Artsy Friday! Do you know there are kits that give a pattern to trace and step by step instructions so in a couple of hours, you can walk out of an art studio with a beautiful flowering branch or beach sunset? I had no idea. Tonight I chose a different route while I was out at a girls’ night because I know a little sweetsie that needs something up in her bedroom. And none of the kits struck my fancy. Miss Em: proud owner of a silly freestyle giraffe painting. I’ll post a pic tomorrow…😍😍😍

Or How Katy Perry helped me teach phonics today…

No doubt about it, some days go more smoothly than others.  Some mornings we breeze out the door having completed our math work and read a little bit out loud.  Other times tears occur before brushing our teeth.  It is a matter of determining everyone’s temperature while we get ready for the day.  Although I had on my list to get through stuff before leaving the house, that was not going to happen.  Lily had complaints that I was trying to make her do baby-ish stuff.  I heard her and so we got on our way, deciding to tackle academics after lunch.

While I circled the track, I hatched a plan.  How was I going to convince her to get on board with either sorting or seeking out examples of words that have the Bossy R “vowel teams” of -er, -ar, -ir, -ur, and -or?  That’s where Miss Perry came in.  She loves Roar and asks to listen to it daily.  I printed the lyrics to start her on a word hunt and then asked her to put her findings down on our sorting sheet.  We couldn’t find all the teams in abundance in the lyrics, so I handed her a book to look through and she read the whole thing, pausing to have me write down the words she came across.  Finally, we still were without any -ur and -ir examples.  Sam’s lemonade came to rescue.  I set a glass down for her and gave her the container.  Virgin {lemonade} and Natural both fit our phonetical needs today!

In other spectacular news, Emmy is choosing to sit on the potty pretty often!  Yay, Miss Em!!  And Ollie was a bang-up Cyclops today.  He made some sheep to go with our life-size monster, too, so he would have some little friends.  {The Cyclops lives in a cave with his sheep and lambs…}

do you think he knows the person he’d like to marry?”
This is where our conversation led to last night at dinner, my boy and me. O shared that Nyan at school was married to another Grandi, Charlene. He was pretty sure you don’t know who you are going to marry at 4. But I wanted to know if he had any idea who he would marry and without hesitation he screwed his eyes shut tight and declared, “NO! I don’t want to get married!” Oh. “But you can’t have kids if you aren’t married, buddy. Don’t you want kids? “No. I just wanna make a mess. And drink soda. And eat soda crackers {which we heard about in Little House} And eat candy!”

There you have it. He’s got it all figured out.

A highlight of my day was when our read aloud turned into a maker’s fury of creative learning. After Ollie got home from school and Em was napping, we started a child’s version on The Odyssey .  We learned about Helen of Troy, the Trojan horse and the lotus-eaters.  By this time, L had had enough and asked if we could read another book we reference called Story of the World ; last time we read about the Minotaur on the island of Crete and today we learned about great warriors, the Mycenaeans. Since we didn’t know what invention allowed the Mycenaeans to overtake their enemies I explained what a chariot is and we built one with our mag-formers, an elephant, and some binocular strings. O got the idea straight and made a much better, more elaborate, quad-chariot.

We needed to make a set of warrior duds and ended up using a lot of aluminum foil.

And we wondered what the Greeks wore so we got some old sheets to make a peplos.

Lily noticed from her reading this morning that many Greeks wore things on their heads and so we made a laurel wreath.

The afternoon was so much fun; nap time was over in the blink of an eye.  Our next mission (at least mine!) is to locate a good Greek restaurant so we can sample some {modern} Greek food.  Fun day!

Lucky readers in more temperate climes, please take a moment to appreciate it and soak up the sun. Em and I went out early this morning to church and the car thermometer showed a temp of -2*. At other times during the day it ranged from 0* all the way up to 10* around 2:30 when we were scurrying out to our car from a fun, energetic family swim. I notice people are leaving their cars run as they stop quickly at a store. I’m not sure how environmentally friendly that is…but climbing into a warm car after the bitter cold we have been experiencing sure is a treat.

All you need is love but a little chocolate helps, too

Valentine’s Day dawned bright and early here…with purple pancakes, lilies, giant Knuffle Bunnies, adding machines and RoboBots. Everyone enjoyed a little sweetness. And some all day snow was inspiration for an afternoon viewing of Big Hero 6.

Xoxoxo😍

I’ve got an attitude of gratitude:
1. A day full of face painting, popcorn, Valentines, and Legos
2. A cooperative night night
3. Scheduling playdates for one and all
4. Sprucing up the place
5. Dr. Heater
6. A most thoughtful oldest daughter, a snuggly and silly middle son, a wild child babydoll
7. A husband who knows all the good stuff

About a year ago we started swim lessons–and then stopped because the pool was too cold.  I waited (im)patiently for Goldfish Swim School to open so my little swimmers could enjoy the 90* water.  Today our patience and L’s persistence paid off!  She is SWIMMING!  Her instructor asked, “Who is this girl?!?”  It was a thrill to see it happen!  I am just so proud of her.  She was pumped up and didn’t want to stop when her lesson was through.  She asked to go to Family Swim over the weekend.  And she hopes she can take one of her make up lessons {tomorrow, please!}.  It reminds me of when you fall in love and just want to hang out with that new person and figure them out.  She has conquered a new skill and wants to make it hers!

O had a great swim day, too!  With a reward of 1 M&M for walking in alone or 5 for walking in with no crying…he aced it!  5 M&M’s later…

Hmmm-I think I am going to do that tomorrow morning for school!