August 24

Another busy day. Seriously - how does it happen that we have so many busy days, all in the same week?

It has helped that I'm trying to get to bed earlier, though, and my sweet husband has helped me get my bearings each morning by waking me at 6:30 with a cup of coffee, then leaving me alone in our room for 30 minutes while I have quiet time and gear up for the day.

Today, Caleb and Daisy slept in - Daisy until 7:30, and Caleb until 7:48. That is super-late for my kids. Lily and Eli, however, were wide awake. We waved goodbye to Chris from the front porch when he left for work.

Today's busy-ness?

Since I recently signed up as a volunteer with the babywearing group I love, I made a last-minute decision that we would attend the babywearing meeting this morning. It was only 10 minutes away, so not a big deal.

Except that I also needed to drive 25 minutes in the opposite direction to drop off promotional stuff to go in goodie bags for a charity golf tournament I have volunteered to photograph on Friday, and the morning was my only chance.

So we did both. The kids were fantastic during the 45 minute drive, and they rocked the babywearing meeting. Eli got a little bit needy halfway through, but eventually I put him up in the ring sling (despite his protests!) and he snuggled in and fell asleep.

At 11 am.

Weird. I hope he's not getting sick!

I was so busy that I didn't take a picture, but it has been a very long time since he last slept while I wore him, and it was such a sweet moment. Before he fell asleep, he had one hand out and was gently patting my chest/mama metal necklace, almost like he was mimicking the rhythm of my heartbeat. 

Sweet baby.

We got home and had lunch, and then the little ones went down for naps. (A lovely surprise on a busy day: Chris' mom brought over dinner for us during nap time! Even better, it was her homemade beef stroganoff. Our kids are such picky eaters that we haven't had beef stroganoff since Caleb was a baby, but it used to be one of our favorites. What a treat!)

While the little ones went down, Caleb and Daisy worked on school stuff. When they were finally asleep, I was able to work with them on trickier stuff. My favorite part of the day? Science time. They took their new nature journals out into the back yard and found things to observe.

Caleb found a cicada shell. We examined its anatomy, talked about exoskeletons, and discussed why it had a big crack in its back. Pretty cool!

 The two pictures above are cell phone pictures, but I loved the moment so much that I also captured it on my big camera.

Examining the cicada with a stick, with nature journal and magnifying glass in his lap.

Checking out its claws.

Daisy, meanwhile, chose to observe the raspberry bush. Her decision may have been swayed by the fact that there were several ripe berries on the bush, ready to be picked and eaten.

(She chose her shirt today specifically because it had a daisy on it.)

Can you see her observations in her nature journal? She was quite proud. She wrote the date and the temperature, then traced a raspberry leaf and added some details. Then she drew the berry, and how the berries grow on the branches.

Then she looked up and saw a bug on our patio umbrella, so she drew it.

Later, I helped her sound-spell "bug" and "raspberry". She was so happy with her accomplishments!

Caleb was also proud of his work. He also wrote the date and temperature, then he drew the objects he observed from afar, and "zoomed in" to also draw close-ups. I thought the technique was pretty clever!

I love how engaged the kids were. Caleb was finished, but then a particularly lovely butterfly flew by, so he sat down and drew it, too. I hope to make this a daily thing for our home school, and on not-so-busy days we will go on adventures to find things in places other than our backyard.

Then Daisy and I tried out a carrier that I borrowed from the babywearing lending library.

I would like to become a babywearing educator, so even though I really want to borrow *all the wraps*, I decided to borrow a carrier I'm less familiar with. It was a wise choice, if not a fun one. Still, I like the carrier quite a bit, and 32-pound Lily and  40-pound Daisy both fit really nicely in it. It's made for toddlers, though, so Eli is not big enough to ride in it. Daisy loved it, though!

Then we did more school, got dinner ready, ate, and went for a family swim (at our YMCA pool, because for some reason our neighborhood pool was closed, but we didn't realize it until we had already promised the kids a trip to the pool and everyone was loaded in the van wearing swimsuits. We were glad we had a back-up option!