Playing outside!

We have neighbours planning on moving in June...and their boys are grown up! So we now a few free outside toys, including a basketball net! Daniel can't throw high enough to score in it at the lowest setting yet.

 Evelyn must resort to her tricycle, since her legs just don't reach to the ground for the next size up bike.

 Melanie and Matthew have some projects going on...

including a teepee.

 Jennifer is seeing how far she can wiggle along the window ledge and stay up...it gets higher up as you head to the side!

going green

 The playroom greenhouse is doing well this spring! Following a hint from a landscaper friend, we started growing our seeds in...uh...February? A long time ago anyways. Maybe it was March. Well, they started out small...but now I can see why a few experienced gardeners asked me if I'd have enough room in my gardens. I thought...what's a few hundred seeds anyways? Not all of them are mine...all the kids have started seedlings too. Some of them have big plans! Hopefully we can find room for everything. :o

 I don't want to think about how much work it will be to harden these seedlings off in May, taking them all out for an airing every day. I guess it can count as the days exercise?

And outside in the garden the first flowers are up. Mike said these were weeds, but as they are in a garden surrounded by driveway, I thought they might not do any harm there. They are pretty, and they come up faster than the tulips!

mostly work

 Evelyn is doing her 'school'. She likes the status of being a student, and won't let me forget her, if she thinks it's her school day!

 Jennifer is really growing up! She can work really hard (when she wants) and here she is taking care of her weekly garbage chore of emptying all the garbage cans in the house (except the kitchen) and the recycling bin in the school room.

 Both Matthew and Daniel have moved on to reading chapter books. It's much funner to read when the stories are twice as exciting! Not that reading was boring before, but it certainly gets better!

 But Melanie would disagree, and say that it doesn't get better all the time. Sometimes it is just plain boring, especially if it is a school book that isn't in her category of "interesting".

 But she and Nathan are both working hard at their school, and because we have skipped spring break, cut a few corners off (just little ones, mind you) and because we are making the load 1/3 bigger for the last month and a half, we will be done (hopefully!) school in less than a month.

Don't tell them they will be doing Math over summer though, and will be expected to keep up some reading at least! Shh! We do plan to do lots of fun things over the summer, and LOTS of gardening! I plan on lots of gardening, anyways. Maybe they just plan on a little. Who knows...if nobody is too bored over the extended summer, we may consider this as a worthwhile new tradition. ;)

mostly fun

 Evelyn got tired of waiting for me to fill up the flour bin, so she set up a little fort by the oven where she basked in the warmth.

 Books, books. Reading is funner than brushing hair. ;)

 Jennifer loves cutting up veggies!

 And Jennifer likes to draw. I wrote the name, and she did the caricature.

Doesn't the drawing look like the real thing? She even has a shirt underneath her sweater with a flower on it!

mostly school

I've been so "busy" that I haven't spent a lot of time with Evelyn. Not quality time anyways. So, we played a game together just because! 

 I got a roll of paper from Ikea so that Jennifer and Evelyn would have something to do during school. They enjoyed having such big drawing surfaces!

 While the girls are busy and "quiet" Matthew is working on finding some adjectives that start with D and Daniel is working on reading a chapter.

 Instead of helping them out...they seem to be doing okay, I go off and see if Melanie is working. She has been banned from the school room and has a desk all set up for herself...then her only excuse for getting distracted is herself. It seems to help! Usually.

 Nathan sneaks off to the library to have some quiet when he needs to do some reading for school. Enter with caution!