school!

The Monday after Audrey's birthday party, we started homeschooling! I felt like I should commemorate the day with a "first day of school" photo in front of the house...it just seemed so first-day-of-schoolish. So I had Evie and Eloise stand on the porch and pose for a picture, but my camera wouldn't take the picture; it just kept shutting off. Even though I took it right from the charger, where it had been "charging" overnight, it kept saying the battery was dead. After five or so attempts, resetting the date and time each time, and monkeying with the clear packing tape I've been using to hold the battery compartment closed (have I ever mentioned that I could really use a new camera?), I finally gave up and sent the girls inside.

We tackled our studies with much gusto. Or something. Both Evie and Eloise were excited to get started, and they loved the little "schoolroom" I had set up the night before. Audrey hung out in her pack-n-play right by us for quite a while, playing with a bunch of the new toys she'd received from her party.

At the end of the day, before we sat down to dinner, I decided to try taking a picture one more time, and it worked!

Evie and Eloise's first day of Kindergarten and preschool

She kept insisting on striking different poses...

Yes, she wore this all day. No, I will never admit to being glad that she wasn't actually leaving the house like this...

We've been going strong for four weeks now, and we're still enjoying it. Each day is a little different, depending on what other activities we have (dance classes, piano lessons, storytime at the library, and homeschool gym and swim class), but we're in a routine, and we're learning a lot! I was a little bit surprised by how much material is considered "Kindergarten"--some things I don't remember learning until 3rd or 4th grade!--but Evie is soaking it all up, and Eloise is, too, actually! (The other day Eloise asked me if I noticed the simile in the book we were reading...probably not a question uttered by most three year olds, I'd wager...)

quiet blog equals crazy life, part one

Wow--life's been a whirlwind lately, and my blog...um...hasn't! Basically for me, a quiet blog equals a crazy life. Of course, a frequently-updated blog also equals a crazy life, most likely with at least four things that aren't getting done because I'm taking time to blog.

Anyway, my lull in blogging began right around Audrey's birthday party, I think. I also think that I hesitated to blog about the party because I had blogged about parties and/or cake for like five blog posts in a row, but I'm totally over that now, so here are a few snapshots from our little barnyard party.

We had a down-home meal of barbeque beef sandwiches, baked beans, and fruit for dinner. Evie distributed bandanas for all of our guests to wear. My mom came in her own "costume;" here she is with Eloise, saying "cowgirls!".

Evie and Eloise helped me pull out some of our farm animal books and puzzles, my sister lent me an "Old MacDonald" feltboard set, and we put out our Little People farm. The kids seemed to have fun playing with these things, but probably even more fun batting balloons around the family room! We tried to get a group shot of all the kids, but they were pretty wound up and wanting to be anywhere doing anything except sitting in front of the posterboard barn smiling for a picture. Oh well!

I tried to dress the girls according to the theme. I had a pair of hand-me-down overalls in each of their sizes, and I'm pretty sure Audrey's pair was at least ten years old (and they are Guess?). That, paired with her crazy hair that she refused to keep in a ponytail, pretty much made her the scrappiest birthday girl ever, but we love her!

I ended up making both the sheep and cow cakes. The sheep turned out pretty well. Mr. B and I decided it's kind of like one of those perception puzzles, because he saw a sheep waving its front hooves, while I meant it to be a sheep with big ol' ears. Either way, it's a sheep, right?

The cow cake I nicknamed Picasso. I also learned that I'm getting too old to stay up late decorating cakes...I seriously didn't realize how off-kilter the poor guy's ears were until the next morning. (It didn't help that they were so heavy with frosting that they kept falling off the rest of the cake. And little did I know that this was only a taste of things to come with making Evie's birthday cake--stay tuned for that blog post, coming soon!)

Anyway, regardless of how the cakes looked, Audrey thought they tasted great. She was actually rather nonchalant about her first taste of refined sugar, but she definitely enjoyed it.

All in all, it was a pretty fun party (I think)!