Bright Stripes

In this gray-green muddy-ish season we call spring, Chloe in her rainbow glory stands out like the prettiest flower garden of summer.  Her crazy clashing outfits spread cheer everywhere she goes. Don't you feel like smiling?

Return of the Sun

Folks, the thermometer passed the 60 degree mark yesterday -- hallelujah!  For the first time since October! Naturally the kids believed the appropriate attire was full-on summer uniform:  shorts, tees and bare feet.

The yard was long overdue for a clean-up so the kids did some work too. But not before they each claimed a garbage can and rolled all over the yard inside one first.  Priorities.

After not getting out much at all this winter, spending nearly the entire day outside felt so right.  So completely, perfectly right.  And warm.....

Books Galore

We don't have a television in our living room.  We do have a big screen in our basement room but no cable or antenna hooked up to it.  We watch approximately one movie a month.

So what is all our furniture pointed at?
What do we do for entertainment?

We read books!  Real books, not words on a screen device; actual paper!

But seriously, we really love to read, and our bookshelves are overflowing.  This frigid winter could not have been endured without these lovely treasures to escape into.

Every time I walk into the library and my sweet friends there pull 35 books from the holding shelves for me, I laugh right along with them. We are crazy!  We haul them all home and go back for more next week.  And again the next week.  And again....

We read constantly and talk about what we read to each other all  throughout the day.  As we wait impatiently for winter to end, we find ourselves hauling a pile outside when it's 45 degrees just for the change of scenery.  (Besides the ground is so swampy you actually sink about an inch down with every step so playing out there is challenging.  Also it is only 45 for about 3 hours and then it's back to 10, so we take it.)

We can't live without books.

In case you were interested, here are our favorite picture books so far this winter:

Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea
One Kitten for Kim  by Adelaide Hall
11 Experiments That Failed by Jenny Offil
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett
Captain Cat by Inga Moore
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (audio book) by Barbara Shook Hazen
That Is NOT a Good Idea! by Mo Willems
Bubble Trouble by Margaret Mahy
The Beaver Pond by Alvin Tresselt
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen
Chester's Way by Kevin Henkes
The Fool of the World and His Flying Ship by Uri Shulevitz
Outfoxed by Mike Twohy


And some of the chapter books we have read aloud since Christmas:

Misty of Chincoteague
Pippi Longstocking
The Trumpet of the Swan
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Star Wars novelizations
Stuart Little
The River Bank (abridged and illustrated version of Wind in the Willows)


We also dig through piles of mediocre books that just don't make the cut which really helps all of us refine the styles and stories we prefer.  (There are so many terrible books out there!)  Chloe has taken to memorizing and reciting stories she loves, as well as imitating the illustrations in her daily art.  Evan has gotten really good at recognizing different authors and illustrators as go through half a dozen by the same person.  He is also incredibly gifted at being able to recite entire passages from stories he hasn't heard in years.  This depth of creativity comes from a love of books!

Also, I didn't even include here all the titles I read for myself or all the non-fiction books we learn from and look at together... poetry, nature study, history, the Bible....  It never ends!

Needless to say we really don't miss the television at all.  We'll take books.

We'll also take spring.

Action Figures and Horses

Evan and Chloe have always found ways to integrate what they love into a shared set-up and playtime.  The Star Wars stuff is comfortably mingled with Chloe's animal menagerie on a regular basis.  Just recently they added a new feature that just cracked me up when I saw it.  Rearing stallions with light sabers (made of pipe cleaners) attached to their legs... dueling with each other!  Click the photo to enlarge it.

Not the best picture of Chloe but this is about the toys anyway.

Another corner of the set-up looks like this:

So many details that all mean something to them.  Clay jeeps in the attic, the dog house packed full (looks like they are cohabiting with the rabbit family), the crab hotel on the roof, the pegasus stallions' hoarded collection of treasures, R2D2 in a glass dish, the two tigers roaming freely..... Maybe it's only cute to me, but I just love how they play :-)

Basketweaving

Something new to do with pipe cleaners!  

These two have made every conceivable creature out of pipe cleaners and a few random things like Wall-E too.  It was time for a new idea.  Chloe was having no luck trying to form a basket in the same mish-mash way they had made hermit crab shells and she needed help.  So we sat down together and figured this little invention out ourselves.  The pink ones are the test models (since nobody in this house likes pink).  Once they had the hang of it they made more colorful ones.  Three each, with handles too.   Right now they are stuffed full with pipe cleaner cockroaches and seahorses.  I think that makes them very useful indeed.

Mud Season

Look how deep that is!

Laughing at the squelchy sounds his boots make :-)

It's that time of year again..... 

and our backyard may not recover this time. 

A Few Videos

Long overdue.... here are some recent videos of the kids.



Loud Playtime from Bree Monde on Vimeo.

Flying Dinos from Bree Monde on Vimeo.