Fencing Fun

Months ago I got a Groupon for four weeks of a fencing class that Mia has been dying to use. We finally have room in our schedule for her to go on Saturday mornings this month. Last week was the first class and she had so much fun! Her friend Tyson is taking the class with her, so it's an added bonus because we have a hard time getting together with his family due to having such different schedules.

Call Me Soup Lady

I got an email with several soup recipes from EatingWell.com, so I officially declared this week "Soup Week." We had Egyptian Stew, Black Bean Soup and tonight we had Broccoli Cheese soup with Cannelinni beans. I thought the Black Bean soup looked so pretty, I took a picture. So, here it is. So far everyone except Mia loved the Egyptian Stew. The Black Bean soup was an all around hit, and the Broccoli soup was declared Mia's favorite.

Spa Party/Family Movie Night

Wednesday night the kids wanted to have a spa party. It was initially Lennon's idea, but of course, Mia needed no encouragement. The two of them set up our living room with every manicure/pedicure accessory they could find. They set up a huge display of nail polish on the coffee table and two different foot soaking stations. Then we got out all the ingredients to make our own bath bombs and scented stones to put in sock drawers and such. We had tons of fun and topped it all off with a great little movie Mia suggested, called The Secret of Moon Acre.

Mia soaked and massaged Lennon's feet before exfoliating them with a sugar scrub she made herself and then rubbing them again with lotion when she was done. He was giggling the whole time. I did Mia's feet for her after and by then, the foot bath (that she won at the Francis Family gift exchange) had such mucky water that I passed on the spa treatment, even though I desperately needed a good foot rub!

Pausing for a photo opp while making our spa goodies.

Lennon's First Day of Preschool

These pictures are in reverse order. Just go with it.

Lennon had his first day of preschool today. His school is called The Purpose School and it's jut down the street from us here in Stoneham. Amy's kids both went there and her Aunt is the assistant director so when I applied late, in July, I made sure to mention she was my friend and what do you know, they had one spot left for his age group. There are ten kids in his class and he loved his first day. He said Mrs. Farnam seemed to understand everything he said today. Those few sessions of speech therapy really worked so well.

Best part of his day: "Quiet time. But it wasn't very quiet. But I got to play with sand."

Lennon with his teacher Mrs. Farnam. On the board it listed some of her favorite things were baking, hiking, art and painting. Lennon was excited and told her "I have those same favorite things!"

I didn't realize how excited he was until today really. I think he is going to LOVE preschool.

He just naturally struck this pose when I told him I wanted to get his picture for the first day of school.

The Soule Homestead

This was yet another totally awesome field trip we went on with our home school group. The kids had a lesson on the difference between dirt and soil, farming organically and had a workshop on carding wool and making bracelets out of it.

Carding wool

Each kid got to plant some squash

Farmer Frank showing the kids how to properly sow a row of veggies

Ever wonder what a potato bug looked like? Well, here you are.

Mia with her seeds

We all got to sample their delicious, organic greens. The best butter lettuce ever!

Planting beans

Checking out the farm animals

We got to see several different stages of dirt being composted and turning into fertile soil

Two More Fun Field Trips Long Past

With a home school group we went to The Saugus Iron Works. It was the first Iron Works in North America. There were lots of mills and machinery, so Lennon ate it all up.

Mia, Ella and Diva being sworn in as honorary park rangers.

Inside the blacksmith's shop where he would have made all the tools and nails they needed for working on the factory. We learned that the size of nails today are still named by the price they would have been sold for hundreds of years ago.

Wrohohohoh...Machines!

These were definitely the largest bellows we have seen anywhere. They were used to get the fire going and to maintain a fire that was something like 3000 degrees almost all day every day with only one short break each day to change shifts.

When Granmommy was in town we went to The Boston Children's Museum. They had a special Wizard of Oz exhibit on, so we went to check it out.

Before going in though, we went to this outdoor food festival that occurs once a year. We have just happened upon it twice now. It is a ton of local restaurants who come out, set up booths outside the museum and give away free food. Hello Lunch! Here, Mia and Mateus are enjoying some canolis. Yummy!

You probably didn't notice, but we have just come from that field trip to Belle Isle Salt Marsh, and I will tell you, Vickie and I worked hard and used up an entire package of HandiWipes cleaning off Mia's boots and legs to be presentable to the public. That was some of the blackest dirt either of us had ever seen.

My little man, hard at work.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Checking out the turtles from below.

Aquarium School

Last spring Mia took a class through the New England Aquarium. She loved it! Unfortunately, they changed the program up this year and she's not interested anymore so we won't be going back. They went on three field trips and had three classroom days over a 12 week period. I didn't go on the first field trip, but I got some pictures from the last two. We went to a fresh water marsh and a salt water marsh and it was amazing how different the two habitats were. Lennon got to tag along too and we all had fun.

These first pictures are from a place called Belle Isle Salt Marsh. It is way out in East Boston. They told us that 20 or 30 years ago it was a run down drive in movie theatre in a bad part of town and some people got together and had it turned into a state park. It was amazing how beautiful it has become in such a relatively short time. We had a great time and Mia got completely filthy, which she loved.

Mia with a little frog she found. Her teacher was really surprised that she found him here because he said, to his knowledge, all frogs need fresh water pretty close by at all times and it was a salt marsh.

Mia showing off how muddy she got.

Mateus found this cool horse shoe crab shell

This flower is called a Beach Rose

There were a ton of different types of birds at this marsh. Right at the top of this tree was a Mocking Bird who was making all kinds of noises, including a car alarm sound from the near by city.

Lennon never wastes an opportunity to use binoculars.

Taking note of her surroundings.

The marsh is nestled, almost secretly, in the midst of a big, noise city.

These pictures are from the fresh water marsh we visited. I can't remember the name of it just now. The day was pretty cold, so I didn't get as many pictures. I don't think we were expecting it to be so cold, so we were not very well prepared.

They found a bunch of dragon fly larvae which were really cool looking. The kind of looked like tiny lobsters swimming around really fast.

Mia showing Lennon around.

Mia found the most exciting animal of the day. This huge toad. Everyone was really excited when she caught it. It turned out to be injured, we think, so we let it go pretty soon after finding it so that the many kids with curious hands wouldn't hurt it further.

A Family of Geese strolling through the park.