23 wks & gorgeous weather-busying

We've really had a spectacular run of weather this past week. Today has happened to get chillier and windy, but, goodness, we've spent as much time as possible outside from last Wednesday til yesterday.

First we spent a morning in the backyard and then took a levee bike ride with Paul on his big boy bike and Ada on (now her) trike.

Then we spent a morning at the zoo til naptime.

Friday we spent a morning on the levee (doing a moms-paced walk) and then at the playground; that brings us up to 3 lunches in a row outside so far. The playground's gotten more interesting for me - it's fascinating to see Paul as a "big-boy" now that a whole group of babies has gotten mobile and wants to play, too. So, Paul's the big kid running around and dodging the toddlers, while Ada's got  one-tracked mind on the swings and as to which toys are hers.

Then we had a weekend with Papa with lots of outside time, and again to Paul's growing-up, he's helping Ada now with little tasks, like helping her get her socks and shoes off before jumping in the sandbox. Gah, it's cute! I love both that she can ask him and that he often readily does it without being asked, just because he wants her to play, too. Don't think Ada's missing out here because, boy, is she cute right now! She's such a creative player and she's speaking so well, starting to enunciate and get rid of some little baby things (yes, of course, it's still toddler-speak + a lisp!)

Then we had our "Little School Group" on Monday, focusing on the letter "R"; we learned about reptiles, glued together a rectangle collage, and had a snack of red radishes, raspberries, and rice cakes ... followed by some playground time and another picnic.

Tuesday was a crazy stormy day, but because it was so stormy, it was really interesting for the kids to see. (There were tornadoes and thunderstorms in the area, but we mostly had a couple bouts of rain and lots of wind.) Paul got a kick out of how strong the wind was blowing on the way to the chapel for Mass, and I had to carry Ada because she was a bit too light for it, ha!

That brings us to today, Wednesday, which brought us to an Early Explorers session of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) for the little guys. It's generally geared towards school-aged kids' field trips, but I contacted them as an unofficial preschool/homeschool co-op thing, and they were game. It was amazing! There were two main parts: exploration and concert. During exploration, there were stations with one or two musicians, who explained a little about that instrument and played it by itself. This was wonderful because the kids could see it up close and hear it solo. We went to stations with violas, tuba, cello, and French horn. Ada said her favorite part was the cello, which is funny because the cellist was definitely not an early-educator, or an educator at all, for that matter. He spelled the composer of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" A-R-L-E-N after playing it. It was beautiful! And quirky. Then during the concert portion, Paul's favorite, the conductor was very kid-friendly, asked questions, had each of the 4 families (brass, woodwinds, percussion, strings) play 2 things by themselves and then they came all together for beautiful (short) Bach piece. One of my favorite parts was when the brass played the Olympics theme - hadn't ever heard it live! Very neat all around. (Also, the kids heard a snippet of the clarinet station, and they wanted to go sooo bad! They heard the cat from Peter & the Wolf and the intro to Rhapsody in Blue; they were in love.)

Paul and Ada were full of fish-faces one day, so I snapped one, quick, and June Bug the Bump and I enjoyed a winner of an episode of Downton Abbey - and right before the series finale. It'd been getting stale, and somehow they managed to bring it back right at the end, yesss.