Girls Night Out

Iria and her friends from church went boogie boarding tonight.

She wasn't able to join in, but at least that allowed her to take some cool pictures.

Last Day of School

It is almost noon and we just finished our last day of school for the school year. We ended on a high note, listening to the Queen of the Night's aria "Der Hoelle Rache brennt in meinem Herzen" from Mozart's Zauberfloete (The Magic Flute). We have been looking at, listening to, reading about and discussing the opera in music the last few days and Katharine and the rest of the gang have absolutely loved it!

In science we learned about Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor. It rounded out our unit on the respiratory and circulatory, nervous and digestive systems which Katharine loved and she can rattle off the parts and function of each system. A new website she discovered: kidshealth.org

Keep learning, big girl!

Well, it's time for our version of summer break. I achieved my goal of finishing the school year before Doescher baby number five is born. Our second grade supplies are already up on the shelf and ready for us to go whenever we decide the time is right.

A huge compliment to Lukas, Lennon and Keira who have hung in there with us everyday, participated in some areas such as art, history and science.

Katharine has done an outstanding job in each of her subjects, was very patient with me, who was not always very patient and again, showed great tolerance and patience with all the other noises and chaos that went on in the background. She is a real trooper and it's a great pleasure to teach her and see her grow on a daily basis. She rocks!

Accesorizing

Keira loves shoes, coats and purses- the more mismatched the better (although today she was doing pretty well with the colors).

Spring Showers

The sprinklers at our local playground are now on, so I brought towels today.

The boys got drenched, and had a blast until they realized that the water and wind would actually make them cold.

Keira kept to the perimeter, occasionally getting sprayed by wind blown sprinklers. She loved it!

The pavement was warm, but far from hot. Despite that, Keira had this funny way of walking on her tip toes once she took her shoes off.

Lennon's hair always spikes up when it gets wet. It is such a great texture for patting him on the head.

Birds and Bees

"Parent's Night Out" was last night, and we got two interesting reports:

1. Lukas and Gwen were observed kissing in the corner of the playground. They said that they were "practicing for their wedding". At home she has a picture of Lukas on her wall, and Lukas is always talking about how much he loves her.

2. Lennon loudly announced that "Keira really likes penuses!" in front of everyone in his classroom. Keira is just discovering that boys and girls are different, and is currently terrorizing Lukas and Lennon by running over and pulling up their shirts whenever they are getting changed or dressed.

And of course, our 5th child is due in about two weeks. What do they put in the water down here in McKinney?

Helping Hands

Iria cut her hand on Sunday and had to go to the emergency room for a few hours. All is well, and our friends have been helping out.

Thanks to Allison, Kara and Kandice for taking care of her after the accident, and to Meagan for bringing over a meal. This is the scene that I saw when I arrived home tonight- a naked Nolan running around with his siblings and frousins.

Maybe it is just as well that the picture came out blurry...

The Pile

If the downstairs is messy when I get home, I usually push everything into a huge pile for the kids to clean up. The kids have come to dread "the pile" (and Iria has never liked it very much either).

Iria has a much nicer cleanup routine.

She breaks the project down into smaller tasks and makes a game of it, where every kid picks up a number of toys equal to their age and puts them away (counting off as they go along). After that, they rinse and repeat until the room is cleaned up.

Not as fast as making a big pile... but I see the value in her technique :)

Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?

Katharine has been reading "The Secret Garden", and today she drew this portrait of Mistress Mary. There are a lot of things that I love about this drawing- the way she is biting her lip, her eyes, the shape of her hair...

Wet

Spring is in the air, so the kids got wet this week.

Lukas and Lennon started taking showers together.

And all of the kids broke in the new pool. Temperatures having been hovering around 80 degrees, but that water has still got to be cold!

Easter Brunch

We headed over to the Martels after church for an Easter Brunch, which was kicked off with an egg hunt.

No bush was left unexplored!

Afterwards, the kids filled up on candy...

and then moved on to the better stuff.

The rest of the day was spent with the usual mix of swinging, sliding, and imaginary play.

Liam, Katharine and Maya hunted for fairies (a popular game that the two girls have been playing recently).

Poor Finn kept getting stiff-armed whenever he tried to get in Keira's favorite car.

Brian serenaded him to make him feel better, and then the Murphy's sat down and posed for a family portrait.

Another fun day at Brian and Meghan's. Thanks, guys!