This week was full of home school lessons, baby cuddling, dog walking, tax preparations, and fun! Savanna has really started to enter a true Love of Learning phase. She reads everything she can get her hands on. She is currently reading Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Alcott's Little Women, Covey's 7 Highly Effective Habits for Teens, A Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens, and a bio on Karl Marx. All originated by her. She also has been continuing learning the piano, and we are investigating our local 4-H program here to see if we can sign her up for some equestrian and sewing activities.
The boys are continuing with their basic math and reading lessons. We are reading a couple series of books to them right now- they LOVE The Magic Tree House series, and we are finishing up Beverly Cleary's Mouse on a Motorcycle series. They love to be read to, and Bradley has gotten so good with his reading that I often find him reading to himself or to his brother- it is so wonderful!
Our little Emma is working on her first tooth! I can barely feel it, but it is there. I think we have found the cause of her erratic sleeping! Other than that, she is still extremely happy and calm.
We decided to implement our weekly field trips again. Once a week we are going to take the kids somewhere fun/educational or just get out and enjoy our beautiful area. We started just north of our home, and went to Pismo Beach. Every year around this time thousands of Monarch butterflies migrate to the Eucalyptus trees at Pismo Beach State Park. They have counted approximately 17,000 this year! We walked around the quiet groves and talked to the docents about these beautiful butterflies.
We were lucky enough to find two butterflies right on the ground. I'm so naive...I say to the docent, "What are they doing?" Savanna injects, "What do you think they are doing, Mom? They're mating!" Yup, they sure were! Apparently they begin to mate on the ground, then when they are close to being done the male carries the female up to the top of the trees where they finish. She will later fly north and lay her eggs on milkweed and then die. Rough life. I've gotta tell you, it did not look super pleasurable for the female (see the video below). Bummer.
Click on the photos to make them bigger. I'm not sure if you can see this or not, but those are not leaves up there- they are hundreds of Monarch Butterflies!
When then took a little stroll down to the water.
This was Emma's first visit to the beach! She didn't seem to care much about the water (the waves were pretty far out), but she LOVED the sand! It is super soft at this beach and she kept grasping the granules over and over.
Home to clean off all the sand- she is such a big girl that she can sit in the sink without her baby tub!
See what I mean?
We ended our week by attending a baptism and visiting one of the larger libraries in our area. We left with an entire stroller full of books- next week will be full of learning and more fun. :)
Jan 31 - Feb 5, 2011
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