April 3 Such JOY

Wednesday:  It's Spring break ... SO ... Cal had to do a bit of sharing today over at my house. He was not thrilled about it, but it all worked out!

One of my favorite things in the entire world is watching these kiddos do art. Erin, who early on showed almost no interest in this aspect of life, has really taken off running! She attributes this to her summer art classes (yes!!!). She is a very enthused little sketcher presently ... and look! Doesn't she do a nice job?

You can see Aidan doing an "art evaluation" of her sketch in his artistic brain. He approved of her drawing very much!

I dug up a bunch of LEGO magazines for Brendan to breeze through this morning. He loves LEGOs and was glad to sit and look through them.

Little Cal was LESS than happy to have three siblings vying for grandma's attention ... he is really used to the 1-on-1's we enjoy most Wednesdays. Look at his dear little face ...

Here is Aidan drawing SONIC ... from memory. He is a remarkable artist with an intensity (to actually everything he does!).

Oh my word, Erin. I love this so much. Erin told me this is "Eevie", her favorite Pokemon character.

Little Cal in the playroom with his much-loved cars. The two of us usually spend the majority of our time playing cars on Wednesdays.

This is Erin with "Chirpy", our little stuffed bird. If you squeeze its back in just the right spot, it chirps and sounds like a real bird. Erin is very good at making Chirpy CHIRP.

All of the older kids had fun playing with the Spirograph set. They were able to take turns and have a lot of fun with it. I'm so glad I spent the $19 on it!

Cal was way way less than enthused about Aidan playing with HIS gas station ... I had to intervene and coax Cal into it.

Brendan did a little bit of reading in the top bunk too ... I tried to get him interested in "Dear Mr. Henshaw" but a different book caught his eye instead. Our stuffed red panda (female) sat up there with him. Her name is Massabi. 

And look at wee Cal's haircut! Dylan said he was very pleased about it the day it happened. This little one kills me. 

Here is Brendan looking at the book: "Mr. Popper's Penguins".

Erin wanted me to help her do these four little puzzles. I encouraged her to try it all by herself (since she is now a big girl). She did a really good job and managed to complete all four of them with very minimal assistance.

Since Cal was feeling slightly neglected (after about 3 hours of playing), I agreed to put on a video for the kids. We somewhat watched "Homeward Bound" as we continued playing too. I knew Brendan would like the story because he loves animals. It IS a nice movie to watch! Cal really liked it too.

Here is Erin showing me that she put all four puzzles together!

Aidan has quite an "engineering" mind ... i.e. he is a builder as well as an artist. He is very good at constructing whatever he dreams up in his head. I like watching him build.

Erin finally dragged me into my room to look at "all my jewels". Here she is modeling about 9 bracelets. Isn't she something else?

Erin really liked this birthstone ring of mine. 

After we all ate lunch (and topped it off with chocolate chip cookies and ice cream for dessert),we drove over to their house for the rest of the afternoon. I brought along a bunch of paper airplane stuff. Here is Aidan building a difficult model (having NO difficulty whatsoever in accomplishing it) in less than 5 minutes. I find the instructions in this particular model airplane book to be confusing; but not so to Aidan. I told him before he folded this one that it didn't fly well, which proved to be true. Aidan was okay with it not flying very good. He said he just enjoys making them. We did make several different models, though, that were excellent in flight!

Aidan wasn't bothered about having an audience as he worked ...

Later, we went downstairs and "the littles" beat me up on their huge bean bag chair. Look at their dear faces. These two were super cuddly yesterday. It's been hours since I've seen them and I still feel warm down to my toes from their love. 

Kelly had a tooth infection worked on yesterday, so she was physically miserable. Dylan had a conference until late in the evening. So I stayed and played an extra hour or so. Being a grandma is pretty special. And these kiddos are just what I need.