The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Yeah, yeah, I know it's a Christmas song, but I have been singing that song (at least the first line) in my head a lot the last two weeks.  Because Zach is off work for the summer and that makes it the best time of our year!  When we have those weeks in October or February where he has to work loooong hours or is gone every night at rehearsals and concerts, I look ahead at the reward to come, and here it is!

So with Zach being home so much now and sweetly sharing the responsibilities of children and household, I have no excuse for not blogging...oops.  So what have we been up to?

Lots of snuggle time and playtime with Daddy:

Ironically, as Zach is done with school for awhile, Austin and I have started doing a bit of preschool each day.    A couple of month ago I would have said that just-barely-three is too young to start doing school but it's really working for where we are right now.  Austin is a rather needy child; he wants Mommy and Daddy's attention all the time.  Playing on his own is difficult for him.  So while of course we try to encourage him to be independent sometimes, our school time is one-on-one time (while Esther naps) that Austin loves.

Austin loves our "a-tivities."  I'm using Confessions of a Homeschooler's Letter of the Week curriculum.  Although Austin already knows his letters and sounds, I think he is getting a lot out of it, especially fine motor development and increasing his attention span.  And there's a memory verse to go along with each letter, which is good discipline for both of us.

Doing a letter I "poke page" with a toothpick.

This is the kind of smile on demand you get these days.  This is a number matching activity made extra fun because the pieces have velcro.  The tree on the right is our letter tree that we add to each week.  I'm kinda proud of that thing.  Not my idea, but I managed to make one that is cute if I do say so.

Zach and I are tossing around ideas for home projects we could do in the next three months.  One that is already in progress is painting our basement.  We have done one coat but I didn't take a picture of that yet so you'll just have to wait until it is finished.  It will be a medium blue ("Valor") with white trim.  This will be our schoolroom someday, FYI.  We also have plans to paint Zach's music room (which is through the doorway on the left) this summer.

The official "before" picture.  See how low the ceiling is?  No ladder required for this project.

Just one more picture of the kids, in a rare moment of playing together in which Austin is not climbing on Esther or taking a toy from her.  Hope for the future. :)