Baby A's Life: 4 Months Old

Big Sister A did some more baby watching this week.  It is good practice since hubby and I are both home in case she needs help. 

We have a morning tummy-time ritual. Sometimes a lot of kids join in. 

Sunday afternoon chatting and hanging out. He's getting so big. 

Family Schooling and Fun: First Playdate!

 I didn't take any schooling pictures this week. The kids did their usual music lessons and basic studies.  I missed a few days of science due to my barn project, but we managed to do the last two units of Marine Biology -- marine birds and marine exploration. 

The most exciting part of their week I think was our first in-person play date since March. We decided the cousins can be in our pod. They are already making plans for a Halloween get together. 

Contortionist contest on the trampoline. 

Big sister A got some books about hairstyles and has been practicing. 

Brother M built a guitar playing robot. 

Big Sister A made boston cream doughnuts by herself, other than the frying part-- including chocolate glaze and cream filling. She found an Amish copycat recipe online for the whole thing. They were incredibly delicious.  I don't usually like doughnuts. 

Big sister A officially got her scout rank at their first in person pack meeting. 

This is actually from last week, but everyone is still very distracted by the sand area. 

Family Schooling and Fun: Sand and Sea Creatures

 Miss L is devoted to her melon patch. She checks on it every day, rain or shine.  This week she was sure that one of her cantaloups was ready... but I had to tell her to wait a little longer and show her what color it should be.  

Brother M and big sister A got their new bikes.  Brother M learned to ride with no trouble and tested out a lot of areas of the yard for riding. 

Big sister A had a tie dye social distancing activity with her friends at church.  She was not sure what to bring for it at first, but upcycled some stained items with happy results for my rainbow loving girl. Big sis also cut Miss L's hair for her.  

This week we learned about toothed vs. baleen whales.  We did an echolocation experiment and listened to the sounds of various real whales under water here. 

Brother M was the only one brave enough to try drinking like a baleen whale (through a comb).  As we learned more we realized that it's more the opposite of what we were doing. They gulp in a ton of water and then spit out the water though the baleen plates keeping the krill in their mouth and licking them off the plates!

Saturday we had a delivery of landscaping sand and pea gravel for my barn project.  As I was ordering it, I was inspired to get some play sand as well.  We have been talking about putting sand in their digging area under the gazebo for a long time and I thought it would be too mean to have only sand that they were not allowed to play with.  So we ordered 1/2 ton of play sand, 1 ton paver sand, and 2 tons pea gravel. 

They got to work right away moving it to the play area. Rain was in the forecast and we needed to get it under cover. 

HOURS of fun playing in the sand.  So much so that they nearly missed family movie night (because they did not get their Saturday cleaning chores done in a timely manner). 

They also constructed a sort of barricade to keep the farm critters out. 

I sent brother M outside today to take some pictures. 

Baby A's Life: Week 16

 Putting kids to bed is hard work.

Big Sister A spent a lot of time babysitting baby A this week while I worked on my barn project. She did a great job.  It's wonderful having another pair of hands that I can trust. 

Miss L would loves to hold baby A, but is not supposed to carry him around.  She would really like to be able to help a lot more with him. 

Took this picture right after at home church today. Having church at home is lovely.  I am grateful that we get to have the sacrament every week.  It is something our children will always be able to remember -- seeing Daddy prepare, bless, and pass the sacrament. I think it will help their testimonies of priesthood and the purpose of the sacrament. I know it has helped me understand it better. 

Family Schooling and Fun: Blubber and Bikes

 
It's blubber! We learned about fish, marine mammals, and sharks this week in Marine Biology. One of the experiments was to make a blubber layer with 2 CUPS of shortening between 2 layers of ziploc bags.  I almost skipped it.  It seemed so obvious and a waste of shortening.  But it turned out great and we (me included) were shocked by how well it truly worked. Couldn't even tell what temperature the bowl of water was. And big sister A made all that shortening into 6 dozen cookies, so win-win. 

Another experiment was to see how well a shark can smell. The first cup has 4 Tablespoons of lemon juice in the water. Then you take 2 teaspoons of that and put it in the second cup and two teaspoons of the second cup into the third cup and so on down the line until you have 1 part per 10 million.  The experiment called for smelling it. That was hard. Then we got out spoons and tried tasting it. We could barely taste anything even in the second cup. Sharks' sense of smell is incredible. The lemon shark can smell tuna oil at 1 part per 25 million.  

Fish sorting -- which see creatures are actually "fish" and which are crustaceans, mollusks, mammals etc. 

We spent a little time every day working on our contribution to a service project for the hospital. Brother M seems to like sewing. That was the part he always wanted to work on. And he was disappointed when I finished everything off. 

The kids made their first foray to a store since March.  Daddy took them to look at bikes and try them out to see what sizes they would need.  We decided to let them use their treehouse money for bicycles. Daddy has been too swamped at work to take time off for treehouse building this summer. 

Brother S came home with a hotwheels bike. And he is testing it out in the basement. Our driveway between the barn and the house is okay for riding bikes, but we don't let the kids go down the side that is close to the road. The bikes were purchased as an activity that we can do at the park. There are a lot of great bike trails around here. 

Big sister A got her cast off this week.  She is so glad.  Now she can play the piano again!

Baby A's Life: Week 15

Just about to roll over...

 

Another exciting week for baby A.  He is talking! Well, not in any language that we understand, but he's making all kinds of cooing baby noises.  It is so cute. 

He also plastered Daddy with spit-up. 

Twice!

Brother S is getting better at interacting and holding Baby A.

This is the cutest thing.  Look at how he is grabbing M's sleeve.  Like, "Hey, stay here, I want to hang out with you".

Baby A is grabbing hair and clothes and almost able to give a snuggly hug.