Pictures From October

In the second half of October, Dan put Dominic and Joseph to work on some old telephone pole crossbars (you know the horizontal part at the top that holds the wires on).  Their job was take off any hardware, so Dan could use the wood for something else.  This job required vise grips, hammers, pliers, wrenches.  Tools!

Joseph and Dominic hard at work.

Go boys, go!

Hammering out a screw.  You can see the buckets of stuff they accumulated behind them.

One day they got to drink some coffee:

I didn't like coffee til my thirties, but they already like it!

Another day, during school time, Anthony busied himself making trails of stuff from his room and the basement all over the house.   He was quiet and didn't bother anyone, but I finally had to put a stop to it when he started getting a bunch of stuff out of his closet.  We had an easier time in school that day!

All through the bedrooms.

Down the stairs and around the corner and through the basement.

And back and forth some more.  What a funny little guy.

We met up with some of our friends for lunch at the park/playground one afternoon.  After they played for a long time on the playground, we all went for a walk around the lake.  Halfway around we came across this large tree with all sorts of lovely branches for climbing.

How many kids can you get into one tree?

Nap time!

After we played and walked, we went over to the library, where we checked out lots of books.  The next day, Catherine showed me something she found in one of the books:

What a fun idea to hide these in random books at the library!

July Jumble

In early July, two friends from different areas of the country came to town in the same time period, so a bunch of us got together at another friend's house to visit while all of our kids played together.

Sheila, Tonya, Julie, Me, Karen, and Myle.

Also early in July, Dan's brother, Al, and some of his kids came over one evening to fish in our pond.  Al brought their kayak along and he took the kids out one at a time paddling around the pond. There are fish in our pond, in fact several different kinds. 

No one fell in!

Catherine with a fish she caught.

While the other kids were at Totus Tuus,  I took Anthony to the dentist for his first ever cleaning and checkup.  He did a great job, but unfortunately they found two little cavities.  They worked him in later in the week and boy, was he a little trooper.  He held still, opened his mouth when asked, and gave them no trouble whatsoever.  I couldn't believe how well he did!  He didn't even fuss when they put in the numbing medication!

Anthony at his first dentist visit.

 After the numbness in his mouth wore off, I took Anthony to Dairy Queen for lunch.  He deserved it!

We shared chicken strips and fries.

He got his own pop!

And an ice cream sundae!

 We started getting lots of eggs in July, of course the chickens were getting bigger.  At this point the kids loved to pick up the hens and carry them around. 

Dominic with unnamed hen.

Anne, with Goldy, aka Flipper.

Now you can see why the kids say we have so many pets!

At the end of July, we happened to go to the library when the firefighters were there with their firetruck.  The fireman below let the kids climb up into the firetruck, then he took them all around the sides and the back to show them where they store everything.  They enjoyed their tour very much.

Checking out the hoses.

Where the ladder is stored.

The Jaws of Life.  He let the kids try to pick it up.  They couldn't.

Art Camp

About a month ago, Catherine, Dominic, Anne, and Joseph got to participate in an Art Camp at the library.  It was for four days, an hour each day.  The week of their camp focused on Shel Silverstein and I thought they would learn more about how to draw or something, but it was more of "the arts" camp.  The first day they drew pictures, the second day they wrote poems (too advanced for poor Joseph), the third day they made masks for a play, and the fourth day they held the play, in which no one spoke any lines.  Even though it wasn't what I expected, they still enjoyed it, except maybe Joseph, but it was a good experience for him anyway.  These pictures are all from the play at the end of the week.

The sign for the play, called "The Unicorn."

Essentially the story was about Noah and the ark and why there are no unicorns because they didn't make it onto the ark.  Joseph was one of two boys in charge of holding up the grass and then flipping it over to the water side.  You can see he looked thrilled.

 Dominic was a camel.

Anne was an elephant.

All of the animals are on the ark, except the unicorns.

The kids with their friends, who also did art camp.  Anthony was intrigued by all the masks.

We have Monica, the zebra, Trinity, the giraffe, Dominic, the camel, Anne, the elephant, and Catherine, the lion.