What a week!

Pops (that's what the kids call my dad) caught this huge moth for L last night.  The picture doesn't really do it justice.  The thing is more than 3 inches long and looks even bigger with its wings open.

I presented it to L when he arrived in the morning and he looked at it with D several times throughout the day.  After D saw the moth, she put in a request for Pops to catch something just for her next.

In the afternoon, L announced that he was going to take a nap and that his moth was going to nap with him.  I set up his mat w/ sheet, blanket, and pillow and L put the moth next to his mat.  He didn't actually do any napping but I thought it was still cute.

After a little while I moved the moth back to the table so that no one could accidentally kick the container.

It was quite a week getting 3 new kids at once.  It was an adjustment for me, for them, for D, and for the dogs.  One morning Keeley demanded that I hand feed him and another night I found Teagan had put herself to bed in her crate which normally she hates sleeping in at night.

I'm sure next week will be better though.  I'm making the adjustments that I think are necessary.  I plan on setting up a separate room for V to nap in so that she doesn't have to listen to S who only seems to cry when she has an audience.  And I'm going to set up a special place for V to play in the kitchen while I'm cooking so that I can talk to her the whole time.   D is starting school and I'm going to set up a place for her to work on her homework in the afternoon.  Plus I've got a stroller on order so that we can start taking morning walks in the neighborhood or to the park.

This week was an adjustment but next week, I think we'll fall into a routine that works for everyone.

A few other things we did this week include:  listening to the ocean inside a big conch shell (every kid seemed to enjoy this), reading books (it's the best way to get L to be still), playing with the water tables outside (they all get completely soaking wet but I think it's worth it), guessing which objects will sink or float (led by D), games, puzzles, music, hide & seek, and we watched Lilo & Stitch.

We also did some painting.  These 2 pictures were painted by S and I think they turned out rather amazing considering her age.

The first day, I didn't intend to have a 1 year old painting but she was so interested in what the other kids were doing.  To keep S from pestering them, I set her up with her own piece of paper and paintbrush.  At first she kept trying to eat the paint.  It is non-toxic and washable but don't worry, I still stopped her from eating it.

The second day is when she produced these 2 pictures and this time she seemed to understand that the paint goes on the paper, not in her mouth.  Whenever she looked as though she was considering tasting it, I just reminded her "no, paint goes on the paper".  She likes to be praised for doing a good job and she especially likes it when we do a high-five.

In the morning I had read L a book about Henri Matisse which I thought was too advanced, but he proved me wrong.  Right away he says to me, "That's silly, you can't draw with scissors!" and later when we were painting he said, "I need more beautiful colors".  So I asked, "You mean like Henri Matisse?"  And L replied, "Yeah, like Henri."