Birthday #3

For my birthday we celebrated with friends, karaoke style.  We got the karaoke machine for Festivus.  The kids are still a little shy singing in front of anyone other than mommy and daddy, but I'm not!  My wonderful friends also joined in with the singing.  However, there are no photos of that...just the most hideous (but pretty good tasting) cake you've ever seen.

Papa's Birthday

Papa's birthday, which was celebrated next, turned into a guys night out with Jonathan and Shepard, and the women and children hung out at home for a game night.  So, I actually don't have any photos of Papa's party!  They went out to dinner and watched John Carter.  We played Jenga and Mah Jong for sure.  We may or may not have played Othello.  I can't remember.

Birthday Celebrations

Well, March is typically a busy month of birthdays for us.  And since we all survived the past year, this March was no exception.  First up, we celebrated Saveia's 7th birthday with ice skating and a small party.

Summer was a tenacious skater.

Corbyn takes a little break.

Summer with her spaghetti dinner.

Saveia and her friends  C and H.

Scary Uncle Jonathan holds frightened Coral.

Dessert options...

Autumn.

Saveia after blowing out her candles.

This is Dylan after Saveia opened a gift he would have liked to have had.

A few days later, on her actual birthday, she got a box in the mail from Lolo and Lola...

It contained three more sets of the Lego Friends collection that Nana and Papa had purchased for her.  Immediately, Olivia and Saveia rushed down to a protected area (Olivia's room), and began assembly. 

In the next post, we'll move on to Papa's birthday...

Summer Explores

I took Summer to Greenlight Studios a couple weeks ago.  I don't think I'll go back there with her, but we did have fun while we were there.  Dylan and Zoey might like it more, since it's geared more to their age.

Homeschooling Conference

Last weekend, Jonathan and I got to go up to the homeschooling convention in Rockland with the help of friends and family.  We had a really good time, heard some really good workshops and got to peruse a lot of curriculum that we wouldn't have ordinarily had a chance to see.  It was incredibly refreshing and invigorating.  Thanks Sentell's and Pfaff's!

The view from our hotel room.

We had dinner at the Camden Cafe and the desserts were awesome. 

We also ate at the Home Kitchen Cafe in Rockland, which only serves breakfast and lunch.  It was awesome.  It was exactly like the kind of place I like to eat when out with friends: good food, intimate but informal, and did I say good food?  ;)

Normal Days

Snapped a couple pictures at the YMCA a few weeks ago.   Here's Dylan at his swim class, with his teacher Annie.

Here's Zoey eating lunch at the Y.

Saveia sorts out her trail mix M & M's.

On a beautiful sunny pre-spring day, we brought out our resin chairs.  Dylan, if you can see him, is diligently cleaning all of them with a rag.

Summer being a helper, washing dishes.

Saveia makes lunch for everyone.

Saveia has been working with me on her reading skills.  We decided that she needed to be able to read if she was going away for sleep-over camp this summer.

In anticipation of all the new curriculum we'll be accumulating over the summer, Olivia cracks down on her "schoolwork."

Saveia illustrates some stories she's written on her own.

Summer works on writing addition facts using cuisinaire rods.

It isn't a normal day if there isn't some mess made.  Yesterday, Zoey decided that tomato soup was not so good for eating...

 ...but very good for plastering your hair to your scalp...

Now what?

The kids play board games with the boys from down the street.

Normal days... :)