Special guest teachers

Today, to my great delight, we had a couple of guests to help us out with school:  Nonna and Poppa!  They were Super-Grands for us -- not only providing education and entertainment for the kids, but some much-appreciated help for me.  In my ideal world, Poplar Streams Academy would have 3 teachers, to cover all the ages and stages -- and today we not only had that, but some extra bonuses as well....

My mom took Colsen to the library, which he was thrilled with.  Extra bonus:  she picked up a book I had on hold there, and checked out some books for the kids.  Nothing like fresh library books in the house!

She also read to the kids a book about different kinds of birds.  Extra bonus:  During that time I was able to make lunch without having to answer the "what are we having?" question 14 times, and without having any kids climbing on the counters or anyone trying to "help."

In the pictures above, Miles is obviously not wearing any clothes... because they had gotten wet when he was helping with an earlier activity...

washing and waxing the van:

Dad thought it would be a good idea to teach Strider the value of hard work, and strengthen the ol' work ethic, so the 2 of them not only did the outside of the van, but also vacuumed out the inside, too!  Extra bonus:  a spotless car for us!

What a blessing this morning was to this haggard teacher.  Thanks, Super-Grands!

Since I wasn't totally spent by mid-afternoon, as I usually would be, we were able to have a little fun "science" time after Nonna and Poppa left --  microwaving soap.  Here are a couple pics from that experience, but for the full account, see here.