Day 129, 130, 131, 132, 133 (Yikes!)

Monday was snowy yet again, but only resulted in a short delay in our getting to orchestra.  It was an all day affair, and while I was only able to get Luke to go by telling him he could stay in the car, he later came in for lunch, and did participate in the sectional. 
I've noticed that he's playing the keyboard a lot at home lately.  It seems to calm him down and he can regain himself if he has some time to play.  He's made up a couple of tunes, and I got a book from the library with simple songs for him to learn.  I started to go over one today with him, and it didn't take him long to change it to suit himself. 
In the course of this week (this being Friday), a lot of things have happened, and not happened.  We discovered a cool web site for coloring pages that are not the typical little-kid coloring pages at The Coloring Spot.  We found Stonehenge, and a Minotaur, and there were scads more of all sorts.  Very well done and fun to color!  We added the two to our history books (still going through the World History Encyclopedia) and I believe that was the day the math went away.
Wednesday it was supposed to snow.  Not a little snow, but Inches and Inches.  It snowed, yes.  It did not snow inches and inches, but it was too late to do anything.  Everything kept getting cancelled!  When I realized that math had disappeared, I got out workbooks we had gotten last summer, 4th grade math for the gifted student.  This went over surprisingly well.
We also continued our sleuthing with Science Sleuths, and had a murder over at Nana's house.

The Murder Scene

Emily diligently took pictures and we logged them, she labelled all the evidence, and drew a quick sketch of the scene.  It was pretty good. 
One of the other major events going on is that we have a sick rattie.  He's very old, so I'm not surprised, but it's hard all the same when you know they are hurting.  Emily is a very good nurse for poor Stormy.  He went to the vet, and the vet trimmed his teeth.  Seems like it would be a good idea, but now he cries whenever he eats.  Just got him some pain meds today, so hopefully he will feel a little better.  The vet thinks the problem is pneumonia, and we are sort of hoping so, since at least that would be treatable.  He's on antibiotics now, and I think he may be drinking less, which is good!  Meantime, Dusty had to come out of Emily's room as pneumonia is contagious to other rats (but not to people).  Dusty is now living on the floor in our kitchen.  Not the ideal place, even for a socially adept rat, which he is not.  He's a shy guy.  Maybe this experience will help him.  So, a very troubling week. 

Emily Feeding Stormy babyfood with medicine.

Can't ignore Dusty!  He gets to see some funny rat pictures online.

Oh, and I did find the math books.  They weren't under the bed or under the table or in the closet or in the garbage can outside or in a cabinet.  They were behind the couch.  I guess they don't like Saxon very much!


Day 128

Following should have been posted a WHILE ago!...

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, and my step-father being Irish makes this a big deal in our house.  Somehow it always takes me by surprise, but the kids get really into it.  This year, we started the day with cold cereal with green milk (ugh, not for me).

We printed some 'game' sheets out from DLTK and the kids worked on mazes, word ladders, and a word mining sheet that I later printed for the adults to do after dinner (How many words can you find in the letters of ST PATRICKS DAY?)

 The kids also decided that they should build leprechaun traps.  There are many styles and instructions for these traps, but I didn't get a chance to give any as they were off and running.



Even the Zhu Zhus were dressing for the day



Luke's trap: notice the reed pipes, the ladder, and the rainbow which is said to attract leprechauns



Caught some!  Luke brought us this centerpiece for the dinner table.  He looks a little wary, though!

  
 

Emily's is all gold to attract the wee fellows.

Day 126, 127

You learn something new every day.  At least, I do.  Recently, I learned that you can do paper mache with water and toilet paper.  Thanks to The Dapper Rat, we are now making a play house for the rats out of just those materials (on a balloon blown to appropriate--read: LARGE--size).  Right now it's hanging in my kitchen above the sink.  It's right in front of the window so it looks like some weird light or display.  I guess there are worse things.

Monday was Pi day.  3/14.  I guess to be technical, we should have took note of the time at 3pm, but we didn't.  We measured some things, and have a project in the works to make a graph, so that should be good.  Unfortunately, people were pretty sick in the house, so I guess we'll there's always next year for the big shindig.  Meantime, here's a hilarious debate at a college Pi Versus e.  DH and I just watched it tonight, so we're a little late, but better late than never!  My guess is that the kids wouldn't get and/or enjoy it yet.

 Meantime, we did watch some Brainpop movies and celebrated Ag Day (3/15, of course!) by eating pizza and visiting the Ag Day site.  Today we learned all about the American Chestnut.  I don't think I could identify it, but once pointed out, I could tell you a thing or two about it!  Like the fact that they nearly all died out within 50 years of an introduced blight.  Like the fact that there is ONE tree in Vermont that seems to be ok, and they are researching why.  Like the fact that chestnuts used to be so plentiful, and cutting all the trees only made it easier for the chestnuts to take over, until the blight.
We had discussions on what agriculture means, and watched a video on organic farming and what that means.
Don't think it's too late to celebrate.  Ag Day falls this year in Ag Week (how fortunate!) so we can celebrate all week long!  Order that pizza!  Talk about where the foods come from!  Eat! Eat! EAT!  :)

Day 123, 124, 125

Here's a group of days.  We did math, I cleaned, etc.  Friday we went to the Adam's Garden Show, which ended Sunday.  Every year they spruce up the greenhouse and transform it into a pretty garden area.     

Here, the kids are in front of the waterfall. 



If you are wondering why there is no picture of me, it's because my crazy husband wouldn't take a picture in Adam's.  Good grief.  :)

Saturday, we went to the falls at High Falls to see how they looked as it has been raining and flooding everywhere.  They were quite something, with a rainbow over them when we arrived.  The kids went with their dad to the water's edge, and managed to free a board that had gotten stuck on it's journey.

Later, we went to Woodstock and wandered the various stores, our only true goal the Tea Store.  It's a small store, but the kids liked looking around, and Emily especially liked seeing all the teas and getting to smell them.  We bought a few and have had a good time trying them.  We got Hot Cinnamon, Chocolate, and Dragon Pearl Jasmine. I had no idea that there were teas that you were supposed to brew twice!  I'd never seen hand-rolled tea.  A neat experience!

Day 122

Wednesday.  Our busy day.  Dance with Emily.  Luke was home with Dad, who was on spring break.  Then we were off for our day of Egypt at our friend's house with a couple of other people.  It turned out to be a nice event.  The host mom had set up a tent (hung from the ceiling), a palm tree (construction paper on a floor lamp) with many activities, food, and stories.  
This happening was thanks to Lego as we had ordered the educator magazines.  They were about Egypt, and full of some interesting ideas.  One we had done the week before, where the kids had to uncover various treasures brick by brick.  This week they built a maps of Egypt showing the river and the mountains including elevation.  They tried Baba Ganouj, dates, and several other foods.  There were many writing activities including a quiz! 
Honestly, I'm not sure if the kids learned a lot, but they had a good time, and tried some new things.  Then, it was on to Aikido.

Day 121

This was actually last Tuesday, but I thought I'd post about the days one at a time, or at least a couple at a time as I actually have some things to post about!
Last Tuesday was the day we went to the dentist in Poughkeepsie, about 45 minutes from our home.  (Yes there are closer dentists, but that's another story altogether!)  The kids were extraordinarily patient, and were rewarded with a trip to Boudoin Park.  We haven't been to a playground in quite a while, so it was fun for them to roam around and try things out since they have gotten bigger and stronger.

Day 119, 120

I'm counting Sunday this week as we did have a busy day.  We went to church in the am, then rushed home to eat lunch and get ready for the Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie.  It was an amazing show, and I highly recommend it, especially at the discounted group rate we were able to get.  Here is a Youtube video of them for a glimpse at what they're like.  It was much more interactive than I expected, and the kids took to it fairly well.  It was one of the most amusing and funny shows I've seen!  We of course finished the evening with dinner out.  Where?  Red Robin.  Most tasty!

Today we had orchestra, and we have two Bard students who tried their hands at conducting.  It was a strange feeling to have a conductor again!  Different and strange.  No one can be Janet, of course, but it was nice to have someone to follow.  I do feel bad for the one student as he seemed very nervous!  Hopefully we don't make him nervous for too long.  Having never been conducted by anyone but Janet (and Marley), it was interesting to see the varying conducting styles.  

Anyway, it was also neat to see, when Deb suggested that the Chamber B students mark their new music, my son and his fellow trumpet player with heads bent, writing out their notes.  It wasn't long ago that I was doing all that for both of them.  Emily has been marking her own music for a while, and someone helped her with bow marking last time.  This was the first time I think Luke has done it, so that was cool.

Now we're looking forward to our concert at TBC next Monday!  :)

Day 118

Putting together a can robot

Insanity

Friendly insanity

Entry for a Lego contest

Day 116, 117

I'm amazed that I'm posting tonight.  It's midnight, and we've had quite a few days. 

Yesterday was orchestra, and Luke has finally stopped fighting me about going.  Oh, he may stomp a foot, but that's about it.  He participates as much as he can.  I do think he has trouble with the noise level, which is actually low for an orchestral group.  He has limited tolerances, which I've known for many years, but I think he's finally starting to accept the noise as part of tthe experience.  Only now and again do I notice that particularly pained look on his face.  I've told him to take a break outside when that happened before, and that seems to help.  I think the fact that he knows I don't mind if he gets away for a few minutes is a relief to him.  He still wants to leave pretty much right when it's done, but the weather isn't that nice yet.  I'm betting that will change once people stay and play, and I have to be more flexible about actually leaving instead of letting myself get wrapped up in conversation.  Sigh. 

Anyway, math yesterday was a disaster, ending with me yelling and threatening school, as usual.  I really have to stop that.  It helps no one, and school isn't really a possibility at this moment anyway, so I'm just wound up without any oomph behind me.

It was a stressful day anyway, because not only did I have an essay due today for my history class (I should have been working on it sooner!) but I started training for an evening temp job doing data entry.  Fun fun.  After training, which was from 6-10, I went food shopping.  Didn't get home until 11:30pm, then put everything away.  Fun.

Today, the kids lazed this morning while I finished my essay, talked to my mother-in-law, talked to my mom, talked to the bank about my debit card, talked to the orthodontist who it turns out doesn't take our insurance, and I don't even know what else.  The kids started to give me a hard time about getting to work, but Emily suddenly turned into this wonderful child who not only did what she was told, did it in a timely manner, and did it neatly, but did what she was expected to without me having to tell her!  This encouraged Luke to act in like manner, and soon everyone had their work done. 

We are also working on helping more with the house.  They help more with cleaning the rats' cages, feeding the dog, the rats, the fish.  They help with laundry (I tried to get them to fold their clothes, but quickly realized I'd end up getting clean clothes back to wash since my son would just dump them in the closet, then sweep them into the dirty clothes, not saving myself any work at all, so the kids come downstairs and help load, transfer, and unload, then get their clothes and put them away...works much better).  They are also expected to help with the dishes.  They unload and hand them to me, saving my back!  Today they also had to help Dad bring down the garbage cans since my parents, who live next door, needed us to bring theirs down, too, since Grandpa just had dental surger today (hence one of the phone calls).

I then went to Michael's before work tonight to get materials to prepare for our Egypt get together tomorrow.  I got ancient egypt figures, and built lego 'pyramids' (ok, boxish sort of contraptions) for the kids to dig out tomorrow.  I built the structure tonight after work, much to the annoyance of my husband.  Legos are loud, and I had to sift through many to get the right ones.  Ugh!  Tomorrow in the AM, I make sure I have the short video ready, the heiroglyphic stamps and paper ready, and the house clean as we have dance tomorrow beforehand, then Emily has chorus after Egypt, and then they have Aikido, then I have to work again.

It's now 12:20am, and I'm sitting her drinking my Valerian tea hoping to get sleepy sometime soon.  Wish me luck!  :)