what's up in our house...

****It is the 9th anniversary for Ma and Pa Hoff!  We are amazed by how fast the time has gone and how much our love has grown!  I was sooooooooo in love on our wedding day, I surely never imagined that I could actually fall more deeply in love, but yet here we are, still making googly eyes at each other.

Well, actually we are imitating carp, but very lovingly. We do those sorts of things. Publicly, apparently.

*****I got this great new toy at Educator's Market and Toy store. I am using it as a fun way to get Wolf to make some basic math worksheets, as he loathes math facts. This has helped take some of the "BORRRR-ing!" out of it. It was only a buck!

A die in a die!  

******I can not get enough of this...

p.s. my food photog is the worst.  Not even '70's cookbook bad, just fugly.

Homemade wheat and flax bread toasted with half peanut-half almond butter with sunflower seeds and chia seeds. That sounds as stupid as one of those complicated Starbuck's orders, but I swear I am just not that fancy. But this is crunchy and creamy and sweet and salty and...o.k., it is a tad complex. 

*****We went to the Early Settler's Music Celebration at the Rocky River Nature Center with a short hike to the Frostville Museum. They had all kinds of activities and displays related to Pioneer and Native american ways of life.  The boys got to see a cannon fire, saw a log with a two-man saw, make clay pinch pots, write with a quill, dye yarn, taste honey and cornbread baked over an open fire. 

The sawing took forever, so the 'rents had to assist

They watched apple butter being made and cider being pressed and sampled it more times than they probably should have. They listened to music and tried out square dancing.  It was a great tie-in for the pioneer education we have been doing in homeschooling. BTW, I am loving the series from Little House for kiddos of the younger variety, My First Little House.  The kids love the short stories and have a better time absorbing them than from the regular Little House books.  The illustrations are nice too. I cried reading the one where they leave the Big Woods of Wisconsin for the prairie. I am total moosh inside.

**** Tonight we will attempt a "date" for our anniversary.  Nothing too far-fetched, just dinner.  We will see how it goes, as our track record is not good. Past events include restaurants being closed, shoes that hobbled me, getting too drunk to drive on ONE margarita and having to spend too long in a drug store searching for products with names that made us giggle and then sobering up on ice cream... well that actually was pretty good, so you never know!