Bayou Boat Tour

We took a guided boat tour of the Vermilion River today. The kids had a wonderful time spotting all of the interesting wildlife there like the turtles, water snakes, and best of all the alligators that swam only a few feet away from us. Afterwards we had a picnic in the park then went to the Ice Cream parlor for a very special treat to finish off a wonderful day!

Poem Memorization

Elves Song
by J.R.R. Tolkien

Sing all ye joyful, now sing all together!
The winds in the tree-top, the wind's in the heather;
The stars are in blossom, the moon is in flower, And bright are the windows of Night in her tower.

Dance all ye joyful, now dance all together!
Soft is the grass, and let foot be like feather!
The river is silver, the shadows are fleeting;
Merry is May time, and Merry our meeting.

This week in science the boys were learning about Mollusks. We were able to find tons of snails in our strawberry patch to study and also befriend. Emile particularly became quite fond of the little creatures, wanting to keep them as his pets!

Trip to the Aquarium

spring breaks

We have been taking many little breaks over the last couple of weeks. With this beautiful spring weather to enjoy and so many birthday's to celebrate, we decided to continue our schooling into the summer. We are about to finish the First grade portion of our grammar book, and have covered all of the basic concepts in first grade math. So we will take a break from those subjects over the summer. History and science are his favorite subjects and will give his hungry little mind something to chew on this summer when it is too hot and mosquito invested to play in the back yard. We plan on returning to the UL literacy program this summer to help with reading fluency and also creative writing. It's such a great program and I hope that this year something will click and he will begin to LOVE reading for himself! As much as I love to read aloud to him I want him to have the tools to find information for himself, and not struggle.

I am so proud of all of the hard work he has done this year! With very little complaints and way too many distractions from his little brothers to overlook, he has exceeded my expectations and has been a wonderful example for his younger brother. Hopefully next year Emile will be ready to do the same and he can show little bit how it's done.

Highlights from our trip

We spent the early part of this week in the woods where we sat by a warm fire reading the Hobbit by night and canoeing in the beautiful spring sunshine by day. It was a quick trip, it almost feels like we never left, or like the whole thing may have been a crazy dream. Only I am tired and sore so I know I was there. The kids had a blast with their best buddies exploring the forests trails and hills. Life is so good!

My sweets

The other day I was able to spend some special time with my big three year old guy. He is quite a different person without his big brother. He'a so grown up when he is on his own. I guess he plays the baby card when Avery's around; he is still my baby after all.

We layed a beautiful quilt down on the grass that a dear friend made for us, and enjoyed the wonderful spring time weather all afternoon long. I listened to him tell tall tales like the one where his great grandfather fought a tiger and had a very long sword that could bring down the sun and the giant ate the tiger, and so on. He's got quite an imagination!

It's so good to slow it down. I vow to lay out our quilts more often and sit in the grass with bare feet and read slowly in the middle of the day.

Here's to slow days!