Year 2, Day 115: As Normal as Normal Gets

Yup, it was one of those fairly straight forward Mondays and Tuesdays over here.  Co op, exhaustion, work on homework, pack boxes, but we did manage to get outside today, too!  The kids needed some pushing after being on vacation, but that's normal.  I needed a little push, too.  Tomorrow we visit the Dallara Indy Car Factory and kick start Race Month aka May for the rest of you non Indianapolis peeps! I'm much more excited than the kids, but that's fine.  I do plenty of things that aren't as excited for me but they love to do.  I plan to do a couple of other things at the IMS (Indianapolis Motor Speeday, again, for those that live far away and don't know what we "locals" know.  I had no clue about this race until I moved here, so there ya go.) this next month, even while we are busy with everything else.  It's important to know about your hometown - especially the one you were born in!

Anyway, pictures.

Just brother sharing a banana - don't all brother do that every day?

On Monday at co op, I taught a bit about recycling and repurposing just like Mary Anne the Steam Shovel was repurposed after she dug the new town hall's basement into their new furnance in Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel.  So, I brought in my big bucket of odds and ends and let the littles go to town.  They oohed and ahhed and had fun!  No specific plan, just dig in!

Ta-da!  I lined everything up!

My idea, but Abishai loved having the chairs together for a power nap.

Fairy table and chair.

Our self declared builder of the group came late to class, but still made this contraption!  I think part of it is a rocket ship!  Maybe it's a lunar base?

After our math work was done, the middles had fun with these magnetic geometric shapes.  Actually, this little lady forgot her math book so it was her only math topic of the day.

These magnetic shapes are actually pretty strong!  HUGE building, and I think the student had to figure out that the middle needed support beams, so she put them in there, to.

Always the doll house.

Last touches, but Justin accidentally knocked it down!  She was not pleased.

First ice cream truck of the season!

Justin has a book of 365 Lego ideas - and not themed ideas, just random things.  One of them was this candy dispenser type thing.  Push the drawer in and a tiny lego brick falls into the bucket.

Then you can pull it out!

Jell-O Easter eggs!  The white speckled stuff is from the cooking spray I use.

Beautiful night for a trip to the playground!  And Keturah's outfit MATCHES the playground colors!

Taking a rest

She's getting so big and so good on those skates!

The water sprinkler area makes a good place for bikes, inline skates, and drawing with chalk!  The water is on usually from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Justin attempted to climb up to the bar.

He was unsuccessful.

Keturah however is a pro.

Look, Ma!  No hands!

Justin can do the swinging monkey bars.

Wow, she's crazy talented!  Thankfully, here shirt did not go up further and she tucked in before she went upside down again.

Always climbing.

Getting so big in the swing with Daddy!

Fun for about two minutes!  He's just two active to sit in a swing right now.  He also does NOT like slides!  He's scared of them for some reason.  He used to LOVE them!

Abishai attempted to push the merry go round, which is extremely difficult and gets harder to push everytime we're on it.

It's big enough for the big kids!

Daddy managed to get him to actually sit on the merry go round!

While Daddy pushed, Keturah hung upside down the whole time and didn't get sick or dizzy!

Gorgeous natural light tonight!  I got camera happy!  Check out Mr. Dimple!

The gymnast.

Abishai spent a great deal of time riding his bike around, super fast!

We let him decide where to go, and he saw that he was coming up close to the road and turned around without us saying anything!  Also, when two ladies were walking up the path, he got over almost into the grass to let them pass.  He's been doing that when we've been walking on the road in front of our house.  He'll hear a car or me telling him there's a car, and he'll try to drive his bike up onto the grass.

Justin is into climbing trees again!  I bet he misses the one at the Cornwall Christian Church.  And no, you don't need a helmet to climb a tree.  He was riding a scooter before he climbed.

Have boy equals have sticks.  And he was trying to write with it!

Oh my goodness!  A city bus!  Up close and personal, check it out!  Abishai heard the air brake go off, too, so now, when you ask him what sound a bus makes he'll go "swish" instead of the sound he makes for a diesel engine.  That kid has more sounds than I have ever known a kid to have.  He has listened well to Daddy's abilities to make 1,000's of different sounds.  And I'm talking about sounds, NOT words!

The kids often climb on the rails when they wait for us to catch up so we can unlock the door to let them in our building.  But, it won't be our building anymore!

This was a fun surprise! I opened up a bag of "steam in the bag" mixed veggies and found this on top!  I think it's a thistle!  And now it's a cooked thistle!  So, I turned it into a learning experience.  And I took a bunch of pictures to share with our botany teacher and the kids at co op.

At least we know our veggies are real!

The inside of a cooked thistle.  There's about 3 or 4 white seeds per section of the thistle.  Cool!

Yup, pollen count is high.  Our noses know it!

And this has been our average high temperature lately.  We had a couple of days in the 50's, but I think the 70's are here to stay now.  I fluctuate between putting the heat on at night to the a/c on during the day.

Abishai had to stay with us through lunch at co op on Monday because Grandma was sick.  So, he enjoyed some extra playtime with all his friends.  He is very inclusive and tried to get the little ones to play with him, very lovingly and tenderly.  Then Daddy took him home for his nap.  

For once, I came back with a witty comment.  It's been a rough week of getting back into the groove after vacation.  "Princess of the North thinks she's royalty!" "Princessistis - frustrating for the queen Mom though."

"Let's play Cinderella!"

Giraffe Cam!  No, I haven't been glued to my screen with this whole "Watch a pregnant giraffe for over a month until she gives birth LIVE" craze.  But, I have enjoyed checking in and realizing that sometimes the most simple things are the most pleasant.  April the Giraffe had a baby boy claf about a week ago and they are now only live streaming about 4 hours of them 1 time a week.  It's at a place called Animal Adventure Park in Pennsylvania and they are like a zoo, but they take in a lot of rescued animals as well, like when law official take a baby alligator away from someone because it's illegal to own one.  The park didn't know that this would go viral and have had many hiccups along the way, but it's also been a good learning experience for many in the world.  Just the simple, humble, elegant giraffe that God created.  The daddy giraffe is in the other pen and his name is Oliver.  And when the weather is nice, the giraffes do have a very large paddock they can play in together.  Anyway, Abishai did watch for a moment, but it was close to bedtime and he was stir crazy and walked away shortly after this picture.  P.S. Abishai also hates baths right now.  Kids are so fickle in their likes/dislikes!

Phew, now I'm caught up until tonight (I'm posting this a day late), when I will have pictures from today's field trip to share!