Three Week Wrap-Up/Giveaway Reminder

In Our Lives

Sis and I had a night out to ourselves. We went shopping! It was so much fun because we rarely ever go shopping, especially not just the two of us. We bought a few lovely things at Anthropologie, Justice, and The Children's Place. We also stopped by Whole Foods because she wasn't ready for the night to end.

By the time we arrived back home...

Three weekends ago, we had a nice time attending the birthday party of one of Dash's buddies.

What We're Playing

They've been playing a lot with this empty canvas tote that Dash's feet are on and a upside-down plastic tub they are sitting on. They take it to wherever they are playing, and it becomes their desk or office or whatever. And in this case, it was their lunch spot.

They've been big on eating outside or any place that is not the table or counter. This is where they decided to eat their breakfast the other day.

And I don't know what to say about these other than my kids are very fun and very silly.

In Our Extracurricular 

Around the World Night at AWANA

I didn't get a photo of my senor guapo before his costume came off.

What's New With the Baby

Baby has been going through a yelling phase this week. Not upset yelling. Just talking-yelling, like he's trying out his voice. He'll deliver a whole string of something that he wants to tell us. Then he smiles.

His biggest news is that on Sunday, we noticed his first toothie starting to poke through!

Places We're Going and People We're Seeing

The weekend before last was spent in Illinois with Ryan's family. This is a lot (but not all) of his mother's side of the family.

A fall party was held at Ryan's grandparents' house. My 7 year old son is down there on the dock with some of the boys. The kids enjoyed pairing up with their second cousins of similar ages.

painting pumpkins and games

And remember this little guy?

Look what he has become.

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The kids and I spent a really nice day in historic Washington, Arkansas. I will do a separate post about it another time. We gifted Daddy (who works so hard and has been traveling for his job a lot lately) with a weekend of quiet solitude.

From there, we went on to Dallas for a couple of days. One of our activities was attending the Texas State Veggie Fair, where the kids got to play and eat vegan versions of fair food like ice cream, pizza, and these fried cinnamon rolls.

In Our Homeschool

I haven't had a chance to take many pictures of our schoolwork this week. Some of the things we've been learning about: contractions, verbs, Jamestown, spiders, and money.

 Sis and I worked on numbers and matching during her break at one of our homeschool co-ops.

One of the boys' lessons lately in their Dangerous Book for Boys class was on sound and soundwaves, etc. One of the dads has recording equipment he brought in, and the boys were ALL IN IT. They soaked 

it up.

Today we joined some of our homeschool co-op friends for a very chilly field trip at the Jewel Moore Nature Reserve on the edge of the University of Central Arkansas campus.

I've driven by here hundreds of times, and I have never paid much attention to it. It includes 15 acres of prairie and woodlands, all that remains from the original 2,500 acres of prairie that existed in Conway. It was a nice little place! I can see me taking the kids back here anytime for a little walking and exploration. 

Our tour guide, a graduate student who is one of the keepers of the reserve, was very knowledgeable and charming. They are continually working on preserving and restoring the land (which had never been converted to farmland or anything) to the original ecosystem. We enjoyed it.

What We're Listening To 

After The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, they have finished Prince Caspian and are in the middle of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

A Link to Share

Please visit my giveaway post: 

handmade dresses for little girls!

And you can enter to win Little House 

on the Prairie books here!

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Wrap-Up Collage Journal

In Our Lives 
Oh, man...just getting back into the swing of things after our two trips. There are still suitcases in the hallway, but they HAVE been emptied.

My car got rear ended in the terrible traffic our town always has. The resulting damage was not as bad as the massive thud we felt (and the SCREECHING scared scream from Baby). And everyone was fine. Now I just have to get an estimate for the other guy's insurance.

If you look at this picture as googly eyes on top of his closed eyes, it's just kind of silly. But when I squint and look at it like those are his eyes, it freaks me out.

In other Dash news, I thought Uncle Matt would be happy to hear that "first Illinois but then the yellow Missouri Tigers" are his favorite football teams. He just announced this.

Ryan was away this week on business. We were excited to have him back and very sorry he had to carry out so much trash upon his return. I really meant to get to that.

In Our Homeschool 

For one of our tea times, we drank hot Hawaiian tea sweetened with agave and these Vegan Carrot Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (topped with an orange glaze). Still reading Farmer Boy.

I forgot to say in my Tennessee trip post that we (well, the kids and Ryan, anyway...my mind has a difficult time focusing on audiobooks, especially if they are in a fantasy genre) listened to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They loved it. Even more than I expected. They are anxious to start the next book.

In other subjects, we had a lot of math, science, phonics, and spelling to catch up on for our homeschool academy classes. The two middle kids are listening to their teacher read Charlotte's Web in one of their classes.

I subbed in Tornado's Thinking Skills class this week. The teacher had left me pictures ripped from magazines. Everyone picked a picture and started writing a story. After a few minutes, they passed their story on to the next person. They passed around their stories several times until I said it was time to wrap the story up. There were some verrry interesting stories. I enjoyed being in a 5th/6th grade class; it was a nice change from the nursery, which I also do. I enjoy watching Tornado interact with his peers in a classroom setting, which is pretty...comforting on a good day.

I LOVE Sissy's classes at our other co-op. She takes a kindergarten class and an American Girl History class. Here is her notebook she is working on in AGH.

Something Else We Baked 

After reading a chapter in Farmer Boy about the Wilders harvesting their maple syrup for the year, I looked up "maple recipes" and came up with this Maple Apple Crisp. Delicious.

Extracurricular This Week

Last week the kids became fully emerged into their fall extracurricular activity schedule, which is, I have to say, much fuller than I had planned it to be. (We do have Saturdays free this semester, which is a huge relief. Friday-Sunday off: yay!) I am really loving everything they've got going so far, and I have strategically scheduled everything in groups. Although I am on the road a lot, going here and there,  it helps that most of their activities are back-to-back/at the same time.

This is an project Tornado completed from the last couple of weeks in his community art class.

And this is a picture Sissy drew at her art class. She said it is her and her cousins, W and C. So sweet.

Places We're Going and People We're Seeing

On Friday, I took the kids to World Fest in Little Rock. There were different booths and activities set up at War Memorial Park to celebrate culture and diversity.

Next, we met Aunt Tracy at Dempsey's Bakery for lunch. The boys also had to get haircuts at Pigtails and Crewcuts. Since it was only $9, and she needed her hair washed, anyway, Sis got to sit in a car for the first time. She got a wash and blowout, which was really fun for her.

My Favorite Book We Read 

I highly recommend this book by Jef Czekaj. Great alphabet book with a similar feel to The Scrambled States of America. X is tired of being at the end of the alphabet and underused. He is calling for a new alphabet. It's very clever and educational. "Why does [A] get to be in so many words?...And I and E, aren't you tired of having to switch places every time C comes into the picture?"

What's New With Baby

I think this picture probably best describes what Baby is up to these days. Wreaking havoc everywhere he goes!!! Well, not that bad, but it HAS gotten very difficult to sit with him and even stand holding him (because he's no longer content to just cuddle - he wants to move!). He desperately wants to MOVE but can't quite crawl yet, so he's in that in-between stage.

He reaches out for everything, whether we are sitting at the table, the counter, the computer, etc. I was just standing at the counter, making supper, when he pulled Sissy's bowl of miso noodles off to the floor (when resulted in hysterical sobbing on her part because that was all that was left). The dogs were very pleased with their special meal.