Peter's first solid food!

This week we started Peter on solid food. His first meal was mashed carrots!

Our technique of introducing solids has evolved from our first baby to our fourth. When we first fed Ella solids, we gave her rice cereal from my just washed finger. Poor Peter gets a spoon shoved into his mouth by Ella. 

I also like Karis' interpretation of what he must be thinking "he said I don't want to be in my highchair."

Dress Up

Karis loves to wear this traditional Uyghur dress.

Ella dressed up as Queen Esther for her community class last week. It was Hero Day.

Not related to dress-up. But Juliette loves to play Chutes and Ladders with Peter. She often lets him win :)

Journaling

Our girls have taken to "journaling" during rest and read. They also love to write us notes. The other day as I sat down to do my journaling, there was a note from Ella saying "the Word of God is living and active sharper than any two edged sword." 

The Cricket in Times Square

We just finished reading "The Cricket in Times Square". It is a beautiful story and reminded us a lot of Charlotte's Web. During our reading we learned about New York, what a subway is, and crickets!

The girls love to play with Wikki stix while I'm reading. It's amazing how they can create scenes and listen attentively all at the same time. Juliette sometimes seems to be in a complete other world while I read. But then Spencer gets home at the end of the day, and she will tell him exactly what happened in the story while he was gone.

And the girls have opened their own book store. I have been shopping there a lot lately. I usually bring Karis and Peter to this book store. The ladies working at the store are amazing. They have a great variety of books, offer stickers to children, and usually give more change than you actually paid them. 

The philosophy behind their hours went like this:

"We can't open at 7am, because we are still in pajamas and have bad breath. Let's open at 8. And we need a good sleep to run our store - so let's close at 6pm."

Settled. Sign made.

In other news - Juliette finished her 100 reading lessons. We celebrated with Blizzards! Or "blisters" as she calls them ;)

Christmas Trio

We are still singing Christmas songs around these parts.

Juju and Peter

Peter agrees that Juliette is hilarious.

Simple Days

Often our favorite days are the ones that we spend playing and doing simple things around home. I love having slow days where we can pause to wonder, enjoy one another's laughter, and not be in a rush.

Karis loves sharing her Cars stickers with Peter.

I love hearing our girls read together.

Since our girls rarely get to drink juice they've decided to start making their own. They squish oranges into a cup and then take turns sipping the drops. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Patterning with gummy bear math. And a princess.

Peter is moving a lot these days. He has become an "ambiturner" He can roll from his tummy to back and from his back to his tummy. In doing this he can actually move around fairly well. 

Gift giving is huge amongst our girls. The other week Karis had sore molars (but they are all through now - yay!!). Ella and Juju put a gift bag of crafts together to help her feel better.

Does anybody have a Phillips screwdriver that we could borrow for Peter's bellybutton?

"We believe in the One True God. We believe in Father, Spirit, Son. We believe that good has won." Powerful words.

Ella loves to play the drums. She has been learning how to drum at music school. We don't own a drum so she finds ways to improvise - a diaper box and tinker toys. Peter enjoys listening to the music. I don't always enjoy it as much :)

The other day when Moriah was over, the girls made a very long gummy bear pattern.

Karis loves to borrow my Ergo for her baby. 

A simple beauty exists in our homeschool days.

Juju's Reading

Juliette is almost finished her 100 reading lessons. She loves to read from her new book "The Ultimate Dick and Jane Storybook Collection." She reads really well and this book is a perfect level for her. Way to go, Juju!

  

Date with Dadda

A couple of weeks ago, Spencer took Ella on a surprise date. He took her skating. Just the two of them. She was so excited and LOVED it!

However, when she got home she asked "Mom, can you take me skating some time. You can twirl on your skates, and Dadda's don't do that :)"

These 2 are so cute!

Charlotte the 4th

Around our house, whenever we find a spider we catch it and put it in a jar. We then put things in the jar that we think would help a spider survive. And then we name the spider "Charlotte".

2015 - So far..

The girls continue to love their baby brother. There is no lack of stimulation for Peter. He has few baby toys, because he usually has one of his sisters entertaining him.

During Christmas break we finished reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". This was the first time reading this book for everybody in our family. It was amazing and led to a deeper comprehension of the Gospel. Ella was really grasping the concept of substitutionary atonement. She was very moved when Aslan died instead of Edmund, even though "he was the one who did the no-nos" and then her eyes got very big and she said "that's just like how Jesus died for me, even though I do the no nos." These conversations were sweet moments in the development of her Faith.