A sunny but cold day

Fall peeked in here, said hello, then dashed off and let winter come in on its heels - it's been cold. Through no particular consensus we decided to stay indoors, and thus began our "winter activities"

I lay tape in a street grid on the floor for them so they could build a town. Ellie worked hard on her bridge.

Lily godzilla'd the first Aldridgeville, but after I tied a ribbon to her elephant and asked her to walk it they were able to peacefully rebuild.

A 'smeariment! We haven't done one of these in ages. We were testing the tensile strength of spaghetti - one stick? Five sticks? Fifteen sticks? The girls were shocked at the results.

"Mom! It's bowing!"

#stuffAvysays

Avy: "Mom, my tummy hurts and I already tried going potty. Can you think of another alution?"

<solution>

I love how more and more they're using great communication. So proud :)

#stuffElliesays

Ellie: "Mom, what will it be like when I grow up? Will it be more complicated?"

Oh sweet, innocent child....

Enjoying nature

We live in a wonderful area for wildlife: many of our parks are built into trail systems so you can play and hike in the same morning. In this case we intended to hike but met a new little friend who could keep up with all four kids and was also equally fascinated with nature. This is how we ended up with all five kids taking turns holding and petting a fuzzy Woolly Bear caterpillar:

No great pictures of them actually holding it as the kids were so tightly clustered around the bug, but they were enjoying the experience immensely.

We popped into the local ranger station building to use the restroom (right next to the park) and ended up staying for an hour while two very patient rangers answered all of the kids questions about paw prints, skulls, scat, bears, shells, raccoons, spiders... you get the idea ;)

We got home a little late but it was totally worth it. Here's a rare moment of Theo resting; he was pretty tired at this point.

Ok, for those of you not liking bugs, you can stop here, no more pictures of kids.

This guy landed on our window with an audible "THUD". I sadly couldn't get a good shot of him but he was easily 5-6 inches long. He stuck around for a few minutes; it was very windy so we got a good look at him while he took shelter.

Turns out "he" is a she - a female Giant Ichneumon Wasp. That tail isn't a stinger like the kids and I originally thought - it's an ovipositor used to deposit eggs in wood. Super cool!

Bicyclist family

Dave's a bit of a trend-setter; all four kids love to be on their bikes.

I bought a trike for the babies but it was a tad too big for them; they figured it out though.

After some near-collisions on the driveway I finally dragged the bikes to the park with us. The big girls never went near the playground; they were too busy zipping along the path as fast as they could go ;)

Snack break!

We brought the littles' scooters too but they lost interest when they couldn't keep up with the big girls.

This is Theo's "Mom's taking pictures, better smile" face. It's hilariously goofy ;)

Going for a hike

We took off this morning for a local park that ages a little older than the kids but has a wonderful attached trails system. After some snacks and a little romping on the park, we set out!

We're going on an adventure!

Zoom in to Lily's feet and be amazed that she didn't fall.

I bought the kids some binoculars in an attempt to help them with the observation part of our hikes and it was a wild success (for today, at least): the girls would stare off at some object 10 feet away through the lenses then tell me all about the amazing fallen tree they found!!!

My intrepid explorers.

Back home for strawberries!

I set the ground rule of "don't look at the sun through the binoculars" and of course the girls wanted to know why? I drew a picture of the sun going through a lens condensing down to one point but in a stroke of parenting genius pulled out a magnifying glass and set some leaves on fire. "See that leaf?" I said. "The binoculars are a lens like the magnifying glass, so that leaf is your eye."

"OOHHHHHHHHH" said the girls. And then of course Ellie asked, "Well what if I held the binoculars up to the sun but didn't look through them?" Well then you'll be fine, kiddo. And she nodded, took up her magnifying glass, and proceeded to set many things on fire. I might have created another problem for myself here....