Ottumwa Visit: June 7-9

 We had a wonderful visit in Ottumwa with family! The kids had a great time running around with cousins and being silly. They played in a little pool, made tie-dye clothing, watched movies, caught toads, and played with all the cats!

Olivia, Riley, Liam, Nora, August, and Vader in the Front. Vader did not have a tie-dye shirt!

 

 

It took Stacy and I way longer than we expected to get the clothes twisted into the patterns for each kid. The kids had a great time picking colors to put on the designs they picked and they were so excited to see how the clothes turned out! Everyone had such a great time that Stacy and I decided to do it again next year and we also decided we were going to twist and rubber band the projects the night before so that we could get started right away in the morning before kids get tired. It was in the 90's the entire visit and the heat make everyone tired more quickly.

 

We ran out of dye and had to start again on a few of Riley's shirts.

 

 

Stacy's flowers were gorgeous!

Bumblebees are cute!

The girls are just enjoying the space and running around with Vader.

More flowers!

 

Aunt Diane and Mom together!

Liam and August spent a lot of time building a fort.

The Last Day of Homeschool

 We had a wonderful first year of homeschooling! I enjoyed learning alongside the kids and watching their confidence grow as they mastered skills or learned something new that amazed them.  Riley has finished 3rd grade and is now a 4th grader and August has finished Kindergarten and is now a 1st grader. Nora followed along with most things that the other kids were learning and has been learning to read with August. She will be a preschooler next year. We loved our language arts books so much and everyone looked forward to reading them before bed! Science was also a favorite! We managed to stay on track this year and had a nice slow last week. The kids are excited to spend time with family and enjoy the summer.

After finishing a book we like to do things that are related to the book. After The Secret Garden we had a movie marathon and watched the 1993 and 2020 films. The kids enjoyed discussing how they were similar or things that they loved in the book and really missed seeing in the movie version. We watched one movie in the morning then took a break to go to the farmers market, try out a new book store, and visit a petting zoo. Then we watched the other one. It was too nice of a day to spend it all watching movies!

Then on another day we had a picnic out in the garden and we served currant buns and milk just like in the book. It was Riley's idea! Riley picked a location near the deck so it would feel like there were garden walls around us just like in the book. She loved the part in the book where the children are not eating up at the house but the are eating in secret in  the garden and the Dr cannot figure out how the children are growing and getting stronger. She also loved the chapter written from the perspective of the pair of robins, their observations made her laugh so hard! 

Nora helped to make the currant buns

Gluten free currant buns

Riley is serving the buns

Nora has been drawing a lot lately and has really been having fun with her chalk creations. She kept asking me to take pictures of them!

 

Last Day of School Photos! June 4th

It was way too bright in the front so we relocated to the backyard and the lighting was so much better!

It was way too sunny but Nora didn't want to join us in the back