Exploring Life In The Grit Of The Earth
Posted in Home Schooling on Mar 11th, 2010
Kaia and I have been busy planning her summer and second grade curriculum. No, we won’t really be doing much ‘real’ school work during the summer, but she has asked to learn about certain things, so we are planning ‘camps’. Mythology, Weather, and Mapping camps. She will also be attending a couple of camps outside [...]
Posted in Mothering on Mar 2nd, 2010
In honor of his 106th birthday, we had Green Eggs & Ham, Pink Snow, and Oobleck for dinner!! Yum!!
Thank you Dr. Seuss for your amazing, creative stories and creatures!!
Posted in Home Schooling on Mar 1st, 2010
We found this craft when we were cruising around on the web looking for info in sea monsters of prehistory. (scroll down to Sediment Fossil Surprise). As soon as Kaia read the details, she was dying to do it. So, saturday, we got all our ingredients together and created our layers of history in a [...]
Posted in Beekeeping, General, Mothering on Feb 22nd, 2010
Mmmmmm, the smell of warm beeswax is so yummy!!
Leif’s view of his new mobile in the warm afternoon sunshine
Posted in Home Schooling on Feb 21st, 2010
As part of our dinosaur studies, Kaia and I made some coffee fossils.
(Yes, that was me who shoved Jasmines head into the clay to see what it would look like!)
It was a really simple recipe with very cool results!
I love having things like this to do in our home school days. I often feel like [...]
The cake
Uncertainty…
Proceeding with caution…
Shoveling it in…
Can’t talk… mouth full…
Everyone got in on the action
Leif had a great time at his little party! We served up lots of his favorite finger foods, followed by applesauce cupcakes. Mmmm, Mmmmm, Good!
He wore his handmade (mama sewn) birthday hat and one of his new bibs. Kaia made him a [...]
Posted in Mothering on Feb 19th, 2010
I don’t have the right words to explain how much I love you. How my life revolves around you. How your sweet smile makes my spirit soar; makes me feel like I’ve just taken in a deep breath of warm spring air. I don’t know how you did it, but when you came into our [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Feb 12th, 2010
Smrt Lernins is having a photo contest. They want to know what homeschooling looks like to you. Well, we’ve only been doing this for 6 weeks, but it seems like I’m always posting pictures about what Kaia is up to. There are so many photos to chose from. But, I think one of my favorites [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Feb 3rd, 2010
Kaia has decided that since I am taking sewing lessons, I must teach her! Now! As often as possible!!! So that she can use the sewing machine all by herself… with no one watching!
Hmmmmmmm….. We’ll see.
I did, however, help her make a little bag to hold her new fossil collection in. She did a fantastic [...]
Well, I think the internet might be back up… maybe… it’s slow and keeps going up and down, but maybe they are fixing it.
We’ve been snowed in, without phone and internet since the last snow 5 days ago. Let me tell you… After all the snow and indoor time in the past month, I’m getting [...]
Posted in Holistic Medicine, Mothering on Jan 29th, 2010
I finally did it! I’m taking sewing lessons! I’ve been wanting to learn how to sew for a long time now. I can do a little on the sewing machine, but I’ve wanted to learn from a professional. Well, as luck would have it, I won a raffle for 7 sewing lessons from a professional [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Jan 23rd, 2010
You can’t study pre-history without making trilobite cookies!!
This was Kaia’s first time using the cookie press and she LOVED it! I had to make her a deal though… we make one full sheet of trilobite shaped cookies and she could use the rest of the dough to try out all the other cookie press shapes.
We [...]
Posted in Mothering on Jan 20th, 2010
Leif loves puzzles! I’m not sure why, since he’s not old enough to really put them together. But there is something about them that attracts him and if you want to give him something to do, just put a puzzle in front of him. He’ll take all the pieces and throw them all around the [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Jan 16th, 2010
For a family that lives on 25 acres, we seem to spend most of our time indoors, especially in the winter. Now that Kaia is at home most days, I thought it increasingly more important to make getting outside a priority! So, we’ve added a weekly Outdoor Hour Challenge to our studies. This week, we [...]
Posted in Chickens, Home Schooling, Mothering, Organic Gardening on Jan 16th, 2010
Finally, it’s gotten above 35 degrees!! The snow has been on the ground for a month and it seems like every morning I’ll wake up to a little more! The past few days it’s gotten up into the 50’s and it’s been wonderful! The chickens are having a field day taking dirt baths and stretching [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Mothering on Jan 9th, 2010
This week was the first official full week of Kaia and I homeschooling and we had a great time. Along with the standard weekly math, spelling/language, and stuff, we’ve begun studying prehistoric times (Thanks to Sarah for the curriculum!). We started by doing our own little recreation of the Big Bang. Kaia stuffed a balloon [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Mothering, Pets on Dec 26th, 2009
Kaia and I crafted felt doughnuts, stuffed with polyfill and catnip, for some of our favorite feline friends! There are all different icing and sprinkle types, for your cat’s specific tastes. We gave the first one, a raspberry icing with chocolate sprinkles, to our cats as an early gift. As you can see, they are [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Knitting, Mothering on Dec 21st, 2009
We have had such a wonderful last few days. Being snowed in has been a great adventure for all of us. The power was out for 24 hours, but we enjoyed the peace it brought and we kept ourselves fully entertained! There was tent building:
There was lots of snow play (sledding, snow men, snow ball [...]
Posted in Mothering, Sustainable Living on Dec 18th, 2009
Well, it looks like we will be hanging out on our land for a few days, possibly weeks We are getting more snow that I’ve seen in 16 years! It’s a beautiful winter wonderland here, and Kaia is having the time of her life! She’s been in and out all day, coming in [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Home Schooling on Dec 15th, 2009
We’ve had the crafting spirit in our home lately! This weekend Kaia and I made some santa ornaments after seeing them at Write-It-Down. We just happened to have everything we needed and couldn’t resist the cute little guys.
Then we had a few friends over for more crafting. We made beeswax ornaments with beeswax from a [...]
Posted in Mothering on Dec 12th, 2009
There is a fantastic giveaway going on over at GardenMama today for a set of hand knit gnomes from Natural Earth Farm that are just adorable! A lot of time and love went into these sweet toys, so definitely go check them out!!
Posted in Holistic Medicine, Mothering on Dec 8th, 2009
OK, I’ve been hearing about this board game for a while now and, I have to admit, I have been very resistant to it! I’m not totally sure why, but I think it has to do with the feeling that if I’m a good herbalist, I shouldn’t need the aid of a board game to [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Dec 8th, 2009
I always love seeing kite paper stars in the windows. They are so bright and happy. They fancy-up any house! With the winter coming on and it being a gray, gloomy day, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make some of these! A Toy Garden and Nova Natural Toys have nice selections [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Home Schooling on Dec 5th, 2009
Creating our holiday cards…
Posted in Mothering on Dec 5th, 2009
“I am totally the cutest baby ever! No one can compare! Even with a dog bowl on my head, I’m cute!”
“WHAT DID YOU SAY? You said I’m NOT the CUTEST BABY EVER??!!”
“Get down here and say it to my face!”
“WAIT! I didn’t mean it! Let me out of here! Hey… Hey you… I promise I’ll [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Knitting, Mothering on Dec 4th, 2009
Here it is! Kaia’s Flower Fairy/Pearly Mermaid/ Blingy Princess skirt! It is a holiday gift for her and I can’t wait to give it to her!
I’ve published the pattern, for free (yay!) in the links at the top of my blog! Enjoy!!
Posted in Home Schooling on Nov 19th, 2009
Kaia has just started getting into reading. She’s really not had much of an interest until I started introducing fun games and stories. I found this game through Pink and Green Mama (the original game is at The Snail’s Trail). It has everything my daughter loves… rainbows, paint chips, secret peak through windows, funny make [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Nov 16th, 2009
Kaia and I took a little detour from our scheduled homeschooling (detours are fun!) to study a little about comets and meteors. The Leonid Meteor Shower is at it’s peak Tuesday and Wed. (I wrote a little about it at Homemakers Who Work), and we plan to set up a cozy spot outside tonight (well, [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Nov 14th, 2009
Kaia absolutely loves to color! I think she spent most of her kindergarten year drawing rainbows! So, when I’m planning out our day, I try to make sure that she has time for coloring, and it’s even better if some of her actual ‘work’ (math, language…) has drawing required! Then she’s really happy.
Frequently, though, she [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Home Schooling on Nov 10th, 2009
I have great memories of my elementary school art class. The room was dark and and crowded, but our teacher always had the greatest projects for us. One of my favorites was linoleum print making. You trace a picture onto a linoleum block, carve it out, roll paint onto it and press it onto paper, [...]