Factory by Jack

One of Jack's vocabulary words is factory. I was asking him what the definition of factory was today and he quickly told me 'a place people went to work beginning in the 1760s'. He may be the only kid who would define factory by its place in the Industrial Revolution. I even had to double check the date. He was right.

Pauses by Addie

Today on the way home from church Addie asked me if she could pause her nap? A bit confused I asked what she meant. She said, 'you know when you stop something, you pause it.' I quickly told her no, and then informed her the correct definition of pause - emphasizing the part of starting again and not stopping for long. That was done just in case she decides on her own to pause her nap today!

Letter to Grandmother

Today Addie asked me for a card because she wanted to make Grandmother a card. I went and got out a card and then left her to it. I came back later and found that she had made a card with lots of stickers of dogs and little girls in it 'because Grandmother likes dogs and pretty girls'. A few minutes later I glanced over and saw Addie trying to put a postal stamp on it. I was in a hurry and quickly told her that the letter didn't need a stamp. This is all I vocalized. In my head, of course, I thought that we would hand deliver the letter and it wasn't worth wasting a stamp on it.

Well, later that day, I went out to the mailbox to put a letter in it that I wanted to posted tomorrow. In the mailbox, I found this:

Addie had taken it upon herself to put her letter to Grandmother in the mailbox. It was so sweet. It had no stamp, or name, or address on it but Addie knew that it should be in there if it was going to be 'mailed'. I rescued the card today and will hold onto the memory for a lot longer. So precious.

Addie & Eliot & Brownies

The other day we were making brownies and I remembered to take a video of Addie and Eliot interacting. This is something you remember all the time when your first and second kid are sharing brownie batter, but my experience has shown me that it is not something that you always remember with your third and fourth. So here is the video for memory sake:

Float Trip 2013

After 8 years out of the country and 12 years out of Missouri, we have re-instituted the Annual Family Float Trip. This year we were thankful to have my sister and her family (minus her daughter and husband) with us as well as the Tuckwells who were visiting from England.

We have decided to make a family rule that you must be 5 to take part in the float trip so Addie and Eliot stayed back with Grandmother. Addie thought that was great fun - to get special alone time (I guess Eliot doesn't count since he doesn't compete as much with her as her older brothers)!  Theo was very happy with the rule since he had turned 5 the day before!

As always, the float trip proved to be a great time. Many of the boys on the trip said it was their favorite part of the holiday (counting the time the Tuckwells were with us). We only had a few mishaps and no canoe went over this year which unfortunately is noteworthy. I think Ruth was really skeptical about the whole trip, but I think she even kind of enjoyed it (at least when we were back safely in our cars!).

Here are some pictures to record this fun day: