Our pyramids

We continued our study of ancient Egypt. We spent a week studying the pyramids and mummies.

Here is our pyramid!

We buried a dinosaur in our pyramid. The golden ball is his treasure to be buried with :)


We had trouble deciding on favorite top:

Maria tried 2 different ones.

Cati decided on a different one.

Poetry Memorization

Something new we've added to our school day this year is poetry memorization. I was a little worried about how receptive the girls would be to it, but it's one of their favorite things to do each day. Once they've memorized the poem, they copy and illustrate it. Here is one Maria has done. Some other time I'll have to post one of Cati's poems.

Party #2

Maria's 2nd party was yesterday on her birthday with just our family.

Here are some of her gifts.

Barbies from our "Atlanta family" :) I love the Maria von Trapp Barbie. I'm sure she never imagined that she would be a Barbie one day!

The girls love the cooking show Barbie set!

Chiara loved the birthday lasagna!

Maria can't wait to wear her new clothes from Aunt Ginny! (Which she'll be able to do any day now--it was in the upper 40s last night!!)

Not pictured are some games (that we had a lot of fun playing), material for a Mary costume (hopefully I'll have pictures whenever I get that made), some new Classic Starts books, and a nice set of colored pencils (to be seen in future artwork)! Thanks to everyone who helped Maria have a very Happy Birthday!

Party #1

Maria had her 1st birthday party on Sunday with some friends.


She had to work hard to blow out 8 candles!


She got to do her favorite thing, which is to play with babies!

What I love about this picture are the 1- and 2-year-old in background tearing into Maria's present while she's distracted by the birthday cards!

She did finally get to open it herself!

Happy 8th Birthday, Maria!

I can't believe she's 8! Here's 1 picture to honor her big day (which was yesterday!). I hope to post more pictures over the next few days.

Happy News!!

As you can see, I've added something new to the blog: a pregnancy tracker! That's right! We're happy to announce that we're expecting munchkin #5 sometime early- to mid-May 2009!

Cati's horses

Here is Cati's 1st artwork of the new school year.


This is the guide she had:

And here are her interpretations :)

1st attempt...

2nd attempt: (She decided the next day that she wanted to draw it again.)

I was really impressed with these! This was actually a level 3 (of 3) drawing of the contour drawing chapter. I hadn't shown it to the girls because I was afraid it might be frustrating, but Cati said that she wanted to draw a horse, so I gave her the drawing shown at the top.

We are also working on drawings of different habitats for her animal studies in science this year. Maybe I'll have pictures of these another day.