Greece and Rome Festival

A few weeks ago a group in the area sponsored a Greece and Rome Festival. This was the perfect way to have fun while we learned a little more about what we studied in history this year. It meant that we missed a day of speech therapy for Lamb 2, but all the Lambs had a good time and asked if we can go again next year. I don't know if they do this every year but we'll find out. This was such a good idea and so well planned, I wish that our school would have thought of this when I was teaching at a classical Lutheran school.

Lamb 2 at Discus throwing

Lamb 1 as Zeus

Lamb 1 and 2 at chariot racing

Lamb 1 relay races

Lamb 2 long jump

Lamb 1 with his Greek money

You had to pay for snacks with Greek money

In line for flatbread with honey or hummus and grape juice.

Lamb 3 Roman numeral toss-kids had to add up own scores.

Lamb 2 javelin

Lamb 1 with his laurel wreath

Lamb 2 with his laurel wreath

The Greece and Rome festival was really designed for school age children. At the end we let Lamb 3 play on the playground because he wasn't allowed to do all the events. It was a hot day and we all got sunburned. 

I keep forgetting

that we live in the city now. We have lived here for 1 1/2 years. I still think ____ would be nice to make for dinner, but we don't have ____ ingredient. When Ram offers to run to the store that thought didn't even enter my mind until he mentions it.
Tonight I said, "It would be nice to drink wine while we watch a movie." Before I knew it, Ram was off to the store to get a bottle of wine!

Play Kitchen

The play kitchen was a popular toy when we lived in MN. Since we moved here it was rarely played with. For a few months I put it in our entryway hoping that when other children came to our house they would all play with it. It didn't get used much more there. Lamb 3 enjoys playing with the toy grill so we kept that and some of the play food. I snapped a few photos of the Lambs before we sold the play kitchen and some of the play dishes. Some of the Lambs cooperated with photos more than other Lambs...

If your children are still the right age for a play kitchen, I would recommend keeping it near your real kitchen. I know the mess they make with play food all over makes you tempted to put it in the playroom or the basement, but they want to cook when and where you cook. Time will fly by and they will be cooking in the real kitchen before you know it.
And now our play kitchen is in our memories and photos... and Lamb 3 isn't part of most of those memories and photos so I'll have to take pictures of him the next time he "grills out".

Our book cart

I bought the book cart at a church moving to a new location sale. I think they had used it in their kitchen. The boys did a thorough job washing it for me and sanding the rusty spots. The paint was on sale at Walmart and after much family debate I decided on green which did not make some of the Lambs happy. One Lamb said, "Who ever saw a green cart at the library?" Then we were at the public library (to vote in the city election) a few weeks later and we saw all colors of book carts including green!
I used the cart to organize our science books that we will be using next school year on the top two shelves and our history books on the bottom shelf. The book cart is in our home library. If I ever see another cart at a garage sale, I'll buy another one for our school room.
Some of our church members are truly concerned about the weight of our books in our house after helping us move. We need to have them over to see our home library now that we have a book cart too! Plus they would see that the books are mostly in the home library but also spread through our whole house.

Only homeschooled boys...

would run through the hallway without any clothes on screaming, "Eureka!"

*My Lambs have been taking about 2 showers a day because of swim lessons and swimming at our pool. I'll let you guess how often this is happening at our house.

*Book highly recommended and enjoyed by Lamb 1 and Ram, Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick.

Bird houses

At the event our city put on a few days ago, the Lambs were able to build bird houses. Home Depot provided some of the tools to borrow and the bird houses to build. The Lambs had to fill out a form to get a building permit from the city. Then they built the bird houses. Then they returned to the city for approval of their building. It was all planned very well and so cute for the Lambs to go through the whole building process. All 3 Lambs want to be builders when they grow up so this was perfect for them to see how the process works. Ram helped Lamb 2 build his, I helped Lamb 3, and Lamb 1 built most of his with some help at the end from Ram because it was taking him so long as compared to the other Lambs. The hard hats were from the city, the aprons and birdhouses were from Home Depot. Lamb 1 was especially excited to put his apron in the garage by his woodworking tools for future projects. I forgot my camera so we waited until we were at home to take photos.

After we built the birdhouses the city had free hot dogs, lemonade, and popcorn. Then the boys enjoyed walking around all the tables and loading up on sticky candy like taffy and lollipops and other free things. Since Lamb 1 had his front teeth with caps removed now all 3 Lambs are allowed to have sticky candy. Lamb 1 doesn't remember ever having a sucker before now as he was 3 years old when he got caps. It was a fun evening for our family. There were people there but it wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected in our big city after it was advertised in our city water bill and signs up all around town. I don't know what we are going to do with 3 birdhouses that aren't on posts, but we'll try to figure it out.

"Natural" Winner

We tried a new chiropractor and she had a drawing in May that mothers (or women) could enter each time they visited her office. I put my name in twice. I'm not sure if she had one winner at each of her two office locations, or just one winner. But I won one basket! It had natural body products-soap, shower gel, bath salts, etc.

Yesterday we went to an event our city put on. I thought the boys would enjoy seeing the trash truck and other big machines from our city, but they were too old for that. I filled out a survey of how the event went so that I could enter a drawing. I was hoping to win a tote bag to give as a gift. I won a basket of natural cleaning products. Almost everything in this basket is used regularly at our house and the other supplies are used occasionally. The caddy and extra spray bottle may help me to get all my cleaning supplies organized too!

Dishwasher soap, Super Washing Soda (to make homemade laundry soap), vinegar, and baking soda are used regularly. Murphy's oil soap, all purpose cleaner are used occasionally.

Ram was kind enough to go pick all this up for me so I didn't have to fight traffic or find a parking space downtown. It was fun to get all this in the same week!