Systematic Mariele

I took this video yesterday of Mariele systematically taking the toys out of the drawer and placing them into the cabinet. She has been doing a similar "baby project" taking the refrigerator magnets from the refrigerator to the seat of her high chair. She gets very busy and focused when she is working on her little "projects" and I can just see the wheels turning in her mind.

I'm not London and it's not Wednesday...

but this is definitely random. First of all, it snowed here two days ago. It was a heavy, wet snow that melted probably a foot before it hit the ground. But it was pretty watching it fall.




The girls waiting in anticipation for Auntie Yng Yng to pick us up in her minivan and take us to the Asian market this morning.



Analese being a helper in the attic. She was at the very least mildly entertaining her Daddy as he worked up there.




Here is the little helper wannabe. She was hanging out on the bottom rung of the ladder and I was watching her, but I turned my back for one second (again, I swear it was one second) and I turned back around and she was on the third ladder rung and climbing! I guess the moral of the story for me is, never turn my back for even one second on this wild child!

And the house became very quiet...

as the strange semi-slushy precipitation that Southeast Texas refers to as winter weather fell outside...

A Novel Solution

We may have stumbled onto a novel solution to our school issue this morning - the issue being Mariele and the havoc that she wreaks on our learning environment. Lee was burnt toast this morning after working for over 24 hours straight with no sleep. So he went to bed in the guest room. Analese's desk and our school area is right outside the guest room. To keep things quiet for Lee, I decided to move her desk into our bedroom. We have this large, deep window (is it called a bay window?) in our bedroom, so I just placed her desk right in the window. Analese thought it was the neatest thing ever. She said, "Mommy, I can watch the grass grow when I look out this window!" HEE HEE! Here she is working on her letter of the day in her desk in the window. Notice, if you will, the blue marker in her hand.




She must have dropped said marker onto the floor shortly after those photos were captured, because I turned my back for one second (I SWEAR it was just one second, y'all) and Mariele looked like this.




Analese was in a very creative mood this morning, so I gave her some construction paper, glue and safety scissors and just let her "free craft" to her heart's content.




Oh, and the weather is NASTY here today. This afternoon it is raining/sleeting. Our house is cozy and we are not leaving it today, hence day two of the girls wearing pajamas. I'm in yoga pants, so that is a small step up from jammies!

Pajama Day

Spring Gardening has begun!

This is an advantage of living in a subtropical climate. Spring begins pretty early around here. Lee planted our winter garden a few months back in this fuglee makeshift greenhouse. He has an infrared radiant heat lamp in there. The little seedling plants in there made it through the hard freeze that we had here in January.



We are doing a gardening technique this year called "square foot gardening." This technique uses raised garden beds. The technique allows more efficient gardening in a small space. Lee built these raised beds. Oh, and Analese helped him. She would tell you that she measured the boards. She had so much fun helping her Daddy build these garden boxes. It is sweet that one morning last week, Analese woke up and said, "Daddy, let's go build another garden box!" She will forever have that wonderful memory with her Daddy.




Lee took the opportunity while he had the power drill out to repair some boards on the fence. I found Analese sitting and pouting on the tree stump (still in our yard from Hurricane Ike 18 months ago). I asked her if she was in time out. Her response was: "No, but I really REALLY wanted to screw something!" She was pouting because her Daddy would not allow her to use the power drill HA HA HA HA HA!



She helped her Daddy mix the dirt and smooth it out in the planting boxes.








Lee has worked so hard on the planning of this garden. He has a whole excel spreadsheet devoted to it. The spreadsheet tells us when to plant and when to harvest all of the vegetables and herbs that we are planning to grow. Here is Lee all proud of his big old bag of vermiculite.



Mariele had fun just walking around the yard.




Of course she will not eat the food that I place in front of her, but she has no issues at all with eating dirt.



This is the first beautiful flowering bush of Spring in our yard.

Schooling two

Analese has been doing Hooked on Phonics this week. She is doing amazingly well, and l am very proud of her. She can now read two stories. It is getting more and more difficult to do her school in the morning as Mariele wreaks more and more havoc. I may have to do afternoon school now while Mariele takes her nap. Mariele is not content to just play with her toys while we are doing school. She feels left out and she wants to be right in the midst of all the action. She is usually trying to climb onto Analese's desk or she will pull off the workbook and otherwise terrorize big sister. She wreaks havoc on the learning environment, that is for sure! It was pretty cute this morning when Mariele sat on the desk bench right beside Analese to watch the lesson introduction DVD. The puzzled look on Analese's face in the first photo was because Mariele had already wreaked havoc on the laptop and taken the DVD off of full-screen mode.