After dinner we went to Barnes and Nobles. Mark and Matthew read while the girls and I stopped at the Thomas the Tank Engine table as we have many many many times before. 

Reformation Family

We are hosting our own Reformation Festival this Saturday. At Target and Walmart I found all these blue costumes. I got Matthew a king costume, but he want to be a Ninja. We are not celebrating Halloween, but focusing instead on the time when Martin Luther nailed up his 95 Thesis. Many families in our church are making booths for the festival. We have made a Wittenburg door that will be covered in balloons to be burst. I will also be taking photos of folks in costume. Other people are doing things like rat toss, bow and arrow shoot, a dunking booth, candle making and the like. It should be a lot of fun.

Renaissance Festival

Becky and I took our kids out to the Renaissance Festival this week, it was a lot of fun. I have lived 7 miles from this place for 2 years now and have never been, I have been missing out. It is great, and huge and overwhelming.

Lily and Ellie sharing ice cream while listening to great singing from a group called Canopy.

The boys trying out their new swords. 

Lily at the Jousting, with her new dagger... you can buy all kinds of weapons there! 

At the Renaissance Festival they got to see a blacksmith make an iron dragon, glass blowing, jousting, period singing and dancing. I Iove all the old Medieval stuff. Tons of actors were dressed up in costume and referred to us as Lords and Ladies. Here is Matthew eating lunch with his buddy, Blaine.

Reality

Just to be real - my kids are not always happy and cooperative!

Annie is getting bigger. Almost 9 months and crawling about the place.  

Matthew doing school. He is usually sleepy in the morning and it takes him a while to get going, but we still get a boat load of work done. He is the dream student.  

I have been doing flash cards with Laura lately. I remember doing them with Matthew at 2, she is a visual learned like him. Lily is more of an auditory learner so flash cards have never been her thing. 

Laura age 2.5

Dinner outdoors

The weather is getting cooler now, we had some friends over for dinner and had the first meal of the season outdoors.

Rainbow fruit

In preschool we did a few days on food. Here the girls made a rainbow of fruit. We had fun eating it.

Food men

Back to school

We are doing more preschool stuff for the girls now. Matthew is pretty much doing his own thing. I lay out the work he must do that day and he does it independently. I miss the time I use to spend with him one on one, but I need to teach Lily to read and Laura to focus and follow directions. It is fun, just different.

Annie is 6.5 months old now. She is sitting up well on her own and reaching so far for toys she is almost crawling. I am introducing solids to her and she is very happy about that. Perhaps she will go back to sleeping through the night with a fuller tummy and mommy and daddy with get a solid night of sleep. She is the happiest baby, always smiling and being pleasant. Here she is getting to sit on the lovely soft, bug free grass in 60 degree weather.  

The kids are really getting a taste of real life in Ireland. We have been to the shops and spent time with local people. They have spent a lot of time on my mum's fence talking to the neighbor kids. There are 2 girls next door, 7 and 5 with whom Lily and Matthew have become friends, they even got to go to their birthday parties and eat the types of party food that I ate when I was little. In this way they are getting to not only be tourists, but have a feel for real life.  

We are doing lots of touristy things as well. Here we are in an old grave yard where Celtic crosses are 2 a penny.  

Sisters playing ring a ring a rosie on a mountain path in Glendalough.