January 17

• Each girl read a book to us while I nursed Caroline. M-wild christmas reindeer, E-napping house, d-seven chinese sisters.
  Girls folded load of red/pink clothes
• Breakfast. Snow poems.
  Jemma came over for 20 minutes....school late start today.
• M,D dictated letters to Grama Charlotte for her birthday. Printed out. M decorated hers.
• M practiced lower case "g"- 5 min., Reviewed her sight words-5 minutes. Dorothy Jo read books to her dollies. Erika in bedroom playing "house"
• Listened to Tantum Ergo w/Madeleine. She's been singing parts from the German Mass lately, thought I'd capitalize and have her learn something similar. Repeated first verse. Showed her how to do the repeat so she can do herself.
• Caroline down for a nap. Next Chapter in Raggedy Ann while Erika drew, Madeleine played w/her hair doll, Dorothy snuggled w/me. ME told back kite story from yesterday. There were some disagreements about some of the details; I had to intervene. It was NOT pretty.
• Read Nursery Rhymes w/Dorothy Jo. M,E listened and made various commentary and got excited about their favs.
• Watercolor painting
• Girls outside to play in the melting snow. I frantically did kitchen clean up and prepped lunch.
• Play w/dolls in Liv room while I ate my lunch and went through a very large pile of mail.
• Erika doing her "no talking" thing before lunch.
• Girls want to have "quiet time" on and under the picnic table benches. Whhaaat???? whatever....as long as they're quiet, I guess why should I care where they are!
• Turned out they COULDN'T be quiet there....of course. quiet time in separate beds listening to Joyful Mysteries CD, while I fed Caroline lunch. D ended up in living room; she can only do about 15 minutes of quiet time.
• Asked if wanted to do a project or "play on their own." The latter was more preferable, by a long shot. Good. I didn't really want to smear peanut butter and seeds all over a pinecone for the birds anyway.
• Made corrals for the zillions of ponies.
• Afternoon Snack - last candy cane. Read "Pa's Bear story" AGAIN! while they sucked on their red and white pieces of sugar. Then another chapter, then another. discussion ensued about when Laura lived and if she's dead now, how old she would be if she were alive, etc. Practiced skip counting. Talked about electricity, telephone wires, cotton, sewing machines, and guns. All this....over a candy cane.
• More "Corral" and "Camping" play.
• Read snow books on couch. Caroline actually content to be in play-yard.
• Little People video while I fixed dinner. Dinner.
• Madeleine's Little Flower meeting at our house b/c of potential ice on Lori's road. St. Joan of Arc. Read Joan of Arc: The Lily Maid (Hodges) book, small craft, coloring, etc. My turn to lead.
• Pete did books at bedtime, while I cleaned up. Exhausted kids.
• Pete and I discussed potential business "vacation." I would go w/him. Need to find poor people to watch girls, though. Could be a logistics/planning nightmare.