A problem with taking a blogging hiatus and then resuming as if it never happened: people miss important details. For example, last week I referenced Lil Lilly as if everyone would know what I was talking about. It has been brought to my attention that some people were less than certain what, exactly, Lil Lilly is. She is a dwarf hamster that Kaitlyn received for her 10th birthday. Hamsters are generally smallish to begin with, but dwarf hamsters are the smallest ones, only slightly larger than a marshmallow. Lilly is quiet enough to not be noticed by the main pet hater in the house (surprise, that's me) and Kaitlyn takes full responsibility for the feeding and cleaning and socializing schedule.
For Mothers' Day the children all bought raspberry shoots and we expanded the raspberry bed a little bit more. Last year we had enough for a pie, plus a few for eating. :) They also designed a puzzle, which is a yearly custom. Bryan has been refining over the years and his ideas for good backgrounds have improved. He has also learned that if he gets me a 200 piece I'm more likely to do it in a timely manner.
Olivia and Gretchen were both in the school talent show. The event itself was organized by yours truly and went, I thought, very well. The girls did great.
Matthias's class made a book about what they each want to be when they grow up. Out of 31 students, how many do you think want to be youtubers? And how many want to be herpetologists?
Third grade at St Charles has this wonderful tradition of doing something called Market Day. The students learn about economics (and advertising) and have to produce, promote, and sell a product. There's a poster and a commercial for each product, and each student has to decide what they are making, anticipate supply and demand, determine pricing, and be willing to adjust costs if the day isn't going the way they'd hoped. They earn Market Day dollars in class and all go shopping at each other's booths on the designated day. It's a whole thing. When Olivia did it, she made perler bead items. Gretchen made little flower pot fairy houses. Kaitlyn made glitter calm down bottles (where you shake them up like snow globes and watch the glitter settle). Matthias decided to make slime. Important proud parent note before we get to the meat of my rant: Matthias did clearly think through the marketing aspect, and put a dime in exactly one slime container. He then made sure to note in both his poster and his commercial that most of his slime was normal, but one came with a dime. End note, back to my rant. Of course, as a way to test his product, he first made himself approximately four cups of slime. And Kaitlyn made some. And Matthias generously made some for Theodore. And then he made the slime to sell. Were we careful about our proportions? Don't be silly. We did try. The scale was used. The teaspoon was used. The liquid value of food coloring was not calculated. The measuring of baking soda was done by an 8-year-old on a quest to make "super sticky slime." Some slime is exceptionally sticky, some is suspiciously damp, some is fine (if you like slime). Our house has been so full of slime paraphernalia (not to mention actual slime) for the past week. This might be my worst life. Finally, though, it is done, and we only have one more Market Day in our future.
Olivia's last day of 8th grade was Wednesday. She had a moment on Tuesday where she realized that it would be her last day in St Charles, and she wrote a poem to commemorate the moment. I will let her post it in the comments if she wishes to share. Graduation was Thursday evening -- Mass, awards, and diplomas. It was a standard graduation. We are proud of Olivia and all the children are sad that they have 4 more of these (not to mention the high school graduations) in their future.
Years ago I remember being excited because I found a way to take photographs and turn them into coloring pages for the girls. It was putsy and not perfect, but they enjoyed coloring a few pictures of themselves before I forgot it existed. More recently, Theodore has been asking for coloring pages. He has this idea that we should be able to look up and print any coloring page he can conjure in his mind. I do a lot of looking for specific dinosaur battles only to find yet another t rex. Bryan had a thought, though: Why not throw it in AI? Copilot is Bryan's AI of choice, and it rose to the challenge magnificently. Theodore has any image he can dream up. He also has images Bryan can dream up, which means we have a coloring page of Theo riding a spinosaurus into battle. The kids got into it as well, and there are pictures of Matthias with his own pack of dogs, and one of Kaitlyn riding a scooter with her very own golden retriever at her side. Copilot makes a pretty decent Theo. Its rendition of the older kids is less good, but still recognizable. On a related note, Theodore's coloring skills are quite impressive. I'm not sure how he manages shading with markers, but he does.
Pictures:
Three kids won their division -- running in all 5 races is a huge advantage:
The parent mile. He looks happier than he was:
Mile:
Half mile:
Last full week of school activities:
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