Irene's 1st Brithday!

Irene turned 1 on Saturday and we went to Rebecca's Grandparents' house to celebrate. She is such a sweet and happy little girl with a huge smile. She loves to dance and bounce and even "chases" her siblings these days. She is energetic and curious. It is fun to look back at the pictures from the last year.  They willing let us set up in their yard so they could watch the kids play. It was a joyful and memorable time. Irene is Rebecca's Granny's namesake.  We did a Rubber Duck/Bath Time Theme. Rebecca did an awesome job coming up with fun things for all the kids to do.

Irene had her own duck pool to splash in and some rubber ducks to play with. She was quite content there a long time. We read 10 Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle. There were "tub tunes" playing in the background for the party. We started with duck fishing (magnets on mini yellow ducks and home made fishing pools with magnets) and duck racing (blowing the ducks across the pool).

 We filled a couple of kiddie pools, one with suds, one with water and made sponge balls and had duck-shaped beach balls that they could throw back and forth. They also had slippery bars of soap to keep ahold of and toss.

"Incoming!"

Then we played duck duck goose and pin the duck on the bathtub. 

Everyone really enjoyed that and did really well at it. Emma didn't have to wear a blindfold, Ezra wore the blindfold but wasn't spun, and Gabe and Olivia each did it all the way. Such fun to watch! They don't make this game for sale that we could find. Rebecca drew this bathtub--pretty impressive huh? :)

This is the first cake we've had for one of the kids that we didn't make ourselves. While that's a little sad, it was 2 cakes was a lot to try to do two in one week. Harris Teeter had the perfect cake for our party. And they make duck shaped crackers (like goldfish). We also cut duck shaped cheese with a cookie cutter and had hotdogs, pasta salad, and homemade ice pops. 

We got Irene her own cupcake, which she tried rather tentatively.

But the restraint didn't last long. :)

The kids all enjoyed visiting with their Grandparents (Rebecca's mom and dad), Great-Grandparents, Aunts Kelly and B and Cousin Matthew.  

Today we celebrate Ezra! He is 4!

Today is Ezra's 4th birthday! It's amazing how much our little guy has grown. He is such a joy to have around and makes our days brighter with his goofy faces, big laugh and love for his siblings. He is so smart and often spouts some tidbit he overheard us teaching Olivia or Gabe. His passions also lead to loud expressiveness and the more than typical ways of a strong-willed 3 year old. As parents, we are so glad we "survived" this year and really enjoyed it. Looking forward to the coming year. We wanted to make his day.

We started his day with a request for a repeat of last year's special breakfast. Here is the post from last year. It is fun to look at the two together. Then we headed to the dentist (our twice a year trip just happened to fall on this day) and fortunately he really likes the dentist. He got to pick an extra prize which just made his day.

Grandma and Grandpa got him the Planes movie and we picked him up a Dusty glider to go with it. Movie days are special treats so of course he wanted to watch it.

Aunt DD and Uncle Rudy got him a favorite game of their littles. The kids spent lot of time playing it.

We also got a much bigger glider! Such a simple and inexpensive toy that provided us with an evening of so much fun.

And to top off his big day, Rebecca and I made him a Dusty cake!

Happy birthday, Ezra! 

An Evening at the Park

We enjoyed a fun evening at Triad Park this last week. We had a bit of hot weather early this week so it was almost too hot to go out in the middle of the day and really enjoy ourselves. We decided, then, to have dinner early and then head to the park for the end of the day. I caught some good pictures of the kiddos.

We took a short hike through the woods and they each found the "perfect" walking stick.

Recent School Adventures with Gabe and Ezra

For our Literature based Unit Study (FIAR) this month, we have turned to a couple of Virginia Lee Burton books--Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel and Maybelle the Cable Car. The boys of course think these are super fun books. Anything with machinery and vehicles hit the spot with them. We cheered on Mike Mulligan and Mary Ann as they beat the odds to complete the task of digging the cellar. We talked about the character qualities of working hard, faithfulness, good stewardship, and encouraging one another. We talked about the progression of technology from steam shovels to electric and diesel powered machinery. We did a science experiment on the states of matter. We then learned about San Francisco, its geography, and the famous cable cars. This story is based on the attempt to preserve their place in the life of San Francisco. Again, we talked about the progression of technology and times. We also discussed some of the topics of city politics that were brought up in the book. (Interestingly election day fell this week--pretty cool timing that I didn't plan). We showed the kids how the cable cars functioned and did a demonstration about friction. We discussed cheerfulness which is something that Maybelle demonstrates well. She also is gracious to forgive Bill the bus who was jealous of her and a bit mean until the end of the story. Gabe wrote a selection from each of the stories. We did story problems based off of Mike Mulligan and we learned about tally marks with Maybelle.

Gabe started a new math curriculum that he loves. It is like Olivia's (just an earlier volume). It is called Math Lessons for a Living Education. Each week there is a story to read and then there are short exercises for each day that week. He is mostly writing numbers and associating objects with numbers. He continues to work through Rod and Staff preschool books. He is trying much harder and making gains with his reading skills.

Ezra asked for his own workbooks so we got some of the early Kumon books for him to work on. He is doing coloring and tracing right now. He gets up early and does them first thing in the morning. Well, after he sneaks outside bare foot to do who knows what... Every morning we hear him go outside and when asked, he says he was just going outside for a bit. :)

Olivia's Piano Recital - Spring 2014

Olivia had her spring piano recital last weekend and did such a wonderful job! Ms. Lamb challenged her (and her other students) to memorize her piece, which was Bach's Minuet in G. Olivia was chosen to go first because she is one of her strongest and most confident students and wouldn't be shaken by being the first to perform. Sure enough, she was great! 

Nana, Grandpa and Grandma were all on-hand to cheer her on.

She got some very pretty flowers. 

Unit Study on Sheep

To go along with Passover and the season of Spring, our literature based unit study selections recently were Charlie Needs a Cloak by Tomie dePaola , Mountain Born by Elizabeth Yates, Weaving a Rainbow by George Ella Lyon, and The Little Lamb by Phoebe Dunn. The kids really enjoyed these books and activities. Mountain Born was a family read aloud that lasted the whole time. I highly recommend it--even for adults. It is about a boy who grows and learns the joys and life of a shepherd. We learned about sheep, saw the lamb for Passover, learned about the process of turning their wool into yarn, we dyed some natural wool yarn, read about Yeshua being our Shepherd, and wrote and memorized part of Psalm 23. Charlie Needs a Cloak had some humor to it, either with the little mouse that could be found on each page or how the sheep were behaving. There were lots of laughs from the kids. It is a simple book but certainly worth the read. This was Ezra's favorite. Weaving the Rainbow had lovely watercolor pictures that Olivia really enjoyed. The Little Lamb is based on a true story of a girl that bottle feeds and raises a lamb until it grows too big and begins to cause trouble. The story includes photographs for illustrations. This was Gabe's favorite and he asked me to read it more than once a day. :)