here's what we've been doing lately

READING:

madeline and gretchen took a break from "princessing" to read.  i love madeline's new reading abilities!  it makes it easier to overlook her being so engrossed in a book that she 'doesn't hear me'.  (and there's a chance she gets that trait from me...)

PLAYING AIR GUITAR:

don't ask me how he learned this.  but it is pretty cute.  pace loves music.  really loves it.  he dances and sings and plays the guitar any time he hears any sort of music.  
WRITING THE FAMILY GAZETTE:

liesel and gwyneth thought of this all by themselves and snuck it onto the table for me to find.  it was a white board with different 'articles' about our family on it.  there was a 'guess who' section, a 'healthy eating' spot, some 'fashion advice', and other miscellaneous items and announcements.  it was really cute and very clever, i thought.  it's fun to have kids that are getting older!


LEARNING HOW TO RIDE WITHOUT TRAINING WHEELS:

on saturday i decided it was time for gretchy to be done with training wheels.  loren took them off, and i prepared myself for much tears (gretchen's) and gnashing of teeth (mine).  i was spared both, however--she learned how to ride without help in less than 5 minutes.  no tears, no falling, no drama.  yeah for gretchen!  liesel and gwyneth were very upset when they said they'd learned how to ride just as quickly and i had to remind them that there had been quite a bit of drama involved with them learning how to ride a bike.  they are too much like me, i'm afraid.  they got another chance to prove their skills, however, when we bought them new BIG bikes last night.  they handled themselves much better than when they were 7.  

SPOTTING THE BURROWING OWL:

i was driving gretchen to preschool today and saw, in this field right by her school, a little tiny owl!  it was crazy.  at first i thought it was just a funny little bird, but then i remembered this book the girls and i had just read (carl hiaasen's 'hoot'--a very good read, i might add) about this endangered owl in florida, and so i took a closer look, and saw that it was, indeed, an owl.  then i saw this sign in the field that said "no trespassing:  home of the burrowing owl".  anyway, it was quite exciting, and fun that we'd just read the book.  and crazy that i've driven that road twice a day since we've moved here, and i've never seen the owls or the signs.  must have my mind on other things!  actually, it's probably because i'm showing pace the cows and horses in the field across the road.  on the way home from preschool today, we saw an iguana in the grass.  as long as the alligators stay put...