Its Monday, Monday (insert music notes here)

Back from another week at the Blue rabbit academy.  We've mostly just been keeping busy.

Last Sunday:

 The girls made a beach in the living room using real sea shells, a white blanket for the sand, and a blue blanket for the ocean.

 We had sweet potato fries, bbq crockpot chicken, peas and pineapples for dinner...

And made some progress on my embroidery.

 

Monday Ro-bear wanted to test out all of her new hard works out at once... which is funny because by the end of the week she just sort of forgot she had hard work...

 Ro-bear and Boo did a puzzle...

 She learned the proper way to hold scissors, thanks to sissy.  Here's Ro-bear before sissy's help....

 And after.  She loved cutting along the little lines.

 Boo tried the puzzle on her own.

 Left overs for lunch before heading to L-bug's PE class.  This week Monday's class was at the tennis courts which have a nice kiddy park next to the tennis courts.  Ro-bear and her friend M played on the slides and had a blast. 

 After tennis we went home to freeze the fresh peaches that none of the girls like to eat the other day when I tried to serve them at lunch... would you believe that as L-bug and I were cutting up and peeling the peaches, the babies were pulling them out of the freezer bag and eating them.  Ro-bear got desperate and just ate a whole peach....

 After dinner came dress up time randomly.  Ro-bear and Boo came to get me to play dress up with them... mostly it was because they needed help putting the dresses on.

 Boo wanted one of the sets of bunny ears, but Ro-bear insisted she needed both. 

L-bug didn't join in the fun until the other two were getting tired of playing.

 

 

Tuesday was our first day in a long string of days spent outside doing school.  We even took our white board outside with us so I could see what we still had to do.  

 While I was setting up school the girls played on the porch and had a blast.  Then we headed to the back yard.

 Everyone climbs trees while listening to school don't they?  I thought so :).

 Snack time outside did not go as well as I'd have hoped  Ro-bear ended up spilling the vast majority of that bowl ended up on the ground. 

Lunch Tuesday we read The Five Children and It while eating ramen noodles.  L-bug thought she might like this book, but she's not sure yet. 

 

 

Wednesday started off with hard boiled eggs and apples. Breakfast of champions. 

 I like the picture Ro-bear took of us while I was reading to L-bug, even if I'm making a funny face.

L-bug working hard on her spelling... her least favorite subject.

 

 

Thursday we started school in our pjs inside.  Ro-bear wanted to make tickets, so we made her a new paper to cut out with her scissors, and some stickers to put on her tickets.  

After she made tickets for everyone and Boo delivered them to everyone, Ro-bear put some of her stickers on a paper and made a picture.  No clue what she smeared all over the coffee table, but ew gross.

 

 

On Friday L-bug's friend A and her brother A came over to make igneous rocks for our rock study.  We later found out this meant fudge. Yay.  The girls did 99% of the work on their own, yay girls. 

Friday afternoon we went to L-bug's friend's birthday party. I didn't even think to take any pictures, but all three girls had a blast after Ro-bear got over the initial shock of being at a party with a boat load of children. 

 

Days here at the Blue Rabbit Academy are filled with Why why why and Look what Ro Ro do!  Ro-bear is officially a toddler... but she's technically a preschooler... oh well. We love her no matter what she is.

 

The plants are all doing well, except the dot plant which is still dead.

 

I realized today that we're are doing way too much formal education.  In TN we have to do 4 hours a day, but lately we're doing 4 hours a day PLUS extracurricular activities and field trips.  That's asking a lot of a just newly minted 7 year old.  So I need to figure out what goes and what stays and how much housework/cooking/cleaning I can do as home ec type stuff while teaching her to be responsible.  Right now all her cooking/cleaning/etc is also on TOP of all the other work we do.  Saturday morning she cooked us fried eggs on her own, I was so proud.  She asked for help flipping one egg and did the rest on her own.  So far I've dropped Shakespeare and The Handbook of Nature Study from our weekly work, I thought she was too young even for Lamb's abbreviated Shakespeare and the Handbook read out of context as a study bored her to tears.  I told her that if we find something in nature we will look it up in the handbook, but to read it apart like this is driving us both nuts.  Any suggestions on what work we should do and how long and how much let me know in the comments. 

 

Time to give small children their baths so that maybe I can get a moment of Mommy peace before I go to bed too.    







 

Runnin' on the hamster wheel

Shew, nothing quite like starting a week right after a long trip. I must admit I was less than enthusiastic the first half of this week and my lack of pictures should prove it.  First I forgot to even lay Ro-bear out any activities.  By Friday she was crying because she would look in her drawers and there was no 'hard work' as she calls it.  I picked a thing or two right off the shelf for her, but nothing was planned.

Monday and Tuesday are such a blur I'll just spare you and say we did some school work, went to PE class went to work and survived :) they weren't bad days in anyway just hazy tired kind of days.

Wednesday L-bug decided she didn't want to draw while listening to her readings like she usually does, so she built a building instead.  Though when the building collapsed it was a little more distracting than drawing a picture. 

 

Wednesday is our sewing group with our neighbor down the street.  This week I set them to making potpourri satchels.  Each girl managed to make two in the time it took me to make one... but that's because they don't believe in threading their own needles.  Of course I can't blame them, I only thread my own needles because I have to. 

Thursday after our normal sit down work both girls asked to play on the computer.  Ro-bear wanted 'titits' on ABCmouse.com and L-bug was practicing her spelling on spelling city (which I might have to get a subscription to instead of just using their free things, she seemed to like it).



 Ro-bear decided in the middle of the day to drag out the changing pad from her room and most of her bed into the living room and lay down.  Boo followed shortly after to 'read' the Spanish book that's on Ro-bear.  I didn't get a good picture, but it was adorable. It looked like Boo was reading Ro-bear a bedtime story. 

So Thursday after PE class I got to go to the salvage produce place with our neighbor.  The babies were SO excited to have fresh grapes and tomatoes that they had daddy wash some up while I cooked dinner.  Since I was cooking dinner I didn't get any pictures of the little ones devouring food... but here's the aftermath. and yes that pie was for dessert. 

 And Ro-bear declared the pie to be gross, so for some strange reason that meant she should smear it all over herself?!?  This is the child who freaked out while eating a doughnut because it got her hands dirty.

 After bath and PJ time came jump all over Daddy time... that's a real time of day right?

Friday morning started with cute sissy snuggles while they waited for L-bug to get up.  They jumped on the couch with the glow worm and tucked themselves in.  Boo learned how to make the Glo-worm play music and was so very proud of herself.  

 In history on Friday we made paper plate snakes because we had read Sinbad and the valley of the snakes this week.  Even Ro-bear made a snake. 

 and why yes that is a jar of peaches on the floor... why do you ask?  Boo found it in the pantry and carried it around all day with her.

 I love Boo reaching up from her horsie trying to touch the snakes.  The girls love having them in their room, even though mommy get tangled up in the trying to put small children to bed at night. 

Here is our Draw, Write, Now lesson for the week.  I'm not terribly happy with art this year.  L-bug likes it well enough, but she liked last year, we used Drawing with Children and we loved it, but by the end of the year I was lazy and we just drew a lot of still life of whatever we found around the house.  Good drawing practice, but we didn't really go anywhere. and then we did nothing all summer. 

After school L-bug's cousins came over to play for a while.  They had a blast.  It is funny though, I had more of a break with 5 kids in the house than I ever do with 3, and the mess was not that much more. 

 

Friday night Daddy and L-bug went to his brother's house to visit after bringing her cousins home, so Ro-bear and I started the cake for L-bug party with her friends on Saturday. 

 We decided to do a white tiger swirl cake. 

 

Here's some photos of the 5 hour process to make a tiger cake, which if I ever do again will look even better since I wasn't totally happy with this one... PS most of the 5 hours was baking and freezing in between not actual work. 

 



 

Next time he'll have the little triangle tufts of fur on his cheeks and the mouth will be iced better (I didn't cool it enough before icing it and it crumbled a little). Over all not bad for my first try at a tiger I think...

 

So Saturday day of the party... Here's our lunch just because it took a nice picture...

 Boo and Ro-bear had Cheese sandwiches with pineapple, grapes and tomato.

L-bug had left over spaghetti with pineapple and grapes.

 

 My not pinterest worthy decorations... :(

 We had her party at the park near our house. After a lot of cancelling and uncanceling everyone was able to make it to her party (I think that's a first, but even if it isn't I'm so happy all her friends got to come).

I love this picture, Ro-bear is introducing her sissy to the baby. I didn't hear her, but looking at the picture I can just imagine her going "Ro-ro's sissy Boo, SOOO CUTE."

 So, on top of lousy decorations I forgot to buy a 7 candle.  L-bug, at least, thought the idea of a 5 and 2 1s was pretty awesome, so happy 511th birthday to you baby girl. 

When I was taking a pic of my friend and her baby I didn't notice Boo was waving at the little boy.  They seemed to like each other. They waved, held their hands towards each other then went about their business like any other little babies would.  I'll take a note from Ro-bear here and says babies are SOOO CUTE. 

 

We had a great time at the party though, it was a wonderful end of a good, but tiring week. After the party two friends came home with us for a while.  Its funny I should know by now that visiting kids means no kids want to eat dinner.  But I made extra French fries to feed extra kids... and ended up having a ton extra because everyone was excited to eat.  Oh well, I'll keep making that mistake because I'd hate for one day extra kids are hungry and there's nothing to eat.  Also, amazing as it is, I had more time to myself with two extra kids.  Extra kids in the house keeps mine busy.  I still can't get over extra kids not adding extra mess though!! Its wonderful and amazing, we should borrow extra kids more often.

 

 Sunday was spent recuperating.  Naps all around and good old fashioned sit on your butt and do nothing.  It was so nice and so needed.  We started this week off fresh and rested.

 

Hope you all have a wonderful week and come back to visit us at the Blue Rabbit Academy again next week.