Rocks and Mud and Streams and Thaw

We were blessed with a drastic weather change a couple weeks ago.  Spring thaw presented itself with 20 deg celsius heat and sunshine.  Of course, this meant that the pile of snow in the yards and fields quickly melted and sent streams coursing behind our house. 

I remember floating bark and twig "boats" down ditch-streams when I was a little girl.  I guess the lure of those temporary brooks hasn't been lost through the generations.

On this particular day, the older girls were away doing the older girl social thing.  The littles were left to entertain themselves, and me.  What better choice than playing in the snow melt?

At first, Gen was a bit timid.  To a little girl, I suppose, that seems like a lot of water.  To this particular girl, who abhors baths, it probably seemed like too much water!

Soon, though, she got her sandals muddy and her hands dirty and generally had a good time.  Her favourite part was throwing rocks into the water. 

I wish I had a picture of her actually in the water.  Though she didn't get fully in, she did dip her toes.  She would squat by the edge of the stream, re-e-each for a rock, teeter on the edge and then straighten herself, safe.  I worried a bit.  What if she fell in?  But, logic and reason soon won over Mommy Worry and I let her go.  There's so much to learn from getting dirty, cold, wet and muddy.  Could she have fallen in?  Sure.  With me right there, though, the biggest risk was simply to fall in and get pulled out.  The risk of hovering, in my opinion, is far greater.  At the worse we'd be dealing with a chill and a cold, rather than the timid, self-conscious demeanor of a sheltered child. 

I remember washing Gen's hands at the kitchen sink, once.  I was hurrying.  I turned on the tap full force, stuck her hands under there and started scrubbing.  It was only then that I noticed her expression.  Her mouth was in an "o", her eyes wide.  She was absolutely absorbed in the task of washing.  It was then that I realized that she had never felt the full force of the water from the kitchen tap....and she loved it!  I stopped washing her and let her hold her hands under the water.  I could see it all registering in her mind - the heat of the water, the feel of the individual jets in the tap, the way her skin moved under the force of the water, the difference in feeling on her palm versus the back of her hand.  Such a simple thing, but so important.

I learned a lot that day from watching my baby learn.

Firing Up the Infernal Kernel

We had our annual corn boil last Saturday.  True, we hadn't had it in a couple years, but we're hoping to put the "annual" back into the event.  Corn season snuck up on us, and so we whipped the party together in only a few days. 

What started as an "adult" party has graduated to a family friendly event.  We phoned up all the young families we could think of, and even with the short notice, a lot of them were able to be with us.  I counted more than 70 in all...which is mucho corno.

This time we set up in the back corner of our lot.  It's not super far...we only have 2 acres.  After the 104th trip to fetch forgotten items, bring little kids to the potty, get the phone, etc, it was plenty far.  I got my exercise! 

Remember how setting up a teepee for the kids was one of my summer goals?  It didn't exactly happen.  I think this is much better, though.  This was our reading tent.  The little girls claimed it very quickly, and I could hear much giggling from inside the white curtain.

The bubble station was also a big hit.  There were some massive bubbles happening here!

That was a hungry crowd, for sure.  It's never happened before, but we were very close to running out of food.  Of course, that might be a certain little boy's fault!  LOL

5 Little Monkeys

My little niece, K, turned one a few weeks ago.  I'd been knitting her little finger puppets and I'm so glad she's received them because now I can share them with you!

I went with a 5 Little Monkeys theme.  I printed and laminated the poem, and made 5 monkey puppets.  They're all a little bit different from each other. 

Here's a close-up of one of the little fellas.  I hope she likes them and has fun playing with them!

Summer Fair

It was "Old Home Week" in our town. When I first moved here, it took me a couple years to figure out just what "Old Home Week" was...no one called it "the fair" or "the expo" like the carnivals where I come from. No, it was just referred to as Old Home Week - which didn't strike me as an interesting place in the least. Now that I've figured it out, though, it has proven to be entertaining enough, and the kids like it. Personally, I like Loonie Night - where the rides are $1.

We bought $15 worth of tickets and popped the kids on some rides. Here is Graedon taking Maddie for a ride. He's very serious about the job. He was pretty upset that the ride operator made him get off the ride at the end.



Eva, driving herself.



The girls went on the fastest roller coaster ever!



We visited the petting zoo, which consisted of a turkey, a pony, some fowl, a rabbit and possibly a dog. Graedon was terrified of the turkey.



A $5 bag of cotton candy later, and our evening was complete. Not bad for an evening of family fun!

Swim Time Video

Swimming Pictures

Here are some photos of the kids swimming!

Maddie - The Fish


Eva - The Duckling, Graedon - The Frog, & Grammy P. - The Enforcer (keeps 'em in line and safe LOL)


Graedon with his very nifty and extremely helpful swimbelt.



I have a video, too, but I'm still working out some bugs with uploading it. Enjoy the last few days of this heat wave!

ABC Manipulatives

I got this great idea from one of the veteran homeschool moms in our homeschool group. Kids love manipulatives. Some kids find them very useful for when they are learning, especially if they are tactile learners. Plus, they're just fun :)

I was at the local discount store and I came across some Christmas discount items. In one of the bins was a plastic bucket of 3D letters - glittered to boot! Perfect! We've been using them to practice our sounds, spelling words, and the like.

Today we used them a bit differently. I've been collecting small items in an old wipe box. I have little toy animals, a comb, dice, fake berries, play food, tiny play chicks, and all sorts of other miniature things. The girls each had to pick an item and match it with the letter that the word might start with. For example, Car = "C" Then, since Maddie is beyond that stage now, I spelled out a bunch of items (car, duck, pizza, deer, spoon, etc) and she had to read the word, match the item to the word and find a rhyming word. They really enjoyed that! Thanks, Kate, for the ideas!

Roman Night

Our homeschool group had Roman Night last week. I loved it! The kids were invited to dress up as Romans. Here's a picture of my little Roman girls:



The only picture of a Roman baby/toddler I saw showed the babe naked, so that was going to be my costume for Graedon. Just kidding! I ran out of time, and he had to go as a present-day Canadian boy.

Roman Night was kicked off with a presentation of what a typical Roman's day might be like. Here's our favourite hystorical re-enactor showing us some Roman toys. She spoke about their clothes, jobs, hobbies, family life, etc.



Then everyone was invited to go to different stations where they could try out some Roman activities. There was weaving, dice & marble making, food, match the word/number, etc.



Maddie & Eva also made masks, like at the theatres.



They even tried their hand at making mosaics.



At the end, we were all treated to a mini-feast. Talk about good! Some of the items were olives, grapes, different cheeses, stuffed dates, dried apricots, nuts, cheese spread on bread, sausages, stuffed boiled eggs (with a honey/cumin mixture), and even fake doormice!

I'm really hoping there will be more time periods we can explore in the future!

To Make a Dinosaur Egg

Eva recently did a project on dinosaurs. She presented it in front of the homeschool group (over 60 people!). I thought it'd be fun to make a dinosaur egg to show everyone. Here's how we did it:

First we mixed up a papier maché paste. All it is is flour and enough water to make it the consistency of wallpaper paste (or a thick glue).



Other than that, we used a mold (a balloon the size of a dino egg (I hope?)), and newspaper torn into strips. Also, don't forget an apron. It's messy.



We dipped the newspaper into the paste, removed the excess icky stuff and neatly placed the strips over the balloon until it was entirely covered. Then, we let it dry completely.



When it was dry, we popped the balloon and painted the egg. Actually, that's what we should have done. What we really did was get impatient and pop it too soon. Then we realized that we needed another coat of newspaper because the egg was a bit flimsy. If you try to do that without the mold, it gets the dry parts wet and they cave in and you get a bumpy egg. Oops.


Here's the finished project, bumps and alls!

Get Ready for Summer Day

We've had some unusually nice weather this week. The temperature rose to 22 degrees! It was wonderful, and we took full advantage of it.

The girls discovered some new friends under some old planks on the lawn. It wasn't long before they had a half dozen slow swirlies scooped into a jar. Wondering what they are?


Here's a closer look - snails! Tiny, cute snails. Then, they discovered a slug and that was the end of that. Slugs, even though they are really only shell-less snails, are not at all the cute critters snails are. Slugs are gross. So we found a new adventure.


I put the kiddos to work at planting seeds for the garden. I've been wanting to start from seed for a while, but always missed the "deadline". I think I may have started early enough this year. They had a blast scooping dirt, poking holes, counting seeds and watering them.


Even Graedon helped. Here's hoping for some tomatoes, cucumbers, oregano, chives, basil, marjoram and parsley.


Coming soon to a post near you, Maddie and Eva's Plant Journal!

Smile of the Day - Healthy Eating

Maddie & I were watching Oprah. This is a very rare event, but since we're down with a tummy bug, the TVs been on and the barf buckets out. Sorry, TMI.

Anyway, Jamie Oliver, who is leading a Food Revolution, was burying a family's deep fryer in their backyard to signal the end of their deep frying diet.

Maddie (having never seen a deep fryer): What's that?

Me: It's a deep fryer.

Maddie: Why are they burying it?

Me: Because it's not very healthy to cook with a deep fryer. He's helping them be healthier.

Maddie: So, are they going to get an up fryer now?

Today's Smile

Eva: Mommy, how do you say "fork" in french?

Me: Fork is "fourchette".

Eva: And in spanish it's "dingelhopper"?

Happy Birthday Maddie!

Marden's Find

Check out my Marden's find! I got these super cute Christmas gloves for $1.99 I keep them in my purse, and when the kids and I have to wait in the car or in line somewhere, I dig them out and do a puppet show.

There's Santa and Mrs Claus, a reindeer and even a little elf. Usually Mrs. Claus is trying to force-feed Santa because he's too skinny. The elf is freaking out because he is overworked and underpaid, and there's no elf-union, and Rudolph is dealing with some self-esteem issues of his own.

They're super warm. The only bad part is that Mrs. Claus' hair is too long and keeps getting caught in the door when I leave the house. Ah well. You can't have everything.

Our Nativity Scene

I looked all over for a nativity scene the kids and I could craft up. I wanted a simple, free, printable project and I couldn't find one! Then, 2 days before Christmas, I stumbled across one online.

Here it is, a very realistic (?) example of Jesus' humble birth.



Mary, Joseph and little Jesus.



The donkey that carried Mary over all those miles to Bethlehem. Poor donkey. It looks like I feel.



In Maddie's opinion, Mary should have ridden a cow to Bethlehem. According to Mad, cows are much faster because they can run. Hunh.

Nicaragua Day 1 - We Arrive!

The two girls who went on the Nicaragua trip and I were going to pool our pictures together so that we'd have a more complete photo log of our voyage. However, I've been waiting a month and those pictures haven't shown up! So, you'll have to make do with my attempts at amateur photography...sorry!


We flew out of Boston on Halloween morning. Our stop-over was in Houston, TX. Nobody called me ma'am. I was disappointed. What didn't disappoint was the airport! It was huge, with a mall inside it bigger than the one in our hometown. We ate at a restaurant and were served by a waiter dressed up as Thin Lizzie, complete with zebra print pants and curly blonde wig.

Did you know they have plastic knives in airport restaurants? I'm thinking 9/11.



We flew into Managua late at night. It gets dark at 4:30 pm year-round in Nicaragua. Rather than have us travel the roads at night, our organizers put us up at the Camino Real. It was beautiful! First thing we did? Swim!! The water was just like bath water, but still refreshing, since the humidity hovered around 97% and the temp was in the mid-high 30s.



This hotel (and most buildings in Nicaragua, it would seem) was built semi-open. The rooms were enclosed, but the hallways from one part of the hotel to the next were breezeways. When we woke up the first morning, it was pouring! Thank God for the breezeways.

Our first breakfast was buffet. It was delicious. They had all the "normal" stuff, but the Nicaraguan stuff was a bit heavy. They had fried plantain, deep-fried cheese slices (yummy!), a sort of breakfast casserole with loads of cheese, tomatoe sauce, pasta, etc., whole milk, and lots of beans and rice.



I liked this statue. I think it's a Nicaraguan mama and her baby. I thought it was very breastfeeding friendly, don't you?



Foliage. I thought this was a vanilla tree, and the guard said, "Si, si!" when I asked him. I don't think he understood the question, though, because it turns out it's not a vanilla tree at all.



I'll have more pics soon - stay posted!