Field Trip

The girls and I agree that we need more Field Trips in our lives.

Wednesday is International Children's Book Day and I thought that was definitely cause for an outing.

If it's ok with everybody's moms and dads we'll be heading out to the Clackamas Mall Barnes & Noble for their storytime at 10am. Then we'll head over to the Play Center in the mall until we get bored. I'll bring a sack lunch to eat while we're there. After that we'll head to the library and let each girl check out a book to keep at my house during the week.

That should be a pretty good field trip...AND it's free! WOOT!

Weird Day

Well, Troy is sick today so everything is sorta weird. He stayed in bed for as long as he could stand it. We are lucky to have a bed at all and we really are grateful...but we'll be happy when our bed from Michigan gets here! He had to move out to the couch (yes, the couch is more comfortable than the bed) so the girls have been going between quiet activities at the kitchen table to playing around in the bedroom.

We had a picnic on the floor of the bedroom with tiny sandwiches and bendy straws (there were other things but these were the most important ^_^) and we'll be doing circle time in the room as well.

They've made a fort out of the bunk bed which then turned into the doctor's office. They were using parts of Savannah's dragons as doctor tools for pretend shots, checking ears and scanning for broken legs.

I recently read an article that quoted Tom Limbert, Head Teacher of Stanford University's Bing Nursery School of Child Development Research and Training which said that toys shouldn't be for only one purpose and our children will be smarter and more critical thinkers if they have more opportunities to use their imaginations instead of using "one dimensional" toys. So, hooray for our goofy girls and their budding rocket-scientist brains!

Happy Silky Day!

Oh man, the last one. We were all so tired, so full of sugar, so ready to be done! The kids were champs though.


We sang our song (I think you can hear me better than anyone on the video...be warned), played our game (we rolled Scout up in a blanket, then went outside to play tag), and ate ice cream cones.

Funny Moments:

The kids were all SO excited to go outside and play. They got their shoes and coats on and went out back. A few of them were out for less than a minute before they came clambering back inside. It was too muddy and way too cold. I managed to get them to take their shoes off before they hit carpet but the dining area floor was covered in mud. Scout, after tromping with her compatriots around in her muddy shoes, looks down and says, "Eww Mommy. Why did you make the floor all muddy?" Of course, I'm standing there with spoon of ice cream n one hand, cone in the other and clean white socks..."ME?!"

Savannah found a stick (plain old, fell-off-a-tree-somewhere-and-was-laying-on-the-grass stick) she was using to poke in the mud. She disappeared around the side of the building so I sent Rand out after her. She came running back and when I asked her why she didn't come right away she looked at her stick and said "I needed to see if this was Hailey's stick. She might have been worried about it." Mmmmhm.

Happy Stuffed Animal Day!

Everyone was really getting tired and a little crabby at this point. I think the sugar was starting to affect them pretty strongly now. They were restless but worn out.


We played Find-The-Bear...which was a variation on Find the Dragon Egg, sang the song (you can see the boys' eyes glazing over and Ash Lee's rashy face in the video) and ate gummy bears & Teddy Grahams (double teddy grahams for our silver teethed bandits and anti-gummy bear folks).

Funny Moments:

During the game all the kids would wait in the bedroom while one person hid the bear. The kids were starting to get rowdy/crabby...you know how it is...over stimulated and excited but everyone gets hurt (physically or emotionally) a little more easily. So I went into the bedroom with them and did Yoga while we waited. At first the boys thought it was weird but then I got all of them to do Proud Warrior with me and challenged them to get lower and lower.

We sang our song and everyone had a turn to do a different animal. Savannah's was Pink Bear so that's what we did for the song but there were some truly hilarious moments when the kids made up what sound their animals made. The one I remember most is William's Alien. It said "Ria ria ira" but you had to talk in a high alien voice, spread your fingers around and make your neck long so you looked like an alien. Our goofy kids looked pretty alien.

Happy Dragon Day!

This day was Rand's idea. He's a great kid and helped out a lot but he got a little bored at times...I'm actually glad. I would be worried if a nearly 10 year old thought the games that entertained the 3 and 4 year olds were TOTALLY RAD! I think he was trying to make a statement of his maturity with his choice of game and song.

We sang our song, which was a little rough since no one really knew how the tune went (to the tune of Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King), played Find the Dragon Egg, and ate Hot Tamale Popsicles (yes they taste as weird as they sound).

Funny Moments:

The little girls were always better at the finding game than the older kids. Everyone hid things down on the ground which was in perfectly plain sight to their lower eyeballs. The bigger kids were horrified!

This one wasn't funny. It was tragic and panic-inducing. Everyone was covered in red by the time they got done with their popsicles. I really would not recommend ever getting these for a number of reasons. First, they taste...disturbing. Second, they all fell off the sticks. Third, none of the kids even got close to finishing (except Ash Lee). Fourth, Ash Lee is really allergic to them! DANG IT. I wiped off their faces, but Ash Lee's didn't get any less red. She had a contact rash all over her chin. I felt so bad. I knew she was allergic to raw cinnamon but for some reason my brain didn't equate "raw cinnamon" with Hot Tamales. We'll just steer clear of all cinnamon flavored things now. SORRY ASH LEE! The double sad part is that she liked them better than any of the other kids.