Early Morning Mission!

I was up pretty early one morning last week.  I don't even remember what morning it was.  It was THAT early!  Ha!  Anyway, Peter was also up so he came on a mission with me to get some breakfast enhancements.

We took a walk through the backyard.

To one of the orange trees by the fence.

He likes to close his eyes when I take his picture.

Our treasure.

Fresh picked oranges.

Pretty good breakfast food.

LOL!!!

Laughed 'till I cried!

Temperature

There have been some rumors about temps going back and forth between some of the blogs that I read.  Some people think you can trust those digital thermometers, but I'm not so sure.  

Did you guys hear about this on the news?

School Follies

 Andrew recently started doing some first grade school at home.  He's doing some reading lessons and math lessons during the week.  This week I introduced the idea of the 'empty set' or zero.  

So I showed him the little card with nothing on it.  And told him it was an empty set.  Then, I asked him to tell me how many black birds were in the room.  The conversation went a little something like this . . .

Me:  "How many black birds are in the room?"

Andrew:  "Four."

Me:  "What?  No, really, how many black birds are here in this room?  Real ones."

Andrew:  "One."

Me:  "No, Andrew.  There aren't any real black birds in the room.  We're not talking about pretend ones.  You're supposed to say 'none'.  It's an empty set.  Get it?"  

Andrew: "Yes."

Me:  "Say 'yes' if I tell you an empty set and 'no' if it's not an empty set."

Andrew:  "Okay."

Me:  "How many Daddies are in the room?  Is it an empty set?"

Andrew:  "Yes."  - because Daddy was at work.

Me:  "How many tables are in the room?  Is it an empty set?"

Andrew:  "No."  Because there is one table in the room.  (I think he's getting it now.)

Me:  "How many lasagna's are in the room?  Is it an empty set?"

Andrew:  "No."

Me:  "It IS an empty set because there are no lasagna's in the room."  

(not sure if he's getting it after all)

Me:  "Andrew, what is an empty set?"

Andrew:  "Spaghetti?"

James and I

 We had to go pick James up from school Wednesday. 

We went home for lunch - chili and corn chips.

Set the tent back up in the backyard - James had decided to sleep out in the yard Saturday night.  I tried to talk him out of it.  Turned out that although several kids had intentions of sleeping out there, no one actually did.  Never put the rain fly on and never took the tent down on Sunday.  Well, it rained Sunday night and the tent got wet.  Then, on Monday, the little boys knocked it down while playing in it.  So, anyway, we set it back up so that it would continue to dry out.  

Had Alyssa take a picture of James and I.

And that's it!

Peter

Thought I would share a couple of cute pictures of Peter.  

He's something else!  

Habanero Brownies!

 Habanero Chili peppers are very, very spicy.   We sometimes chop one up very small and add it to our chili. Brian found a recipe online for brownies made with habaneros so we decided to try it.  

They look like regular brownies,  but they're not.

While they were baking, Andrew gave me a whole schpeel about how he likes 'regular' brownies and "why can't we just have regular brownies?" etc. etc.  It was quite funny.  I didn't think he was even going to try them.  

But he did and he liked them.  He even had seconds.

I'm not sure about this picture because Peter had seconds too.  But, maybe they were a little spicy for him.  

Everyone liked them.  They were a strange combination of sweet and spicy.  We also had vanilla ice cream with them.  They reminded me of cinnamon candy because there was definite heat there but sweetness as well.  

Interesting.

Girls.

So, the girls are pretty shy and very particular about having their picture on the blog.  So I took some pictures of some of their things instead.  

These are the fancy dolls Brian got them.  

Their nail polish.

These are the ceramics they painted at camp with the rocks Grampa polished for them.

And a couple of their Barbie dolls.  

And I did manage to get a picture and their approval to post it.  Ha!  

EEK! It's Thursday already . . . Mostly Matthew

It's been awhile since I posted last.  I'm trying to not fall off the blogosphere - whatever that is.  Also, trying to keep ahead of Ted and his blog - not hard to do that.  HA!  (maybe a little public ribbing will cause him to post more - we'll see)

Brrrr!  It was COLD this morning.  The kids love it!

Andrew eats pudding.

 Peter was proud of his traffic jam.  

Matthew.

Matthew makes this really funny face sometimes.  He scrunches up his little nose and opens his mouth wide.   I was trying to catch it on film.  The following pics are a result of that.  He's eating a cracker in some of the pictures. 

This is pretty close to what it is.  

Look closely and see his first tooth peaking out.  He was sleeping - the only way I could get a picture of it.  

Alyssa and Matthew.

Faith and Matthew.