School and Tyce and play and sweet potatoes

Sayer did her ETC pages this morning, followed by reviewing the mindsprinting.com math lesson of the last couple days. I think she might more than half way get the math concept. She had to draw large square grids for hundreds, tall skinny lined rectangles for tens, and small squares for ones. So the number 341 would have three large grid squares, four tall skinny lined rectangles, and one small square. She was doing these pretty well. Still a bit iffy on figuring out which number is greater than or less than when the numbers are 3 digits long. She can tell you that 43 is greater than 32, but is less confident that 321 is greater than 129. Mostly this is because when she doesn't just recognize the numbers she starts comparing them from the ones column rather than from the hundreds column, and nine is definitely larger than one ... She's improving, though. She'll master it soon.

Tyce came home today. He'd spent the last 2 weeks in Alabama with Chanda's parents. She missed him muchly and was very happy that he was finally back. And he was enjoying playing with his older sibs and with Sayer and Duncan. The other kids showed him the fantasy figure toys Chanda had bought for them and they all sat on the floor playing with them for a goodly while. One of these days either Chanda or I will get around to posting about these figurines. They're lovely, and the kids love them. Sayer has named her unicorn Lovelia. Duncan's fairy came with the name Falaroy, which Duncan decided he'd keep. And he named Falaroy's horse Naier. Or Neigher. Or Nayer. You get the idea :)

This afternoon when Chanda and her mom took the critters to swim practice the kids and I came upstairs and read two more library books. Both were Middle Eastern tales, one from the Arabian Nights, and one about 3 princes who are given a year to find a wonderous gift to offer to the princess whose hand they are trying to win. We liked both books. The artwork in the Arabian Nights story book was marvelous!

And after we finished with those books, since I needed to begin dinner prep, we went downstairs to find something on Netflix that the kids could watch streaming. I was still scanning the titles when Sayer said she wanted to watch Looney Tunes. Wonderful. So ... the title on the page was for the Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner movie, which includes several cartoons with Bugs acting as a narrator to tie the pieces together. One of the shorts in the movie was 'What's Opera, Doc?' which is the one we went out of our way to show them before. So I let them watch it. Ah, well.

Tonight for dinner we had turkey burgers with pear and bleu cheese, with grilled zucchini and yellow squash and bell peppers, and with baked sweet potatoes (are they still considered 'baked' when they're cooked in foil on the grill for an hour? Or are they grilled? Eh. Who cares. They're yummy!). Sayer announced that she was not eating either the squash or the potato I put on her plate. After much cajoling (okay, threatening) she tasted the potato and decided that she'd rather have it than the squash. Okay. Eat up! At the end of the meal she asked me if we could make 'those orange potatoes' again. Silly girl! After finally getting Duncan to try a bite he continues to not care for them. Silly boy! But he just about ate his body weight in strawberries and bananas in the last 24 hours.

This evening before bed we read the last two library books. Another one of short simple stories from the Middle East, and the last half of a book about Cat Mummies.

Now the kiddos are asleep, dreaming of the fun we'll have hanging around in the Dallas airport for 3+ hours tomorrow. We leave Houston in the late morning and have a long layover in Dallas before getting back to the Bay Area. I brought games with us so I can save the computer battery for use on the plane. Wish me luck ... :)