E.M.A. Wednesday

Last night, Ben was running a high fever again, so I had to change our Wednesday plans. His fever went from 99 to 105.3 degrees in an hour, and that was WITH me putting ice packs on him when it got to 103. I was not about to take him anywhere, and I had been up many times during the night to check his temperature. The whole point of our Early Morning Adventures is to get up, eat breakfast, get ready, and get out the door at the time we will when school starts. We couldn't have a stay-at-home only day, because that wouldn't give us our "out the door" practice. So, we loaded the trunk with recyclable, buckled up, and drove around the block to drop off our recycling at the place right behind our house. The kids thought it was rather "lame" (their words) that we were back at home just 7 minutes after leaving (but they did smile when I told them we weren't done.)

Next up for the day's adventure was painting. Again, I heard "lame" when I showed them a few examples of what I had in mind for painting on 16x20 canvases. I was nearly in tears because I had had so little sleep and my original and back-up plans couldn't happen. Now, they were grumpy and cranky about my back-up back-up plan. I asked for a 15 minute recess while I found a few websites for other painting companies, then I let the kids have a bunch of options to choose from... sort of.

Jon chose to paint a macaw, Ben wanted planets and a rocket, Maddie found a picture of trees, and Will asked me to keep looking until I found a good Sword-in-the-Stone picture to paint. For the boys' pictures, I sketched the outline of the main components on their canvases. It was a challenge for me since only two kids fit at the table at a time. First, Maddie and Jon painted their backgrounds. Then, Ben and Will with the dark backgrounds went second. Then it was back to the other two to start filling in the foreground. There was a lot of back and forth as waited for paint to dry or tried coordinating the palletts so the right colors would stay wet, but not be wasted.

Jon learned to mix his colors as he did the background with blues and white. Though it looks like it is all the same color, if you are close to the painting, you can see the variations that give the picture a lot of character. Jon had a lot of fun painting the tree leaves. He would've gone all day, but I stopped him so we could eat dinner.

Maddie had lots of color mixing. She learned the best way to get a beautiful rainbow effect was to do one color at a time, but to mix it into the next color, then dry brush them together to blend them again. This is actually a sunset, but she wanted it rainbowy. When she did her trees, I helped her clean up some of the lines, but otherwise, this was her work. The bubbles were all done with her finger tips as the "paint brushes."

Will chose a difficult subject for a new painter. I'm not that experienced at painting, but I'm always willing to learn something new. The hard part was teaching the "something new" as if I actually had a clue .. because I really didn't. This is the picture he wanted to paint.

I sketched the sword on the canvas using a straight edge, then he began the color mixing using greens, blues, blacks, and a touch of white to make some parts more gray. Lots of color mixing! When that dried, he did the brighter areas, then he did the leaves. The leaves were made with a variety of tools. Some of the leaves were painted on, some were made with a make-up sponge cut into a leaf shape, many were done with a wadded paper towel, and the neatest ones were done by pressing little stems from the garden into paint and stamping them on the canvas. He learned about shadows and light and warm and cool colors, and in the end, he was really proud of his painting.

Ben managed to keep his fever away for the most part. It was low-grade, running less than 100, which is MUCH better than the 105+ we had been dealing with. Ben doesn't always have the patience to stick with longer projects, so it was a great thing that we broke this up throughout the day. He LOVED getting to watch Magic School Bus science shows while he waited to paint. Ben did lots of blending in the black and blue space, he made the parts of the sun have multi-colors and a bit of texture, he had a blast painting the fire on the rocket and making polka dot stars wherever he wanted. If you look closely, you might notice some of the star-dots spell his name down the left side. Just about the time I thought he was done, he added a red shape that he called space rocks, then he finished with a shooting star.

The end products were amazing and the kids were SO proud of what they had done.

Maddie, Jon, and Will used a lot of their non-painting time to make some stop-action movies with their Legos and action figures. All of them watch a bit of television since I found Magic School Bus videos on Netflix. Will made another half dozen God's Eyes and taught Maddie and Jon how to make some, too. (Yes, those stick and yarn creations are EV-ER-Y-WHERE now!!)

As for me, I was exhausted. I had been on my feet all day, and I had to be at full attention the whole time since there was a lot of paint really close to our furniture. I was worn out and my kitchen covered with tarps and canvases and paint bottles and brushes and paper plates full of paint, so we ordered pizza. Ben went all day without getting above 101-degrees, but he was pretty weary. I think most of tomorrow's plan will still work, we just won't do quite as much as I originally considered doing.

E.M.A. Tuesday

Last Thursday night, Ben started running a fever. It got up to 105.3 and he started throwing up. His fever broke with acetaminophen and motrin, but Friday, he still had a high fever at times. We headed to the doctor after another bout of feverish puking. She ran some blood work and did a strep test, but it all came back fine, so we were told we'd just have to wait out the virus. Sunday afternoon, Ben seemed to be better with just a low fever, so I went ahead with Monday's plan. Monday evening, though, he was back up to having a high enough fever we were on alert in case we needed to head to the ER. The doctor told us if his temp went over 105.3 to head for the ER because he could have seizures with such high temps. Monday night, between temp checks, I was scrambling to come up with a back-up plan for our adventures. Ben wasn't healthy enough to be out all day like I thought we would do. Instead, the kids got in the car and we headed for WalMart. Not the best idea, but I wiped down the cart with a Clorox wipe, put Ben in it, and filled the cart with some crafty supplies.

 

Our plan was to do a few crafts and let the boys make games. Jon and Will make up their own board games all the time. They are constantly asking for pieces of cardboard to make pieces, note cards to make playing cards, and big blank paper to draw the game board. Those two, in particular, were in heaven when I picked up some white cardboard gift boxes to keep their game in. We left WalMart and headed home to create.

 

The boys chose a kit with three wooden cars to paint. Maddie picked out a bead set for making bracelets and necklaces. Those two kids kept them busy most of the morning.

After lunch, they got started on decorating poster boards with pencils, new markers, and rulers. They picked out a few character sets that served as the game pieces -- Maddie picked fairies, Will had iridescent dragons, Jon had knights, and Ben chose dinosaurs. Ben started fading in the afternoon. His temperature didn't get quite as high as it had been, but he was definitely not feeling well.

Maddie did some more beading, then proudly showed what she made. Between all the drawing and coloring, I taught Will how to make God's Eyes using some of the sticks we gathered on Monday. When he ran out of sticks, he used the Popsicle sticks we got at WalMart this morning. He started out saying it was a "lame" activity (I guess that's the word of the week?), but when he did it for a while, he really enjoyed the process and the product. He was so excited to make more, and he joyfully exclaimed, "Gramma would LOVE this, Mom! I can't wait to teach her how to do it."

When all the crafts ran out of excitement, we pulled out the rest of our fresh blueberries that we picked, and we started cooking. I taught Will how to make blueberry jam that we added with more fresh blueberries to Greek yogurt. We put it in the icecream maker and made our own blueberry frozen yogurt. What a tasty treat! (Of course, we had to sample it before dinner.)

This was definitely not the day I had planned when I pencilled in all our EMAs for the week, but it worked out okay. The kids had fun even though we didn't go anywhere exciting. All of them said they enjoyed the day. In the afternoon, Ben slept. The poor kiddo had another high fever. Now, to come up with a new plan for tomorrow since he is too sick for the original plan.

E.M.A. Monday

It is hard to believe that Will starts school next week -- August 5th! Yes, that's early, but his school is switching to a 10-month extended calendar. Though he is a bit irritated that he is starting three weeks before his siblings (and most of his friends), I know he will enjoy the extra time off throughout the school year. He will still get two weeks off at Christmas, but he will also get a week off in October, November, February, and March, and April has an extra four day weekend, I think, too. 

 

Like the last couple years, I decided Early Morning Adventures (aka: EMA) would be the most fun way of getting the kids ready for an early bedtime and wake-up time. At breakfast, the kids asked for a hint about what we'd be doing. I told them, "First we are going on a mini-hike, then we'll go where love means nothing." They pressed for more info, and I added, "You can make quite a racket." We were dressed, fed, ready for the day, and buckled in the car seats by 7:30 this morning. THEN, I told the kids about today's adventures.

Our first stop was a local park with lots of trails. Each kiddo had a baggie with a list on it of what they needed to find: three sticks that are the same size, three different types of leaves, something with texture, something awesome, and a seed or seed pod.

(We might use those for a few crafts I have in mind for later this week if we need to fill time.) It didn't take too long to find what we needed, then it was time to head over a few blocks for the next part of our Monday Adventure: tennis lessons!

Just about the time we pulled into the parking lot for the tennis and swim center, Will rolled his eyes and claimed, "Mom! I get it... but that's an awful joke." (referring to my hints at breakfast time.) The kids were split into groups. Maddie was in a group with two other little girls about her age. Jon and Ben were with two other boys, and Will's group was five kids around age 9.

All four kids REALLY enjoyed the tennis lessons, and they've all asked me to look into classes that are on-going. After getting really sweaty, the kids got to swim. Will braved the high-dive, and Jon tried to -- a life guard stopped him and made him swim back and forth across the pool to check his swimming abilities. In the end, the lifeguard asked Jon to wait until another time when his swimming and breath-holding skills were a bit better. Jon took it well and just kept going off the lower diving board. Jon and Will spent most of their time at the deep end (10-feet or more). Maddie and Ben preferred the fountains and shallow end, but Ben did get a few jumps off the diving board in before hanging out with his sister.

The morning ended with meals from the snack bar (all part of the class "deal" I purchased.) Then we headed home for some quiet time. The kids had a blast today, and they are already asking about tomorrow!

Just readin'

A lazy summer morning...
Getting lost in a great book...
Definitely MY kiddo!

Picking Berries

The last several years -- 4, I think -- our family has picked blueberries on Father's Day weekend. For a couple years, we went on Sunday morning, but when we started going to church regularly, we switched to Saturday morning. Our normal routine was to get up while it was still dark, eat breakfast sandwiches in the car, and get to the blueberry farm right at 7:00 am as the sun was rising and the gates of the farm opened. That was usually the only cool time of the day, and it was nice that the crowd was thin that early in the day.

 

This year, the kids were at Gramma and Granddad's on Father's Day weekend. Allen and I spent that Saturday working on the neighborhood clean-up project, then we spent Sunday driving to Houston for my trip to Uganda. The weekend before that, we thought our only blueberry-time would be at the festival in Nacogdoches. About two days ago, I got an email from the blueberry farm that the berries were ripe and great for picking (10 on a scale of 1-10!). Additionally, the highs for today were supposed to be mid-80s. For ANY part of an East Texas summer, that is cool. For the end of July, it is almost unheard of.

 

We woke the kids up early, but not as early as usually for blueberry picking. They grumbled, but when they saw the adventure hats were being packed, they perked up a bit. Once they heard we were getting blueberries, they moved quite quickly. We got to the farm around 9:00 am, and enjoyed a couple hours of great picking on a cool day -- it got up to about 80-degrees about the time we were ready to leave.

The kiddos ate just about 100% of what they picked, so we didn't leave with as many as we usually do. Oh well... we all had fun! The boys (little AND big) spent quite a bit of time practicing for the circus acts -- tossing blueberries high, catching them in their mouths (or hitting them on the head... or hitting someone else on the nose...)

We all had our traditional second breakfast of blueberry frozen yogurt and the most amazing blueberry muffins I've ever had. Mmmm....

It wasn't Father's Day weekend, but I'm really glad we got to do our blueberry picking!

A Museum Trip with Nana

 Last night, the kids and I headed up to Nana's and Papa's for a couple days. Shelley and Randy are part of Rotary Club, and since their group helped raise money for shoes for the Ugandan kids, I came to give a presentations about my trip, show them pictures, and tell them stories of how they helped. The presentation went well, and, since Shelley had taken the day off, she and I took the kids to the Perot Museum in Dallas. I was excited that they let us all in for free because of the museum membership we have back home, but I did pay a little extra so we could do the Recycled Reef special exhibit.

 

I didn't really know what to expect, but I had heard only great things about the museum. I knew it was a hands-on science museum, and, because of that, I was certain the kids would like it. Since we went without prepurchasing tickets (that was the only way to use our other membership benefits), we had a bit of a wait before we could actually get in to the exhibit area. We arrived at the museum at 11:10, and could get in at noon, so that left a perfect amount of time to have lunch at the cafe. Unlike most museum cafes, this one had good food. Shelley and I had big, fresh salads and the kids had kid-meals that came with fresh fruit and milk.

 

I can't say it all went well. The Rotary meeting was really early, the kids had been up late the night before, and the combination left them pretty cranky. The museum was too crowded, and I was frustrated that the kids kept pushing buttons on all the displays -- not to read or learn, but for the sake of pushing buttons, as if they were playing video games. The museum is definitely a modern museum, as almost all the information was on touch-screens. Unfortunately, that means that you can't really read over shoulders, and it was just too crowded for a claustrophobic person to enjoy it. After a bunch of contagious crankiness, we changed the pace and headed for the Recycled Reef.

The Reef is really a big room full of trash. Really. But when they add special blue lights and the sound of bubbles underwater, it looks sort of magical. We could almost believe we were underwater ... but dry. After walking through the reef that was created by anyone who wanted to participate, we headed for the craft room to make some fish to add to the dynamic exhibit. We started with... well... trash. The kids gathered large pieces of cardboard and started sketching what they planned to make. Nana did a great job helping the kids cut cardboard and tear masking tape, while I was in my own little world.

When we finished our creations, we searched for the perfect spots in the Reef exhibit to place them. I think it is pretty cool that we all created artwork worthy of a museum exhibit :). That was JUST what our crew needed. After the "down time" of being creative, rather than just being in learning-mode, we were ready for about another hour of exhibits. We left in time to get home for dinner.

Allen later asked what I thought of the museum, and I explained I had mixed feelings. I was struggling to separate the crankiness and crowdedness out of the experience -- they really did put such a damper on the day. I hope we can return sometime when it isn't so crowded, but I understand that may be a challenge. Going back with rested children CAN be on the to-do list, though. Giving my opinion can wait until we try again...