Wednesday, November 04, 2009

today

-Robotic Arms

-Super Mario Sunshine (on Youtube)

-Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban (video)

-Stovetop Popcorn

-Collecting eggs and feeding chickens

-Friends/Park/Playground

-Riding Bikes & Scooters

-Big Piles Of Fall Leaves To Play In

-Bread Store (yummy bread samples)

-Grocery Store

-Library (books on hold, books on cd)

-Elevators/Escalators

-Bakugan (online videos and a book from the library)

-Wishbones

-Ice Age Dawn of The Dinosaurs

-Pokemon

-Making letters out of Astro Logix (Kyan's idea)

-Dumbells

-Brothers playing with toys together

-Listening to books on CD as I type this

-Plans for reading Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire (book) along with various library books for before going to sleep


Goodnight:)

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Unschoolers Test

Sandra Dodd's 'Big Book Of Unschooling' arrived in the mail on monday, and I've been skipping around reading bits here and there. All the stuff that's in the book is on her website here, but I love having it in book form just to pick up and read one section at a time. It's akin to my reading Scott Noelle's daily groove every day, just something profound in the realm of unschooling/mindful parenting to keep on the forefront of my mind as I move through the day with my children.

I loved this paragraph in the Author's Introduction concerning the book:

"There will be a test, but I will neither create it or proctor it. The test will be when something you learned from this book could make your life better. The bonus points come from your using something you learned in this book to make someone else's life better."

Now that's my kind of test.

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Monday, November 02, 2009

Costumes '09

Damek as a blackhole ("the star on his chest is energy for the blackhole as it sucks the matter out of the star" as explained by Damek)
Damek as a blackhole
Kyan as a bat
Kyan as a bat
I have to say this year was by far the biggest candy haul yet! Although the kids don't seem to be gorging on it like I thought they would. I seriously can barely tell by looking in their bags (not by the wrappers all over the house) that they've eaten very much at all. Yesterday while shopping at Whole Foods Damek wanted to get some of the natural jelly beans (I know I thought "don't we have enough candy at home", but refrained from saying so), and the boys each had a couple handfuls of those and didn't touch their halloween candy.


note: Lee and I also dressed up, me as a witch and Lee as a kick-ass (my words, not his although he was pretty proud of it himself, as well as he should be) robot that he & Damek built together. I'm going to get him to dress up again so I can get a picture (couldn't get one on halloween night as he had to put it on outside in the dark because it wouldn't fit through the door) and then I'll post it.

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Damek's Black Hole Bank-Part 1

Damek is in the planning stages of designing his own "black hole bank" (he dressed up as a black hole for halloween, which I will soon be posting pictures of). He's been talking about it for about a month and I finally sat down with him to ask specifics so we could get started with the actual accumulation of materials and then move on to the building of it (that's where Lee will step in as facilitator).

Here are some preliminary ideas Damek wants to incorporate into the bank:

-circle cut out of wood for the top, not too big, but not too thin.

-red and black will be the colors

-two rectangular pieces of wood on either side with two square pieces of wood on top of those coming together as an upside down "V" at the top underneath the circular piece of wood on top

-wants a circle cut out of wood for the bottom that is black

-wants a globe to hold the coins

Here is Damek's drawing of the bank:

the zigzags going down the middle represent how the coins will make their way into the "bank" part of it, but I'm still a little confused as to how he wants this part to be. He is pretty adamant about how it is going to work, so I guess when him and Lee start the actual building of it they can sort that out then and see what will and won't work in regards to the actual physics of the bank.

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Saturday, October 31, 2009

Our Jack O' Lanterns

On wednesday we were invited over to a friends house for dinner and to carve jack o' lanterns. Lee wasn't able to come, but he carved his last night.

Damek's (he drew his freehand and helped cut the eyes out)

Kyan's (he picked his image from a template and I carved it)

Mine (also from a template)

Lee's (freehand cutting without drawing it on first)

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Saturday, October 24, 2009

Pizza & Movie Night

Last night we had our first "pizza & movie night". We decided that now that fall is here and winter not far behind and there is less and less to do outside that we would start a weekly ritual of making homemade pizza and watching movies on friday night.

Last night we made some yummy homemade pizza with this crust and fresh mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, goat milk ricotta (bought at the very last farmer's market of the season), natural pepperoni and the boys favorite, pineapple & olives. The movies we watched were 'Meet The Robinsons' and 'Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban' (thanks Dan & Toni, I think we would have been waiting another month for the library copy). We all had a great time.

Looking forward to watching some neat movies this winter with the boys.

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

"Snow School"

Last night I attended our Salt Lake Home Educators monthly meeting. I am the treasurer and it's membership renewal time, so last night I collected lots of dues and will be making and sending out membership cards by the end of the month.

Yesterdays topic was "snow school", so everyone contributed fun ideas on how to have fun outside (and inside) for the winter. Here in Salt Lake City, we get lots of snow in the winter and have approx. 6 ski resorts with a 1/2 hour to 45 minute drive.

A fellow member & our newsletter editor Lisa who works at the Ski School up at Snowbird during the winter is getting a homeschool group together for ski/snowboard lessons. She takes her kids with her to work and they get to ski all day, how fun is that! They are also on race teams, so they get lots of practice time in with not having to be in school all day. I haven't asked Damek if he's interested yet, but I will as soon as he gets up today.

Some other ideas were making snow sculptures. One lady talked about how her dad used to pile big mounds of snow and pack it down and then make sculptures out of it. A few he made with the kids help were the Eifel Tower, Abraham Lincoln & George Washingtons faces, & the Empire State Building. We talked about sledding, places to go to snowshoe & cross country ski, winter hikes on paved trails or packed snow & even full moon hikes at night.

There was also talk about the science behind snowflakes and our web administrator Stephanie brought a handout from snowcrystals.com that shows the morphology of a snowflake. She talked about how under the right conditions, you can see large flakes complete with hexagonal symmetry, and that she saw 5mm flakes last year. She also said that it's best to take something dark outside to catch snowflakes with, such as a piece of fabric or cardboard. Stephanie also brought a book titled 'The Snowflake'

by Kenneth G. Libbrecht. He also has other books titled 'The Art of The Snowflake', 'The Little Book Of Snowflakes', & 'Field Guide To Snowflakes'. There was talk about snowflake Bentley, a snow scientist, and the true book about his life titled 'Snowflake Bentley'
. He grew up in Vermont and as a child was fascinated with snowflakes. Later he was able to study snowflakes under high powered microscopes and he took some amazing photos of them as well.

Lisa said her family has a yearly ritual of making a "snow" cake on the day of the first snow (which we've already had), which consists of white cake, white frosting, marshmallows & coconut.

Spending more time indoors in the winter people had suggestions for snuggling up by a fire (if you have a fireplace), and our coordinater Alyssa talked about how her family likes to get out modeling dough and beeswax and warm it over candle flames and how they like to play with & mold the dough & wax while listening to stories being read aloud. Of course having hot chocolate, coffee or chai after you've spent a great deal of time outside is always nice. My friend Melissia mentioned awhile back to me that they were getting some indoor swings that will mount in a doorway for their girls to swing on during the winter, and they also bring in their big plastic slide as well.

After hearing all the fun ideas people had, I'm excited for winter to come. Although we gotta get through Halloween first, and as soon as I publish this post, I'm off to sew up Kyan's bat costume as we're going to 'Garden After Dark' tonight when Lee get's home.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

38

yesterday was my birthday.

On sunday my mom invited us and my sister's family over for a celebratory dinner. When I was opening the cards from my mom and my sister & her family, Kyan said "we forgot our presents", not knowing that we were celebrating as a family on my birthday:)

Damek told Lee he wanted to get me a sewing pattern since he's noticed that I've been "really liking sewing and have been sewing a lot lately and is really getting good at it". He couldn't settle on a pattern at the fabric store, but told Lee that "whenever we come here mom is always looking at fabric, and she always gets fabric", so Damek and Kyan picked me out 6 quarters of different fabrics, and I have to say they have very good taste. I even used the fabric Kyan picked out early this morning and when Kyan got up and saw me sitting at my sewing machine utilizing his fabric his eyes got big and he said "your using the fabric I picked out", in a very excited voice:)

I got to go shopping for myself on saturday, and I chose to buy some clothes (thanks Lee!). I went to two different secondhand shops and to TJ Maxx as well as a shoe store. I was able to get a pair of ankle boots, a pair of pants, 2 sweaters, a jacket, and three shirts for right around $100!

With some of the birthday money my mom gave me I bought a Garden Journal from Prairie Garden's Etsy Shop, which I'm very much looking forward to getting and finally after 13 years of having a garden, writing in a journal! With the rest of the money we went out to dinner at an authentic Napoli style pizzaria downtown called Setebello's that I've been wanting to try for some time now. Not a whole lot like American pizza, but oh so good! We all loved it and the boys are already talking about the next time we go there.

My sister and her family got me a gift card to Joann's Fabrics, and of course, as I told my sister, after 2 days it was burning a hole in my pocket and I had to go buy me some pinking shears (they were 50% off!), which I needed, and also some fabric, which I of course also needed:)

Lee's mom invited us over as well for another birthday dinner next weekend. Looking forward to seeing Lee's side of the family and celebrating once again.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes from my friends and family the last few days, I'm grateful to have you all in my life.

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flow

I decided to come write a post, as the boys are in imagination land right now. I try not to disturb them when their playing their games, as I notice that when I disrupt them they'll stop mid-game. If I let them be and do my own thing either downstairs or upstairs depending on where they are at, they will play for a good 2 hours together until their ready on their own to go their separate ways. This way I get what I need to get done while their playing and then when their done and one of them wants help with a project or wants me to read books to them or do one of a myriad of other things, then I'm available. When they are independently occupying themselves I do the same thing. It seems to make our days flow pretty smooth when I leave the "rhythm" so to speak up to them, instead of holding them off because I have things to do or trying to push them into wanting to do a project before they are ready (because I happen to be ready) and wanting to do it.

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Monday, October 19, 2009

10/19/2009

Lee had a welcome unexpected day off today:)

First thing this morning, Lee & the boys put up our halloween ghosts out in the front yard.


While out there Lee spotted a Great Egret at the top of a tall tree about street over (a telephoto lens would have come in handy here), anyway if you look close you can plainly see it on the top right of the tree. At least we had Lee's trusty binoculars that we all got to pass around many times (it stayed there for over an hour).
Egret (proof that I need a telephoto lens)
Great Egret 2 (more proof that I need a telephoto lens)
Witnessed a praying mantis on our one lone rose bush devouring a grasshopper
Praying Mantis devouring a grasshopper
I processed our leftover habaneros (60 in all) into flaming hot sauce for the winter & jarred them (32 half pints!).

Lee, Damek & I planted 3-10 foot rows of garlic.

Lee, Kyan and I planted 2-10 foot rows of radish seeds. As we were walking out to the garden to plant the radish seeds, Kyan was carrying the packets and started shaking them, then he said "if our garden is all full, then we can just use these to make music":)

I am currently roasting whats left of our anaheims, jalapenos & poblano peppers to freeze for the winter.

Yesterday I processed approx. 75-90 pounds of apples and canned 12 more quart jars of applesauce (we had already done 10 jars a couple weeks ago), and plan on doing 2 more batches. I'm also currently drying lots of apples for the winter.

Lee started working on a chicken house this weekend for the girls, and got 2 walls & the ceiling up along with insulation and a window in the south wall.

I'm loving this mild fall weather we've been having. This weekend it got up in the upper 70's, with 40's at night. I'm hoping it will hold out so we can get a few more things planted in the garden for the winter.

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