Pig tails and a Sharp-shinned hawk

 My little girl has hair long enough to wear pigtails now. I smile every time I look at her. This is her saying, "Mom, I wanna draw." (See the markers in her hands?) She will write something and then say "A! A!" I think she already understands that print has meaning. It's so incredible to witness a child's mind learning and growing.

Unlike my boys, Tessa plays with her "babies" all day long. She feeds them, takes them for walks, reads to them, puts them down for a nap, and gives them lots of kisses and hugs. Oh, and she also draws on them. Thank goodness for washable markers. 

 This is Tessa's first experience with paint. It was quite the colorful masterpiece. And below is Tessa in a silly mood, trying to put on glasses that belong to Mr. Potato Head.

But the funniest thing Tessa does is say, "Pop" in a very nonchalant way whenever someone farts. It still cracks the brothers up every time she does it. Fart. Pop. We can't even remember what life was like before this little girl. What would we do without her? We just love her so much.

Collin traded in his skis for a snowboard recently. He went snowboarding for the first time last weekend and loved it. He can't wait to get back on the mountain, just him and his dad. Luke also tried skiing for the first time. Merritt eventually wants us all up on the mountain together. 

Little Owen has shingles right now if you can believe it. He was immunized for chickenpox but no matter. I didn't even know kids could get shingles. I thought it was an adult disease. Poor kid. 

And I just can't resist posting a picture of this cool hawk that attacked the birds at my feeder the other day. I had never seen a Sharp-shinned hawk in the wild before...until now. It's the smallest hawk in North America, not much bigger than a robin. But it swooped in like a predator, from out of nowhere. It was incredible. Birds are so awesome. It's the bird sightings that get me through the winter. I'm already aching for spring.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Love, Harry Potter, Karate Kid, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Minnie Mouse

I'm starting a home preschool!

I'm so excited to be a teacher! I've been playing school ever since I was a little girl, and now I'm finally going to have a real classroom! With 8 boys and 1 girl! I'm still hoping to recruit some more girls. (Otherwise, poor Elle.) But I do kind of specialize in boys. (I have three of my own.) So I don't mind a bit. I'm unofficially calling it the Science Discovery Preschool. My school will emphasize science, naturally. But what will make the school really great is that I use a project approach to learning. I am very committed to that.

I'm already having fun preparing materials for my classroom. Thanks to Merritt's cousin (who is a general contractor), I am now the proud owner of a set of homemade Montessori baric tablets. The wood is beautiful to look at, interesting to touch, and smells earthy. Baric tablets are very sensorial. Students sort the tablets by weight (light, medium, and heavy). As an extension, students can sequence 6 different tablets by weight. A blindfold is optional. Thanks Brian for gifting me the wood and the time it took to make them. I am seriously in love with these. It makes me happy just to look at them. Amber, I hope you can find a way to make this activity for your classroom too. It would be fun to swap stories about how the children use them. Cheers!

Baric tablets extension:

The student sorts six different tablets by weight from lightest to heaviest. Here is the order: cedar, pine, walnut, cherry, hickory, wenge. The student uses a balance to check. Alternatively, the tablets could be numbered on one side.

 Baric tablets classic:
The student brings the tablets to the table or floor with a mat. Here is pine, oak, and wenge (3 of each).

 

The student mixes up the tablets on the mat then closes their eyes (or is blindfolded). Alternatively, the student can mix the tablets by stacking them to build a tower on the mat.

 The student holds each tablet in the palm of his hand then sorts the tablets by weight into 3 groups (light, medium, heavy).

 

 The student opens his eyes and checks that the tablets have been sorted correctly (the colors match).

The tablets are then returned to the shelf, ready for the next person to use.

Oregon Vacation

Happy Birthday Tessa

Tessa is already one-year-old. She loves water and baths more than any kid I've seen. Hence the rubber duck cake. Tessa practically swims as soon as I put her in the bath. She lays down and starts waving her arms and kicking her legs. She'll come up for a breath of air, then go right back down into the water. After her bath, she takes a morning nap with her rubber ducks.

Her favorite book is Eric Carle's Ten Little Rubber Ducks. I recently took her to a pond near our home so she could meet some real ducks. I'm hoping to take her to the ocean this summer. So she can meet the other animals in her book. For now, we just fill her water table with bubble bath and rubber ducks. She is a happy girl. She spends hours each day playing in her water table. I change her clothes about three times a day because she's always getting wet.

It's so fun to see her learn new things. She's really learning fast now, doing new things every day as she explores her world. I took a moment to remember her birth. I still remember the first time I held her in my arms. Happy birthday, Tessa. I love you, darling girl.

Baseball: Go Collin!

I saw my oldest son play a baseball game for the first time this week. Youngest kid on the team. Coach asked him to pitch. He was excited. I was nervous. All the other kids had been playing ball for a couple of years. This was Collin's first game ever. I wasn't even sure he knew the rules of the game. Coach's kid opened the game. Third inning Collin stepped onto the mound.

He began to warm up. And I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The pitches were coming in hard and fast right over the plate. I asked Merritt: Is this really our kid? Where did he learn how to pitch like that? And I started to get a little teary-eyed. Another parent walked over to me and asked: Where did Collin learn how to pitch like that? I said: I don't know. In the three innings that he pitched, he only walked two players. Needless to say his team won the game.

Every time Collin got off the mound at the end of an inning, there was no smile and no celebration. His teammates would cheer him and put their arm around him. But Collin remained serious and focused, like he had a job that needed doing. I was impressed by his maturity.

That night, he came home and we were all so proud of him. But he headed to the back yard and pitched into the fence over and over again until it was too dark to see. It's like this little boy had suddenly found what he was born to do. I watched him fall in love with the game that night.

When I went to tuck him into bed, he was wearing his baseball cap and had his baseball in his hand. I said: Are you going to sleep with that? He said: Yeah, mom. I gave him a kiss and he closed his eyes and went to sleep, baseball in hand. It's a day I'll never forget. 

Tessa Is Growing Up

Tessa looked so grown up today pushing her little stroller around her bedroom. And she started pointing at things this week. She points to where she wants me to take her. She points at things she wants. She points at things she is curious about. I just love it. I just love her. The boys and I just can't get enough of her. She'll be one year old this month! I can't believe it.