Many Picture Monday

Paul, reading my favorite baby book to Bree. Carly got this book from my Grandad and Grandma Louise for her first Christmas. All of my kiddos have learned their animal sounds from this little book! I love it so much. =) Katie usually just makes a little growly noise for each animal but today she started roaring. 

Carly stayed home with allergies, and she requested banana pudding. She should have requested Nilla Wafer pudding because she's recently taken a break from liking bananas. Weird. Anyway, she read the ingredients on the cookie box and asked if we could make it all homemade. Um...YES OF COURSE! I was super proud. So we found a recipe for the cookies and tried them out! They were good, but not Nilla-y enough so we'll probably use a different recipe next time. She was such a good little helper. =)

So...we're doing a history curriculum at home because they don't teach history at Carly's school. At the second grade level, what we've seen so far is American social history. She's learned just a little bit about the founding fathers and a little more about the Civil Rights Movement but essentially nothing else. They use most of their time in the early grades working on foundational skills like literacy and math....which is super, but we want Carly to have more content. Yada yada yada, she finished her history book and her prize for that was getting to spend her allowance on WHATEVER she wanted at the bookstore. She chose a stuffed Cocker Spaniel, and named it Cupcake. =)  

Then as we were walking home, we stopped to check on the swamp that is our neighborhood pool during summer months. Gross! But it looks like they've started the summerizing process, so that's good news! Something crazy is happening to my pictures, so the ones below the swamp are a series of Katie having a very cute conversation with me about her green beans and chicken. =)

And finally, this is what is known in popular culture as a "Pinstrocity."

It seemed like a good idea at first, but it ended up looking like a favorite Sesame Street character with an unfortunate and uncomfortable medical condition. It's going to Goodwill the day after Easter, but I'm keeping  it for now because it's funny. Sometimes things are just so ugly you have to love them. It's just so, so bad. =)