April to May

Hello Hello Hello. It is Spring and the weather is great. There are going to be about a million pictures of my garden in this post.  You have been warned. 

This blog post is backing up to the last week of April. This is before the Craters of the Moon/Bear World trip and after my symphony concert. You may remember that the symphony concert was at the end of a ridiculously busy week. By comparison the next week was rather boring. 

We started out with Horseback riding lessons scheduled for Monday. They were on Monday because we would be going out of town on Thursday. But then the weather got cold and windy and lessons were cancelled for Monday. 

Instead the kids played with legos. Charlotte and Lydia built an amazing resort. This is the front. There are pillars and that big blue circle represents a clock.

Inside there was a beautiful lobby complete with a fountain.   

And upstairs there were several rooms with balconies.  Out back there was a pool, but I guess I didn't get a good picture of that. 

We did have horses on Tuesday, but they were at 11:00 in the morning. Normally that wouldn't work because Derrick has therapy at that time, but therapy is on hold until they can find him a new therapist.  So I've been going into work from 8:00-10:30ish and Brandon drops Derrick off at my work on the way to his work.  So this day I just came home a little early and we all went out to Buhl. 

This was our second to last horse riding lesson and I was kind of over the whole thing.  I didn't take any pictures (but I did take a lot at the last lesson so stand by for those later in the post.) The lessons ended at 12:00 and I realized that the new time had completely thrown me off. It was lunch time and we were all starving.  We still had a 30 minute drive back to Twin Falls and then I'd still have to make lunch.  So I called an audible and we stopped at McDonalds for 5 hamburgers. We hardly ever eat out spontaneously so the kids thought this was amazing. (And then they asked for fries and drinks and I'd told them they'd get them on Saturday and to be grateful I'd bought anything at all.)

That evening I had a staff meeting at work. Everyone had really different schedules so I always like these staff meetings because I get to see some of the therapists that I hardly ever see.

Oh shoot, we have to go back in time a little bit. On Monday night we worked on a project that I'd decided we needed to do the week before.  I was thinking about all the plans we had to have family members come visit us the next few months.  The most definite of those visitors are Brandon's parents who are coming to help Brandon with the kids when I go out of town at the end of May. (I'm going to help one of my sisters move.) I realized that Brandon's parents - and any other visitors would probably want to sleep somewhere better than the pull out couch in the family room. I decided we needed to convert the art room into a guest bedroom of sorts. So I talked with Brandon and he agreed.  I'd ordered a simple mattress and bed frame and they were shipped to our house. 

We worked on cleaning up the art room and pulled out one of the shelves. 

Here's Brandon vacuuming for spiders. ( I think this picture was actually taken Tuesday night.  This was a multi night project.) We also sprayed for spiders so this shouldn't be a problem. 

Here's the room with the bed in it. We set it up on Wednesday night after the kids were in bed.  It's not very cozy and has a major prison cell vibe, but it's a lot better than a pull out couch in the middle of the family room.

The kids all thought the bed was the coolest thing ever and they all wanted to do their school work in here the next few days.  So that was fun. 

Speaking of school work can you tell me what's wrong with this map?

This map showed up in Derrick and Veronica's social studies lesson and it immediately set off alarm bells in my head. It concerned me so much that I took time to write an email to my mentor that she forwarded on to the people in charge of the social studies curriculum. 

Here's the email I sent:

Hello Studies Weekly,

My children have been using the Studies Weekly Social Studies program this school year.  I noticed some issues with the map images that were used in the Second Grade Social Studies Lesson 14 - Earth. I was surprised to see a very inaccurate map projection used several times throughout the lesson and on the test. 

Here is the map image that first appeared in the section about Different Climates. If you look at it you can see that this is not an accurate representation of the earth.  Now, I understand that no map is perfect because it is impossible to accurately represent a three-dimensional object in 2 dimensions.  But this map projection is especially problematic. The size of the northern continents (North America, Europe, Asia) has been elongated to make them appear larger than they are. Take a look at the area that includes Greenland. You can see that those grid sections on the map are larger than another other grid section.  

Maps with this type of distortion have been called out for perpetuating racial bias by making continents heavily populated by People of Color appear smaller than continents populated by white people. 

Another problem with this map projection is that the Equator is not in the middle of the map. Again, this causes distortion of the continents visual importance. Again this perpetuates racial bias by making the Northern (and white) continents appear to take up more space than the Southern Continents.

Even if we set aside the racial implications, this map is not a good way to teach young children geography.  Take a look at this use of the map from the "Map Review" section. The lines have been removed and the students are asked to draw in the Equator.  They have just been through lessons that tell them the equator is in the middle of the Earth. So naturally, a child is going to draw the Equator in the middle of this map. However, that would put the equator running through Mexico, Northern Africa, and India.  As adults we know that is not correct, but children will not understand why they are incorrect.   

I hope you take steps to remove this map in the future. You have used less problematic maps in other lessons.  Here is an example from Week 12 Maps and Globes. This, and map projections like it, are much better at illustrating the size of continents.  It also has the equator in the middle of the map. 

Thank you for your consideration of this matter. If you wish to reach me to discuss this further you may email me at . . .

Obviously I had quite a bit more free time than I was used to. 

Anyway, let's move onto some of those garden pictures I'd promised you.  

Here's a strawberry.

The raspberries have had some very busy roots lately. I was finding shoots in places I didn't expect them. 

And those are all the pictures of the garden for that day.  Wednesday night we packed for our trip and then we went on the trip Thursday night to Saturday. I already wrote a separate post about Craters of the Moon and Bear World. So if you haven't read it yet take a minute and go back and read it. 

We got home from the trip late on Saturday night. Most of Sunday was spent sleeping and sloooooooowly unpacking.  I was kind of tempted to just stay home form church and watch it on our computer, but we have church at 1:00 so that gave us enough time to make ourselves presentable.  

At some point we also picked up Marcia from the kennel.

The day was rainy and I took this picture of my flowers in the rain.  They looked so good!

Inside the house the kids were back to making new lego creations.  This is a picture of the berry drop that Lydia made.  

Charlotte was hard at work on a Lego Ferris wheel because she'd studied the real one at Bear World.  She didn't want me to take a picture of it when she was working on it, and I'm not sure I ever got a good one, but you can see this work in progress picture. 

Here's the little berry dropper. 

They were making a whole amusement park for their lego people. 

We went for a walk on Sunday night and ended up at the kids school playground.  Charlotte had a dandelion in her hair and she wanted me to take a picture of it. 

On Monday I had to take Derrick and Veronica to the testing center for their IRI tests.  This is a reading test that is something the kids have had to take at home every month, but for some reason the one in May had to be all official for Derrick and Veronica's grades.  This was the last standardized test any of the kids would have to take this year, but it was also Veronica's first standardized test of the year.  And she was kind of freaked out by it.  I have no idea where my kids' test anxiety comes from. I've never put any pressure on them to do well on these tests, but all the girls get so emotional about these things. 

So anyway, Veronica was in tears when I walked her into the building and so I asked if I could stay in the classroom.  The teacher in charge let me sit against the wall where I couldn't see Veronica's screen, but I was in Veronica's line of sight. That helped Veronica feel better and she calmed down.  I was like, "I should have asked to do that when the twins did their tests."

When we got back home we could see what Charlotte and Lydia had spent all day on. I told them, "There really should be a Lego section of those ISAT and IRI tests."

Monday evening was kind of rough for all of us.  We were sad that our fun weekend was over and we were still a little tired from the weekend.  This led to some grumpy moments and I actually spent the night sleeping in the downstairs guest bed because I was so angry at Brandon.  

But by Tuesday morning we were both feeling a lot better. Brandon and I apologized for being mad at each other. I found a card that Charlotte made telling me I was the best Mom ever.  She'd been so worried when she heard us arguing. 

Okay more garden pictures because things really took off as soon as the rain cleared up.  Here's the tart cherry tree blooming. 

All the garden beds after being watered. 

Here's the sweet cherry tree.  

Here are the fence posts that Brandon had been able to get in place the week before. We'd had to leave them unfinished when we went to Bear World. I felt bad going on vacation with the fence still down, but that's just how the timing worked out. 

Veronica was also doing a lot with Lego's. She'd steal my phone and take pictures of the roof of her lego houses so she could remember how to put it back on when she was done playing with the inside.  

The tulips fully opened and they were magnificent. 

Here's a little Bleeding Heart Plant. 

The Peonies

The catalpa buds were a little bigger.

Another angle of the tulips. 

I'm really struggling to remember anything of note for the rest of the week. As the weather got better we seemed to do less and less school work. We spent quite a bit of time outside.  On Tuesday Brandon would have working on the fence after work, but we had a problem with our sprinkler backflow thingy so he was working on that. 

I was trying to be self sufficient with the garden boxes that I needed built in the new garden area.  Normally Brandon would help me with them, but he had his hands full with the sprinkler thing and the fence. So I was trying to make the boxes myself.  

I was able to put 3 screws in okay, but the 4th screw was taking forever. No matter how hard I tried I could not get the screw to go in. I tried drilling a pilot hole. I tried different settings. I tried different angles. I worked on it for over 20 minutes.   Finally I gave up and asked Brandon to do it.  He expertly held both pieces of wood in one hand and held the drill with the other.  It took him all of 2 seconds to put the screw in. That man has talent. Here's the tough screw.

Here's more Tulip beauty on a different day. Every time I backed out of the driveway I'd say, "Oh look at those pretty flowers!"

And from the other side. 

Another check in with the catalpa.

Here's Marcia enjoying the sun.

More of Veronica's roof schematics. 

Here's Derrick's antics while doing the dinner dishes one night. 

During one of our evenings outside Charlotte, Lydia and Veronica decided to make a big fairy garden. They'd made little ones a few days earlier, but I'd missed taking a picture.  I was doing other stuff in the garden so I wasn't paying close attention, but from my perspective it was like in Charlie Brown Christmas when the kids decorate the Christmas Tree. They started with basically nothing, waved their arms around a whole bunch, and created a masterpiece. I couldn't do something this good if I tried. 

I think this is Thursday.  Derrick had been asking me if we could flood the patio. I told him water is for plants.  But I'd let him flood the lawn.  So we set up the hose at the top of the low hill in our backyard and the water ran down through the grass. 

The kids got some plastic animal figurines and played like they were living in a watery swamp. 

It was really fun. 

I found this Venn diagram that Charlotte and Lydia made.  They did this completely unprompted. It's a comparison of the TV shows Paw Patrol and Octonauts. 

Thursday afternoon we had our last day of horse back lessons.  These were the first time that it was actually hot during the lessons. We started these in January when it was cold and we'd had these off and on all the way until May. I made sure to take lots of pictures. 

Here's Lydia on India. India didn't have the saddle this day so the kids got a chance to ride her bareback. Lydia got 15 minutes on India and then switched with Veronica. 

And Veronica on Aspen (or maybe it was Willow) I wasn't quite sure. 

They had a lesson at the same time. 

Here's Lydia on Aspen/Willow.

Miss Mary had Lydia go fast in a circle. 

I got a video of that 

Here's Veronica riding bareback.

When Lydia and Veronica were done it was time for Derrick and Charlotte. Here's Charlotte riding bareback on India.

She has loved these lessons. 

Derrick had a turn to go fast in a circle.

And then it was Charlotte's turn.

Miss Mary realized that Veronica hadn't had a chance to go fast in a circle so she had Veronica come back from the car and have a turn. 

And then we were done. It was strange to realize that we didn't need to come out to Buhl any more. 

On Thursday evening Brandon was able to get all the cross pieces onto the fence.  I think I took this picture the next day because I remember him working in the near dark to finish the last of the cross pieces. 

Friday was kind of a crazy morning. I had a bunch of stuff I needed to do at work so I went into work at 8:00. It's been a while since I went in on a Friday. I knew that I needed to take Derrick to speech therapy at the elementary school so I had alarms set for me to leave on time. At 9:00 I rushed home to get Derrick and take him to the school in time for his appt at 9:15.  But when we got to the school I found out that his appointment was really at 9:45. Oops.  

It worked out pretty okay though. I had the office secretary ask the SPED teacher to come up and talk to us.  We had a quick talk about an official meeting we'd have the next week.  

When Derrick did start therapy I went outside and called an insurance company about something for work.  After therapy we went back to work so I could drop off my binder. Then we went to the bank for work. Derrick was so patient with all our stops. 

Back at home I took care of reporting school for the second to last time. And then . . . . I'm actually not sure what I did the rest of the day.  Oh I remember - I read Enna Burning to the girls for a really long time. We sat on the blanket under the tree and had a wonderful time. 

Veronica spent a lot of time in her room making Halloween costumes for her stuffies out of pipe cleaners and things like that. 

For dinner I made pizza. Veronica came in and helped me out a lot. She is getting really responsible in the kitchen. 

After dinner we went outside and Brandon and I worked on the fence for a while. We started putting the boards back on. Here's Derrick in the tree. 

Around 8:00 we stopped for the night so we could do movie night. We watched The Mitchell's vs the Machines. It was so funny. It's on Netflix and I highly recommend you watch it. 

On Saturday morning we had to get up early and be somewhere by 9:00. That was kind of rough for us. But we were excited because we were going to a "Small Animal Education Day" done by the Twin Falls County and 4H.  This was a free event at a a fancy ranch called the Fleur De Lis Ranch.  They have a huge arena type area. There were different stations set up where people were showing their animals and talking about how to take care of them and how to show them in 4H competitions. 

We started out on bleachers and waited until someone gave an introductory message.  The acoustics of the arena were terrible and the person we just talking into a bullhorn. So we couldn't hear anything.  But we got the gist. 

Then we went around and looked at animals.  Our first station was a cat and that was kind a mistake. The teenager at this station talked for 10 minutes about the cat and how to show off all its features in 4H. He even pulled back her ears and had to describe them as "clean and free of dust or mites."  I was like, "I owned a cat for 18 year and never paid this much attention to it."

Derrick was loosing interest fast.  (Actually he'd lost interest as soon as he'd realized no one had a baby chick.  So I took him out to the car when we were done with the cat.  Veronica joined us a little later.  This is how they passed the time. 

Charlotte and Lydia lasted a little longer.  But even they ran out of interest before the free lunch was served. 

We went home and had our own lunch and then spent the rest of the day doing yard work. Brandon was able to get all the boards back on the fence.  There were a few that were so warped it wasn't worth putting them back on.  So we went on a date to Home Depot and bought 9 more boards. We also went to D&B and picked up some Mother's Day presents.  I basically just wanted garden stuff.  So we bought more peet moss and manure.  We also picked up more seeds and some merigold flowers. When we got home Brandon was able to finish the fence.  

 Here's a garden check in.

Here are the raspberries.  

I'd ordered more raspberries and black berries from a nursery back in March.  They arrived on Saturday. Just in time for Mother's Day. They are just sticks now. But I know they'll grow. 

Here are the 5 new blackberry plugs. 

I was also able to plan pole beans. 

Here's the new garden area. It's still a work in progress, but it's looking better than it ever did with the shed in this spot. 

This area now has sunflowers growing in it so the kids can't play there any more. 

Here's the front of our house with the beautiful tulips. 

And here's a long view of the house.  The front yard is starting to have some personality. 

Here's the fence when it was nearly done. 

I mowed the front yard and so I took an "after" picture of that.

I also moved more grass from this front garden bed. I put the grass in the back around the fire pit.  I planted the Marigolds.  They are so cheerful looking. Brandon cut me a long board from wood from the old shed.

Here's the finished fence.  Halleluiah!

The section with the new boards looks like a door. 

Charlotte and Lydia mowed the back yard and it looked so good.

Here's another angle of the garden.

And the new garden area.  you can see the grass I placed around the firepit. 

And another look at the garden.

Oh and look at these fun poppies we have growing in the cement by the house. They are so fun to see. 

When Brandon finished with the fence he started working on my garden boxes.  He got two put together but drilled his finger with the last screw.  So that was the end of him doing any work for the night. I felt so bad.  He'd worked all day and I felt bad that he hurt himself doing a project for me. He bandaged up his finger and then went inside to lay down.  Derrick came and laid next to him. 

I feel like we watched another movie that evening.  But I can't remember. 

Sunday was Mother's Day and it was honestly the best Mother's Day I ever had - mostly because I just didn't care that it was Mother's Day. This year I didn't want anything elaborate.  I'd wanted to work on the yard and get it presentable and that was a gift enough for me. 

I didn't even want breakfast in bed.  Instead I bought myself a big bag of the generic Honey Bunches of Oats. On Sunday morning I woke up and pored myself a big bowl of cereal and then worked on my blog for a long time while everyone else was still asleep. 

When everyone else woke up I had a good time hanging out with everyone.  Last year I'd still been reeling from all the Covid changes so I'd spent most of the day in my room. But this year I was like, "whatever, I've been hanging out with you guys non-stop for a year. I'll hang out some more."  

The girls and I played salon and I deep conditioned everyone's hair. Veronica was in desperate need of a hair cut so I gave her one.  It's not great, but it looks better than the tangled mass that was happening so I consider it a success. 

We went to church at 1:00. Derrick was asking me when he's going to have a new therapist. He's missed having someone take him places like Target and the Magic Valley Mall. I told him he'd have a new therapist soon.  Then Amy Toft sat on our row. She's in charge of the Boys Activities so Derrick knows her.  He moved over to sit right by her.  

He put his head on her shoulder and then asked, "Can you take me to Magic Valley Mall." I laughed and tried to explain that he'd feeling a little deprived of adult attention since he hasn't had behavioral therapy in several weeks. Amy took it in good stride. She told Derrick that she would plan a hike for Boys Activity soon. 

Derrick sat by her the whole meeting.  She would show him how to stretch out his hands and feet and he'd follow along. It was really cute. 

This was a primary week. Usually Derrick will sit up front because he likes to see the pictures the chorister brings.  The three girls usually sit in the back.  This week I told all the kids they could have some of the chocolate that the ward gave me if they all sat near the front.  So all the kids sat with me.  

At home we continued to chill out. I read Enna Burning to the girls and we finished the book that day.  Brandon made crepes for dinner.  

Around bedtime Derrick got into his minion pajamas.  He pulled his head in and Veronica pulled the hood over.  It was funny. 

For dessert we had rice crispy treats with chocolate and "Mother's Day Cookies" on them. 

Brandon and I went for a long walk in the evening.  

And that was the end of Mother's Day. 

Monday was the beginning of our last week of school. Technically we still had two weeks of school, but I had no delusions of doing actual school work the real last week of school. So we were finishing up everything this week.  Really we just had a few I-Station tests and some Math Seeds levels.  

But we didn't even do any of that in the afternoon. Instead I decided to take Charlotte to the doctor.  She was having an impetigo flare up and the usual cream wasn't doing a good job of taking care of it.  I decided it was time for antibiotics.  So I called to make an appointment for some time that week.  Her doctor happened to have an opening that afternoon so I took her in. The whole thing was so easy.  The doctor agreed it was time for the antibiotics and sent in the prescription right away. I was like, "I really should have done this like a month ago."

That evening dethatched the front lawn. I'd noticed some field bind weed (the bad morning glory) growing in that lawn and I was NOT going to let it take over. I researched what to do about it.  There was one weed killer that was recommended, but it was like $50 so I was trying to do some cheaper options. One was to dethatch.  So I did that.  I've also been hand pulling the weeds to try to weaken the roots. So far I think it's working, but I'm not going to declare victory yet. 

Brandon finished building the last two garden boxes.  (And did not smash any fingers this time.)

There was a ton of dead grass that came out of the lawn.  Charlotte and Lydia gathered it up and played with it.  I took this (terribly back lit) picture of them on Tuesday.  

I was able to start filling the garden boxes. The soil where the shed used to be is pretty bad so I was working on amending it.  I added a lot of torn up cardboard to the bottom of the boxes. I put peat moss and manure in with the existing soil. Then Derrick and I flooded each box to soak the cardboard and the soil. Derrick loved it when there were dam breeches. 

It's nearly looking like a garden over here now. 

I love this picture because it looks like the grass is filling in well in the transplanted areas. 

Here's Lydia with the first radishes we pulled from the garden. We'd also started eating the lettuce and the green onions.  

Derrick had been asking for a snorkel. So I bought one when I ordered Charlotte and Lydia's new swimming suits.  He was so excited when it arrived.  

He's excited to test it out soon. 

Okay and that nearly gets us caught up.  That last picture was from Tuesday and it's Friday right now.  I think I'm going to stop here and we'll pick up with Wednesday in the next post. 

Thanks for reading.