Recent LIFE, more abundant.

This weekend we made a volcano, er, made a "volcano mess" because of Joseph's fascination with volcanoes. It was composed of homemade play-doh, specially colored by James, too much baking soda, too much vinegar, an attempt at an eruption to blow the house down (thank you, James) and lots more food coloring. I did go so far as to print out a cross-section of a volcano and try to explain it to Joseph. As a result, I think I've explained the core of the Earth and my limited knowledge of volcanoes no less than 300 times. I think he's walked away from all of this with the understanding that the Earth is like a ball. That's it.




At dusk last night while we were waiting for dinner, Joseph took a box to make a "house" outside. Then he needed a light and books and he was set for about half an hour, until he decided he needed a pillow to go to sleep in his house. (He slept in his bed last night, to his dismay. Will somebody PLEASE take this boy camping already??)



School is becoming an increasing problem. Joseph has taken on the proud title of "trouble child" and does everything in his power to maintain that title. Yesterday he spent naptime licking the floors and tables in the classroom: the teachers were unable to stop him. We made a chain that represents how many more days of school they have: 17!! (In the background of the picture on our calendar, you can see the "last day of school" card on the last Friday.) The kids watched me do the chain for a while and then got right to work on theirs. Joseph did amazingly straight cutting and Kendra's turned out very, um, artistic!



I am extremely NOT artistically creative. Colors don't work for me. Decorating, composing, editing, photography, shapes...I wish I could do more. My hope is that by getting these guy's creative juices flowing early, they might have more creativity by the time they reach, say, my age :) From the looks of things, that plan is going along swimmingly!