Is it Spring yet?? My open window says so. It feels perfect to me right now, warm and breezy and lovely. We've been out playing soccer and throwing around a football (teaching children to throw a good spiral is a challenge, let me tell you!) and George has learned to ride his bike without training wheels in the last two days. Nate took off his training wheels last June and George hasn't wanted to get on it since then, but the warmer weather and my coaxing have made him brave the worrisome "new-ness" of it. He's done so well, I'm very proud of him. He took three good tumbles yesterday, but got right back up and wanted to keep practicing. I showed him the scars on my knees and legs from some bike accidents when I was a kid, which I think made him a little less worried. Considering the fact that he hates new things and pain, he has done great!!!

I just ordered the kids vitamins finally, and need to do my Melaleuca order soon, although I don't hardly need anything. Ian did a bunch of reading to me today from "The Big Yellow Book", he's doing really well. I think his lack of short term memory makes me think his entire memory is lacking sometimes, and it always surprises me when he picks right back up something we haven't done in a long time. Grace traced numbers and letters and matched rhyming words and George did his reading and reading workbook. We are really pitifully behind where we need to be, but I have started making reading together more of a priority and slacked off a bit on the worksheets. At this point, I can probably get away with us focusing more on together time than on scholastic over achievement. George and I are reading Swiss Family Robinson together. At about chapter 3, I had the happy realization that "Who needs a vocabulary curriculum when you are reading things like this??" In the last few days, George has learned the meaning of words such as tempest, prospect, sustained, resigned, tranquil, contrive, impending, recollect, exhort, embarkation, glutinous, and renounce, just to name a few. :)

Nathan is plunging headlong into busy season, and his canker sores have arrived, just on time, as they always do when he is stressed out and eating and sleeping badly. A happy note, though, the website he has been working on for about a year and a half is finally up (www.brownspools.com) and Matt could not stop raving about how wonderful it was, which was, of course, GREAT for Nathan to hear. It's always wonderful for me to hear that his hard work is being appreciated.

I can't think of anything clever to close with, but I have to run to Food Depot as soon as the Claire Bear wakes up, we are in desperate need of paper products and produce (hmm, that sounds like a Dr. Seuss book...) and I didn't have my act together enough this morning to go. I guess that's one good thing about Nate's work schedule this time of year, I can go run errands in the late afternoon if I want to. Bye for now!!!!