Our nursing home friends

Jordis and I have been visiting Willowbrook nursing home every Wednesday morning for the past few years. They opened a new branch, Willowbrook at Delaware Run, which is closer to our house, so now we attend there. It's a much smaller group and the residents are a little more......attentive. Recently we've been inviting Jordis' neighbor friend, Xavier, and they've been having a great time together.

Miss Kelly entertains the kids with stories and songs.

They also did a craft.

This is Miss Lucy. She's a spry little lady. Feisty, Italian, and has a slight east coast accent. She also likes my tattoo. And she's one of Jordis' favorite residents.

We love visiting Miss Kelly and our Willowbrook friends!

Pretty Preschooler

Jordis will start kindergarten in the fall, but we have failed to enroll her in preschool. I know....tsk, tsk. Part of it is because we just don't want to spend the money, and the other part is that I want to keep her all to myself while Xander's at school. This is the last year EVER that she will be home all day, so I'm taking advantage of her company while she still likes to be around me. Don't worry, we don't play Wii all day.

We go to bible study on Tuesday mornings, volunteer at Xander's school on Tuesday afternoons and visit the nursing home on Wednesdays. We also try to go to the library once a week or every other week, we run errands, and she "helps" me with domestic chores. And sometimes, we have a little bit of school.

We're not having as much school as I had wanted, but we are learning what we need for her kindergarten testing. (Especially now that I know they expect five-year-olds to identify a rhombus). Look at this girl hold a pencil. She has some mad skills.

Since it's winter we did a little polar bear lesson recently. We read books about them, practiced writing the letter "P," did a worksheet, and made a craft.

Best of all, she enjoys learning. Christmas socks and all.

Meet Mortimer

Sorry for the blurry picture, but this is was our new pet, Mortimer the Mantis.

The critters came out late this summer, but in full force, and for some reason we always seem to catch the ones that have a pre-existing condition. We caught a fabulous caterpillar one day, and the next morning when I went outside to take its picture it had already made itself a little cocoon.

A few days later Jason caught the kids a praying mantis. The closer I looked at it I realized it very much resembled the pregnant mantis we had last year that ended up laying eggs in the bug catcher. So when we went out to the bus stop the next morning and found Mortimer, we were able to convince Xander to let the female one go for the sake of the babies.

Mortimer was probably the biggest praying mantis I've ever seen. It made me think of the Orkin commercials where the giant pests come and greet the homeowners.
He was feisty, too. Not content with his sticks, grass or water that we provided, he would actually knock on the door. A day or so later we came outside and got excited because we found another mantis above the front door. Then we realized Mortimer was gone. He somehow got the door open, escaped, and got the door closed again. He was perched right there above the front door as if to taunt us. He would even look at us if we called his name.

Another caterpillar has since come along and he, too, has made a cocoon in our bug catcher. So we have two bug catchers side by side on the front porch that Jordis checks on every day. We did a little unit on caterpillars one day while Xander was at school and this was her craft.

She was pretty proud.

Backyard Bible School

The week before last the kids attended Backyard Bible School. It's a program similar to Vacation Bible School, but different people hold it in their backyard for four days. The activities director at the nursing home where we attend story time holds it there so the residents can enjoy the kids, and then the last day is at her home. The theme was Son Harvest County Fair and this is what the kids decided to wear on the second day when they were told to try and dress up like cowboys and cowgirls. We probably could have come up with something a little better had they enlisted my help, but they felt pretty cool with these outfits so I just let them do their thing.

By the last day they had learned a bunch of songs and bible verses, which they still know, and they also made fun crafts and ate candy. I attended the last day at Ms. Connie's house and it was quite the affair. She has four acres so there was a lot of room for the 40 or so kids to run around. There was a ring toss, boomerang throwing, balloon toss, and a few other games.

At the end of the day some of the kids got to smash whipped cream pies in the faces of the teenage helpers. The rest of the kids got to "clean" them off with water guns and water balloons. Xander smashed a balloon over this girl's head.

Miss Connie has a slide on the side of her garage and a rope swing that capped off their adventurous week.

Lent

As most of you know, I've been having serious trouble finding a good church for us. If I like the service they don't have good options for the kids. If the kids like it, I don't (usually because of the contemporary rock band-type music). Some of them are too legalistic and others I just don't agree with. I'm pretty sure I've checked out almost every religion since we moved here. What I have learned though is that I do like the liturgical style of worship. Non-denominationally speaking there is a focus on Christmas and on Easter, but I like the idea of everything having a season, like Advent and Lent. I like the predicatable organization of it all and the preparation it involves. However, explaining it to the kids is difficult for me because I don't know a whole lot about it.

As luck would have it, my blog friend, Meredith, posted a great blog on her site about Lenten ideas. I liked her crown of thorns idea a lot and attempted to make it with the kids this week. First the kids had to get on their "chef clothes," and then we made some salt dough, and rolled it out into ropes.


Then I was supposed to braid it and place it in a circle on a cookie sheet. That proved to be more difficult than expected and resulted in lots of re-rolling and re-braiding. But after figuring out the best way I finally got it on there. Then I had to put in the toothpicks. We baked it, then brushed it with a mixture of Worcestershire sauce and water and baked it a bit longer so it was a little more brown.

The idea is that the "thorns" represent sins. Each day the kids get an opportunity to get caught being good and they'll be allowed to remove a thorn. By the time we reach the eve of Easter the crown will be empty and they can paint it and decorate it for Easter day, transforming it from a crown of thorns to a crown fit for a king. I'm not sure if they understand it, but they've been getting awfully helpful around here.

My Fall Crafts Are Finished!

The kids and I have been crafting like crazy over the past month or so. Actually, I've been doing most of the crafting. The kids like to help in the beginning and then part way through decide they're finished so I end up doing the rest.

Here's what we've made this fall:

Jordis' spider



Our clay pumpkins for the banister. These were fun, and we made some Christmas ornaments as well.



Okay, so this isn't technically a fall project, but it was fun. The kids are earning allowance now and they get to split it between a bank for saving and a bank for spending. Xander already had more than one bank, but Jordis didn't, so I made her one for her spending money. It's decoupage and I made it to match her room.



Finally, to see what I did with the black socks I bought at Goodwill (referred to in my post dated 9/24). I know my neighbor Lisa's sister, Katie, has been on the edge of her seat to see what will become of said socks. Ha, ha. They have turned into bats for our front yard tree.

I would like to have more than two bats, so maybe I'll make more next year. The kids liked this craft because it involved playing with batting. I did not like this craft because the glue gun and I had a rough time reacquainting after some years of non-glue crafting.



Last, but not least, are my ghosties. I think these are my favorite. They're not quite as spaced out as I wanted them, but our dirt is horribly filled with rocks and we had trouble getting them in the ground, so they couldn't go exactly where I had planned. But they're fun, and the neighbor's dog likes to bark at them, which is kind of cute.



Jordis likes the ghosts, too!