Dailyness Diary

New Blog

2010-09-11T18:44:00.001-05:00

I've moved. You can find me here: Adventures of Owl Momma

Where I've Been

2010-05-21T21:49:00.001-05:00

I didn't actually set out to ignore this poor little blog. And I didn't mean to give up on Homemade365's homemade challenge. But life, well, it has had different plans for me. :)

Most of y'all know about K and her eczema issues. This has been a struggle for our family for over 5 years now. But we are finally getting close to a solution! Allergy testing revealed that out of the 96 possible food allergens they tested for, K was allergic to all 96 of them!!! Now, we're pretty sure that it must be a few big hitters that are making her system so over-reactive. For the last almost 2 months, we have been tinkering with her diet, trying to find the right combinations of foods that will keep her healthy and still allow her system to heal. Currently, K is completely without gluten, dairy, soy, egg, pork, nuts, beef, avocados, carrots, and I'm sure a few other things I can't remember off the top of my head (please don't worry if it sounds extreme... we're working with our doctors and nutritionists etc... she's in good hands). And little by little we are seeing improvements. I can't even begin to describe how amazing this is for us! It has not been an easy change for me to deal with, but helping K get better makes the whole struggle worthwhile.

But the progress is slower than we'd like (isn't it always?). Wheat is K's biggest allergen, and I have a suspicion than there is lots of accidental exposure occuring.... a few crumbs in the jelly jar, crumbs in the toaster, accidental wheat exposure at restaurants, that sort of thing. So as of tomorrow, everyone in the Owl Nest will be gluten free. No more wheat for this family. I'm looking forward to seeing if this helps.

Dealing with diet changes turned my world on its head. Right when I finally felt like things were hitting their stride, I had to change the way I approached everything about feeding my family. This was hard, and lead to more than one late night crying session. Change, even for a good reason, is still very, very hard. But I am finally getting back to a place where things feel normal, though my normal is completely different from what it was before. And that's good, I think. That means I'm growing. But the growing pains stink!

In the meantime, besides dealing with food, I've been working on a few of my New Year's resolutions (which I never did find time to blog about). I tried hard to make these attainable, and to have my list look more like a set of goals for 2010 and less like a set of "reinvent my whole life this instant" directives.

But, in an effort to re-motivate myself, and because I'm honest like that, here are my resolutions for 2010, along with a mini-update about how I'm doing so far.

1. Give up soda: ah, the saga continues. I lasted almost three weeks. Then it was a sip here, a sip there, and then WHAM back to making trips through the drive through for mega-sized 44 oz sodas. I have realized that this may have to be an all-or-nothing thing for me. SIGH. I'm currently working through this and have weaned myself to half a bottle of Coke a day. That's progress at least.

2. Run at least 2 5k's before the year is up: must start walking first! :) I miss my running days (also know as my pre-momma days... J is seven (and a HALF)... it's been a long time). I took a tour of the gym today. I think that's what I'll be up to this summer!

3. Read through my 2010 booklist: so far I have read a few of the books I set out to read. Making unsurprisingly good progress. I'll post my booklist later. This post is long enough already. I'll even try to remember to link to it.

4. Learn to knit: well, I have about 6 inches of a poorly knitted scarf to prove that I am trying. It's going to be a long road though :)

5. Write more: we've probably all noticed that blogging more isn't really happening. But writing is. I am working on a novel, reading books on writing (very typical of me... if there is a book on a topic, I will read it), and feeling creative and happy about it.

I am sure there were a few other resolutions, but I lost the list I wrote them on. I'll bet, though, that Get Organized and Stop Losing Things were both on the list :)

So, that is where I've been. Now that life has reached a manageable point again, you can look forward to more blogging. I'm sure I'll have some new gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) recipes to share, some updates on the writing process, complaints about how sore and tired I am from working out, maybe some 5K results, and fun updates on the Little Owls. We'll be schooling through the summer, so look for updates on that, too. Thanks to those who've hung around!!!

Have a great weekend!
OWL MOMMA

Happy Half-Birthday J!

2010-04-30T00:31:00.002-05:00

Today my oldest is 7 and a HALF! Isn't that amazing? I mean really... seven and a HALF is just so grown up! Happy half-birthday, sweetie!

(W's half-birthday passed last week without much fanfare... he is now two and a half, though he believes he is four and will be six on his next "birthday party")

mini-update

2010-04-08T00:34:00.004-05:00

Wow, time goes by SO QUICKLY! I am not even going to try to catch up... I've missed posting about Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter... you'll have to take my word for it that we're all having alot of fun! Maybe someday I'll share with y'all what we did to celebrate... but maybe I won't :)

This week has been busy trying to prepare for J's Batizado for his Capoeira classes... the cord and ranking ceremony will be this weekend. Piao (J's portuguese nickname... it means "spinning top") is excited. But this will be the first Batizado that Owl Poppa misses. We're all a bit disappointed about that, but at least Owl Poppa made it to the class tonight tonight watch J do his testing (testing took place tonight, and cords are awarded this weekend).

K's wobbly tooth is still hanging in there. She is willing it to come out, but it just stays there, sticking out when she smiles. And she is smiling alot these days... she got her ears pierced on Monday! She has tiny glittery pink "diamonds" in her ears, and couldn't be more pleased with herself.

I'm hoping to get a new camera in the next few weeks... anyone out there have one they love and would recommend? I promise that I am going to keep this new camera far away from W and his big feet, and will hopefully have lots of new pictures to share. But just in case, please recommend cameras in the "this piece of equipment may possibly be stepped on by small children" price range. Thanks!

Wow, this might just be the lamest post I've written, but there you have it. Life for us has been fun and full and happy... but it doesn't make for good writing :) I'll save the good writing for another post.

Happy Half-Birthday K

2010-03-14T16:03:00.002-05:00

Today my little girl is 5 and a HALF! And she has her first wobbly tooth!

sniff... they grow up quick!

Happy Groundhog Day!

2010-02-14T09:02:00.011-06:00

Yes, I know this was awhile ago. And yes, I know today is Valentine's Day :) But this past week we finally had our Little Owl School Groundhog Day Party (and I'll probably have a Valentine's update next week or something... hey, that's just how I roll).

The night before Groundhog Day we read a few books about groundhogs (I put a list of books at the bottom of this post). Then on the morning of Groundhog Day, we tried to remember to say "groundhog" first thing to bring us good luck. We read a few more books, and made sure to check Punxsatawney Phil's predictions.

This week, we had a Groundhog Day/Six More Weeks of Winter Party. The kids woke up to a table set with our winter dishes, and little winter prizes at their breakfast spots... snowman notebooks, and a penguin project from OTC.

After lunch (soup, because that's a warming food for winter), we used white crayons on black paper to make snowy pictures. We decorated the pictures with snowman stickers.

This is K's:

And this is J's:

W was too busy playing to color!

We played shadow tag (one of us was the shadow, and chased the others). Then we did shadow silohuettes! This one was really fun (and much trickier than I remembered)! All the kids took a turn...

First J:

then K:

then W, who would only look up at the ceiling:

and then K traced my shadow for me!!

We hope everyone had a great Groundhog Day, and that y'all are staying warm with these six more weeks of wintery weather (especially our friends and family on the East Coast!).

And as a last thought, here is J's favorite Groundhog related commercial (if you didn't see this during the superbowl, you totally have to watch).

Here is a great list of Groundhog books for kids to check out! We found all of these at the local library:

Great Groundhogs!
Gregory's Shadow
Gretchen Groundhog, It's Your Day!
Go To Sleep Groundhog!
Groundhog at Evergreen Road

This is only a test...

2010-02-11T14:30:00.000-06:00

I am trying to learn how to set things up to post at a future date... wish me luck in my quest!

Well, something is sinking in

2010-02-10T14:32:00.002-06:00

Me: "How was the movie guys?"
K, age 5: "Great... I learned that if I really try, and I have a good attitude, I really CAN overcome any obstacle!"

Fashion Advice From Owl Poppa

2010-02-10T14:29:00.001-06:00

"In my opinion, ruffles only belong on potato chips" -- Owl Poppa

Words to live by, indeed!

Boring

2010-02-07T17:01:00.002-06:00

I have several half-finished posts waiting to be published. I am looking over them and being confronted with the fact that I am Just.Not.That.Interesting. Really! I know this may come as shock to some of you, but I am pretty sure I'm just plain boring! GASP!

Will y'all love me anyway?

J's New Obsession

2010-01-31T10:20:00.000-06:00

We watched Howe and Howe Tech on the Discovery Channel yesterday morning... and J is now planning to be an engineer when he grows up, so he can work in R&D building really cool things. For me personally, I think this is a step up from a few weeks ago, when he wanted to be a sniper when he grew up! :) But what are the short term implications? That none of my recycling is safe... he's scheming all kinds of new inventions to build with it. Current plans include a car with a retractable windshield, a swamp buggy designed for knocking down trees, and a pocket knife with gadgets like a spoon, a fork, a little pan, and cutting board (he's dictating the list to me). I think the first two will have to be small scale prototypes, but hopefully we'll get the pocket knife into production soon! :)

Observations

2010-01-30T22:17:00.002-06:00

It's late, and J can't sleep. He's sitting here watching me type. And he has decided that the navigation bars on the side of the screen (what are these really called?) are like pulleys for my computer... I pull them down and they lift the screen up.

He's smart, this one!

Science Kit Giveaway

2010-01-30T22:10:00.003-06:00

I wanted to share with y'all that Ordinary Life Magic (Too) is doing a give-away for three science kits (that are being reviewed on the blog, as well). You can check out the giveaway here. These look awesome, and there are lots of other neat ideas on the blog as well. Enjoy your time there, and good luck!

Super Quick Update

2010-01-30T16:21:00.002-06:00

Wow... time is flying by! Where has January gone? I still haven't posted about my New Years Resolutions... hee hee! I'm having trouble even keeping up with reading blogs I like, let alone posting on my own. I am still playing along with Jennifer's Homemade 365 challenge. I will try to get to those updates soon. Lots of interesting kitchen science going on :) School has been rolling along too. Maybe I'll get to that post, too. In the meantime, I thought y'all might be tired of staring at the same thing, so here is something new to look at :)

Come Play Along.... How Crunchy Are YOU?

2010-01-17T09:05:00.003-06:00

Dawn posted a Crunchiness Quiz at No Heavy Lifting. Let's all play along.
From Dawn's blog:

"Crunchy" is a slang term referring to how "natural" a person does things like
parenting, educating their children, cleaning their homes, buying and eating
food, etc.

I've marked my choices from each list. (And honestly, I doubt anyone will be surprised at my results LOL ) Please play along, and leave your link in the McLinky at the end of Dawn's post!

Do you have homebirths?
15 points for “yes” (unassisted)
**10 points for “yes” (with a midwife in attendance)
5 points for alternative birthing center
2 points for “thinking about/would like homebirth”
0 for “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

Will you circumcise future sons?
**5 points for “no”
-5 points for “yes”.

Do you use cloth diapers?
20 point if you do Elimination Communication (no diapers)
15 points if “yes” (wash and make your own)
**10 points if “yes” (wash your own)
5 points if “yes” (diaper service)
2 points if “thinking about it”
0 points if “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

Do you observe your fertility signals using Natural Family Planning/Fertility Awareness and use that for birth control/trying to conceive?
10 points for “yes” (observe and use for birth control/ttc) or you use ecological breastfeeding/lactational amnorrhea
5 points for “yes” (observe for trying to conceive)
**2 points “thinking about it”
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

Do you breastfeed exclusively for the first 6+ months?
**10 points if “yes”
5 points for “no” (use occasional bottles of expressed breastmilk)
2 points for “no” (use occasional bottles of formula)
0 for “no” (don’t breastfeed by choice).

Do you co-sleep/family bed?
10 points for “yes” (all night every night)
**5 points for “yes” (part/all of most nights)
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no”.

Do you use a sling/soft carrier?
**5 points for “yes”
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

Do you believe in/practice child-led weaning (even if that means breastfeeding for several years)?
15 points for “yes” (complete child-led weaning)
**10 points for “yes” (up to 3 years)
5 points for “yes” (up to 2 years)
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no” (you’ll wean the baby at 1 year or earlier).

Do you tandem nurse/nurse during your pregnancy?
**10 points for “yes” (nurse during pgcy and tandem nurse)
5 points for “yes” (nurse during pgcy, but wean before birth)
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no”(wouldn’t consider it).

Do you eat organic/whole/natural foods and limit your meat?
15 points for “yes” (grow own/buy organic, shop only at health food store,
grind own wheat, vegetarian, etc.)
**10 points for “yes” (grow some of own food, buy organic,
use whole wheat flour, bake own bread, eat some meat occasionally)
5 points for “yes” (try to buy natural, whole grain foods, etc.)
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

Do you use herbal/homeopathic remedies?
10 points if “yes” (very rarely see a regular doctor)
**5 points if “yes” (but use a doctor occasionally)
2 points if “thinking about it” (see a doc for now)
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

Do you homeschool?
**10 points if “yes” (currently homeschool)
5 points for “yes” (will homeschool)
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

What's your take on childhood vaccinations?
**15 points for no vaccines
10 for delayed, selective vaccination
5 points for selective, on schedule vaccination
2 points for thinking about not vaccinating
0 points for vaxing on schedule.

Would you/have you ever breastfeed/fed someone else's baby or have someone else bf your child?
10 points if yes (have or someone has bf your baby)
**5 points if yes (would)
2 points if maybe 0 if no (wouldn't consider it).

Do you use cloth/re-usable products for mom?
**10 points if yes (make own)
5 points if yes (buy own)
2 points if thinking about it
0 points if no.

Ratings
**120 – 140 Super Nutty, Ultra-Crunchy Granola Earth Mama
90 – 119 Mmm! Love that whole-grain crunch!
60 – 89 Pretty Crispy
20 – 59 Sprinkled with Granola
5 – 19 Instant Oatmeal
0 - 4 Jell-O

Homemade Fun Vol. 5

2010-01-15T07:14:00.005-06:00

Update on the brined cheese: I think my brine was too salty. Overall the taste is decent, similar to feta, but not smooth (the queso has a different texture). I poured off the brine yesterday and will consume as is. I think this idea has lots of possibilities, though.

January 13 - Day 10: Homemade Gray
When we first got married, I thought gravy had to come in little packets, and if we were being REALLY fancy, it came in a jar. Since then (ten years now) I have learned a thing or two about making homemade gravy. It isn't really hard, but mine always came out sort of paste-ish. It wasn't until I had dinner with a friend recently and watched HER make gravy that I figured out the secret ingredient I had been missing...

PATIENCE! In my effort to speed things along, I was adding too much flour, instead of patiently waiting for the flour to thicken things up on its own. AHA!

For the gravy I made, I used liberal amount of olive oil mixed with bacon fat to saute a whole chopped onion and 4 or 5 baby portabella mushrooms. Once soft and translucent, I moved the veggies to another dish, added a bit more oil to the pan, and added several tablespoons of flour (you could use half the amount of cornstarch) and whisked to combine. Once the oil was absorbed into the flour, I added chicken broth and milk in equal portions, whisked to combine, and then kept it over medium heat, stirring frequently, until thickened. I added back in the onion and mushrooms, some precooked chicken, and served over brown rice.

January 14 - Day 11: Milk Kefir
Milk kefir is a cultured milk product, similar to yogurt but thinner and drinkable. It's pretty sour (like plain yogurt) but the little owls like to drink it sweetened with fruit and honey. It is also what I use for soaking grains for baked goods. Kefir requires a starter culture of kefir "grains" (really a colony of yeast and bacteria that culture the milk... kind of like yogurt starter but the culture is clumpy... it looks like grains). Making kefir is really easy. Add the kefir grains to a mason jar, fill the jar with fresh milk, and leave on the counter for a day or so until it sets (I use a coffee filter rubberbanded (is that a word?) on to keep out dust and flies). I then strain mine through a colander to retrieve the grains. The cultured milk (the kefir) goes into a jar in the fridge, and the grains go into a clean mason jar and the whole process starts again. We use raw milk for ours, but you can use any milk that isn't ultra-pasteurized. I'm not sure how skim milk would work, since the kefir grains seem to be pretty fat-loving. Mine are always in the cream that rises to the top of the milk. If they are kept happy, the kefir grains will fairly quickly reproduce and you can share the kefir love with your friends by giving the extra grains away. Or, you can use them to make even MORE kefir!

Homemade Fun Vol. 4

2010-01-12T22:47:00.004-06:00

January 10 - Day 7: Hungry Man Soup
I invented another recipe :) (I'm on a roll in the kitchen... this is way better than some ofmy previous kitchen disasters). I took some chicken stock I had in the fridge (~1 qt) and leftover garlic-y mashed potatoes (~3-4 cups). My intention was to make potato soup. Then I added 2 handfuls of mung bean sprouts, some leftover green beans, and about 3/4 c of ricotta. I pureed the whole thing. I seasoned with sea salt, garlic (can there ever be too much garlic?), and pepper. On a whim, I added some thin slices of steak (I had a leftover steak from a previous dinner) and cooked til the steak was heated through. It was steak and potatoes, in soup form... Hungry Man Soup!

January 11 - Day 8: Homemade Chicken Stock
There are few things as yummy and comforting as homemade chicken soup. Yum. In my 6 qt Crockpot, I put the bones from two roasted chicken (I save bones in my freezer until I'm ready to make stock), added the "gizzards" (I guess that's what they're called, the organs in the paper sack inside the chicken) from one chicken, carrots, celery, half an onion, and a few cloves of garlic. The amount of veggies is pretty flexible... I just use up whatever I have. I add a splash of vinegar, then I season with dried spices, added liberally and never measured (hee hee): oregano, thyme, sage, marjoram, garlic, and rosemary. Then I fill the Crockpot to one inch below the top with cold filtered water (my tap water makes crummy stock). I cook it on high for a few hours, then switch it to low for about 10 hours. (I start it on high when I am preparing supper, and switch it to low before I go to bed... the stock is ready when I wake up in the morning). I strain it into a large pot, put it in the fridge until it chills, skim the fat off, then ladel it into quart-sized jars to store in the freezer. (you can save the fat for cooking). I also freeze some in ice cube trays. Once the stock cubes are frozen, I store them in a gallon sized freezer bag (I'm exploring non-plastic options for this, but this is my current system), so that I have small amounts of stock on hand for cooking.

January 12 - Day 9: Brined Queso Blanco
I made quite a few things today, but all were things I posted about before. Apple muffins, homemade pizza, ricotta cheese (well, I tried making ricotta, but messed up and got more queso blanco), kefir soda, more chicken stock (see above), and butter... it's amazing how fast we go through butter. I used up all the honey, maple syrup, and flour in the house... not sure what I'll be making tomorrow.

With all the queso blanco I made tonight, plus the buttermilk queso blanco, I decided to brine some of it. I added the queso to a jar, and covered it in a brine solution of roughly 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt in 2 cups of water. I'm hoping I'll get a salty cheese similar to feta. I may get something completely unpalatable. I won't know for a few days at least, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I've done it!

2010-01-10T12:41:00.002-06:00

Remember my Dear John letter? My cola addiction and I, we go way back. And I've finally done it! Today makes it 8 days since I've imbibed. Besides when I was sick, I think this is my longest stretch ever... AND I DON'T EVEN MISS IT!!! I'm not sure what is different this time around. Maybe my system is resetting with the nourishing foods I've been trying to eat. I'm not sure, but I'm not going to question it. I'm just so excited!

Homemade Fun Vol. 3 -- lessons in cheesemaking

2010-01-10T11:34:00.002-06:00

January 9 - Day 6: Buttermilk Cheese Experiments
Okay, so I am totally in the groove of making our own butter, and I've been left with lots of buttermilk. So last night I decided to make some buttermilk cheese. This is a soft spreadable cheese, kinda like cream cheese. It's super yummy, too, and can be doctored up with herbs and spices (or honey and cinnamon) to make a nice spread for crackers or slices of baguette.

Take the leftover buttermilk, and heat in a pot until 160 degrees. At 160 degrees, the curds and whey will separate. Pour into a colander lined with cheesecloth. Tie the four corners together, and hang to drain for a couple of hours. This can be stored a week or two in the fridge.

Warning: science lesson ahead

But here is the thing about butter milk cheese... it assumes you have allowed the cream to ripen before making butter. This produces a mildly acidic buttermilk. It's the lactic acid in the buttermilk, when combined with heat, that precipitates the solids. Recently, however, I have been making sweet cream butter from unripened cream. This means I didn't let the cream sit and sour. Sooooo.... there was not enough lactic acid in the buttermilk to do much of anything. It just did, well, nothing. So, by the time my buttermilk reached 180 degrees, I realized what had happened and threw in a few tablespoons of cider vinegar. I think what I made was buttermilk queso blanco. Either way, it tastes pretty good.

Now, for the science lesson part two.

Now when you make cheese, you end up with lots of whey - the watery stuff left behind when the solid cheese stuff clumps up. You can do lots of things with whey, one of them being to make ricotta. Unlike the ricotta I made, traditional ricotta is a whey cheese... you heat fresh whey from cheesemaking to 200 degrees, add cider vinegar, and strain. The cider vinegar helps to precipitate out the albuminous protein left behind after the rennet precipitates the casein.

So you can only make ricotta with whey from rennet cheeses. You can't use whey from making queso blanco to make ricotta, since the cider vinegar will have already precipitated everything out.

Are you following me here?

I didn't put all of this together until I tried making ricotta last night with the whey left from my buttermilk cheese. It just did, well, nothing. As a last ditch effort to salvage the time I spent heating the whey to 200 degrees, I poured a few glugs of milk (how scientific is that? I think it was probably about a cup of milk) right into the hot whey. I ended up with some kind of soft, melty, cheesy stuff... I'm not even sure what you'd call it, but it is pretty tasty.

Gotta love the kitchen science!

Lesson Learned, Class Dismissed

Changes Are A-Comin'

2010-01-09T12:44:00.005-06:00

Confession time --- I can't handle the pressure of trying to manage more than one blog. First of all, it's just more work and more time that I don't have :) Secondly, my real life doesn't fall into neat categories like that... it feels very artificial to me to segregate out homeschooling from other parts of my life because it isn't really like that... homeschooling is just part and parcel of everything else that goes on around here.

So what does this mean for you, the reader? It means that I am giving up (my short lived) blogging at Little House in the Big World... I'm going to import the few post I had there to this blog. And from here forward, all of my random thoughts, as well as my homeschool updates, will be posted here! If your not interested in foodie stuff, or my deep philosophical wonderings, feel free to disregard those posts and just keep an eye out for pictures of those adorable little owls of mine. And conversely, if you stumbled over here for foodie stuff, just remember that the kids help me cook! I'm also changing my blog name (the url will stay the same... I don't want to confuse anyone that much, lol) and I'll be changing the layout.

So stay tuned for a fresh new face around here.

What can I say, I think I got bit by the New Year New Beginnings bug!

Homemade Fun Vol. 2

2010-01-09T12:04:00.007-06:00

Here is a quick update for the homemade 365 challenge. (I'm still waiting for Jennifer to make a button or something, hint hint, nudge nudge)

January 7 - Day 4: Homemade whole grain biscuits
I will admit failure here. I tweaked an existing recipe that always has great results. My tweaking did NOT produce great results. So for your benefit, there is no recipe here.

January 8 - Day 5: Soaked grain apple muffins
I love my recipe for apple muffins, but wanted to make it more nourishing. I wanted a super yummy soaked grain recipe but couldn't find one I love, so I invented my own!!!! We are trying to move to soaking all of our grains (I'll do a post on the benefits of soaking grains another day... today I have my hands full with sick kids). The soaking produced a whole grain muffin that was so soft and moist... J ate a dozen by himself!

Here is the recipe:

4 cups of whole grain flour

3 cups of kefir (you could also use yogurt. If you are dairy averse, you could use water with lemon juice or whey added but I'm not vouching for the final product)

3 apples, washed and finely chopped (we keep the skin on ours)

1 cup honey

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix the flour and the kefir in a large bowl. Cover with a towel and allow to sit on your counter at room temperature at least 12 hours (mine soaked about 36 hours).

When you are ready to make the muffins, chop the apples, combine with honey in a separate bowl, and set to the side.

Take the large bowl with the soaked flour and sprinkle all the dry ingredients on top, then pour in the eggs and melted oil and butter, then mix (it's been my experience that soaked flour gets a consistency like dough, rather than batter... it's somewhat springy and stretchy, so I did the mixing with my hand mixer). Once everything is well mixed, fold in the apple honey mixture. This should bring the consistency to more like batter.

Spoon into well greased or lined muffin cups. These don't rise very much so if you like a nice crown on your muffin fill them pretty full. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes (they took 23 minutes in my oven).

These were super yummy fresh out of the oven spread with homemade butter!

Homemade Fun Vol. 1

2010-01-07T23:25:00.003-06:00

My friend, Jennifer, has started a new blog... she's making something homemade everyday of the year. I told her I'd play along, but I'm a bit of a late-starter, so I began on January 4. (and don't expect pretty pictures... it's enough for me to actually DO these things, pictures are beyond my capability)

Here's the progress so far...

January 4 - Day 1: butter, calzones with homemade ricotta
Homemade butter might just be the most delicious food on the planet. I skimmed the cream of of a gallon of raw milk (you could use store bought cream, just be sure it isn't ultrapasteurized). Put it in a mason jar and let it sit on the counter for a few hours to ripen. Shake shake shake shake shake. By the time you think your arm is going to fall off, you're close. You can try pawning this job off on the kids, but they will suddenly become incredibly tired. :) Eventually you'll notice that the jar is now full of beautiful yellow butter and milky white buttermilk. The new butter needs to be rinsed thoroughly to remove any of the leftover buttermilk (to keep it from going rancid). The best way I've found to rinse it is to pour off the buttermilk and leave the butter in the jar. Add ice cold water to the jar with the butter, shake, rinse, repeat until the water stays clear and there is no more buttermilk to shake out of the butter. (I got these tips from my new favorite book... The Urban Homestead... this book changed my butter-making world)

For the calzones, I used my favorite pizza crust recipe, separated it into 8 rounds, and rolled it out super flat. I filled it with a small amount of mozzarella, some chicken sausages, a dab of tomato sauce, and lots of fresh homemade ricotta.

To make the ricotta, I follwed directions from the Urban Homestead book. I used a gallon of raw milk, mixed with 1/2 cup of lemon juice and a teaspoon of salt. Bring the milk to 185, at which point the curd will begin to separate. Turn off heat and let it sit about ten minutes. Ladle the curds into a colander lined with cheesecloth. When it is cool enough to handle, gather the cheescloth up into a sack and hang to drain, about 30 minutes. I know this isn't TRUE ricotta, which is made with fresh whey, but man, it is SO yummy!

(NOTE: I edited the original directions for the ricotta because, well, trying to type them from memory was A BAD idea! Sorry if you tried it out and it didn't work. The corrected directions should work beautifully)

January 5 - Day 2: lemon kefir soda
(this is sort of cheating (right at the beginning, I know) because I am always in the process of making lemon kefir soda... it's a multi day process, and every day there is something to tend to. But yesterday, I bottled a new batch, so I'm gonna let it count)

January 6 - Day 3: whole grain pancakes for breakfast
I usually try to start my pancakes the night before, letting the flour soak overnight in kefir. But today's pancakes were a spur of the moment decision to make a big breakfast for the Epiphany. J was my kitchen helper this morning... he is an expert at pancake making and a champion flapjack flipper!
While they're not as nourishing this way, they are really delicious! Here's the recipe, adapted from a recipe in the LLL cookbook, Whole Food for the Whole Family:
2 C milk
2 eggs
1/4 C honey
1/4 C melted butter
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 C whole grain flour
a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and/or whatever else strikes your fancy

mix, ladle onto a hot griddle, cook until bubbling, flip and cook a bit longer. Eat with lots of warm maple syrup and fresh butter!

I'm looking forward to (many) more days of homemade yumminess! Thanks for the inspiration, Jennifer.

Happy Birthday to J!

2009-10-30T22:36:00.003-05:00

Today, my sweet J turns 7!!! 7!!!! I can hardly believe it! My first little baby, he's growing up too quick. And he's not even here with me... he's having a birthday sleepover with his Grandma tonight... sniff. I am too sappy and sentimental for words tonight... 7 just seems like such a big milestone.

Here is my newborn sweetie... the baby who made me into a Momma

Look at those cheeks

I LOVE this photo

Here is his first birthday

And here he is celebrating at his party... just look at how grown up and handsome he seems

Happy Birthday J! I love you so much!!!

Love,

OWL MOMMA

More Fun Adventures in Blogging

2009-10-30T18:33:00.002-05:00

I am still trying to keep the focus of this blog just on homeschooling and the kids. So if you happen to be interested in the other things I'm up to (deep thoughts on parenting, foodie stuff, natural living, and other fun randomness) you can come visit me at Little House in the Big World... make sure to leave comments and let me know you've stopped by!

Happy Birthday to W!

2009-10-24T22:37:00.004-05:00

The Little Little Owl turned TWO today! It hardly seems like two years ago that he came into our lives... my third baby, my first homebirth, the little guy who was always meant to be a part of our family long before we even knew we needed him.

Here he is just a few hours old

And the first moments with his new siblings!

And now he's such a big guy!

(this is his Tia with him, not me... I am incredibly camera shy, lol)

Happy Happy Birthday W! I love you!

Love,

OWL MOMMA

A Crazy Couple of Days

2009-10-05T23:59:00.003-05:00

Wow! I feel like we have been super busy lately. Here are the (more or less) highlights of what has been going on around the Owl Nest. Warning... it's long.

Owl Poppa has been a bit under the weather, and his work schedule has been a bit weird (he works three days a week, 12 hour days, which is weird all by itself, but the schedule has been weirder lately). His work schedule always throws a monkey wrench into our homeschool schedule. It's been hard getting lessons completed in a reasonable amount of time on days when he is home, especially when he is home and sick. But, his schedule is also one of the reasons we homeschool, so it is what it is.

(Completely and totally as an aside, I just LOVE that expression... it is what it is. It seems appropos to everything lately. It truly sums up the new level of acceptance I am feeling about things in my life. Okay, random thought over... carry on)

The kids have all taken turns feeling run down as well. I tried complaining to Owl Poppa about the lack of "routine" around here with all these sick days. His response... the same thing is happening in the public schools, too. He's always so rational! :)

We've been doing lots more hands on projects and celebrating lots of interesting things lately as well. I posted about Katie's birthday, the first day of fall, and Johnny Appleseed Day. We also celebrated Michaelmas (albeit a few days late). I don't know too much about Michaelmas, really, but remember reading that it is sometime celebrated as a harvest festival and with the story of St. George and the dragon, and that you shouldn't eat blackberries after Michaelmas (because when Michael threw the Devil out of Heaven, he landed in a blackberry bush... the kids think this part of the story is hysterical). So, we mostly did what we did last year. We read the Reluctant Dragon (we all love this one), as well as the story of St. George and the Dragon. We also read Custard the Dragon and Custard the Dragon and the Wicked Knight. The kids put on a mini performance of a dragon slaying. J and W took turns being the dragon and slaying each other. K was the damsel in distress. I wanted to make a blackberry crumble again, but the kids voted on blackberry kefir smoothies :)

We braved a rainstorm Thursday to meet friends at the park. It actually only rained for a few minutes, and then cleared up, though the sky stayed really grey. But the great company made up for the crummy weather.

We spent Friday night sitting for a friend's little girl. This was really fun. We had an indoor picnic in the living room. We set up the picnic mat on the floor, and then all four kids pretended to chase away birds and ants that were after the picnic. I had to be the bird swooping in to steal the pizza. We played tag, and board games, and Barbies, and then watched cartoons. It was awesome.

Owl Poppa celebrated his birthday over the weekend. J made him a card (spelling all the words himself... I was really proud). The kids worked hard the day before to clean up their playroom and library and bedrooms before he got home from work as a birthday surprise for him. And they picked out new tools and a new tool box as his present. They wrapped the present in playsilks and gave it to him in the morning. We took him out for Tex Mex in the afternoon, and then had cake and ice cream. W is now officially obsessed with birthday cake.

This morning, we went to a science lesson on desert adaptations at one of the local parks. The lesson included a walk along the trails with a guide who pointed out lots of the local flora and fauna (man, I have always wanted to be able to use that expression, lol). Because of all the (much needed) rain we've been getting, there were lots and lots of wildflowers out on the trails. The kids got to touch a coyote pelt and skull, a jack rabbit pelt and skull, look at roadrunner and owl feet and skulls, and see rattlesnake skins. We learned about cactus (and the bugs that live on them), about different types of leaves and how plants adapt to the dry weather, about native people cooked the roots of certain plants, and which ones along the trail were used for making sandals. We even got to take a cactus (our "spiky friend") home with us. The kids are so pleased, and it has a place of honor in our library room (up high, because that sucker is really poky). I wish I has pictures but I forgot my camera.

But we barely made it at all because we all over slept and made it out of the house in under 30 minutes (hence the forgetting of the camera). The kids ate the snacks we packed for breakfast, and then we ended up going out to lunch. Everyone loved the field trip, but we've all seemed a bit out of sorts all day.

So, it's back to our schedule as usual tomorrow. And back to meals at home. And finishing up some of the projects we're working on (expect cool pictures in the next few days). We're also preparing for the Owl Family Birthday Bash this weekend... one big party for all of us. So there is lots more craziness ahead. But I guess we wouldn't really have it any other way.

OWL MOMMA

PS It's late. I will come back and add appropriate links in the morning. Maybe.

Our Apple Celebration

2009-10-04T10:02:00.010-05:00

September 26 is Johnny Appleseed's birthday! And for the past week the Owl Nest has been in Apple Celebration mode!

On the 26th, we celebrated with books and apple pie... super yummy. I think apple pie is my favorite pie ever. We have been listening to the story of Johnny Appleseed (read by Garrison Keillor) in the car, reading books about apples, and eating lots of fresh apples for snacks. And of course we've been singing the Johnny Appleseed song.

One of our favorite apple books is Apples, Apples, Apples... the little owls can't wait until they can go apple picking... I have had to break it to them that in Central Texas, apple picking is over in July :( We will go to the pumpkin patch at the apple orchard though so that might be close enough for them. Last year at the pumpking patch, they got a tour of the apple sorting facility. Hopefully we'll get to do that again.

Another great book is Apple Cider Making Days... we may try making some (with buying cider at Costco as our backup plan, lol).

We're also reading The Apple-Pip Princess, Cider Apples, Johnny Appleseed, Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story, and we watched the Disney story of Johnny Appleseed in the American Legends movie.

This year, we also read The Apple Doll. This sweet story includes instructions for making an apple doll of our own, so of course, we are trying it.

Here are a few pics of the process...

W might have had the most fun, peeling and eating apples

K is planning and J is munching

W was determined to peel his apple

The apples had to soak in lemon juice. We found the bag to be the only way to keep the apples covered without needing many bottles of lemon juice!

And here are the apples before drying out... and one other little cutie face!

The apple doll heads are in the process of drying out now, and it could take several more days for them to finish. I will post pics of the finished product when we get there!

Yay for apples,

OWL MOMMA

First Day of Fall

2009-09-24T21:50:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was the first official day of Autumn... so we at Little Owl School decided to celebrate (read: K loves any reason for a "tea party" and J loves candy corn).

After getting morning lessons done, we had our Fall Festival...

We discussed the four seasons and made a list of things we think of when we hear the word Autumn. We talked about ways in which animals prepare for winter, and how people do some of the same kinds of things. We played a matching game with leaves cut out of cardboard. We read a few books. We pretended to be leaves blowing in the wind, and being raked up by momma. We had our Autumn tea party, with apples and candy corn. And everyone was happy!

Happy fall, y'all!
OWL MOMMA

Happy Birthday K!

2009-09-14T18:36:00.007-05:00

Today is K's 5th birthday! I can hardly believe it!

Here she is just a few hours old

And here's my little Daddy's Girl, hanging out with Owl Poppa

And now she seems so grown up! Five years old already!

Here she is celebrating with Grandma over the weekend

And here she is today... officially FIVE YEARS OLD!

Happy Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

Love,

OWL MOMMA

Laughing At Myself -- otherwise entitled This Year's Schedule

2009-09-05T18:54:00.004-05:00

I was all set to type out this school year's schedule for y'all, and realized it is exactly like our summer schedule. We did pretty much nothing all summer due to illness and moving. C'est la vie, non?

Here are the only additions/changes:

Language Arts: we're starting First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind, G.U.M Drops, and Spelling Workout for J.

Math Decisions: we are bumping J to Saxon 2, and letting K work through several lessons at a time in Saxon K.

Character Building: we have a new character building program that is due to arrive on Tuesday. I'll post later about whether or not we like it :)

I guess I'll save my energy for a post on what our school days look like... maybe that will be more interesting!

Laughing at Myself,
OWL MOMMA

Back to School and Other Milestones

2009-09-05T10:42:00.005-05:00

First off, this is my 100th post! Amazing. Didn't think I'd ever have that much to blog about :) And it seems like a fitting milestone for blowing the dust off this old blog and starting anew!

That's the thing I love about back to school time. Even more so than New Year's, there is a feeling of fresh beginnings. I love the new pencils, the stacks of notebooks waiting to be filled, the promise of the upcoming school year. And it isn't just the school year that is changing. The world is slowly changing too, preparing for winter. I love the sense of anticipation the fall brings... looking forward to being another year older, the the birthdays of my children, to the magic of the holidays... I love it!

It's also time to reign in the focus of this blog. I have decided to keep it (fairly) strictly to just homeschooling and kid related stuff. I have another blog in the works to give me a place to keep track of my deep thoughts :) I'll keep the Little Owls as the stars of Little Owl Learning!

After a flurry of end of summer events, including a fairly last-minute trip to the coast (the first time my children have been to a beach), we started back to our school routine this past Monday. We're slowly getting back into the swing of things. After completing this first week, I feel pretty good!

Our lesson plans look pretty much like out previous ones. We'll be adding in spelling and grammar for J, and we now officially have a third student... W refuses to be left out of all the fun. He has been running around the house calling me "teacher"... too cute!

We had a big back to school kick off... Each of the kids got a pencil box full of little back to school treats... markers, mini notebooks, new school socks :) We had a little party including owl cupcakes... they were a huge hit (though I used homemade chocolate cake and buttercream frosting, YUM). Then after all the lessons were complete, we took the kids to the library, and the big kids got their first official library cards... they were SO excited! And then the fun continued Tuesday with a "Not Back to School" party with our homeschool group.

Looking forward to the new year!

OWL MOMMA

random complaint

2009-08-11T21:46:00.002-05:00

I have some new plans for the direction I'd like to take this blog... will probably have more updates in the near future. But in the meantime...

We've only had our new phone service and phone number for 24 hours, and have already received a telemarketing call. In Spanish no less.

Now, honestly! 24 hours people!

More on Thankfulness

2009-07-19T23:49:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine gave me a beautiful owl themed journal. No occasion, just because she was thinking of me. (Friend, you know who you are! :) Thank you again) But I haven't been able to bring my self to write in it yet... not wanting to use such a thoughtful gift and such a beautiful book for writing grocery lists or something mundane like that.

This upcoming move, in addition to making me stressed out and somewhat crazy, has left me feeling contemplative. One of the things that has come out of my late night deep thoughts is that I have decided to record, at the end of each day, just a little blurb about what we did that day. So that we (the kids and I) can look back over it and see what we've done and who we've seen. It's so easy to lose track of the little things we do. I don't want to forget the little things that count so much, like spontaneous trips to the park, cool things we find along the way, or other random fun times we share. The kinds of moments I am thankful to be able to share with my kids, and that can be easily forgotten in the "dailyness" of life. This is something that has been on my heart for awhile, and I haven't acted on it yet, not having the perfect place to record these things.

Do you see where this is going?

Tonight, I'll be making my first entry about our daily happenings in my new Owl journal. I am excited and thankful and happy at the way it has all come about.

Feeling Thankful

2009-07-19T14:04:00.005-05:00

I am feeling very thankful right now.

I have been trying hard not to give up my compacting in the face of this upcoming move. It's hard for me to feel patient or resourceful when I am feeling under so much stress.

But things have a way of working out, when you just stick to it. For example:

~We ran out of boxes yesterday. Owl Poppa wanted to run to the store and pick up some boxes. But a quick craigslist search and request on one of my parenting boards has turned up all the boxes and packing materials I could need.

~Our can opener has kicked the bucket. A friend has one to give us. And she is conveniently on the same side of town as the friend who is giving us the boxes.

~I was talking about hairstyles at a party and mentioned wanting to get some hot rollers for my hair, and a friend offered me hers. This was the one purchase I haven't even pursued because I didn't want to buy new and didn't want to buy hair products from someone I don't know. Problem solved.

~Another friend who knew I was looking for clothes gifted me with three adorable new skirts. YAY!

~We're going to need a refrigerator for the new place. I have been patiently looking for one on craigslist, and the perfect fridge (perfect style, color, and price) turned up. I need a fridge, they need to sell, and everyone is happy! I love that personal aspect of buying second hand.

I have been very very stressed and cranky lately (moving does NOT bring out the best in me), and I want to really celebrate this moment of feeling thankful and happy!

A House... Maybe

2009-07-19T09:18:00.002-05:00

We submitted our application Friday for a new place... as of Friday afternoon everything sounded fine. But we don't get the definitive answer til Monday. Say a few prayers, keep fingers crossed, do whatever it is that you do to send some positive vibes our way! I am so tired of not knowing what our address will be at the end of the month!

temporarily on hold

2009-07-13T21:25:00.001-05:00

We're moving at the end of the month, and as of now, we don't have a place to move in to! :( So I will be otherwise occupied for the next few weeks... finding a house, packing, moving, etc. all on top of our normal stuff. I'll try to post something (I have some great pics from my new camera that I keep meaning to post) but I can't promise anything.

Christmas in July!

2009-07-08T00:23:00.003-05:00

My mother-in-law (who is super awesome) gave us an early Christmas present... a new camera (to replace the one that W destroyed, lol). So look forward to many more pictures on this blog! As soon as I read the instruction manual, that is :)

Compacting -- Month One Update

2009-07-05T20:47:00.000-05:00

I started my Compact at the beginning of June. Now that we are officially in July, here's a look at how June turned out.

As a recap, here are my rules:

1. Avoid Buying
2. Avoid Buying New
Exceptions: personal care items (includes shoes and underwear), food, supplies for projects or schooling (only after I have gone through step one to decide if we need it or can make due with something else), gifts for birthdays (unless I have time to make something)
If I have honestly exhausted all of the above means, and I am unable to wait it out, purchases should support local or
independently owned businesses.

3. Food Rules (since this is something we have to buy)
Minimal convenience foods
Buy local and organic where possible
Shop the farmer's markets first
Minimize packaging, buy bulk, bring my shopping bags
If we do eat out (let's be reasonable folks... this is sure to happen... I can only make so many changes at once) we'll keep it to local establishments

1. I am getting much better about sorting out wants vs. needs. This is such a valuable skill to cultivate. I like that I am slowly becoming less of a mindless consumer at the mercy of impulse buys. It's amazing to realize how much junk and clutter would have made it into my house if I hadn't been paying attention. So many little thing that caught my eye and that I otherwise might have bought that were not really practical or well-made or even necessary. It was nice to recognize that I really didn't need a pack of Tinkerbell gel pens, or a resin garden gnome... even if they were on sale :) That's not to say there weren't a few struggles.

I had a moment of weakness over some dish towels... I know, I know... they're just dish towels. But man, I really really really wanted them. I knew it was just a want. Yet, every time I was in Target for groceries I would detour past that section and look at them LOL. I actually bought them, thought better of it, and returned them to Target. :) Whew! I made it past that hurdle, just barely. And the thing was, once I brought them home, I was able to realize that 1. I didn't really need them and 2. they weren't even very well made. I can't believe how much the WANTING could cloud my judgement.

2. Shopping second hand is fun! I bought my wardrobe updates at the thrift store and scored some great deals. I made gifts for a few of the birthday parties we went to, and they turned out super cute... little Waldorf-style dolls. Not only did they turn out well, but K got to help me with picking the patterns and the fabric. I bought a few books on half.com, bought W a much needed pair of new shoes (I did buy these brand new), and I think that's it. Oh, there were the beeswax tapers I bought at the farm market. Definitely an impulse buy, but they were useful and hand-made so I didn't feel too bad about it.

The only NEW thing besides food that I bought were holiday socks for the kids, and some fireworks for the fourth.

3. Ahhh... food! This is where I have to keep it real. I knew going into it that this area would be tough. But I'm emarassed by how poorly I managed. Our food bill for the month was ridiculous... really, it bordered on obscene. We ate way too much fast food, bought snacks and other convenience foods, and just didn't plan well at all. We did have that whole two weeks of illness to contend with... most of the fast food and poor purchases took place during that time. And so much of the healthy fresh food in the fridge went bad during that time. SIGH I realize now the need to keep a more in the way of healthy pantry stuff for tough times. Canned beans or broth aren't things we normally buy but would have been much appreciated when I was too sick to set beans to cook or make homemade stock. I'm going to address this further once we get settled from our move.

So that about sums up June on the Compacting frontier. I have some other thoughts about it that will have to wait til later. Also, I'll post my plans for July later.

Fourth of July

2009-07-05T08:47:00.005-05:00

Hope everyone had a great day! We sure did! It's been a super-long fun-filled weekend for us.

Friday night Grandma went with us to take the kids to the circus! This has become an annual tradition now for the kids... going to the circus with Grandma. It's something they love and really look forward to. They've been asking about the circus since we finished with Easter :) And this year, W was able to really be in on the action. The look on his face while watching the show was priceless. Everyone came home tired and happy, covered in cotton candy and clutching new circus souvenirs.

After such a late night, we all slept in a little, and got up to a Happy Birthday America breakfast. I wish my camera wasn't broken, but it is (stamping foot). The table was set with our red outdoor plates on blue construction paper placemats. For a center piece there were two flags in a clear glass vase filled with layers of white and blue crepe paper. There were blue and white crepe paper twirls hung along the top of the red curtains. And a few red, white, and blue balloons... the balloons were the best part! After reading a few patriotic poems, including The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, we sang the Star Spangled Banner and talked about the birth of our nation. Then we all sat down to enjoy blueberry pancakes, bacon, and Red White and Blueberry Muffins... a Fourth of July tradition now! (recipe below)

The rest of the day was spent hanging out, running errands, playing. The kids put on a Fourth of July show in the morning (K did a dance and sang the Johnny Appleseed song "because it's about America" and J made up a song about America and marched around with his new sword), and then spent much of the day racing their scooters in the garage. We read some more Fourth of July stuff, made pinwheels out of starry paper, and just had a fairly lazy and relaxing day!

For supper, we re-set the table with the fun stuff from breakfast and served lots of yumminess... fresh strawberries, cucumber slices, muffins, fresh corn on the cob that the kids peeled themselves, hotdogs, and chips. And for dessert? Watermelon, of course! The kids thought this was the best dinner ever. At their place setting, each of them received a pair of Fourth of July socks, which were a huge hit!

After supper, it was baths and pjs (and new socks), and then we headed out to see fireworks. This was the first year in awhile we've done more than just see whatever the neighbors were doing... the city fireworks ban put a crimp in that plan. So we parked in the mall parking lot and watched the fireworks display from Six Flags! I couldn't believe how many people were doing the same thing. But the people around were all really nice. And the display was spectacular!

And what made it all worthwhile? Besides the look on their faces when they woke up to the decorations, the big sticky watermelon smiles after supper, the cute chubby feet in holiday socks, the big kids oohing and aahing at the first fireworks display they really remember? While we were sitting in the traffic, heading home, K told me, "Momma, I had a really great holiday!"

Hope you did too!

Red White and Blueberry Muffins
1/2 C butter, softened
3/4 C sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
2 C flour
1/2 t salt
2 t baking powder
1/2 C milk
3/4 C dried cranberries
3/4 C blueberries (we use frozen, but you could use dried)
You could add half a cup of white chocolate chips... we've not tried it yet, but it sounds yummy.

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in eggs one at a time, beating well. Stir in vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Stir in dry ingredients alternating with the milk. Fold in berries. Fill lined muffin tin cups 2/3 full. Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 25-30 minutes.

We used patriotic muffin cups for ours... it was a nice effect.

How awesome is this?!?!?!

2009-07-01T18:48:00.005-05:00

Check out the new layout! Isn't this the most awesome thing you've ever seen?!? Dawn, at Dawn's Design Shop, is amazing! Go check her out! I'm off now to tinker with the sidebars... way more fun than writing content right now :)

Boring Posts for Saturday Vol 3

2009-06-27T07:57:00.004-05:00

All this boring goodness is hosted by Mary at Hope Echoes.

So, it is Saturday again. I'm up early today... everyone else is still sleeping. So I get to enjoy the beginning of my day in silence, with a hot cup of tea and homemade brownies! It's so nice and cold in the house I can almost pretend it isn't going to be 102 today. Everything aroud the house is still and peaceful. Even the dogs are calm... they are both cuddled up side by side on the playroom couch... it's adorable, and no easy feat for two large animals.

I've been doing too much thinking lately. I keep meaning to write a blog post in defense of deep thinking. I DO think it is valuable, and will someday share those thoughts with the wide world. But lately, the deep thoughts are wearing me down. Some portion of it is that I can't ACT on any of those deep thoughts... at least not until we move. Our lives can't handle anymore change just at the moment. The other is that some of those thoughts are things I can't do anything about even if I wanted to. And then I spend time thinking deep thoughts about deep thinking. Over-analysis, anyone?

And all this thinking in circles just leads to high anxiety levels for me, which really isn't any good. Most of the people who read this know me IRL and know my anxiety issues... one day I'll write about my nervous breakdown... maybe it'll be cathartic. But in the meantime, I'm starting to feel that twitchy, edgy feeling that crops up when things get hard... and things feel harder when my sleep is so disrupted. I feel like a broken record about the sleep issues. Blech. This is what I get for doing sleep deprivation research for all that time... it really is like some sort of karmic retribution. But for right now, I'm left with high anxiety levels and the question of what to do about it. I am going to start with watching the caffeine intake and trying to squeeze in a little exercise. It's that, or go on meds :) so we'll start there.

Our plans for today include taking J to another backflip class. Then rounding up all the kids for a birthday party. I was able to make a really cute gift for the birthday girl. K and I worked on it together. We hope she likes it!

We're hosting a Capoeira get-together at our house tomorrow evening. This will be a chance for some of the newer students to get together and practice the instruments and the songs. I'm kind of looking forward to learning the songs... the kids do a lot of singing in Portuguese and I 1. don't know what they are singing about and 2. don't know if they are even singing the right words :) The kids will have their batizado, or ranking ceremony, the second weekend in July. J will be working for his third cord! And this will be K's first cord test. Since this is a new studio, we weren't sure how big the ceremony was going to be, but it looks like we'll have people in from other groups, and two different mestres there. Things are really coming along for the group, and we're so glad to be part of that. I am really and truly glad they have found a sport that they enjoy, and that they have some aptitude for! It's been such a fun, family centered experience for us.

On the homeschool front, we've been pluggin away at the reading lessons (Teaching Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons) and letting pretty much everything else slide. J was complaining that the lessons are starting to get too long and that the older lessons were easier. So he decided, on his own, to go back and read all the older stories to K. I guess that seemed like less work? :)

I'm sorry I haven't been able to be as boring as usual today! The laundry and dishes are all caught up, and that is usually what I do on Saturdays! And no trips to the farm market today. We will be headed out to pick up our CSA share though.

Last thought for today... can some of you more tech savvy bloggers help me with the following things? 1. How do I do strikethrough text? Like to cross something off a list, ya know? and 2. is there a quick way to put a hyperlink in the comments section? I can do the html code thing, but it requires me to go back and look up the code each time. Surely there is a faster way?
Thanks!!!

Happy Saturday, folks!

Daily Quotes

2009-06-26T11:55:00.004-05:00

I have something of a quote fetish... I collect them. Other people collect other things... I collect quotes. So, I added this cool little widget-y thing to my sidebar with daily quotes related to learning. Not too bad, hunh? But here's today's quote (and I quote):

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, bearding* every authority which stood in their way.
-Thomas Jefferson
*bearding=boldly confronting

These are supposed to be quotes related to lifelong learning... as a lifelong learner, do I really need the word "bearding" defined for me? Really? If, perhaps, I didn't know what it meant, and couldn't figure it out contextually, wouldn't it aid my lifelong learning to go look it up?

SIGH... it just really irritated me.

And lest you think I'm just a whiny complainer, here is one of my favorites:

My education was interrupted only by my schooling.
-Winston Churchill

Not Much To Say

2009-06-25T09:59:00.002-05:00

I'm just tired of reading the last post when the blog comes up! So it is time for something else.

:)

It's hard to think this morning... what I'd really like to do is focus on some schooling stuff, but the neighbor dogs are yapping and the birds in the yard are squawking and J and W are listening to a book on CD... loudly!

Anyway, I have realized that we probably aren't going to get much of anything done until we get the move finished. Things in the house are partially packed. We went looking at a few places yesterday. Still haven't found the perfect place yet but at least we're making progress.

This whole being patient thing is really hard for me. I want things done and I want them done now. I have all these ideas in my head of things that I want to try, and realistically they have to wait til we move. I keep reminding myself that NOW is probably not the time to take on more hobbies like making cheese or yogurt. As much as I want to. Accepting this has been hard on me. I am starting to feel like "living" is on hold while we look for a place TO live. KWIM?

My only plan for today is to help the kids get the playroom cleaned up, get through reading lessons for both big kids, and maybe make a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread. And to be relaxed and enjoy the day with these little cuties.

Late Night Ramblings

2009-06-21T23:43:00.004-05:00

It's late late late. And while I am up, unable to sleep, Owl Poppa is at the emergency room. His sore throat finally got the better of him. Unable to talk or really swallow, he took himself to urgent care and they sent him to the emergency room with peritonsilar abscess. It is freaking me out a little bit that I am home with the kids and he's in the ER without me; but I'm really more harm than good anyway since being calm isn't exactly my strong suit and the ER gives me weird anxiety issues. My mother-in-law, who is just amazing, is with him and is going to drive him home. Last I heard he was on IV antibiotics and steroids. I'm just hoping there is no cutting involved... *shudder* Since I can't sleep, I'm working on laundry, cleaning up, and now blogging, trying to stay busy and keep my mind from worrying. I don't really even know if there is anything to worry about, but googling "peritonsilar abscess" is not on my list of ways to keep calm. Just in case :)

If you're up reading this, send some love and healing vibes our way!

ETA: Owl Poppa got home a little after 2 am. He was able to talk again, which he hadn't been able to do all day. He has antibiotics and some pain meds to take, but was doing okay. He actually looked more chipper than I've seen him in a couple of days :)

Boring Post for Sunday Morning

2009-06-21T08:30:00.003-05:00

I missed yesterday's "Boring Posts for Saturdays" hosted by Mary at Hope Echoes.
So I'll branch out and do it this morning. :)

To increase the "boring" factor, this week I will bulletize my list for you :)

W is sick... he spent the whole night wide awake and crying, or sleeping fitfully for ten to fifteen minute intervals. But he woke up bright and sunshiny at 7:30 this morning.
I am the only person I know who could be sick for over a week, feel like I'm barely eating, and gain six pounds. What is that about?
I am feeling better. My throat is still swollen but my pain is gone. So hooray for that.
Owl Poppa is working today. We'll be celebrating Father's Day on Wednesday. I must try to remember to call my dad today.
Our NO-TV during the day rule has gone completely out the window with everyone being sick. I don't know if I'm up for the challenge of reinstituting it. At least not today.
I have nothing else I feel like typing, so I think I'm done for this morning! :)

Still Whiny

2009-06-18T15:49:00.002-05:00

My whiny mood is still hanging around, mostly because this excruciatingly sore throat is still hanging around. I have realized that I don't handle being sick very well or very graciously. Blech

So I am practically drowning myself in herbal tea and chicken broth, and I'm about to go gargle with more grapefruitseed extract. This is no fun at all.

In order to end on a somewhat happier note, I have found a new rental agent so hopefully we'll have a new place soon!

Hope everyone else is feeling okay!!!!

Pickles!

2009-06-16T15:22:00.006-05:00

I love pickles! My favorite are the big Kosher-style dill pickles that you can get in the bulk barrels at the deli... drool! Our CSA share for this week came with 14 pickling cucumbers... so I decided to make pickles. I found the recipe online here. Since I don't own canning jars, I put the pickles in a glasslock container (that I got at Costco... I HEART Costco) and straight into the fridge. By today, they actually look and taste like pickles... YAY! They are bit on the salty side since I misread the recipe and added extra salt instead of sugar... oops! But still good, and pretty close to deli pickles. And I am sure the next batch will be even better.

The original recipe calls for a gallon of water, so I scaled the recipe back and adjusted for the fact that I used kosher salt instead of pickling salt (for Morton's brand, 1 cup plus 2 tbs kosher salt = 1 cup pickling salt). Below is the way I did it (with the exception of the sugar/salt mix-up)... I am really looking forward to making some more.

Pickles!
To a medium saucepan, add:
5 1/3 C Water
1/3 C vinegar
4.5 T
kosher salt
1/3 t sugar (not salt, lol)
Bring it to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a glass jar or container, add the pickling cucumbers (either whole or sliced however you want). Add in several peeled cloves of fresh garlic (I think we used 6 cloves and it was nice and garlicky). Add some dill weed or dill seeds or both. Cover with the boiling brine mixture. Cover and place in the refrigerator.

Pity.... Party of One

2009-06-15T21:00:00.004-05:00

I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Like Alexander. I am feeling so whiny right now, so I am going to complain! If you don't want to listen to me whine, you should probably click on something else. Check back later and I am sure I'll have cheered up by then.

I went to bed with a sore throat, and when I woke up at 6:30am to take ibuprofen, it was still sore. I am still sick. Worse than yesterday. Achy, fevery, sore sore throat, blech. But Owl Poppa is also sick... and sickER than me. I hate that. I know it is whiny and ridiculous of me, but I just want all the attention and sympathy for me. Maybe I should move to Australia. I woke up early and couldn't think of anything to cook for breakfast. I did laundry, worked with the kids on their reading lessons, and got K dressed while trying to pretend I didn't feel so terrible. I didn't have time to shave my legs so I didn't get to wear one of my new skirts today. I bet I could have worn my skirt in Australia. I had to take K to the doctor this morning for a rash (worse than the usual eczema) she developed over the weekend. Turns out, the doctor thinks she has chicken pox. So now we have to stay home and away from the rest of the world for the next week or so while we wait to see if W gets it. Do I have to stay away from Australia? So I'm sick, tired, fussy, and facing at least a week of confinement. And the sad part is, K really isn't any itchier than normal. :( J has been more contrary than usual... I think it's the steady diet of take out and snack food he's had since I got sick. And he's mad that he has to miss Capoeira on K's account (the chicken pox). I wonder if they have Capoeira in Australia. We are supposed to be out of our current house in less than six weeks. Our property manager is working as our rental agent. She is... let's just call it "less than helpful" about the whole thing. She told me point blank that she wants me to do the footwork because she doesn't make very much on rental commisions. So now, I need to find a new rental agent. And I can't in good faith go and expose a bunch of people til K gets better. SO I can't realy start looking for a new place til next week. Next week, I said, I'll be in Australia. I know that there are much worse things we could be dealing with, but man, none of this was on my to-do list. I will add "Move to Australia" to my to-do list. It probably won't get done either. I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

So I am openly soliciting sympathy! Please send me a few virtual hugs. The virtual kick in the pants to suck it up and move on can come tomorrow.

It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that. Even in Australia.

sickness update

2009-06-14T16:29:00.004-05:00

Because I know you are all at home wondering anxiously how I am doing, I think I am feeling better. At least, on the ibuprofen I am feeling better! :) And I am 99% certain it's not epiglottitis ;) But either way, I did get the kitchen cleaned, the laundry folded and put away, the downstairs vacuumed, the diapers washed, and dinner cooked. I also took the kids for a drive and put gas in the car. I even got to wear another one of new skirts. So, not too bad for one (sick) day. K is still under the weather (she's napping now), and now J and Owl Poppa are complaing of sore throats. I am about to burn some lavendar and tea tree oil, open the windows for a few minutes, and put fresh sheets on the beds... I am determined to keep us all as healthy as I can!! Keep sending positive thoughts our way!

well it's official...

2009-06-14T08:20:00.005-05:00

I am officially sick. Blech.

After setting the kids up with a movie yesterday, I got progressively worse. Fever, chills, burning eyes, the whole shebang. So, I sat huddled under blankets while they watched not one but three movies waiting for Owl Poppa to get home.

My tonsils are swollen and it hurts to swallow. I have a (completely ir-) rational fear of getting epiglottitis. Or in some other way losing my airway and suffocating. I do actually realize that this isn't likely, but it freaks me out anyway every time I get a sore throat or swollen tonsils. That fear is definitely worse than the illness. I had strep throat twice last year... it was terrible.

I am sitting here sipping hot lemon and honey with cayenne. This is probably the best sore throat drink around. And surprisingly tasty. And with the help of some ibuprofen, I am feeling functional this morning. As soon as I hit "publish post", I am going to go take some echinacea, keep up with my remedies, and conquer what I can in the house before getting worse again. There is all the damage from last night to clean up, and all the end of evening chores that didn't get done. I have to get a load of diapers washed or poor W isn't going to have anything to wear. And I think I'll throw dinner in the crockpot right now so we won't have to eat mac and cheese and poptarts for dinner again. :) My menu from yesterday has gone totally out the window... I think we're going to have chicken soup. But think how good it will feel to sit back and relax this afternoon with all the chores done. I might even get that nap.

Wish me luck!

Boring Posts for Saturday Vol 2

2009-06-13T13:25:00.004-05:00

Today we went to the (different from last week) farmers market for eggs and milk. This time we were much more successful. We met my almost brother in law and his family there... the kids were soooo excited and keep asking me when he can be their Tio... I keep telling them to ask their Tia and leave me alone about it :) (Not really, I'm not really THAT rude)

So at the market we bought eggs, milk, grass fed flank steak (super yum), a loaf of organic sourdough bread, some hand-dipped beeswax taper candles, and a delicious and huge cinnamon bun that we split in the car. We might have to get there earlier next time. As soon as it starts to heat up (which is EARLY here in Texas), K's eczema starts bothering her... we had to leave when she got so itchy she couldn't take it anymore. I did spend some time perusing the gorgeous aprons... oh how I want one!!! With a full ruffly skirt and a pocket... someday!

Then we went to pick up our first summer CSA share. Our winter CSA ended a while back, and the summer one just started. We came home with lots of yummy squash, onions, fresh garlic, and tons of pickling cucumbers. We're going to learn to make pickles... Hooray! We got to chat for a bit with our friend who is the CSA drop off point (all the veggie shares are taken to her house, and then we pick up there). It was nice to squeeze a super short visit into our morning.

Next we drove around for awhile to let W take his nap in the car. I kinda wish it was easier to get him to take a nap at home, because I could really use a nap today. My throat is super sore, with pain referring to my ear. Blech. I have some remedies I am going to take as soon as I'm done with this post, but a nap sure sounds delicious and would surely speed the healing up, right? Maybe I'll put on a movie for the kids :)

While we were driving around, I decided to go check out the outside of one of the properties we were considering. We got lost trying to find it and drove miles out of our way down some country roads. At least the view was pretty. This house was at the top of my list because it is all tile inside and on almost an acre. It WAS at the top of my list... driving around it, it was clear pretty quick that the layout of the land just wasn't going to work for this family. SIGH... at least it narrows my search down a bit.

I did get to wear my new skirt today! I have been in the market for some skirts or sundresses... I am tired of always looking so sloppy in jeans and tshirts. So I went to the thrift store yesterday and found two cute denim skirts, two floral skirts, an adorable sleeveless sweater (K told me it was so pretty I just had to get it), three pairs of knit tights for this winter, and a pair of sparkly shoes for K. My budget for clothes for this month was $25. Total cost of the thrift store trip was $23.33... I was pretty proud of myself. :) It is looking like we'll actually be within our budget for this month!

And to round out this totally boring post with even more boring-ness, I will end with our meal plan for the next few days. This is only main dishes since I haven't thought out sides yet, that's how boring I am. Here we go:

Tonight: casserole made with chicken, leftover gravy and mashed potatoes, veggies and cheese.
Tomorrow: cheesesteaks with fried onions made with the flank steak I bought today, served on the sourdough bread from the farm market.
Monday: cook a whole chicken in the crockpot... use the meat to make flautas with fresh guacamole, put the rest of the meat aside for the next few days, make chicken broth from the bones
Tuesday: figure out something to do with the chicken from the crockpot
Wednesday: tortilla soup... my favorite!
Thursday: pork chops
Friday: leftover or homemade pizza

Now, to go see about those remedies and set the kids up with a movie!

Boring Posts for Saturday brought to you by Mary, at Hope Echoes

Personal Want Ad

2009-06-12T17:00:00.001-05:00

Female, married with three children,
seeking house for long term commitment.
Hoping relationship will lead to a forever home.
Should be interested in happy family dinners,
long hours playing in the back yard,
sweet dreams, and happy memories.

We're moving again. Since J was born, we have lived in 6 places, not including the time we've spent in hotels between houses. FWIW, J is only 6 and a half and we've been in this house 2 years. That's a lot of moves squeezed into his first 4.5 years. I'm tired of moving, but hoping that this next one will settle us down! I am taking a cue from those folks who write down everything they want in a partner, and then suddenly meet the person of their dreams... here is my house wish list:

At least 2000 sf... our current 1500 is bursting at the seams with 2 adults, 3 high energy kids, 2 big dogs, and a fish
Backyard should be sunny enough to grow veggies with a least a few trees for shade and for climbing, and maybe a hammock.
Laundry area must be indoors... our current laundry area is in the garage and I hate it
A new-ish AC system and double pane windows... Texas is too hot for anything else...oh and screens in all the windows
Playroom in the downstairs
Eat In Kitchen
Fire place
Two inch wood blinds throughout
A nice front yard and good curb appeal
Tile or Laminate in at least the downstairs, preferably throughout
Garden tub, no jets in the bathtubs... no funky mold or damp smell in the house
Neutral colors, no plaid wallpaper
A place we can be for the next three to five years... with the way we move, that would seem like an eternity
And since this is my WISH list, I'd like to be able to have a few chickens!

Technical Difficulties...

2009-06-09T09:11:00.002-05:00

Work is being done to fix the cute owl layout... please bear with me! :) I am also working to figure out how to remove the orange square that you see currently!

Stay Tuned

ETA: Orange square is removed and previous background has restored. Not sure when I'll get the owl layout back, but at least this is cute enough!

Wrong Side of the Bed

2009-06-08T09:33:00.008-05:00

Now, I actually get up on the wrong side of the bed EVERY morning, since I sleep sideways across the bed. This is one of the benefits of cosleeping with W, and not having Owl Poppa in my room. W and I can sprawl all out over the king-sized bed :)

But this morning, I woke up GRUMPY!!!! W was up at least ten times overnight. I don't know if it is teeth, or the full moon, or the alignment of the stars, or what... but man, I have had enough. I can't function on so little sleep. Blech. Not at all the way I had hoped to start out the week.

SIGH

After attempting to get through a few school lessons with J, while W crawled all over the back of the couch and practiced jumping down onto my head, well, I just gave up. I took a shower, loaded all the kids into the car, made a stop at the taco joint drive thru (nothing fixes a bad day lke carb loading... white flour tortillas and a 44 oz Coke... YUM), and headed off to the park.

Thing did get better. Thankfully. We were able to spend some time with my awesome friend J and her kids... check out J's blog here. All the kids got to run around with light sabers. Nothing makes my kids happier than light sabers. :)

We also had a celebrity sighting! There in the playground, pushing kids on the swings and playing in the sandbox, was one of our hometeam basketball players. This wasn't just any old fella... this was Tim Duncan. I mean the guy has won 4 NBA championships. He's been MVP twice and Finals MVP three times (I think... you had best check with Owl Poppa for totally accurate stats). Anyway, here was this awesome upper-eschelon NBA player, sitting in the sandbox at our local park. It was awesome.

Most awesome of all was that none of the folks at the park, dads included, bothered him... not even one autograph request in the hour or so we overlapped at the park... he got to just be a poppa and hang out. I didn't tell the kids who it was until after we left. And J was totally psyched... you know why? Because now he knows approximately how tall Yao Ming is... Too funny. He's been obsessed with Yao Ming lately.

I was frustrated at how little schooling got done today, but glad to be able to call it a day when needed and head to the park to reset. And now we're going to make pear muffins... YAY! Every day is better with muffins!

Pear Muffins (adapted from the La Leche League Cookbook)

2 unpeeled ripe pears, chopped finely

1/2 C honey

1 egg

1/4 C melted butter (or oil)

1 C milk

1 3/4 C whole wheat flour

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t ground cloves

1/2 t salt

2 t baking powder

1/4 C wheat germ

Mix pear and honey in bowl, tossing to coat. Set to the side. In a large bowl, beat egg, butter, and milk. Add dry ingredients except wheat germ and stir to combine. Fold in pear mixture. Fill greased muffin cups around 2/3 full. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Yiled is around 16 muffins.

Boring Posts for Saturday Vol 1

2009-06-06T19:13:00.007-05:00

Yay! I'm nothing if not a follower, and I wanna be cool like Dawn and Mary. Thank you Dawn for introducing me to this, and Mary for hosting.

We haven't done very much today at all. We went to the new farmer's market this morning! That was cool. But there were no vendors selling eggs or raw milk, which is what we went for. There was a reggae band though, so the kids liked that.

Then we ran to Costco to get milk and eggs (see the no milk and eggs at the farmer's market above). We also had to get a gift for a birthday party today. We just found out about it recently so there was no time to make anything. We bought books at Costco. I love books! And books are not plastic, lol, which atones for Costco not being locally owned. :)

Then it was off to the pool party. The kids had fun, and I got to reconnect with a few friends I don't see very often. Which is just a shame really. Maybe this summer will be better for get-togethers. Probably not though.

Then it was home to catch up on laundry and wash dishes. My sister in law stopped by to drop off boxes for our upcoming move. So we got to have a nice and short visit with her and her almost-fiancee. We're all anxiously waiting for the announcement. We all sat and chatted amidst the giant piles of laundry waiting to be away. Gotta love people who love you, mess and all!

Now we're all sitting around, eating a hodge-podge supper consisting of leftover pizza, sausages, last night's salad, and canned oranges. And we're happy and full!

So that's about as boring as I can be... now go check out Mary's blog Hope Echoes. And play along if you want... come on, you know you wanna!

Compacting Challenges Already

2009-06-03T22:51:00.004-05:00

Man, this is way harder than I thought it was going to be. Not the buying second hand part... not the being patient about my wants and needs part... although I almost had a moment of weekness at Target. The hardest part is the avoiding fast food places and junk food part!!!!

I have been selling some of our excess things, and feeling very proud of the money I've made. It's not much, but I've used it for new school books for next year, traded some things for a baby carrier (more about that in another post), and, well, used it for milkshakes from the drive through. And cheeseburgers. And... doh!

SIGH

I have rationalized it that I am not really spending money on these things... that it is like I've bartered for them. But it's really just rationalizing. I know better.

And the thing is, I know it isn't good for me. I know we have food at home. I know... well I know what I OUGHT to do and it just isn't what I WANT to do.

Blech.

I am not going to let this derail me, though. I will just keep doing better. I need suggestions on some kind of sweet treat I can bring along for myself to keep me out of the drive through window... something yummy that I can buy at the grocery store. Or something homemade and truly decadent (and compatible with eating in the car). Any ideas? And in the mean time, if you see me in the drive through line, yell at me :)

Compacting (Again)

2009-06-03T22:18:00.004-05:00

In 2006, way back in the olden days when I only had two children lol, I used to frequent the boards at mothering dot com. It was there that I came across the idea of compacting. Sara at walkslowlylivewildly summed it up nicely here. I was SO onboard. I started in January of 2007, and lasted until we moved in April 2007. Not too shabby! Right around this same time, the San Francisco Compact folks were getting lots of press (it seemed like it to me, but I am sensitive to that sort of thing). S0 it was probably good for me to bow out then, anyway, lest I be accused of (finally) being trendy (don't worry, I'm not).

But the lessons I learned in that time were good for me. It was eye opening to not be able to buy anything brand new. It was work to have to search out something second hand. It was educational to have to decide if that item was worth the work.

I think for me, this is one of those things that seems like it would complicate things, but really makes my life easier. So I'm back on the wagon :)

Here are the rules I'm playing by. I plan to take this one month at a time and just go with it. I am accepting that some months may not be perfect, and that that's okay.

1. Avoid Buying
Is this a want or a need?
Is there something I can DO instead of BUY (I LOVE Cindysporch)?
Can I use something I already have?
Can I wait?

2. Avoid Buying New
Shop Craigslist, thrift stores, etc.
Barter, Borrow, Make something
Be patient
Exceptions: personal care items (includes shoes and underwear), food, supplies for projects or schooling (only after I have gone through step one to decide if we need it or can make due with something else), gifts for birthdays (unless I have time to make something)
If I have honestly exhausted all of the above means, and I am unable to wait it out, purchases should support local or independently owned businesses.

3. Food Rules (since this is something we have to buy)
Minimal convenience foods
Buy local and organic where possible
Shop the farmer's markets first
Minimize packaging, buy bulk, bring my shopping bags
If we do eat out (let's be reasonable folks... this is sure to happen... I can only make so many changes at once) we'll keep it to local establishments

My goals:
Embracing patience
Finding contentment in the present
Combatting my tendency toward instant gratification
Cultivate resourcefulness

... and saving a little money toward that Christmas tree farm in Maine won't hurt.

Commitments

2009-06-02T09:00:00.008-05:00

My friend Janet at mami de PAZ is a thinker of deep thoughts. I always love what she has to say about what she's been thinking over. She is someone I admire because she works very hard to live out her beliefs.

I am trying to be more like this. I admit to being an idealist. My problem is that the ideal and the reality don't match often enough.

I love making plans at the beginning of each month. Budgets, homeschool plans, travel plans (I use the term travel loosely since I hate to be far from home). It's the follow-through part that I have alot of trouble with.

Actually, that seems to sum up most of my life. Big plans, little follow-through.

So I am attempting to turn over a new leaf!

I sat down and wrote out all of my values. From there I brainstormed ways to bring my life better into alignment with those values. In some areas, I am right where I'd like to be. In other areas, it is going to take some doing.

And now June is stretching out before me.... full of promise and, well, basically, just not all messed up yet :)

I do plan to post more about all the values things I have been working on, but right now I need to start cooking supper, lol... someone's gotta feed these kids.

I will leave y'all with a fabulous recipe (that has nothing at all to do with the topic above... but it's super yummy and worth trying).

Beer Bread Recipe

3 cups of flour
1/4 C sugar
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
12 oz bottle of beer (or a 12 oz can of soda)
3 T melted butter

Mix together dry ingredients. Pour in beer (or soda). Mix til it forms a sticky batter. Pour batter into a greased bread pan. Pour melted butter over the top and bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes. Try not to eat it all at once! :) You'll get different flavors from using different beers or sodas. You can also do this with whole wheat flour... it's a bit denser but still yummy! Or add a handful of shredded cheese and serve it with soup... oooh, now I'm drooling! Let me know watcha think.

Cute? Things Kids Say

2009-06-01T20:45:00.003-05:00

J, in response to me telling him for the gazillionth time that NO he could NOT go outside:
"You cut me deep mom, you cut me deep"

K, when I was explaining that I needed to try on the sundress before purchasing it:
"Yeah, so you can make sure it doesn't make you look pregnant"

W, because this is all he really says:
"dis? momomomomomomomomomomomom"

Lazy Day Recap

2009-05-31T22:22:00.002-05:00

Well, my lazy day wasn't as lazy as it could have been. We hung out, cleaned up a bit, finished up all the laundry, put clean sheets on the beds... standard stuff really, but not the laying around in my pj's that I had in mind. We're pretty sure we are moving soon so I have also been purging stuff... I'm one of those crazy people who LOVES downsizing... I find it super freeing to get rid of my stuff. And since I'm selling bunches of it, I'm enjoying putting a bit of cash in my pocket too! With the proceeds from selling my elliptical machine :) I took the kids to the thrift store. We came home with a few books and games (I went in search of sundresses for me, but no luck... if only I were a size 2, then the selection would have been awesome). Someone in the store gave me a coupon, so I saved $3, too. Bonus!

I have a lot of deep thoughts to share, and big plans I am working on, so hopefully I'll get some time tomorrow (Owl Poppa is home the next few days).

Lazy Day

2009-05-31T09:51:00.002-05:00

I don't have anywhere to go or anything to do today. I will just be hanging out at the house, playing with the kids! Envy me! (or invite me over, lol)

Nickname Party

2009-05-30T15:28:00.006-05:00

After the backflip class this morning, our Capoeira group had a nickname party.

I wish I could find some good links to Capoeira and its history, but I can't... and I am not willing to spend anymore time on it. So there! Although this is a really nice kid's book about Capoeira.

Anyway, because Capoeira was illegal in Brazil, players were given a Capoeira nickname to help keep them anonymous. This tradition is still around today (not necessarily the anonymity, but the nicknames).

J's nickname is Piao, which means spinning top, because of his head spins!

K's nickname is Princezinha, which means little princess, because, well, that's what she is.

And best of all, I got a Capoeira nickname too! I don't play Capoeira (yet), but I feel like a self-appointed Capoeira group momma (or is that groupie momma?)! So my nickname is Mae, which means Momma! YAY!

Here's a cool Capoeira shot from the website for his Capoeira group... J is the one on the right...

So Much To Say

2009-05-30T08:05:00.002-05:00

I have some many things running around in my head, just waiting for me to blog about them. But not this morning. We're off to a 9 am backflip seminar (for J, not me, don't worry).

Maybe later. :)

Today's Lessons and the Redbox

2009-05-27T22:44:00.007-05:00

NOTE: I typed this up last night, but was having trouble with the photos.

We had a GREAT day of school today! Like, totally-and-completely-everything-I-could-have-hoped-it-would-be-make-me-thankful-we're-homeschooling-and-sure-we're-on-the-right-track kind of GREAT. Here are some of the highlights.

J is making amazing progress with his reading skills. I am super proud of him.

We did a great math lesson (combining two lessons from the Saxon 1 book; we're gonna hang out with that one for awhile longer... no more debating myself, at least on this issue. I'll need to find another excuse for posting pictures). We sorted peanuts into 10 piles of 10. We counted them by 10's to find out we had a hundred peanuts. We laid out 10 peanuts and counted by 2's to find out how many were inside. We shelled 100 peanuts and made peanut butter, practicing following a recipe and talking about standard measurments. We served the peanut butter on bread that we sliced in half, then in quarters... intro to fractions.

We finished our history narration, map work, and coloring page for Hammurabi. The kids like Hammurabi. They do not like Sargon and Shamshi-Adad.

We went to the park and did a field study for our science curriculum. We discussed living and non-living things, looked at dirt under a magnifying glass, and drew some pictures of what we found. J and K both LOVED drawing pictures of roly poly bugs!

We also read tons of books today... Aesops fables (does Aesops need an apostrophe? I keep staring at this and just can't decide), Angelina Ballerina, The Golden Sandal: A Middle Eastern Cinderella Story, and a few others.

We did some free painting. And then did a painting project to wrap up our Monet lesson. We got the idea here. Here are a few pics from our painting session (note: if you try this at home, masking tape stuck to the construction paper and was really hard to remove. Letting the paint dry all the way and then removing it really slow helped alot)

W had lots of fun with the painting. We had to rename his Rudolph, though!

J worked hard and carefully.

He made sure to include a flower garden (the purple spots at the top)

and a water lily in the bottom corner)

K was really excited (and couldn't stop smiling for the camera)

Here is her finished project

And then we got the whole house clean, mopped the kitchen, got the laundry done, the kids folded socks, J folded W's pajamas (I know... I was shocked... J NEVER voluntarily does work LOL) and everyone had a bath before we had our family night!!

For Family Night, we watched The Tale of Depereaux. It was cute, though a bit intense for my crew. But it's a sign of my new obsession... Redbox. Seriously... I can go to Walgreen's and rent a movie and it only costs me one dollar! This is dangerous folks! Do you hear me, dangerous!!!! Think of all the movies I can rent, for less than my late fees when I inevitably return my DVDs late to the library (the late fee is $2... highway robbery). We watched Bolt from the Redbox the other night, and whole new realms of movie rental possibilities opened up for me. I had visions of all the amazing things we could watch together. I tried to justify renting movies by reminding myself that the kids watch so little TV anyway. But really, it's a slippery slope folks. If I start renting movies more than once or twice a week, someone reel me in. :)

Yummy Pizza Idea

2009-05-27T22:13:00.004-05:00

So, it's Wednesday which means it's Family Night here at the Owl Nest. We made our "famous" pizza crust recipe, with a twist! We cut up some string cheese and folded the crust over it. Instant stuffed crust pizza! The kids, who don't normally eat the pizza "bones" (they try to pawn them off on W), munched cheesy bread crust with dipping sauce. Oh so good!

Oooh, and on half of the pizza, I mixed pesto in with the pizza sauce. Delish!

Let me know whatcha think!

Just Because

2009-05-26T15:56:00.008-05:00

I don't have anything super interesting to blog about, but I'm trying to blog more often, so this is what you get! :)

I am actually in the throes of a dilemma over moving the kids up to the next level of math in an effort to keep them challenged. The alternative is to keep them in their current levels and work with the theory that "repetition leads to mastery" and use the easier lessons to help them build discipline in their studies.

But man, I am tired of arguing with myself about it! So if anyone has wise words of wisdom I'd love to hear them. Otherwise I will continue looking through old photos in an attempt to disctract myself. And in the meantime, I leave y'all with these:

J and K, Halloween 2005

(J is Max from Where the Wild Things Are

and K is (what else) a Fairy Princess)

J and W, Fall 2008

K, newborn, Sept 2004

J and his first set of wheels, Oct 2005

J, proving he's always been cute, Spring 2003

J being "helpful" with K, Fall 2005

K's "being pretty" obsession started early, Jan 2006

Summer Homeschooling Plans

2009-05-23T17:48:00.010-05:00

We're one of those freakish homeschooling families that does things our own way because, well, we can. No, actually, it just took us a long time to figure out what will work (from a curriculum stand point) and we're still working out the kinks. And because of fall birthdays (have I mentioned that all five of us have birthdays within six weeks of each other?) and other holidays in the fall, we figure we'll start our new schooling each January and wrap up around September... leaving us free to do a light schedule (probably holiday-type unit studies) for the fall and early winter.

So... while everyone else is winding down for summer break, we're just hitting our stride.

I know I have waxed poetic over my love of Ambleside Online... I think I'm over it. I do love the lesson plans and the literature selections, but it doesn't seem complete enough to me. So it's back to the beginning. We're taking what we liked from Ambleside, combining it with what we liked from The Well-Trained Mind, sprinkling in a few random things, and calling it a (school) day. So how do I celebrate? I bought a science curriculum! How cool is this?!?! Starting Monday, we'll be doing science, along with our regularly scheduled programming, three days a week. We're using R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, level one. It looks really cool and pretty thorough. I can't wait. So our newly revised new schedule is below. I feel like I do a "new" schedule every week or two... I think I have a short attention span... wait, what was I saying... oh, schedules, right... here it is, more for my own benefit (seeing it in print makes it official, know what I mean?) than for anything else, though I hope it is at least a bit interesting to others.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday will continue to be school days, and days where we don't use the car. This is regardless of Owl Poppa's wacky work schedule (probably our biggest roadblock in developing any kind of homeschooling routine). Every school day, we'll cover the following:

Math for J and K: J is still in Saxon 1 and K is in Saxon K. I am thinking of bumping them to the next levels without finishing our books first... we're all a little bored. Waiting for the routine to kick in before making this decision. I am also thinking of mixing up the format a little, separating the math meeting and the math lesson. (One quirk of Saxon math is that the teaching is separated into two sections, a meeting that covers review, calendar skills, and some other stuff (<---how do you like that technical description) and then a lesson that introduces new topics and ends with a review sheet). Still pondering this, and will probably do a bit of trial and error to see what works.
Reading for J and K: Continue on with Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Deferring the decision on what will follow until until we're actually done.
Copywork: Continue as we've been.
Poetry: We're giving up A Child's Garden of Verses. None of us are really enjoying it. We'll probably move on to Mother Goose and then A.A. Milne.
Story of the World (SOTW): We're working at an erratic pace. Lately, we've been listening to the CDs in the car. We might listen to 3 or 4 chapters at once, and repeat this every time we go somewhere. The kids are really enjoying history like this, since it seems like a story, and they are retaining what they are hearing. Our summer plan is to continue this way, following what's interesting. During school days, we'll go over review questions for the chapters we've listened to, and coloring pages, mapwork, and narrations for their notebooks. We'll also continue to read the literature tie-ins. I am reserving the right to limit hands-on artsy projects if the kids don't seem interested or it seems like it will be too much mess (c'mon, people... I need to be practical here).
Aesops Fables: Continue reading one or two fables per day. Once we finish our book, we'll probably move onto mythology (it should be about the right time in our history studies anyway)
Science: We'll start the REAL Science Odyssey book and work through one chapter every two or three days.
Composer Study and Artist Study: We'll continue to incorporate our literature-based composer and artist study. We're starting Bach and Degas, and will then cover Joplin (Scott not Janice) and Cassat (who's birthday was yesterday).
Nature Study: I am also commiting to doing the Outdoor Hour challenges laid out here. Not sure when we'll fit them in, but fit them in we will!!

Now that you are all bored to tears, assuming you've actually slogged through this far, I will leave you with a great quote (I'm not beyond bribery, lol):

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”
---John W. Gardner

ETA: I went back and added the link for the Nature Study website. It's worth checking out since it's totally cool!

My 25 Things

2009-05-23T09:34:00.003-05:00

I've been meaning to post this here... and well, since we're all a bit under the weather I am lacking in other inspiration and I'm taking taking the easy way out. Sooooo... with that kind of intro, here's my 25 Things About Me

1. I like to think I am funny... I'm probably not, though.
2. I enjoy the gratuitous use of elipses... I really do.
3. I went to an all girls public high school and graduated second in my class.
4. In college, I only took a Latin class because all the sections for Spanish were closed, and Latin has no oral proficiency requirement. I ended up being a Classical Studies major.
5. I also majored in the Biological Basis of Behavior (biopsychology).
6. I proposed to my husband, twice... and was turned down both times.
7. I can't sing, or dance, or play an instrument, therefore I can never be a beauty pageant contestant.
8. I didn't learn to drive til after I was married... I was 22, with a house, and two vehicles that I couldn't drive parked in the garage.
9. After learning to drive, I once drove my car into the wall of that garage.
10. I used to do sleep deprivation research. It was the coolest work I've ever done. I sometimes dream about getting my PhD and doing research again.
11. I chronically lose things, especially my keys. If I ever come to visit you, I will probably leave something behind. Just expect it.
12. Before I ever had kids, I knew I would be a crunchy parent. Some things have worked out the way I expected (cloth diapering, homebirthing, tandem nursing, etc) and some things are so much harder than I thought they would (like being patient).
13. I love to cook. I hope to some day make all of my own food from ingredients I have grown myself.
14. I dream of owning a Christmas tree farm in Maine.
15. I have thrown more than one party that no one showed up to.
16. I always wanted six kids... and six dogs. Current count: 3 kids, 2 dogs, 1 fish.
17. There was a period of time when I was known as Princess Hippo, and it didn't bother me. I used to own pajamas with ice-skating hippos on them!
18. I love the smell of coffee, though I don't tolerate the caffeine well anymore. When I was pregnant, I loathed the smell of coffee.
19. I can jump double dutch.
20. I was the statue of liberty for Halloween in second grade.
21. I think grammar lessons are cool... diagramming sentences, that's where it's at, baby!
22. I get hyper when I am tired. If I seem extra spastic, I probably didn't sleep well the night before.
22 1/2. It has been seven years since I've had a good night's sleep. I am usually spastic.
23. I am not a native Texan, but I REALLY wish I was. As a birthday gift, my husband once awarded me a certificate of honorary texan-ness. Then he rescinded it. He would mock me that even the dogs were native texans. When my daughter was born in PA, it became clear that the girls would just have to stick together.
23 1/2. Ironically, my daughter and I are the only ones in the family who do not like snow and want to stay in Texas. The boys (who are all native Texans) want to move somewhere cold.
24. I love watching stand up comedy.
25. I would love to meet Chris Berman, and hang out with him for an afternoon. I used to dream about working for ESPN.

A Night in the Woods

2009-05-21T09:09:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago I took the kids camping overnight with some friends of ours. Owl Poppa was working, and to be honest, he is not overjoyed at the thoughts of packing up our stuff to go to the woods and pretend we don't have a house. So, it was just me, the three little owls, and another family.

I used to camp alot as a kid, and it is something I always wanted to do with my children. I had great dreams of hiking through the woods, teaching the kids about nature, cooking over a campfire... ahhh, memories. But, like I said, Owl Poppa... well, not so much. My awesome artist friend Brendy was kind enough to share her family camp out with us, and to overlook how neurotically nervous I was about the whole deal :) I just really wanted everything to go well, both for me and for the little owls.

And it did! YAY! With help from Brendy's husband, we got the tent pitched, got gear unpacked, set up camp. We took the kids to play in the river, cooked dinner over the campfire, made s'mores, and spent our first night sleeping in the woods...

which is much harder than I remember it being. First of all, all four of us were sleeping in a 7 x 7 tent. And it was hot. And quiet. I had alot of trouble falling asleep. There was the racoon in the middle of the night who was trying to open our coolers (which had to be moved to the cars). There was the guy a few campsites down who kept coming and going on his motorcycle. Then K's eczema was super bad that day (before we even left, not due to the trip) so she scratched and itched all night long. And W is still nursing over night, so there was that variable to consider.

But we made it!!!! We were up before 7 am, excited at surviving our first camp out! (I think the other campers were not so excited about us being up SO early) After a yummy camp breakfast, we packed up and spent the day relaxing by the river.

I could say more (of course) but I'll just leave you with a few cool pics from our trip:

Isn't this place beautiful?

J doing what J does

My water baby, W

And of course, J and K with their first S'mores!

Super Shout Out

2009-05-20T22:48:00.002-05:00

My friend Dawn is the super coolest person ever... she made this awesome blog layout just for me. YAY! I promise I will make some super cool thing on my blog to honor her... but not tonight. W is sleeping in my arms. He is sounding awfully croupy and is very unhappy.

I also promise I will update my sad little blog soon. Really. We have had so much going on lately. Just hang in there... I'll have updates soon (because I know so many of you are on the proverbial edge of your seats waiting to hear what else I have to say, lol).

In the meantime, just keep checking back to admire the super awesome owl theme.

Schooling Never Stops

2009-05-13T20:54:00.002-05:00

Owl Poppa and J are watching the basketball game... at least the game is on. Right now they are involved in a deep discussion about advertising and how it tries to trick you into buying things! I love it!

More On Mother's Day

2009-05-11T09:51:00.002-05:00

Hope all of y'all had a great Mother's Day. With the kids at MILs, Owl Poppa and I took W out to lunch on Saturday. The weather was beautiful, the food was good, the company was terrific. The bigger kids brought me home paper flowers they made for me. :)
On Sunday, we woke up late, had a lazy day, went to lunch at my favorite Tex Mex place. Nothing says I love you like chicken burritos!

It's back to our regular school week this week. Today also starts my first week of trying not to leave the house on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Though this week we need to adjust for the fact that K has her final ballet practice on Wednesday.

Busy day ahead... hope everyone had a restful weekend and a happy Mother's Day. Here's looking forward to this week!

My Mother's Day Present

2009-05-08T21:35:00.002-05:00

My house is soooo quiet (or at least it was until Owl Poppa turned on the basketball game). My mother-in-law took J and K overnight as a present to me, and W fell asleep at 7:15.

Family Night Pizza Recipe

2009-05-03T08:38:00.004-05:00

When we have our weekly Family Night, we almost always make homemade pizza (the other default is taco party... letting the kids assemble their own tacos at the table). Homemade pizza is fun, because we can either make one big pie, or several small ones, and can change the toppings around as we feel like it! Oh, I love versatilty. So... here is the recipe for quick and easy homemade pizza crust. This is a no rise pizza crust... yes you read that correctly... no rising... no need to start thinking about dinner in the early afternoon (who has time for that, anyway?)... no getting to 5pm and thinking, "oh no! I forgot to make the pizza dough, we'll have to order out!"
:)

Ingredients:
1T (or 1 packet) yeast
1 T sugar or honey (we use our yummy raw honey from the farmer's market)
1 C warm water
2 1/2 C flour
1 T olive oil
1 tsp salt

In a medium mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar or honey in the cup of warm water. Wait until the whole mix is frothy and bubbly, about 10 minutes. This step is otherwise know as "proofing the yeast."
Add remaining ingredients, and mix with your hands until it forms a ball. Dough will be somewhat sticky. Knead for about 5 minutes (this is a great job for the kids).
Let the dough rest in the mixing bowl while you assemble the stuff to top the pizza, about 5 minutes.
Sprinkle a baking stone (it really does taste better cooked on a pizza stone, but you can use a baking sheet if that's whatcha got) with cornmeal, and roll out the dough. Drizzle the top of the dough with additional olive oil before adding toppings.
Add desired sauce/cheese/topping combo and bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for around 15 minutes.

NOTE: This recipe comes out really well with whole wheat flour. You can substitute some or all of the white flour for whole wheat. For each cup of whole wheat flour, add about a tablespoon of water to the dough before kneading. And don't skip the drizzling the top with olive oil.

Favorite toppings at the Owl Nest:
shredded barbecue chicken and sliced shallots
riccota cheese dropped on in big blobs
canadian bacon
pinenuts
whole cloves of garlic (they roast right on the pizza and cook up super soft and mellow... yum!)
leaves of fresh spinach
sliced baby portabella mushrooms

Buon Appetito!

Chocolate Jam Thumbprint Cookies

2009-05-03T08:24:00.002-05:00

These were the May Day cookies we baked! This is a fun recipe for getting little hands (and thumbs) helping in the kitchen.

Ingredients:
1 C butter, softened
1 1/2 C sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
2/3 C cocoa powder
3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
strawberry jam

Directions:
Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well. Stir in vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients (does anybody really do this step?) and combine with the sugar/butter mixture.
Roll dough into walnut sized balls and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Using your thumb (or your kids thumbs, lol), make an indentation in the top of each cookie ball. Using a teaspoon, add a small amount of strawberry jam to fill each indentation.
Bake for 9-11 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven.
Yield is approximately 2 dozen cookies

Happy May Day!

2009-05-02T21:02:00.006-05:00

Yes, I know May Day was yesterday. We just do things differently here in the Owl Nest. We stretched May Day into a two day fiesta!

Yesterday, we made May Day garlands. We used pipecleaner and strung them with pony beads and flower petals from the craft store. Pipecleaners worked beautifully because they were stiff... it was even easy for W to string his beads. We even made a mini-crown for Bianca (K's doll).

We read a few cute May Day books. The kids love The Morn of May Fest. We also read The Rainbow Tulip, which was especially nice for its hispanic cultural references.

This morning, we made paper-cone May Day Baskets. We spent all morning singing "A Tisket, a Tasket, we made a May Day Basket." We baked some chocolate jam thumbprint cookies (will post the recipe tomorrow... must get to bed), and delivered the baskets to friends and the new neighbors across the street.

Here are the kids (and Bianca) modelling their May Day crowns before going out to deliver the baskets. There are no pictures of the baskets, or the delivery, because my camera stinks!

J had a demo this afternoon, so he is in his capoeira uniform :)

K and Biance... the Princesses of the May

W thought he was cute... we agreed!

Oh, and did you know that in Hawaii, they call May Day... Lei Day. We're planning our luau for the end of the month! :) Happy Spring everyone!

Pockets

2009-05-02T10:11:00.003-05:00

I’ve got five pockets in my overalls
Got five pockets in my overalls
I got two on the back,
one on the bib
and two in the ordinary, everyday,
regular place
In the front.

I just downloaded this album for the kids today! Hooray! I remember being a little girl in Catholic school, listening to this record in our classroom. It is still as awesome as I remember it being. The little owls are loving it! And yay for downloading albums... talk about instant gratification :)

You can preview all the tracks at the Amazon link above, but you can listen to the full track of Pockets here... just watch out... it's really catchy!

Another Mini Celebration

2009-04-30T18:49:00.003-05:00

Today is J's half-birthday... so he is officially six and a HALF!

New Schedule

2009-04-30T18:39:00.003-05:00

As you can read about here, I am considering staying home more often. As soon as I typed it out, I realized it was something I really needed to give more attention too. For many reasons. I hate driving around all the time. It is easy to lose touch with J and K when we are on the run all day. We're not really interacting much because we're busy doing whatever it is we're doing.

So last night I took a good look at our schedule and decided on a few changes. I am shortening our school week to just three days a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be school days. On those days we'll just stay home... no car usage (unless dh is home and has plans). There is a park in our neighborhood we can walk to, we can find time for the nature study I have been trying to incorporate, and we can have time at home to just do nothing.

Tuesday and Thursday are our park days anyway, so they will be days off from schooling. J has capoiera on Tuesdays, and once K is done with her ballet recital, she wants to switch to capoeira. So I will only have one "class" to drag kids around to. Any errands can be accomplished on Tuesday or Thursday, or else saved for the weekend.

It all sounds good in theory. We'll see how it goes.

What's Working Wednesdays

2009-04-29T15:36:00.004-05:00

It feels like it's been a while since I have been able to get around to the what's working focus. This week I want to give a shout out to the library (yes I just gave a shout out... to the library... go ahead and laugh... I did)

The library rocks! The limit of books you can take out from our library system is 50, and we are almost always at the limit. We have been reading all kinds of neat stuff, some school related, some not so much. We finished reading Little House in the Big Woods. We are reading Little House on the Prairie. We are smack in the middle of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Augustus Gloop just got sucked up the pipes, giggle). I am reading a few parenting books, the kids have books they are looking over, and all of this glorious bounty of books came completely FREE! YAY!!!!!! I love love love love love the library!

And one of our most favoritest things from the library are books on CD. Audio books are just terrific... and a great blessing for a momma who has been spending so much time in the car. Most of the books we get on CD we have read outloud first. It's neat to hear the kids' opinions on how good of a job the narrator has done. We have a few abridged books on CD that I got at the Dollar Tree... nicely done versions of Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood, Tales from the Jungle Book, Riki Tiki Tavi, and Brown Wolf. In makes my heart happy that the kids would rather listen to these than to the radio.

But the library opens up whole new worlds of audio book enjoyment. Unabridged versions of so many wonderful children's books, all on CD! We are in the middle of The Wind In the Willows (read by Jim Weiss, he is just brilliant). Previous favorites have included Charlotte's Web (read by EB White himself), Stuart Little, A Little Princess. Shorter read along books are a big hit too (thought he kids prefer to listen without the page-turning signals). And we just borrowed the first two Little House books, and a few other Jim Weiss titles that are literature tie-ins to our history book. I can hardly wait (well, I CAN wait to get in the car AGAIN, but I am excited about listening to new stuff).

I know this whole post is long and rambly... but I really just love the library that much... I get so excited about the thought of new books to read and stories to listen to that I can barely contain myself!

Is there such a thing as nothing to do?

2009-04-29T15:30:00.002-05:00

Man, we finally finished the last of the dental appointments... I am refusing to go back til we are due for checkups... five and a half months of dental office freedom! But I still feel like we are so BUSY! J has capoeira once a week. K has ballet once a week and is practicing for her first recital. We have homeschool park day once a week... twice if we catch up with our other homeschool group. And there is still all the other stuff to be done out of the house... groceries, visiting, spontaneous park trips, field trips, etc. And none of this includes the stuff we need to do inside the house... like laundry, school work, dishes, laundry, cooking, laundry... :)

I am seriously thinking of overhauling our whole schedule to try to keep all appointments, playgroups, out of the house commitments etc. to just one or two days a week. I think I will make it a personal challenge to just not use my car a few days a week. Hmmmm.... still mulling this one over. Anyone have words of advice, wisdom, reality check?

A New Era

2009-04-28T08:06:00.004-05:00

Well... it feels like a big milestone here at the Owl Nest...
We finally had to move J to a booster seat.

Here is the backstory. I am a self-described car seat safety freak. I am fairly laid back about lots of things, but car seat safety is MY issue... the one thing known to drive me crazy when others are lax, the one issue I will stay up at night agonizing over. How hard can it be, you ask? Try fitting three kids in the back seat of a Saturn VUE. Not an easy task, my friends! Especially because two of those kids were already riding in Britax Wizards... which are huge. Add to that the fact that you want to keep all kids in 5 point harnesses as long as possible (the Wizards go to 65 lbs) and that you want to keep the baby rear facing (RF) as long as possible (J and K stayed RF til almost 2 years old). Suddenly, the situation looks a bit more complicated!

So after hours of agonizing, measuring seats, researching car seat boards, etc, when W came along we had to forgo the baby bucket (otherwise known as the infant car seat) and go straight to a Radian 80 because it has such a narrow footprint. The beauty of this is that the Radian will keep a child in a 5 point harness up to *80* pounds!!!!!! So off we roll with three car seats, forward facing (FF) Britax for K, RF Radian for W, and FF Britax for J.

Fast forward a year and a half... J is now six and a half, and tall. Just about too tall for the Britax. And too big of a boy for the narrow bodied Radian (which would hold him to 80 lbs but his shoulders don't fit). W is by far the heaviest of all my babies, and is now almost too heavy for the RF limits on the Radian. So now we have to move to plan B.

So, to make a super long story short(er), after literally two hours of wrangling car seats, installing, uninstalling, trying various configurations, we are now ready to roll out again... in a FF Britax for W, a FF Radian for K, and a Graco highback booster for J.

My little owls seem to be getting bigger all the time, and it feels like the end of an era and the beginning of the new one, now that I no longer have any little RF babies riding around in my car and one of my little ones is officially in a booster seat (yes people... I KNOW he is six).

Master Yoda I Am

2009-04-20T13:46:00.008-05:00

(In my best Frank Oz voice)

An eventful time for us it is. His first light sabre W received. Now, Trainer of young padawan learners I am.

Man, if you think it is hard to try to type a blog post like this, I challenge you to teach a reading lesson while talking like Yoda!!!! That's what I had to do the other day! Try Not. Do or do not; there is no try! :) And did you know there is a wiki for Star Wars.... Wookieepedia! How cool is that!

And if you are bored, or (like me) you are stuck with a child on your lap who will only sleep if you remain within .0001 mm of him, here is something to entertain you: Rubber Yoda Face

Meanwhile, back on the ranch

2009-04-20T13:15:00.004-05:00

I have been neglecting my blog... I know, shame on me :) I just throw all my deep thoughts out there and then disappear for awhile :) I've just been so busy with LIFE lately. We are still in the midst of a billion appointments (well, maybe not QUITE that many) and our schooling is all over the place. J and K are still making progress, but I am feeling kinda slacker-ish about it. I do believe that it is just too much to ask one momma to get three kids to a 9:30 AM appointment (at the dentist, yikes) and still fit schooling in.

But, since we have finished week 5 of our new schooling program, I feel like it's time to take a break from the deep parenting thoughts (there are more.... I seem to have an endless supply of them, but I'll hold off on posting them) and focus on some school-y stuff for a few minutes. I still love having a lesson plan, even if we don't follow it strictly. For the rest of this twelve week term, I would like to find ways to stick a little more closely to the schedule. I am also hoping to add in a few things. Here are the things that are working well (I will make a bulletized list, because then y'all can admire how neat and orderly I am, lol... it's all just a front people):

I have stopped thinking that there is any possibilty I can teach the kids Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. I was a Classics major, folks. Dead languages only, please. So, we are focusing on some cute books that are in English with a few Spanish vocab words sprinkled in. These make nice read alouds, and give the kids a few vocab words in context. We like these books by Ann Whitford Paul and Ethan Long.
We're enjoying the really short reading lessons in Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Both kids are making a great deal of progress and aren't hating the process. YAY!
School first thing in the morning is great! On days when I think we will save school for the afternoon, we just never get around to it. Since what we're doing is so literature based, we just snug up on the couch and get to it. Nice. We keep the basket of school books on the end table.
For composer study, we finished with Mozart and now we are learning about Beethoven. The kids are really enjoying Beethoven Lives Upstairs from the Classical Kids series. This is a reading of the book by the same title, set to Beethoven's music. The kids ask for it over and over in the car. I love how very literary it is, weaving facts about the composer into a very interesting and engaging story. We are also listening to this. (we've been in the car so much lately, we may as well make use of it) This CD is nice (especially since I bought it for a penny plus shipping) but I do wish it had the 9th symphony on it.
For artist study, we finshed up with DaVinci (J LOVES DaVinci) and we are learning about Monet. I have a few postcard sized prints we have looked at, but mostly I am again trying to keep it literary. We have read a few cute books about Monet, and the kids are able to recognize Impressionism. I am reminding myself that this is really only meant to be an introduction, so I am trying to keep it fun for them.
We have really slowed our pace for History. We are reading through Story of the World, but taking more like two weeks per chapter, instead of one. This is giving us lots of time to think over the topic, and to include lots of related literature. J especially is enjoying this, and really living the material so I think we'll stick with this slower pace for awhile, even if we don't get through the whole book this year. I am happy to see him excited over learning about the first people, and about ancient Egypt (so far).

And now for the list of things I'd like to work on... more bullet points... YAY!

I can really see the value in doing a weekly, Charlotte Mason-styled nature study, but I just can't seem to fit it in. I need to brainstorm a way to make this happen.
I have already mentioned that I would like to stick to our lesson plan a bit better. This isn't just for me, just so I can see us making progress. I think the kids need the structure, too! I think it is important that they see that education is something we value enough to put a priority on. Now if only we could get done with all these appointments... SIGH! I think we will be finished by the end of April.
Memory work: I would like to have each of the kids learn a poem by heart, and then recite it at the end of the term. We are reading through A Child's Garden of Verses and haven't really been inspired by anything. We may just break out the Mother Goose. J, in an effort to avoid work, made up his own poem... it never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which he will go in an effort to NOT do what is asked! :) But for those of you who are reading this and are my IRL friends, be forewarned... you will probably be invited to the end of term recital.
PE: My kids are very active creatures (I know some of you are laughing because that mght just be the biggest understatement of the year) but I would like us to do an activity each day that is mom-directed. Something where all of us are doing the same activity at the same time. We have plenty of outside toys and games, it is just a matter of prioritizing this.

Well, that fairly well wraps up my summary of where we are after 5 weeks and where we are headed. I can't promise I'll have more time to post... I am trying to be more emotionally present to my family and those two things seem to be mutually exclusive.

Because I'm like that

2009-04-14T09:24:00.002-05:00

I hear rumors that there are ways to add trackers and stuff like that to give you stats on how many people are reading your blog. I cannot easily figure it out, so it has fallen into the category of "work" and I must therefore avoid it. :) So if you would be so kind, try to have sympathy for my need for feedback (I'm working on this in therapy, but it's slow, LOL) and leave comments!

Thank you
Sincerely,
the management

Easter

2009-04-13T09:28:00.008-05:00

We all had a great Easter here in the Owl Nest. The night before, we had a special Family Night, dying eggs, reading books, and watching a movie together. I took lots of great pictures of all of this fun. And found out after the fact that the memory card wasn't in the camera. C'est La Vie.

Easter day dawned rainy and dark. The three little owls hunted eggs in the house... this is the way the Easter Bunny always did it when I was a kid. As a little girl, I woke up to find the eggs already hidden and the egg hunt was the very first event of the morning. I'm glad the Easter Bunny is carrying on the same tradition for my little owls. Easter baskets followed the egg hunt, and the kids oohed and ahhed over the goodies inside... candy, more candy, a few toys, and skip balls!

The kids requested a Big Breakfast (read: pancakes and bacon) so Owl Momma obliged. I did get a great picture of our fancy Easter pancakes!

The eyes and nose are craisins, the mouth is made of a pretzel, and the whiskers are bacon!

We played some Easter games, read some bunny books (who knew we owned so many bunny books), and colored a giant Easter coloring mat that was taped to the floor.

By lunch time, the sun had come out, and the little owls were getting restless from too much candy. J had already given several performances of his skip-ball prowess, while K and I shouted encore and applauded. (His record is 36 skips in a row) There was not much left to do inside and it was really a beautiful day outside. So, while Owl Poppa took a much needed nap on his first day off since we-can't-remember-when, the little owls and I headed to the park to play and fly kites. We were having a great time until the fire ants took a few too many nibbles of J's feet... we left the park amid hysterical crying that calmed down when he found his candy stash in the car :) On the way home, we got to chat about cool things from when I was a little girl, like clam digging in the Chesapeake Bay and crab fishing at the Jersey Shore. The kids love to hear these kind of stories, and I love being able to share them.

By the time we got home from the park, it was dinner time. I have a thing about holiday dinners... I NEED them. This is one of those not optional things for me... I need the pageantry and formality of big raucous family get-togethers evocative of the happy memories I have of such things when I was young (though in all honesty, we were more Addams Family than Brady Bunch, but the memories are all good ones). The problem is that there is no big raucous family here. And the little family we have here is just not on board with my grandiose visions of holiday togetherness. This is not to say that they don't enjoy it or appreciate it. It's just they are a much more laid back group where holiday gatherings are concerned. Owl Poppa has never understood this holiday hang-up of mine. This has been the source of a few arguments when I am in the midst of a self-induced stress attack trying to prepare a big fancy family shindig that is catering to some deep need I have for "the perfect" family meal. In some ways, this is devastating to me, and in some ways I love him all the more for this and the new perspective it gives me (namely that things don't always have to be MY way). And it could very well just be that Easter isn't that big of a holiday to anyone but me. All of this is a prelude to the fact that we had NO family plans for Easter... no one made any, and I purposefully didn't bring it up in an effort to keep my inner Martha Stewart at bay.

My only plan was to cook a nice dinner for my own little immediate family. And I bagged that plan in favor of dinner at our favorite Tex-Mex establishment.... burritos, yum! And we had jello eggs and more candy for dessert.

NOTE: Do NOT try to make jello eggs with the regular jello recipe. There is a special egg recipe you can find here. Making jello eggs with regular jello will result in a serious leakage of jello all over the inside of your refridgerator, and your Easter Eve will be spent rinsing lime green jello out of the crisper drawer.

By 8 pm, we were all exhausted and coming down off the sugar highs. But what a great day it had been!!!!

Hope everyone out there had a great Easter, too!

More Incoherent Parenting Thoughts

2009-04-13T09:04:00.001-05:00

Otherwise entitle: I am feeling philosphical lately so bear with me

Attachment parenting (AP) with a new baby is easy. Now before some of you AP mommas throw things at me, hear me out. In the midst of it, especially with your first child, it can feel anything but easy. Trust me, I know. But think about it. As a new momma, attachment parenting seemed to me to be pretty straightforward. Babywear, Breastfeed, Bed close to baby (otherise known as cosleeping) on through the list of what Dr. Sears called the Seven Baby B's. It's a neat and orderly checklist. If you are ever feeling doubtful, or guilty, or overwhelemed, or any other "mom" emotion, you can just review the list...

Am I nursing my baby on demand... check
Am I cosleeping.... check
Do I wear my baby... check

Whew! You can begin to relax into a sort of self-satisfied state. Your guilt eases just a bit as you remember that even if you are messing things up, you're still doing better than the mom's who aren't trying.

WHAT?!?!?! Did I just say that out loud? In those days of newborn-induced sleep deprivation, thoughts like these can be all that keep you going (or maybe it really is just me... I could totally be projecting here)

Gosh, there are so many issues wrapped up in that whole scenario. First, when did mothering become a competitive sport? I was the most obnoxious first time mom... completely convinced that I knew the way and completely intolerant of anyone who disagreed with me. The good thing was, folks seldom disagreed with me. No one wants to pick a fight with someone as passionate as I was about any number of hot topics... extended nursing, cosleeping, etc.

I was a total control freak about my baby...
I didn't want other people to hold him. I was never going to let the evil chemicals of a disposable diaper touch his pristine baby bottom. Nothing but organic, whole foods would ever be good enough for him. My child would never cry himself to sleep alone in his own room. I was never going to let him cry or hurt, and certainly never at my hands. And of course, I knew the way. I had the list!

Now, before I get hate mail, I do still value all of those things. I now have three children, and we are still a cloth diapering, cosleeping, extended nursing, babywearing family. I still try hard to feed my kids organic healthy whole foods. I struggle every day to be the gentle parent I believe they deserve. I am pretty sure I am still just as passionate about all of those things. I am just much less obnoxious and much more tolerant (for those of you just meeting me, YES... this IS the less obnoxious version... consider yourself lucky). And I do realize that there is a whole lot more to AP than "the list" (see APIs 8 Principles)... all about being responsive and reading your baby and all... but with a new baby... it really seemed to me that "the list" held the magic key to doing those things.

But really, my original point was meant to be that, while I think attachment parenting with a small baby is (relatively) easy, it feels dang near impossible with my older kids. And that is partly because there is no list. It is much harder to me to meet the needs of a six year old than of a baby. A six year old's cries can't always be solved with a cuddle or a clean diaper or something to fill his belly. Sometimes his cries are because the boy that he looked up to at the playground told him, "I hate you". Sometimes his cries are because he is worried about war, or strangers, or death. I feel woefully unprepared for this. And now, wants and needs are no longer the same. A baby is hungry and wants milk. This is a need. My four year old is hungry, and wants candy for dinner. This is not a need. But maybe it feels like that.

I have had to venture out from "the list". I have had to step away from the neat and orderly checklist to a place where I have to rely on my own instincts. I am now working in the realm of faith, where I have to believe that I am doing the best job I can to connect with my children; Where one solution does not apply to all children, or even to the same child all the time; Where I can no longer check boxes but have to check my heart and be honest about whether or not I am really doing what I believe in.

Because I believe that my children are people, that their feelings matter, that they have value. I believe in creating a family-centered, rather than a child-centered environment. I believe in a child's inherent dignity as a spiritual being. I believe that peaceful, non-coercive parenting is possible. I believe that it is really hard, and that I may never really reach that point. I believe that my struggle to reach that point is valuable. I believe that my children are worth that struggle.

Overheard

2009-04-11T17:37:00.002-05:00

K and her dolly are in the kitchen right now, giving the following lecture to W:

"You don't know who Jesus is? Jesus is God. When he died he made himself come back to life because he is God. That's Easter. No, she's not God. She's Little Mermaid."

Incoherent Thoughts on Parenting

2009-04-11T08:44:00.005-05:00

Otherwise entitled: Trying to pin down my own thoughts

What if it doesn't matter at all what parenting method you choose? I can probably rest assured that no matter what philosophy I subscribe to there will still be conflict, there will be the inevitable differences of opinion that arise between any two (or more) people who live under one roof. So the question for me then becomes whether it's worth the effort to choose the seemingly harder path of peaceful conflict resolution.

I do think that in many ways it would be easier to be a very authoritarian (authoritative? I can never keep those straight) parent. It is tempting to set up a system where the kids JUST LISTEN. Sometimes "Yes Ma'am" seem like the most beautiful words in the English language. But then my next question is always, at what cost? I DO want my kids to listen... to ME. I don't want them to follow others blindly, to be afraid to question, respectfully of course, those who are in authority. I want them to feel free to have their own thoughts and opinions, and to never think it's okay for someone to hurt them.

Which brings me around to the next thought. How could *I* be the one to hurt them? Because spanking or other physical punishment is hurtful. My anger is hurtful. My yelling is hurtful. But so is ignoring their needs in favor of my own when it has just been one of those days. But where is the line between letting them run wild, and stifling them into conformity? Can I say yes more without making them feel entitled? How important is conformity, anyway? How important is forcing MY agenda as compared to theirs?

That is another key aspect for me. How can I keep my own ego out of the way? I have a tendency to want to pick a parenting philosophy, absorb it fully, and do it "right"... to follow someone else's instructions without considering my own kids. Somedays it does just seem easier to follow directions. Is this a constitutional weakness? It's exactly the kind of thinking that I want my kids to avoid. Or maybe it's just desperate grasping... a hope and a prayer that if I just do it right, if I follow all the rules as laid out by someone who has never met me or my children, then surely we never have any further conflict. But then, didn't I start this off saying conflict was inevitable?

Keepin' It Real

2009-04-10T08:35:00.003-05:00

This has NOT really been a good week. I am trying to focus on the things that have gone well, but to keep it real, I will out myself here. I have been so impatient with the kids... and they have been, well, less than cooperative would be the nicest thing I could say. We also got very little school work done this week or last because of appointments, Easter stuff, and general life getting in the way. We're not to far off our schedule, but I FEEL like we are, and I hate that feeling.

After the dental visits we had this past week, both big kids will have to go in for MORE fillings. I can't figure out what else I can do to keep them from getting cavities... we brush, floss, use the special stuff the dentist gave us... what else is there. And now this means we are looking at a further rearranging of our schedule because we need to fit the appointments in before the end of the month. We're going to end up doing most of our "home" schooling in waiting rooms and in the car.

I am so frustrated because it feels like these things are beyond my control, and I LIKE being in control :) And with the chronic sleep deprivation, I am just irritable. I am cranky, and whiny, and not patient AT ALL. It's my own attitude that I am bringing to the situation that is the biggest problem. But especially since I just posted about loving our schedule and lesson plan so much, I feel the need to stay honest and say that the schedule isn't being used much at all. The lesson plan, however, is still helpful :) At least I can see where we are supposed to be on the map, even if we're taking a detour.

What's Working Wednesdays

2009-04-08T12:05:00.001-05:00

What's working this week is thrift store shopping. I am trying hard to curb my consumer tendencies and shop second hand if I shop at all. Some days are better than others. But we've had some cool recent thrift store finds. The first are games... Family night is a lot more fun with new games. We've added Boggle Jr, Candyland DVD, and Mousetrap, all for less than $10 total.

And the best score lately was a pair of skates for K for $2. Look how cute my little girl is!

J also used his allowance to buy a toy for himself, and one for K too! I love the sweet sibling moments.

Time Stamps

2009-04-07T08:20:00.000-05:00

I am having trouble with the time stamps. Everything seems to be set to Pacific Time. I promise I was not up at 5:30 this morning blogging about lesson plans. Anyone know how to fix this?

Thoughts on Lesson Plans

2009-04-07T07:38:00.000-05:00

I always knew we would homeschool. Pretty much from the minute we planned to have children, we planned to homeschool those children. Homeschooling tied in nicely with all the other uncoventional ideals and ideas we have here in the Owl Nest. And I always knew I never wanted lesson plans. You can't put me in a box... don't try to tell me what to do... blah blah blah. It was all just too much structure for this free-spirited momma to handle!

And so we began our homeschooling adventure in earnest this past fall. I was in love with the Well-Trained Mind, and the philosophy of Classical Education. So that is what we set out with. I had beautiful binders laid out for each subject, everything neat and organized waiting to be filled with proof of my children's superior education. The problem was, what should we fill those binders with? I had no idea what lessons to cover when. I found that for all my rebellion and free-spirited resistance to structure, I really really needed someone to boss me around and tell me what to do! And not in a broad over-arching kind of way, but in a day to day, minute to minute kind of way!

So after floundering awhile, then taking a long schooling hiatus, we recently began again. We are using the Ambleside Online curriculum. And the best part about it (besides that it is free) is that there is a lesson plan. YAY! Someone to tell me what to do so I can tell the kids what to do! It is narrow enough that I know what we are doing and where we are headed. But broad enough that I can schedule our weeks the way I need them to go. I really can take the best of it and make it work for my family. Hooray! I love knowing what we need to acomplish this week. And being able to use the weekly checklist I made up to be sure we haven't forgotten anything. You can view our weekly plan here.

Now, in all honesty, I probably could have done this myself with the Well-Trained Mind guidelines. But it would have involved many man-hours (mom-hours?) that could be better used doing other things. Like sleeping. The lesson plan frees me up from last minute scrounging around trying to put together something cool for the next day. No more late nights planning out cool projects that the kids ultimately don't want to do anyway. Now, I don't have so much of my ego tied up in it, which is probably better for all of us. When they reject the cool things on our schedule, it is ME personally that they are rejecting. And I love not being overwhelmed with too many choices. There is no super-long debate with myself about which book might be better on anyone particular topic. It's all laid out for me. And I know we're actually making progress toward the bigger picture. This is important since I have a tendency to get lost in the minutiae... the whole "forest for the trees" issue.

Here are a few highlights of what's working so far:

The kids are thriving with short lesson-times. We do focused work for a short amount of time. And you know what, they are really remembering what we have covered. And we moved on to a new subject before they get totally fried on what we were doing. Part of the problem I was falling into before was that I figured if some were good, more must be better. We were trying to do WAY too much at a time in any one subject and everyone was burning out. Especially the momma who was losing her patience trying to get through "one more" of whatever we were working on.
We are also really focusing on narration. Because my schooling kids are young (6 and 4) we are keeping the narrations short. So after we read a passage, or maybe a few paragraphs of a longer passage, we take a break and they tell me back what just happened. This really does seem to increase their comprehension, by helping them to really own the material.
Shorter lessons means school is over in a timely fashion so we have lots of time left in our day for play, impromptu get-togethers, and spontaneous trips to the park (yay for spontaneity, says the free-spirited momma).

I still feel happy with the eclectic assortment of things we have added into our homeschooling days. So even if I am using a lesson plan, at least I can still claim to be eclectic. That's one less box for me! :)

I won't pretend that this will work forever, or that I'll feel so sunshiny about it later. But I know that for now, we have stumbled upon something that is really working for us. And we have a lesson plan to keep us on track!

Getting Ready For Easter

2009-04-05T16:20:00.000-05:00

The little owls have had an Easter countdown going for the last 1oo days... literally. And for the past two weeks, they have been managing the countdown in their heads. Each morning they wake up and say "only x more days til Easter, Momma". K helped me put up decorations last week. So today, I figured we could do a few crafts. First, we made cascarones.

Here are the kids decorating the hollowed-out eggs

And here are our finished eggs.

Don't they look pretty?! (oh, our dozen is one short because I cracked one trying to rinse it out)

After the cascarones, we decided to make an Easter present for Grandma. So we made handprint lillies. Each of the kids made two, one from each hand. I think they are just beautiful. No pictures though since my camera is acting funny. I think we'll put the paper flowers in a vase and buy Grandma an Easter Lilly too. But shhhhh.... don't tell her.

Kids Are People, Too!

2009-04-04T09:01:00.000-05:00

I took the kids to the zoo yesterday. Just me, with all three little ones. And we had such a nice time! Really! If you had asked me about this even earlier in the day, I would have said you were crazy... there was no way I was going to take all the kids (like we have SO many) anywhere alone. But I got inspired around lunch time, and off we went. And we really enjoyed ourselves. We picnicked, saw the animals, followed the map, went to the children's area, and enjoyed the sunshine and each other.

I think sometimes I have it in my head that my kids are somehow little beings that need to be managed. Like I need to work extra hard because I am not only doing my own thing, but controlling all these other people, too. Yesterday was one of those days that reminded me that my children are actually little people, not projects, and you know what, they're good company, too! I was able to just relax, give up my illusion of control, and really enjoy hanging out with three interesting people.

I'm feeling rather inarticulate this morning, and this post isn't coming off quite as eloquent as it was in my head. It's hard to capture the emotion and the meaning in something as simple as taking the kids to the zoo. But that's okay, too. Because I'm realizing that it really isn't all about me anyway.

Here are a few pictures I took with my phone during our little adventure.

J hiding in a tunnel in the children's area, pretending to be a turtle

J and W playing store

K posing for the camera

W playing in the stream

No TV Update

2009-04-02T08:44:00.000-05:00

So, last week I posted about entertaining the little owls without resorting to the TV. The truth is, it's exhausting (hence the infrequent blog posts since then). But, we've made it a whole week. The rule is no TV during the day. And since they go to bed not long after supper, it pretty much means we can only watch a movie for Family Night (last night's movie was Return of The Jedi). The new rule was met with much less resistance than anticipated. Which is always a plus. Even J, who was wont to start his day with "can I watch a show" has stopped even asking. He has even reminded K of the rule a few times. It does help that our tv is in an armoire with doors, and we just keep them closed during the day.

But man, am I tired. I had to be the activity director ALOT the first few days. This is where it was nice that a chunk of our mornings at least are taken up with school work. And thank goodness for the nice spring weather we've been having since the rain of last Thursday.

Overall, I am really excited we've made it this far. I have this crazy love-hate relationship with TV viewing for the kids. J didn't watch any TV at all until K was born. And then, it was like the flood gates opened and we had a TV free-for-all. And we've been trying to stem the tide ever since. At one point, it had gotten so bad that J (4 at the time) would lock the door to our temporary apartment when I was walking the dogs, so that he could scam a few minutes of watching PBS (we didn't even have cable at the time) while I hollered and fumbled with my keys in the ice and snow, trying to let myself back in. Ahhh, those were the days.

But since we've made it a week, I know we can make it another week. And then another. We'll see how long we can keep it going. My blog posting may suffer, but it's all for the greater good, right?

For a fun read about going TV free, check here.

What's Working Wednesdays

2009-04-01T20:40:00.000-05:00

Here's our what's working update for this week.

We have had a few people recently comment on our light switch extenders. We LOVE them! K is on the shorter side of small, and still can't reach any of the light switches, even on her tippytoes. So these have been great for letting her be able to turn lights on and off (an no longer have to pee in the dark). And now W is almost tall enough to reach them too. The best part is that they are totally clear and aren't very noticable at all.

We have these... the company has excellent customer service, too!

Look What I made!

2009-03-31T16:04:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty proud of myself! My grandmom made me some knitted washcloths that I love. She doesn't knit anymore, so I decided to make myself some. These are just single crochet squares, and I tried to make a fancy edging for them :) The colors look a bit washed out in the photos, but in person, they're really pretty. I think the large one is a bit too large and the smaller one is a bit too small, so there will probably be a version 3.0 at some time. In the meantime, I can barely bring myself to wash the dishes with them, but I guess I've got to break them in sometime!

Good Gracious

2009-03-27T22:21:00.001-05:00

It is after 10 pm. My kids are all asleep, my house is clean, the laundry is done... why in the world am I blogging?!?!

Rainy Day Fun

2009-03-26T12:58:00.000-05:00

Otherwise entitled, How Can We Pass The Time on a Rainy Day With No TV

Otherwise otherwise entitled, A Nearly Exhaustive Look At Our Day

This morning it was raining again. Not gentle rain like on Tuesday. Today we had a terrific downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. We HAD planned to work in the back yard today... SIGH I guess plans change. It was dark and gloomy, so we lit candles and snuggled up for some good books. But we all knew that could only last so long. And it was only last night that I announced to the kids that we would be keeping the TV off during the day from now on. YIKES

So what to do with three super active kids on a rainy day? Why, indoor bowling of course! We set up our little foam bowling set, and took turns bowling down the hallway.

Next up was lunch -- soup served in tea cups with tortilla chips on the side. During lunch, we read aloud from Little House In the Big Woods. So of course naturally we then had to play Little House.

And then K and I settled in on the loveseat to finish attaching Bianca's hair. Bianca is the Waldorf doll I made for K for Christmas. She'll get her own post complete with pictures at a later date. But due to running out of yarn, and waiting for a new ball of yarn to arrive, Bianca's hair has been incomplete. And today seemed like the perfect time to fix that. K helped, J watched, and W tried to jump on us repeatedly.

Somewhere in there we also played a few board games, did all of our lessons, baked two loaves of bread, baked a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread and a batch of rolls, made a pitcher of iced tea, emptied the dishwasher, got dressed, had some snacks, folded and put away yesterday's laundry (oops), and started another load running.

And just when I thought we might run out of things to do... the sun came out. The sky is a perfect blue with not a cloud in sight!!!! What happened to the ferocious storm of this morning? If it wasn't for the muddy ground and lingering puddles, I almost wouldn't believe it. So into the car to pick up our CSA share and let W take a nap... we had been postponing this (the car trip, not the nap) because the wet weather seemed dangerous for driving. And now that we are home, the boys have tumbled out of the house to go play in the mud, K is playing with chalboard in the garage, and I am about to go fix supper (chili and cornbread, yum).

So, we all survived, and we managed to keep the TV off too! Whew!