February Recap

Well, it turns out that Blogger hates me today. I had just finished putting captions on everything and getting the pictures somewhat arranged (well, loosely sort of arranged, anyway), when it decided to freeze on me. So . . . maybe I'll add pretty captions and formatting and all that jazz someday. But let's be honest, probably not. So you'll just have to sift. :)

I recommend reading the text way at the bottom first and then looking at the pictures. I think they will make a little more sense that way.

Necklace made from purple noodle beads

In case you were wondering, Princess Aurora is standing in for
Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The cat and horse are . . . horses.

Addra eating the plate at her fancy tea party
in the middle of the hallway

That day the girls decided to be matching as much as possible

Here are a few highlights from our February, complete with even some pictures!

Coriel continues to love taking photos and videos. She would document everything if she could some days (no matter whether Jeanna showered or not). There was one day where the girls took turns dancing on our coffee table and taking pictures of each other—at least fifty pics or so, just on and on.

We played a round of Iron Chef (see previous blog post).

We had some massive snow days. Most particularly, there was one day that Brice built the girls a little snow fort to play in. Mostly, though, on snow days, Jeanna stayed inside and shivered, waiting for the girls to come in shivering too. Then Brice stayed outside for a whole long time afterward, either playing or shoveling.

For Valentine’s Day, Brice wrote a silly story about two birds of paradise, and he had the girls illustrate it. It was adorable. Brice also made a yummy brownie/whipped cream/raspberry dessert.

We visited Brice’s sister and her family in Arizona. It was WARM! And fun! Because her family is awesome! And also because I got to go a writers conference! And because, despite knowing that this is far too many exclamation points, I’m going to use them anyway!!! (I will have to write more about this one in a different post, though, because there’s lots to say.)

My sweet friend Sariah sent me and the girls a couple of delightful board books: the Pride and Prejudice Counting Primer and a shortened version of “The Jabberwocky,” with very cute illustrations. Also with P&P came a set of little play figures to tell the story. It was awesome. I have told Coriel most of the story of P&P now, using those figures and some of our various figurines and toys to fill in the other characters (like Dopey as Mr. Collins, which felt appropriate). A few days after our latest installment of the story, I was telling Coriel a story about a rich man and she replied, “Richer than Mr. Darcy?” I was so proud.

Fun homeschool projects from February month:

*Making naan. This turned out surprisingly easy and yummy, even though it didn’t taste exactly as expected.

Also, if you go to a glass blowing demo,
you'll get to see a guy in these really dreamy
super-short leather apron outfits. Bonus!

*Making pretend stained glass to emulate the ancient Phoenicians, who were famous for their glass and seem to have been majorly involved in the invention of glass blowing. (As a side note, we attended a short demonstration of glass blowing a few months ago at a Renaissance Festival, and it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. So incredible to watch how quickly the fellow turned a glob of goo into a beautiful, colorful vase. I could go on and on about it forever, but I’ll just say this: if you ever get the chance to watch someone blow glass, do it.)

*Dying purple cloth (and some beads made from noodles). The Phoenicians were also famous for this. Apparently it took seven days for a batch, they used snails, and the process was so stinky that it was a common insult to tell someone they smelled like they were from Tyre (one of the main factories where the purple dye was produced). We, however, did not to any of these things. We used boiled blueberries. It was still pretty darn cool. (Also, this was technically the end of January, but that’s close enough.)