Friday to Friday

Friday

Dash finally let us cut his hair.  He decided in the evening and we got to cutting right away.  I love this look on his face as Ram checks his bangs.  Dash loves Ram so much.

Saturday

Ram and I went to see Roger Water's The Wall.  I was not too familiar with all the songs but we had a great time.  And from the smells we could tell everyone else was having a good time as well.

Sunday

Concert Saturday night, museum trip Sunday morning

Autumn is in love with Cleopatra so when the new show came to town you know we were there.  Of course my little star had to dress up for the part.  I love her pinkie in this shot. 

Monday

Ram's turned 40 today.  We celebrated with lots of snuggles for him and then a trip to a new park.  It was so great to see the kids running wild in nature.  I hope he loved it as much as I did.

                                               

Tuesday

We had a visitor we named Poe.  We ended up studying The Raven after his visit.  It is one of the many things I love about homeschooling, this ability to take life and use it in our studies. We had a crow visit so lets spend the day going through The Raven line by line.

Wednesday

Remember Tuesday's love affair with homeschooling.  Well Wednesdays are a challenge.  They are filled with things to do and Dash usually doesn't like to participate. This week I had given in to the fact that he just doesn't like to do classes. Well just when I gave up he decided to do his soccer class and loved it.  And he joined in Autumn's hip hop class which for the last 4 months he has not wanted to do.  And it turns out he is a super awesome hip hop dancer.

PS look for Dash's coach Ryan Johnson on So You Think You Can Dance

Wednesday bonus

Because I was clearly delirious with happiness at Dash going to his classes we head to the beach as a treat.  I am not a super fan of the beach, it is sandy, always colder than you think it will be, and did I mention the sand.  We did have a great time though and try as I may Autumn did not want to take a cool retro shot so I ended up with this even cooler retro shot.

Thursday

Glasses.....that's all I have to say about that.

Friday

Autumn and her girl scout buddies were in front to the grocery store teaching about water conservation.  They had a great time and even had a few chants going, one in particular was set to Another Brick in The Wall.  Guess I have been singing it a bit too much this week.  It went:

We don't need no education

We don't need no thought control

We just need water conservation

Hey leave that water alone

Checking out Time4learning

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

Books Anonymous

The bed is filled with books, 2 kids, 1 mommy, Bump-Bump, Emergency Panda, and various stuffed animals who's names change with the wind.  We are snuggled in against the wind and the cold and ready to jump into worlds vastly different from our own and worlds similar.  I love our night time reading sessions.  Books were a huge part of my life growing up but I don't remember my mom reading to us much.  She read a lot, always a book by her side.  But with 4 kids making the rounds at night to read stories may have been too much.  I am happy to know that now when Autumn spends the night my mom reads book upon book with her.

But for now I am relishing these nights.  Soon they will be too big for this. Soon all the cliches that have been told to me will be may be true, but for now my kids are mine.

In our house books are tripped over, they drip from our shelves, shoved into every nook and cranny. To say I am addicted would be an understatement.  And this love of books is being passed onto Autumn and Dash.  Thankfully they have Ram to also encourage the jumping, running, climbing, and general mayhem that is another essential part of childhood.  In order to curb my addiction we make frequent trips to the methadone clinic.... I mean library.  Here my love of books can be satiated with a large bag of books that I can love for a week.   Last week Ram asked why we needed to get so many books at one time.  He suggested we only needed 3 each.  But like any good addict I argued my case for why I needed just a little bit more, that maybe next week we would try to have a few less books.  But who am I kidding?

Hello my name is Liz and I am a book addict.

Superheros and pigeons

Picking books to read at night is a delicate balance.  They cannot be too exciting because the kids will get riled up and not sleep but it can't be so long or boring that they get distracted and squirmy half way through.  I also have to keep in mind that the books Autumn likes are not always the ones that Dash will enjoy.  To keep the peace I try to pick one that is targeted for each one and then a few that they will both enjoy.

Last night was a little heavy on the Dash books because he had a full day and deserved a little extra attention, also Autumn really likes superheros so it worked out

The first three books were a series of books about Superheros that Dash got for his preschool graduation.   The books were pretty generic introductions to the superheros.  One was about Batman and the other was about Wonder Woman.  I did notice that in the Wonder Woman book Batman and Superman show up at the end to help her fight someone.  Not to get all preachy but I feel like she could handle things on her own.  She doesn't show up in Batman's book so why does he need to show up in hers?  Oh well, in the other book a dragon attacks Gotham City (as they are known to do) and Superman tries to help but he can't since it is a magical dragon.  So Wonder Woman shows up and lassos it, then she talks to it since she can talk to animals and dragons are animals(?).  As a friend pointed out Wonder Woman talks it out while the boy superheros just punch or trap something.

With the superheros out of the way we moved on to How to Heal a Broken Wing.  Before I even opened it Autumn did not want to hear it.  She gets really sensitive about animals getting hurt or even people being mean to each other in books so this was a real test for her.  There were not many words in the book so I think that helped.  The  book was very sweet and in the end the bird made it and flew away.  I have a feeling next time we see an injured bird Autumn will insist on picking it up and reference this book.

The last book we read was from a story collection.  I try to pick these because there are not many pictures so the kids tend to roll over and just listen.  This makes it a little easier for them to fall asleep.  These story was the Star Maiden from a collection about nature fairies.  I try to read the kids a book from another culture a few times a week.  Autumn really like stories from Native American cultures so this was right up her alley.  And it did not hurt that it was about a beautiful star maiden who come to Earth looking for a new place to live.  Spoiler alert: She ends up picking a water lily so she can be near the humans at the lake and still see the reflection of her sisters in the water.  It was very pretty and Autumn stayed awake for the whole thing, Dash not so much.

So there you have it our first reading list.  Hope you enjoyed.  We will be homeschooling in the fall so this list may grow a bit as time goes on.


The actual List
I am Batman
I am Wonder Woman
Meet the Super heroes
How to Heal a Broken Wing by Bob Graham
The Star Maiden from The Book of Fairies: Nature Spirits from Around the World by Rose Williams

Saying the words out loud...

Reading and books are a big thing in my house.  It is not uncommon to trip over a book, to a find a slightly waterlogged paperback near the bathtub, or to pull a book out from the depths of the covers.  All of this drives Ram a bit bonkers but to me it is heaven.  I love that the kids don't have to go far to find books. I love that their old favorites are always sitting on the shelf and perhaps some new favorites are just waiting to be pulled from the overstuffed library bag.
So you could say we read alot in the house.  Autumn has to keep a reading log for school but all it is titles and time spent reading.  I want to make a record of the books they read and what they thought of them.  Some books have brought Autumna and Dash to tears, others have them cracking up.  I want to remember all these moments and so I will share them with you.