TreasuresInTerraCotta

We saw this Rainbow Checkerboard Cake video several months ago and Calvin was intrigued.  He ended up adding it to our Summer Fun Ideas List and this week we made it happen.  This was not quite a Pinterest Fail, but if you look at the video you will see how far from the original creation our cake actually was.    One cake mix was divided into pink and yellow.  One cake mix we made into blue and green.     Lots of boys.  Lots of help.  Lots of hand washing.    We cut the center out of each one and rearranged the colors.    And stacked them all together.  If we had waited until the cakes were completely cool, or even par-froze the layers they would have stacked more easily without cracking. I was running low on frosting and patience and endurace, so the end product left a lot to be desired. But, remember the boys up there?  They didn't care!  They oohed-and...

We finally finished up our school work during the week of Memorial Day.  The boys were so excited to finally be on Summer Break like everyone else.  But at 7:50AM on Monday, June 1 I actually heard the words, "I'm bored."  *Deep Breath*  Fortunately, after that they kids found plenty to occupy their time and we hardly even left the neighborhood.   Our first week of Summer Break ended up gloriously uneventful and I only heard "I'm bored" once or twice a day.  We stayed at home a lot, made lots of messes, and got to know the neighborhood kids better.  We had to buy some walkie-talkies, replace a bicycle pedal, and get a case of Gatorade for the kids.  Here's what we were up to! Legos.  Blankets make clean up ten times easier!  Star Wars Lego building. Riding Bikes with the boys in the neighborhood!  (Not all of them are in the picture!)    What the driveway looks like some da...

Time speeds past and the longer it goes since I've written anything, the harder it is to get back to it!  The writing and journaling and blogging and photographing have never been all that easy.  Except for taking pictures, the rest has gone untouched for months...yes, I know, months!! I have nothing profound to say, but here are a few pictures of what we've been up to.  We have some new neighbors we've known since Calvin and Luke were babies together in the church nursery.  Put our two families together and the sheer volume of boys creates its own gravitational pull and suddenly there are ten kids riding bikes and scooters and anything with wheels.  We've had a lot of evenings like this in the neighborhood.  The boys had money burning a hole in their pocket so we continue to add to the Lego collection. The Legos may or may not have taken over the house. We still have the Foster Girl.  Sh...

Why is all the junk from the yard piled up in the corner? We're making a fort! Whittling bars of soap.  I need to start buying Ivory by the case.  Moving dirt from here to there.  Have I mentioned that landscaping is highly overrated? Bread making courtesy of Grandpa.  Sitting in the yard with the not-so-baby on my lap... Taking pictures of flowers up close. 

A post on January 1st and here it is February 28th.  I think, perhaps, I am not a blogger at heart.   In my defense, I have four posts in my draft folder (some of which are now irrelevant), I spent some time writing a short devotional for a mission trip, and I am ever aware how the computer is a colossal time-sucker.  Never-the-less, I can not possibly let the calendar flip to March without posting something here in the blog world. People sometimes ask how we "do" school, what I do with the little one while the others are working, where we do our work, and on-and-on.  Many of our 2014 photos seem to chronicle some of the answers to those questions.  So here are a few homeschool snap-shots from January and February. Calvin is learning and practicing cursive. Andrew is learning to read and follow instructions.  Truman occupies himself with Lego trucks.   Calvin scratches his head about math.  Andrew plays dinosaur go-fish....