First Amusement Park Experience

Sasha's best buddy moved away recently, and she couldn't imagine a party without him, so she decided to do something special as a family instead of having a party to celebrate turning 6.

SIX!! My youngest baby is six years old.


It's unreal, I officially don't have any kids in the 5 and under crowd.


I have to say, I am trying so hard to just cherish this stage because it is a really sweet spot.


The girls are so much fun, and they are SO EASY. I didn't have to carry a bag, people. Money, phone and camera in pockets.


Don't pinch me, I don't want to wake up <3


Look at her. Turning double digits this year, she is starting to seem like a pre-teen these days. I hope she knows how much I admire her.


Eliana after she won NOT ONE, but TWO prizes at the balloon pop after we explained to her how low the odds of winning are. It's shocking they want to discover everything for themselves despite what we say, isn't it?


Getting to be the co-pilot on the tram


He's a pretty sweet papa all folded up into the elephant ride



Sasha does not like being sprayed, but she sure liked getting to spray others


Not being impressed with theme-park food


That's Eliana there on the far left... she loved this ride, even though it made her mama pretty worried. It's HARD to let them go on rides that YOU think they aren't quite big enough for... but they knew what they were ready for and what they weren't.


The girls pretty much all amazed me with their fearlessness. Eliana came off one ride crying and immediately went back on just so she knew she could. She came off the next ride smiling. All the girls were really adventurous. Trying far bigger rides than I had anticipated them trying. My girls are BIG!

And just because it needs to be said, Branson is pretty much the tackiest town on earth.

New School Room

Same room, different look :) I needed to get some shelves up and I just wasn't finding anything I really wanted enough to mess with the hassle that is buying new furniture.

But I needed shelves.

So, on a whim one afternoon I had the bright idea to take the two ugly shelves in the garage and paint them. Of course this whim couldn't include the effort to go buy paint.. so I figured I could combine some colors I had in the garage. I think I should have added more gray and/or green... but for an afternoon of work on a whim, I'm pretty happy with how they came out.

it didn't seem quite complete, so I got the (also ugly) coffee table out of the garage and painted it too.

I ordered a quick valance on etsy and called it a day. I'm actually loving how it came out.

Main view


The table


The artwork side of the room


The "board" side of the room


Making this one sort of big so you can see the fabric above the window :)


The table has paint marks on it, sorry... guess I should have wiped it down better last time we painted :)

Busy Busy!

Our new school work keeps us quite busy. In a good way, the girls are having a lot of fun with it!

Malia is discovering the joy of algebra (through pre-algebra). She is also already about half way through her 4th grade literature level. That girl can read! So within a couple weeks she should be starting 5th grade literature. In science she is on her chemistry unit, which is her absolutely favorite area of science. If you know of any simple experiments or fun chemistry based activities, feel free to post it for her. She would love that! I think she is going to blog soon about some of the candy experiments she has been doing from candyexperiments.com. Let's see, then there is American History and some other basics going on as well.

Eliana is taking her already established Math concepts and taking them to larger numbers. Ones, tens and hundreds place math. She's doing ancient Rome in history, simple machines in science, and covering some really fun literature in her Literature unit. Her favorite is art, she loves it. It is more of an art history class, but they always do an assignment based on the person or style they studied. Right now she is learning to make bamboo with sumi-e brushes and simple strokes. It's quite a challenge once you become accustomed to making multiple strokes with a brush.

Sasha has finished K math and and really close to finishing K science. She is loving history, which is actually more of a geography class. She can now name all the continents and is starting to learn some things about each continent that she can relate to. She also loves language arts where we get to read great literature and do fun activities to accompany them. Lots of puppets being made in this house. Art, well... she likes doing the lesson but usually has her OWN ideas about what to draw and I think that is just fine. Glad she has her own ideas. :)

We also had the fall parties this last weekend which was great fun. The girls had a blast :) I should have gotten more pictures, but I was really enjoying being in the moment during the actual festivities. I did get some of them at the park in their costumes though, I'll post some them below. There are more here. Enjoy!

You know, I honestly never thought I would be able to say that any of my kids knew how to "call hogs" but... alas...




She was cracking herself up letting the wind blow the streamers in her face.


Eliana as Ostara (Eostre... a goddess of Spring in [Germanic?] Mythology)






Malia as a Gypsy... I think interest in gypsies began with a song that Shakira did that she heard on a show Selena Gomez, where they sang it together. Being a fan of both, it was hard not to love the song too. It became a report on the Romani people and a fun Halloween costume from there.




*sigh* where exactly does all the time go. I can't believe my oldest daughter is 9 and looking so grown.


A few together pictures too


Where is Sasha you ask? Well, she was getting leaves to throw at her unsuspecting sisters, of course.


up to no good ;o)


Our poor dog :o) fwiw, they are build-a-bear wings that I strapped to her harness... not her. Does that make me less evil?

iFest

We had a BLAST at the insect festival on Thursday.


I'm really shocked at how fearless and awesome Sasha is about bugs. She will touch ANYTHING. No matter how eww-ish it looks. Why yes, that is a giant hissing cockroach in her hands. And a smile on her face.



It was really neat. They had all these displays up, all kinds of bugs to look at. Living and non-living. Even glasses to see the light and color pallette of a praying mantis.












This was the coolest thing, they poured wax down an ant hill and it hardened in all their tunnels and made the coolest coral like design. I just thought it was so beautiful seeing it like that. It's hard to see though, behind Sasha.










They all had a great time. Sasha even spent her own allowance to buy herself an "iFest" logo tee-shirt. I should really get a picture of it. Until then, here she is shaking her tail to communicate like the bees.

Puppy Update

The dog is fitting in wonderfully! She has a few lessons to learn, like how to actually scratch and assertively let us know when she wants out. All in all she is really fitting in well though. She is such a sweet, relaxed, gentle dog. I can go out to check the mail without her leashed and she just hangs out with me. The girls can carry her all around the house and she just hangs out with them.



Malia saying "Look, tree pose!". As long as there are no sudden movements, she's really ok with anything. Almost ragdoll like in the arms of someone who has love to offer :)

Visit From Paka

Got a wonderful, albeit short, visit from paka :) He came with a bag of Naartjie clothes for the girls *THANK YOU ROCHELLE!* and yummy halloween goody bags filled to the brim with candy. The girls thank you guys for the candy ;o)

Apple Season

I can officially say that now that I have *real* apple cider simmering on my stove with fresh spices and orange zest. Yes, I finally found old school, unprocessed, unpasturized, preservative free apple cider locally.



So, the smell of fall is finally here. I dread what follows, but I sure do love this season while it lasts.



Sasha went with me today and I bought plain donuts to go with our apple cider. The girls said "what? No sprinkles?" *sigh* I sure hope that they can some day appreciate the simplicty of plain donuts and cider. Who knows, maybe that "some day" will be tomorrow :)

The other day after school work we made some caramel apples.