May days

May is a wonderful month.  

The Kona ice truck was in town and they posted info on Facebook for how to order ahead for delivery... I had decided not to do it because it's expensive and messy and really not necessary.  Except, the girls were outside when the truck showed up next door for the neighbor's day care kids.  And they were so disappointed.  My poor deprived children.  But then! Our wonderful neighbor waved them over because instead of the six kids she was planning on that day she only had one and she had extra icees.  So.  All was right with their world again and I was saved from being the worst mom ever.  haha.  

 Emmy's teacher suggested they make May baskets so we did.  Cadence refused to help deliver them because she "didn't want to be seen."  The older two enjoyed sneaking up to a few of the neighbors doors.  We only "got seen" at one house.  ha.  

One lovely afternoon the girls decided that the playhouse needed cleaning.  So they got very wet and dirty 'cleaning' it. 

 Emmy worked very hard to to sweep the dirt floor and put down fresh cut grass.  

 Another Sunday at home...  it was Donna's turn to have the lesson in W-ton and it featured Jack so we watched it before we listened to our lesson.

 Miri-miri has discovered how to climb.    

 She's very very proud of herself.  

 I'm pretty sure she was trying to put my shoes on, but she can't hardly stand up by herself sooo... 

 Emmy turned 6!  Which is crazy, but yeah.  She was very, very excited.  She requested a Lightfury cake, so this is my attempt at a dragon. Ha.  

 She had our day planned out, and our menu. We had scrambled eggs with french fries and pancakes for breakfast.  Lunch was hot dogs on buns with ketchup and mustard, apples with nutella.  Afternoon snack was dirt cups.  For supper she wanted frozen pizza and homemade bread sticks (whatever) and noodles too.  haha. 

We did cake at lunch...

 She wanted to open her presents in her room.

 A lightfury the lights up and makes noise!  (Imagine waking up to that sound the next morning... yeah.) 

 Bob's parents brought over a new bigger bike!  

 She had a great day... haha... oh to be six again.  She got a cool little restaurant style condiment holder; Cecily said, "It's just like a fancy restaurant!"  We don't get out much. 

 Also, with Miriel in the pull-everything-out-and-spread-it-around stage and Cadence in the make-a-nest-with-all-of-my-favorite-things stage our floors look like this pretty much all of the time.  Woot.  :P

We had a cooler week so I ordered mulch.  The girls were so. very. helpful. ha.  Once we figured out some things that they could do, they did pretty well.  Emmy filled buckets with mulch (unnecessary, but she did it willingly).   

 Cecily mulched almost the whole section in front of the porch by herself!  Trying to teach them to work like farm girls...

 After we got the mulch off the driveway the girls spent an entire afternoon chalking it. All of the driveway. And the sidewalk.  And the side patio.  They used all but one or two pieces of chalk and came in with skinned knuckles.  Crazy kids.

 My parents brought the tiller over one evening so we finally got the garden tilled.

 Grandpa's always up for playing in the playhouse. :)  

 Tilling was secondary to bringing Emmy's birthday present- her AG doll!  She is smitten with Maryellen.  

 Sometimes my cousins play Psych and sometimes we are on fire.  

Mother's day was nice and mostly relaxing.  A local paint party company advertised painting kits for Mother's day and it sounded like fun.... I requested a firefly/ summer evening theme and we worked on them during nap time. 

 Cadence had a great time, Cecily said, "oh it's just like art at school" and mixed several shades of blue and whipped out a beautiful painting.  

 Emmy slowly and steadily painted away.  

 Our finished masterpieces!  (I added the firefly and moon back to Cadence's glorious blue-green mess.)

 The girls made brownies for dessert.  

 Miriel got into all kinds of trouble.

 And Bob and Emmy made supper while I was lazy.  It was a good day.

The dry spell was about to end so the tree crew showed up to take down our big tree.  They said the DBH was 30, which I googled- at breast height the tree's diameter was approximately 30 inches.  

Tree work is so fascinating. We got no school work done that morning.  

 Farewell tree!  Sad day, but... it was starting to make groaning noises on windy days so it was time.  

 Bob built Miri a little chair from duplos.  She was so pleased.  She just sat and sat and looked so very proud of herself. 

The lilacs are in bloom and Emmy has been making many lovely bouquets.  

 Cecily and Emmy helped me plant the garden and it will never be this perfectly weed free again. We stuck the tired birthday balloons out there to discourage birds from pulling up onions.  

 We finished the school year!!  Woot woot! I'm probably more excited about it than they are.  Final zoom meetings; packets finished and turned in.

 Last day of school picture!

Overall, school at home wasn't bad.  But.  It does not make me want to home school. Kindergarten was harder than second grade, mostly because Emmy is right on the brink of reading easily and independently.  She had a lot of worksheets every day and I pretty much had to keep her on task and focused through every single one.  Cecily can read her own assignments and is pretty good at keeping herself on task.  We celebrated with McDonald's for lunch and a lazy afternoon.  
We're looking forward to summer! Hopefully we won't have to spend all of it at our house... ha.
Blessings.  

For die Mutti

*ahem*

She is overflowing bookshelves

is homemade ketchup and shelves of canning jars

She is farm house

and barnyard

She is peony bushes

whose roots first grew in Gridley

She is mother gledhill and hilda barth

is supper in the field and picnics on the road

She is how hard can it be? and #stubbornwysswomen

and resilience and perseverance

is songs around the piano and musicals on the record player

She is ‘tho your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow

She is wilderness canoe trips wishing for days on the beach

is chipped beef on toast and Cornish hens

is Chicken Pickin’ Day

is heirloom china in the dining room

Hours of Candyland; Sectors of Health

She is these moments- we arise and call her blessed

Happy Mothers Day!


*I feel like I should qualify this abysmal attempt at poetry with acknowledging that I borrowed strongly from the I am from/Praise poetry form.  At least it isn't mushy.  

The days are just packed

I have to confess that I can not relate to people who are bored in this strange quarantine/shelter in place business.  Some days it feels like I don't get a chance to sit down, let alone run out of things to do. 

Also I have a tendency to go overboard on non-essential things.... like candying violets for Miriel's birthday.  haha.  All of the girls happily helped me pick a bucketful of violets and Emmy insisted on dipping and sugaring almost a third of them.  

 Cecily's class is learning about culture and they were supposed to learn about a cultural food and either make it or draw it or build it with play-do.  She opted to just use the springerle roller on play-do.

 But then I decided I kind of wanted to make springerle soooo.....  I did.  (Stress baking.) They rose nicely, but they tipped to one side.  I don't get it.  How do you all make such perfect looking cookies!?  I used to be able to!  *sigh*  Anyway, we got a picture of Cecily holding her Great Grandma Beutel's roller and Great Grandma Marjorie's springerle board.

 They were having a slightly rough day so we pulled this activity out of the dim recesses of my memory.  Hang your head over the edge of a bed, cover your eyes and nose, stick glasses on your chin- suddenly your frowns turn into smiles!

 Learn about traditional cultural dress and recreate it with things you have at home- we just so happen to have this Dirndle looking apron...  and Swiss braids for my Swiss miss! 

The weekly toilet paper hunt was getting extremely old; I was tired of going to three different stores looking for it and it was a point of stress for certain other unnamed individuals.  Late one night I found a big case, in stock!, online so I ordered it.  And now I don't have to go Christmas shopping!

 In true hoarder fashion they built a castle.  ha. 

 One night, after they had been in bed for a while and were not sleeping, I went into their room to find this fort.  They were very mad that I made them take it down, but it was 11pm (!) and they were fighting.  They rebuilt it in the morning. 

 Flat Stanley came home from California wearing a tiny mask and gloves made by Aunt Peggy.  He managed to see some poppies and visit Disney and check out the dessert around Lancaster before everything shut down. 

 We flew a kite one afternoon.

 A good time was had by all.

 Checking out a rainbow.

 Emmy has to read 15 minutes everyday and she doesn't love the booklets that come home in the packets.  So I pulled out this old gem.  If you look very closely at the inside cover, one of the student names is "Eddie W."  Somewhere along the line Dad bought some of his old school books- probably at an auction- and then they found their way to my bookshelves, and now Emmy is learning to read from the very same "Fun with Dick and Jane."   Who wouldn't prefer Sally's tea party getting rained on and Sally getting stuck under the table until Dick rescued her? 

 Sometimes the only way to get through school without someone screeching to be picked up is to stick her in the highchair with a handful of fruit loops.

 We love spring! And swinging!

 I taught Cecily how to whistle on a blade of grass.

 These two goobers were busily making the garden, complete with fence and string line.  ha. Too bad it's not even tilled yet. 

 School, sand, and snacks.

 One rainy afternoon we made knitting spools with popsicle sticks taped around toilet paper tubes (since we have plenty of them now... for crafting!).

 Cecily loved it, which I loved, because hooray for finding a fiber art that she likes!  She knit the whole ball of leftover yarn and ended up with a 15 ft long snake!

We are definitely not bored over here... 

Also, I'm not sure if 11 years ago I would have thought to put "hunting rabbits" on a list of things I'd enjoy doing with my spouse... :P  

No one else I'd rather be quarantined with... 

 Pretty flowers.

 Bob requested haystacks for supper, and then Betty dropped off dirt cups for dessert.  SO gourmet and fancy, haha.  And classy paper towels for napkins because there were none on the shelves that week. 

 She was pleased with her dirt cup.

 Very well satisfied.

 Some days it is just so hard to get up and get everyone on track and the weather is too nice to be inside all day so we tried to do some school outside.

 When did she get so big?? 

The girls helped me pick more violets to make Violet Jelly!  I saw the recipe while looking for birthday cake ideas for Miriel Violet and was intrigued.  It was good!  I like the taste; not sure if I'll add it to my regular canning schedule though- it requires picking a lot of violets!

Goofball.  She's like a ballerina thug in that vintage Burrus hat.  And those shorts came out of the bottom of a drawer I'm sure! 

 Miriel turned 1 on the 30th.  We did not get to have a family party, sad day, but we decorated and made cakes anyway.  And Lembas bread shaped sugar cookies for our little elf princess. 

 We put our candied violets on the cakes. Simple and elegant and very springy. 

 Pulled out the giant tissue paper decorations for the fourth time.  :) 

 Miri-miri is well loved...

 The night before her birthday, the older girls all neeeeeded to sew her presents.  *sigh*
Cadence did too, so "she" sewed a little butterfly.

 I found this adorable little mouse that comes in a matchbox- it's so cute!

 Cecily knitted another, shorter, snake and we added button eyes and a felt tongue.  haha.  Whatever. 

And Emmy "made" her this little 'blanket' that HAD to be made of minky and HAD to have some ribbon decoration. 

 Trying so hard to get to the cake while we sang.

 She was not at all shy.  :) 

 I filled the big cake with a layer of our homemade violet jelly.  So good.

 A fork aided in the destruction...

 We recorded her eating cake right after lunch to send to the grandparents, then delivered cake and cookies to the farm and Matt & Lena.  Bob's Mom and Sharon and girls stopped by in the evening to trade presents for cake.  Ha.  Social distance birthdays are weird, but not all bad. 

It still doesn't seem possible that she's 1 year old already! 
Blessings.