Morning Lesson Spots

Lesson Kitty reporting for duty! xo 

On Sunday

A glorious Sunday called for a trip to Tower Hill. We were the first people to arrive and had the entire place to ourselves for a good long while. The girls and I walked around, oohing and aahing over each gorgeous flower, tree and plant we saw. And gracious, the honey bees were abundant and hard at work! We crafted a bit (do you love the honeycombs we designed?) and explored some more, had some lunch and ended our visit with a fun filled scavenger hunt! We stayed much longer than we had planned, but really, on a gorgeous day like that, why not?! xo

Rose Ceremony Day

And so begins another year of morning lessons! Since we are always done with morning lessons by Memorial Day weekend we (generally) make it a point to start lessons again sometime in August. With the girls having two straight weeks of musical theater camp earlier this month we put off starting lessons again until today. And so, after everyone was dressed and ready for the day we gathered in the living room, put this beautiful song/video on and began our rose ceremony. Each girl crossed into the new lesson year and was, as is our tradition, given a rose and a love note. It is a beautiful and gentle way to start the new lesson year, and with it our autumn rhythm, too.

This year was the first year that the girls were not surprised by their new lesson supplies. Unlike years past where I would buy their supplies without them knowing this year they came with me and chose their own things. New scissors (since they aren't four years old anymore, which I'm pretty sure was the last time we bought kid scissors), new planners and journals, and new main lesson books (which they decorated the covers of today). While I have always enjoyed surprising them on Rose Ceremony Day with their supplies for the year, there was something fun about watching them choose what they wanted too. A new tradition for these older girls of ours, I suppose you could say.

So, regardless of how your family learns, be it at home or at school, we wish you all the most wonderful of Not-Back-to-School and Back to School weeks! May this year be full of many wonderful experiences, adventures and teachable moments to last a lifetime! xo

Hide And Seek

They hid the ten rocks they painted and in our travels found three!It was a lovely way to end our Friday! xo

{This Moment} Tailgaiting

[This Moment} A single photo -no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple special extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you are inspired to do the same leave a link to your moment in the comments section below. Wishing you a lovely last weekend of August! xo

Painting

Tonight, we went out to hide these rocks and I realized that I never shared the pictures of when the girls painted them! Ten were painted in all, and they've already started discussing what to paint on the next batch! xo

The Great American Eclipse

 Two kinds of eclipse viewers and space themed shirts. 

We were totally geeking out over the eclipse today! 

Helping Emma see the eclipse. 

There it is! 

 What an incredible experience today! Here in Massachusetts the the view was 63% obscured which was impressive enough. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to experience totality! The two different viewers were great, though I we all felt that the box-over-the-head one gave the best "picture". We tried the colander technique but didn't have any luck getting that to work (though I think I figured out what we should do differently next time). Good thing we only have to wait until April of 2024 to try it again! Thank you, Mother Nature, for allowing us to have such a gorgeous day for this amazing show! It was simply magical!  xo

Saturday Night In Hudson

There are only two things that could have made last night even better. One- seeing that dragon balloon fly. Two- seeing all the balloons glowing at the same time!

No matter your age, watching that dragon balloon inflate and rise was truly incredible! As we walked back to the car we were surprised to see the balloon  towering over all the trees. If we didn't have a massive line of people walking behind us I would  have stopped to take a quick picture! It really was the most impressive (and massive) balloon we have ever seen at the balloon festival! xo