Sunnyside Gardens

This week started with a sick mom. The girls had a cold last week, but nothing that slowed them down, just made them a little crankier. Over the weekend I caught it, but managed to muscle through... until Monday afternoon. Fortunately, Gram came to drive us to NH and back and I asked her to stay just in case I wasn't feeling well. So she stayed through Tuesday while I tried to get over the nasty bug.

Finally by Wednesday I was feeling myself again and we were able to meet up with our friends for our annual Sunnyside Gardens trip.

Thursday we took a nature walk to collect some leaves on the trails in our neighborhood.

Over the weekend we finally finished the deck! Which gave us a few hours in the late afternoon to take Gram and Grumpy up to the Great Escape.

And also... nothing is cuter than these new bunk mates.

A Weekend In NH

Since Labor Day weekend, our weeks have been full of school and our weekends full of working on the deck. Not that both activities aren't extremely rewarding, but they are both exhausting!

This weekend MiniM.E.'s friend H. was having his 5th birthday so we decided to take a weekend off and drive to NH to celebrate.

We drove Friday night and since the party wasn't until Sunday, we decided to visit my favorite apple orchard Saturday. The weather was beautiful and it couldn't have been a nicer day.

MiniM.E.'s favorite part of the day was the wagon ride to the orchard.

Everyone enjoyed the actual picking of apples- so much that we picked two bushels!

LittleL.G. could have played in the pumpkin patch all day.

There were also old tractors to play on, and my favorite, cider donuts.

In between apples and party we played outside and went out for make your own pizza.

Sunday, we enjoyed running around at the party, chasing giant bubbles, playing in the bounce house and of course, eating cake. Then it was time to drive home.

Low Key Week Three

We had a pretty low key week this week because both the girls came down with a pretty nasty cold. I introduced a more relaxed schedule for school and we just took it easy.

lots of play when the girls were up for it

immunity boosting smoothie mustaches

Mid-week MiniM.E,'s cold was fading and LittleL.G. hadn't gotten the worst of it yet, so we visited MiniM.E.'s old school playground for a picnic with a friend. The girls were really excited to be back.

dual kazooing

Thursday was hot and MiniM.E. thought it was warm enough for some hose play

Friday we took our first "field trip" to the state park where we searched the creek for bugs and small animals. It was a perfect day for animal finding and we caught crayfish, a lizard, a fish, and a bunch of crazy bugs. LittleL.G. wasn't sure about the whole thing, but MiniM.E. had a blast.

Our Big Weekend Project

I haven't been posting much about our weekends because we've been working on a huge project since Labor Day weekend.  We thought maybe it would be a two weekend project, but here we are on weekend three and we still haven't quite finished.

So here it is, project new deck:

halfway through weekend one

the start of weekend two

end of weekend two

after working all weekend this weekend

My parents have been nice enough to drive up every weekend to help. We have little deck building skill, so they have been very helpful in directing the building and my dad has been working hard and sharing his tools. After being home with the girls all day everyday, it has been a nice break to work with the guys and my mom has been nice enough to do the majority of watching the kids. As usual, it became a much bigger project than we expected, but we are so happy with how it's coming along.

And it has been nice to spend the weekends with Gram and Grumpy.

The Second Week of the School Year

Monday was an exciting day for MiniM.E. because we finally made it through the primer she's been reading all summer.  To celebrate, we went to the Dairy Haus for ice cream.

Tuesday we needed some outside playtime so we went to the nearby playground.

Wednesday after school we met our friends at the new coffee shop in town, Kru. By far the fanciest coffee shop we've been to in a long time. It was a great place to take the girls (and Baby G.) because at 3pm there were hardly any customers and they have a great loft area where the girls could run around without bothering anyone.

all six of these cuties. love them!

Thursday the weather was beautiful so we sped through our morning school session so we could make it to the playground again to meet up with some friends.

LittleL.G. on the big girl swing

And that sums up the fun things we got to do this week. The school days continued to run smoothly, though I could tell that the excitement of the first week was fading so we'll tweak things a little for next week. I might have started off a little too strong... but we're still learning a lot and having fun.

How the First Week Went

I couldn't have hoped for our first week of school to run any smoother than it did.  Both the girls seem to thrive on the new schedule, MiniM.E.'s behavior has been fantastic, we are doing TONS of learning and we still have LOADS of time to play.  But, boy... are we all exhausted!

The best part of our homeschool schedule is that the actual academics only take a couple hours.  We have plenty of time to learn about things MiniM.E. is interested in, do lots of art projects, and still fit in time for... 

swimming in the yard:

playdates at the playground:

and less fun things like today's grocery shopping trip... all during the school day.

After week one MiniM.E. loves school and was crushed this morning when she found out we won't be doing school on the weekends.  Too cute!