Special Post

Eleanor and Claire performed at our homeschool group's Art Expo recently. This is their Irish dance routine.

Call Day #149, 2/13/16

Girls excited about a note and treat left by Daddy this morning before he went to work.

All three kids played together pretty well for a long while this morning. No school to do and nowhere to be is a pretty rare thing.

Oliver's first time at a movie theater. We went to see the Peanuts movie. He spent most of the movie standing, leaning on the seats in front of us.

Eleanor has been enjoying learning about presidents for a while now. Tonight she showed Nanny how many she can name from looking at their official presidential portraits.

Dinner table decorated for Valentine's Day.

Post-dinner Wii driving with Papa.

Call Day #148, 2/10/16

Oliver's birthday presents are still being enjoyed by all each morning.

Nanny took us all on a surprise drive this morning. We ended up at Fresh Market where the kids enjoyed looking over the candy.

Nanny told us that the winner of the contest the girls entered to design the reusable bags at Fresh Market has been decided.

Waiting to hear who the winner is...

Finding out that both of their drawings were judged as winners.

 Happy.

The store manager told them they could each pick out a bag of candy to celebrate. Holding hands to go try to decide what to pick.

So many choices!

Everyone chose some kind of jellybeans.

The winning drawings! Eleanor's is a photocopy because the original was sent on for judging at the national level. Their drawings were to show what they like most about Fresh Market. Eleanor's is barrels of taffy and Claire's is tomatoes, a mango, and an orchid. Both girls got Fresh Market gift cards as well.

Afterwards, we went to Pizza Hut. They have a reading incentive program that rewards the girls with a personal pizza each month if they meet a reading goal. This is our second time going, but it's already popular (and motivating reading!). This location isn't very busy so we got two booths near the tv. This time Eleanor decided to sit with the adults while Claire and Oliver sat in the booth behind us. Everyone enjoys getting to pick what's on tv since there's very few people there.

Engrossed in the Disney channel.

Sharing our pizza outing with Nanny.

The girls had ballet class this afternoon. They start out playing with hula hoops.

  

The waiting room space is very crowded so Oliver and I found a nearby bench. He enjoyed looking through some activity books Grandma and Grandpa gave him that make him think he's doing "sool" (school) like his big sisters.

Near the end of dance class, Oliver peeked in.

We went to Nanny and Papa's house for dinner and got to spend time with Mimi and Papa Jimmy.

We celebrated Oliver's and Papa's birthdays.

Oliver enjoyed opening more presents!

The girls practiced the Irish dance they're performing at a home school Art Expo tomorrow.

They also practiced signing "Silent Night," as they will be performing both pieces.

Chatting with Daddy who is so faithful to call every night he's working.

The birthday party was truly party-like at the end of the evening. Papa Jimmy's music had Nanny, Papa, and Eleanor dancing while Oliver pushed Mimi around the room!

Having a grand time.

Oliver had no problem rolling Mimi around. They were both loving it!

Call Day #147, 2/8/16

Built "a fort" this morning using the big box Grandpa and Grandma sent. Enjoying presents opened for Oliver's birthday yesterday. Claire building a nice farm while Oliver shoots foam balls. It was tough to get anyone to do school this morning as every toy had to be played with!

He figured out how to pull it hard enough. Now, where did all the balls go?

While waiting for a friend to arrive home, the kids enjoyed playing in her backyard. They were gathering berries to make "blueberry tea."

Lunch together before our science lesson.

We Skyped with Grandma and Grandpa as Oliver opened the box they sent for his birthday.

Eleanor likes to "help" with Oliver's gifts--she's eager to see them all too!

Claire and Oliver built these marble run structures.

Everyone loved this gift! 

Call Day #146, 2/4/16

Oliver's version of playing with a princess wagon: "Watch my can-a-pult." He had fun catapulting balls across the room.

Claire's current favorite books are from the Mercy Watson series. I can't believe this is the same girl who claimed to hate reading at the beginning of this school year.

My favorite part of school each day is this beauty cuddled up to me happily reading.

"What can I do for sool (school)?" Oliver matched colors while I finished school with the girls.

We went to a toy store to buys some birthday presents for Oliver. Oliver spent a good bit of time with this mini skee ball machine, shooting balls down the lane into the holes.

At nap time, Eleanor managed to spin her bed around by herself! She likes this set up where it blocks the window.

Pancakes for dinner was the apparent highlight of the day. When Daddy called to chat for a few minutes, everyone wanted to talk about dinner.

Call Day #145, 2/2/16

 Today we celebrated the "100th Day of School" for the year. Eleanor and Claire have enjoyed this the past few years, and it has become something they look forward to. My little secret is that we do it when I get around to it. We're probably closer to the 125th day of school. In any case, they strung 100 Fruit Loops while munching on some for breakfast. This took a while--maybe I should just keep string and cereal on hand and revisit this activity.

Oliver had trouble stringing his so Eleanor helped him.

Finished product. She tore off the tags separating each group of 10, wore it like a necklace, and ate it while doing our next activities.

This was a good opportunity to see how Claire is doing with numbers. I know she can count to 100, but wasn't sure how well she'd be able to fill in numbers since she sometimes switches the tens and ones digits. No problems today. Then, she did another written sheet showing she can count to 100 by 10s, 5s, and 2s.

They remember that in previous years we've done ten each of ten different exercises. They wanted to do that again and chose the exercises. Doing burpees.

The traditional 100 lunch. Ten each of ten different foods.

After choir, we had Nanny over for dinner. Eleanor shows off the newspaper she made. This is one of the many projects she comes up with and works on. It includes news about Carolina going to the Super Bowl and some of her favorite riddles/jokes.

Eleanor has been playing multiplication games on the computer. Claire and, especially, Oliver like to watch her play. Oliver has been asking when he can play math games himself.