Jos-uh-Phine

Pictures from our walk on the trail the other day, amid the lovely autumn leaves. And Jo painting her pumpkin - pink, of course!

Last night I was in the middle of talking and Jo stopped me, narrowing her eyes.
"Did you just call me 'Josie'?"
"uh... yes...? Is that - should I call you - "
"JOS-UH-PHINE," she said, with emphasis.

Jo has actually abandoned her plans to be a mermaid and will instead be a ballerina princess. Sam is wearing a funny inflatable helmet. Tonight we're dressing up the dog.

Moving things

Today, I briefly had Sam and Josephine help me with some chores. Before I picked them up today, I had loaded the station wagon with some firewood, and thought I'd see if they would help me out. There were lots of cool bugs to look at on the logs, including a daddy-long-leg and some lovely wood lice.

Both eagerly took to the simple task of moving wood from Volvo to porch. I had to tell Jo not to take any pieces out herself, lest they fall out onto her. We got maybe enough wood for a week, maybe. Looking forward to trying out the wood stove to see if it can save us on heating bills.


Back in the house, they wanted more things to move. Josephine asked if she could get the bricks out of the closet. I couldn't figure out any other way to store these things, so I said yes. She said they were going to build a house.

They seemed to like moving the blocks more than playing with the actual blocks themselves. After blocks, they immediately started stripping the beds of all their pillows. I was in the kitchen trying to get dinner ready, and I look over and the couch was covered in sheets, pillows and other fluffy things. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that one, so more blocks.

Finally, here's a little Halloween picture for you!

Geography & Biology, the Early Years

"Look, I made the globe FANCY!"

Took Jo and Sam to her fourth year dr visit - she was incredibly brave getting her shots.
She was playing with some toy animals. She was making the dinosaur eat dinner. It met a zebra. "Oh," I said, "Is the zebra coming to dinner?"
"No, the zebra IS dinner," Jo said.
Oh.
OH!
"What's with the baby giraffe?" I asked nervously, as the toy joined the dinner pile.
"It's mother abandoned it and now it will get eaten," said Jo, calmly.

ACCCKKKK! I mean, yeah, Circle of Life, but...

She's Four!

Farming adventures (part 1)

One of my parenting goals in the next year is to try to take Sam and Josephine to as many farms as I can. This is in part because I recently wrote an article about it for Charlottesville Tomorrow and the Daily Progress. I want my kids to have a better appreciation of where food comes from, and how people use the land in order to provide for all of us. First up, a trip to the Fall Fiber Festival at Montpelier, where we watched the sheep dog trials.


Josephine had said she was really into sheep dogs before we came, and in the above picture, you can see she was checking out things out for a while. However, as with all little ones, fatigue set in and she got back in the double stroller and began to pout a bit that she wanted to go home.


So, then we got ice cream. Except, Josephine got bored with it after a few bites so I split her cone with Sam, who ended up with a cone and a half! Thankfully, I remembered to bring wipes to clean him up afterwards.

I tried to get a good shot of them with an alpaca, but neither wanted to get too close. There are quite a few alpaca farms, though a friend of mine told me after I saw these guys that so many have gone bust because there's not much of a market for their wool. In hindsight, I should have taken some pictures of the various products made out of alpaca wool.

By far the event of the day for the kids was hanging out in the tent with the angora rabbits. Sam in particular was entranced by the bunnies. I can't wait until they're a little older, when I plan to read them Watership Down. Sam kept saying "rabbits!" over and over again.


In all, we spent about two hours at the festival. They're a bit young to really appreciate much of anything for long, but we had a great time looking at all the different kinds of sheep. I tried to interest Josephine in the people spinning yarn from the wool, but she's a little young. Sam was a bit freaked out by the demonstration of the sheep shearing. So was I, for that matter!

ball

There's a rap that goes "I wish I were a little bit taller, I wish I were a baller..." that's pretty much Sam's theme song right now... Saw some older adolescent boys playing b-ball at the park. Ball! Ball! I'm like, yeah, you'll be crushed! He sat and watched. THen an xtra ball rolled over and he went to the part of the court they weren't using "Hey Shorty!" they shouted and he tried throwing the ball - the large basketball - to the hoop. Very concentrated. Hilarious. I mean, he's ready to roll with the boyz.

Opera

It is so weird how much Josephine loves to listen to and sing opera - which is kind of defined as anything with vibratto sung in gibberish...

Her quote of the morning: "I'm having a booger yardsale."

I wanted to get a video of Sam doing a hoedown - banging a tamborine with a stick while keeping time by stomping his heel, while hollering - it was quite impressive (and funny).

Seriously, can I get them in some commercials or something? Hee.