On My Mind

Leah is the funnest person to have "pillow talk" with (its when I lay and talk to each of the kids about whatever they want before they go to sleep)

Tonight our conversation was about camping, her normal topic. She always wants to talk about when we can go camping again and what we would do on the camp out, what we should bring, etc.

Tonight was a little different though. She said... "I still want to talk about going on a camp out, but this camp out wouldn't be a normal camp out. I think we should like build stuff out of wood that we collect, like build a house, and be like, like the first people ever on the earth!"

We continued talking about what it would be like, and what we would need to learn, and to do. Then she said "But what would we do if we needed like an oil change?"... not something relevant to her like "what if we needed to go to the library, or the park, or the museum, or even the grocery store... her biggest concern about this imaginary situation would be the potential need for an oil change.

Bahahaha!

I assured her that we would build our little house on the prairie house close enough to town that we could drive into down for an oil change if we needed it. :)

PS. In this plan of hers we wouldn't sleep on mattresses, or in sleeping bags, we would go out and forage for the leaves that we felt like were the softest and make our beds out of those. Use everything from nature instead of buying stuff, she said. ...Um... she had almost sold me on the whole house in the woods life... until she went there... I would need a mattress. For sure.

A bunch of pictures that don't make sense

I finally got around to uploading photos to my computer from my phone and my camera. I really don't have time to edit them so you're getting raw and sometimes blurry photos. :) But I want to catch everyone up on what's going on.

The Girls in the snow. Anna and Leah wanted to eat the snow. Anna used her gloves, Leah, in true Leah fashion, went straight for the snow on the ground. No need to waste precious snow-eating time by using our hands right? PS - this is sometimes how she eats her dinner to her mothers chagrin.

 

 Colette just liked posing for the camera. Such a sass.

 

 

Leah, eating snow with her face.

 

I know it's november already, but back in September Leah had a birthday, she helped decorate her cake. She is quite the culinary artist. 

And the kids all playing with the neighbors. They just moved here in July, but you'd think these kids have known each other for their entire lives. This days agenda: Rob bank (check) Attack the White House, Be Famous (check) Not be discovered. :) They are all too cute.

 And Halloween 2. 

What? Your family doesn't have Halloween 2?

Halloween 1 is the FIRST time my kids get to dress up and collect oodles of candy just for being cute. (Our church halloween party filled this roll) 

Then we have Halloween 2. 

This year it was actually on October 31st when the kids went trick or treating. And, yes, my kids wore all different costumes. I told them they can change their costume as many times as they want as long as we already have all the parts. 

Enter: The skeleton, Princess, Cat, and Ranger (the only encore appearance from Halloween 1)

 This was a few weeks ago playing in the giant pile of sand that had been delivered for a patio installation at the dance studio where the girls take classes. Go home for an hour and then come back? No way! we buried ourselves in the sand.

 Oh, and homeschool.... well, lots of reading, math games, playing with each other and watching documentaries on WWII (tip: always screen war documentaries before letting your kids watch them... always)

Halloween 2014

I'm not even going to both catching up, because if I wait to do that them you'll never get any pictures! So here are some quick pictures I took of the kids before we left for the trunk or treat at church.

Anna was supposed to be a ranger from Rangers Apprentice (a book series we've been reading for the past few months). But she didn't like wearing the cloak, so we dug up leahs' old costume from when she was 2 and it fit Anna perfectly. 

Colette didn't want anything to do with Rangers Apprentice. So she was a ballerina. She wore Leah's old ballerina jacket (pink satin and white furry fabric inside) to keep her warm. 

Leah designed her costume this year. She is Evenlyn from the book series The Rangers Apprentice. She was VERY particular. (mom, does this remind you of anyone?) She drew the picture and colored it in with marker. When we went to the fabric store she compared the color of the fabric to the color of her drawing, she was VERY particular on color too. She cracks me up. THEN I started making it. "NO, the front is supposed strait across and then the sleeves are supposed to be really poofy. Then I finished it up put 8 yards of tulle under the skirt and she said "Mom, it's not poofy enough!" HA! Another 8 yards and she was satisfied.

Jeremiah is Will from Rangers Apprentice. I made the cloak, tunic, pants, and we spray painted his rain boots brown. Then he carried his bow (I didn't allow him to carry the arrows with him). He's having a great time practicing his archery. When I first made his cloak he tried it on, wrapped it around his body and stood stock still. "can you still see me?" If you've read the books you'll know why that's so funny. He quite enjoyed his costume and even slept in his tunic and pants that night.

Obviously they weren't paying any attention to me taking the photo. 

Happy Halloween!

This is what Homeschool looks like for Jeremiah

Jeremiah is learning how to animate on scratch.mit.edu

This is his first project learning how to program movement and sound. Enjoy!

Beauty Parlor

Girls have taken over our family. Slowly but surely they have. So playing beauty parlor is bound to me an inevitable part of our family life.

My make up and styling was done by Leah. She's a bright new talent. Oh yes, I have two headbands, 8 hair elastics, a medal from a duathalon and a couple of hair clips on my pony tail. It was quite the fashion.

And yes, I let my son put on my make up.

Homeschooling So Far

We have been homeschooling for 4 days now.

Yes, you can laugh.

We are definitely at the beginning of our journey and I have no idea what lies in store for us along the way.

This is what it has looked like so far:

We've done a lot of reading, baking, playing, we went to the library and the science museum.

On a side note, did you know that I can take 4 little kids to a museum by myself!? I didn't know that!

What my kids have learned this week:
Fractions have so many practical applications
Triangles have funny names
Maybe learning can be fun... maybe...
They can do a lot more than they thought they could. Jeremiah made carrot cake for goodness sake. all my himself (except for the oven part) and it was delicious.
Reading isn't so bad, as long as you read because you want to read, instead of because your teacher tells you to.

What I learned this week:
I can do a lot more than I thought I could. I look all four of my littles to the grocery store, the library, and the museum all by myself and I didn't loose my mind. It was actually ok.
God is the principle of our little homeschool, I'm just the teacher... actually, I'm the assistant, my kids are the teachers. They teach themselves, I just help them with the hot or sharp things...
If I want my children to learn to use their minds in creative and useful ways, then it all starts with me. I need to show them how.

How I lost my creative spark:

I used to write poetry. It's a little cliche, a teenage girl writing poetry. And I don't know if any of it was any good or not, though I think one of my poems is on a plaque in a nursing home somewhere in colorado thanks to a friend of mind I sent it to when I was 17. But I didn't write so that people could read it, or so that someday I could become a famous poet. I wrote for the sake of creating something that didn't exist before. Just for the sake of making.

I suggested today that Jeremiah design his own creatures made out of food (we were talking about cloudy and a chance of meatballs he watched a couple weeks ago with Greg) His response... "Nah, "

I thought, boy, I wonder why he feels that way, he has so many great ideas and creativity. Then I thought I should teach by example... maybe I should design creatures made out of food... my brains response... "why would I do that?"

I used to make stuff. Paint, draw, dance in my bedroom, write, design, build, tinker. Not because there was a purpose, or an assignment, or a reason... just BECAUSE. Because it was fun. Because it challenged me, because the things inside my head were so much better in real life.

Now I don't even think about those things. My brain doesn't think of creative things just BECAUSE. It only thinks of things that have a purpose, or are on my to do list.

And I think that's how Jeremiah thinks already, and he's only 7.

I want my children to always create, and create well. Not because someone is going to see it, but because they have inside them a spark the urges them to push the boundaries of what they think they can do.

SO, tomorrow, aside from cleaning the house, and reading, and math and phonics, and a science experiment. We're going to dig through the recycling... and make something AWESOME.

Just Because.

Yester Years

Remember than one time when I used to blog? You know, post pictures and write charming anecdotes about the funny things my children do?

Hmm…

Well, there's a time and a season I suppose.

This is not that time,

Or that season.

But here are a few photos I took, and there are so many more that I should post, because really, my children are adorable. And they do funny things. And make messes that I first photograph for posterity before we clean them up.

First, this past week I flew to Oregon without my dear family and visited with my dad and his parents for 4 days. It was wonderful. We spent the time lounging and talking about my grandparents lives, stories, memories, people, and places. I video taped our interviews to type up later and compile into a life history for them. We took the time to capture a 3 generation photo with my handy timer. It's not a museum worthy photo, but its priceless to me.  

Annabelle, Annabelle, what can I say but I love you, and your eyes.

Colette buffed it on the pavement on her way out of the car to our little photo shoot, she even had a rock embedded in her wound that I had to scrape out with my fingernail… that's not a good sign and really impedes our chances of getting a photo without this face...

 But, we started talking about her birthday and she brightened up a little.

 Jeremiah… he's going through a weird smile phase, so we get the cheesy grin...

The awkward, self conscious smile...

 and the blank stare as he throws his balsa wood airplane.

 And Miss Leah,  who is my deep thinker, maybe deep isn't the right word. Maybe HARD thinker is more accurate. She thinks hard all the time. so sometimes its difficult for her to take a break to just smile at the camera.

 But of course its important to get a photo of her glitter lipgloss...

There are no words for this one.

My mom took such beautiful photos of the family here at City Park and the kids remembered the giant frogs. I attempted to recreate the photos… HAHAHA! this is the best I got.

For comparison, this is the photo my mom took:

Yeah, I've got a ways to go to become a professional photographer. 

Until then, I'm just enjoying my kids. perfect photos or not.