Muffin Tin Monday- Bread and Jam for Frances

I'm starting Muffin Tin Monday this week- the grand and lofty goal is to do it every week, though I might not always play along with the correct theme. I think it's such a cool idea, and a novel way to hook kids into eating something they might not otherwise. (Ariel's eating tomato soup! Holy Cow!)

This week I wanted to use a children's book as our theme, so we read Bread and Jam For Frances this morning and made a big list of all the foods they talked about in the book. We found:

• eggs
• bread and jam
• veal cutlet
• baked potatoes
• orange juice
• toast
• cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches
• pickle
• milk
• grapes
• tangerine
• spaghetti and meatballs
• tomato soup
• celery
  
• carrots
• black olives
• plums
• cherries
• vanilla pudding

Quite a good list to work from. The idea is not to have to do anything crazy- just stuff you already have.

With six kids around the table, I took three muffin tins and filled six cups each. It works out well to have the oldest and youngest share, then the next, then the two middle kids. They can help each other, and it also happens to be a picky eater and a good eater in each team.

Duchess and O'Malley shared a tin,

Snow White and Sebastian shared another,

and Marie and Ariel shared another.

We ate tomato soup, black grapes, tangerines, bread and jam, green beans, and cheddar cheese since I didn't have any eggs and we needed some protein.

Everyone had a great time and actually ate something. Next week is supposed to be a Halloween theme, and I may do something original if I can think of it. If not, I'll go through the muffin tin archives and borrow a good idea. :)

We all need a reason to look forward to Monday!

Miss Marie

Marie is back! She had gone home for the summer and I wasn't sure if we would get to see her anymore, but it turns out that we do. She'll be here until around October when her mama goes on maternity leave and she gets to go home with her new little sister.

She has learned about four hundred words since she left in May. It's like we got a different person back- a total conversationalist. She's told me her little sister is sleeping in Mommy's tummy, not ready to wake up yet. It's so cute. She remembers all the routines and has slipped back into the rhythm of our day very easily. No transition needed at all, which is very nice.

I need to take some new pictures of her because her hair has gotten really long too.

This week begins the season of changes that we have going on- I have eight kids just for this week, then next Monday Belle will go off to kindergarten and I'm back to seven. At the end of September I'm getting a delicious teeny squishy six week old, who is currently one week old. I'll post pictures of her once I get permission from her mama. She's so greasy and wonderful. :)

Splashing

I remember now why I don't do water days very often- MAN they are a lot of work. :) Getting everyone changed, into swim diapers if they need it, finding towels and sunscreen, getting the equipment set up, supervising during the water play, dealing with some who hate it and want to go inside immediately while others love it and scream when it's time to come in no matter how long you've been out, tracking in mud and grass, getting everyone dried off and changed, being behind schedule on making lunch.... I was very glad my sister showed up to be an extra pair of eyes and hands. :)

We are very feast or famine with the water play- either they LOVE it or they very much do NOT. This year it's pretty much big kids vs. little kids- 3 and up love it, anybody younger would rather stand on their head in an ant pile than be wet.

Highlights from the HAVE NOTS:
(not much interesting going on when you're sitting on the sidelines... )
Sebastian stayed like this for a really long time, then gave up and tried to go sit in one of the cars. By then the yard was really wet and he got mud on his toes. He lost it. He hates to be dirty, and he was freaking out about the mud, but also about the water, and he wouldn't let me put him in the spray to clean him off. Poor kid- can't win for losing. :)

Supervising from the porch...

O'Malley gave up on us completely and left the area- he digs the sandbox.

Highlights from the HAVES:
(water! lots of water! stay in it till we're pruny and muddy!)


I had to pry them out of this pool with a crowbar when the water looked like lentil soup. They were in there FOREVER.
Showing off her cute new swimsuit.
Snow White and Ariel- I had to take four shots to finally get one with their eyes open, but didn't it turn out cute?

As far as a review of the spray park, I think it's a pretty good time for forty bucks. It took me almost two and a half HOURS to blow up all the stupid huge animals by myself- I really recommend using a pump of some sort. The only one we have is for our tires and plugs into the car lighter- so I couldn't really go out there and use it. Blowing up three ginormous toys with your own breath power is a lot of work and I had a headache the rest of the day. Also, it says you need to use the hose and put water weight in the bottom of the elephant and giraffe, which I didn't do because they were impatient to get started. The elephant did okay without it, but the giraffe really does need it. It kept falling over and we couldn't get it to work right. But that also might be because I ran out of breath and maybe didn't put enough air in it. Other than that the whole thing was awesome and worked well to keep 12 kids occupied for over an hour- that's a good time. :)

Pictures!

I can't believe it's been SO long since I posted. Lots going on around here~ and no time to document it. :)

We've been spending lots of time outside lately since the weather has been nice. I'm really enjoying this tiny window where it's not 1000 degrees yet, so we've been hanging out in the yard most mornings and sometimes in the afternoons too.

I despair of ever getting a decent sibling picture of Ariel and Sebastian.


Sweat + Sand = Nasty on Flounder



Cheesy Grin- too bad she isn't at all photogenic, right?



Our friend is back! She graduated to a new preschool last fall, but will be here through the summer before she heads off to kindergarten. I'll have to come up with a princess name for her too- I'm sure that's what she will want. I guess we'll call her Belle for now.


And here's Marie, looking annoyed that I dragged her away from what she was doing to make her look up and take a picture.

Happy Friday, and have a great long weekend!

Belated Japan Day

Here are some cute pictures of the kiddos trying out their chopsticks. Snow kept calling them tweezers. Hey, whatever works. :) They were much better at using them than I expected. I can only do them myself if I hold them still and use them like a shovel. I never got the hang of the whole tweezing thing.

Suitcase Surprise

I love the curriculum we order. Over the last few months they've revamped it and integrated a bunch of new things to make it better. My favorite is the Writer's Workshop, as a former English teacher and lover of creative writing for kids. Today we made our first class book. Our theme for April is Around the World, which I think is my favorite by far in the last 2 years I've been ordering. I love maps and geography and landmarks and I do a lot of that with the kids anyway, so it is awesome to have all this stuff to back me up.

We talked about the seven continents today. Most of the big kids already can list them, since we sing a song about them every morning. We're working on identifying them by shape and being able to list them out of order instead of only singing the song. I gave them a few facts about each one, and then their book page was to tell me a story about which continent they'd like to visit, what they would do there, and what they ought to pack in their suitcase to go. Then they illustrated their page and wrote their name on it and I'm going to bind it and keep it here for them to read.

Duchess: "I want to visit Asia so I can play in the sand and water and see all the panda bears. I want to visit J and G in China. {her friends who moved there.} Next I would go to that very chilly place to visit the penguins, oh, that is called Antarctica. In my suitcase I have a bunch of clothes and hairbrushes- two at least!"

Ariel: "I'd like to visit the penguins in Antarctica. It's cold there. The penguins like me because they like to laugh at me when I make funny faces at them. In my suitcase I have my Ariels {what she calls her barbie dolls} and then some Dora panties and then... my mommy will pack the rest for me."

Buzz: "I want to visit Grandma- she lives in Texas. I don't fly on the airplane! I ride in my car. I have a fast racecar. Then I look at toys with {my cousin}. In my suitcase I have my backpack and a little dog. I not take clothes! just toys. I will wear underwear."

Snow White: "I want to go to the Eiffel Tower SuperFast! It is in France. I going to play at the top. My mommy comes too. In my suitcase I have toys- a new bouncy bouncy ball. Red shirts and blue pants and kittycat shoes."

Sebastian was at the doctor this morning and Marie and O'Malley just colored and grinned at me. We have a marvelous book.

Disney Kids

It's official. I asked them what they wanted for their super secret names, and they chose to be Disney characters. Some of them surprised me and Ariel definitely didn't. :) Her brother is now Sebastian. It's a good thing he doesn't much care, because I'm not sure he would have picked that on his own, but sister insisted.

I ran through a bunch of different ideas for Buzz before he hit on it. Do you want to be Lightning McQueen? Or Prince Charming? What about Woody or Buzz?

YES! I be Buzz Ightear! In infitty anddeyond!

Excellent then. Well done and off you go. Then we have an assortment of princesses and several Aristocats. And they named the baby Eeyore, which does not really suit his personality but oh well. Life is good.