Bye Bye, Red!

Hello, mushroom bisque! I haven't done the baseboards yet, but it already looks a lot better than before.

Isaac's Room

Isaac's got a sweet deal, having this big room all to himself. I've had his room set up for a long time, but I forgot to include it on the blog. Here's my baby boy's room. Ignore the mess in the first picture. Although the books shelf is a perpetual disaster, the rest of the room usually isn't.

Her Masterpiece

Here is Hannah's finished piece from the National Gallery of Art field trip last week. I like her use of foreground, middle-ground, and background and her use of perspective in the fence (that looks more like a road after coloring.) When I asked her why the trees were so small, she said, "Because they are far away." So even though they are probably a little too small, I am glad she is learning the concept of perspective.

Better late then never!

I have been in the midst of painting our dining room/living room/hallway area since last Saturday. When it is more complete, I will post pictures. I got rid of that hideous red wall! Yea! Anyway, the point is I didn't ever post my G week summary. We focused on gardens and growing. I planted tulip bulbs in the front flower bed, virtually alone since my helpers got sidetracked with a couple of earthworms we found. They all but made them pets! Anyway, we also planted orange seeds and bell pepper seeds indoors too. We'll see if we can keep them going until the spring so we can plant them.

The bell peppers are in the girl's room in a mini green house.

Our only other craft was "gluing grins." They cut out grins from my Martha Stewart magazines and glued them onto their drawn faces. This was a perfect craft for their age. They needed no help at all and there was no set up for me. My favorite kind!

So G week was lower key than some weeks. It is looking like I week will be that way also. H week is coming along nicely. We are learning about horses, habitats, and houses. Lots of good crafts, but no field trip this week. More to come soon...

Sneak Peek

We have an All Saint's Party with our homeschooling group this coming weekend, but the kids got to wear their costumes for the church party last weekend.

St Clare and St Genevieve, notice the accessories, a bread crumb container turns monstrance for St Clare and a candle for St Genevieve.

Add in St Micheal the Archangel in only half his costume because the we needed him to fit in the car seat. He looks more like Robin Hood here, but wait for it...

Add a pair of wings, a sword, and a transformed milk jug helmet and Robin Hood becomes St Micheal the Archangel ready to defeat the demons. My inspiration for this costume came partially from here.

Parade of Costumes

Note to self: do not try to get kids to take a picture when they have just been given cupcakes. It cracks me up that Genna's is on the way into her mouth and Hannah's already got the evidence of her bite before the shot on her mouth!

About their costumes, I made Hannah's and Isaac's from old t-shirts and some felt pieces. Genna's was from old fabric I had in my stash. Each one took about an hour and it was so fun!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

We just read this book from the library, and so I thought I would surprise the kids with this pumpkin. (I stole the idea from here, but I drew and carved it freehand.) They helped me clean it out and separate the seeds, but I did the carving after they were snug in their beds while visions of pumpkins danced in their heads. We made progress from the last time we carved a pumpkin, everyone stuck their arms all the way in the pumpkin to pull out goo, but only a couple of times each. Hannah was a huge help separating seeds for roasting. (The seeds are drying as seen in the last picture for tomorrow's roasting.) The little ones got bored and started playing trains while Hannah and I finished the job. It was so fun standing in the kitchen with my oldest daughter sorting seeds. Having daughters is great at these moments. One day we will be making Thanksgiving dinner together.

How does your garden grow?

For G week's field trip, we went back to the orchard and picked some pumpkins in light of all the gardening and growing books we read this week combined with the season. I got some amazing pictures of the kids there, so check out the side bar for a few of the best of the individual ones.

Hannah pretended to eat some corn we found out in the field.

I guess I should have prepared them for how many pumpkins we were going to pick so they weren't so disappointed when we only got three. Isaac was fine, but Hannah was upset and Genna was, well you can see, completely distraught when she could bring six pumpkins home that she found.

Here I am cutting out the pouty upset children!

Once we drove back to the front to pay, everyone cheered back up and we got some good pictures.

Playing on the pumpkins...

My favorites...

I love autumn!

I could live there!!!!

Where? The National Gallery of Art, of course! I remember visiting it years ago (years and years!) and thinking, "If only I lived here and wasn't just touring the city with no real time to sketch and study the art..." And now I do live here, but sadly don't have time still to just hang out in the National Gallery of Art. Can you imagine? "Now, Hannah, Genna, and Isaac, you guys just sit here quietly while Mommy sketches this Renior." I think not even my relatively well-behaved children would be able to do that. Genna's leg would start twitching and soon she would be dancing like the ballerina in Degas' Dancer with a Bouquet of Flowers. Isaac would lay down on the floor with his bottom in the air in prime sleeping position and say, "Hannah, put me to bed!" She would, of course, be doing a drawing of her own and tell him no. Then he would start to pester her since she won't play with him, possibly laying on her drawing. In fact, I think that is all best case scenario. That is not even including the crazy Metro trip to just get to the museum. And, of course the return trip when everyone is exhausted.

However, yesterday, our homeschool group had a field trip to the Gallery for kindergartners. Since it was in the afternoon, I left Isaac and Genna with a friend to play with their friends and nap (Isaac, not Genna.) Then Hannah and I had a quiet afternoon together. We hopped on the Metro with ease. Changed lines like it was the most natural thing in the world for us to be out in the city alone. It. was. so. peaceful. I can't even tell you! We got there just a tad early and looked at a few masterpieces before meeting up with the group for the tour with a docent. I've got to tell you, going with a child to an art museum is so very different. The first piece we saw (the minute we walked into the museum) was a nude statue, and, whoa, did that open a can of worms I had not even thought about. It just never crossed my mind since I think of art in a whole different category. But the minute I saw it with Hannah, "Queen of Modesty," by my side I immediately realized what I had just walked into, even before the words came out of her mouth. So after a quiet conversation about nudity in art, we went on to see the most magnificent pieces, including my favorites, the impressionists. So the tour consisted of the kindergartners studying about 5 paintings and sketching the last one, Wivenhoe Park, Essex by John Constable. Hannah didn't have long to do the drawing, but she at least got the foreground, middle-ground, and background concept in her drawing. I am going to look up the painting online and let her finish it and add color. Watching her get to do that, just made me so happy. If I can't, at least my children can. That's good enough for me. That's more than enough for me.

Total Sweetness (I caught them red-handed!)

Genevieve and Isaac were watching their favorite show, Dinosaur Train, just before bed. Genna never passes up a chance to cuddle with her baby brother. Hannah prefers to sit in the recliner...ALONE.

Genna playing "teacher" with her stuffed animals during her afternoon rest time. Her pupils are a colorful bunch. She's a pretty messy teacher too.

Extracurricular Activities

Genna is doing a creative dance class for this 10 week session through the local Parks and Rec. This is her first class without Hannah. We think one activity for each of them is all we can handle right now which makes these 10 week sessions great for trying different things out to see what they enjoy and where their talents lie. So far, parents are not allowed in the studio so I have not seen her dance. The class suites her free spirit though. The last class will be a performance for the parents. I can hardly wait!


An update on Hannah's soccer: She is improving every week, and it is so fun to watch! Two weekends ago she was treated to a spontaneous special ice cream trip with her dad because she got hit in the stomach and didn't cry this time. I was just so proud of her that I thought she needed something special. She is making contact with the ball a lot more often too. We are currently trying to get her to get in front of the other team during throw-ins. She is getting closer, but not quite in front of them. I love going to her games every Saturday!

Sandbox Rules

Saturday we went to the Virginia Cup. It was a little early for our H week, but who's counting. It was so much fun! I enjoyed seeing the horses and picking which one I thought would win. My technique was to pick the one with the name I liked best. Really technical stuff here. Good thing I am not betting money, right? Sandbox Rules was the only one out of the seven races that I got right. Some of my other favorite names were G'day G'day (sounds cooler when the announcer is saying it super fast), Tiefordancen, and He's a Conniver. I thought it would be fun to make up horse names for the kids. I thought of this as we were walking to the car and Hannah was all frowns because she wanted to stay and play with her friend. So Hannah's was Turnthatfrownupsidedown. Genna could be Antsinherpants since she is so wiggly and bouncy. Isaac was exhausted from being out all day without his nap and was very clingy to me. So I thought Stucktomyhip sounded good for him. Speaking of...

Here are the rest of the pictures. I think we may do this again someday.