And Then There Was a Cool Front

My absolute most favorite season of the year is fall.  It's refreshing, dry and cool.  And after a summer of sweating even in a swimsuit, we've all been ready for a change to hit the air. (Because I totally cannot rock a swimsuit while buying groceries. Or in my own backyard, for that matter.)

Yesterday, a tiny cool front came along and threw us all into a tizzy.  Suddenly, everyone was scrambling to be outside for every activity.

Let me tell you something, fall changes people.  And animals, too.  Noodle and Hopers suddenly acted like alien children who liked each other.  And wanted to be with each other!

Weird.



They did all school work outside.

Sherlock was supremely happy with this idea because it meant he would be spoiled to death every waking moment.

 



And carried around as if he'd permanently lost the ability to walk. Or had suddenly turned into a very hairy infant.



Hopers took this photo.  She likes to steal my camera.  More and more, the photos are not of her thumb. *Sniff* My baby's growing up!

Don't be fooled by her momentary solemn expression. Poppy suddenly becomes "crazy dog" when cool weather appears. She runs around the yard at full-on torpedo speed, clearly overjoyed for some good weather.

The chickens are also really glad for the temperature drop.  They told me so, of course.



...and I thought my butt was fluffy!

I did manage to entice the children inside once in a while for important things like showers and using the bathroom.  Hopers decided to finish her sewing project she's been working on lately. Pajama shorts!  And yes, she wore them for the rest of the day.  And yes, the color combo with that shirt kind of hurts my eyes, also.

And then there's Noodle.

...who is so, so........... well, almost a teenager!  Plus, I think I need a new time machine because mine doesn't seem to be working.

My alien-invaded children set up a tent to sleep under the stars tonight.

You'll notice Seth is conspicuously absent from these photos.  That's because he's in the woods hunting things.  Yes, fall makes otherwise normal, non-rednecked men become camo-wearin', bow-totin' crazy people.


I, of course, am not crazy. At all.

Whatsoever.

 

Happy fall!

Not the First Day, But a Great Day!

Hopers, 8                         Noodle, 12

It's the first day of....something!  Well, it's not really the first day of school this year.  It's not these kiddo's first day of their respective "grades".  It's not the first day of fall (boy isn't that a long way off for us Florida girls!).  I suppose I could say it's the first day of sitting down in front of books and papers and learning things from them for the month of August.

But that just sounds silly.

So here's the story.  As of the end of March this year, we decided to exit the public school system.  These two lovelies were begging for it.  Our family was needing it.  The timing was right for it.  Hey, when it's time to go, why wait, right?

I immediately started them on the next grade levels.  Hopers went from 2nd grade material to 3rd grade work.  Noodle went from 6th grade to 7th.  I wasn't about to buy curriculum for just a couple of months of school.  We thoroughly enjoyed soaking in these learning materials straight through the summer, punctuated by long periods of learning directly from life (our favorite kind of school) by trying new things, traveling, exploring nature, gardening, sewing, cooking, visiting friends and well...you know....doing.

So here we are in August, still...doing, learning and living.  But it's August, and I always take a "first day" photo of my girls on the front steps because I'm a creature of habit!

I just don't have a name for it.

Cheers to not having a name for it! (and bare feet too!)

Teethbrush

Earlier this week, Noodle took it upon herself to instruct her little sister in an English language lesson.  She taught her the plural version of several words like "goose" and "geese," and "mouse" and "mice."  Hopers kept up well.  It's not a secret around our house who is the bossy one.  Noodle enjoys her status of older and wiser with every bit of gusto she can.  She never misses the chance to correct.  But every once in a while, something like today happens....


This evening as usual, I was fussing at the kids to PLEASE go brush their teeth.  Hopers complied first, wandering back into the bedroom where Noodle and I were peeling wallpaper.  (It's our hobby these days.) 

"I love my light-up teethbrush!" Hopers exclaimed to no one in particular while brushing away at her pearly whites.

"It's a toothbrush, Hopers," Noodle snorted, with her little-sisters-can-be-so-dumb voice layered on thickly.  She turned and peeled another postage stamp-sized scrap of wallpaper off. 

Hopers looked at her with her best big-sisters-can-be-so-dumb expression and retorted quietly, "Well I guess you can only brush one tooth with it then, if it's called a toothbrush.  I'm going to brush all my teeth with it, so I'm going to call it a teethbrush."

Noodle and I both burst into laughter.

And in a rare moment of concession, Noodle agreed that, indeed, teethbrush was a much more apropriate name for it.

Ah, sisters!

Noodle's First Dress

(Warning:  This post contains a large dose of Mommy-Daughter Pride.  Viewer side effects may include but are not limited to: joy, smiles, jealousy, boredom, nausea, and enlarged heart.)

This is Noodle.  She's nine.  She's awesome.  One small thing that makes her awesome is that she made this dress.  She MADE this dress. 

When I was a kid, I knew of parents who did their kid's science project for them so the kid could get a good grade, or even an award.  I vowed never to be like that because it was just lame and really unfair for the rest of the kids who actually tried.  So when I say that my daughter made this dress, I really mean it.

Of course, I had to teach her how to make the dress (and how to sew, for that matter), so I was very involved.  I said lots of things like, "Slow down!" and "Hurry up!"  Very Mom-like.  Noodle had to be pretty patient with me.  She learned how to thread the sewing machine, how to make a seam, how to finish an edge, how to make an elastic casing, and how to use bias tape.  If she had asked me to show her how to do these things just a few months ago, I would have had her submitted to psychiatric evaluation.  (Bias wha??)  But since I've become a ravenous seamstress in the last few months, I actually have something to teach her.

The best part about Noodle's dress is that she didn't even make it for herself.  You see, a friend of ours is traveling to Ethiopia in a few weeks where she will adopt a little boy.  The dress, along with a collection of more handmade dresses and shorts from others, will be given to the children at the orphanage where the little boy is from.  Noodle is so excited to think about a little girl across the world receiving her pretty new dress to wear.  I am excited that my little girl gets to learn a useful and creative skill while showing others the love of Jesus.

Noodle's 1st Day of 3rd Grade

Even though we school year-round, and even though we school at home, I always make sure to mark the new year with a picture. Today, Noodle began third grade.

I love that she's barefoot. Home schooling rocks.

Plans

Planning, planning, planning. So much planning, my left brain hurts.

I'm heading to China soon, with my parents, for the adoption of 2-year-old Teegan. I'll be gone for two and a half weeks. That's a lot of trip to plan for.

Because of that time away, I have had to get about a month of lesson plans worked out for Noodle. Her third grade year begins on Monday. (When did she get so old??) Figuring out and writing down a nearly self-directed regimen of schooling for her is a fun new challenge. How do you teach home school when you aren't even in the country? How do you encourage everyone to stick with the schedule when you know it's usually "party with Daddy" whenever you're gone? Sigh. Here goes nothin'.

The education calendar isn't the only thing, either. Part of the time while I'm gone, Seth has school responsibilities for himself. Paramedic school and all that--so a friend has agreed to watch our girls for some of the days. But it's complicated! Seth has to be at school two counties away very early in the morning, so the girls have to spend the night at the sitter's house the night before, and then stay the day through the next night because he will be checking off required clinical hours after that, and most of the days, he's off work, but he could get all of the days off, so there's more time to be scheduled with my friend, and......

It took me hours of sitting in front of several calendars and cell phones to get it all worked out and written down.

Additionally, I'm planning plans for teaching an art class. Crazy me joined a co-op of home school families to hold classes on Mondays. Someone heard a rumor that I was an artist, and BAM! I'm teaching art to middle and high schoolers. The first day of class is the day after I return from China, and I'm expected to have some semblance of a plan for the semester before I leave. Repeat after me: It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun.

So, between school and China, I've been a little stressed. I think it's good stress though, like the kind that makes you grow. I've never felt so organized before!

Homeschool Meets the Princess and the Bean

I tend to shy away from talking about our homeschooling activities here. Perhaps because I secretly think you'll be bored if I talk about addition worksheets and crayons. Perhaps because I secretly think you'll judge me for my addition worksheets and crayons.

In actuality, I know neither is true. We're good friends, right? No judging here. Just a bunch of people trying to figure out life. And boring? Well, around my house, homeschooling is rarely boring. Between the first and second paragraph of this post Hopers tried to glue her hair to her paper. We had to have an impromptu shampooing session in the sink. Nope, never a dull moment.

So, here's my attempt at including more of this major part of our lives here on AllHisBlessings. I'm writing about school.

Usually, in the past, if I have posted anything about school, it involved a craft. What can I say? I like crafts. We don't even do a structured craft every day, so don't get the wrong idea. I'm not that structured. But the girls always paint or draw or something. Freestyle art. Yeah.

Anyway, today, we were structured. Hopers needed some reinforcement on the letter N. Noodle joined in because she needed a break from place-value notation and spelling words with the short e sound. I gave them each a piece of paper with a block letter N drawn on it. Then they got bowls filled with dry beans and noodles and bottles of glue. I think its imperative to childhood to make a dried bean and noodle picture or two. Like a rite of passage.

The noodles were shaped like shells. Hopers thought they looked like cradles, so the pinto beans became babies. Suddenly, there was a whole row of talking baby pinto beans in cradles on her project. (In Hopers' world, everything talks.) She finished her letter N and wandered off to play, holding a handful of bean babies. Noodle went back to her worksheets. Later I saw this:

Let me introduce Baby Princess Pinto Bean. I knew that letter N bean and noodle project would make an impact.

Shhh.... I think the bean is taking a nap.

Noodle's First Day of Second Grade

Though we homeschool, and do school year-round, I always make sure I mark the new year with a photo on the front step. Happy schooling!

On Your Mark...

We like to read around here. Noodle, my 7-year-old, huddles in bed at night while her sister is sleeping, reading books 'til she drops. Her current obsession is the 1950's Nancy Drew series. Even Hopers, at age 3, will sit every night and listen to me read aloud two chapters of Farmer Boy, from the Little House on the Prairie books.

In honor of all that reading, we made bookmarks. They turned out so cute I thought I'd show you how to do it too.

First you'll need a strip of cardstock. (Nice, thick, paper makes my mouth curl up at the corners.) 1 7/8 inches wide by 8 inches long. You can see we just used white. You can also see how beat up my dining room table is.

Next, gather stickers of all kinds. Get all those scrapbooking stickers out that you bought years ago and still haven't found the time to use. Someone gave us a mountain of stickers, so we had plenty of variety. You can just allow your children to choose a few that represent what they like and who they are.

Decorate the strip of paper with your stickers. Hopers went for a, um... collage effect. Noodle chose a more organized pattern. Whatever floats your boat. Overlap, trim the edges off, do both sides, go wild. Once you have decorated to your heart's content, seal your fate with a strip of tape on each side. I used Scotch brand packing tape. It is exactly wide enough for the dimensions I gave for the bookmark. Once it's on, trim the ends neatly.

Next, use a hole punch to make a hole near the top of your bookmark. Not too close to the edge! We don't want any ripping.

Then, cut a length of ribbon 4 1/2 inches long. Tie it through the hole. Double knot.

To keep your ribbon edges from fraying, dab on a little bit of clear nail polish.

Ta Da!! Here's Noodle's...

And here's Hoper's...

Of course I made one too. Hey, I read books!

Now go make a bookmark or two and read a book.

More Culture

Saturday, we went to the Asian Festival here in Tallahassee. It's practically a prerequisite for our family now, because of my little asian sister, Tabitha. You see, my parents are part of a group called Tallahassee Families With Asian Children (TFWAC), and this group always displays a booth at the festival. The booth provides information about TFWAC and gives children a space to do crafts. My parents signed up to help with the crafts. They sat on a blanket in the grass and made panda masks, hats and red paper lanterns with the children that wandered by. Noodle and I came (Hopers and Daddy stayed home for a nap) and helped out also.

The Asian Festival grows every year, and I've heard that more than 10,000 people attended this year. It is held at the downtown Park Ave. chain of parks and is packed with crafts, vendors, delicious food, and people from all over the world. Among some of the countries I saw represented were China, Japan, India, Taiwan, Philippines, and Korea.

We spread out in the grass (see first photo) to watch a few of the acts on the main stage. The second photo show a group doing a Japanese parasol dance. One of my favorite acts was a group of students that were visiting from Taiwan. The kids wore bright, matching costumes and showed off impressive skills while engaging the audience with smiles, claps and gestures. They jumped rope. Not your run-of-the-mill jump rope act either. They flipped and bounced in coordinated groups with lightning-fast spinning ropes. They also threw tops with ropes so that they landed (impossibly) on tiny tables across the stage while dancing and jumping around. It was great entertainment! Noodle was mesmerized. She wanted to know how they could do all those neat things. Practice, I said. Practice, practice, practice. It was another great learning experience for her.

Take A Whack At This Daschund

Since we have been studying Mexico this week, I thought it would be great fun to make a pinata. We only had some random leftover party balloons on hand, so we had to be imaginitive with our pinata. Here's what a long, tube-shaped balloon and a small, gourd-shaped ballon can make: a daschund! Seth, Noodle and I worked together to wrap the newspaper and flour/water mixture around the balloons. (I had to make some freshly ground wheat flour for the project because that's all I had! This is a really HEALTHY pinata.) Noodle wrinkled her nose up at the messiness of it all, but did it anyway. She also helped cut out the tissue paper, drew the eyes, and manned the roll of masking tape. Not bad for a few first-timers, eh?