Oh What A Week!

I'm playing a little catch-up and posting the second half of our week.  Sometimes I feel like it's a bit of Groundhog Day (the movie where the same day happens over and over again)- and I feel silly for posting pictures of it all.

But really, every day is so different.  Really!  Haha.

We have been going to the park for a few hours pretty much every day.  Some days I pick the park, but usually I let the girls choose. 

Well, actually we all let Ginger pick the park because she's the choosiest.  ;-)  Paprika and Baby Violet are happy to go wherever.  Ginger is a hard one to get out of the house - but once we're out, she's usually happy.

These girls are seriously the best of friends.  They never argue (seriously, ever).  I know...boring!  Haha.  But it's true.  I love how much they love one another.



We were playing hide and go seek.  I was hiding, they were seeking.  This park is tiny, so I had to get very creative about where to hide.  ;-)  But, still, we managed to play hide and go seek for the better part of an hour!





Paprika wanted a picture of all of us - and I tried my best.  :-)




Baby Violet eating watermelon.  Doesn't that just say summer!  And paper plates - I'm back to those and LOVING it!  ;-) 





We made it to the Wilderness Park.  It was delicious!



On the way to the Wilderness Park, we ended up having a conversation about homeschooling, of all things. 

I had been really worried that Paprika would freak out if we told her we were homeschooling.  But instead, she was so happy.  The whole car ride to the park (it's about 20 minutes away), she was telling me all the ways she can learn outside of school and how excited she is about learning at home. 

She was like:  So, can I be homeschooled?  Am I homeschooled now?  Really?  Really?  Really?  I am homeschooled?  Hooray!

It was such a load off of my mind for her to be so enthusiastic about homeschooling. Whew!  She is as excited as I am (and that's saying something!)




We've actually been doing a lot of homeschooling this summer.  I wanted to give it a "trial run" over the summer to see how it would go (and if I'd lose my mind- ha!) 

I am happy to report, it's been amazing.  Amazing!  We have been doing math and language arts (reading), handwriting, history, science, Spanish, music, art, social studies, swim team (PE), and health...not every day of course!  Haha! 

Every day we make sure to do math, reading, handwriting, Spanish, art, and music...and I count our park time as science.  ;-) 





Ginger took this photo of me and Violet.  She was so excited to take it! 



Meanwhile, back at the pond - errr, park - we watched the turtles. 



Played pretend with sticks in the forest:



Went on an adventure together:




And checked out the wildlife!  We saw this bird, which Paprika thought was a blue herron:





Honestly, I had no idea what kind of bird it was!  But we got home and we did a little research online (computer class! - haha!) and we found out that it is a black crowned night heron!  That was after we looked at most of the birds on the Audubon website!  ;-)





We watched him for a long time - and Paprika kept saying:  make sure you take pictures so we can identify him later!




Ginger kept trying to get as close as possible:



We think he was fishing because there are A LOT of fish in this pond!



Paprika and Ginger read a lot together this week at home.  On this day, they were reading the Goldilocks and The Three Dinosaurs book.  Afterwards, they made up a million stories about Goldilocks and The Three...

Trolls
Cows
Fairies
Cats
Walruses
Tigers...

and I can't even remember the rest!



Oh, and Paprika is still blogging at:  Fairy Girl's Magical Blog!  I put the link on my sidebar.  She's keeping it up and having fun with it.

She uses an App on the iPad called Blogsy, and I linked my Instagram account to it for her, so she can use my photos if she wants...although she also posts a lot of her own pictures.

This is Ginger at breakfast one morning this week.  Love her pure, pure heart:




I went on a date with Mr. M on Tuesday night!  Christina is still home from college for the summer - and let me just say, it is AMAZING having a babysitter who your children adore and who also happens to live two doors down!  So, yea...we snuck down to the beach and watched the sunset:




And hopefully, if all goes well, we'll be having another date night this weekend! 

Even though I love being with the girls all day, every day, all night, every night...there is something so restorative about these little date nights away for an hour or two.  I feel giddy and then I come back feeling lighter and clearer!  :-)




These are just fun ones of the girls in the backyard with the tent.  We've been having some weather (slight drizzle) - which to my Indiana roots is nothing...but to these California girls, it is SO exciting!






Ginger singing and dancing - my little free-spirit sprite homebody:




Seriously, it was drizzling and they were preparing for the monsoon!  ;-)













More tent:




A fun one waiting for dinner.  Daddy was working very late - so I think this night dinner was bagels made by yours truly!  Nobody seemed to mind...  ;-)




The End!