Keira Milestone

Just a quick Keira update. Last week, I tried to feed Keira some cereal and as you can see on the left, she did NOT like it. Today, I tried again, and she ate ALL of her cereal, minus what drooled out of her mouth, down her Bumbo seat and onto the table. She enjoyed chewing on the spoon. Oh, and she's rolling pretty much wherever she wants to go. 

Painting with Monet

Just in time when the sunshine came back, our subject in art was landscapes. After we studied a winter landscape by Brueghel last week, we got to look at some of Claude Monet's art. Katharine's goal was to create a painting using tempera paint, markers but N O paintbrushes. She came up with different ways of using her hands and fingers to create a flower garden. Lukas and Lennon joined the fun and each had a little help from me. Lukas LOVED putting paint on his hands to create flowers!  Katharine added soil and a morpho butterfly.

Winding down...

At least, that is what they should be doing right before bedtime.

Sunshine

The first week of March brought us gorgeous days and the kids got to go outside all the time and the days ended with those beautiful Texas sunsets. The second week we got to experience a temperature drop of 40 degrees and lots of much needed rain. Here are some pictures of the kids playing outside. 

Nappers and King Tut

Keira the good napper.

Lennon the not so good napper. But this picture shows that he will sleep just about anywhere. Even on an octopus. I should mention that he pretty much dropped his naps, so when he does nap, it is a rare occasion.

A week ago Katharine and I went to the King Tut exhibit at the DMA (Dallas Museum of Art). We had a wonderful time, just us big girls and we learnt a lot. After we looked at rooms full of artifacts, we went to the shop. Katharine made sure that we bought something for the boys, too. Lukas got a small mummy embalmed in silly putty in a coffin, Lennon got a King Tut baseball, Katharine picked out an Ankh necklace and a mummy for herself and a very nice book about the "Golden Age of Tutankhamun" for everybody to share. She has been reading in it already. After the museum we went spending Katharine's birthday and some chore money at the American Girl Doll store. We were done in about 30 minutes. Katharine was way more excited about King Tut. That's our girl, always eager and willing to learn. King Tut has ruled our house the last week and another book was acquired during a visit to Barnes and Nobles, along with a tractor book and a dinosaur book.

Flashback: March 5, 2004

The temperature has been in the 70's all week, and it wasn't much different five years ago. Nothing really changes in Texas, except perhaps for Katharine's hair styles.

Reading and Easter Eggs

The one on the left is Lukas egg. He put a lot of thought in it. Katharine's is, as always perfectly laid out.

Today I am seriously bragging about Katharine's reading. It seems like we now have our very own little "Belle" in the house. Katharine has her nose in a book constantly. She reads just about anything she can get her hands on and has moved from Kindergarten level books to 1st grade and beyond.  Here is a sample of what she reads (on her own or with one of us):

anything by Dr. Seuss (including the back of the book)

the bible

Wizard of Oz series

Thomas Cleckler's K12 1st grade books

Eloise

The Golden Egg

the children's atlas

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Fairytopia

any other Barbie books

princess books

Tinkerbell fairy books

Funny Elizabeth (American Girl Doll series)

Animals in Winter

African Folk Tales

Strawberry Shortcake

My Little Pony books

the back of milk cartons

and anything else she can get her eyes and hands on

It is so exciting to see her reading and I am so happy that she enjoys it so much!

On another note, we had "Revisit A Favorite Story" time in language arts today and Katharine picked "The Golden Egg", very appropriate for the season. I had the kids decorate construction paper easter eggs. Even Lennon "decorated" one.

Shoes and Crackers

So, one of our favorite snacks are graham crackers. This time, however, Lukas decided to take it to a different level. He started by breaking the cracker into 2 equal pieces, then another 2 and so on which led to him creating a graham cracker snowman. In school we red "The Shoemaker and the Elves" by the brothers Grimm and decided to alter the lesson slightly to make it more fun and give Lukas a chance to get involved, too. So we made shoe collages which Lukas enjoyed a lot (his is on the right) and Katharine made sure all the shoes were cut out just right. 

Today's art lesson

"Still life"



"Black snake"

Katharine had to paint a still life for her art lesson today. She took a few color liberties when painting the "rainbow table", but all for the better as far as I am concerned.

Lukas painted a black snake for Lennon. I'm sure that Lennon must have let out one of his small growls when he saw it before toddling off to find the next ball that he can throw at Lukas and Keira (or book that he can bring to Iria).

A milestone to remember

Katharine beat me at 'Memory' today... and I was really trying to win. It all goes downhill from here.

"The blooming flowers"

Kara and Julie need to grab this picture, so I might as well share with everyone. Katharine drew this for their adoption church group (photograph + light table + pencil + pastel + me punching it up a tad in Photoshop).

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Love

Erik, Iria, Katharine, Lukas, Lennon and Keira

Lennon's Lunch

So this is a first: One of our children falling asleep at the table. It was really funny watching Lennon nod off and I couldn't resist taking a picture of it.

The wild sky of Texas

I was grilling last night, and looked up to see some amazing clouds on the horizon.

It almost looked like some of those banded cloud patterns that you see in Jupiter pictures. This is Texas... so if it is going to remind me of a planet, it might as well be the biggest one.

One last note- I brought Katharine out to show her the clouds and she said matter of factly that those were low clouds and that meant it was going to rain. Sure enough, it started raining 15 minutes later (she had been studying clouds in school this week).

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Katharine and Lukas would like to send special greetings to Grandma and Grandpa who they thought of when drawing these two pictures. We kind of lost track of time this week, so by the time we realized we were supposed to send cards, it was already yesterday and too late. We decided  on a less conventional way of sending our love and put the pictures on the blog.  If you look closely at Lukas' picture, you can actually see a face and a bit of blue sky. Katharine is proud of the fact that she didn't ask for any help.

This afternoon, I am doing a lot of "Love is..." thinking, what with non stop fighting kids is hard to achieve or find.  It's amazing how kids' moods can turn around without any warning! Love is

to love my kids, no matter what, patient (hard to be in that state sometimes), kind...you' ll find the rest in Corinthians.

Again, HAPPY  VALENTINE'S DAY, EVERYONE!

Learning about American Indians

We have been learning about American Indians in History and Art. What a fantastic interdisciplinary program! Katharine and Lukas have made puzzles of Anasazi clay pots, Katharine painted water color clay pot with her own design and today we tried to build a tepee out of twigs, string and a brown paper bag. Katharine knows that the Plains Indians put their own individual designs on the tepees and decided to go with an eagle design covering the entire tepee. She learned that the eagle is a symbol of power and strength and that the designs came to the artists in dreams or visions.

School Work

Lennon has been playing with Dado cubes, an assortment of colorful blocks that can be put together in endless combinations.

Lennon loves Lawrence Welk

Or at the very least, Tchaikovsky... but I know that I've seen him polka as well.

The Doescher Family Tour Van

We spent a good amount of time on the road in Germany, and the white bus that Iria's cousin Thorsten leant us soon became known as "The Doescher Family Tour Van".

Packing the kids in the car was always an adventure- especially when Jakob and Anna were visiting.

Lukas and Lennon shared the back row. Note the frost on the windshield- it was COLD in Germany.

Katharine and Keira shared the front row.

Iria drove... and I sat in the passenger seat playing around with my iPhone and DS.

The kids alternated between sleeping and asking "are we there yet?" over and over.

The scenery was great, but I didn't get many pictures of it. Although I couldn't resist snapping a shot of this person walking along the road in the freezing cold- it looked very Bergman.

Heading home.

The Galadriel Dance

This one goes out to Mom- Katharine's haunting 'Galadriel Dance', set to the soundtrack of 'The Lord of the Rings' :)