**In case you were wondering about those two blue bumps, they’re my knees.  I’m laying on my back, balancing my 3 month old up in the air with my legs while taking pictures and saying “cootchie coo” repeatedly.  Yep, we’re all about the safety around here.

We belong to an awesome homeschool group.  Our leader is always finding unique opportunities to explore and while we can’t attend everything Tuesday’s event, a guided tour at the Arabian Horse Show, has been on our calendar for over a month. You’ll remember, of course, that we have a little girl ~ an eight year old girl to be exact ~ prime horse lovin’ age.

See that little bit of white in his forelock (the hair between his ears)?  They threw that on special just for us; so we could see how a horse is groomed for a show.  In reality that is probably the most unkempt this horse has been since birth.

Actually Sister’s seen, touched, ridden many a horse at this point but when you’re eight and you love horses it’s always exciting.

After a rain last night today dawned gloomy.  Sometime around 10 or so the clouds opened again.

This time releasing great fat drops that created a water feature in our backyard which in turn grew our normally hidden creek into a pond just beyond the fence line.

When the sun decided to wake up about an hour later things had changed.

Technically, we’re not in a flood zone but I’m starting to wonder.

On the upside, within another half hour all that remained were a few puddles here and there.  Puddles which Sister thoroughly enjoyed for the better part of the afternoon.

What are you going to do if your lesson plans say “teach math” and your little boy would much rather be “doing” things.

You’ll “do” math, of course.

Math facts sheet + coffee beans + glue and a later a speed round of flashcards.

This was fun but not quite enough doing to go another round so for the next session we moved on to a different sort of manipulative.  (By the by, I’ve always thought they called them manipulatives because you manipulate them with your hands but now I’m beginning to think it’s because they allow the teacher to manipulate the student into doing math.)

We even got an art lesson in here.  Do you see it?  Yellow and blue make …. ?

Clearly he’s enthralled.

Following close on the heels of Dora’s birth, Brother’s birthday didn’t get the attention it usually does.  Historically I’ve gone a bit overboard on the birthdays. It’s in my nature but this year simple was all we had time for.  Made some trays with cubes of fruit, cheese, meat, and bagels and let the kids build their own meal with skewers.  Any utensils out of the ordinary are always a hit but kids especially like putting their food on long pointy sticks.  Probably has something to do with the level of danger involved.  Kids like danger. 

After the eating I divided the kids into teams and sent them on a photo scavenger hunt.  These hunts are ridiculously simple to do and are always a favorite.  A surprise favorite game of the day was “Lego, Lego Who Has the Lego?” (shamelessly stolen from the “Button, Button” classic.)  The kids wore great poker faces and even the littlest could play.

Since it was mostly family we opened the presents then had lots of free play time before breaking out the cake.

Typically I order a cake to fit the theme and this year I just knew I’d get one shaped like a Lego brick.  Good idea with a failure to execute.  We found ourselves at the supermarket the night before saying to the bakery lady, “Do you have anything?…”  Adding our own bricks to the top worked surprisingly well and Brother loved that he got to help “make” his cake.

Happy Birthday, Brother!  You’re a big boy now.

*should have been posted August 15th.

Sept 22nd was the last time I posted around here which was quite a while back.  Lots of things have happened since then.  In fact lots of things were happening before then too but in the dailyness of life my little bloggy home fell by the wayside.  I could just let it go and pick up from here but there’s so much I want to remember and though I love to share with you all, the real reason I write is for me.  So that later I can live again these moments and days of childhood. … times special and ordinary.  For that reason I’ll be mixing over the next few weeks events current and some not.  I just wanted to let you know so you’re not confused when it happens (and so I’m not confused when I come back later.)