'Round here

We had a little graduation party for Claire, Sam, Annabel, and Cecilia. I didn't do a very good job of officially ending the homeschool year with Claire. We just sorta stopped one day. So I decided, now that I am feeling like a human being again that I should do something official to mark the end of school and the beginning of summer.

So we made the rainbow cake again.

And made hats. Cecilia is going into first grade, so she was the "Queen of first grade"

Sammy, the "King of Kindergarten". He'll only make "warrior faces" for pictures these days.

Annabel, third grader.

And Claire, (now 2nd grade) who, of course, took the hat-making proccess very seriously and did a very detailed job. We had to wait the party (the cake eatting) while she finished hers up. Sammy was not pleased about that.

Also, Luella took her first bottle, which is huge because Claire and Sammy always refused bottles. You know what they say about 3rd children, though. They're pretty chilled out.

My kitchen has turned into the changing table room.

The cradle that Mr. Tad made for Claire has become Luella's favorite sleeping spot. And Claire loves rocking her in it.

The living room has also become grand central station for laundry...

...which has so graciously been done by the Big Guy who is off work for three weeks now to be with us. He's super helpful, but I can tell that he's starting to go through a little bit of an adjustment to the life of being at home all day. He had stopped showering and shaving and started to look a little depressed yesterday so we threw him in the shower and went out to lunch. He's looking a little better now. Here he is looking through the pages of the American Girl catalog with Claire. What a good daddy.

Claire keeps starting new projects. She hasn't done much of her last knitting project, but she started a little weaving loom project, (see thee cardboard thing on top?). She liked that one a lot.

Our garden continues to be an experiment in randomness. The sunflowers, lettuce, and herbs seem to be growing well, and the pumpkin vines look big too. Strawberries, beans, and most of the other things seem pretty struggly. The tomatoes are as yet an unknown, (they bloom later right?). Matt did enjoy making about 3 salads out of "our" lettuce though. He might just quit his job and go into urban farming. Haha.

Certain rooms in our house, like our mud room, are getting out of control again. After so many pre-baby hours trying to get organized, it's all falling apart again. You should see my precious basement! It's all in disaray.

Claire waits for Annabel to be done with summer school each day. Their favorite time of the day is the time between when Annabel gets done with school and the time whe Sam finishes summer camp. They have one glorious hour of "girls only" time.

Aunt Sarah visited again to snuggle the baby and everyone else.

But mainly we spend our day staring at this face and kissing her cheeks. You have permission to kiss your computer screen. We think she's just that precious.