Rats! I had a whole blog post typed up about our Thanksgiving and Zeke's birthday, and I lost it when IE froze. Since I am just not going to retype it tonight, I will leave you with this picture of what Papa made for Ezekiel for his birthday: 

Because every little guy needs a place to dig. It's huge, as you can see - plenty of room for friends (or more siblings) and even with only six bags of sand (it will eventually have at least 20) they have been having a blast already. I like it because now that the yard is fenced I can send Ezekiel out when we are doing table work; he plays away happily and I can see him the whole time. I didn't even get mad the other morning when I found sand on my pillow after he joined me in bed  Great Job Papa!

As an added bonus to tonight's post, here is a portion of a poem I remember from childhood:

Sand at the door,
Sand that screeches
On the new-swept floor;
In the shower, sand for the foot to crunch on;
Sand in the sandwiches spread for luncheon;
Sand adhesive to son and sibling,
From wallet sifting, from pockets dribbling;
Sand by the beaker
Nightly shed
From odious sneaker;
Sand in bed;

Season at the shore by Phyllis McGinley

Two weeks ago, Adam came home and said "Let's take a hike!" So a-hiking we went, after driving out to a park we'd never been too. It boasted two trails that seemed just right for our clan - both were only about 1.8 miles, the signs claimed. We could handle that.

By the way, you can totally hike in a skirt, but if the grass is high, you may want knee socks. Just sayin'.... It doesn't look like it, but there really is a path under all those leaves. It had been real windy the two days prior to this, and we crunch crunched the whole time.

We made sure to observe a little nature, so we could "call it school."

Everyone was enjoying themselves and the nice weather....

...and then disaster struck!  While trying to cross a (very shallow - think 1") creek on a log, Noelle lost her balance, and got a little wet  

But like the trooper she is, she rallied her spirits and carried on. I was so proud of all the kids, they walked the whole way, and without complaining. Well, Zeke did get a little help at the end.

We fully plan on going back again soon to do the other loop trail. Though maybe when it warms up a bit - the kids don't walk THAT fast

Emi got a new chair and now reigns imperial from the head of the table during meal times. Not that she eats real food, oh no. But she must be a part of what is going on, and a silicone spatula makes great teether. She also sits here while the older girls get their table work done, making Emily head of the class as well.

Oh, and do you see our centerpiece? The kids collected acorns, pinecones, and stick in the yard, I piled them in this vase I had with a few fake leaves for color, and viola! Fun, fall, festive, and FREE!

***caution: if you try this, you WILL bring bugs in the house. I'm just sayin'...

*** Oh, and in case you are wondering - I LOVE the chair.

We don't celebrate Halloween over here, and never have, but we DO like to dress up and play act. When the girls were younger, this mostly consisted of dressing like Disney Princesses:

Arianna, 2 1/2

More recently though, they have wanted to act out the stories we read aloud. They've been Heidi,  Laura and Mary Ingalls, Fa Mulan, and Kirsten and Singing Bird. These required a different sort of clothes however, and so on Nov 1st we went a-hunting for discount costumes and came home with these:

Arianna spent most of the day in her Egyptian tunic, minus the scratchy gold "necklace". And for those of you who were worried about Ezekiel's last foray into the world of make believe, I just have to ask: doesn't he look much happier now? I hope you are too.

you might later be surprised by what you find on your camera card. Everyday objects make a nice still life,

but people make interesting subjects too.

If your sisters are reluctant to participate -

- don't worry. It is not difficult to find more compliant subjects.

And if that gets boring, you can always try a sneak attack.

All photographs copyright of Arianna, age 6. These are original and unedited.

Wow, 2 weeks without a blog post. And I was doing so well before that, lol!

Ah well, I have been wanting to write about how much I've been having this past month or so watching Ezekiel learn to play along with his sisters - it is just too cute! Mostly what they play are these semi-elaborate games of pretend, where they are poor girls, or princesses, or Mary and Laura Ingalls - and he tries SO hard to play his role correctly and say the "right" things. And the girls are learning that he does have something to add, and isn't there just to knock things over or kidnap their babies! Zeke and Noelle have been getting especially close, since they are left home with Papa on Mondays while Arianna does gymnastics. Their favorite new game is Peter Pan - sometimes they act out the characters, and sometimes they use dolls, but they always seem to have fun.

I tried to get a picture of the two ot them the other day, but they ran off and refused to share a frame, lol. I did however snap these today:

Oh man! When I asked Arianna if I could wear this dress, I didn't know Mama would be taking pictures!  I wonder if people will notice I've got the matching shoes too?

I don't see why a ball is such a big deal - I'm not having fun!

Ahh, well, at least I'm making my sisters happy. Maybe Mama will at least get me a prince costume...

Off to eBay to check on that right now, son. Thanks for being such a good sport!

Have you been on LibraryThing? It combines two of my favorite things - books and making lists. It also (in theory) helps me keep our school books organized. Anyhow, I was over there tonight adding my new books that arrived today - you might see some of them over on my sidebar, check it out - I'll wait.

Nifty, isn't it? I am inordinately proud of myself for figuring out how to get that little widget to show up on my blog. It's still not perfect, but it's good enough for me. Soon, when I have some spare time (!) I will learn more about how this whole HTML thing works. TIll then, I'm just glad I have my book list, and that I finally got rid of that awful red font color! I love red, but it just wasn't working for me on the blog. Anyhow, that's all for now, but I haven't forgotten abotu the rest of the curriculum stuff, I'm working on it right now! 

In the interest of my readers' health, I tried to post last night, but I was having issues with Photobucket. So, if you're still breathing, Mariposa, (and I hope you are) here are a few pics from July:

Emily learned to sit up! Sort of. Then she decided crawling was much cooler, so now she crawls, but still doesn't sit up on her own! But at least she can keep up with the gang! (more crawling pics next time).

I woke up one morning in the middle of a book party. Do you see Emi - she's really devouring that book - she just can't wait to start  homeschooling!

Here are the girls hard at work cutting strawberries (with butter knives) for strawberry shortcake - Yummy!  We whipped up this homemade treat for a company dessert, then had the leftovers for breakfast the next day :)  What? It was totally healthy!

(PS - See that microwave sitting on my table? Adam hung it over my stove and now my counter space has nearly doubled! Whoo-hoo! He is becoming quite the handy guy.)

Pinocchio was our read aloud last month, and Ezekiel loved it! He kept picking it up himself to look through (hey, I've heard a lot of smart people read up-side down), and asking to read it, which I thought was funny, because he mostly ended up like this when I did:

(Please pardon my appearance in the above picture.)

And finally, the girls have also been really into pioneers lately - we've been reading both Little House on the Prairie (I don't really need to link that, do I? Who HASN'T heard of them?) and the Kirsten books in the American Girls series. Inspired, Arianna asked me to do her hair like so:

I think she looks right cute. And old! She's six now you know. But more on that next time. :)

So, we've got the computer tower open, but now I can't find the camera :)

Stay tuned, I'm off to Bible study, but when I get home, the search is on, with another post to follow.

It was suggested to me by more than one person that I update this blog. Apparently some people feel that a stay at home mom should have plenty of time to sit at the computer and type up random useless stuff for the enjoyment of others. They wonder, what else do I do with my time? (I’m kidding of course. While my friends did request blog updates, no one would suggest I had nothing better to do. Because then we’d have to fight. Just sayin’. )  

The truth of the matter, I suppose, is that we’re just not that interesting. I mean, I think my kids are adorable and clever, but that doesn’t stand to reason that anyone else wants to hear about them all the time. And while I am interested in many different things, I do not devote myself to one all consuming hobby or topic that I could blog about. Unless you count my kids, but again, do you really care about how cute they are? Also, I don’t like to blog without pictures (who likes a book without pictures?), so let me know tell you a little story about why my camera card is full:

Our computer lives in our desk, in a nice little tower apartment built expressly for him (my PC is a male, but that’s a different story). This tower is the height of luxury and security, equipped with a lock to keep out theivin’ thieves, or little boys who like to see all the places they can stick a quarter. Well the other day, my son – we’ll call him MacGuyver – proceeded to lock the tower using nothing but a metal nail file. Impressive, I know, but not really helpful, since he lost they keys last year. And he was unable to replicate the trick to unlock it.  And so my poor computer has been locked up in the tower like Rapunzel for many a day now, and I am unable to get at the front of him to download pics from my camera card or songs to my iPod or anything. (I know, poor me). And poor you, because Emily is really sodarncute (as my MIL says) but I have no recent pics to show you. So instead, here is one from 2 months ago.

He's totally guilty.

Please pray for my Grandma. This is her with Emily last month:

She has been in the hospital these past two weeks and may not return home. But she is seeking, searching for God, so please, above all else, pray for her salvation. And, if it isn't too much to ask, Peace for her daughters (my mother included) during this time. Thank you.