Our Week With a Terrarium Project

I feel like all I ever do any more is talk about the library.  Sorry about that!  But I am so very excited about it.  I promise, I'll have something cool to share next week.  

Another box of new books for the library.  Jack promptly walked off with all the airplane ones.  

And Grumman attacked the shrink wrap.  

This is a Hannah project that I finally got around to photographing.  I think the craft book it came from has already gone back to the library.  I requested a couple new craft/project books this morning, though.  

Speaking of crafting!  I did some more paint pouring this week!  I have some smaller letters to do, too, but I need more white, red, and silver paints.  

Oh Grumman.

Such a weird cat.  

So, our first "theme" in the library is Wild About Books.  I got the letters as a freebie from Twinkl.  Hannah cut them out for me, and I rubber cemented them onto construction paper to use as shelf labels.  

I had several "bits" of leftover construction paper, so I turned them into a poster.  Remember those National Geographic magazines?  I set Hannah to work cutting out some "wild" animals, and voila!  I should have made Wild About Books a little larger, but it's not too bad for a quick scrap project.  

And there it is, on the wall.

For the Fiona fans.  

Miss Fifi continues to settle in well.  Although, she's in heat.  :sigh:  I've got her on the waiting list for 2 local clinics, but it may be a couple of months before they can get her in for surgery.  

MONDAY

This helps me see the progress.  It's so small on a day to day basis.  I'm starting to feel the clock ticking, since school starts in just a couple weeks.  

FRIDAY

MONDAY

FRIDAY

MONDAY

FRIDAY

Miss Fiona is feeling comfortable enough to do more exploring.  

I mentioned enjoying letting the girls have a semi-feral summer.  *This* is the kind of experience I meant.  

They told me about the lizards, and I said, "Next time you catch one, bring it to me so I can see it."

They caught 3 baby ones.  (This is Hannah's hand.  Not sure who the other two lil urchins were, but it was such fun to have them all run in to show me.)  

Baby Kasen in the Nai Nai loves me sleeper I sent them when they announced the pregnancy.  

Baby Kasen pukes on Daddy.  

This week's ancient library find:  Benjie from 1952.  

Blarg.  Went to Kaiser for an actual physical, since the last visit was literally just "girlie stuff."  

The highlight of the visit was spotting a dime.  "Find a dime, your airman's fine."  

I knew I was due for my tetanus shot, since I had the last one in 2010, before we traveled to adopt Hannah.  Zach asked us to update our pertussis vaccines before they bring Kasen out, or I would have skipped it now.  (The DTAP combo is diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.)  My arm is sore.  

Hannah has been bringing books home from the school library, and Katie has been mostly playing with Legos during quiet time lately, but we did bring home one pile from the city library this week.  

It was time to purchase a second barcode scanner, so I can have one at home and one at school.  I like this one much better than the cue cat scanner I did surgery on.  This one beeps.  There's something satisfying about that.  

A carpet was found for a story time rug.  Oh, and the ottomans (ottomen??) are "new," too.  They were rescued from the upcoming school rummage sale.  One is holding duplicate books, and one is holding prizes.  

Hooray!  Last week I still had more books without barcodes.  Now I have more books with barcodes!  It's actually even a little higher than this, as I added a dozen or so barcodes this morning.  

Once I plow through the 800 scanned books at the school and give them barcodes, they can go on the shelves instead of in Piles and Buckets and Boxes, oh my.  I don't even have a picture of the mound this week, but it's still quite daunting:  3 tables covered, plus containers amok underneath and beside them.  

Our public library had a summer science at home program for kids.  I signed Katie up, and we got a box of supplies to make a terrarium.  

First the rocks go in.

Then comes the charcoal, which has to be sniffed.  Methinks they hang out with Grumman too much.  He's big on sniffing.  

Katie sniffs while Hannah tries to place that scent.  "Like something happy!"  Katie said it was like burnt wood.  I think Hannah associates it with summer camp.  

Dirt.  Lots of dirt.  Too much dirt, actually.  

The poor (slightly decaying from transit) plant barely fit with the amount of dirt used.  One of the most challenging parts of the project was identifying a sunny, Grumman proof location to put the finished terrarium.  

The bulletin boards in the library should be hung next week, so I thought it was time to give my animals some eyes so I can take them in and get them hung up.  

August is going to be so busy!  I have a dentist appointment, the girls have a visit to Shriners, and SCHOOL starts, among other things.  

More Goodbyes

The house feels quiet and empty with only 4 kids left.  I realize that sounds weird to small families.  

I forgot to get a picture of last week's pile of books, but we picked up two piles this week.  

We went to the drive through swag bag pick up at Shriners.  Tomorrow is the last day of our week long Walk For Love event.  The goal was 20 miles in 8 days.  The last couple days have been triple digit temps, though, so I'm not sure they're going to make it.  We shall see.  

My mom came up for a visit while Annaliese was here.  I didn't manage to get any pics of or with my mom, which I'm kicking myself for.  But we went out to eat, and I took pictures of the kids, totally engrossed in screens.  

Not sure I like this trend.  Oh, and that's Annaliese's elbow, on the left, by Hannah.  

Sam was supposed to be packing, so I went to check and see how it was going.  Zzzzzzzzz!

Forgive the million piles of books in the school room.  Sam was intentional about soaking up the last couple days of brother time, by watching Disney + with the girls.

Katie could have stowed away in one of his bags.  

On his last day here, he got the girls milkshakes.  And yes, all the rules about eating upstairs went out the window when he said, "C'mon Mom, it's my last day."  

Annaliese travels light, which is good, because pretty much all Sam's worldly goods are in that little car.  

Ese and Sam's Excellent Adventure is about to commence.  

They're off!  It was a race to the end of the block.

Proof of life photo from Arizona.

They spent time in Flagstaff before heading to the Grand Canyon.  

Picture of Matilda in the Kaiser parking lot.  I meant to take a picture of something in the building, but nerves.  I did some heavy duty adulting today and went in for my first "well woman" exam in 9 years.  

I'm not great about taking care of myself.  

As promised, more books.  Oh, and we got a cool package from the library in the mail, too.  I signed Katie up for a zoom science thing, and there's a book and some supplies that go along with it.  I'll have to remember to take pictures when she does the project/experiment.   

Speaking of books, we spent time at the school 3 days this week, and we're at 1,786 books scanned/entered, and 510 totally processed and ready to shelve.  Not much progress in terms of numbers, but I emptied a shelf by selling duplicate books, so there was a lot of listing, pulling orders, shipping, invoicing, going to the post office, etc.  I used part of the funds raised to place a sale order at Library and Educational Services.  We did a review for them 7 years ago.  It's always nice to support a vendor we reviewed for; and I got a great deal on some new books for the school library.  Win win!  I'm hoping to get more spine labels typed up over the weekend so that when we go in on Monday I can label the rest of what's scanned.  

I'm also hoping there's some good deals on items on my wish list during Prime Days this week!  I've been adding things as I think of them, which has been fun.  It's quite the rabbit hole to go down, because Amazon is good at suggesting other books in a series, so I tend to add in batches.