A Royal Birthday

Tomorrow is Juliana's fourth birthday.  My sweet girl sped through another year and I'm left marveling at the loving child she is.

We celebrated today though, with a princess party with some friends.  We had party prep last night and Nana slept over to have a special visit and help wrangle the kids while we got some things finished.  I had been able to finish the marshmallow wands but needed the majority of the night to work on her cake.  My first foray into fondant was... exciting.  I was caught unprepared a few times and had to make a few quick design changes, but ultimately I was pleased.  Homemade marshmallow fondant covered a funfetti cake frosted with buttercream.

It's amazing how many imperfections you can hide with flowers. 

This morning I headed out to the restaurant before everyone else to start setting up. Our first "girls only" party, I was able to pull out all the frilly stops and pinked-out our restaurant.

The wildflowers came from our backyard!

I got the craft/baby table set up and moved on to setting out the food.

We had chocolate nutella scones, crackers with meats and cheese, chicken salad sandwiches, fruit skewers, mint lemonade, strawberry wafer cookies, and the birthday girls' junk food of choice -- cheese puffs.  Arguably the most popular food at the party. 

We brought all of the girls princess dresses and hung them up to share so every guest was able to wear a beautiful dress (or two or three).  The last thing to set up was our princess play table.  We brought every castle, tower, and house we had along with a bin full of princesses and furniture for free play.  This was a last minute idea but probably the best one I had.  There was rarely a time when the table wasn't occupied.

Our guests arrived as we hung the last decoration.  We said goodbye to the guys (who went bowling instead), and set to getting everyone in their proper princess attire.  Once dresses were donned we moved to the craft table to decorate princess hats! My sister supplied the idea and my Silhouette cameo made short work of cutting out the paper hats.  

Crayons and glittery foam stickers were flying as they worked, making their own beautiful accessory.  Next up was face painting!  Hearts, rainbows, butterflies, ladybugs, and robins' eggs decorated a dozen sweet cheeks.

All that creativity worked up an appetite so we headed to the table for lunch as Beauty and the Beast played in the background.  

After some serious munching and a bit of running around outside we started some games.  First up was The Missing Slipper.  The girls were told that Cinderella had visited but had lost one of her slippers!  I showed them the one we had and set them off on a hunt to find the other.  Team work prevailed and they were all eager to play again.  After a few hunts we sat down to play Pass the Poison Apple;  a new twist on one of our favorites, hot potato.  We passed a ruby red apple around in a circle and when the music stopped whoever was holding the apple fell asleep!   

(Many thanks to my awesome sister, Meg, for brainstorming with me!)

As everyone started winding down we pulled out the cake.  The girls came to the bar as we sang Happy Birthday and Juliana blew out the candles. 

 Pieces were passed around along with cups of ice cream, just to push the sugar rush over edge.  ;)

As our guests readied to leave we handed out treats of a pink star wand, marshmallow pop, and strawberry cookies to each pretty princess.  We so enjoyed sharing this special day with wonderful friends.  

A Greening Thumb

We started growing tomatoes about 5 years ago.  Just four plants, all the same variety, as we introduced ourselves to the idea of gardening.  The next year we were excited to get started and added a few pepper plants to our small plot.  Each year we added another type of vegetable and increased the area we worked in.  This year is the first where we feel we have an actual garden;

Fenced more for protection from young children than rabbits.

what started as one small raised bed has transformed into a plot with two 11x4 beds, one 13x1 border, four pots, one half wine barrel, and a wildflower patch that's around 20x5.  Oh, and a mini greenhouse and compost bin.

This year we're growing lots of squash and zucchini.  We had some last year and it was really delicious.  I've yet to get the kids to eat zucchini in anything other than sweet bread, but we're working on it.  

We had dwarf sugar snap peas growing in the other half of this bed but they were wiped out by wilt or root rot.  We were fortunate that the variety we planted was an early producer and we had a few weeks filled with sweet, tasty pods.  A favorite of everyone in the family we were sorry to see these die so early in the season.  The kids and I went out yesterday and pulled all the dead vines.  Once they were gone and all weeds had been removed everyone hopped in for some play.  Dirt castles galore!  They've asked to plant pumpkins in the now vacant space, so we're off to see if we can find some sugar pumpkin plants!

While they played I walked the garden pulling weeds and checking for disease.  Our two potted bush cucumber plants have started showing signs of powdery mildew so I'm trying a milk solution to keep it at bay.

We had trained our pea plants to grow up tomato cages (instead of in rows) so once the peas were removed I transferred the cages to our pepper and tomato plants.  Peppers don't normally need cages, but a little support never hurts.  

Our carrots and scallions are growing nicely.  We pulled a couple of carrots to check their size and, though they still have a ways to grow, the kids declared them delicious.  The other end of this bed has what remains of our bibb lettuce.  

We tried growing some loose leaf lettuce, a Paris Market Mix, but were severely disappointed.  It grew well but tasted spicy and bitter.  I'm anxious to try some new varieties this fall.  

Our herbs are doing well; basil, mint, dill, and thyme make their home in our half wine barrel.  It's pretty, but I feel the barrel would be more useful for potatoes. 

Along the edge of the fence we've planted a row of dwarf sunflowers.  A few have already bloomed, most are still growing.  The size difference in the leaves however makes me wonder at the mature size of them.  

At the back of our yard we've planted a wildflower patch.  A hummingbird and butterfly mix, it's set to bloom toward mid-late summer with flowers reaching between 18 and 24 inches.  

The variety of flowers that we'll get is completely unknown; there was no listing on the bag and an internet search has provided no hints.  We're watching anxiously though and finishing up a rock border to try and keep our very invasive bermuda grass from taking over.  

At the back of the patch, all along and through the fence, are blackberry vines. Planted in our neighbors yard they have migrated through to ours, pushing their thorny vines between fence slats and sending new shoots up from below. We've tied them back a well as we can and are watching pretty white flowers appear along 30 feet of fence line.   Too large an area to net, we're hoping some flashing tape will deter birds from our harvest. 

This year has been so much fun for all of us.  From the planing, to staring seeds, transplanting, even weeding, it's been a wonderful way to be outdoors together and has provided most of our natural science lessons.  This just gets better and better. 

A Little Catch Up

So... I'm a little behind in updating.  Let's see. We had Advent.  Then Christmas.  Then a flu bug and a cold that knocked us down for two weeks.  Epiphany came, and now we're halfway through January.  And most of that was a blur. Wow.

We're in the process of getting back on track, school wise.  We had our first solid week of lessons last week (after holidays and illness.)  Sunday night I hurt my back and that set us back a day, but I seem to be recovering quickly.  Now that life is returning to normal I'm hoping to stay more current with posting things like:

As we begin our evening prayers every night we take a moment to go around the room and say something we're thankful for.
Mommy: "I'm thankful for clean water to drink."
Daddy: "I'm thankful for medicine to help us get better."
Addison: "I'm thankful for clothes so we have modesty."
Gabriel: I'm thankful to be happy and I participate at Mass."
Juliana: "I'm thankful for a boom box."

Ana Tells a Story

During lunch today we went around the table, taking turns making up stories to share.  Gabe's stories mostly involved robots, and Deceptacons crushing them.  Addie talked about princess and towers, and Juliana stuck with her favorite character, Dora. 

 (Translation provided below the video.)

"And she was * unintelligible* like Boots. And she was all alone with Boots.  And she was all alone!  And she was not... and she was alone with ponies.  And with rainbow on the sky, and it was sunny day, and she... and she waked up in the morning.  In she's house.  And she was not dead forever!  And... and Boots, he was not, too!   And, and, and she, and he was not, and they were sleeping.  And Ana, and Daddy, and Mommy, and Gabriel, and Addie, was was was sawed a bad witch.  And she was bad. And she was all alone. And she was... Mommy was dead forever!  And she was go in the TV with Dora and Boots.  And she was, she likes Dora.  And, and Ana, too.  And she likes Dora.  And she has the sparkles with a cake on it like me. I was doing it by myself when I woke up, for I make the castle made of, uh uh, of a cake.  With Nutella.  It was a new one with a tent.  The End!"

The First Two Weeks

Playing an Add It game.

Mixing up some sugar cookie dough.

Licking all the sugar off their fingers Decorating with sprinkles

Sight word cookies!

Cracking a Mr. Men sight word code

Coloring a picture of St Helena; the saint Addie wants to dress up as for the All Saints Day party.

A sweet moment as Ana cuddles with Gabe, watching him do his reading lesson.

Gabe was very pleased with his tall word-family ice cream cones.

What do you do when you have a narrow fireplace and lots of little kids?  Close it off with a chalkboard!

Color by word family.

Crafty time!  We've had to put the booster seats on the school chairs to get the kids the right height for handwriting, though this is just a temporary solution.  

Gabe was very focused on sounding out his word for the Say it, Write it, Paste it worksheet.

Addie also had her very first Little Flowers meeting yesterday.  She did great and had a lot of fun!  I'm looking forward to helping coordinate the November meeting.

This coming week we have our first P.E. co-op and a field trip to an apple orchard.

Our First Day

We've officially begun our school year!  I don't technically have to keep track of any of the kids work until they're seven, but I'd like to stay on pace with other kids their age; the twins are actually a few months older than I was when I started kindergarten.

The girls donned their hats just for these pictures. 

I love that I'll have these to remind me of some of the little things that will change over the years.  Though I don't think I'll need a reminder of Ana's obsession with Dora. 

Silly faced excitement.

We started out with everyone at their own desk for calendar and morning board time.  Juliana has her own table under the window

while the twins are using antique classroom desks. (I love that there's an extra seat on the front for Ana to sit while we're focusing on the bulletin board.)  We just got them in yesterday!  

They still need some work, but I am so pleased with how they're turning out.  The yellow metal has been spray painted black and Addie's desktop has been sanded and re-stained.  

They are so excited to have their own work spaces!

We did a short catechism lesson, then moved on to their handwriting and math work books.  Ana did some coloring and watched them do their reading lessons online.  

After a break for snack we came back to do some activities like tanagram patterns,

 building sight words, letter hunts, and button threading.

 After a little more free time it was time to break for lunch. Mara was thoroughly enjoying her pasta. 

 Not one to be left out of doing something "first" today, she became mobile.  She's not crawling on her hands and knees yet, but she's pushing with her feet and pulling with her arms well enough to get her to where she wants to go.  

A little while later the kids headed out to the garden with Daddy to replenish our cherry tomato supply.  While checking on the peppers they made a little discovery.

Can you see it?

It's a tomato hornworm catterpillar.  They were quite enthralled.  At the time I had no idea what it was or what those little white things were, so while the twins had their quiet time and the two younger ones napped I did a little research.  When they came back down a while later we talked about the little wasps that lay their eggs on the caterpillar, how those eggs hatch and the larve eat the inside of the caterpillar, and then make cocoons for themselves on the outside.  It was weird, and gross... and therefore, super cool.  

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Addie crafted her very own, complete with cocoons.  

 And an angry face... he is being eaten alive, after all. 

The rest of the day was spent running around the house, playing Zoodles (an online collection of educational games and videos), and decorating the downstairs for a surprise-Halloween-birthday-dress-up-party.  Or so I was told.  

I was very pleased, and a little surprised, with how much we were able to get done today.  I was prepared to focus on establishing the new daily routine and expectations, making any real work a secondary priority... at least until next week.  But they were ready to dive in.  The girls more so than Gabe.  He had several frustrated moments and needed more prodding than Addie; I heard a few grumbled exclamations of, "Aww, nuts."  But he really enjoys the math book and the activities, so I know it'll just take time for him to settle in.  

I'm looking forward to doing a weekly science lesson and going to a P.E. co-op with our ARCH group as well.  But for now, we're easing ourselves in, trying not to overload and keep it fun.