...I'm allowed to do that on my own blog, right?
HoneyBee has just about blown me over in the last week, twice!

1. I've been wanting to teach her finger knitting for a while, as I've heard it's simple knitting that very young children can do. (And you know my goal in life is to get my kids just as addicted to crafting as I am.) But I haven't had the time to look up the directions yet. (Well, having the time and having time where I remember what I want to do with said time are two very different things!) Last week I got one of my Kids Craft Weekly emails and, lo and behold, it had directions for simple finger knitting! So, I found an odd ball of yarn in a bin and sat down with the HoneyBee. She got it fairly quickly, but also lost interest fairly quickly, much preferring to do something else. I didn't push the issue; I didn't want to ruin it for her on the first day! No need to worry. A couple days later, she went and got the ball of her own accord and before I knew it was knitting up a storm. Three necklaces, a bracelet, and a ring later, I think I may have to teach her something a bit more complicated before she uses up all my yarn!
2. We went out for lunch yesterday, and the place we went had activity sheets and crayons for the kids. The HoneyBee is getting to the age where she really enjoys those things. There happened to be one on this particular sheet where you were supposed to add up several (6?) single digit numbers. Had I been there, I probably would've just distracted her with something different or given her some significant help with it. But, I was not at the table then. Her daddy was. So he told her what she was supposed to do. I come back to the table to hear him asking her what 17+7 is. 17+7!!?? How's a five-year-old supposed to know that? But about 15 seconds later, after some mumbling and finger moving, she came back with, “24.” He asked her if she was sure, and she responded in the affirmative after a few seconds. Then she went on to add an entire second row of numbers by herself! The end result was that the one animal did all the events in 24 seconds, but the other did them in only 21. But, more importantly, my little girl is a math whiz. (At least to me--don't burst my bubble if this is normal for five-year-olds, please.)

...it takes an excavator to dig you out!

Today was laundry day. I gathered all the dirty clothes and dumped them on the living room floor to be sorted. The Little Chimp was nearby and decided I needed some help...loads of help. He took one of the child-size chairs in the room and turned it over, turning it into an excavator. (Naturally--what else would an upside-down chair be?) He then began to help by “scooping” up some clothes and transporting them to another pile. It was altogether too cute, even if I did end up with clothes ALL over the living room.

Today was our first “official” homeschool fieldtrip. We went with three other families (14 kids and 4 adults) to see some local windmills in action and talk about energy and where it comes from. We got out and went up close to one of them near the road and then drove around to see the eighty or so others in the area. It was really neat to see so many so close. They are HUGE! The blades appeared to be about half the length of the poles. Most were spinning, but we did see several that were motionless. I don't know if they were broken or just new ones that hadn't been completely hooked up yet.

On the way home, we stopped at Houghton College for a “picnic” lunch. One of the moms is an alumnus and she took us to the Campus Center. I think it was quite an experience for both our kids and the college kids who don't see little ones very often...especially fourteen at once!

...or a little of both?
We live in an area where you have to pay by the bag for trash pickup. We also live in an area where it's legal to burn your trash. Thus, we try to burn as much as we can. For that purpose we have a burn barrel to keep the fires and ashes contained. For the past several months, we've been using the barrel left here by the previous residents--one in which the holes in the sides went in on one side and out on the other...in other words, they had been made by gun shots. Well, that barrel was getting a bit full and we also disliked the location (on the side of the house with our bedroom window, so we had a lovely fragrance whenever we burned our trash. Last week, DH decided to solve both problems by making a new barrel and putting it in a different location. When I went out to put some trash in it later, I discovered that he'd also decided to make the barrel a bit more decorative:

It reads: “Smoker EST 1999” Isn't that sweet?