A Princess and an Ogre were in a Canoe...
On Saturday morning Mike harvested more honey from our bees. It is probably going to be the last harvest of the year, however as he contracts the hive more, he will likely get a little more honey out of it.
Saturday afternoon Grandma and Grandpa Poulson came over and visited us. It was nice to have them over; it's been three months since we saw Grandma and a month and a half since we saw Grandpa. The kids had a wonderful time showing off all their favorite tricks and activities for the grandparents, and Alison was so happy to sit and talk to her parents. We are excited to see them again when the baby comes. (About 6 more weeks, not that we're impatient or anything...)
The most exciting thing about their visit for the kids was that they were given new dress ups which they are all very excited about. Rea loves the jewelry, Sara is excited about the dress up shoes, and Timmy is excited about the cowboy costume. He loves to catch horses with his lasso, and then shoot them with his gun.
Timmy's other favorite activities right now include "Me fight bad people!" with sticks or whatever weapon he can find, and anything about monsters and ogres. He's so cute when he begs you to be a monster and chase him around the house until he turns around and kills you.
Grandma took Sara to the bathroom once and was discussing where everyone lives on our world map shower curtain: "Here's Utah where you live, and California where I live, and Wyoming where your other grandma and grandpa live, and way over here is where your Uncle Andy is living in Tajikistan." Sara looked thoughtfully at the map. "Well, we would have to drive a long, long time... and take a boat... but we have a canoe, so that's OK." So if you don't hear from us, maybe we're driving and canoeing to Tajikistan to visit family.
Rea is currently reading through the Boxcar Children series. She has tons of energy, which works out well on Forest Kindergarten days; on days when we don't get 4+ hours outside, sometimes she seems to have too much energy for our house. It's a good thing we have a swingset and mini trampoline in the backyard for her. She's learning to do cool tricks on the trapeze on the swingset and to climb on top of the swingset and slide and swing around.
Forest Kindergarten is going well. Of eight days we've gone, we've met other families to play with there on four of them, which Alison thinks is pretty good. Alison has put together a portable Montessori shelf in a backpack that she takes along with them. The kids' favorite Montessori activities in the wilderness are writing on the dry erase board and playing the Stamp Game, a Montessori activity for adding four-digit numbers. That is, oddly, Timmy's favorite thing to do with Mommy: count out the tokens for the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands and put them on the mat. Sara is practicing forming letters and making words and really enjoys that. Alison brought Sir Walter Scott's "The Lady of the Lake," a narrative poem, and was reading part aloud, and Rea got very interested and wanted to hear the whole story.
But really, most of the time in Forest Kindergarten is spent balancing out on the rocks in the creek, looking for worms to make fishing rods, creating bows and arrows and spears and swords out of sticks, gathering leaves and berries, making fairy houses, and other traditional outdoor activities. It's great. The kids brought three Quint dolls this week (the toys Alison played with when camping as a child) and had a wonderful time making them houses and building boats to float them in the creek. Forest Kindergarten is great.
Our garden has finally started producing green beans; we were starting to wonder if the bean plants would ever flower. We also have plenty of squash, although we still haven't got to the point of too much squash. Of course, we can't even begin to keep up with Alison and the kids' love of tomatoes; we've had fewer than half a dozen even make it into the house this season because they all get eaten as soon as they ripen. But we've very much enjoyed our garden this year.
We're reading a book as a family called "The Ugly Princess and the Wise Fool." Alison picked it up on a whim from the DI; neither of us had ever heard of it. But it turns out to be very witty and well-written and has a good message about the problems of a beauty-centric culture. Rea enjoys it as much as the grown-ups, and Sara listens because it's about a princess, but we can't read it for too long at a time because Timmy rebels. Still, we're about halfway done.
Finally, Timmy got my phone during church.
Saturday afternoon Grandma and Grandpa Poulson came over and visited us. It was nice to have them over; it's been three months since we saw Grandma and a month and a half since we saw Grandpa. The kids had a wonderful time showing off all their favorite tricks and activities for the grandparents, and Alison was so happy to sit and talk to her parents. We are excited to see them again when the baby comes. (About 6 more weeks, not that we're impatient or anything...)
The most exciting thing about their visit for the kids was that they were given new dress ups which they are all very excited about. Rea loves the jewelry, Sara is excited about the dress up shoes, and Timmy is excited about the cowboy costume. He loves to catch horses with his lasso, and then shoot them with his gun.Timmy's other favorite activities right now include "Me fight bad people!" with sticks or whatever weapon he can find, and anything about monsters and ogres. He's so cute when he begs you to be a monster and chase him around the house until he turns around and kills you.
Grandma took Sara to the bathroom once and was discussing where everyone lives on our world map shower curtain: "Here's Utah where you live, and California where I live, and Wyoming where your other grandma and grandpa live, and way over here is where your Uncle Andy is living in Tajikistan." Sara looked thoughtfully at the map. "Well, we would have to drive a long, long time... and take a boat... but we have a canoe, so that's OK." So if you don't hear from us, maybe we're driving and canoeing to Tajikistan to visit family.
Forest Kindergarten is going well. Of eight days we've gone, we've met other families to play with there on four of them, which Alison thinks is pretty good. Alison has put together a portable Montessori shelf in a backpack that she takes along with them. The kids' favorite Montessori activities in the wilderness are writing on the dry erase board and playing the Stamp Game, a Montessori activity for adding four-digit numbers. That is, oddly, Timmy's favorite thing to do with Mommy: count out the tokens for the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands and put them on the mat. Sara is practicing forming letters and making words and really enjoys that. Alison brought Sir Walter Scott's "The Lady of the Lake," a narrative poem, and was reading part aloud, and Rea got very interested and wanted to hear the whole story.
But really, most of the time in Forest Kindergarten is spent balancing out on the rocks in the creek, looking for worms to make fishing rods, creating bows and arrows and spears and swords out of sticks, gathering leaves and berries, making fairy houses, and other traditional outdoor activities. It's great. The kids brought three Quint dolls this week (the toys Alison played with when camping as a child) and had a wonderful time making them houses and building boats to float them in the creek. Forest Kindergarten is great.
Our garden has finally started producing green beans; we were starting to wonder if the bean plants would ever flower. We also have plenty of squash, although we still haven't got to the point of too much squash. Of course, we can't even begin to keep up with Alison and the kids' love of tomatoes; we've had fewer than half a dozen even make it into the house this season because they all get eaten as soon as they ripen. But we've very much enjoyed our garden this year.We're reading a book as a family called "The Ugly Princess and the Wise Fool." Alison picked it up on a whim from the DI; neither of us had ever heard of it. But it turns out to be very witty and well-written and has a good message about the problems of a beauty-centric culture. Rea enjoys it as much as the grown-ups, and Sara listens because it's about a princess, but we can't read it for too long at a time because Timmy rebels. Still, we're about halfway done.
Finally, Timmy got my phone during church.
Comments
Post a Comment