Little Sprouts

p

Things are growing in South Dakota!
Our little seeds are sprouting in their trays, and the bulbs are blooming in the rock garden!
Hooray! Spring is here!

The Candy Man

Our big boy wanted to make lollipops for his new student teacher's first day in the kindergarten class. He used Great-Grandma's candy thermometer and did a great job of stirring the goo. The lollipops were delicious, but we learned that they stick to waxed paper if you don't spray it with non-stick spray first. Oh, well. It was fun to test the candy's progress in cold water (that was always my favorite part of Christmas fudge!). Here he is comparing the test blob to a commercial lollipop.

Springtime Snow

Okay, this was from a few weeks ago, but it was still pretty late for a good snowstorm!
The little ones bundled up in full winter wear, but David realized he was comfortable enough to play without a coat. The icy snow stuck to the tiny tree branches and kept surprising us with falling snow blobs from above!

Little Visits

Most nights after supper, we have our Little Visits With God. Our first project was a book of 365 Bible stories, which took about a year and a half to do. Dan usually reads the story and asks questions about it. We have to raise our hands before answering so that everyone gets a chance to talk. At first Michael's only answer was, "Jesus!" but he had a pretty good shot at getting it right with that one. :)
Now we are going through the book "Little Visits With God," which has a short story with questions and a Bible verse to go with it. A few weeks ago, it was about using kind words even if people are unkind to you first. At the end, Dan asked the question, "When is it difficult to use kind words?" Sarah's hand shot up, and she said, "Pretty often!"
We like our Little Visits!

Last day of Little Shop

We had a good time together while working on the play! There were four plants of different sizes; Dan used three of them while Seymour used one. Pods 1 and 2 were hand puppets, but Pods 3 and 4 had chairs inside where Dan sat during the show. Many of the kids (and teenagers!) enjoyed playing with the plant puppets--and the scooter Dan used for sliding under the window in the show!

Look out! Here comes Audrey II!

Here is the long-awaited photo of Dan and Sarah in the plant from Little Shop of Horrors! The last performance was Sunday afternoon, so we are sad that it is over, but happy to have our evenings back. All the children could hide inside the plant with Daddy during rehearsals, but NOT during the performance! There were nice girls who watched them so the shows could go smoothly when there was an audience.
In case you hadn't heard, Dan was the puppeteer for the man-eating plant in the community arts council musical this spring. He hid inside two different plants for over an hour during the show and made them move while the grocery store manager did the voice from the Gutter (orchestra pit). I played various sounds on the synthesizer while the musical director played the real piano part. It was so much fun!
The children have the whole show memorized, and David figured out how to play "Somewhere That's Green" on the piano. Sarah does the whole introductory monologue, complete with "Da-Doo!" singing in between. Even Michael can sit in his chair and say, "Feed Me!" in a menacing voice. We need to find a new soundtrack to our life now!

Problem Solving

The picture is of what happens when you leave little friends alone in the playroom with craft supplies.

Yesterday, the younger children went over to the school for the annual developmental screening fair where they test hearing, vision, etc. They enjoyed getting to wear nametags with their ages in years and months while traveling from station to station. It was fun to see the little guy trotting around with his "Michael 3.0" sticker. Sarah really liked getting to show all the grownups what she could do.
At the Verbal Skills station, the children repeated words like "truck" and "swim" to check their speech and answered questions to see how they use language. For Problem Solving, they were supposed to tell the speech teacher what they would do in a certain situation. Here are their answers:
Q: What would you do if you were thirsty?
Sarah: Get a drink.
Michael: Go to Sonic. (later he said he would probably get a slushie)

Q: What would you do if you were in a dark room?
Sarah: Turn on the light, or get a flashlight.
Michael: Get out some toys and play. (he likes to hide in the closet cave and play explorer)

Q: What would you do if you broke something that wasn't yours?
Sarah: Try to fix it.
Michael: Throw it in the garbage right away!

I had a hard time controlling my laughter for this part of the testing.