Girl Formerly Known as Goose
I wasn't planning to write another blog entry until the craziness of this cross-country move was past us, but this weekend Goose accomplished a post-worthy feat and earned herself a new nickname: Lion.

You already know this 5 year old is a pretty hardcore distance runner. In fact, a couple of weekends ago she ran 6 miles with Daddy--and not just any 6 miles. She ran 6 miles of seriously hilly terrain (see photo), and she did it in the rain.

This weekend she and Daddy were running their last 5k race before we hit the road--just a little fun run at Daddy's workplace. Unfortunately, it didn't go so well. She face-planted on the asphalt . . . twice. At some point after this, she was bleeding, crying, clutching a side stitch, and complaining about her feet starting to hurt. Daddy gave her an opportunity to take a shortcut and just get back to her sisters and I and her water bottle. In fact, he gave her several opportunities to bow out. But she insisted--through her tears--that she was going to finish the race. Our lionhearted little girl crossed the finish line! She finished the race with bloody knees and tear-streaked cheeks, but she finished it running!

(Lion's stated desire to run marathons--possibly Olympic ones--when she gets big seems perfectly reasonable now, doesn't it?)

Hello/Goodbye, Aunt E!
The highlight of the past couple of weeks was definitely a brief visit from Aunt E before she heads back to Tokyo for four years. Of course, we ditched our formal lessons for three days, and had a blast hanging out with Aunt E instead! For her first full day here, we headed to the beach. It was too chilly to get in the water, but E and I had a good long time to chat while the girls looked for treasures and ran up and down the sand dunes. They didn't find many critters this time, since they were staying out of the water, but there was a lot of really pretty driftwood lying around.

We also made marzipan while Aunt E was here. So pretty and delicious!

The next day's fun outing started at the wharf. It was low tide, so the girls were especially enthusiastic about exploring the little beach nearby. We found lots of pretty shells and sea glass, but we were most excited about the snails! The little tidal pools were littered with them. Bug found several that weren't clinging tightly to the rocks, so we got to have a peek at their feet wiggling out from their shells. Then we watched them do a bit of exploring when she put them back. We also spotted a number of harbor seals and spent some time watching a funny little western grebe (a shoreline bird) looking for lunch.

We had intended to spend a bit of time after our picnic lunch exploring the little maritime museum nearby, but sadly it was between exhibits. Instead we headed into downtown to visit the art museum, and I'm so glad we did. The current exhibits involved a lot of interactivity which the girls loved. The first exhibit displayed staff favorites from the museum's permanent collection and solicited written responses to the works from museum goers to be written on index cards and added to the exhibit. Each girl picked a favorite work and wrote (or dictated) a few sentences about it. Another exhibit of a local impressionist painter was displayed with poems accompanied several of the paintings, and paper and pens were available for viewers to write their own poetry about the scenes. Bug wrote a short poem, but the others were satisfied to just look at the the paintings. We zipped through a photography exhibit pretty quickly, but spent a fair amount of time in an exhibit about military insignia with works by local service members. One of the galleries featured a large table with paper and coloring supplies where the girls could create their own insignia and pin them to designated display wall. (Just in case you're keeping track this "non-lesson" day involved science [snails & beach combing], PE [rock scrambling], art [viewing & creating], history [in the insignia exhibit], and writing, not to mention the music and literature that happened at home just for fun.)

Aunt E happens to be a professional musician, and the girls had a great time showing off their skills throughout her visit. Bug seemed especially inspired by having a new audience to play for, and she practiced all the songs she knows on multiple occasions. From my perspective it was nice to have her around to help with Goose's piano playing. I can make her practice, but Aunt E can actually help her!

Daddy's Home!

Human totem pole! (Bug really is
standing on Daddy's shoulders here.)

Ok, so Daddy was actually gone for a weekend to go house hunting, but more than that he's been crazy busy at work for the last couple of months. Now that that's done (hooray!), he actually got to spend a Saturday at home instead of at work! The girls were thrilled! They spent lots of time wrestling (Poor Daddy ended up with some bruises, but a good time was had by all.) They also finished reading Redwall (and started the third Harry Potter book), and they pulled out the Snap Circuits kit. It's been awhile since we've remembered to get into that, and Daddy says they're getting pretty good at figuring out how things work and how to make them work. He does a lot more supervising than piecing things together now.

Actually unrelated to his new-found time at home, he recently taught the girls basic waltz and swing steps. I've seen them practicing with each other during their little Pandora DJed dance parties. Fun times!

Adventures with Goose: X-rays and 5Ks
Goose learned a very important lesson a few weeks ago: She may only put food and drink in her mouth. I probably had her repeat this statement dozens of times after she swallowed a penny! She swallowed it on accident (I never could get a reason out of her for why it was in her mouth in the first place), and she panicked. We called the nurse hotline and were assured that it should pass through just fine, but if we didn't see it in a week to call back. Well, after a week of having Goose poke through her poop with a stick (she actually thought this was kind of interesting/funny at first, but it got old fast), no penny had been spotted, and we called the pediatrician who had her come in for an x-ray. Goose cooperated beautifully and was pretty fascinated by the pictures of her insides. We were both pleased when the radiologist could confidently tell us that the penny had indeed passed unnoticed. Whew! Goose also rejoiced that Daddy would finally stop calling her Lincoln.

On a much more pleasant note: Goose and I ran a 5K together! No personal records were broken during this event, but we had a great time, and Goose had the gleeful of experience of putting some of the adult participants to shame. She was also the first female child runner to cross the finish line after completing the race on her own two feet, and she received a piggy bank full of candy for her efforts! It's the first actual prize she's won for a race, so she was pretty excited. I should note: This girl is getting faster! I actually chose to run this race with her, because I'm pretty sure she's going to outpace me soon, and I don't know how many opportunities I'll have left to run with her!

Commonplace Books
Monkey and Bug both recently decided to start commonplace books--notebooks where they can write down the random interesting things they learn that aren't actually part of our lessons. This was originally Bug's idea, though Monkey thought it was brilliant and asked if I could buy her a notebook too. (Bug found a blank one lying around.) So far, Bug's book has sections about silent films she's watched, observations she's made about the backyard gopher, and Japanese and Chinese kanji she's learned from picture books. She even numbered the pages and created a table of contents. Monkey has also pointed out that they should make sure the movers don't pack their commonplace books because they will be learning so many cool things during our cross-country road trip in a few weeks. (That was this week's "You know you're raising good home-schooled military kids when . . . " moment.)

Tidbits

• Bug is still sewing: she recently made a skirt and sunhat for one of her stuffed animals.
• We recently started a study of the U.S. Presidency. We'll be learning about each individual President as well as the election process, job description, and three branches of government.
• We recently had a lengthy discussion about relative density and buoyancy.
• Monkey and Bug finished their Awana books! Fortunately, I think at least some of those Bible verses made it to long-term memory.

Beach Day!
We had a crazy warm day last week (80 degrees!), so obviously we hit the beach. The water was still freezing, but that's never stopped these girls from loving it! Highlights: We found lots of sea shells this time, including four sand dollars. We also spent some time examining sand fleas  (the tin ones are practically translucent) and observing a flock of godwits, speculating about why God gave these birds such long legs and beaks. The girls also spent a lot of time chasing waves, digging holes, and building sand castles. So much fun!

Other Science Topics
In addition to all the science exploration to be done at the beach, we've delved into a number of topics at home:

• Now that the neighbors with their outdoor cats are gone, we have a gopher again! Bug and Goose actually witnessed its arrival when they noticed a patch of heaving dirt, then watched as a rather sizable weed got pulled below the surface. (They named it Cassidy, because they realized they don't know how to tell boy and girl gophers apart, and they know Cassidies of both genders.) Bug almost immediately pulled out her computer and started Googling gopher eating habits as well as their range (She's hoping they're not as prevalent at our next location since we'll get to do some gardening there.) 
• We also had a lengthy dinnertime discussion about the layers of the Earth, plate tectonics, and earthquakes (causes and safety procedures). I've no idea what started it, but the girls were fascinated.
• The girls have also been cheerfully researching edible wild plants. Don't worry--they've been doing the research then sampling the outdoors. It's not terribly unusual these  days for me to peek outside and see them happily munching away on sourgrass, clover, or dandelions.

Church Work Day
I was actually pleasantly surprised by how excited the girls were about this activity: A few times a year our tiny little church schedules church work days where everyone shows up to do some deep cleaning and major landscaping jobs. This time the highlight was planting several new trees in the church yard! Unfortunately, whatever adult was supervising declared Goose too little to help dig. She came to me in tears, but Miss L and I quickly got her involved in helping us wash all the toys in the baby nursery. (She recovered well until she learned that a little boy exactly her size had been allowed to dig. There was quite a bit of righteous anger vented in the back seat on the way home.) The girls also helped scrub the white boards; although they decided that the church really just needed to buy new boards.


Happy Valentine's Day!

We love Friday park days!

This is the first year we've actually done any Valentine's Day celebrating with friends. We turned our regular Friday park date into a mini Valentine's party. All the kids (11 of them) made each other Valentine's, and the girls and I brought heart-shaped sugar cookies along with pink frosting and a selection of sprinkles. The kids had a fantastic time decorating and eating their treats. Unfortunately, the mom who actually initiated this idea couldn't be there because one of her girls was sick. I knew they'd be heartbroken that they missed it, so the girls and I collected their Valentines and set aside cookies for them. The following Tuesday (once everyone was healthy) we made a special delivery and let the girls decorate their cookies and hang out for a bit.

Morning at the Pool
This week we set aside our lessons one morning and joined some friends at the neighborhood pool instead. It's been way too long since we went, so I was very pleased to see that the girls hadn't lost any of their swimming skills. We spent most of our time in the kiddie pool, but I had each of the girls practice jumping in, swimming solo, and floating/treading water in the big pool. Bug also attempted to dive for rings (a skill she was working on last time we came), but she didn't think of it til the last minute, so she didn't have much success. Maybe next time!

(Monkey got a belt too. She just
wouldn't consent to have her
picture taken.)

Yellow Belts! 
Monkey and Bug were very excited to promote to Yellow (with white stripe) Belt! They've been working very hard, and they did a fantastic job on their test.

HGTV Fans
We'll be moving soon and are planning to buy a house in our next location, so Daddy's been watching a lot of HGTV to get in the mind set of seeing the potential in houses. The girls have been surprisingly enthusiastic about watching these shows. They've been asking questions about the process of buying a house, and they always have opinions on the various features and renovations being made. They are all excited about helping Daddy with whatever projects we may have in our next new house!

Budding Musicians
Bug had her first violin recital a week ago! She was nervous,
but she did beautifully. She played two songs accompanied by a pianist. She said afterwards that she didn't like doing the recital--standing up on stage with everyone staring at her--but that she was very satisfied with her performance. She was also pleased that she can now leave those songs behind and start working on some new material!

The girls have actually been taking their music a bit more seriously recently. Monkey and Bug even composed a few measures together. Monkey decided on a drum pattern, and Bug chose notes to play and matched her bowing rhythm to Monkey's beat. Goose  plunked along on the piano for awhile--following the rhythm and choosing notes seemingly at random--but she lost interest when the big girls enlisted my help in printing up blank sheet music and actually helping them write down the notes. They were so excited! (Monkey cannot wait til we move to a bigger house and actually have room to get her a real drum kit.) Bug has also been pulling out Goose's piano books and teaching herself to play some of the beginner piano songs as well.

Even More Lost Teeth!
Monkey and Bug each lost another tooth this week! And they seem to have developed a habit of losing them rather violently. Monkey lost hers when she and Daddy were practicing a self-defense technique--they misjudged each other movements and Monkey got a tooth punched out! (It was really loose; minimal blood was shed.) Bug lost hers when she and Goose accidently bumped heads while we were out shopping.

Self-Defense Is Authorized
Unfortunately, those self-defense techniques they were practicing when Monkey lost her tooth weren't just for their jujutsu class. Our social circle recently added a family with a little boy who initiates play with other little boys by wrapping his hands around their neck and pushing them to the ground. They are otherwise lovely people, but his mom says he's just playing--he doesn't mean to hurt anybody. In our house, a chokehold isn't a form of play, and Monkey and Bug have pulled this child off of their friends on multiple occasions so far. We praised the girls for coming to the defense of their friends, and had a discussion later at home to make sure they knew that if they felt attacked they had permission to fight back (I also gave the boy's mom a heads up that if he ever went after one of our girls he was likely to get punched; she seemed ok with that). Daddy highlighted a few techniques specific to chokeholds.

Artist in Training
Monkey painted her first canvas! She's been planning it for awhile, so she was very excited to set up her easel and put paint to canvas. We also discovered that Bob Ross's Joy of Painting show is available on Hulu. She's a big fan now.

Little Locksmiths
Somehow related to one of Daddy's classes, he came home with a lock-picking practice kit that included a variety of transparent locks and picks to try out. He pulled them out for the girls, explaining how the different lock mechanisms work and how to get past them without a key/passcode. They even found some online videos demonstrating different techniques and tools. Bug in particular was fascinated. She's been studying her little cashbox--trying to figure out how it works and playing with a few bobby pins to see if she can pop it open. No success yet, but she's making progress in figuring out what she needs to make happen.

And She's Off!
No, not Goose's running this time--Monkey's reading! She finally got past whatever learning hurdle changes reading from being a difficult chore to something fun. Hooray! We came home from the library with a whole stack of books at her level, and she's finally reading on her own time, not just when I make her. Even she noticed how much more fluent her reading has gotten over the past couple of weeks.

Missing Teeth
I seem to be revisiting that stage of life when I have to cut my
children's food into small pieces. Monkey is missing 4 teeth, Bug is missing 3, and neither of them have any front teeth. In fact, Bug lost her front teeth pretty spectacularly: The girls were riding their scooters to the neighborhood community center when Bug took a fall. She came up screaming with her mouth and hands covered in blood. I panicked internally until I realized she was holding her two front teeth and had not actually cut herself. Fortunately, the teeth were already very wiggly, and once we got her cleaned up, the bleeding stopped quickly. She was initially a bit shaken by the incident but soon embraced it as a great story that she told everyone we ran into.

Run! Run! Run!
Goose participated in another fun run a week ago, and this time she decided to make it a personal challenge. Daddy said she didn't talk nearly as much this time, and she took 3 minutes off her time! Her PR is now 31:44. As usual, her answer to "How was the race?" was an enthusiastic "I passed lots of people!"

New and Improved Routines
I'm a creature of habit, so routines are very important in our house. However, with three growing little girls, those routines occasionally change, and we've made a number of changes in the past month or so.

The biggest change is that I finally gave in and acknowledged that nobody naps in this household anymore. The girls were playing, not resting, and whatever I was doing was therefore constantly interrupted. That hour wasn't helping anybody. New routine: a 30-minute, silent reading time in the living room after lunch. The three introverts are happy because we get a bit of actual silence, and the single extrovert is happy because she still has everyone in one room. Bliss. Sometimes I also let the girls plug in their headphones and listen to talking books online thanks to websites like Storyline Online, Tumblebooks, and Starfall.

I also realized that we have a whole bin full of games (several additions were made at Christmas) that we very rarely find the time to get into. The skills used in game play (reading and following rules, good sportsmanship, logic & problem solving, etc.) and the application of academic skills, plus just the sheer fun of them, were worth making them more of a priority. New routine: Thursdays are now game days--no formal lessons. Thursdays were already busy with other activities, and I was stressing out trying to get lessons done too. Now Thursdays are much more relaxed and fun! Recent favorite games have included Tenzi, Bendominos, Xoom Cubes, and Cookies. Goose is also a big fan of some of our solitaire games.

The last couple of changes that come to mind are really just administrative additions to the existing routines that allow the girls a bit more independence. Each girl now has two dry-erasable tags on ribbons--one for getting ready routines and one for bedtime routines--that feature check lists for those things that have to happen everyday (which to be honest, I just got tired of admonishing them to do). Things like get dressed/in PJs, brush your teeth and hair, etc. It may just be the novelty, but so far it's helping those difficult times of day go smoother (and involve a lot less of me yelling up the stairs to verify that things are happening). I also recently added assignment sheets to the big girls binders. Each sheet contains a table listing the subjects by row and the days of the week by column. I highlight the cells for what lessons they need to cover each day, and they check them off as they go. I plan two weeks at a time, and the bottom of the page has several lines where they can list "Personal Projects." This helps me keep track of what outside-the-curriculum things they're working on, and it lends a sense of importance to the things they're more individually interested in.

Personal Projects
Bug in particular is a fan of the personal projects designation because she has so many! She's been a little less interested in just playing lately and has been working on some of the following things:
-Learning to play the Imperial March on her violin. She was just working it out by ear, but she told her teacher about it and they found some actual sheet music for her.
-Sewing clothes for Scrappy, the rag doll she made months ago, and sewing little drawstring bags
-Whittling a stick from the backyard into a wizarding wand
-Painting and building the dollhouse and furniture she bought with her Christmas money.

Monkey has a few personal projects too:
-Planning her first blank canvas painting. She received several small blank canvases for Christmas. She plans to paint a landscape on the first one, and she's spent time sketching out the design and experimenting with colors using her new pastels (realizing that a field of grass isn't just green--it's also yellow and brown).
-Painting and building little wooden animals from a kit she a kit she bought with some of her Christmas money.

New Weekly Outings
Their gymnastics session finished in December (it was just a short-term, try-it-out activity, not a long-term interest). Now Tuesday afternoons are for Math Club at the library! The timing is perfect: they had their first meeting this week, and it ends a couple of weeks before we move. The girls had a blast! This week they were creating 3D shapes using styrofoam balls and glowsticks. They were even more excited about this group when they walked in and discovered two of their friends were also signed up!

Our other new weekly activity is Friday afternoon playdates at the park. How this came about is the perfect example of why I love milspouse friends: When my Bible study group restarted last week, I was introduced to a new attendee--a fellow military wife who's homeschooling girls of similar ages to mine--and the friendship chemistry was there. Despite the fact  we move in three months, we agreed: We should totally be best friends! Before we left, we'd exchanged contact info and planned a playdate for later in the week. By the end of that playdate (and after befriending yet another military homeschooling mom at the park), we decided this needed to happen every week! I've also invited another friend from a previous location who recently moved here. This is the joy of milspouse friends: we connect instantly regardless of how little time we have left and enjoy every moment we can, and when we have the opportunity, we reconnect just as quickly.

It's been a wonderful (and as usual busy) couple of weeks, but I finally have time to write about it all! I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas!

Home for Christmas
Our Advent celebrations continued with daily scripture readings, lots of Christmas music, Christmas movie viewing, and last but not least lots of Christmas baking! I procrastinating cleaning by baking cookies, so our house was far from spotless and Daddy accused me of trying to turn them into fat hobbits, but the treats were met with rave reviews.


Daddy's family came to out to us this year, and rented a house near the ocean. It was great to see everyone and show them around our current location! We visited Fisherman's Wharf and the aquarium, spent some time on the rec trail (about a block from their rental house), had lunch on Cannery Row, and hiked Garrapata again. About the time we reached the peak, it started raining. The hike down was far less pleasant than the way up, but we have a great story to tell! The girls were very excited about trying out their new Camelbaks though! Of course, the novelty resulted in multiple trail side potty stops.

Most of the family at Fisherman's Wharf (Aunt S is the photographer)

It can be really tough to catch Monkey on camera, so I had to
share this great shot of her at Fisherman's Wharf!

Goose is trying out her new skates on the rec trail!

The girls also brought their new scooters to the rec trail.

All this, along with the usual Christmas traditions, of course: tamales for Christmas Eve, new PJs for the girls that night, and stockings and presents in the morning. We even had a Christmas tree--we brought the girls tree over to the rental and redecorated it in the living room. They were quite gleeful about pretending to be Grinches as they carried the tree, the ornaments, and all of our presents out of the house!

In addition to all the touristing and Christmassing, the family was also in town to witness Goose's first piano recital (she did a great job--no hesitation in stepping up to the piano in front of a whole crowd of people!) and to celebrate her birthday (on the same day as the recital, no less)! She was very excited about this birthday--being 5 years old opens up a whole slew of new activities that she was too little for before.

Daddy's family headed out the day before Christmas Eve, so it was just us for the holiday celebrations that Daddy dubbed "stockings and Star Wars." Over the course of those several days we did a movie marathon and watched all 6 Star Wars episodes with the girls (We're taking them to see Episode VII in the theater next week). We also pulled out some Christmas traditions from my family for our second Christmas: I evolved the Christmas Eve meal from crab soup to seafood chowder, but Christmas breakfast remained the same--breakfast casserole and Jesus birthday cake (coffee cake in a bundt pan). We also filled each other stockings (each family member spends $1 or less per person and sneaks a gift into each person's stocking). The girls bought gifts individually this year and loved it!

We were also excited because we got to celebrate Christmas Eve in our own church this year! (I actually think this may be the first time in our marriage that this has happened.) The service centered on the Advent Wreath, and our family presented and lit the Candle of Hope. Bug and Goose also said a brief prayer in unison to close our section of the service.

Happy New Year!
At the last minute we threw together a New Year's Eve celebration with girls: We watched a movie, ate snacks, and declared it a Happy New Year on East Coast time with a couple of Netflix countdowns.  No, we didn't trick our kids into thinking it was midnight; they knew we were celebrating at the same time Grandma and Granddad were. Plus, our trio would never make it to midnight happily, and Goose had a race the next morning.

The Resolution Run

All bundled up and ready to go!
It was unusually cold (32 degrees!)
when they set out this morning.

One of Goose's Christmas gifts was the entry fee for the Resolution Run--a 5k on New Year's Day. She was really excited to finally be old enough to run in a "real race" where they officially keep track of kids' times. She joined 900 runners (in the 5 and 10k combined) this morning and took a full minute off her PR to make it 35:09. When I asked her how the race went, she responded, "I passed a lot of people!" No kidding! She placed 172nd out of 633 total runners in the 5K; she was 79th out of 362 females of all ages; and 9th out of 20 females aged 12 and under. In fact, she was the youngest runner by a year, and the kids who placed ahead of her were all 9 years old and older. This girl can run!