i am too hot to sleep

its so steamy in our house right now i am finding it hard to get into bed. its nice and cool outside but you know how the heat of the day gets trapped in the house. poor ransom has a cough and cold and woke up hot and bothered. so i spent over an hour trying everything to get him comfortable and back in bed. i even dipped his curious fingers in my ice water and dribbled the cold water on his head, arms and legs to cool him off. i remember doing that has a kid in pasadena. or sometimes mama would get me a cold cloth and i would put that on my face.

ok now i feel sick from the heat. tomorrow i will drink more water.

night night.

laid back

this weekend we were in boston to visit the boston cambridge vineyard (for the second week in a row!) we stayed at the constitution inn (a navy lodge) and then spent sat and sunday with our dear friends the wises. they live in this wonderful corner of cambridge with a trader joes and a whole foods literally down the block from them!! can this be!!:) we enjoyed watching our kids playing, running around, pretending, laughing and generally keeping eachother busy while we drank two buck chuck and ate yummy caprese salad and trader's pizzas. i was telling graham that i love being around them b/c they are so laid back. its good to let the kids run around and not feel like you have to follow them with a dust pan and broom all day. so this morning (although i did the minimal pick up ie. like cleaning the counter off before the honeyed rice krispies solidify for all time!) i am letting things go (as much as i can stand it) and pursuing gardening and art projects with them. this is a bit hard for me to as i am rather ocd about the house being in a somewhat state of order. (its all in my head though b/c my house really isn't that clean!!!)

and as my friend amy reminded me this morning "cleaning up after preschoolers during the day is like shoveling snow while it is still snowing". clearly i need to keep this in mind.

note to self: start day off with jesus first and above quote secondly!! oh and have coffee too.

preschool

i am going to be homeschooling kyrie this year and i just found a really neat curriculum through a friend. its called sonlight curriculum. its got structure but flexibility and i think that its really doable for me. kyrie is going to have such a terrific year. we are going to make school really special and exciting for her. there are also so many wonderful activities to incorporate into school. like going to the zoo, petting farms, gardening, the beach, walking, etc. we'll definately have to make sure that she and rhys get to have play dates with friends. i want to put them in swimming lessons and kyrie in soccer this fall as well. we'll see if all of this gets accomplished. its a good challenge for me as i begin to mother my three little ones. i am going to do a little more research among my friends who are homeschooling veterans but this program looks so great!!! and it comes with high regards from my mothers' helpers!!

back online, kyrie's 4th birthday

So I am back online finally. We have a new computer. I will not allow myself to cry over all the pictures (I am not even going to think about it!) that were lost from our computer meltdown. I have most of them on snapfish.com and that is all there is to be said.

today is kyrie's 4th birthday!! she got a new dress from the magees and a set of dishes and utensils with the disney princesses. very exciting. we have art supplies for her and a preschool book. i want to try and find a little mermaid doll for her too but of course my trip to BJ's did not proove fruitful (should have bought it last week!) the dean boys from around the corner came over with a ballerina barbie and an outfit for her. you should have seen kyrie's face. darling. truly she is a girl of girls. i loved barbie when i was little too and i can't

the Magee girls (Anna and Rachel), who have been my mother's helpers for 2 weeks, and I took all three kids to the carousel at first beach! we were a bit spoiled b/c at jack's birthday we were given unlimited rides for 2 hours, so i was under the impression that for 50 cents we could do the same. surprise - its now $1/ride!:) so we rode twice and then were able to get the girls off and into the car with relatively little protest. well actually i told them that we could go to newport creamery for aweful, awefuls.

i havn't mentioned the new behavior that 4 year old girls exhibit so i will do that in later posts. let's just say we are challenged. dear lord grant me grace and patience...more later:)