It Feels Like Summer

It may not officially be summer, but it sure feels like it is around here. I am loving every minute of it. Winter and I do not enjoy each other. I would rather spend my days curled up under a quilt reading or watching tv. Spring, Summer, and Fall can stick around forever. I realized this year as all the trees were blooming God knew exactly what we would need to brighten our days after the cold winter days.

It has been absolutely beautiful, with no bugs and not too much rain. The weekend of the carnival was actually really nice compared to most years. The kids of course loved it. It was Ari's first year to be able to really ride. Eli and Lilliana don't get as excited. We decided that the first year they really get to ride is the best to watch. Ari wasn't too sure about everything, but he promised us he had fun. Eli also rode the bumper cars by himself which he loved. He was tall enough to ride some of the other rides, but did not want to.

I borrowed a telephoto lens and have been stalking birds. We did a nature pal exchange for school and gathered a lot of things to sent to two cute little girls in Texas. I also took some pictures of our birds for them per the kids idea. They love bird watching. The night I picked up the lens I took a couple of the kids. They wanted to be monsters. It was huge and heavy, but surprisingly very sharp for non Nikon and also not being a prime. I won't bore you with details, but I enjoyed it.

James has been been catching all the said birds. He will sometimes average 3 an hour. That and the baby bunnies have no chance with him around.

A big part the kids homeschooling for science and everything really is the idea of getting out on Nature Walks and really observing. I know some families love doing winter nature study. I think we will to when they kids are a bit older to trek through snow without me carrying them. For now, we stick to spring,  summer, and fall. The past two weeks we have averaged two a week to make up for our lack of winter ones. We  are loving it and have learned some knew things. This is helping them become very observant. Who would have guessed a two year old would sit and study a spider for 10 minutes. He has been, they can name more birds than I could at their age. We even made our own ant farm. I sat and fed ants sugar in my house during my coffee time. LOL They learned so much about ants that they dug up a queen and tried to convince me to let them keep it in another colony and watch it. Unfortunately we were headed out for an appointment and so I insisted they put her back and we try again another day.  This was a huge reason I was drawn to the Charlotte Mason education style.

We have had a lot of appointments for dentist, check ups, and special appts. Lilliana got orthotics to help her with her pigeon toes. She likes them and it is helping with her leg pain. Ari has some other ones coming soon and Eli has had a dentist appt. rescheduled 4 times on the dentist part. We won't talk about that as it has been a little annoying.

We also have had family visit. Anthony's brother and sister were in town. We got all the cousins minus one who could not make it, for a few photos. 

We are enjoying the days that feel like Summer!!