July 17

 When I woke up this morning, one of the first things I saw when leaving the room was this.

  Then I wandered into the living room and saw this.
 

Although they leave a mess in their wake, I am forever grateful for the creativity and play that goes on in my house.  I could focus on the mess, but that isn't what I was thinking about.  They still ask (like all normal children) if they can play on the computer or turn on the tv, but if I say no (as I often do), they very quickly find something else to do.  Sometimes it's without hesitation, which makes me wonder why they even ask. 

So this was yesterday.

The mailbox was part of some shortlived game that I don't quite understand or know about.

Ukelele and black binder:  Beth decorated a plain binder with duct tape and has been filling it with music for the piano, guitar and ukelele and has been strumming on and off daily.

Crayons:  You know what those are for.

Giant barbie heads:  All three girls are constantly trying new hairdo-s on each other and on these heads.

Chickadee - Go Craft Crazy:  Always a source of inspiration.  I don't know what they got from it yesterday.  I'm much more hands-off than I used to be.

Science Rocks book:  Alice did an experiment with crystals that should develop over the next few days.

Beverly Cleary:  There are always books and lots of reading going on.  That's a constant.  We'll never understand people who don't read.

At some point Alice cried out from the basement.  It sounded fake or not really bad, so I didn't go running.  Is that how tough kids are made, or just neglected ones?  I don't know, but we discovered that she had gotten her finger slammed in a door.

She recovered very quickly, especially when Dr. Laura made her a splint and cast out of cotton strips, flour and water.

Then they decided to make a plain t-shirt more interesting with fabric paint.  That was so fun that they went in search of more plain or stained t-shirts and came out with these lovely "new" shirts for themselves.

After all that activity, there was still energy and time for Shakespeare in the Park, where we watched The Tempest and even understood lots of it. 
  

It was a great, creative day and I fell asleep exhausted last night. I did different things than the kids did, but I'll tell you about it tomorrow.