The grovelling.

Elin pulled a fast one on me last Saturday afternoon.  I had been out shopping, and while I was gone, apparently she did not eat her lunch and was extremely . . . challenging.  When I got home, everyone was napping.  Eventually Elin woke up - before Nate did.  Elin asked for a snack, and not knowing her transgressions, I gave her a leftover caramel roll.

Nate came out to the kitchen.  "Elin, why are you eating a caramel roll?"

Busted.

Elin was supposed to wait until dinner for food.  No meals here, no snacks - especially exotic snacks like homemade caramel rolls.  For shame.

Elin was so ashamed of herself, we didn't even have to discipline her.  As soon as I said, "Elin, you knew you weren't supposed to have a snack and you asked me for one anyway!  Why did you disobey Daddy?",  she threw herself prostrate on the floor before Nate.  And laid there for at least five minutes.  Finally, still face down, she scootched backward into the hallway without saying a word and then ran as quickly as she could to her room and slammed the door. 

Elin, you are forgiven!

Nine o'clock sharp

In case you were wondering, this is what our life is like at 9:00 sharp weekday mornings.



 First thing we do is say the Pledge of Allegiance.

 We don't have a flag, so the girls drew their own.  At some point maybe we'll get something more official, but this works for now.

Then we have calendar time.  We have to take turns who gets to do all the calendar stuff every day, or else, there would be fights.

 We talk about today, tomorrow, and yesterday.

And then we check the weather, recite our address, phone number, and emergency numbers, and write down how many days we've been in school.  (We're on 17 tomorrow . . . these pics are a little old!)

Then we recite our weekly memory verse (with motions!!).  This is followed by a short devotional.  Today, for example, we talked about why we can't see God (if you want to know, just ask Svea).

And then we sing a Bible song.  So far "Zaccheus" has been the biggest hit.

Then Elin puts a letter on her coconut tree (if it's Monday) and we read "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom".  She focuses on one letter all week long.

Then we get to work.

Svea LOVES to color, so she spends a lot of time perfecting every picture she colors in or creates.

 I have a whole arsenal of little things for Elin to do.

 Here, she is putting magnets on her weekly letters.

Viggo works on handwriting.

Handwriting is something that doesn't come naturally to Viggo.  He has to really work at it.
There's also a strange phenomenon that happens daily.  I look in Viggo's handwriting workbook, and everything is perfectly beautiful.  Then I look at his other work that requires handwriting. 

That handwriting . . . . hmm.

So what are you doing at 9:00 am?

{This isn't all me . . . our morning routine was adapted from Erica's at www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com, easily my favorite homeschooling website!}

Summer pocket photorama

I have two cameras.  I attempt to empty my Nikon's memory card on a regular basis.

My Canon . . . that sits in my pocket, purse, or whatever bag I have on hand, and I carry it almost everywhere.

It's been in my pocket all summer, and tonight I thought, let's empty this baby out and see what's on it.  A random mishmash of lots of events.  And this is the abbreviated version!

 Viggo plays air hockey with friend Caleb.

The V-man and I joined friends for a movie night at the library.

 Elin does her vision check-up at the pediatrician's.
They used to have to hold up black, plastic paddles to their eyes.
Both Viggo and Svea used the paddles.  And there was a considerable amount of cheating (the paddle would mysteriously move aside while trying to read the letters or shapes in the tiny rows).
Now there are cute little eye patches instead.

 The girls and I loved to visit the local gardens this summer.
This is the tomten door.

There was an art class at the garden that day.  So fun for us to look at the beautiful paintings.

There was a chipmunk.  We fed it peanut pieces from the tops of our ice-cream cones we bought in the gift shop.

Elin loves maps.

There were tons of these flowers, and nearly every one had a big, golden bug on it.

The girls go through a pile of dropped rose petals.

Elin consults the map again.
She let us know we were still there.
She's so handy to have around.

Svea and Viggo go on goose patrol.  That morning, they swatted the geese out of our garden with reasonable success.

We went to Ikea and met up with our friend Kevin!

Yes he chased the kids around Ikea in his chair.
Looking at lighting with Nate and suddenly seeing Kevin zoom by with the children running in front of him screaming with glee is a sight I will not soon forget.
Quite honestly I thought we were going to be kicked out for being completely unruly. 
That would have made our visit to Ikea all the more fun!

After Ikea we all went over to the Mall of America.

So when we lived in Delaware, people would ask me if I had been there.  To the Mall of America.  I remember opening up a checking account and the teller at the bank seemed surprised and disillusioned to hear that I did not frequent the MOA and that I was unapologetic about not really being a Vikings fan.

This was the first time I had been to the mall since somewhere around 2006.
We were there for what, half an hour?  That was enough.
I'll be back in six years for my next visit.

 It was super-fun with Kevin though.  Elin was busy showing him all the Lego stuff at Legoland.

 Then we walked around the outside of Lego to see the lego artwork.

Minnesotan lego murals.

 All made up of itsy-bitsy lego bricks.
I want to have that job.

We hit an overpriced gift store.
We were in desperate need of a tutu.
It was for Elin.  To convince her to go #2 in the potty.  We are not ashamed:  we buy our children off when it comes to potty training.  (It works!)

Now we were in the parking lot at a local grocery store and I had my camera with.
Check out what is parked near the pharmacy drive-thru.  Now there's a cure for what ails you!

I made them stand there and took their picture (I was not the only parent doing this.)  How often do you get to see the Oscar-Mayer weinermobile?

Yep.

And the kids got weiner whistles.
I got coupons.
I think they got the better deal.  But I am just saying, if you have three children that get weiner whistles all at the same time, do not unwrap them and then get into a car with them.  That is a recipe for insanity.

Here we are at the craft store.  Ice cream cones at the cafe for the girls - Viggo and Nate were up at the lake, and we needed to a) get out of the house and b) have a treat.  (Elin is warming her hand on my hot chai tea latte.)

 Our church recently celebrated it's birthday, so there was lots of fun stuff to do after the service.

Horsey rides.

Elin and Svea were just in heaven.

Svea loved riding on Spirit.

Viggo loved the inflatable obstacle course.

The end!

Puzzles & ducks

So for the past few months, one word can sum up our life: puzzlemania.

The kids have always enjoyed puzzles, but this summer it reached to near-obsession.

They would wake up.  At 6:00 am.  And pull out puzzles.

25 piece, 50 piece, 100 piece, 200, 1000, 1500. 

Animal, space, biblical, travel, glitter, sound-making, lenticular, wood, plastic, cardboard, three-dimenstional, shaped, old, new, from the thrift store. Whatever.  No puzzle was immune.

 Puzzles in boxes, pouches, and trays.

Puzzles out for days and days.

 This puzzle actually had puzzles within the puzzle.  Nate helped out on this one.  Actually a couple of nights he just sat at the island and worked on it.
We had friends over.
And they worked on it too.
It was a relationship-building thing.

Pieces . . . yeah, they were everywhere.
I mean the kids were quiet and completely abosorbed for hours.  I really shouldn't complain.  It's just that hundreds of pieces were constantly underfoot, coating every square foot of our house in . . . puzzle.

I'm not saying I was tempted to just vacuum everything up.

Nothing says "good morning!" like stepping into the kitchen onto a glitter horse puzzle and hearing screams of horror: "But I was WORKING on that one!"

Svea works on really old puzzles (mine when I was about her age).

 A new puzzle from Grandpa and Grandma Daisy! (They had heard about the puzzle insanity and were quick to respond.) 

 Dragging the blanket through the pieces and distributing them throughout the house.
As you can imagine Nate was not really cool with all of this.
It's not that he doesn't love puzzles (I mean who doesn't love a good puzzle) but one can only take so many open boxes and half-finished puzzles lying around for so long.
All told, at one point I think we had roughly 30,000 pieces out simultaneiously.
They got picked up . . . eventually.

And then there were ducks.
The kids were working on puzzles after breakfast one morning (obviously) when I looked out the window and saw ducks in the neighbor's yard.
I went out with some bread and convinced to come to our yard.
It worked.  All of those little duckies followed me across the street to our place.
It was our neighborhood pond's family of 13 ducks.  But there were three extra this time (perhaps some visiting, migrating family members).

 The kids sat outside and fed them.

We ran out of bread. 
So we got out the puzzle pieces . . .