The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Good: Alice learned how to make an A today. Now if I could get her to stop counting 1,2,3,2,1--frustrating since I have heard her count backwards from 10 just fine.

Bad: The repairman came to fix my dryer yesterday. I started washing like crazy and the first load dried fine, the second load was a bit cool, and the third load stayed sopping wet. And of course there was a fourth load that had already been washed. Maybe by Thursday I will be able to get us some non-scratchy towels and undies.

Ugly: My desk (really the whole school room, but I'm not posting a picture of that!) is bad. Over the past few busy weeks, what is normally fairly messy has gone to chaotic and frustrating. I'm posting this because I read over on Dawn's blog that Friday is National Organize Your Home Office Day. This is the closest thing I have to an office, and it's going to take more than one day, but I'm working on it!

Our spring has started off rainy. This is Alice in a puddle in our front yard. I'll post more of the spring things we did later this week!

Saturday Fun

A certain child woke me up early to check leprechaun traps.

He was thrilled to find the note and treasure, and inside two of the traps were tiny leprechauns!

For breakfast we (kind of) had Lucky Charms. My kids don't really understand cereal. Jack won't put milk on it and just picked out the marshmallows and some of the cereal. Alice gave the milk a go but gave up after a few bites.

We went hiking today at Redbud Valley.

We've visited Oxley before, and this is not like Oxley. This is the main trail. Poor Jay carried Alice quite a bit.

Eventually it levels out. The kids would yell every time they saw a cactus.

Break time!

Then it got a little rocky again...

I'm not sure how far this cave goes. I'm not sure I want to know.

Getting towards the end...The kids did a great job!

The naturalist at the Visitor Center showed the kids a snake skin.

We wrapped up our outing with a stop at the Blue Whale!

I think we're done with our Route 66 travels now, so it's time for me to get to work!

Fun Friday: St. Patrick's Day

We made these cute handprint leprechauns today. I saw them on Pinterest, from Meet the Dubiens, which appears to be an awesome blog full of things I would like to claim I do, but alas, I do not.

This week we had St. Patrick's cookies for tea time. Jack had requested the stained glass cookies we'd made before and I was thinking I would make them all yellow, like a pot of gold, but I didn't check the bag before so when I went to make them, I found that we had about seven Jolly Ranchers left, none of which were yellow. C'est la vie.

Tonight we had mint chocolate chip shakes for dessert.

Today we read through some of our St. Patrick's Day books.

This book, a take-off on Twas the Night Before Christmas, was one Jack remembered from before. He loves the prank the leprechaun pulls at the end.

This year he was inspired to make his own leprechaun traps after reading the book. This one, hanging from our light fixture, has coins to lure them in, and then hopefully they will knock down the plate and the cloth will fall on them, trapping them.

In case you can't see it, it says, "shiny treasure inside."

Four different traps set up in the living room. He told me he was like Fred (from Scooby-Doo).

When I came downstairs tonight after taking my shower, it seemed that some leprechauns had already come by! I also heard some rustling from the traps in the living room, but I'll let Jack check those in the morning.
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Other random stuff:

Did you catch this article about John Tyler a while back? He still has living grandchildren! Freaky! We read this article this week as we were playing catch up and learning about Tyler and Polk.
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Have you seen Beehive and Birdsnest? Perhaps it is very popular and I'm the last one to know about it, but I found this blog this week through Pinterest and she cracks me up!
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The dryer repairman came and tinkered around this afternoon for a while and then announced that he didn't know how to fix this kind of dryer. We bought it at the Lowe's down the road, so surely it's not that high-tech. Anyway, after an hour of calling around, the soonest I could get someone to come out was Monday, so we're doing laundry triage until then.
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When I checked my library account this morning, I noticed it was still showing a Monet DVD we had returned yesterday. I called, and though I didn't know the librarian by name, I recognized his voice and even though he didn't know my name, he knew who I was right off the bat and told me he remembered checking it in. A few weeks ago, another librarian informed me we had a mutual friend on Facebook. I think I might go to the library a bit more than the average person.
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This week's post is up at Metro Family. In it, I admit that I need a tissue nearby if I'm trying to read Pocketful of Pinecones. Sorry, friends, but I just can't do it. It's still sitting in my shelf looking nice, though, and it makes me laugh to think about it.
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Happy Friday!

Disheveled

{ a monkey on my back}

I sat down to do a post on the rest of the Route 66 trips we did last week, but I realized I don't really have time to do that right now. I ought to be writing the article...

{Alice playing Fruit Ninja on my sister-in-law's phone}

Tomorrow will be the first day in at least two weeks that we've stayed home. To say I'm excited would be an understatement.

{Jack after studying Carnival in his geography class}

What will we do with a full day at home? School, for one thing. We're almost behind on our presidents, and that could end up badly if we don't get back on track now. Cleaning, too. My house is kind of scary. And laundry. My dryer isn't working right now, so I have to do frequent small loads so things can dry on the racks.

{somersaults while watching Jack's kickball game}

Daylight Savings Time has hit me hard. Alice doesn't see the need for sleep. I was excited that she didn't take a nap today because she has been up so late the last two nights. She kept it going until about 9:00. Now I have an article to work on, wrinkly damp clothes to press, and about ten pounds of hamburger meat to cook.

I'm looking forward to an unknown date in the future when the house is clean, lessons are planned, and all my deadlines are met. All at the same time. It's probably not in the next few years, but I can dream.

Fun Friday: Getting Our Kicks

Our Route 66 trip west started yesterday.

Our first stop was Bristow, where they have a museum in their old train depot.

Gene Autry used to work there!

Next was the Route 66 Interpretive Center in Chandler.

Alice and I watched a video on one of the laminated beds.

Just down the street is the Lincoln County Museum of Pioneer History.

Jack practiced for his upcoming dentist visit.

It wasn't on my list for my article, but we stopped off at the Arcadia Round Barn.

And then, of course, we stopped at Pops!

The kids don't really drink soda, so they were not sure what we should get. We ended up with Jolt--that they're not touching!, Stewart's Cream Soda, Pumpkin Pie Soda, Dublin Dr. Pepper, Strawberry Jam, and Blueberry Breese.

We spent the night in OKC, where the only thing we did was go to dinner with friends. The rest of the time was spent swimming and watching cartoons!

Our first stop this morning was the Seaba Station Motorcycle Museum.

Some day Jack's going to be hanging out with friends recounting vacations from their childhoods, and after everyone else tells about their trips to Disney World and Six Flags, he can tell about his mom finding abandoned bathrooms. Hopefully he'll think that's funny.

We had lunch at The Rock Cafe in Stroud. The owner of the cafe was the inspiration for Sally in Cars!

Jack was disappointed that they didn't have a Mater.

Alice liked the fish!

We went 577.9 miles on Route 66 trips this week, so I am ready to rest! Read more about field trips here!

Artist Study: Kandinsky

February's artist was Wassily Kandinsky. (Excuse the funny angle, but I was trying to get the least amount of glare!)

There aren't many books for kids on Kandinsky, but this one that we already owned had some information.

This one from the library (but we've checked out so many times we should probably just buy it) also was good.

We made a colorweaver.

I love how Jack's circles painting turned out!

One day we had Kandinsky cookies--they would have turned out better if I had checked to see what colors we had ahead of time, but at least this way I cleaned out some icing!

We wrapped up the month with a visit to our favorite museum to see a Kandinsky in person!

(Read more about museums at my latest post on MetroFamily!)