He didn't even get dizzy!

Tonight Nate was surprised with a prize basket at gymnastics for the most cartwheels or forward rolls in the boy's division during their yearly fundraiser. More than 50 in two minutes!! Dave and I had known for a few days, since Dave had a peek at the results sheet, but we managed to keep our excitement a secret.

He was so thrilled that his little smile was a mile wide. Nate's the child in our family who rarely gets recognized for outstanding achievement. He has only recently been able to blend and achieve positive results socially, especially in things like organized sports.

His prize was a huge Super-soaker type water gun, a slingshot with three balls and a roll of Shocktarts. I hope that this is the first in a long line of successes for our boy Nate.

Sticky, Squishy, Sweet and Gooey

PisecoBabe can alway be counted on for a fun playdate, and she's more than willing to share her sticky, gluey gooey fun with us. The kids had a great time making yucky artworks and then squishing them back into blobs.






Princess DibbleDibbleDoo had no interest in the dough after a couple of minutes, and fell back to her favorite passtime...eating!



What was she eating, you ask? Well, pretty much anything she could get her fingers on, but the treat of the day was Rice Crispy squares made from PisecoMom's recipe and decorated by my three rugrats prior to our playdate.





All-in-all, not a bad way to spend a Monday.

Why, yes, we DO homeschool...

Just a little tidbit from the homeschool trenches:

Me (to Anna): What is the opposite of fast?
Anna: SLOW is the ossopit of fast.
Me (to Anna): Yes, slow is the OOOOPPPPIIIISSSSIIITTTT of fast.
Me (to the big kids): What is another term we use for words that mean the opposite?
Em (proudly): Oh, that's easy, it's an ANTONYM.
Me (to Em): Yeah! Great Answer! So, what is the antonym of antonym?
Nate (looking up vaguely from Super Smash Brawl): You're kidding, right?
Me (curious): Nooo? Do you know the answer?
Nate (bored): DUUUUHHHH! The antonym of antonym is........




CINNAMON.


I'm still laughing 15 minutes later. P.S. I did tell him that the word is synonym, not cinnamon. He's still not speaking to me because I laughed.

~L

Old McDonald Had A Farm....

We spent our day today visiting farmers and their animals and wares in the most unusual of situations. Today was the annual Farm Days celebration inside the local shopping mall.

Our friends the Piseco Peeps were supposed to pick us up and explore the festival with us, but they were having bouts of feeling generally unwell, so we made it out on our own....

OR SO WE THOUGHT.

We started in the mall proper, and the kids took a quick ride on petal tractors near the doors.



After a moment, we made some crafty cotton ball sheep.



It was just after taking that picture with our fuzzy sheep that Nate began freaking out and bouncing around and screaming, "JediBoy, JediBoy and PisecoMom"* at the top of his lungs. I thought he had seen them somewhere in the mall because they'd decided to join us belatedly, but then realized that he wasn't quite seeing what I'd expected. Instead, we'd found the following on the board the kids were posing in front of for their photo op.



After our excitement wore off, we continued through the mall and enjoyed such varied activities as tasting Stone Soup and watching a sheep get her winter coat sheared.

It was a grand day, and we came home with loot bags full of crafts, snacks, and assorted treasures.

For more pictures, you can check out the album...