{Click on slideshow to see pictures bigger}
Had to get some pictures up, my sister-in-law was asking about them...and it's her special week. She's getting married in Jamaica on Saturday. Happy Wedding, Biz and Dan! We so wish we could be with you on your special day. We and the rest of the family who can't make it, will be gathered in Mansfield hoping you find a hot spot there so we can watch like flies on the wall with Skype.
We had a wonderful time in Tennessee two weeks ago. Thanks to some extra frequent flier miles from my Dad, Phoebe and I flew down for a four day visit. Ben stayed home with the older two. They had lots of fun playing in the snow, while we soaked up lots of love from my family. We've got some wonderful five generation pictures forth coming.
I wanted to share a really cool gift idea that my mom thought of. You may have seen those recordable books at Hallmark and other places. Well, my mom thought of having each grandparent from five generations read/record a page to my kids. It's really neat. Here's a picture of all of us that read a page from it (ok, not Phoebe), that I will put in the book. The best part was that several of us (I won't say who) got the giggles while recording our parts which made the whole process a lot of fun. My kids loved the gift and feel like I brought back a little piece of Tennessee with me so that they didn't miss quite so much.
As I looked through all the pictures on my camera, I loved the funny pictures of Phoebe with crazy eyes the best. I'm not sure if it's the camera she's making the eyes at, but I highly suspect that this is the face she makes when her brother and sister come over to kiss her when I'm not looking. Here she's wearing an outfit that was mine when I was a baby. The fabric is paper thin now.
Ooh, I got my hair cut short, I'll have to have Ben take a picture of it today.
We're still doing Kindergarten but it looks nothing like proper school or what I did before I had Phoebe. Ezra is full of fun ideas and everyday we try to do one of his ideas, or maybe one of Mommy's, whether it's make a pirate ship, make lemonade from lemons or a create a musical instrument, we're hands on doing stuff every day. We look for opportunities within the crafts or activities to incorporate the three "R's". Juni does whatever her brother does academically and is definitely ahead of the game. Charlotte Mason, my all time favorite educational theorist purports that we should not do formal school prior to age six, but focus on being outdoors, and instilling good habits for later. So, even though we may be doing a less formal school approach now because I'm still getting my feet under me after baby #3, it's ok, because Charlotte said so! :-)
For the record, when we went to Mansfield this past weekend, Juni voluntarily hugged her Uncle Andy to whom she usually only gives the "stink eye". Yay for progress and we're happy for Uncle Andy who has waited patiently for this little girl to warm up to him.
The plan for today is to bake bread (Ezra's request), and do some painting later today. I'm hoping I get to paint too since Daddy's off work today and can help with the baby. As I'm sitting here typing, Ez wrote a song about baking bread and wants me to share it with you. It goes a little something like this:
"Hot fire, hot bread, I like bread everywhere, it has water, flour and eggs, and everything I like. I want it medium, I like bread everywhere! Da Dum!"
On that note, have a wonderful day!
