Our Week - with a Special Visitor

We were blessed to have Annaliese spend a few days here before her next big adventure!  She arrived Friday, and we all went out to dinner with Grammy and Carl.

Jack and Eli and I made Lego candy this week!

We used silicone Lego molds and candy melts.

Jack was naming all the guys as he popped them out of the mold.  We love Lego mini figures around here.  

We also made a few plain bricks.  They weren't very tasty.  I think we'll try again with real chocolate.  

This week, Eli assembled the world GeoPuzzle, as a geography refresher.  He will be taking Geography in classroom school next year, and has forgotten some of what we learned in our ECC year.

I saw cool kites on Zulily and got Eli an airplane one.  He's been trying and trying to get it up in the air, but it hasn't been windy enough.  I think we missed the best kite weather.

Brayden will be hanging out with us more, as Heather is going to be taking a class soon.  He is enjoying the big kids being out of school so they can play with him.  Sam adores Brayden.

Goofy boy showing off his mad glue stick skillz.

In science this week, we worked on the Moon Dance box from Groovy Lab in a Box.  We learned that Neil Armstrong's footprints are still visible on the moon and why that is.  These are great boxes, and my boys always look forward to digging into them.

It's funny; I set up activities for Katie, and the big kids want to get in on the action, too.  After seeing the multicolored rice at Big Truck Day, I decided to take a leap and mix all of our rice colors together.  I'm glad I did, the kids have really been enjoying it!

Eli built several new K'nex creations this week, including this Space Shuttle.  He's discovered online directions, and it's really opened up a lot of new possibilities for him.

Of course, one of the best parts of this week was just spending time hanging out with Annaliese!

We don't see her very often since she moved about 2 hours away from us 2 summers ago.

But now, we'll be seeing even less of her, as she's moved all the way to AUSTRALIA!  She's off to be a nanny for a year.  Should be quite an adventure.

One morning, I dropped Annaliese and Eli off at Color Me Mine so they could paint together.  Since she wouldn't be here when the items were finished being glazed, I suggested that she make something for Paul for Father's Day.

It will be nice to have a bit of her handiwork here to enjoy.

All the kids will miss Ese, of course, but Jack was particularly sad to see her go.

Somehow, I missed getting a photo of all 4 of my girls together.  When we went out to dinner, I got Annaliese and the little girls, but Brianna was at the end of year banquet for band.  When I took this picture, Hannah was at school.

It's pretty amazing to watch my kids grow up and travel the world.  My big boy is in the Middle East right now, and my big girl is Down Under.  We've been checking out the time zone map to see what time it is where they are versus where we are.

Katie is doing well with Hannah's transition back to school.  It helps having Brayden here to play with, I think, but even on the days when he's not here, she's doing okay.

I had some Chinese music playing in the background, and she asked if it was Chinese.  When I said yes, she asked if she could play with her China blocks.  She can't quite assemble the dragon puzzle on one side yet, but she did match the word pieces and 3 parts of the tail on her own, so I imagine it's not far off.

Seeing Katie with her blocks inspired Jack to get out the world map blocks.  I'm impressed that he can do this puzzle by himself!  It's a challenge.

The high schoolers are out for the summer.  Jack and Eli got to clean out their binders this week.  We've done our last grammar lesson and wrapped up pretty much everything except review work.  Hannah goes to school through the end of June, and then she'll be done, too, and the real summer vacation will start!  I can't wait.


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