Apples and Tomatoes

(so I haven't really found the direction that I want to take with this blog).

This past week has been all about the pleasures that fall has to offer us. After the first frost there was a desperate scramble by our neighbour to pick the last of her abundant tomato crop. She was happy to let us take as much as we wanted as what was left was only going to go to waste.

A couple days later we went to a local apple orchard for our annual outing. The kids had fun playing on the play structures and petting the animals.

Then it was off to the orchard.

Bedtime

I don't want to sleep because princesses don't. Don't brush my teeth. No, I DON'T need to pee. Please give me more milk. One book, Mommy, please. No, wait, don't go. I'll read it to you. One hug and a kiss just isn't enough. WAIT, I'm still thirsty, some more milk, Mommy, please? Another quick drink and Mum's trying to leave. DON'T GO!! A chase round the table laughing in glee. Mommy grabs me and says, "now you have to go sleep," as she carries me back to my bed in a heap. But, no, I won't sleep because princesses don't. I'll jump off the bed and stomp on the floor. I'll scream and I'll yell, but I really won't sleep. But Mommy keeps putting me back in my bed. I'm getting frustrated so I lay on the floor. No, I'm not tired. I'll stay up all night. Hmm, that's a warm blanket. I'll just stay here a bit, but no, I won't sleep because princesses don't...


...but I'm just a girl.

Our Little Homeschool Blog

I've been working on some "personal growth" stuff in the past week and I have come to the conclusion that I really need to have a space that is my own and something that I am doing predominately for myself. This blog has been a lot of fun but it is about to go some overhauling. I love to write so I want to to become a place where I come to write, really write, and not just to document what we have been up to. Much of the topics will indeed remain the same but the focus will be on writing about them and no just the event itself.

Because of these changes I have decided to start another blog to document the children's homeschooling adventures. Hopefully it will be updated at least weekly. You can check it out here:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/littlelearners/

I hope you enjoy (both the changes and the new little blog).

That's Right

it's fall (or almost).

We woke up to our first frost.

Liam examining the frost on our steps. We are learning about the weather in our science course right now so this frost happened at the perfect time.

This disk of sand from his bucket was frozen solid. He found this so cool because he even dropped it and it didn't break.

Frost on my flowers. So pretty.

Call me weird, but I am not disappointed.

I'm a real homeschooler now!!

You know your a home-schooler if:

• You feel the urge to call your kids to examine whatever creepy crawlers you find around the house.


• You then must take a picture of the creepy crawler to post on your blog.

Seriously though, pretty much every homeschooling blog that I frequent has pictures of insects from time to time. I just figured we'd join the club!

Books Galore!!

I'll post the pictures of our new books here because:

1. Typepad is being finicky,


2. I am not computer literate,


3. I have a killer headache and,


4. I've already tried for 1/2 an hour to post them in the last message.

I'm in book heaven once again!!

It's Box Day!!

Ever since a fellow homeschooling Mama and friend of mine posted about their box day over two years a I have been dreaming about this day. After much anticipation, our box from Sonlight arrived yesterday.  Liam jumped onto the science books immediately ("Mom, did you know that when you digest food it follows a huge maze that ends in the rectum?") and we've already all fallen in love with a little duck named Ping who gets into quite the adventure along the Yangtze River.

Update Sept 13th, 2008: We've done out first day of school. I was planning to wait til Monday but Liam kept insisting that we jump right in. So far it has been a HUGE success. He loves his reading and it is at the perfect level for him (The Beginner's Bible is our first book). He keeps exclaiming how cool God is. He wasn't so into History but it will come (maybe once the maps arrive as he loves maps). Science was fun and he understood everything (he's itching for the experiments though). I was going to wait til tonight to do our read aloud but he wanted to do them right away so we are also reading The Boxcar Children.

 

 

Celebration

Yesterday was post 100 for me on this blog. I know it is silly BUT....

***YAHOO!!!!!!***

Liam needs a biology lesson

I was just upstairs quietly observing my kids playing. Morgaine was making a bed in the corner for Mikula to have her kittens (she is not pregnant by the way). When she was finished up Liam said "Okay, now we need to give her space so that she can sit on them so they can be born!"

Friday Favorites - Fresh

I'm loving the fresh local produce at the market this time of year. So full of colour and flavour, yet so wonderfully priced. We've been having lots of meals with raw cut up veggies and dip and magnificent stir-fries.  I'm also itching to do some canning. I did so for the first time last year and it felt really wonderful. So domesticated. I might have to give it a go again this year.

The Real Deal

So camping in our backyard went well (thouh Morgaine did end up coming in to fall asleep and then we brought her back outside when we went to sleep). It went so good that we decided to go camping a day earlier then planned and we all had lots of fun.

Here are some pictures:

Morgaine helping her Uncle Pat set up camp. 

 

Liam pretending to be a chipmunk. There were quite a few chipmunks in the area and the kids spent much of the weekend trying to feed them out of their hands. Alas, they just were not able to sit for that long.

 

Getting dirty!! Such fun, the kids were rolling in the mud and the muck.

 

The best way to get clean, swimming in the lake.

It was a very typical camping trip if you don't count having Halloween for the kids in August (and man did they ever get spoiled) or playing Rockband on the big screen under the stars.

Thanks Mike and Heather for the weekend!!