What a week.

Okay, so this post was from well over a month ago...  We took a trip to Washington State for a few weeks, plus our computer died and now I'm forced to learn Linux in order to update this blog.  Alas.  Please forgive.

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I don't even know where to start...  The kids wanted to spend most of the week at home (so much for all of those planned outings...bah.  I have a new plan for this next week though!), and some days it absolutely amazes me how much we do just being at home.

I found an unopened Crystal Growing Kit at the thrift store for $5 and had it waiting for Russ and the kids when they got home from their excursions last weekend.  Everyone thought it was super cool, but the only one to try it out was Russ, lol.  Here it is, awaiting crystal growth (which it now has):

Lessons in tattoo artistry.  I found him making this doodle and was actually really impressed that he was drawing it upside down!  He would do the eyes, and then the smile (but would get frustrated that it wasn't perfect...), then the legs and last a t-shirt.  Pretty cute!

Then he got frustrated and wanted me to help him.  "And one here.  And here.  And don't fowget my bewwy!"  He was so proud of it all, he showed it all to anyone who asked about it, ha!

We celebrated Brooklyn's birthday mostly the day before since her bday falls on a Monday.  This was her request for dinner--milkshakes!

Russ went to get some ice cream out of the carton with a crappy spoon and voila...he tried to throw it away and Brooklyn exclaimed, "NO!!  That's my magician's spoon!!!"

This is an invitation I set up one morning--it's an experiment from the science kit that Bubba and Grandpa Jerry got Brook for her birthday.

Writing down observations.

Sam decided he'd rather make more medieval siege weapons.

Pipette practice.  They wanted to put the colors onto white paper to see what it looked like.

Then Brook wanted to dissolve a color tablet on a piece of paper, and under a piece of plastic and see what happened.  It fizzes and gives off CO2, making a pocket of gas, which she thought was pretty sweet.

Crossing the colors and holding them up to the light--can you see the green?  It was very bright with the naked eye.

Mixing colors.  The kit came with a color wheel and explained that if you took the primary colors on either side of the non-primary colors, mixed them together, you'd get that non-primary color.  Got it?  i.e.  red + yellow = orange

So we wondered if we mixed the two non-primary colors on either side of a primary color if we'd get the primary color.  Hmm...my experience says no, but the kids didn't have my experience, so of course we had to try it.  The thing is, I don't know WHY that doesn't work...what makes a primary color a primary color?  Alas, sounds like a problem for a Google search bar.

Brooklyn decided she wanted to make an "apple slushy" and figured the best way was to take apple juice and crushed ice and shake them up.  Sam had a different idea...and honestly, his came out way better (could be due to the peaches, milk, and syrup he added, lol).

Who doesn't play with playdough in their cape during the week?

Brook decided it was sketching time.  On 3 pages she drew 3 different flowers--a lupine, a sunflower, and a rose.  Then the last page she drew a scene with a house and sun and trees and combined all of the flowers she drew and put them in the front yard and wrote, "HOM".  Awww.  I love that she makes use of the smudging tools and adds shadows to her stuff.  Smarty pants.

Brooklyn and Sam decided to make the neighbor kids invitations to a "Geyser Party".  We wrote and drew them all up, delivered them, and went and got our goods.  Soda + Mentos + a funnel thing = about a 13' geyser of soda!!  We had 5 kids (and a neighbor dad) betting on how high it would go and all were so eager to drop the Mentos in...I didn't get a single photo of the actual event.  But I DID narrowly avoid being drenched by soda!!

We asked the kids to go brush their teeth one night and Brooklyn announces, "Uh Mom...Sam found your makeup."  He had only been opening things and looking in them.  So I went and sat down and asked if he knew where it went and what it was for.  Another lesson in colors! lol.  Green covers up red, yellow covers up blue...they were amazed...and excited to put their new-found knowledge into action...

Brooklyn found some shaving cream and decided it was time to play.  

Buuuuut that didn't last for long.  I guess they had to get rinsed off somehow!

When I was cleaning up, I headed back inside to where Brook was first doing her art and found shaving cream sprayed EVERYWHERE!! 

But seriously, how can you get upset at THIS?!
<3 <3 <3

Sam had to join in as well!  ...for all of you that are in the Northern parts...these photos were taken in FEBRUARY.  Bwahahahah.  There are upsides to living in California!

Russ went to dish some ice cream up with this spoon and it bent.  Brooklyn saw and she asked to have it, "It's my magical spoon for my magic tricks!!!"  And then she proceeded to eat her ice cream (and applesauce the next morning) like this.

Playing a rousing game of Hide and Seek.  Yes, this is under Russ's truck.  Ironically, she cared less about being found and more about, "Wow, what the heck does THIS do?!"  Urm...you're asking the wrong person, Love.

One thing that I absolutely adore about Sam is that at any given moment he will yell, "I'm getting my socks and shoes!" and that's it, he's gone.  Out exploring, playing, climbing, and tinkering.  Here, the wheels had come off of the wagon and he sat for a good 15 minutes, repairing them.  Proud momma!

Aaaand another day where we did shaving cream art--can you tell that we enjoyed it?

Computer gaming!  "Mom, can you pwease hewp me find duh wost dragon baby?!"

One content momma.

Sam loves to blend.  At least this time it was a smoothie...

First, the milk and cheese sticks.  Yes, I said cheese sticks.

Then the berries, leftover salad and sandwich and flip the switch!  Voila!  And no, it is rarely eaten...all in the good name of science!

He's got me twisted around his little finger.
<3 <3 <3

B had been asking for quite awhile to ride the scooters a block over to go down this hill.  The problem was that we always forgot about it unless we were in the car, actually going somewhere.  It was actually getting a bit annoying because she'd ask every time we got in the car.  Finally, a day where we just started walking around the block and remembered.  She got her fill and hasn't asked since.  Need to remember that next time, lol.

Experimenting...

Aaaaand more experimenting.  I have no clue what he was trying to accomplish, but he looks pretty happy with himself.

The kids LOVE blossoms, especially when they fall like snow.  So Sam, being who he is...gets a large ROCK and starts chucking it into the air to hit the blossoms.  Sigh.  At least I caught him before he threw it straight up (or attempted to, it was a heavy sucker!), and corrected his angle of trajectory to be more useful...and a bit less destructive.

More shaving cream art!

For a few grocery trips, the kids begged to get some of these.  I put it off and put it off and finally decided, why?  I'd never tried them.  Kumquats!  They were interesting, but I can definitely say that I won't be buying them again, as our composting worms enjoyed most of them!

I now have to figure out how to download and edit my photos with Linux.  Sigh.  Wish me luck!  Hope to get more posts up soon!

SIX?!?!

Geez!  Falling behind!  Gotta get back on the horse here...

Brooklyn turned 6 on March 5th!  We celebrated more or less all weekend, but here's her actual Day.

She woke up to balloons, candy, presents and of course her Six crown.  Happy day!!

Russ got her a butterfly pavilion!  Unfortunately, I didn't get the caterpillars ordered before her birthday (they came the day after).  Now, 2 weeks later, they are all hanging in chrysalids!  So exciting!!

I got her a book about butterflies--one with some pretty amazing photos!

Cheese!!

She got an awesome experiment kit, which she was pretty stoked about.  She does "experiments" all the time, so she loves this and asks for me to set them up often for their morning Invitations.

Corinne, this is the photo I was talking about--she was screaming, "IT'S A SCUBA MASK!!  AND TUBE!!  JUST LIKE I WANTED!!!"

There was absolutely NO time wasted in suiting up.

"A POGO STICK!!!"  This kid was delirious with glee.

There was ice cream for breakfast.

She got up to 5 jumps!

We decided we needed some brunch at the local Railroad Cafe, about 3/4 mile down the road.  We figured we'd just load the kids up and walk.

About halfway there, Brooklyn decided that SHE wanted to pull.  She did pretty well, considering!

The kids pre-gaming on breakfast...with jelly packets.

We had to stop on the way home to throw rocks in the water.  It was a quick stop though, as a homeless dude showed up, dropped his bike, and mumbling to himself the entire way, walked into the creek and proceeded to bathe himself.

Making Brooklyn's cake...well, sort of.
(Please forget the shift in photos--not sure what's up with that.)

 

 

Freaking awesome cake--homemade chocolate cake with cream cheese whipped cream frosting, and then strawberries, kiwis and Rolos added to the top.  YUM.

After dinner, one of the neighbor kids came to drop off a gift for her--these crazy squiggle people, which she loved.

Looking forward to life with a 6 year old!!

The F-word.

Freak. 

As in, "Mom, lets get out of here...that girl is a freak.  She's looking for GRASSHOPPERS..."

Now I'm getting used to the odd looks and the occasional snide quips, but it's a different kind of hurt when someone says it about your kid.

Brooklyn absolutely loves making friends with random strangers.  I consider it a talent--one that I in no way came from me.  I love watching her do her thing and thrive off of a shared connection with another child as they run off playing Tag or Hide And Seek, a trail of giggles behind them.  But she has never once been up against the ominous Clique of Girls.

Well today was that day.  They were a bit older, but no more than a year (they said they were 6 1/2), and were talking about LMFAO, "Sexy And I Know It", and skinny jeans.  And then enters Brooklyn.

"Hi guys!  Want to try my pogo stick??"

Eye rolls.  Whispers.  They all turn their backs to her and walk away.

She kept trying, with different tactics--commenting on the music blaring from someones Ipod, or just standing there quietly, or inviting them to play different games.  They finally got sick of it and went to the head mom, who was sitting no more than 4 feet from me and made the original comment.  The mom stumbled for some words, talking about being nice and "just go play."

Reason #9471093 for homeschooling. 
Brooklyn has no clue who LMFAO is, what "Sexy And I Know It" is or even what skinny jeans are!  And it's okay--because she is SIX.  She should be hunting for grasshoppers, drawing in the dirt with sticks, playing Tag and having grass fights.  Not worrying about fitting in.

I asked her as we were leaving later on what she thought of the girls.  Her only comment was that they didn't seem to want to play with her--they just kept walking away.  That was it.  No frustration or resentment or irritation...although I am experiencing enough for both of us I think, lol.  Gotta love that momma-bear syndrome.

Anyway, in truth, this was about a half-hour out of an entirely fantastic day full of shaving cream fights, shaving cream art, running through the sprinklers, snorkeling in the tub, researching bengal tigers (the most dangerous large cat), grass fights, pogo-sticking, scootering, game playing, cartooning, imagining...

Therefore, venting done.  Off to snuggle and enjoy the rest of this great day!

Pancakes, new toys, bicycle adventures...oh my.

It's been a great week!  Oftentimes when I go to write this blog up and it's been more than a day or two since the previous one, I have to go look in my journal and other places that I write about what we do throughout the day because we do SO MUCH.  There are times where I feel like all we do is sit around and watch cartoons, but come the end of that day, I look back and can't even remember everything we did!  All of the curious conversations, funny moments, and times of exploration.  And it kills me that I cannot record it ALL, I don't want to forget a single minute of it all!!

Anyway, here is a bit of what we've been up to this week:

-Scanning play dough in the scanner

-Reading comics

-Making a rug

-Attempting to build a "rain shelter" out of a laundry basket and some wood scraps

-Navigated through town (kids telling me which way to turn to get home)

-Library (of course!)

 -Dress-up and Yahtzee Jr. (cover your eyes for this one, Uncle Chris!! :P )

-Pippi Longstocking

-Learning how to handle broken glass

-Experiments with toothpaste

-Vacuuming...

-Raisin hunting

-Sam made us pancakes

-And the kids wanted to eat them while cartooning.

-Microsope-ing

 -Puzzles and Spirograph-ing

-Disassembling a plastic DVD case to figure out how it works

-Inspecting dissection tools, a sheep brain, kidney and heart, and a cow eyeball

-Brook was using my camera to take photos, but got frustrated that the external flash's battery wasn't recharging fast enough.

-Bed jumping

-Pillow-People costumes

-Discussing and Googling "sound waves"

-We got a carload of homeschooling supplies from another homeschooling family that is moving.  SO many fun things!  Looks like we won't be leaving the house this week either...sigh.

-This western fence lizard wanted to go home with Russ.

-Tree-climbing.  I mean really, how could you NOT climb this tree?!

-Brooklyn and our lizard buddy, having a quiet moment

-A visit to Lawrence Hall of Science (for Russ and the kids at least, I sat this one out and hit up the thrift store for some great finds!)

-Skeleton puzzle!

 -Picnicking

-Biking to Sycamore Valley park

-Marbleworks

-Dangerous inventions (they call this their DNA roller coaster)

...and that's all I can remember!

Life is good!

Weekend Adventures!

Before I get into our adventures, can I tell you--these last few days have been some of the absolute BEST in quite some time??  Seriously.  The Best.

I've been having a tough week or so--one day having a complete breakdown over the amount of housework that I can never seem to get done, and how can I ever even hope to break even with it and then to be an involved, happy and supportive mom and wife on top of it all??  While moping around the internet, I found a Yahoo group about unschooling and how to apply it to relationships.  I was emailing the group moderator back and forth and they mentioned that the only requirement was that we practice radical unschooling.  I thought, 'Seriously?  How much more radical can you get than unschooling in itself??'  Hahahahahaha, boy was I naive.  I was approved to be a member of the group and as I started reading, WOW. 

Radical unschoolers are pretty much "those people."  The ones who let their kids eat whatever they want, go to bed whenever they want, don't require their kids to do chores...sounds pretty crazy, huh?  How can you raise a decent kid in that environment, right?

Well, the more reading I did, the more clear it came--there is SO much more to it all than all of those things.  Yes, they allow all of these things but only through relationships built on vasts amount of love, respect, guidance, and understanding.

Now I'm not about ready to tell my kids that they don't have to brush their teeth if they don't want to, but in just a very short amount of time reading through some of the boards and what these people wrote--even more touching to me was actually how they wrote it.  There was such a feeling of respect and love that went into just their replies.  And not only with their children, but they are huge advocates for giving your spouse the same love, respect and understanding (which seems like common sense, but is oftentimes not so easy after everyone has had a long and full day).

Literally within 20 minutes of sitting my depressed self down to read these boards, my mood was completely altered.  Duh, it's NOT all about me.  Neither Russ nor the kids care if the dishes or done or that I have a pile of clean laundry on the bed, waiting to be folded--in fact, the kids prefer I NOT fold it as they love to use it to jump into on my bed.  So of course they're not going to notice that I actually did do the dishes or laundry and definitely not thank me for it.  I do the dishes and laundry for ME.  And that's okay, but what could I do in order to help make their lives a little better?


...And that leads me into our Weekend Adventures.

On Thursday night, Sam mentioned that he'd like to see a sunrise.  So Friday morning we were out the door at 6am, headed up to a mountain where I thought we could see it from.  Turns out, we couldn't see it so well.  But we sat and talked about how the colors change in the sky as the sun gets closer to rising.  And about the cows eating their breakfasts.  Brooklyn asked why we couldn't see the sun yet, so we got to talk about the size of the Earth and sun and shadows and rotation.  And we stopped at watched baby goats head-butting and jumping and bouncing all over the place for a good 20 minutes.  Then we stopped and watched as the sun finally came over the hill, and looked at how it illuminated the previously in-shadow valley.  And then we got doughnuts to seal the deal.

Friday afternoon Brooklyn gave her art presentation.  There were about 30 people there (the majority were under the age of 11), and Brooklyn was the last of 9 to deliver hers.  I was so nervous for her--I don't do super well with public speaking.  Over the course of the week, I'd tried my best to refrain from panicking her, "Did you finish your poster yet?  Do you know what you're going to say?  Shall we write it down?  Can we practice for the hundredth time?  Are you nervous?  ARE YOU?!"  That type of thing.

As we drove there, I finally did ask if she was nervous, and she beamed back at me in her black and white fancy dress and her white knee socks and black patent leather shoes (that she negotiated the price for and payed for with her own money), "Nope, I'm excited!"

She did so well.  No, she didn't have a laminated lap book.  Or a memorized speech that was better than anything even I could write.  But she was so confident, I was one proud momma.  She asked what people saw in her artwork and every kid raised their hand (multiple times because she kept asking, "And what ELSE do you see?" lol).  And every kid had a different answer.  At the end she asked for questions and they asked what medium it was, "Charcoal."  And who the artist was, "Me."  Yup, one proud momma.

After her presentation was over, the kids asked to go swimming (it was 73*!  Woot!).  So we ran home for some quick lunch (and milk volcanoes) before heading out.



We'd been to a creek for a playdate the day before, so we hurried home and got our swimming suits on.  It was so much fun--I mostly just sat on my blanket and read my book off and on while observing the kids (I'd played in the creek for over an hour the previous day and knew exactly how cold that water was!).  It was so interesting because they would both be very, very quiet for awhile and just walk up and down the stream, toss rocks, hunt for noisy frogs...and then they would both enter these different worlds--Brooklyn preferred to share her imagined world with me, but Sam has this stream of consciousness that is just amazing to listen to sometimes.

Brooklyn's imaginings went something like this:  "This is my little cabinet here where I store my rocks for when we need to throw them in the water, and these are my steps out of my house that is built up in these beautiful mountains.  They are steep steps to get down to the water where we fish, but it is worth it!  And do you smell that smell? (as she picks a weed)  That's the smell of home.  Mmmm...  I am so lucky to live in this beautiful place."



And Sam's went something like this, "Where is my knife?  Hmmm...oh here it is! (he picks up a rock)  Slit, slit, slit, I killed you fish.  You are my dinner.  (he throws his knife)  OH NO!  I lost my knife!!" and this would repeat over. And over. And over.  Occasionally he would take his "knife" alllll the way up the trail to where there was a tree full of blossoms and throw his rock at the blossoms to watch them fall.  He was pretty far away and I would get people who were walking by looking at me like I was crazy, but he was enthralled.



It is one of my favorite memories to date--the sun, the babble of the creek, the slight breeze, my kids doing their things...I thanked anything and everything for that magical moment.


When the sun had started setting (the kids noted that it was pretty neat that they got to see both a sunrise AND a sunset all in one day), and the shadows came out to play we headed home for a warm bath and some snuggling while watching Phineas and Ferb. 

Sam lay his head on my lap and asked me to scratch his back.  He was out cold in less than 3 minutes.  Life is good.

After dinner, we read, snuggled, and after we tucked the kids in, I gave Sam a glow stick to play with because I knew he probably wasn't tired yet.  That's what allowing your kid to go to bed whenever he wants means, I guess--helping them listen to their bodies.  Sam needed that back scratch and that nap, and sure, it was REALLY close to bedtime, and no, he didn't go to sleep right away.  But he was allowed to play quietly in his bed with his glow stick and he eventually passed out on his own.  Huh.  I guess this radical stuff isn't so crazy after all.


--Saturday--

I woke up to the sound of a little boy out playing on the couch.  His helmet had literally fallen apart at the seams a couple of days ago, and he was playing with the shell of it.  The first thing he said when I came out was, "Mom, I think I need a new hewmet."  So we cruised Amazon and he found the perfect one.

Russ and Brooklyn made us scrambled eggs and hash browns.

Russ and the kids snuggled on the couch for some books and cartoons while I finally got caught up on blogging and got a quiet few moments to myself.

We eventually headed outside where Russ decided to dismantle our bench to paint it and fix it and work on the yard, the kids (and neighbor kids) decided to take the dismantled bench boards and make surfboards (that are hanging in our tree) out of them.  I settled on trying to get a bit more paint on the front of our house.

He has the yard looking so much better!!

Then the kids moved on to wanting to build a fort.  In the front yard.  With the kitchen chairs.  And pillows.  And cushions.  "Sure!  Do you need help?"  "NOPE!"  Then there was a request for peanut butter and jelly in the fort.

Then there was play dough and putty.  And Brooklyn constructed a wooden airplane and helicopter completely on her own (I was impressed--I couldn't even figure it out from the dang horrible instructions!).  Then there was a cotton ball fight...or two.  The neighbor kids were here all day, and after the first cotton ball fight she excused herself to go and take a bath.  Ha!  Totally my kid.



Sam and the neighbor kids played Operation! and then Brooklyn came out and asked to play a computer game.  The neighbor kids wanted to play too.  So she gave up her game for them and asked to play on the other computer.  They wanted to play with her on that computer too.  So I set things up for them on the other computer, and then Brook came back in and asked if she could watch a movie by herself.  Funny kid. 

The neighbors had to go home and we all snuggled up on the couch with some warm cookies and popcorn and watched Puss in Boots.

Then of course books and songs before bed.  And kisses.  And a glow stick.

--SUNDAY--

I woke up thinking, "I'm just gonna go jump in the shower."  Hahahahahaha.  Silly me.

Sam said he wanted to cut some of the flowers we have in the kitchen (the ones bought at the farmer's market last weekend).  I said yes, so he climbed up onto the table and I expected him to chop every single flower head off, but snipped only two--"These are my favorite.  Tiger wiwwys."  He chose to string one up from the light in his room so he can look at it at night, and the other he chopped up so that he could look at it under the microscope.



We spent the morning looking at lots of stuff under the microscope--flower parts, mold, blood, brown water, fabric, etc.  The kids love it.  Then they found the catalogs that I ordered our slides and organs to dissect from and we spent a good 45 minutes perusing the catalog, the kids circling every single thing that they even remotely wanted.  www.homesciencetools.com is the website, and they have all sorts of really neat stuff for pretty decent prices.

Later, I found Brooklyn (who was previously creating quite the commotion, but was suddenly silent for quite awhile...) sitting amidst an insane amount of mess, reading.  Love this girl.



Russ then headed outside to plant his sunflower babies, mow the grass, tend to the garden and the like.  The kids asked to paint some rocks...with spray paint.  Why not?  Then the neighbor kids joined us.  Then they wanted to paint with acrylics on paper.




Then Brooklyn asked about hearts again, so we pulled out an old anatomy and physiology textbook and sat and looked at pictures and discussed hearts and babies forming and all sorts of good stuff.  There was a photo of a cadaver and Brooklyn said, "I wish I could see a REAL dead person's insides."  I said, "Look, there's a photo right here."  "That's just a picture, Mom."  Oh, my bad.

I finally got in the shower and when I got out, was ambushed!!  Brooklyn had been waiting behind the door the entire time with a spray bottle of water!!  Needless to say, I'm not the only one that was soaked! Bwahahahah.

At lunch, we broke open a coconut.  Quite the ordeal, let me tell you.



After lunch (and Sam's 1 1/2 hour bath!!!!), Russ decided we should head out in search of some polliwogs.  We packed the kids' rain boots and butterfly nets and a tupperware for our new pets and set off to the creek.  The kids (and Russ) had a blast wading through the water and exploring.  There were no tadpoles found, but we did hear frogs.  And we did find lots of great throwing rocks--and of course sat and threw them all.  We were all freezing when we got home.  Russ and Brook snuggled in for some How It's Made while Sam and I went out and got dinner and a movie since we were all so pooped.

And then I finished off the day with a family chat on ooVoo, and attempted to watch a movie with Russ.  Attempted.  Apparently it was pretty good.  So was falling asleep at the end of this great day.


Life is so, so good.