This way to the Fair


Last week we went to the fair for our first homeschooling field trip. It was really nice to get out of the house and do some learning elsewhere. The kids learned how to milk a goat (so cute) and all about honeybees in addition to studying the various animals that can be found at the fair.
Here are some pictures from our day:

Sweet Little Honey

Kellen immediately claimed this goat as his own

Goat Love

Of course we had to check out the old time fire equipment

We had fun with all the silly photo taking boards. Here's our little cowboy and his prize winning cow.

Pomona Gothic

Nesting Behavior

The cutest scarecrow in all of Pomona

Hey, sis want to come with me to the fair again next year? You bet!

Next time... Pictures from our trip to the Miramar Air Show!

Our Homeschooling Adventure


We are finally beginning to get into a groove with our little homeschool (I hope). It has been a bit of a process and a learning curve. The curriculum we are following is rich and challenging and offers more than is needed, thus my first lesson- not everything needs to or will get done in a given day. Lesson two- kindergarteners only have about a 15 minute attention span before they need a quick break to reset. The day I was pounding home the fact that there are seven continents and going over and over the names on the map for 45 minutes only to then ask "ok, which continent is this?" and then get "I don't know" as a response... yeah that was an unpleasant learning day for everyone involved! I don't recall what grade I was in when this material was covered, but I am certain it was not kindergarten.

Another challenge has been that the kids each have a different learning style. Lorelai is very artistic and visual. She loves seeing art, learning about artists, and creating. Not surprisingly, she is a visual learner- every day I need to think of ways to present the material more visually for her (like phonics), sometimes she just needs to see the word rather than hear it. Kellen is analytical and loves science. He does well with our math and science segments and my challenge with him has been to keep him from getting bored and to keep him on task. I do love seeing the differences (even if it does make things a bit harder for me as the teacher).

I soon realized that this is more about exposure than mastery for a lot of the topics. I have also been surprised by what they have retained even when I didn't know it. Like when they start singing the continent echo song in the car for me and then telling me all about what animals you might find in each. So, it is working and I am beginning to just relax and figure out ways to make it fun for them. One way we started making it fun was to create a token economy (they learn about money and have fun too!). If they try really hard with their assignments and listen well (ok fairly well- we are talking about kindergarteners here) they earn a penny per assignment sometimes more if it is particularly challenging and they have worked through it. They trade the pennies in for nickels or dimes and then can buy things from Mama's Emporium such as stickers, little crafts, glow sticks etc. They love it and are now looking for ways to earn pennies (like doing extra online learning/tutorial games). Some of the bigger crafts may cost a dime while a small sticker just a couple of pennies. After getting the first joys of spending out of the way (they each bought a glow stick for a nickle right away), now they are interested in saving so that they can buy something bigger. So many great lessons there!

Today, for geography we started our exploration of each continent individually with Australia being our first stop (we previously made little suitcases and passports for our future travels from North America). We learned about the animals that are native to Australia, learned about the coast (where most people live), the Great Barrier Reef, and the Great Dividing Range. After, we had a picnic lunch while watching the amazing Coral Reef Adventure. I had bought this when the kids were three, but they were a bit young for it. Today, it was perfect and really brought the lesson to life. An unplanned but cool thing happened while watching the movie, after the Great Barrier Reef segment the diving team went to Tahiti and Moorea specifically which is where we went on our honeymoon (almost ten years ago!). When I told the kids, while we were watching, that Mama and Dada had been there their eyes got really big and they both said "really?". I then pulled out the pictures we took from our trip and was able to share them in a whole new light. They had seen the pictures before, but now it had context. It was such a neat experience and gave us a great start to our new week.

Kellen's Great Barrier Reef he created while we explored Mama's shell collection (complete with Mermaid!):



We use many things like our Wii to relax and have some fun in between all the lessons. Here's a couple of pictures of our Rock Princess:




Hopefully, the kids are enjoying the process more now, the worst thing that I could imagine would be if I made this an unpleasant experience for them. I want them to embrace the wonder of learning and to become lifelong learners like their parents.

A touch of Ugh


Not the best of days today in terms of our homeschooling adventure, but as I write this I am already feeling better about tomorrow's prospects. Earlier today not so much... you know it's bad when the teacher has to leave for a time out. I definitely had some moments of frustration and doneness today. Still I would say the positives outweigh the negatives at this point. I love having such an active part in helping the kids learn new things and being able to witness the lightbulb moments that happen. It really does make it all worth while right there.

The Big Game


This past weekend we had our first game and it was definitely cute. The kids don't really have a good grasp of what they are doing yet, but there is still time for all those little details. The best part was that they had fun... well mostly. Lorelai has made it known that she would rather be only dancing (poor Dada). We are hoping that if she sticks it out this season maybe she will come to enjoy it a bit more, but if she doesn't that's ok too.
Kellen was often right in the thick of things, really seemed to keep up and was energetic throughout the whole game. We were very proud of both of them and look forward to the rest of their games.

We didn't get a lot of great pictures unfortunately (something about actually trying to watch them play), but here are a few cute ones:

Beware the swarm: Beehive Soccer!


The kids were excited that Grandma and Grandpa came to help cheer them on for their first game. Here is a cute picture of Kellen and Grandpa walking together.

It's the end of the game and Lorelai is exhausted! All that running around chasing after a ball can tired a kid out.

Kindergarten!


School's in session and we have kindergarteners in ze houze!
It was an exciting day as the kids learned math, phonics, language arts, science, and music. The curriculum seems a bit more advanced than my kindergarten recollections, where getting along with others and learning that you shouldn't eat paste were the major points.


The above pictures were actually taken a few days ago as we were prepping for the start of school. Today, to their dismay, lessons were not conducted in Mama and Dada's comfy bed, but instead in the old french schoolhouse aka our dining room.

Boxes upon boxes of educational materials, all ours to explore this year!

The teacher remained relatively calm despite the fact that she was unspoiled by the ravages of experience.

Lorelai and Kellen's new pencil bags filled with personalized pencils made the first day of kindergarten all the more fun and exciting. Thank you Grandma!

Our first day of homeschooling went pretty well. The kids were excited and seemed genuinely interested in learning... yay us! Now, I know that not every day will be like that, but for the first day of kindergarten I am relieved it went as smoothly as it did. Housework suffered as everything took me longer than I expected, but I have hope that as I get into a routine I will be able to squeeze in some necessary household maintenance. It will be a fun adventure to be sure and between being a soccer mom, dance mom, and teacher mom my life will be full of wonderful (and sometimes stressful) busy moments.

We're coming for you

The newest players on the soccer field are Kellen and Lorelai! We are The Mighty Ducks hmmm... shouldn't we be playing hockey? Well anyway we love The Mighty Ducks whether we are talking about the hockey team or the awesomeness of our lil soccer team. We immediately thought of the twins' God Daddy Myk when we heard the team name, now he will have to come watch!
Unfortunately, the local fires have kept us from having practices aside from the initial one. The first game next weekend should prove to be cute, fun, and likely a bit comical.

Lorelai and Kellen immediately had to try out their new soccer shoes and balls


On our way to our first practice... Kellen was so excited he was already waiting in the car when I snapped this picture of Lorelai

Soccer Stars in training

Changes!

Le Master Painter Kellen

Took a brief break here as we had decided to undergo some changes to our home before our big homeschooling adventure begins in a week! It was time to rip out the old and bring in the new...


Old Linoleum

New Tile (pre-grouting)

New Laminate

It was definitely worth it, but was not without much stress. First off, the bronchitis that Kellen had just gotten over decided to rear itself first in Lorelai and then in the Dada right at the beginning of all the work. As they were upstairs coughing up their lungs Mama winged it and had to make several decisions in between Jamba Juice runs.

One decision I made was to paint (since everything had been moved out... what better time right?). Not just the walls, but also the cabinets to give them a more modern face-lift. Who knew how hard it was to pick a color and that your particular lighting could have a big effect on a final choice. With D on his sick bed we did finally manage to pick a color for the walls (neutral since the tile was so dramatic... this was a hard consideration), I foolishly went and bought all the paint since we were so sure of the color only to find that it looked too pink on our walls with the lighting we have in our home.

The horror! I hated it! What to do on a shoestring budget? Raw Umber saves the day! A big thank you to the contractor for this suggestion. Off the cans went back to the store and one ounce of raw umber was added to all (what did we have to lose afterall), luckily the resultant color was one that we could live with. The end result is a wall color that is a warm (kind of like a very creamy coffee color) and looks reasonably good with our tile choice. Having never painted before and with much to be painted, it was definitely interesting! D managed to help paint quite a bit once he felt quasi-human again and luckily we also had Master Painter Kellen to help. : )

Slightly feverish, D summons up some strength to help with the painting prep

Feeling a wee bit better, D grabs a roller- the final color is darker and richer than appears in this picture

The newly painted black bi-fold door makes the frosted glass stand out more

The new window valance for the kitchen


Here's a list of changes we made:
new tile (dining room, kitchen, entry way, downstairs bathroom), new laminate (living room, entry from garage), new fixtures in downstairs bathroom including toilet, painted walls in kitchen and dining room, painted bi-fold door to downstairs bath.

Soon to do:
Paint walls in downstairs bathroom as well as undersink cabinet
Paint entryway
Paint cabinets in kitchen

Now we get to save up for the next big project: as the master bath shower pan broke and began leaking through the ceiling downstairs on the same day that the laminate was to be put in. No more using that shower for the time being and wow isn't that interesting timing *grumble*. One of the many lessons I have learned during this process... once you begin work on your home it is truly like a house of cards!

Go Sharks!



So, what do you do when your friend, a San Jose Sharks fan has a baby? Well, of course you get out your knitting needles and you get your knit on. Here's what I whipped up just in time for the upcoming hockey season:


Baby's first pair of hockey skates (knitted), a homemade hockey themed taggie blanket, and of course his very own knit hockey action figure (it's not a doll really it's not).


Congratulations M & J and welcome to the World baby Nolan!

A gentle warning to my dear Duck lovin' friends: flame me at your own peril. I have a penalty box of babysitting and I am not afraid to use it! This will not be a meager 5 minute time-out. ; )

Now Appearing at Downtown Disney...



Here's a video we took of the twins getting jiggy with it at Downtown Disney (I apologize for the length, Mama had a hard time cutting it down). Several people walking behind me stopped to watch and smile at them; they are three and a half feet tall bundles of cuteness if I don't say so myself!

Spooky Date Night


For our Tuesday date night we watched the wonderfully animated movie Coraline. It was definitely dark and sometimes creepy, but also sweet. We loved it!
I often try to cook a dinner that thematically goes with the movie, but this week I was at a loss. Had I seen the movie before I would have known that roasted chicken would be a great option. So, if you haven't seen it grab yourself a copy and some roasted chicken and button down with someone you love. : )

Pure coincidence, but very high on my knitting wishlist is this beautiful pattern by my favorite knitting designer. Soon my pretty you shall be mine!

A View From The Garden



This summer has been an exciting one in our garden. We planted some pumpkin seeds and we have our first pumpkin starting to turn orange; the kids are very excited about it and the prospects of our home grown Jack-o-Lantern come Halloween. In addition we got our first harvest of Blackberries and they are so sweet! We planted two new trees in the Spring: A Peach tree that we look forward to enjoying fruit from in a couple years and an Anna Apple tree. We got two apples off of it in June and the birds got a few as well. We made a small fruit salad with the apples, a few grapes from one of our vines, and a handful of Blackberries. It was really nice knowing that everything we grew ourselves and it all tasted so good. We will have a bumper crop of Pomegranates this fall and, as usual, can not wait.

We have been eating lots and lots of fresh tomatoes. This year I planted three cherry tomatoes (we eat them as fast as they are available), one Early Girl, a Roma, and a new one called Arkansas Traveler (which I like a lot). Soon we will be eating many cucumbers too (D loves them). Lastly, we have a couple of tiny corn, some baby carrots, radishes, and a sweet pepper named Gypsy! Can you tell we love our vegetable garden? : )

A medley of homegrown fruit

Fruit Salad Yummy Yummy!

In our pond we planted a few new water plants and have had mixed success. The waterlilies have been putting on a nice show for us as well as the hyacinth. We have been working hard on keeping the plants under control as they are prone to taking over if given a chance and we want to keep our pond goldfish happy. I think though that we don't need to worry too much about them, they seem to be quite happy as we now have at least one goldfish baby in there. ; )

Anyway, that just a small glimpse of our garden this year.

 

Click on the collage to see a bigger version


Thanks for visiting!

Lorelai Takes Us On A Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride

Unicorn Love
Lorelai loves "Star" (her new unicorn) and Mommy couldn't be more happy.


Knit Unicorn pattern from the book: Dream Toys by Claire Garland

Sometimes Love hurts

Coming soon... Kellen's pick: a knitted pirate pal complete with a pet ratty rat also from the same book.