Irish tap dancing ballerina

Monica is pretty convinced she belongs on stage as a tap-dancing ballerina, so this year she is taking tap... and ballet... and Irish dance. It's possible she just likes all the shiny shoes. Honestly, we put her in a beginning Irish dance class mostly as babysitting while Catherine was in her class... and here we are on the eve of her very first feis! Little Monica, fierce competitor!

Here is a video of her dancing the reel.

Of course, Monica has benefitted greatly from the greatest of all teachers... her big sister. :)

The Skip-Its

We've been adding some strange words to the Lorelle vocabulary list lately, among them words like "cruegar" and "back-cross double." These, in case you happen not to know, are the language of jump rope tricks.

The latest Lorelle news is that all three kids made the Skip-Its jump rope team. This is a great team that focuses on virtues and character development as well as athletic achievement. The kids practice twice a week (yay, more driving!) while Monica and I absolutely do NOT go get Chick-fil-A milkshakes (cookies and cream, please!).

Anyway, we are super happy that the kids were selected for the team. To try out, they had to prove mastery of a variety of tricks, including the parade routine (yes, they'll be in parades!) as well as a certain number of double-unders and regular jumps. Now they work to progress through the different skill levels. Every time they come home from practice they are so enthused about having crossed off more items on their red level list.

Here is Dominic's parade routine video. Keep in mind that a year ago he couldn't even do one jump!

And here is the routine Vincent made up himself. It had to contain a certain number of tricks based on difficulty level.

Tuesdays at the museum

Our school year is off to a busy start, and Tuesday mornings are a big reason why. Every Tuesday we have to be at the science museum in Durham by 9 a.m., which means we are fighting rush-hour traffic. It also means I have to pack five lunches, and since no two children want the exact same sandwich, it is not an easy task.

The reason for our early departure is a good one: Catherine is taking a genetics course that focuses on the museum's red wolf family (red wolves are endangered -- their numbers hover around 50, and four were just born at this museum). It's a great class and is reminding me about all I don't know regarding genetics. Alleles and phenotypes, anyone?

It's also great because it means that the other four kiddos get to hang out doing cool stuff at the museum, so it's like an adventure morning. So far we have visited all the animal exhibits, dug for shark teeth, ran away from dinosaurs, gotten soaked in the mist exhibit, caught flying seeds, sailed toy boats across a pond, rode the train, danced through lasers, and a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting. Here are some pictures from our latest visit:

Greetings! Now that we have a couple kids learning to type and taking a lot of their own pictures, we thought it might be fun to let them be guest bloggers from time to time.

Dominic's slime

Here is Catherine's recap of the week: 
This week we studied the ocean so we did lots of ocean crafts. On Monday, we made slime. Ocean slime. Vincent got lots of slime in his hair. This week was my first week of dance. I am taking 2 2-hour classes. This week was Claire's 18-month doctor appointment. She screamed the whole time. This week we were busy photographing lego figures for our fall magazine.[coming out on September 21]. This week we discovered Claire likes nail polish. Every time I paint my nails she comes over to me, sits down in my lap, and holds her hands out.

Back to Dana:
Like Catherine mentioned, we studied the ocean, so the kids did lots of fish and ocean crafts. Here is Claire making the most of an "ocean" snack (graham crackers with blue frosting).

The kids also finished up their final track meet. This fall they will (hopefully) be doing cross-country.

The boys are signed up for flag football. Monica and Catherine started Irish dance last week (Catherine is very excited to be in the class with all the advanced dancers) and Monica is sort of/maybe/possibly taking a ballet/jazz/tap class. At any rate, she really really really wants tap shoes. I am understandably concerned about our hardwood floors though!

In other news, we redecorated Catherine's room (look for a blog post coming soon from Catherine!) and Saturday morning Vincent and I ran four miles together!

Christmas monkey stopping by the woods on a snowy evening

Back in December the kids watched a Curious George Christmas movie a lot... and have been humming the "Christmas Monkey" song ever since. Well, this morning I heard Catherine singing words to it -- and somehow or another she had put Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" to the tune of "Christmas Monkey." And the words fit the tune perfectly! I'm kind of amazed myself!

This week we're learning Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" in honor President's Day... we'll see if she can find a nice mournful tune to that one! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDAn59EUnqY&feature=youtu.be

Stylin' at the bakery

A normal Friday night dinner turned into quite the field trip at Neomonde. The really nice manager there -- who has four kids himself and therefore felt our pain at trying to coordinate fountain drinks, napkins, pita bread, and a wild-running Monica all at once -- offered to take us on a tour of the industrial bakery when we were finished eating.

In hindsight, I kind of wonder what he was thinking... I mean, if I managed a state-of-the-art bakery that could easily be brought to its knees by a few sticky fingers pressed in rising dough, the last people I would want in there would be my own kids. Anyway.

So we toured, and it was very cool. Catherine thinks that Granny Brandt should come down and run the bakery.

Neomonde goes through 7,000 lbs of flour a day and supplies bread to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. They have these humungous mixing bowls and ovens and cooling racks... Not only did we have a great time (except Monica, who was adamantly opposed to wearing her hairnet for reasons of stylishness) but the kids were very inspired. They came home and played BAKER!


Except Vincent, who decided he would rather butcher his tuna. 

In fact, the next morning the inspiration was still going strong as they requested spices and bags and pretzels and hammers (errr, wait a minute) so that they could crush up the pretzels and crackers in bags and add spices. Cool! Except that you know what a hammer (even a plastic one) does to a plastic bag, especially when your name is Dominic and you spend 15 minutes pounding and yelling at your poor innocent bag? Yeah. I'll take a picture of the floor later. Husband, if you are reading this, wait until the afternoon to come home or you will have a heart attack.

Homeschool Week 1: Marbles,Mohawks, and Dragons at the Arboretum

Captain Dommie to the rescue!

Ah, back to school! Or, in our case, back to the kitchen table, and the backyard, and field trips, and sneaking off in the middle of a grammar lesson to Dairy Queen (and then quite possibly to a toy store if Mommy is really really is sick of teaching about possessive nouns).

Somebody put me on this thing!

Oil-pasteling a tree at the park.

We started last Monday with a few tweaks to our schedule from last year. The biggest one is the addition of "project time" to our daily curriculum. This is when the kids can pursue their own interests in their own fashions. Catherine is currently fascinated by horses, so we've had lots of horse drawings and paintings -- in oil pastels, chalk pastels, acrylics, markers, and crayons -- coming out of her project time. Vincent uses a lot of his project time as play time; he and Dominic dress up as spies, harness themselves together with dog leashes to climb Mt. Everest, or rush around the house putting out fires with full sound effects ("FIREMAN DOMMIE, THERE'S A FIRE OVER HERE! BRING THE FIRETRUCK! NEE-NEH, NEE-NAH!"). The other day I told Dommie to please stop screeching, and he smiled and said, "Okay, Mommy. I will stop screeching. ROAR!"

That's not to say that they don't spend plenty of time doing academic subjects, because they do. But we build in plenty of time for play, and I've promised them one field trip per week this year. Last week's trip was Marbles, the children's museum in Raleigh, and based on the pictures I dare say they had a pretty good time.

Oh, and Dommie got a Mohawk. For about 2 minutes, until we all stopped laughing and cut it off. Looked good!

Dommie doing a painting of owls (yes, those are owls).

My first responders.

Giving the doggie a shot.

Off we go!

Dunk!

Surfin!

Eat, doggie!

This cow needs milking.

Dommie took a day off of firefightin' to gather some vegetables.

And ride a pig.

PE class: soccer & baseball

Being eaten alive.

Skipping across concrete lilypads.

We found Roman ruins at the Arboretum.

Swing batter swing!

Oh handsome boy!

Love.

Ohio in July

Greetings from Ohio in July, otherwise known as the rainy season.We keep telling ourselves that someday the sun will come out. Meanwhile, we snuck out to Cox Arboretum in a rare fit of not-raininess to scale the 100-foot tree tower. It would have made for great photos, except that the official photographer (that would be me) discovered a latent fear of heights and was more preoccupied with getting off the tower than with immortalizing our family's ascent. But here are some other Fourth of July and Arboretum photos.

Painting summer

We crossed off another bucket list item today (yes, I totally add them retroactively): Homemade chalk paint! If I stretch it a little bit I could also call this a science and art lesson. Have you ever tried mixing cornstarch and water? It turns into something that's not quite liquid but not quite solid, and even though it's wet it dries instantly on the paintbrush. It was so neat that I sat on the driveway and painted long after the kids have given up. And once they started trying to splatter the paint I brought up Jackson Pollock. Catherine spent more than a few minutes debating how to tear her splatter creation off the pavement so she could sell it for a million dollars. 

Swim, kids, swim!

We are two swim meets into the season and making vast improvements (and by that I mean I am no longer on tenterhooks praying they don't drown). Catherine especially has become a little fish with whirlwind freestyling arms. If Vincent could keep his goggles on I suspect he might be winning blue ribbons instead of green participant ones.

Just Vincent swam this week (Catherine was sick). So here are pictures of his spectacular jump, Vincent and me mugging for the camera, and Vincent during team cheers ("I will not CHEER! I am not a GIRL!).

Pickling our dream life at the farmers' market

Once again, Roger proved that he is a proficient pack mule, Dominic proved that he is the boy-of-a-thousand-grimaces, and I proved that any chore can be made fun (case-in-point: corn-shucking) if you pretend reluctance to let the kids join in, when we descended like a swarm of locusts on the farmers' market.

This is why it's helpful to have a summer bucket list: So that when a lazy Saturday morning presents itself and the kids demand, "Whatarewedoingtodayhuhhuhuh???" while you're still in bed, you can tell them to go pick something from the bucket list... and then lock the door after they clamor out.

It's surprising how much fun you can have at the farmers' market -- the kids love counting out peaches and cucumbers, finding just the right tomatoes, sampling everything. And I love seeing that connection of farm-to-table: Dirt still clings to the fresh-dug potatoes, morning dew still shines on the crisp lettuce leaves. And I love that Kroger, a wax coating, and slick packaging don't come between the grower and the consumer. That's how it should be.

Catherine and I have a plan: Someday we will own a farm with goats and chickens (me) and horses and rabbits (her). We will ride horses every morning, make jam and cheese in the afternoons, and sew quilts in the evening. Vincent and Daddy can live next door. Monica, who is forever a baby in Catherine's fantasy, will live with us and will actually sleep through the night. Dommie can live down the street. His farm will be filled with old firetrucks.

I like her fantasy.

We're starting small, though, before we transition to our self-sufficient Little-House-on-the-Prairie lifestyle. For now, Catherine attempts to snare rabbits every time we take a walk by dropping carrot bits in front of bushes. She sews tiny quilts for her Playmobil people. The other night she sneaked out of bed to watch me make strawberry jam. Today we are pickling cucumbers. And when I decide to reopen the closed subject of getting chickens, Roger's sweet little daughter will play a prime role in the begging.