It was a very busy at home type of day.

No matter how many times I ask her not to, she always sneaks away to scrape the pans when she thinks no one is looking.

Everyone woke up quarrelsome and cranky.  After breakfast and math I decided it was in all of our best interests to send them outside for a bit (especially mine!).  They set about harvesting icicles, my children are strangely obsessed with icicles, and working on their “snow caves” and came back much refreshed.

Finishing up some of the schoolwork overflow from last week, getting ready to start on a whole new topic tomorrow.

So many deliveries today!  A package from UPS, a package from FedEx, a delivery of extra wood (because it’s been that kind of winter), our birth supply box and birth tub liner.

A somewhat impromptu midwife’s appointment (she was in the neighborhood).

Other random odds and ends:

Playing “Pease Porridge Hot” with Màiri Rose and “Cat’s Cradle” with Galen.

They are still all about the clay.

And catapults.  Because apparently one house can never have too many catapults.

We wanted to go for a walk, but the wood guy who was supposed to come in the “morning” showed up around dinner time and there had to be someone here waiting to meet him.

Reading practice and knitting in bed late in the day.  This book was mine when I was little.  I distinctly remember sitting on the steps outside our kitchen door on a warm spring day, listening to sounds of my mother cooking through the open window, and reading this entire book from cover to cover.  It was one of the first books that I ever read entirely on my own.  It has such sweet illustrations and a darling, gentle stories.  I’m so glad to have it to share with them.

Busy day= easy and simple dinner: kielbasa, cabbage, collard greens and apples, all cooked together in a bit of broth.

Steve stopped in at the post office and the library on his way home and came bearing letters from friends and the next two books in the “Black Stallion” series for Elijah.  Which means that he will not be resurfacing again until he’s devoured both books and written a reply, likely in that order.

This would be his siblings trying to get him to come help set the table for dinner.  Behind the book he is grinning madly and trying desperately not to laugh, which is why I didn’t bother to intervene!