New Growth!

Just noticed this new growth on my mom’s umbrella tree.  It’s so cute I just had to share!

It makes me happy, symbolically happy too.

48 hours

Ouch.  Poor guy. 

Some Perspective

This is what happens when a seven year old steals your camera.  “Mom, I took some pictures.” Fish said with an impish grin.

The clock… It’s hard for me to read because it’s so up high.

This is my map. Those are my lables and I put them where they go.

These Christmas trees hold hands. We made them a long long time ago when I was little.

This is my store. I didn’t have many customers.

Our house looks like a rainforest.

This is Keekers. She thinks it’s beautiful.

These are my welcome cats. They are like chat noir.

Mom says this is a Thanksgiving decoration but it looks like a Christmas decoration to me.

Grandma J’s boy deer in mom’s wreath.

All I Want for Christmas is my One Front Tooth

It happened.  One less tooth. 

And then my dear sentimental boy refused to part with his tooth.  He wanted to save it and not give it to the tooth fairy.  “I don’t want the money,” he pleaded, “I’ll save them all up and give them to her all at once.”  He said.  He was quite distressed at the thought of bidding his treasure goodbye.  So we stuck it in a piece of masking tape and wrote which tooth it was and the date it was shed. It sticks now on his bedroom wall near his bed, forever his tooth.

That’s a wrap.

It’s official, we are un enrolled! Kids are lighthearted and we can feel excitement crackling in the air. Maybe that’s the freezy breeze… lol I don’t know! But really we are all much happier already. I was expecting some teary goodbyes but they never happened. The smiles were ear to ear through every, “I’ll miss you!” Keek picked up a flurry of phone numbers and Fish passed out digits to a number of kids too. I imagine the phone lines will be busy this afternoon! Both kids were invited back to parties throughout the year. We’ll see!

Happy Weekend Recipe

Ingredients

visiting with cousins

painting

visiting awesome friends

contact from those who care

hanging up homeschool posters

Comfy cozy sweaters

hair lightening

Preheat weekend to a chilly 60 degrees.  Mix it all together.  Apply all ingredients liberally to entire weekend!  Enjoy!

I love this series.

We watch Leverage through Netflix.  We’re on season 2 now.  You might like it too.  Check it out!

un-enrolling

Taking the kids out of school is much less complicated than I thought it would be. It’s a single page form stating I wish to homeschool. That’s it. I’m so grateful!

Talked to the principal and explained why. It’s a lifestyle difference. The kids haven’t been learning and miss it. She understood. She said if she could’ve she would’ve homeschooled too. She said we would be greatly missed and the kids would be welcome to visit anytime.

Thanksgiving

T   is for the thought

H  is for the heart

A  is for another year

N  is for nasty neck bones (ew!)

K  is for kids running around

S  is for special memories

G  is for good times

I  is for in touch with family

V  is for very loved

I  is for interesting stories

N  is for newcomers to the table

G  is for a good day.

Fish’s favorite widget.

Trying to upload this to wordpress was beyond my ability.  Everybody must already know how to do it because finding directions was impossible!  Good thing I’ could figure out how to do it on myspace.  It’s a fun little gem of a game and you can play it on my myspace or try to put it on some one of your pages. Have fun and SAVE THE ANTS!

 

 

Apothecary Door HELP!!

I have this pantry door in my kitchen that stares at everyone.  No, it’s not got eyeballs all over it.  It just sticks out.  Here’s a picture…

See what I mean?  It just stares at me no matter what I do around it… the door is a hole.  A big ol’ boring, plain, white hole.  So I got this idea to paint it like a curio cabinet and fill it up with trinkets, odds and ends, bottles of potions and the like.  It’s my apothecary door! 

I’m almost finished with the pencil drawings but I have ten spaces and I’m out of ideas!  Help!  I’ve asked the kids for ideas already.  Keek now has a jackal headed canopic jar from ancient Egypt and Fish has the Apple of Discord from ancient Greece.  Dh suggested ancient Persia and got a gold cow horn cup. My sister in law suggested Love Potion #9.

Tell me what YOU think should be in an apothecary/pharmacopoeia/occult shop.  The most interesting item!  And I’ll put it on my door with your name.

Robot Mom teaches OB students

This is so weird.  This is like an adult learning to cook on a little tykes kitchen.  And check out that life like cardboard placenta.

Pregnant Robot Trains Students

Fuzzy Friend

Charles has the long lived habit of catching bugs and lizards to show me and the kids.  He brought this one in and I had to share!  He found this guy outside in the fallen leaves. I placed him on a black book for the picture… but I’m not quite a gifted photographer.  This is his face.

Isn’t he cute!  Not a very good picture though….I’ll borrow… from

http://uforest.blogspot.com/2009/02/exploring-ubin_01.html   !!!

This caterpillar looks just like our guy and was found in leaf litter too.  All fluff and stuff!

I have no idea what he is but he’s so cute!  With just a little tweaking we’ve got an Einstein smiley!

Humans Getting Weaker… still

Are we evolving in the wrong direction?  An interesting point made by Peter McAllister got me thinking.

…according to anthropologist Peter McAllister, author of Manthropology: the Science of Inadequate Modern Man, the contemporary male has evolved, at least physically, into “the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet.” Thanks to genetic differences, an average Neanderthal woman, McAllister notes, could have whupped Arnold Schwarzenegger at his muscular peak in an arm-wrestling match. And prehistoric Australian Aborigines, who typically built up great strength in their joints and muscles through childhood and adolescence, could have easily beat Usain Bolt in a 100-m dash.

Hmmm… poor Ahhhhnold.  LOL  But really where are our kids going?  How bout those grand kids (10 generations removed)?  OK what about those aliens… so tall and lean with giant heads.  Are they really humans from the distant future?  Our long legged Barbie doll and super lean Ken fascinations are heading us in the wrong direction.  Besides body image and self esteem what memes are we programming with admiration of Kate Moss and Twiggy and the Calvin Klien underwear models?  Perhaps we should be the first generation in a long line of thinnies to go in a different direction.  I wonder how Neanderthal Nikki and Proto Human Peter would sell?

Brevity

I will be working on brevity.  Quick posts from now on.  (Cross your fingers!)

Subbed 4 of 5 days last week.  Wow I learned a lot.  Kids can be great teachers!

Trying to be more active on facebook as per friendly request.   Friend me!

Will be putting more work online, for sale and probably getting an etsy account… ok, maybe getting an etsy acct.

Poor Sam Bradford.  Guy can’t get a break.    Dh says he has “Jason White syndrome.” hahaha

Cool Halloween pic just had to share…  “Baby Pumpkin Voodoo Doll”.

So glad the weather is cool enough to justify my hot chocolate addiction!  Yummmm!

laundry room floor

Painted it when I first moved in… told you I’d upload a pic sooner or later!  Don’t mind the dirt…  lol!  Yes that’s a dime up at the top… oops.  You can see some of the yellow staining that covered half the floor on the back door side (right side) of the ‘rug’.  Quick easy simple colorful.  I love it!

My Oh My How Plans Do Change

After all the planning and preparation we moved household and enrolled the kids in school.  No explanations, no excuses, it’s a long l-o-n-g story.  Suffice it to say they are in… and so far so good.

Keek and Fish started school on my birthday. They both are at the top of their classes and enjoy the new found friends. They ride the bus so I walk, to and from the stop, every day.

Keek’s teacher is just wonderful. Her classroom is full of Einstein, Emerson and Waldorf-esque quotes and contains a sizable in class library with all the classics and comfy couch. She has a 4 month old baby who she leaves the class to nurse 3x daily.  (Xcellent way to teach by example!!!)  Mrs. Roberts sits with the class during these nurse breaks and seems to know an awe full lot about animals.  Keek does complain that there is too much writing but her wrist will gain strength and the complaints will stop soon enough. She’s been passing out her phone number and collected some from the other girls in her class. Girls will be girls! Keek says math is so so easy… “Because, Mom, fractions are just cooking and I love to cook!”

Fish’s teacher is nice and good with children. I would prefer someone a little more educated and refined but he is little and she is gentle. She does like him though! According to Fish he gets to help her do things and helps the other children learn to read, because he’s the best! Or so he tells me… They watch a movie every day and only get 15 minutes of computer time twice a week. Not the way I think first grade ought to be, sounds more like KG. Oh well…. we still learn here at home and Fish says, “I’m not too bored because I get to help out so much.”  He also has three new “real friends” and many “half friends.”  He’s explained to me that ‘half friends’ are nice guys and girls but not his favorites.

Both children enjoy the school library, PE and Art and the new playground the school installed this summer. Getting up early is not so much fun but both are stirring by the time I get in there to wake them. They enjoy the school lunches and riding the bus too.

Until next time… Stay green and keep the peace!

Spring Has Sprung

Flower presents from the park… I love my babies!

The Dragons of Deltora

So we finished the second installment in the saga that is Emily Rodda’s Deltora.  The books have grown, quite a bit,  in vocabulary and scope.  The third step of the series starts off with Lief Barda and Jasmine destroying the last connection the banished Shadowlord has to the palace in Del.  Then they set off to destroy the four sisters who are slowly killing the land itself.  They must rouse the dragons that are part of the land and older than Deltora itself.

The books have grown to nearly 200 pages each and the plots are twisting so much so, Fish can just barely follow them.  If he wasn’t so enraptured with the characters his intrest would have tapered off in the last book.  But the new complexity has drawn me further in.  I’m glad we started this series.  It is getting scarier as we go on and the detail is intensifying.  For how much I like the series, I am glad it’s drawing to a close.  I cringe when I read the detailed accounts of death at the hands of the Shadowlords monsters.  I don’t think I could keep reading it to the kids, if it were any more graphic.  Of course the kids are eating it up!  They hide under the covers as the tension builds, jump when the monster finally shows itself, tear up when a brave companion has fallen then laugh out loud when Ms. Rodda presents well timed comic relief. The kids have also started speculating the next step in the story.  They have both absorbed the story so completely.  It’s been a great journey!

Moving!

We are moving so I will be absent for a while… I may make a post or two at the library if I’m feeling especially bloggy… but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one!

TTFN!