Austin has been practicing writing his letters lately. He was really happy that he finally learned how to make an "S". YEAH! While teaching the others one morning I look over and see Austin practicing his writing on the window.

Flying the Kite

We have been remodeling and spring cleaning and in all this Steven found our missing kite. Amazing what you find when you clean out everything. LOL

It wasn't much of a kite flying day, but the boys decided they were going to try it out. To my surprise they did quite well. It was a good lesson in teamwork. Sorry the pictures aren't great, it was getting dark and I was trying to play around with my camera and just couldn't get it right.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick’s Day or St. Patrick’s Day, holiday honoring Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. It is celebrated annually on March 17, his feast day. Saint Patrick was a missionary in the 5th century ad who is credited with converting Ireland to Christianity. St. Patrick’s Day is a national holiday in Ireland. It is also celebrated by people of Irish descent in many other countries, especially by Irish Americans in the United States.

One popular St. Patrick’s Day tradition is wearing green clothing. Green, the national color of Ireland, symbolizes the island’s lush landscape. The main symbol associated with the holiday is the shamrock, a small three-leafed clover or clover-like plant. According to legend, St. Patrick used the shamrock, because of its three leaves, to explain the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to the Irish people. The shamrock is now the national emblem of Ireland.

Today we are celebrating St. Patty's Day by having Lucky Charms (breakfast), Bagles with green cream cheese, green grapes and keylime pie yogurt (lunch) Irish Stew, Irish soda bread, and Lime sherbet Irish drink (dinner).

This morning the kids had to figure out how many marshmellows were in their bowl of Lucky Charms. We discovered the marshmellow that showed up the most was the leprechaun hats and the least were the hearts.

Both of the boys counted theirs one by one and marked them on the piece of paper. While Abbigail decided to sort hers first and then count them.

Pirate Abbigail making us Irish Soda bread. Boy was it yummy!!!

Stick Bugs

About 4 or so months ago we got 3 stickbugs. Can I just say they are the best pets. If your kids want a pet and you don't want the hassle of a pet...get a stick bug. There are very low maintenance, you give them some blackberry, ivy leaves or the green tips of romaine lettuce a couple of time a week and mist them daily and they are happy. The kids can pick them up, they don't bite! Their lifespan is about a year, so it's not something you will have forever. We just love them. The funny thing about stick bugs is they don't need a mate to reproduce. However, they will only reproduce if you put dirt in their area.

The kids have been asking to put dirt in so we can have babies (mind you they will make lots and lots of babies), so I finally gave in and we did it. Within a day we had three eggs! The eggs will take about 2-3 months to hatch, but they kids are very excited!

I have read a few different articles on stickbugs/walking bugs and you will find that some are more green and some are more brown. They adapt to their environment, so after a couple of them hatch we are going to do a little experiment. We will put a couple in a container that is painted green and we will put a couple other one in a container painted brown and see what happens. It will be awhile, but I will keep you updated.

Day in Seattle

Okay so I stink at this blog thing, but I am going to keep going and update when I get the chance or perhaps when something exciting happens?

Today, we had a great day, we had a fieldtrip scheduled at the Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center ( http://ody.org/) with the homeschool group in the afternoon. So, we decided to head into Seattle a little early and go to the Pacific Science Center first
(http://www.pacificsciencecenter.org/ ), we haven't been there in ages. The kids all had a great time, one of the highlights was the bug exhibit. We would move from exhibit to exhibit and Austin kept wandering off, I could always find him standing in front on the HUGE talking bug by the entrance, he was completely fascinated with him. He ask a few times if the bug was going to eat him. hahaha We also liked the butterfly exhibit and watched them eat/suck the nectar out of flowers and fruits...very interesting! It was such a beautiful day, so the kids had a good time playing with the water shooters outside.
We then headed over to the Center house for lunch before going to Odyssey Maritime. If you have never been to http://ody.org/ and live near Seattle I suggest going and taking the kids, it was a good time, very hands on. The kids all loved it and asked if we could go back. We definitely will, but next time I think we will bring Pete along. The kids got to see a little of what Daddy does, with driving the cranes and such. The boys favorite things were playing in the water building a dam and driving the cranes, moving the cargo from the ships onto truck. I wish I could have taken some pictures, but I didn't remember by camera until we were on the highway.

After a day in Seattle we met up with my friend Linda (whom I met in our childbirth class with our first kiddos) and her kids. We are swapping kids for the night. She took the girls and I have the boys. The boys have just recently started having sleep overs and they have been going pretty good. Of course bedtime is always a little challenging, but they eventually get to sleep.LOL