I am sorely tempted to serve Chocolate Pizza for dinner tonight, then right as the girls go to take a bite, whisk it away and replace it with something they don’t like. It sounds like such a fun joke to me!

Thankfully for them, I am not so excited about April Fool’s Day that I would actually do anything that mean! BG tricked MG today by swapping the bags inside the (hooray! they are gluten-free!) Rice Chex for EnviroKidz Gorilla Munch, so when MG went to pour herself a bowl of her beloved Rice Chex, she got the not-beloved Gorilla Munch instead. That was really the extent of our April Fool’s Day pranking, thankfully.

The girls think they pulled a fast one on me today, and got out of some schoolwork. In reality, though, they just enabled some wonderful teachable moments. In place of our pre-planned history and science lessons we went on a walk, since it’s the second day in a row of no rain! We went for a Nature Walk, and broughtNature Walk journal pages for their science notebooks. They had fun doing their Nature Walk journaling at the nearby duck pond! I now have some lovely portraits of the ducks and goose at the pond, who (of course!) now all have names.

We had been looking at the plaques on nearby homes lately, so I created a template for our Historical Home Walk. Using this form we walked through the neighborhood noting the street number and name, year the home was built, who it was built for, the occupation of the person it was built for, and any further notes. In our town, and many others in the area, the plaques on older homes list this information on the side of the house. There are a lot, more than a half-dozen within a block of our home.

Now we have a lot of local history and information about life in the 1700s and 1800s to research! I had no idea what a cordwainer did for a living, do you? Well a nearby house was built in 1848 for a cordwainer, and now we know what his job was. Another nearby home was first built as a chapel in 1818, then adapted into a home almost 70 years later. It’s all fascinating, and our walk (which got them out of a pre-planned lesson) combined history, science, language arts, drawing, and physical education! We’re really looking forward to going down other streets the next day it isn’t raining.

As a bonus, we took my birthday present, a TomTom ONE XL, on our Nature and Historical Homes walk with us. Just in case we got lost, of course. We want to be safe, so it’s a good idea to make sure you know how to find your home! We’re thrilled it comes with a “walkable route” option.

Over the past couple weeks, as part of studying Ancient Civilizations, we’ve studied the ancient Jewish people and specifically, Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors. It turned multi-media when we learned about the musical Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! In our Homeschool Coop, we even had a mom who knew the music! On Friday, we also had fun making individual coats of many colors using paper the movers left behind, then pieces of construction paper as fabric. They were really cool.

On Saturday, MG had a birthday party to attend, which meant we needed to make cupcakes! I futzed with an existing recipe, and ended up with the perfect chocolate cupcakes, which were fluffy, moist, and looked beautiful, too! In the spirit of many colors, I set up 5 ziplocs of frosting, each in a different color. Then I snipped the end off a corner of each ziploc, and the girls were able to decorate with many colors. It was so much fun! And much less messy than I was expecting! Plus, multi-colored cupcakes taste better than solid-color cupcakes!

We’re settling into our temporary home, and finding little joys like little bursts of color. We hope all our friends are also having brilliant days.

We are moved into our transitional home, living with my mom & step-dad. So far living here is much better than expected (and I’m not just saying that since my mom reads here). There have been some bumps along the road, for sure – moving costs at least twice what people think it will, and it’s exponentially more difficult.

We’re starting new routines and trying to settle in, making our spaces ours in small ways. We’ve also been more structured with the homeschooling, and I’m really proud of how the girls have responded! This past week we started a wonderful new spelling program which uses “rimes” (or rhymes) and sequential spelling – so learning thin, then thins, then thinned, then thinning, etc.

BG and MG are really proud of how well they are doing! So today they are holding a spelling bee – there are still tickets and there’s still space for more of an audience! It was originally scheduled for 12:30pm Eastern, but now we’re at 1:15-1:30pm Eastern. so you’ve still got time!

I’m feeling really overwhelmed with everything, but there have been a lot of wonderful things this week, and I am aiming for optimistic. My girls are definitely surrounded by love, and that’s a Good Thing!

Today we continued some housecleaning.  We are working hard to make our home a place we love to be and to invite people inside.

Our oven has been broken for a while,but today we were supposed to get a new oven. Sadly, the eejits at Lowe’s went to the wrong house. Yeesh.

However, we got some flour ground and ready for making sugar cookie batter this evening (so it can chill overnight), and then bread tomorrow. Mmmmm bread!

Homeschooling today included coloring states red and blue (or blue stripey for states that changed from 2004 to 2008). I was amazed at how many of the states the girls remembered! They have truly cared about the election, and loved watching the Tina Fey episodes on SNL and watching The Daily Show. I have wonderful kids!

My daughters are thrilled that there will be children their ages in the White House. I’m just so so happy with the person we have chosen to be our 44th President. January 20th is going to be a wonderful day!

We have a couple church activities this weekend, as well as laundry and a lot of writing. I’m sure that our weekend will be full! Maybe we can take a walk with Ra, too – these pics are from a walk we took a couple weeks ago with Nanny Ogg and her flock.

A while ago, I created a snowball comic strip from some snowman & snowball pictures. I had been meaning to have the kids create comics using the same software, but then I forgot.

BG has gotten very interested in the Babymouse graphic novels, aimed at the tween-age. MG is also reading them, but BG is simply gobbling them up. Her (male) friends aren’t interested in the same books, but they all love comic books.

So, today at our homeschool coop, I let the kids use my camera, and the four “big kids” took pictures so they could create their own comic book next week. They jotted down ideas, staged their photos, and came up with their plans. Next week we’ll use Comic Life, their ideas, and their photos to make their comics. Cool! And a great idea for anyone who has kids that need to journal or write, but are lacking inspiration. Taking goofy pics of your siblings or friends and then turning them into a comic book is fun!

We got Comic Life on my MacBook, but there’s a free 30 day trial if you have a Mac that didn’t come with the software.

Sometimes I can just pull cool ideas out of thin air. I like those days. I also managed to tire everyone out with a long walk today – tired dogs & kids are good ones!

If you’ve been a regular reader here, you might remember that BG had, um, a huge tantrum negative reaction when Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status. The “worst thing in the world happened” on their friend G’s 6th birthday, the day before LG’s 3rd birthday, on August 24, 2006; the astronomers clarified the rules about planets, and Pluto was no longer considered a planet.

It’s been a year and a half since that decision. You might think, if you didn’t live here, that BG might have gotten over her disappointment in that span of time. You would, of course, be wrong. BG doesn’t forget anything. Ever. Part of our “decor” here is a map of the solar system, with another poster on the wall with information on all the planets (pre-Pluto demotion). While it isn’t a daily subject, it isn’t one that has been forgotten, either.

When we recently received a package of books for review from Clarion, it included a book that looked as if it had been tailor-made for BG: a picture book stuffed with scientific information called When is a Planet Not a Planet?: The Story of Pluto. As soon as I opened the package, BG was entranced by the book.

I know that a year and a half ago, when I was mourning Pluto’s status; my friend since childhood, F, had agreed with me, bemoaning the loss of her “Pies”. Our childhood planetary mnemonic was “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza-pies” or just “Pies”. (For the unfamiliar, each letter stands for a planet, and the words follow the order away from the sun). In The Story of Pluto, they use a slightly different mnemonic, “My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas”. Instantly, BG latched onto bemoaning “they took away our pizza!” Yeesh.

LG started whining that the “baby brother planet” wasn’t there any more. MG ignored her sisters for the most part, listening but not chanting, and yet she brought Pluto right into her imaginative play. Now their imaginative play is a mix of the solar system, fairies from Artemis Fowl, and the bird kids from Maximum Ride. Phew!

If anyone’s kid has learned a new mnemonic for the 8 planets, I’d love to know what it is! Meanwhile, we’re conducting further tests & research before posting some cool new children’s book reviews.

“Please put down the book and come to dinner.”

No response.

“Put down the book and come to dinner!”

“But I like reading! I want to know what happens next!” – MG

“But this is a good book!” – BG

“Sorry girls, I don’t want to put down my book, either. But we have a rule that there’s no reading at the table.”

“Pleeeeeeeeease?” – BG and MG together.

“You can read as soon as you’re done eating.”

“Can I learn to read now?” – LG

I ended up putting a bunch of books in a clementine box on the table, and telling them they could choose anything in there and read from dinner to bedtime.  I included a few pre-K books for LG.

There was much rejoicing!!! Reluctant and anxious readers have crossed the hurdle! I can see the giant light bulb over their heads!