Posts tagged ‘Oldest Daughter’
Super Bowl parties
Oldest Daughter likes to plan parties. Yesterday, she had this conversation with Ordinary Spouse…
Oldest Daughter: So – what do people do to celebrate the Super Bowl?
Ordinary Spouse: Mostly, they just eat junk food and watch TV.
OD: So what happens at a Super Bowl party?
OS: Um… you eat junk food and watch TV together.
Autumn arrangement
Oldest Daughter created an autumn arrangement this afternoon…
And Middle Daughter rendered it in colored pencil…
“Autumn Arrangement” by Middle Daughter
Colored pencil on paper, approximately 5″ x 7″, September 2011
Random blogging, part 5 – Cute quotes
Here are two quotes to amuse you, courtesy of my delightful family. First, we have this from a discussion of the parks in our town:
Ordinary Spouse: We can list all the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’…
Oldest Daughter: …and we can list all the ‘Genghis Khans’!
And Youngest Daughter was singing this little ditty the other morning:
Bacon makes my whole heart want to sing!
She later clarified that she meant “bakin’” and not “bacon”, but it certainly caused some raised eyebrows for Ordinary Spouse and me. (It is true that YD is the baker among the girls. Anytime OS starts up the mixer, YD is there.)
Random blogging, part 2 – Fun with felt!
Oldest Daughter has been learning to sew from Ordinary Spouse, and the projects have been getting creative. First, hi-tech has taken a decidedly lo-tech turn…
Here we have her cell phone and her netbook. You’ll note that she didn’t create a smartphone. That reflects more on the fact that her parents are still living in the stone ages than it does on her creativity.
Next, we have a delectable and tempting selection of desserts.
Enjoy!
Tonight’s tongue twister
Oldest Daughter created this tongue twister at the dinner table tonight (with a little input from Ordinary Spouse):
Eleven ovens love unleavened loaves.
Playing Pictionary
This is for those of you who like cute stories about children…
Last evening, Ordinary Mommy and the girls decided to play “Pictionary”. First, here are some fun drawings:
Can you guess what the drawings are?
Oh, the things we say!
This morning, Youngest Daughter didn’t finish her milk at breakfast…
ordinary (mostly): Please come finish your milk.
Youngest Daughter: I have no sense of bravery! I’m all filled up.
Then, as if to underscore the point, she stomped off to her room and firmly closed the door.
On Friday, we were driving in Iowa and had this exchange:
Oldest Daughter: Why is it so mountainous here?
Middle Daughter: Because it’s Ohio!
Ordinary Spouse and I were trying hard not to laugh in the front seat. That exchange was wrong on both accounts. But I guess when you live in Illinois, Iowa might be considered mountainous.
And here’s one for you nerds out there.
Iowa has a convenience store/gas station called Casey’s (but you can substitute the name of your own local quick mart).
Ordinary Spouse and I were reflecting on how you really can’t buy food there. What you actually get is “food derivatives”. Mathematically, this could be represented as:
d (food)
Of course, then you can talk about integrating the food derivatives:
∫ d (food)
And what do you get when you carry out that integral?
∫ d (food) = food + C
So you get out food, of course, but you also get ‘C’, which is a constant. And it’s that constant that you don’t want to put into your body.
Sorry. That’s just our brand of humor.
(And how cool is it that I got to use the integral symbol on my blog?)
One of the joys of home schooling
Oldest Daughter has been with my parents for the past week. She went home with them from Laurelville and spent the week at their house. If Amtrak is on time (and it never is), the two of them should be pulling out of South Bend right about now (0651 CT) and will be arriving in Chicago in roughly two hours. I’ll be going to the station to pick them up.
It is one of the benefits of being home schooled that she could spend the week with them. The school doesn’t stop. She just gets two new teachers. (And that actually works out pretty well, since Ordinary Grandpa is a retired biology prof, and Ordinary Grandma is an elementary school teacher.)
Here are her reports from the past week:
Monday
Today we went to three ponds to look for some creatures to take back and put in containers to study. We got two fish, millions of tiny creatures and guess what else! A baby turtle! I hope I can send some pictures. Tomorrow we are going to Penn Alps and we are hoping tomorrow we can also catch a salamander.
Tuesday
Grandpa is going to release the turtle (and the other creatures) sometime after he gets home from our house.
Today is a busy day. First,we have to go to Grandma’s school to get Grandpa’s boots (she took the truck: you’ll see why). Then we take the car in for an oil change and we go to Penn Alps. After that we look for salamanders.
P.S. Did I mention we went to Page’s last night?
Wednesday
We have four salamanders, one frog, two fishes,a turtle and millions of tiny sea creatures.
I have been seeing lots of birds. I think you would like the pileated woodpecker. It’s a big woodpecker.
When we were going to catch salamanders we heard a Ruffed Grouse trying to attract a mate. It starts beating its wings which produces a low, drumbeat noise. We just heard our spring peeper frog peep. He woke me up this morning. Grandpa said today he is going to take me to see an eagle’s nest today.
Thursday
I think today I will do my freewrite today (I’ll explain it to G’ma and G’pa).
Yesterday we went to The Cut. It was double cool (as in very windy and interesting) and amazing. I keep on forgetting to tell you that I have a nature journal.
I have seen lots of birds and I have taken lots of pictures of them. I am going to try to list them. Goldfinch, towhee, mourning dove, green heron, pileated woodpecker, downy woodpecker, flicker, red-bellied woodpecker, blue jay, rose-breasted grosbeak, chipping sparrow, wren, cat bird, tufted titmouse, nuthatch, starling and a cardinal.
[Ed. note: "Freewrite" is when you write for ten minutes. You keep your pencil moving at all times and put down everything that comes into your head without regard for punctuation, spelling, or complete sentences. This is one of the ways that OD is learning how to write, courtesy of Brave Writer.]
We didn’t get reports for Friday and Saturday yet, but I’m sure we’ll hear quite a bit once the train gets in.
Chickers
Yesterday, Oldest Daughter created the game of “Chickers” — it’s checkers with an Easter twist. Here’s the board:
And here are the playing pieces:
“But wait!” you say. “How do you get a ‘king’?” Well, I’m glad you asked! You put your piece in a basket:
And if there aren’t enough baskets? That’s the twist in the game. It’s your tough luck. You only have yourself to blame for not getting across the board more quickly.
