A Week, Briefly (May 15, 2023)

Pixie is safely and happily back in Rexburg!

On her way home, she stopped to visit my mom who was visiting her sister-in-law and a few sisters in Utah.  

Because it started to rain, they invited Pixie to have a girls' night with them, and she accepted. :)

Pixie, her grandma, and 3 great-aunts.

I love it!

And Sir Walter Scott had a chance to visit his mom, too!

He is safely home with us, and we're glad.

Shifting from life on the road to life at home--there are so many vultures around our area right now.

I wonder why.

The kids and I have yet to discover a particular reason.

Perhaps they've always been here, and I just haven't noticed them as readily.

Lola found poison ivy flowers.

(I'd never seen those either!)

We've been checking on them on our walks each day--she and I are very curious about poison ivy seeds.

(It's like a horror movie that we can't take our eyes away from even though we're horrified.)

The storm last Sunday night mixed up all of our seeds, but now our garden is filled with a wavy pattern of tiny sprouts.  We already didn't really know what was planted where (because I gave the seed to the kids to plant as they liked), and now it's even more of a mystery!

We learned what yellow wood sorrel is because it is everywhere right now!  It caught Beowulf's eye because the leaves look like clover leaves, and we'd just read that clover is an edible flower.  The flowers are completely different, so I knew it wasn't clover, but it took me looking at 50 different yellow wildflowers before I identified it correctly (yellow starts with Y).

So, our informal, learning-as-we-live-life botany lessons are alive and well.

We did a lot of formal botany, too.

We stuck celery in dyed water to see how water moves upward.

Seriously, how cool is it that the water-transporting tubes can be isolated!??!

We read this book over the course of 2 days.  I think it's cute how it's set up in a question/answer format with "journal" pages.

The kids rediscovered jacks.  They played for hours every day!

And we finished our plant reports.

Baymax and Lola simply had to write answers in complete sentences for each question they came up with.

Beowulf copied a series of illustrations from a flower encyclopedia, and I figured that the 3 hours over 2 different days it took him to complete this was definitely enough reporting for him.

I didn't even realize who authored this book until after I read it.

It was sweet and taught about perseverance.

We used this book for a language arts lesson about similes.

We also worked on metaphors, and we made an awesome chart on the whiteboard comparing the two and recording lots of examples . . . which chart I didn't photograph, and now it is erased.

In spite of the perfectly perfect spring weather outside, my crew are very interested in indoor pursuits right now.

Lola spent several hours one afternoon making a stack of collages.

And one hot afternoon when we couldn't quite bear putting the babes in swimsuits and sunscreen again, the teens supervised painting with the supplies that I picked up at ScrapsKC for $5 ($4 for 4 bottles of tempera paint and $1 for a roll of big paper cuts).

This book is less about the secret garden and more about his life as a botanist/scientist/ecologist.  We were already reading a Landmark biography about him, but this picture book was a gorgeous review

We also had a lesson about music symbols for dynamics--specifically focusing on crescendo.  The playlist for hearing crescendoes in music was great!  

Interestingly, the kids loved this music lesson, and I've written the symbols on the whiteboard so the kids can review and memorize them.  I hear them often muttering, "mp is mezzo piano which means medium soft . . ."

They also ask, "What is ff again?"

I have failed utterly at providing piano lessons in spite of my 8 years of classical piano training, but seeing their delight at this little music lesson has filled my heart!

We did a photosynthesis activity (simplified to what goes in, what is made, and what comes out).  Thinking of oxygen "plant poop" because it is a waste product was the highlight of the lesson!

And in order to see the air come out of a leaf, we picked a super-fresh leaf and put it underwater and waited.

After a while, we could truly see a tiny bubble of air at each stoma!

Activity night was interesting for all of the kids.

Nature Angel finished up planning Girls' Camp with the other YCLs.

Little Princess participated in PT at CAP.

Ladybug did some goal brainstorming with her YW group.

Mister Man and Brother had a farewell party for one of their friends who is headed back to Korea.

Beowulf went fishing.

Lola and her friend S-- got to share the AR video with their friends.

Baymax and his friends were encouraged to invent new Pokemon characters.  (We do this activity on our walks sometimes!)

I stayed home alone and painted 3 walls (first coat only) that have been waiting for over a year to be painted.

I've also been repairing and refreshing our basement stairwell for several months now.

This week, both Beowulf and Little Princess helped me remount the handrail.

The fifth time's the charm!

Little Princess finally got to do a powered orientation flight!

The pilot took them in a triangle flight with a take-off and landing as part of each cadet's experience.  Little Princess flew the first leg.

Earlier in the week, Nature Angel noticed that a truck driving through the mud across the street from us had exposed a big vein of clay.  While I was running errands on Saturday, she showed Lola and Ladybug how to dig it out and clean it up so they could sculpt.

This is Lola's unicorn.

And this is Ladybug's dragon!

The teens are in the final quarter of The Mystery of History vol 2.  As always, we stop to look up answers to Little Princess' questions during each lesson, and our learning is that much richer for it.

Little Princess has been following the James Webb telescope quite closely this week, and she reports her findings to me frequently.  Every report convinces us further that God is our creator, and He is magnificent!

Nature Angel is a little bit more alive each day as she makes her own creations.  I'm seeing her draw, crochet, photograph, and design more and more often.  

I think this is an old project, but she documented it this weekend.

This is an I-need-to-stay-awake-in-seminary doodle.

Seminary ended on Tuesday, and the hero that drove her to and from for two days was Rose Red!  I couldn't believe it when she said yes to getting up at 5:30 am!!  We're down to one car, though, and there was no way to get Sir Walter Scott to work, Nature Angel to seminary, and me home to welcome daycare babies with only one car.

I'm super grateful to Rose Red, and I've tried to say it about a million times.

In addition, Nature Angel had no experience driving our van, so now I'm having her drive it to pick up Sir Walter Scott.  I've gone with her twice, and I'll probably go with her a few more times, but the day is coming when I'll have her drive that van alone.

And she'll do great.

We are trying to buy a second car . . . it's harder than you'd think.

Nature Angel is starting her final Biology module next week.  It's not long before I'll be recording her transcript information for grade 10. 

We tried to let the babies do a leaf printing activity involving smashing leaves . . .

 . . . and now we know that rocks only tear the paper up so we need mallets.

Mister Man and Brother did their gardening apprenticeship this week.

They also got to go camping with the other YM and leaders in our ward.  It was just an overnighter, but they had a blast fishing, playing games, telling stories, making s'mores, and all of the other stuff that comes with camping with a bunch of dads and boys.  (Sir Walter Scott couldn't attend, so we are extra thankful to the men who treated them as sons.)

The living room is covered in Legos; the kids are engaged in building and storytelling; I'm going to get a nap before making dinner!!!!