Kindergarten

Philip is approaching the end of his kindergarten year. Okay, let's be honest, it might be his "first" kindergarten year. He might do it again as a 5-turning 6 year old as well. We were working today and he says, "Yes, and look at me. This is what it will be like when I wear a hearing aid."Here he is actually doing some work. Notice the tongue.
I look to the other side of the table and see this little fellow, same tongue ;0)

Beauty from Ashes & Square Foot Gardening

I just discovered these beautiful snow-drop type flowers in my neighbor's woods. She told me that she had pulled out a whole bed in order to change the area to grass and now the bulbs are blooming in her pile in the woods. Kind of like beauty from ashes. And...it's gardening time again! I have planted some things in our garden and love watching them grow. So far we have: onions, cauliflower, hyacinths, parsley, lettuce (buttercrunch and romaine), spinach, arugula, rosemary and potatoes in. We'll see how things do and how long it takes for the deer to tromp through and decimate!!

Co-Op

For many, many years I have co-opped art and music with my good friend, Anne. Now we have 9 children between the two of us, and we still get together regularly for me to teach piano and her to teach art. I thought, that after 6 years, it was time to get an updated photo of our gang at work.They began this project by painting a "wash" as the background, and then coming back to add a foreground as the background dried.

Everyone gets in on the action!

Valentine's Day and such

We had Groovers 2.0 in February. Last year we had 3 Groover children spend a few days with us, and this year we had just 2 Groovers for 5 days. So, Philip & Simeon got a roommate and the girls did also. It was great! We had so much fun together. On their first night here, all the girls and I attended a baby shower for my dear friend, Christin. Less than 2 weeks later she rapidly delivered their beautiful baby girl.

The next day we had Blizzards for a treat because...they're yummy (and we had coupons).

While the Groovers were with us, Valentine's Day rolled around and I remembered that I told my sister that her 3 children could spend the night so that she could attend class and my brother-in-law could work. So, that made...hmmm...9 children. At that point, Kevin told me that he felt like the Duggar family because every time he came home, there were more and more children in the house. But that was fun too. We had a nice Valentine's dinner together and everyone slept soundly!

We had fun heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast.

The Groover's parents surprised them with a pre-planned Valentine's token. Let it be known that Patience very conservatively saved her entire bar of chocolate for some future date!

Philip and William--our 2 resident redheaded boys!

The "girls' table" for our Valentine's dinner. They are enjoying chocolate-covered strawberries along with brownies and ice cream. My amazing mother came and made the strawberries in the afternoon (with the boys as her helpers!)

The boys' (and mom's) table in the dining room.