Aunt L!

Fantastic visit with Aunt L.!  It was hard to let her go.  I had forgotten how those who are not constantly engaged with young children seem to have endless energy for engaging with them!  What a lovely time we all had with her.  When Eden asks a house guest to read her books at bedtime and help get her ready for bed, the houseguest has officially made a positive connection :)  We also had a wonderful evening with the Lists and Eden was flying high after an evening with the man of the house...he was doting on her and carrying her around like the Queen of Sheba and she quite enjoyed this :)  The boys had fun visiting a house big enough to run around in!

Lego afternoon with Aunt L.

We've been boiling down maple sap from our backyard taps.  Yum!  (As long as you don't forget about it...yikes.)

And we have acquired the perfect lazy man's pet:  the neighbor's dog.  We take a walk down the street, the dog runs up to meet us, follows us home, plays fetch with the boys for an hour (and is super sweet and well-trained) and then I urge her to run home, which she does.  Best pet ever!

It snowed today.  T minus 6 to Easter.  Sigh! (Granted, it isn't sticking at this point, but still!)

Life with brothers, princess-style

Eden mostly gets the prized position of being fought over these days...by her two brothers.  The famous 2 vs. 1 situation that can develop in a 3-child family sometimes rears its ugly head, and interestingly, Eden is never the '1'.  Who can woo Eden's attention the most?  This is the name of the game.  Here is one of Owen's latest attempts with a laundry basket:

Judging by that smile, he was quite successful...for today :}

Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter

We are listening to Pollyanna by Eleanor Hodges, on CD in the car as we go here and there for classes and activities.  This passage went by today and captured so well a part of my thought process in doing school at home this year, and also relates to the tension I persistently feel between getting in what seems a good amount of formal learning, while respecting the learning that happens during non-programmed time, too.  Had to write it down.  I know the boys agree with Pollyanna!  (Though, cooking and sewing lessons constituting formal learning would be quite palatable to them compared to math and writing!  Which reminds me of a story we read this year of a man who went to a school where the skill set he was trained in included boat-building, fire-starting, basic house construction, gardening and other survival skills.  The boys said, "Why don't we have schools like that???!")

"At nine o'clock every morning you will read aloud one half-hour to me.  Before that you will use the time to put this room in order.  Wednesday and Saturday forenoons, after half-past nine, you will spend with Nancy in the kitchen, learning to cook.  Other mornings you will sew with me.  That will leave the afternoons for your music.  I shall, of course, procure a teacher at once for you, " she finished decisively, as she arose from her chair.

Pollyanna cried out in dismay.

"Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven't left me any time at all just to -- to live."

"To live, child!  What do you mean?  As if you weren't living all the time!"

"Oh, of course I'd be breathing all the time I was doing those things, Aunt Polly, but I wouldn't be living.  You breathe all the time you're asleep, but you aren't living.  I mean living -- doing the things you want to do:  playing outdoors, read (to myself, of course), climbing hills, talking to Mr. Tom in the garden, and Nancy, and finding out about the houses and the people and everything everywhere all through the perfectly lovely streets I came through yesterday.  That's what I call living, Aunt Polly.  Just breathing isn't living!"