Lasts, Firsts, and Lots of Randomness

We'll start with the "last" thing.  At the end of February, my kids went to their last Celebration of Learning at the charter school.  I'd been looking for a solution to our over-scheduled life, and decided that doing two school programs was too much.  We didn't have time for any fun family activities, which were supposedly the reason we were homeschooling in the first place!  Since Connor and Elise were gone two days a week, our together time was just me trying to cram in academics.  We decided to keep the private school because it requires a lot less volunteer and paperwork time, and because it is more academic, and covers stuff I'd have a hard time doing at home.

One thing I will really miss, though, are the Passion Projects the kids display at Celebration of Learning.  They've been a great vehicle for my kids to explore stuff they're interested in, and then teach it to others.  We're going to keep this a part of our kids' educations by getting together with our friends for presentations every few months.

This semester Connor decided to study Crystals and Gems.  We visited the display at the Natural History Museum, read books, and went digging for Tourmaline in Orange County.
   

  

   Elise wanted to learn about the body.  We got her a cool squishy visible man, also read a lot of books, and went to see the Bodies exhibit in Vegas.
  

I hand-drew all those internal organs.  It took every speck of artistic ability I have.

 

Elise's "Do One Thing" (D.O.T.) to make her community better.  She was too shy to say it, though.

   
On March second, we gave Corinne her first solid food.  I decided to go with sweet potatoes since my other kids all loved them, and it was a good choice.  She meekly let me put a little on her tongue, tasted it for a minute, then lunged forward for more.  It was the fastest I ever saw a baby latch on to a new food!  

   

After about a month of vegetables, I tried her on oatmeal with disastrous results.  She screamed for half the night (while our friends were babysitting her, of course,) then had an upset stomach the next day.  I tried a couple weeks later - same thing.  The third time I tried oatmeal was in mid-April, and it made her puke like crazy.  I guess she doesn't do oats, poor girl!
  
On a related note, Elise has been breaking out in these horrible itchy rashes every couple of weeks.  We took her for allergy testing, but she came back negative on everything, including the most common food allergies (milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts..)  A visit to a fourth doctor suggested that it might be an allergy to a less common food, and we suspect strawberries, since she had a bowl of these right before the most recent flare-up.  Three weeks without strawberries saw no rashes, but when I gave her a berry yesterday she had no reaction.  I guess we'll just have to watch and wait, and keep track of what she eats.  Or maybe try lots of strawberries . . .
   

Allergy Test.  Surprisingly, the red dots are still considered negative results.

    

So now to Evan's food issues:  I came outside one day to see him eating this.  I started racking my brain to figure out where he had gotten such a huge cheese stick (his favorite snack.)  Then I realized it wasn't cheese.  He threw up in the car later that afternoon.
  

Mmmm, buttery.

In January of last year (2012), Connor set a goal to read the Book of Mormon by the time he turned eight.  A couple of kids he knew had done it, and (with encouragement from Ryan and I,) he decided to give it a try.  For over a year, off and on, he worked at it, coloring each page he read in a little chart-book I found online.  The day before his birthday, he read the last page.  We were pretty proud of him.  I'm actually amazed at what a fast reader he is.  He kind of gulps pages (just like Ryan does), so I don't think his retention is that good, but he absorbed enough to mention things he had read to me.  I'm still jealous, though.  I'm the slowest reader ever.
    

   

The rest of these pictures are just random stuff we did with the kids at home or wherever.  I like them.  They're cute.
   

Elise Reaches 601 on her Adding Game

My son.  He got a moustache tattoo in a valentine, but it broke.  So he completed it in pen.

Rocketship (Connor)

Evan never gets tired of the fountains at the Americana.

Making Candy Cards for Each Other (Connor ate his.)

Jump-Jump

Happy Birthday Evan!

My sweet baby boy turned three in February!  I can't believe he's so big.  I didn't have time to make him a birthday cake, so we got him an awesome strawberry shortcake from Porto's.  Evan liked it, but decided halfway through his slice that it was more fun to "cut" it, which meant smashing it into goo with his fork. He's done this with almost every type of dessert we've given him since then.

 

He opened cards and presents from far and wide, and we took him to Target to spend his birthday money (he chose another football, a Woody and Buzz Lightyear action figure set, and a stuffed Mickey Mouse.)
    

Presents (Connor is helping, of course.)

 

Singing Kittens e-card from Grandma

   
I had been promising him that "when he was three" he could go to gymnastics class like Connor and Elise, so the weekend after his birthday I took him to a trial class.  He was so excited he couldn't stand still.  Elise and I hung around and watched him through the window.  
    

Before Class

   
He had tons of fun, but didn't really understand the concept of doing one activity or area of the gym at a time.   He just kept wandering off to do whatever looked interesting.  If the class hadn't been so full, I wouldn't have minded, but the Saturday morning class was way overwhelmed with kids (the picture is only a third of who was in there).  I still think we'll sign him up eventually, but for now we're just doing a Mommy and Me music class during the week.  He thinks that's awesome, too!
  
The morning after his birthday, Evan brought this Lego creation to me saying, "Look, Mom!  I made it!"  The expression on his face was so proud I had to get a picture.  What a sweetie he is.
   

I love you, Evan!

Visit from Grandpa Brian

At the beginning of February, my dad caught Amtrak up in Eugene, Oregon, and took the over-24-hour train trip down to Los Angeles.  This was a pretty big deal, because I hadn't seen him in person in over seven years!  (We talk on the phone, but distances and finances and timing had never cooperated quite right for either of us to visit.)  He spent a week with us, and we had a great time watching the Superbowl, watching Connor play video games, goofing around with the kids, running errands (hey, I like doing that,) visiting the La Brea Tar Pits, hiking, and eating at all our show-people-from-out-of-town favorite places.  My dad even made me his legendary 1-pound yogurt granola fruit salad, which he swears keeps his immune system healthy.  (It was good, but I couldn't finish it!) 
  

  
The Tar Pits were awesome, but smaller than I remembered.  The older kids actually learned a lot, but Evan mostly just wanted to hold the stuffed animals and swing on the railings. 
  

Evan wouldn't put the stuffed animals back.

Evan's "Funny Face"

The saber-tooth and sloth were animatronic.  I think it freaked Evan out.

  
We were able to convince the kids to go on a hike Saturday morning, although Elise was not in the mood.  She started complaining two steps out the front door.  She snapped out of it eventually, though, when we started looking for a geocache.  This was Connor's first official find.  We dedicated it to Evan, since his birthday was the next day. 
   

  

Green Pepper Toy (Evan's Choice)

   

 Then we celebrated with a picnic, including oranges off our tree.  Ryan bragged about the oranges a lot, that's why I'm mentioning them.  I have to admit they were pretty awesome, for oranges.
  

  

Grandpa Brian's Emergency Whistle

 

    

  When it was time to head back down, Elise remembered she was grumpy, so Grandpa Brian volunteered to give her a lift.  She liked hiking after that.
     

The hillsides were filled with these white-flowered trees.  Turns out they're "Big Pod Ceanothus"

  
It was really nice to see my dad again after so long. We told him he's welcome anytime!
  

Little Things

January was filled with chores, being sick, and little things like that.  Here are the kids showing off their Lego skills (this was Elise's first time really building something from her imagination.)
   

   

      Corinne finally learned to sleep without being swaddled.  She just fell asleep all splayed out one night and never looked back.  Elise spent lots more time treating her like a dolly and taking pictures of her.
   

  

  

    

    Elise and Connor did their "show day" performances in their gymnastics classes.  I had the flu, so I missed Connor's, but our friend Claire got pictures.
    

  

    

I measured the kids on our growth chart, just like every January.  I had to lay Corinne down on top of it on the table :).  It's amazing how much they change without me noticing.
    

   

      Ryan and Elise both broke out in hives in late January.  It wasn't at exactly the same time, but I have to assume it was related.  Ryan pulled all the poison oak off our hill one morning, and that evening, Elise started itching on her hand.  Two days later it had spread to her whole body.  We just assumed it was poison oak, and at first the pediatrician and a dermatologist agreed.  But it kept coming and going, even weeks later.  The poor girl was too embarrassed by her scabby, itchy arms to wear short sleeves, especially to school, so I had to go buy her some long sleeve t-shirts to wear under her uniforms.  Ryan, on the other hand, started to puff up about a week later.  He woke up one morning looking like he'd been attacked by bees, and had to go to urgent care for antihistamines and a shot of prednisone.  He also broke out in hives which lasted about a week.  Anyway, we took both of them to an allergist, who didn't really have any good answers.  They may have been allergic to something on the hill, or it could have been a reaction to a respiratory virus they'd both had.  They both got scheduled for allergy testing a month later.
   

Itchy

Aaaaaaah!  The kids were kinda freaked out.

   This is what my kids do for fun.  They make messes.
    

   

      A few weeks after learning to sleep unwrapped, Corinne learned to roll over!  I walked into my room to check on her during a nap, and the first thing to come into view were her upside-down feet (I haven't left her on the bed since then, just f.y.i.)   I think she's always wanted to be a stomach sleeper, but we wouldn't let her.  Now she gets stuck in the corners of her crib at night and howls to be rescued.  I'm not sleeping much.