4/23/12

Life

I believe these were taken over a couple of days.  Here's what we have been up to.
 Quoridor.  Our new strategy game.  We love it.  It's rated for 6+ but as you can see a three year old seems capable as well.

 And what do you do when you find a pile of feathers at the bottom of our back window (poor bird, happy cat).  Well, you make a feather book of course.  Animal made the book all himself.  Yes, we washed our hands after.
 We removed the slide from the back deck to re-seed the back yard. Ha.  That is never going to come of anything with 4 kids running around back there.  But, the kids have re-purposed the slide as a bike ramp.
 I know.  No helmet.  I can't win them all.
 They are totally into their sand box lately.  They are building road ways and skyscrapers.  All the good stuff.  Very serious work.  Boy Blue acts as the demolition man, much to the displeasure of his older brothers.
And whats a beautiful day without a little chalk drawing on the drive way.  Fun.

We have also visited a wetlands park nearby.  We rode our bikes to the library and back.  This was quite a feat for LBB.  The veggie gardens are will on their way.  We hit the beach and built castles and dug trenches. The twins packed up so much gear (2 yard shovels, a yard rack, bucket, digger) into their wagon to go to the beach, the neighbors asked if they were moving out.  Of course, I had the pleasure of toting it all back including a stroller and BW.

I have been having some fun of my own.  I finished another pair of slippers.  They are much better than the first pair.  I have started a new quilt for G-ma in extended care.  I have also been dabbling into the world of homemade beauty products.  I made my own lotion.  The first batch was a coconut oil base which was too oily,  The second was cocoa butter/shea butter.  This one is lovely as a foot run cream, but the water seems to separate from it.  I will tackle this one again.  This morning I made deodorant.  Easy peasey, I have to say.  And on this warm day, I still smell good.  We'll see. 

At the moment, the boys are off golf coursing with Beefcake for a bit, BW is asleep and I am about to make a little headway on that quilt.

Ooops!


This is what happens when the door to the painting room gets left open.  She even left a trail of little hand and foot prints leading into the hall.  I haven't cleaned those up yet.  I think they look cute.

Priceless

This is what builder chooses to do early in the morning before Daddy and his siblings emerge from their beds.  He truly loves all things art and building.  And I love that he gets the opportunity to pursue is passion as much as he wants with out a bell to tell him times up.




These are his special water colour pencils.  He treats them with such care.

4/17/12

Scooting Season Has Arrived

And because we home school, we get free reign over the park during school days.  He, he.


 He is an absolute wildman in all that he does.  Fearless.
 They even perfected a new trick on the first day.
 They pop a wheeley at the top of the ramp and land on their feet. 
And we can't forget the water girl.  Most of it ends up on herself and the ground.  I have to bring 2 bottles and keep one hidden from her.

They all had a blast and I got to sit in the sun and finish a pair of knitted slippers.

Hmmm!

4/12/12

A day of Home Learning

We started early with making waffles for breakfast.  And I whipped up some cashew sour cream to use in ceasar salad dressing for dinner.  Then Animal requested a science experiment of his choosing.  He has been asking for a couple weeks, but I didn't have balloons.  Yesterday, however, I had finally picked some up.  So, I got to say 'Yes' to his experiment.  He tried to describe what to do, but in all his excitement things got mixed up.  I asked him to show me the book it was in.  A few minutes later he returned with a Magic School Bus book which, sure enough, had his experiment in it.  We tried the experiment with success and kept all the materials together to show daddy tonight.

 We captured the gas in a balloon from the baking soda/vinegar reaction.  Fun.  Later on our walk he decided that we should add a penny and see if it would float.  That sparked a conversation about weights.  We will add the penny tonight and see what happens.

 I came out of the shower to find LBB and BW snuggled in bed together reading a book.   Adorable.
 Then we headed out for a walk.  I planned to forage some nettles to dry and make tea with - good for arthritis.  And the kids walked a head to a patch of wild ginger and harvested some to freeze for tea.  BW has inherited the family preference for rock collecting.  Above she is analyzing her specimen.
 The boys found some rope and tied me up with it.  Then Builder had the idea to attach it to a metal hold and use it to climb down the bank to the inlet.
 BW along for the ride.  All my kids like the Ergo.
 We all balanced our way across this log.
Animal worked on his engineering skills tweaking his beaver dam.  He has been working at this for a week.  He has managed to create quite a reservoir of water when the water is flowing.

We also read some books.  Added to our word wall, and learned a new strategy board game - Quoridor. The board game went way better than expected.  They got the concept, but found the idea of not winning upsetting.  I tried to explain that it was about the process, not the result.  I think they still had fun.  At least until they realized I was going to win.

At the moment, the three boys biked over to Grandma's to thank her for some spring jackets she gave them.  They were supposed to come right back, but I think they got side tracked with the assortment of machine toys grandma has on hand.

Oh and if you haven't noticed.  The new camera arrived and works great.