First Grade

Although we are educating PK1 at home this year and although we learn all year round, Tuesday still felt like a first day of First Grade for PK1.

She goes once a week to a learning co-op.  It is called Westerville Area Homeschool Association or WAHA.

It includes a wonderful art class.  It isn't just a silly craft or coloring time.  The teachers are so creative.  One day last year they came dressed with flowers in their hair like the artist Frida Kahlo. They get to paint, sculpt with real clay and learn lots of real art techniques.

Then she has PE.  This is taught by a guy who owns a business called "The Homeschool Gym."  He is so much fun and teaches the kids all the skills and games they would be learning on the playground at school.

Science is last.  They use a Christian curriculum called Apologia.  This year they are studying Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day.

I think PK1 looks so grown up and I can't believe I have a First Grader.

Home on the Range

We snuck in a trip to my home town of Wichita Kansas here at the end of the summer.  I kind of loved that we were leaving on the day that many others were starting school. hehehe.  It was  unseasonable cool, so not a ton of pool time, but we still had a blast.  We let the kids stay up late playing with the leftover sparklers from my sister's wedding (hope that was ok Suz)and exploring with flashlights in Grandad's woods.  Then we slept in late every morning.  My dad and mom basically ran a camp playing with the kids all day.  They offered to take us on some outings, but "Camp GiGi" was so much fun, we couldn't talk the kids into leaving the house much.  PD and I did get a date night.  We also saw a movie with College Sister.  The first movie we had seen in the theater since 2005.

We did go to a park one day that has a yellow brink road, like in "Wizard of Oz."  They used to have the characters from the movie too, but bands of urban youths kept positioning them in unseemly positions and they took them out.

I do wish I had a few more pictures of my parents, but I was so busy taking pictures of all the stuff we did and relaxing and reading and eating my mom's cooking that I forgot.  Here is what I did capture:


Kansas Summer 2009 from Political family on Vimeo.

The Museum

PK1 created a "museum" on the back deck this summer.

It started with mostly rocks of different sizes and shapes.  Then she added bits of bark and a few odd non-nature things like a piece of plastic that broke off a toy or the nob that falls off the grill.

The piece de resistance was a broken birds egg, but that was handled by so many neighbor kids that it disintegrated to nothing.  She asked me to get some books from the library to help her categorize the rocks, which I did, but she soon found that cumbersome and went back to her own basic categories.

Gimme S'more of this Neighborhood

Our neighborhood isn't fancy or in a good school district, it may have barking dogs and you can't safely buy produce or meat at the grocery store, you can't turn around in the bathrooms and every sixth house is for sale right now, but sometimes I still LOVE IT.   We have been blessed with the best neighbors. Last night was a little Back to School party between two of the houses.  So fun.

Happy 60th Papa!

Our very special Papa turned 60 a couple of weeks ago.  We all gathered for a big party for him on Saturday.  What a blessing he is to all of us.  Here are some highlights from the big event:


Jim's 60th Birthday from Political family on Vimeo.

Another American Girl Surprise

PK1's best little friend had a huge surprise for her recently.  Her grandmother, had visited and brought this, that she made for PK1:

PK1 is not the gushy or emotional type. But she was just glowing and ecstatic and she and I both even started to tear up a bit at this unexpected and extravagant gift:

These dresses are made to be in the time of the American Girl name Felicity.

This is the drawing PK1 put on the thank you card she made:

If you give a pig a pancake...

There is this really cute kids book called, "If you Give a Pig a Pancake."  I am not sure, but it might be anti-socialist propaganda.  Anyway, the gist is, if you give a pig a pancake it sets off this chain of events, he will want syrup, then a glass of milk, then he might spill the milk etc etc.

Well, that is what happened with our home project last Saturday.

About half the windows in our house are broken.  Not the glass, but the mechanism.  They have to be held up with a stick.  One is actually being held up by an old VHS tape.  It isn't the safest and it certainly isn't the most attractive.  Almost every time my sister visits, she pulls the stick out and it comes crashing down.

So we called a guy out, we never call a guy.  PD is the guy.  But we called a guy out and it was going to be like $150 per window for parts and labor.  This is why we don't call a guy.  But PD said that he watched the guy take the window apart and he could fix it himself.  So we took all the parts off and shipped them to Cinncinati.  They sent us back the replacements. This process itself, took a month.

After a big breakfast on Saturday, PD started to fix the windows.

I decided to wash the windows and the screens while they were out.

Then I decided that the side that faces out would be much easier to paint while they were out, so I gave them a fresh coat of paint.

While I was at Home Depot getting the paint, I could not pass up some half price perennials. (those had to go in the ground now too.)

Then I thought the freshly painted windows would make the rest of the trim look bad, so I had PD touch that up a little too.

It was  a long day and we only did four windows!  The rest will have to wait until September, the next time we will have a free Saturday.  The roast chicken I was going to make for dinner had to wait.  We just ate some sandwiches over the sink.