Field Trip!

Wednesday's field trip combined elements of chemistry, horticulture, history, and drinkin'. In other words, a trip to the Napa valley. Here's Sadie:



We met the faculty and students from King Alfred Academy at our first stop, Dutch Henry Winery, where we ate a picnic lunch and covered subjects like: European culture (there was a bocce ball court), gastronomic efficiency (all kids needed to eat faster) and veterinary medicine (dogs shouldn't be fed pretzels). The dog who was the subject of our lesson was one of a pair of dogs that belonged to the winery. This one seemed drawn to our table in a way that its pal was not. I later discovered, upon reading its name tag, that it may have had to do with the fact that we kept calling it. Here's Sadie:



A quick shot of the tasting room. The shot I wish I had snapped was the one showing the expressions of the two young women who walked into the tasting room a few minutes later to find 5 extremely unsocialized children under the age of 10 wandering around the kegs at noon on a Wednesday in March. But I was too busy trying to assure the women that the children were friendly and wouldn't bite...unless instructed.



We then moved on to the Frank Family Winery where the fella manning the tasting room was very vocal in his astonishment at seeing the Von Trapp Family showing up for a tasting. "What's this?" he boomed nervously, "Wine tasting nursery school? Are those kids gonna be all right out there unattended?" The kids were about 7 feet away from us on the porch. I can understand his concern. They did look menacing:



We assured him that they were all wearing electric shock collars that could activated by a push of a button on our watches. And then had a taste of this red champagne:



This winery also came with a friendly dog (that mercifully did not share a name with any of my children but my sympathies to Sarah Palin) so while the kids played slobber ball with Bristol the dads did more tasting and the moms wandered around taking pictures of flowers.





Our next stop was to Mumm Winery where we went on a tour to learn how champagne is made. The tour guide warned us that if our kids even looked at him funny we would be locked in the dungeon and fed nothing but stale bread, aerosol "cheese" and Blue Nun for a whole week.





After we'd successfully finished the tour without losing any of our children to Oompa Loompas or rivers of chocolate we walked through a corridor lined with photography from the Annual Mustard Festival. That's when we ran into this guy :



We noticed that for a mere $300 that photo could be ours. So we all pooled our money and then set every dollar of it on fire instead. Unfortunately, it was a Spare the Air day so we had to pay a hefty fine. Still, totally worth it.

On the way out I stopped to take a picture of a pair of lovebirds:



The kids stopped on the patio to check out the tasting menu:



"What looks good to you?"
"I don't care, you order. As long as its not Merlot. I'm not drinking any Merlot."

Our next stop was St. Clement:



Clement is French for, "We dare you to climb this hill after you've had five glasses of wine." Fortunately, none of us had had anywhere near that much wine and we all made it up there just fine. We grabbed a bottle of red wine, a picnic table and this view:



We broke out a snack of cheese and bread and other assorted yummy and let the kids run around the lawn. Eventually, the moms wandered off to take pictures:





We took a quick walk through town that started with Brittney and Zelda getting tossed out of a used bookstore. Then off to dinner.











If it looks like we had a good time, well, that's just an illusion, Michael. We had a GREAT time.

Take a Hike

At Wilder Ranch State Park.

I almost didn't because I got lost and showed up 30 minutes late. Fortunately, my most kind Brownies troop waited for us to arrive. Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you. It was terribly disappointing when we thought we had arrived so late that we missed the hike, especially after the crazy drive.

Crazy because it was over a winding mountain where everyone was going 20 miles over the posted speed limit. I grew up in a flat place where the roads were laid out on a grid. I don't do curvy driving. I'm a right angle kind of girl. The things we do for our children.

Was it worth it? And then some. It was a perfect day and we saw so many amazing things. Click on any photo to enlarge.



We started by petting some (huge) horses. Well, some of us just hung back and watched (yup, that one's mine).

And we're off:




The girls rest among the forget-me-nots under a gnarled redwood tree and fill in their scavenger hunt sheet:



Here's where some of us started to feel the burn. No, I'm not resting, I'm, um, taking pictures:



Resting at the peak:



But what are we looking at? This ocean:



Heading back down we stopped to watch and listen to red-winged blackbirds. Can you see him?



One more shot?

Taking a Week Off

I hadn't planned to take the week off even though I had considered it for a brief shining moment. We already had plans in place to take Wednesday off for an, ahem, educational trip to the Napa Valley. (Gotta learn to drink some time).

And Monday was going to be a short day due to a Brownies hike in the afternoon. AND I really needed some time to get ready for a visit from my in-laws AND I've been haunted by the specter of Spring Cleaning.

But I persevered and decided to get the week done around our other events. Then we ended up heading out to the emergency room on Sunday night while I was in the throes of organizing the weekly binder and the bulletin board. Seems that a certain 4-year old girl was picking almonds off of the tree when some debris fell into her eye and then rolled way down while I was looking at it. Panic ensued, though I hope I kept it largely internal.

It was a long wait for a three-minute fix involving drops and long handled cotton swab. A wait during which we barked at several people to please get this thing out of her eye before it scratched her cornea. Still nothing compared to the 16- and 17-hour waits just to see the triage nurse like in some socialized medicine countries. We saw the triage nurse within 20 minutes and were sent home after 3 hours.

But getting home well after 9:00 to a schoolroom that was a good hour from being really set up and a binder that would take about another half-hour, and with the spring cleaning beckoning...I made an executive decision and declared the week officially off.

We'll have to make it up come June but that's June's problem.

Week in Review

For the last year and a half I have stuck to a 4-day school week which seemed like a wonderful deal for everyone. The kids got three free days and I would have an extra day for cleaning and lesson planning. The results were four days that ran longer than any of us really loved and one day spent recovering and not getting much of anything accomplished because, you know, I had EARNED that day off.

That attitude, however, runs in direct opposition to my broader philosophies about what it means to earn something. Never mind the more pragmatic consequences. I am officially declaring my 4-day school week a failure and moving to a 5-day school week that I hope will result in 4 somewhat shorter days and one half-day. My intention is to do our second history day on Friday which will hopefully incorporate the project. Eleanor's writing project will now have an extra day. That's all I've worked out so far.

I'm dismayed by our lack of read-aloud time this year. I have not done a read-aloud that was not attached to nature study or history or geography since before Christmas. Bleargh. Rick reads to them at night and we've listened to almost the entire Little House series on CD (we are listening to Farmer Boy now and will not be listening to The First Four Years) and, like I said, I've read many things tied to our other lessons so literature has happened but, I like a stand-alone read aloud time and I've let that slide.

This week we tackled the Crusades. I had intended to read Diane Stanley's Saladin but was troubled by the tone so I set it aside until I can do more research. The Story of the World says that the Crusades were instigated in part by the Christian's and Jew's lack of access to Jerusalem. Saladin makes no mention of this and in fact, seems to suggest that Christians were just thirsty for blood and land. I don't have a dog in this particular fight except my grudge against modern interpretations (based on feeling, political correctness and anti-establishment sentiment rather than scholarly analysis) of history so I will need to do more research before deciding whether or not I want to to read this book. Based on Amazon reviews I'm leaning toward "Not".

I actually purchased a lot of Stanley's books (with the recommendation of the WTM, oddly enough) and now I'll have to give them more scrutiny.

We did read a great picture book version of Chanticleer and the Fox and Eleanor read a cute version of The Canterbury Tales, both of which I'll put in my sidebar.

We looked at three very cute members of the warbler family: the Common Yellow Throat, the Yellow-Breasted Chat and the Black and White Warbler. We colored and then read about lupines in two very enjoyable books: Miss Rumphius and Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers. Neither to be missed as the illustrations are gorgeous in both.

Our state's study took us to North Dakota and Minnesota. We listened to Red River Valley and I have yet to read to them about Paul Bunyon but will do so this weekend. The states study has been an excellent means of introducing lots of great songs and stories of America. I'm glad I ditched a more formal science in favor of geography this year. It has also allowed us to expand our nature study as we've touched upon the various state birds and flowers.

Eleanor finished her writing project which was a rewrite of Robin Hood from James Baldwin. We talked a lot about stealing from the rich to give to the poor and about how stealing is wrong no matter who benefits and who loses. A very important lesson at any time but in particular at this time in history where moral relativism reigns.

Eleanor finished Spelling Workout D and has started book E. In Latin we have switched from the classical pronunciation to the ecclesiastical. There were any number of reasons for doing it but it was no small matter that we both realized we just like it better. The switch is so simple that its really easy enough to learn both.

Susannah continues to learn her letter sounds. We made it through "R" this week. I was hoping to get further. Its been more challenging to integrate her into our day than I imagined and I imagined it as pretty challenging.

Henry has worked through letter "R" in cursive. He's doing really well and loves it. I think its actually easier for him than printing. He is very close to finishing the Thornton Burgess animal series.

My own lessons wobble along. I'm part of a Henle Latin study group and I'm really enjoying it. I trucked along for the first 18 exercises and then did a huge face-plant on lesson 19. The first lesson being: first know that you don't know squat. My Well-Educated Mind directed reading of Don Quixote has been equally fun and hey, who knew DQ was a FUNNY book? My economics reading fell a bit behind and then I got a little hung up on Sowell's arguments against labor unions. Still working through that. This week was Spring Break (woo hoo!) from my Renaissance class but its back to the grind next week.

Don't forget to check out the blogs in my sidebar and if you stop by and have a blog of your own please leave a link so I can check it out!

Week in Review

Another short week has left us a little off of our home school game as far as lessons are concerned. That's okay. We had a good reason for the slacking. Our resident baby turned 4 on St. Patrick's Day!



So on Tuesday, we headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium by way of celebration. A good time was had by all:



We did manage to get all our core subjects complete and did geography. We still have not picked up with history and we did not do our nature studies.

We also did: piano, dance, Brownies, and swim. We also had a bonus day where we met with the good people at King Alfred Academy for food and fun! Thanks, Guys!

All in all, a productive week. I'll take it.

Week in Review: The Rest

The rest of the week hopped along pleasantly enough until Sadie got sick. That slowed us down but thankfully she rebounded by Friday.

Last week I recounted our experiences with origami. This week's project was making a coat of arms. We read about heraldry and then the kids designed their coat of arms on paper before creating them. It should be noted that the designs were colored in and not drawn by hand (click to enlarge):





We talked about Missouri and Kansas. Did a bunch of grammar and math and spelling and writing. Studied the American Redstart, Yellow Warbler and the daffodil.

We also had: park day, swim, piano, dance and OT.

Here's to another great (but short) week.

Week in Review: Monday

This week was truncated due to a Brownie's hike. Eleanor and I piled into the car Monday morning and headed to the San Mateo area. It was brisk to start but warmed up nicely.

Here's a wood rat's nest:



Some Scouts:



A trail:



Giant trillium:



The trip down:

Did You Hear That?

That's the sound of me putting the brakes on my ideas about what it means to be educated and preparing to take this train back to the station.



Reading Dr. Andrew Campbell's excellent book on the heels of, "Climbing Parnassus", has had serious implications for me and for our little school.

If you are a parent these books should be of interest to you even if you don't home school and never have any intention of doing so. I remember back when we were educating our children conventionally I never considered reading books about education. I dropped my kids off at school and picked them up. I looked over the papers that came home and helped them with their homework. I gossiped with other moms about teachers we liked and didn't like. I grumbled about subjects I thought were poorly taught or a waste of time.

What I didn't consider is: what should be taught, how it should be taught and when it should be taught. The most basic elements of education and I didn't even give it a glancing notice. And I wasn't alone. I've seen moms burn teachers in effigy over unfair snack policies or bathroom rules but I've never heard a public school mom complain about the curriculum being used. I can't say that I even knew what curriculum was being used or what was the overall philosophy of education at the level of the teacher, the school, the district or the state.

Looking back I can see how completely crazy and negligent it was to just trust that the school was getting it right. The way we mindlessly hand our children and their education over to the government is an indictment of big government and its effects upon us after generations of submitting to its judgment. We don't even know the questions we should be asking because that knowledge and that curiosity has been bred out of us. Today its education...tomorrow its everything else.

I once considered myself a fairly bright, moderately educated person. Today, I know better. Its a bitter pill to swallow but, as I am being constantly reminded on this new journey, knowing I know nothing puts me in league with Plato in at least one regard. Okay, only that one but still, it is a starting point.

Week in Review

The big question being, did we do history on Friday?

No, we didn't.

Yes, OT ran late. Yes, the kids took forever to clean up. Yes, we had to catch-up in other more important subjects first. But, its possible that it still could have been accomplished. I have all weekend to remedy this situation and we will try again next Friday.

We did manage to knock down one of the planned projects: origami. This tied into our study of medieval Japan. What did we learn? We are all terrible at origami and, what's further, none of us really cares. I may not be able to fold papers beautifully but I can make lots of snide remarks about how pointless a skill that is anyway. And now, so can my children. And according to the standards of our time, being snide about paper folding is no better or worse than being excellent at paper folding. Its just different.

I kid about spreading my message of origami-hate to the children. I kept most of the comments to myself.

Other unmet goals: Henry missed one day of cursive, Sadie missed one day of reading lesson, history reading did not get finished, spelling tests are pending, Eleanor needs to complete her writing lesson. Just like conventional schools, we sometimes get "homework".

We also did not make it to park-day but that was through no fault of ours. It was pouring. Based on the number of e-mails I received from people on the park-day list boasting about who showed up in spite of the weather, I now know that I live in an area where people are obsessively prideful about how much rain they are willing to endure for absolutely no compelling reason. I don't care. Turns out that I do know enough to come in out of the rain in spite of my parents' early concerns.

Eleanor had her last basketball game of the season this morning. As a parting gift she was presented with a medal. For showing up. That is everything that is wrong with our world right there. Participation gifts should not resemble those things we typically associate with achievement. A t-shirt is also an excellent way to say, "Good work and thanks for supporting the league." Pencils that say, "Shoot for the stars", or something equally stupid. Not medals. Not trophies.

More on this later.

Wordless Wednesday

Climbing Parnassus

If you have ever even considered thumbing through it...do. It has really helped firm up a lot of the half-gelled ideas I had about education. Particularly about what is real education and what is just job training. If you've ever read something written before 1930 and thought, like I have, "Ding dang, peoples used to be smart!", this book will tell you why they were. And why they aren't now. It will explain why you say things like, "I know what I want to say but I can't figger out how to say it." It will tell you why you sometimes get the kernel of an idea you know could be brilliant only to find that you've nowhere to plant it. It will illustrate why your brain doesn't seem to be functioning at the level you know - YOU KNOW - it should.

No, it isn't CO2 poisoning.

It isn't lead in your crock pot.

It isn't DDT.

It isn't low self-esteem.

Its your terrible education brought to you by the good folks at, "This is just as good as that."

Keep the tissue box handy because this one's a tear-jerker.

What's in Store

We're starting the week under the assumption that nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Some weeks we have special play dates or classes scheduled that wreak havoc on the schedule but so far, this is not one of them. So, we'll do the usual.

Eleanor:

• Math - Saxon 5/4 Lesson 66 - "Similar and Congruent Figures"
• Spelling - Spelling Workout D - Lesson 34
  
• Latin - Lesson 11 of Lively Latin Book 1.
• French - Last unit of Ecoutez, Parlez! Book 2.
• CW Aesop B - Its a writing project week for "Bruce and the Spider".
• FLL4 - I have liked this program but the format is starting to wear on me a little...I think we're switching to Rod and Staff next year...we'll have to switch to something b/c FLL ends here.
• Memory work - in addition to reviewing previously memorized items we will continue working on, "A Grammar Rhyme" and "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
• Extras - piano, ballet, tap, basketball, swim, Brownies.
  

Henry:

• Math - Saxon 2 - Lesson 83 - Differences of 1, 2 and 9.
• Spelling Workout B - Lesson 28
• Spanish - Escucha y hablemos! Book 1, unit 2.
• Writing With Ease - Week 23
• FLL 2 - Lesson 174
• Memory Work - previously memorized items and something new...TBD
• New American Cursive from Memoria Press- K, L, M, N
• Extras - swim, OT.
  

Susannah:

• Letter Uu
• Number 21
• Dog theme reading TBD
• Pentagon
• Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading
• Extras - ballet, swim.
  

Together:

• Bird identification: Whip-poor-will/Chuck-will's-widow/Nighthawk
• Flower identificaiton: lavender
• Geography: Arkansas and intro to the North Central Region
• History - getting caught up with reading and projects dealing with Vikings and with feudalism, knights and samurai. Bringing time lines up-to-date.
• Park day!
• Projects - origami, make your own coat of arms, build a castle.
  

Here's to a productive week!

Historically Speaking

I'm just going to jump right back in like I've been updating all along.

We've hit a snag in our history, and I'm not speaking about the current administration. I mean our history studies. We had been working at a good clip with Story of the World until about a month ago. I started to feel rushed through certain sections that I felt required more exploration if for no other reason than I wanted to explore them more. But, in order to finish the book by June I had to skip over projects I'd hoped to do.

Now, the projects probably could have been completed in a timely manner if I'd really made the effort. Many a Friday I have blown off the projects in favor of just letting all of us just horse around after completing the work portion of our light Friday schooling and after both swim lessons, OT and dance class which also make up our Friday routine.

But, I haven't put my shoulder to the wheel and so here I am. Dissatisfied with the results. Imagine that. My output reflects my input.

Now, I can either say, "I guess this history thing just isn't working for us. We need to do what's right for our family. I'm going to slow it down and do projects when everyone is really ready to enjoy it and not according to some arbitrary schedule that I set that for us back when I didn't realize how lazy I was going to be."

Or I could say, "I'm going to do what's right." Which is to stick the plan I made when I was in a more motivated frame of mind. No. Matter. What.

Or I could do what I think I'm going to do and both slow down the history AND stick to the skeleton of the plan I made when I was more motivated. That is, I'm going to start doing our Friday projects on Friday and spend extra days on the lands and eras that really pique our interest.

I don't want to decide that "what works for our family" is to blow stuff off without a better reason than slothfulness or lack of motivation.

But, if I've done all the work and decide to lengthen the time we spend on a lesson because we're enjoying it and not just because we fell behind...I can't see where that's a problem.

Dusting Off

Wow. Has it really been that long?

Teaching 3 different grades is, well, time consuming. And I had to decide if I wanted to teach or blog about teaching. And, to be completely forthright, I keep another blog (unrelated to home school topics) and that has received the bulk of my blogging time this year.

But, I would like to start updating again. Today's update will be adding links to other great home school blogs. Check them out!

Weekly Report

This is the end of our second week and I only hesitate to say it because I'm actually starting to write this on Tuesday, but, things are going very well.

Eleanor: Some big changes for Eleanor this year. Saxon 4/5 is a completely different format than the preceding levels. Fortunately, we seemed to have gotten the hang of the new format without much trouble. We're still reviewing and she seems to be recalling things well. No complaints here. We started Lively Latin this year and it is favorite curriculum for both of us so far. We switched from last year's French program to, "Ecoutez, Parlez", and its been a great move. Not only have we done French everyday but she asked to do French on Saturday (we didn't...long story). We're continuing with Spelling Workout, have moved to the next level of Classical Writing (Aesop B) and of First Language Lessons (FLL4).

Henry: He's in first grade now so we've added subjects. He's moved from Explode the Code to Spelling Workout. We've started a writing program, Writing with Ease (or Writing with Eeeeeee's, as the kids prefer to call it). He's moved on to Saxon Math 2 and First Language Lessons 2.

E & H combined: I have combined the two of them in science and history. We are using Story of the World 2 for medieval history and a hodge-podge for our science focus with is geography. This week's history lesson was the Celts. Geography was introducing some simple map concepts.

Eleanor's coloring page of Brigid:




Susannah: I started a preschool curriculum with Susannah this week. Its a very sweet, easy to implement curriculum that was brought to my attention at the WTM message boards. Its called, Letter of the Week: Preparatory Curriculum. On Monday we colored a picture of a cow and colored the word "cow". Then we put it on her poster. We read, "The Cow", by Robert Louis Stevenson and the book, "Kiss the Cow". On Tuesday, we colored a square and put it on the poster. We read our poem and we read, "The Cow That Went Oink". On Wednesday she colored the letter, "A", we learned, "Hey Diddle Diddle", read, "The Purple Cow" by Gelett Burgess and made a cow out of paper squares. On Thursday she colored the number "1", ate one Cheerio, put 1 sticker in her sticker book, sang, "Old MacDonald" and reviewed the week. We will read, "Click Clack Moo! Cows That Type".



Sadie's cow with coloring pages of Celtic clothing:



E, H & S combined: We're doing a "nature study". My version. It doesn't require us to go outside. We learn about a bird and a flower each week. As our geography unit progresses to covering the 50 states we will be learning about 2 birds and 2 flowers each week. The last 2 weeks have been house wren/dandelion and house sparrow/jack-in-the-pulpit. "The Burgess Bird Book" and "Bird Songs" are our 'spine' with additional reading from the library, like, "The Dandelion Seed", "Luba and the Wren", "House Sparrows Everywhere" and "Wildflowers". For flower inspiration I've used Mary Cicely Barker's "Flower Fairies" poems. Lots of coloring and looking for flowers and birds, WHEN WE ARE OUT without pressure to carve out time for it. I'm still hoping that will come.



Also with all of them combined we have turned Friday into our Art/Music day. This week we will learn about Celtic hand bells and I have a set of kids' hand bells for us to learn to play.

Extracurricular:

Last Monday we went to a "concert" for some homeschoolers given by Janet Sirret. She was great and there were only about 10 kids there so lots of opportunity to interact with her. The cd is a huge hit. Eleanor had piano and dance as usual. Henry had OT. Sadie had her first ballet class. We also went to home school park day one day each week. On Saturday night, Eleanor and I attended a lecture on the Crusades. This Saturday we will participate in the local Coastal Clean-Up.

Whew.

Great Moments in Home Schooling

Henry, on learning of something called a spiny-haired caterpillar:

"WHA WHA WHA WHA WHAT!!!! Why has no one told me of this sooner?!"

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Update

The summer hiatus is going really well. I had originally planned to school year round but I'm glad we took time off to enjoy the weather and just the general summer-ness of summer. In reality, we've only been completely lesson free for about 6 weeks but it feels like so much longer.

I've been updating this blog for the new school year which will start either the first or second week of September. I have enough lesson planning done to get us off to a good start. We haven't changed much curriculum but we have added some things. Henry will be in first grade so he has more subjects than he did last year. Eleanor is adding Latin. Susannah will begin a more formal preschool program.

Here is our overview for this year:

Henry

• Spelling Workout B
• First Language Lessons
  
• Writing With Ease
• Story of the World: Medieval History
  
• Geography
• Saxon 2

Eleanor

• Spelling Workout D
• First Language Lessons 4
• Classical Writing: Aesop B
• Story of the World: Medieval History
• Geography
• Saxon 5/4
• Ecoutez, Parlez!
• Lively Latin

This week we will be tying up loose ends from June. Eleanor has 2 math lessons to complete. Eleanor and Henry need to wrap up our space unit. We have some residual projects related to ancient history that I'd like to complete. Then, onward and upward.

One of my recent projects has been fully committing the old dining room to our schoolroom by losing the dark mustard color. Great for stimulating the appetite but dreary for lessons. I've also put up a permanent white board and added all sorts of posters and such. Here are the pics of what I've done so far:

We're Back

I haven't updated in ages. Personal stuff, involving a lot of doctors' appointments mostly. I had to triage my life and I ordered things in a way that meant this blog took a hit. With those issues resolved I can now move forward.

Our lessons and routine continued even though I didn't blog about it. We did, however, take a 2-week break that was much deserved all around. More on that later.

The question of when our school year will end has been batted around in my head a bit. I had considered schooling all year but decided against it for a couple of reasons. First, I took my daughter out of the public school where she had been accustomed to a summer break. She's been very happy to be home but I think it would be pushing it to tell her that as a result of my decision she was going to lose her summer break. Her best friends across the way are in school and will be off all summer and we would be able to hear them swimming and playing and summering away. Not to mention other friends who are more available in summer. Not to mention, I need a break.

We've made great progress in all subjects. Henry finished his grammar curriculum several weeks ago and I've been making things up for us to do since then. Eleanor has finished the main section of her grammar curriculum and we are working on the extras now. She finished her spelling book and we went ahead and moved on to the next one. History will be finished next week. We have effectively dropped French. We may pick it up once history is finished. We'll see.

We are in the middle of an astronomy unit that should be finished it about 6 weeks. We have a lot of math left. About 35 lessons. Things got a little off-track with curriculum jumping in math but no troubles. We will just continue to do math lessons until the book is finished but in a few weeks I think math will be one of the only things we do. I'm pleased with what we've accomplished in this year. It was challenging. Our first year of homeschool and a few twists and turns thrown at us for good measure. We've come out no worse for wear and learned some things along the way. For what more could we ask?

One of the projects I undertook during the break was to begin building a dollhouse with Eleanor. I bought the kit when she was three-months old and she's been asking about it periodicially since realizing that we had it. I wanted to wait long enough for her to participate and not so long that she'd be too old for it. Tricky. Here are some pictures of our progress.