Plath’s Adventures

We’ve been sick again. This past year we’ve been in an endless cycle of getting sick and we were hit yet again. This time it was a doozy ~ everyone ended up on antibiotics and had horrible coughs (and ear infections). We didn’t do much other than lay around. Although Eleanore, who was hit first, was feeling better while Adelaide and I were still sick, so she did a few crafts,


science experiments

and other fun things, like make a cast for her foot out of stickers…

We were all feeling mostly better by Eleanore’s birthday last Friday, so we decided to hit the zoo (as did half of metro-Detroit, I’m suspecting… they were PACKED).

It was interesting to say the least… perhaps entry to four year old-dom is very emotional? Eleanore proceeded to scream and cry throughout the entire trip, so we weren’t there for very long. She did manage to scale a huge rock and see a few animals

as well as ride the carousel. Which she refused to get off of, which was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back (Mommy and Daddy’s patience) and we headed home.

We did, of course, have time for cake and presents when we got home, as well as Eleanore’s requested dinner ~ homemade pepperoni and pineapple pizza. (even though Eleanore decided she didn’t like pineapple on her pizza anymore). Being four is complicated.

She did like her homemade baby that I sewed her, which I was thankful of! I haven’t managed to grab a nice picture of it yet though. It looks a little scary to me, but she likes it, so that’s all that matters.

The Easter baskets went over well. Our Easter grass (wheatgrass) survived until Easter this year, unlike last year when we planted it too early, and looked nice in the girls’ baskets.


Adelaide LOVED hunting for eggs. She had been practicing all week with our basket of plastic eggs. She has been bringing each egg to me and then walking them back to the basket.

One last bit of exciting news! Our wooly bear caterpillar has spun his cocoon and will hopefully be emerging as a tiger moth in a few days.

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year, we had fun exploring rainbows. For our circle group, we read the book What Makes a Rainbow

and then made some rainbow prints using shaving cream and paint. Unfortunately, I didn’t snag a picture of the rainbow prints, but did get a few of Eleanore having a little sensory play after she made her print. I think that was the highlight of the art activity

We also did a little rainbow science experiment at home using shaving cream and food coloring to make rainbow rain with shaving cream clouds using this technique.

We’re also growing things all over. We have our grass seed started for our Easter basket in the kitchen window.

I have celery started from leftover stumps on the kitchen counter.

Eleanore started some cosmo flower seeds in a ziploc bag taped to the dining room window (it was also a great little cloud/rain experiment with the condensation that formed).

And I started our first round of seeds under the grow lights in the garage. Still waiting for our big orders to arrive from Territorial Seeds and Miller’s Nursery. We’re growing about the same plants as last year, with added peas (which are already planted and sprouting in the garden). We also ordered two paw paw trees, some rhubarb, asparagus and horseradish, which will all be new to us. Our unseasonably hot weather seems to have come to an end and we had a freeze the other night. Hopefully our in full bloom peach tree still fruits this year. Everything else looks ok, although lots of plants are definitely making their appearance earlier than normal!

Behind the scenes, I’m birthday crafting for Eleanore’s upcoming fourth birthday. Hoping to finish a birthday crown, small doll using this tutorial and a birthday ring piece before next Friday.

My laptop is now officially dead, but we’re still here.
Playing dress up with friends

Painting the living room

roller skating (I even donned skates last week!)

Reading books like Elmer and crafting our own patchwork elephants

Playing on our new lounge cushions (I finally got around to sewing Eleanore up her own and both girls love it):

Dressing up our doll in her new tutu:

and making oobleck after reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck

My laptop is currently dying a slow death, so my updates have been less frequent lately.  The past week it has taken over an hour to boot up.  Coupled with the fact that Jason is out of town (for 12 days!) and has very limited cell phone service where he’s at, we’re keeping super busy so we don’t wallow in our Daddy-missing-funk.  Normally we only schedule “outings” a few days a week, but we’ve managed to fit in play dates and lots of activities every day to keep us busy while he’s gone.

We’ve gone to the zoo, the roller rink, had a mini super bowl party (just the three of us with lots of fun snacky food), fed the birds at a local metro park, library story time, our homeschool prek circle group and have done lots of art and crafting. A few pictures to share:

The seed catalogs are pouring in and it’s time to start planning our garden for next year. I’m getting the itch to start a few lettuce seeds already, although it’s probably too early. However, we are growing onions in the kitchen!
Pinterest clued me in on this little tip… Did you know you can grow green onions from the grocery store after you use them up? Just throw your root ends in some water until they get going and then transplant them to soil.

Here they are the morning after I used them in our egg rolls:

Two days later, look how much they’ve grown!

Adelaide is not impressed… she just wants her milk.

Remember the cool dragon craft I mentioned on Monday?
We made him yesterday and think he turned out ferocious!

Enjoying lots of books this winter, even though it hasn’t felt very wintery. We finally got a bit of snow over the weekend, although this has still been a very mild winter snow-wise for us. We’ve been working our way homeschool-wise through Jan Brett’s The Hat and The Mitten, Snowy Day, Snow Music, penguins (including nap-time readings of Mr. Popper’s Penguins), and this week is dragons in honor of Chinese New Year today.
We made red lanterns:

and cool dragon masks

as well as a dragon puppet:

This art project is definitely on the agenda:

Check out my winter pinboard for more ideas and to see what else we have up our homeschooling sleeves.

We’ve also spent a lot of time baking in the kitchen. Everything from cookies to bread, pizza, bagels, pretzels. Eleanore is getting great at mixing dough.

and Adelaide is gobbling it all up

A lot of pretend baking and cooking has been happening, as well. We moved the girls’ play kitchen out into our dining room this past week and they’ve both had great fun baking cookies and rattling the pots and pans.