Heard Around Our House

At dinner tonight, Julia and I were having a discussion about her eating habits (a common topic of conversation these days) and she began to get a little, shall we say, heated. Benj, who had been unusually quiet while eating his dinner piped up, "Can you please stop yelling? I can't eat when you're YELLING. This is a good dinner and I can NOT eat when you are so LOUD!"


ummmm.... okay Benjamin. I'll remind you of that the next time I want to enjoy my dinner!

Summer Odds and Ends

Wrapping up our summer recap here are a few last shots from the past couple of months.

my teenager?

Mystic Village selfie

two girls and a lemonade stand

off to the ballgame

ready to cheer on the Pawsox

ummm... maybe that one should stay outside?!?

cutie pie

her summer uniform

perfect day

Bunny Camp

The kids and I spent one of our August days at Bunny Camp at Casey Farm in North Kingstown. It was a day on the farm complete with feeding and taking care of the animals, picking our own vegetables for snacks, and doing some fun arts and crafts.

transformed into bunnies

hungry chickens

carrots (fresh from the garden) for the bunnies

craft time!

cuddling the baby chicks

bunny friends

saying goodbye to the bunnies

Madison, WI 2015

Another highlight of the summer for our whole family was a trip to Madison, WI to visit our friends, Yvonne and Paul, and their kids.

Yvonne and I have been friends since college orientation - we realized this summer that was 20 years ago!! crazy! As our families have grown and we've spent more time together the friendship has extended to our husbands and our kids with everyone enjoying each other's company just as much as Yvonne and I enjoy each other. It's truly a gift to have such special people in our lives and to have the time to spend with them!

all the kids at Madison Zoo

a happier Benjamin

hiking at Devil's Lake State Park

the gorge

Saturday Farmer's Market

in the Capitol building

from the Capitol Dome

Benj had a good ride!

cheeseheads!

Summer School - Prehistory

We did continue schooling over the summer but with a reduced focus. As we are starting with Ancient History in the fall I thought it would be fun to do a prehistory study over the summer combined with learning about plants.

In learning about about dinosaurs, archeologists, and early humans we did several hands-on activities.

We pretended to be archeologists in our yard:

our dig site

learning how to map out a grid and record what we find

We painted cave drawings using paints we made from grass, berries, and spices:

And we found and tried out stone age tools:

looking for useful stones

chipping away with a "sharp tool"

B Swimming!

Benjamin's huge accomplishment of the summer was learning to swim on his own! So proud of him!

Sunflowers

At the end of July we made a trip to Sunflowers for Wishes in Griswold, CT with friends. The first thing we saw was Julia's dream car:

monster truck!

picturing herself driving it, I think.

sunflowers as far as the eye can see

good friends, Elizabeth, Anna, and Sarah (behind the penguin!)

sunflower story time with my friend Amy

Fashion Show

The kids have been into dressing up lately... this was a recent fashion show.

and the Garden gnomes:

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NH Camping

 A highlight of the summer for me was our camping trip to Danbury, NH with the Nadeau crew! We headed up north with Dad, Les, Merrill, Katherine, Steve, Jon, and Alex and exposed everyone to pleasures of camping on the "the land" as it is known.

Gramma Les' big find - the moose skeleton (it now lives in our garage!)

yes, we have almost all of the bones!

ready to set-up camp

camp food - tacos in a bag!

we saw the Great Wall!

the photographer

chillin' by the fire

breakfast after a rainy, wet night

how could it be a bad day when you start it with fruit loops?

the hikers!

Grandpa

cousin laughter

splashing in Walker Brook

Checking out the waterfall

the ride home!