Pictures!!!

Eliza is 2 weeks old!!! There are pictures up at http://hallway.shutterfly.com

Drummer Girl

We were at a friends' party and Audra heard the boys playing the drums.  She wanted to go check it out.  The drumming continued and Audra didn't return so I went to check on her.  The boys were long gone but she was happy as a clam.

Mom, I don't need a nap

She was fussing about being asked not to talk SOOO loud while looking at books for rest time; when I went to see why the silence when the timer went off that rest time was over, she was fast asleep . . . sitting up (elapsed time 6 and a half minutes).

Halloween Costumes

Naptime has not been cooperating with blogging but without further ado, here are the Halloween costumes.  Mara had a hard time with the speaking up part of Trick or Treating Friday afternoon at the office party; but after asking continuously for 48 hours when we'd go again and some very excited practice Sunday afternoon, Trick or Treating was a real treat.

 Goldilocks

Corduroy/Baby Bear

Wild Experience and the Wild Animal Park

Books!

I have 2 more that we're really enjoying to share about. The first was from my usual book of book lists. Bagels from Benny is a great story about how a kind deed is an act of thanking God. It had me smiling from ear to ear as I read it the first time and realized where the story was going. It is an adorable display of a child's innocent thinking. We've had it from the library for 3 weeks and I'm still smiling when she chooses this one.
The second book was one I grabbed by chance (perhaps even one of the girls picked it up, I can't really remember). Windows with Birds is a very simple short book about moving. It couldn't have appeared in our house at a more appropriate time as Mara is dealing with missing her friends and why we don't live by them now.

ETA: Before I could even get back here to clean up my post I found another to add. We read Dogger at rest time today and I almost cried.  I can't wait until the girls are at that age of maturity to care for one another.

Nature Study

We happened to eat dinner a bit early so I had a few minutes to sit down and identify a few of the creatures we saw on our nature hike today.  My favorite two spottings were some blue damselflies that would sit and rest on rocks.  They were the most beautiful iridescent blue color.  The other was a pretty black/brown, white and orange butterfly.  When I can't find these on the simple fold up guides we carry with us I really enjoy finding them in books and on the internet once were home.  Today it seems we saw a Lorquin's Admiral Butterfly and a Vivid Dancer Damselfly.  Mara was also so cute sitting down to mark in her "nature journal". She wanted to write all about the scat we saw and the various sizes of rocks!

 

Vivid Dancer Damselfly (Male)

Photograph: Jack Wolf
(Creative Commons license)