Time For School With The Twins

I don't do a lot of formal schoolwork with the twins. What!? They're only five! To my way of thinking, playing IS their way of learning at this point. They can both read already, so they do a lot of reading. We play educational games. I answer every question they ask me. We cook and clean together. I direct them to educational websites. But we don't sit down very often with workbooks and such. Why not? THIS is why not.....

In case it may seem that they are only acting up for the camera, let me assure you that it was not so. The only difference between their behavior on and off camera was that they glanced over at me behind the camera, instead of me sitting between them at the table. They were every bit as giggly and ridiculously silly before the video, and after. I'm also homeschooling, and accountable for the educations of, an 11th grader, a 9th grader, a 6th grader and a 3rd grader. This takes up a significant portion of my day. Working with the twins takes up a lot of time and saps me of my will to live energy and enthusiasm. I usually need a glass of wine or a nap when I've had enough they are finished. On the other hand, they really are pretty darn cute. It's not so cute and funny when the 11th and 9th graders get that silly during lessons.

October Moments

The girls, watching reruns of Blue's Clues, Teletubbies and Word World on old VHS cassettes.  At first I thought Regina was watching, too.

I was wrong.

Clare and I made these fabric pumpkins for her grandmother's birthday gift.  They are super easy and super cute.

  

Her dad thought they were bought at a craft fair!

What A Nice Way To Wake Up

After my shower this morning, this is what was waiting for me downstairs.

Fresh coffee, flowers (for no special reason), and a love note.

My son, Brian, reminded me (unnecessarily) that I really do have the best husband.  Ever.  Period.

News Flash: Camera Is No Longer Defunct.

My dear, thoughtful husband gave me a new camera battery, charger, tripod and car charger for Christmas last year.  Through circumstances not entirely my fault, I cannot find neither car charger nor house charger, therefore the battery was completely dead from May until now.  Rest assured, the tripod is fine.

On an unrelated note, my cell phone started to go on the fritz this summer.  I could have survived without the camera (although I did use it multiple times daily), but when the internal speaker died and I could only answer calls on speakerphone, I gave up.  You can only get away with THAT in so many places, and it was terribly difficult to hear the caller if there was any background noise (-background noise??  - in this house??)  So I dug up a really old, primitive model - the kind that only makes calls and takes pictures - and have been using that until my upgrade is available.  ;-)

The camera on the new/old phone stinks.  Pictures are grainy under the best conditions, and there's only room on the phone for about a dozen pics.  The phone is so old that it doesn't even have a slot for an SD card.  Barbaric.

We have two other cameras floating around.  One is my husband's, which I hesitate to use for fear that it, too, will be sucked into the trash vortex I live in.  The other was my mother's, and surprise, surprise - its battery is also kaput.

The upshot is that I have scarcely taken a picture all summer.

Yesterday, through sheer tenaciousness (and good fortune), I found our good camera - the first one, with the dead battery.  Desperation prompted me to actually look at the adapter plug opening, to see if we had any lying around that might fit.  There are only a few dozen unused usb and charging cables stuffed in drawers around here; could there possibly be one that fits the camera?

Success!  The good camera now has a full charge, AND in finding it, I also found some lost pictures from May, which I present to you now: