This Week in Pictures

 

The long, snowy, cold winter continues.  We have had more snow this year!  Here in Southern Ohio, it is rare to have more than a couple of storms but we've had many.  And wow, COLD.  We've been down in negative digits several times this winter.  I'm so thankful for a warm house.  A couple of friends have propane furnaces and there is a major propane shortage, to the point that these friends don't have adequate heat. That is hard!

It is an odd thing, but I don't do very many science experiments with the children.  Odd because I have a PhD in science and engineering!  The REASON is that doing messy experiments with toddlers and preschoolers around is not easy.  They get into things so QUICKLY.

Lydia is one of our more right brained, artistic kids. To my surprise, she is great at running experiments out of her Apologia science book.  I do my best to make sure we have the appropriate items and she runs with it. As you can see, she had an admiring audience for this experiment involving eggs and salt water.

Finally, with enough salt in the water, the egg floated!

We have these building mats in our basement, usually.  Last week, I asked the big kids to haul the mats up to our family room to entertain the 2 littles. It worked for...an hour or so. I guess that made it a success.

Here is our little shorn lamb after a haircut.  Her hair was getting long and was all too often tangled.  So I decided to trim her hair.  I chose a moment which was comparatively calm, but within a minute chaos erupted. The result was that I was cutting her hair while keeping track of Daniel and being distracted by noise.  Yep, you are right. That isn't the best way to cut hair. I kept discovering I had cut one side shorter than the other and needing to "even" it up...well, in the end, she looks pretty cute though her hair is a little shorter than I originally intended.

A totally precious Daddy-Daniel moment.  Daniel is sucking on the tag of his pillow pet while watching his father play a game.

Naomi is also good at experiments.  Here she is making soda pop from a soda pop kit. The results were less than stellar, but I think the kids had fun making it.

I do the bulk of the formal homeschooling, though Kevin of course provides much moral support, the finances, and much practical teaching.  However, he has currently started a formal course with our big girls in the area of COOKING. He found an organization that approaches cooking from a scientific standpoint, and he and the big girls are working through the book together.  I think when they are done, the big girls (and certainly Kevin) will know more about cooking than I do. Which makes me think I should be taking the course with the girls, but I'm often kid wrangling while they work with Kevin.