More Tinkergarten and General Update

We had Tinkergarten this morning.  

The instructor brought "forest putty" (aka home made play doh), and the kids had fun hiding nature treasures in their big ball of putty and then surprising Daniel and me with them.  It was fun.  

Charlie enjoyed squishing his fingers all through the putty.

Elliot woke up totally hoarse, and his little voice sounds so cute to me.  

Lucy and Elliot had been looking forward ALL WEEK to Tinkergarten.  They wanted to shout their names during the introduction song time.  

They are usually quite reserved and quiet during that time, but somehow they got it in their heads that it would be hysterical for them to shout out their names at the proper time and surprise everyone.  They are so funny.

Oliver has been talking more and more!  Speech therapy is really helping, I think.  The therapist comes to our house once/week and plays very intentionally with Oliver, naturally incorporating lots of sounds and speech through play.  

She very seldom asks him to repeat something but rather models talking and noise-making during play.  

It's really interesting to observe how she does it.  His vocabulary has exploded, so that's great; we're focusing a little more on his articulation now.  That is still lacking, but he's improving.  

I resigned from my position with MinuteClinic, and it's lovely to look at the calendar now and know that I'll get to be a part of our weekend plans more consistently!  There may be something new for me in the coming months, but I'm not sure what.  

The timing is great, because Daniel also quit his job!  He is working full time for Sprinkl now--his side project he began a couple years ago with his friend and business partner.  

It's just a whole new chapter for us!  It feels good.  It feels really good being done with pregnancies and having babies!  Our family is complete (at least barring any big God-given surprises), and that feels amazing.  

Homeschool is going great.  It takes very little time out of the day, and the kids are getting to play outside a lot.  Since that was my main reason for wanting to homeschool, it's nice to see it happening.  Today is one of those rare days when the weather is gorgeous, the afternoon is open, and we're all home.  Thank goodness no one is in soccer yet, though I suppose that's fun in its own way.