The kids have off of school this week for fall break. When we first started at the school I was amazed by how many breaks they had. Then I stopped to think about it and they get more done in the time they are in school than most other schools, so I became cool with it. At this point I LOVE it. I do have the advantage over working mother's who then have no place to store their kids while they work and school is out. I enjoy the time I get with them, the lack of driving back and forth to school, the not having to wake up early, and get them bathed, fed and in bed by a certain time every night. I love the freedom...so much so that I occasionally dream of homeschooling them. Then I remember that about 1/4-1/2 of the time I sit down to work on homework with Biggest it ends in a fight of some sort or another. So for now I will continue to send them to their (amazing!!) school and enjoy the breaks.
The break hasn't been as active as planned due to illness on the part of Littlest and I, luckily we seem to be recovering although Littlest is still quite the snot monster. Hubs was home this weekend, after two weeks of working out of town so we spent a lot of time just enjoying being near him. As usual the first day of him being gone (which was yesterday and was only a half day) was hardest. Their is a certain melancholy that pervades the house and brings us all down. Typically after the kids have gone to bed I imbibe in large amounts of ice cream. I was saddened to discover last night that we didn't have any of the kinds I really liked and I had to settle for finishing the kids favorite, Happy Birthday Cake Ice Cream.
I did try to break up the melancholy with making a scarecrow of sorts for our front yard as a Halloween decoration. The sheets I stuffed it with made it too heavy and they fall into the bottom half of it's body too much, so I think we need to get some straw. After that we spent time sewing. Well I sewed the kids helped direct somewhat. Middlest's penguin got a dress...and a penguin is a very strange shape indeed. Then she got a penguin costume for Halloween. I am impressed with the materials list. One of Hubs old stained black work shirts and felt I bought for half price. We need to devise some hat that has a beak on it and I plan on using some of our old black tube socks to make penguin feet. Then I began work on Biggest's Mummy costume and finished the pants this morning. I intended on buying white pants and a long sleeve shirt and then sew on strips of cloth and bandage BUT (and there always has to be one in a plan doesn't there?) I couldn't find white pants and the one white shirt I found cost $6.00. I'm cheap and that was just too much to spend on one small aspect of a Halloween costume. So I made the pants out of an old sheet someone gave me, then I sewed on strips of the sheet around the pants and legs. It looks good. Now to sew the shirt which I am a tad bit apprehensive about as sleeves I find are a PIA to sew on...especially when I am not using a pattern. Although seeing as I am making something wrapped in fabric scraps there is a bit of wiggle room with accuracy.Hooray for that.
Today, after finishing the mummy pants we played imaginary time travelers in the back yard, swinging on swings and riding the spring horse as if we were running from things (a fox and a mean ox) when I swung forward I glanced under the slide and saw a cache of chicken eggs, 13 in all, ten from Meredith Puffy Cheeks, and three from Yellow Dot. I floated them all in water to see if they were still good and every single one was. (If they sink they are good, if they float they are not). Then a nice little walk to deliver invitations to some people and now Littlest is napping and the big girls are playing and probably making a mess.
All of their toys have been bagged up because we had the house sprayed for fleas, since they had to come a week later (which will be tomorrow) to spray again I just left them bagged up. They have been pretty intensively using the art supplies which means we have paper bits all over the floor. They have also lost the scotch tape and are using purely colored duct tape...which is kind of expensive and our stock is running low but I am trying to not impede the creative process and just let them go. It's hard for me sometimes because I feel like art supplies are so precious, but I remind myself that we can always buy more. It's hard to get out of that poor person mentality of conserving and using sparingly sometimes. Not that it's always a bad thing, but if it prevents me from allowing the kids to use the art supplies as they see fit it becomes a problem. Sometimes I just wish for shelves and shelves of art supplies, tape, glue, glitter, paper, crayons (okay we have an assload of crayons), crepe paper, tissue paper, felt(oh felt is my favorite), sequins, colored duct tape, paints, brushes, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, etc. etc. etc. But no more stupid markers until Littlest gets older.
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