Days at home at home with kids

I love getting a day at home at this time of year. Yesterday we had the whole day at home and it was lovely. It wasn't just a regular quiet kind of day at home - there were "Big Doings" going on. We all had something we were working on and some of those things were secret too. Closed doors now mean knock and wait for permission before entering. I have been finding little notes here and there throughout the house - Santa's coming, Only 28 days left, and other such things. One note was taped onto my sewing machine yesterday. I spied it when I went to work on another artist tote.

I love that my boys find this time of year magical. I love that they want to hide away and create gifts all on their own to give to loved ones. I love the ideas that they come up with (some of which are secret from me as well).

And I love that at the end of a day of crafting and working E can make us all dinner. Yesterday he learned how to make a roux properly. He added some "secret ingredients" to his homemade cheese sauce. With E, even a simple dinner can become "Big Doings" too...and why not? If we celebrated more of the little things of life wouldn't we just have that much more appreciation for the small stuff? Those little bits of goodness that happen throughout every day? Like kids' notes on the light switches, a game of soccer with the dog, pets and kids in the kitchen and secret ingredients in the cheese sauce. After all, life is made up of mostly small bits - our daily round - if we wait to celebrate only the big things in life then the day-to-day can become something that we take for granted.As you can see all the animals in our house like E's cheese sauce too. ;-)
Pssst - wanna know his secret ingredients? A hint of mustard, a dash of Frank's hot sauce and a scoop of Romano cheese along with the cheddar...but you didn't hear it from me. ;-)

Creativity plus duct tape equals hours of fun

I have always encouraged creativity in my family. We like to make our own fun and sometimes the results are somewhat...unconventional, I suppose. We have never wanted our kids to have all the latest toys, instead we have helped them to explore their own imagination and make do with simpler things and to use that they have. Most everything around here involves dirt, sticks, Lego or Hotwheels. When they were younger it was dirt, sticks, trucks and blocks.

This Spring, after much thought, we bought a used trampoline. The boys have had a lot of fun on it. I guess they'd recently decided that they could make it even more fun because one day I looked out the window and saw this.

I don't know if you can tell in that action blur of a photo but that is a skateboard on his feet.

Now each day they go out and make up games involving certain kinds of tricks and all kinds of interesting names for each trick. So, another thing I've learned from watching my kids is this...

Creativity + (lots of) Duct tape = Hours and hours of fun

So if in 20 years you see this as an Olympic sport just remember...you saw it here first. ;-)

And just in case you would like to make this yourself here is a closer view. It's an old skateboard minus the wheels, an old pair of shoes and ooooh, maybe half a roll of duct tape. ;-)

ABBA...all four discs

To me this is 4 discs worth of sing-along entertainment while I preserve more stewed tomatoes.
To E it is "4 discs...of torture!!" (those are his words)

W ordered this from the library as a sort of joke. I think he thought he would listen to loudly and this would bug me. Poor kid, little did he know that I would confiscate it and keep it all to myself...to be played loudly in it's entirety(or as long as these tomatoes take). ;-) Talk about a plan backfiring on him.

Poor puppy

Just in case you were thinking of asking us to dog-sit....

you might want to reconsider.

The Importance of Being E

E has certain things in his life that are very important to him. Dogs, big brother, biking and fresh food from the backyard are some of his main pleasures. Everytime I spot him in the yard these days he is picking something to pop in his mouth.
I love watching him enjoying all these goodies and am so proud of the gardener that he is. These carrots are from some heirloom seeds he ordered to plant in his garden bed. He picked these two yesterday to taste test the different colours. He says he also has some red ones growing. He has one going to seed and has decided to collect the seeds in hopes that some friends might want to trade seeds with him.I have to remember to show him this Jamie Oliver clip about carrots and gardening.

Snacks

Last week I was talking to a friend on the phone when E came in for a snack. I saw him take an orange (I had bought him some because I thought he was getting a cold) and disappear back outside. When I looked out later I saw this(lambsquarter, johnny jump up and chamomile petals, dill, currants, strawberry and dateball)

and watched as he made this

to roll up and eat. Yes, those are very unripe currants - they are, in fact, black currants, so you can imagine how much ripening they have to do to get from that hard green berry to the dark, almost black, purple berry they will become. But how can you complain when your kids likes fruit so much that he can't even wait for it to ripen?

What boys make with beads...

will reflect their interests...
so I had to join in on the fun to make these...
and then marvel as they continued to put together these fantastic bead frogs.
The patterns for these boy friendly bead projects is from a Klutz book & kit on beading.

Life with boys...

means you never know what they'll catch next ... and want to show you.
This cricket has been serenading us for the past couple of days. The rain slowed him down a bit, but he made up for his brief period of silence when the sun came out again. It's totally amazing how such a small insect can make such a penetrating sound. If only he'd kept quiet, he likely would've evaded his captors!

Need a quick snack? Hows about some chives?

Quite often I look out the back window and I see E wandering in the garden, he is doing something that I have come to think of as "trolling". Ever since he was a wee one, as soon as he was able to walk, he would toddle around the yard picking things and putting them in his mouth. As much as I wanted him to enjoy his veggies there were time when I found this very frustrating, like when he would pick all the apples or peaches that he could reach and eat them, even though they were only the size of a golf ball. The other day I looked out and saw him crouching over some herbs trying to find something big enough to eat, I went to get my camera and snapped a picture just as he was shoving some sorrel in his mouth. I'm thrilled that he loves to do this and I would never want him to stop - not even when it has meant that he gets all the strawberries and we get none. ;-)Yesterday I was out in the garden and I noticed that my chives looked quite picked at. I thought it was strange that he would have eaten so many because both clumps looked the same. and that really seemed like a lot of chive eating for one kid. I wondered if the dog had suddenly taken a liking to chives or if we had some weird allium loving critter about - and if so would I need to take measures to protect my garlic !?! I asked E about it today because I thought it was possible that he had eaten them all himself, but he let me know that he and his friends had snacked on them while they were playing in the backyard. I laughed at that...I feel certain that his friends' moms would be quite surprised to know that their boys were happy to snack away on chives. ;-)

It just goes to support my theory that if people can be more a part of their food production, if they can actually see, hear, feel and smell things while they are growing, they will be far more likely to appreciate and enjoy those things...no matter what their age.

and gnomes too

E chose to do two gnomes yesterday while W chose a bear. This morning as soon as they woke up they wanted to do more felting. We now have a whole...flock?...passel?...gaggle?... gathering of gnomes in various stages of completion. There are big plans in the works to create a whole village of felted people. I'm working on them to consider a Star Wars theme (I want to make Chewie ) or at least a Harry Potter theme. What fun! Isn't it amazing what you can do with a bit of wool and a (sharp!!!) needle.

Learning at home

There are so many things that I love about learning at home with my boys, so many benefits that I could never list them all...I probably couldn't even begin to understand them all. One benefit that has always been clear to me though is how close my children are because of this time together. Of course they have their moments of discord - who doesn't? But those are few and far between. E adores his big brother and W loves his little brother.

Yesterday afternoon W went for dinner and a evening at the pool with a friend. E was sad when they left and spent some time on his own (I didn't know what he was doing) then he came up and seemed content. Later that night I asked him to get his jammies on; when he came up to brush his teeth he asked if he could phone W to find out when he would be home. I was just about to remind him that W was in the pool (not the best place for a phone call) when we heard the door open. E called out for W and ran to the door for a big hug and I could tell that W was pleased to be missed. Isn't that what we all want in life? To love, to be loved for who we are, and to be known? It made my heart so glad to see them.
When W sat down for a second dinner (swimming makes you hungry, don't you know) E gave him another hug and a card that he had made earlier. Here it is. On the front is a picture of E with tears because he is missing W. Inside are pictures of both of them going out to bounce on the trampoline together.

See the happy faces? When you ask people what is the most important thing in life, most people will say their family, their health, their friends/sense of community. If someone were to ask me what my kids are learning by "homeschooling", I think that I could say that they are learning one of the most important things life has to offer.

**I love this so much that I had to post it on both blogs. :-)

Juice

Awhile ago I bought a huge bag (25lbs) of organic juicing carrots. I thought I would start making myself some fresh apple/carrot juice each morning. E decided that he would help with the first batch.

And I've hardly got any since.

The wonders of digital cameras

I am one of those people who learns the basics of a new piece of technology, just enough so I can use it without looking like a total idiot.


However my children will take something new, like a digital camera, and check out every single feature.


They can make the camera chirp or click, they know what each little symbol means, and they can produce weird images like these by choosing a particular setting and waving the camera around while they take a photo.


Thanks to S (aged 9) for the modern art.

Our adventures

It seems appropriate, after Katherine's mention of getting kids out in nature, to tell you about our hike this afternoon. We went to a Regional Park that we've visited before, but this time we pressed on, following the creek further up than ever before, and found more waterfalls.

It was perfect hiking for boys, though we did have some adventurous girls there too. Ups and downs, fallen logs everywhere, rocks and treeroots to master, slippery slopes and a creek. A couple of scrapes were suffered by two of the boys and there were a few wet feet, but mostly it was a lot of fun. And the sun shone.



S sitting above a steep drop of about 12 feet to a deep pool. Sad to see the foam on the water and a few plastic bottles lying around - evidence of human pollution.


Small waterfalls.


Bigger waterfalls.


The same waterfall, seen from above. The boy on the right had just sent a log down the flow of water.

I never fail to feel gratitude for my ability to enjoy hikes like this, with its climbing and scrambling and enjoyment of the use of my own muscles. It feels so good.

Nature-Deficit Disorder?

I want to recommend this book: I grew up on the land. I had a childhood spent playing, exploring and just "being" in Nature. Unlike my own rural childhood, my sons have been raised in the city. That means that instead of living right in a completely natural setting, we have to leave our man made environment and travel (luckily for us it's walk or bike ride away in proximity) to the woods. It is something we have done throughout their childhood and continue to do, as we feel it is important our boys have time and place to roam and explore the natural world.
"Unlike television, nature does not steal time; it amplifies it. Nature offers healing for a child living in a destructive family or neighborhood. It serves as a blank slate upon which a child draws and reinterprets the culture's fantasies. Nature inspires creativity in a child by demanding visualization and the full use of the senses. Given a chance, a child will bring the confusion of the world to the woods, wash it in the creek, turn it over to see what lives on the unseen side of that confusion... In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate place."

I found this book to be insightful. It also carries a warning. If we keep on as we have been over the past decades, in the way we have treated and viewed the natural world, we will not only be losing our environment. We will lose our future - our children. We all need the natural world.

Science World

Science World in Vancouver is a place we love to visit. We don't get there very often, so it's a real treat when we do. As we were going to be in Vancouver for the aquarium sleepover (posted about below) we visited Science World the day before.


Here is a collection of photos...