spending our week...

exploring

learning

 enjoying

observing

and

studying

nature

no

formal

school

just

nature

hikes

scavenger

hunts

catching

bugs

bonfires

picnic

lunches

mini

photo

shoots

 spending

 all

day

outside

loving

this

beautiful

fall

weather

 and

 

enjoying

 

our

simple

life

gotta love...

this kid!!!

the day before this photo was taken 

i spent a few hours putting away all 

the kids summer clothes and 

unpacking all their winter 

clothes into their drawers and closets.

the girls were at enrichment classes and

kye was sleeping. man were they surprised

when they looked in their closets that afternoon!

the next morning before i even woke up 

lia was completely dressed.  

by the time i came downstairs to eat breakfast

this is how i found her... 

 

ready to start school .

 she even had a spare outfit packed 

away in her backpack!

you just never know what she

has up her sleeve...this ruler 

has been taped to our wall for 3 weeks now 

along with various other pictures and 

school assignments.  for no other reason than

 ...just because

i am grateful for the chance to spend my days

with 3 precious kids...

not having to miss out on any

of their "just because's" 

daruma dolls...kind of

last week we were doing a study on japan.

as part of our study, we decided to make our own daruma dolls.

we had this great book on japan that gave us detailed instructions how to make them.

here are the girls covering balloons with homemade paper mache

it was a dirty job, but the girls loved it

the paper mache part is done--

now we have to wait for it to dry

first round of painting has begun

 lia chose purple and red

 

sofie chose pink

2nd round of painting is complete

the traditional way of making daruma dolls

is to paint a type of face on them.  

however, the girls decided to paint them their own way.

so here's the finished product...

maybe we'll try making actual daruma dolls another time...