When We Are In the House...

With the weather like it is now, we barely see the inside of our house (although I have to be in the kitchen more frequently than I like).  When we are inside, this is a bit of what's been going on...


** The kids invented a chess game with their pipe cleaner hermit crabs.  This started out well, but became too hard for a lot of reasons and they moved on to real chess.

These lime green outfits are their favorites so get used to seeing them.

** Book towers are much easier to build than card towers, right?  Evan took about a dozen pictures of this when he finished because he was so proud of it.  A pretty good accomplishment for 7:30am.

** The "Pigeon" series books are Chloe's favorites.  She has all but two of them memorized (those two being the 'least funny' in her opinion).  This stack of books goes everywhere with her.  She draws her own version of the pages constantly too.  When we lay together cuddling in her bed at night she recites them to me from memory and we laugh so hard. 

** Chloe took this picture of her gemstone flowers but I will use it to showcase Evan's lego creations in the background.  He has had Lego boxes on his lap for weeks on end!  Building, imagining, demo, building again, modifying.... and on it goes. There are cars everywhere!

** Chinese checkers has been our favorite game lately, for indoors or out, and when we aren't playing the game, the kids are using the pretty marbles to configure these very pretty pyramids.  Evan took this picture at 6:45am after building this.  (Do your kids sleep in?  Ours don't.)

** It seems that at every meal we are jumping up to spy on the bird families in the yard that we love.  This spring there has been a robin and his/her three fledglings entertaining us.  We've seen them go from helpless little learners to birds that are almost ready to be on their own as of this morning.  This sort of observing is so powerful in education.  We will never forget all we've learned here :-)

Of course there is more that never gets photographed.....

* The many baths the kids take together (still!) playing with plastic sharks.
* Bedtime reading of the Wizard of Oz (for the third time in a row) snuggled up on my bed with cups of warm milk.
* Chloe tucked in a corner perfecting her new skills at realistic horse drawing (all on her own!)
* Weekend mornings with Todd on the couch wrestling, tickling and laughing with the kids.
* The time spent making clay accessories for the set-up that's been on the kids' bedroom floor for months (yes, it is covered with dust; no, they do not care).
* Kids climbing on my back, my front, my arms and anywhere else they can find to be attached to me.
* The thousands of snuggles and kisses Chloe gives Todd every day of his life.
* Evan having 'alone time' on his bunk bed with a book and a cat cuddling beside him.

..... all those special moments that are in my heart instead.