Parachutes

So my dad emceed the dinner.
We tend to purchase each other cheap, silly gifts. This parachute man is one of Jessie's.We didn't think he parachuted very well...after several operations...and modifications...
and a tight wrap
he went up & came down much better but my reflexes were a little slower by then so I missed the shot.We rescued his lower half from the antsand we buried him @ sea.

The title of this post is a 2 for 1. It is about parachutes and the song actually makes me think of my family.

Do you ever do random, strange things with your family @ Sunday dinner? We usually do something silly almost every week. I suppose it has become so common place I just never think to post it. We just found out this afternoon that my mom's father passed away last night...ok Sunday night. I was taking a bit of time today to reflect on our local family. So these crazy moments are part of what makes our family what it is. I hope when the kids are older and have their own families they will carry on with the silliness. Love you guys.

Intuition

All the reading I have been able to do lately (research for the unschooling discussion with Dom in late August) is only further proof that respecting children as our equals, instead of second class citizens is natural. John Holt wrote it, A.S. Neill wrote it, John Taylor Gatto wrote it, Alison McKee, Mary Griffith, Valerie Fitzenreiter, Pam Leo, Gordon Neufeld, and the list of authors with tried and tested research, and life experience supporting these beliefs goes on and on. Not to mention the over 100 kids I have met in our local area who live their lives unschooling or educating themselves. These children are amazing. When I ask these kids questions about their interests they are always able to articulate what they know and hope to learn regarding their interests. We do live on a street where almost all the neighbors attend public schools. I find it difficult to find a child attending public school that has a deep interest they feel worth while to pursue. I am not certain what exactly is holding Dom up deciding to say yes to Niki staying home. I don't see any positives about attending public schools any longer.

Anyway, since I figured out what the hell I am doing with this camera of mine I can post pix of everything we have been up to. We have visited several of our friends @ our house and theirs, we have had various music lessons-thanks Malina for being patient while the boys banged away on your piano and thanks Bill for giving the boys their own guitar! Casey-thanks for the keyboarding fun too! We are into trying to meet people locally who are willing to contribute to our family interests. Bill has a band and lets us come to practice every week. The boys love singing and dancing and playing all the instruments. Bill also has an awesome garage. It is fully equiped with every ratchet, wrench, and screwdriver any one grown person, or four young people could ever need. We visited one of friends who tends a huge garden. The family has offered to help us work on beginning a community garden! While I think this is awesome, I don't think the kids have any interest in it besides digging in the dirt! We have played in the pool, watched alligators eat, went fishing, and met everyone we didn't know in our neighborhood in the last week or so. Again, while I am not certain if the kids actually have any interest in the community thing right now, they did get to meet one family of kids we didn't know before and they have all been playing together everyday we have been home. We have built with our new train tracks, (purchase inspired by a trip to our friends house) and Lincoln Logs, and Legos, painted, vacuumed, yes that was something worth mentioning bc everyone fights over who gets to vacuume! Dom and I went to watch "Wanted" yes, a new assassin movie and Angelina Jolie-could it be anything but good? After the assassin movie we had to go to the range and zero the scopes on the new weapons. I am now the proud owner of my very own pistol. While I have been shooting all my life, this is my first, and very own, pistol. Did I already say that?

And to top it all off we are all working on respecting one another more and things seem much more relaxed here.

Picture Problem Resolved (Not a song title)

I had the picture quality set wrong on the camera. I figured this out the night I posted about the other pix I couldn't post. Unfortunately when I reset it that setting was not one that Blogger supports. I am looking for a site that will host the format and am having no luck, I can't even put them on Flickr! I have it set to the correct picture quality now-no really! These are the best pictures I have taken yet so I am disappointed I can't get them onto Blogger. Maybe with a little more research I can find a site to host them. While this new super camera takes great pictures-they are meant for editing with some photo software-which I have not purchased yet so I cannot convert this format. I have not had good luck with Google's Picasa either.

So back to storing them in 2 formats on the computer...Dom, we're going to need another hard drive.

Pile of Doubt

As an unschooler, sometimes do ya feel as though no one @ your house has done much lately? I know when I feel this way all I have to do is really think about what we have done. I mean, I know I have this blog and I started it with the purpose of maintaining a record of what we do. It has really turned into more of a photo album, which I don't mind but maybe I need to occasionally write something about what we actually do around here!

So we called Aunt Jessie today to tell her Happy Birthday! and she asked us what we did today. I went on to say it ended up being game day. We played Set, Blokus, Blink, Crazy 8's, & a bit of Monopoly. Niki painted a lovely picture (picture to come) and we of course jumped on the trampoline, played crash car derby with the new cars Daddy brought home, and went to the store to get some new board games. Bc, yes just as with the books, once we played all the games Niki deems fun in one day, we decided we need more games. @ the store Niki found some pirate garb, toy swords, toy guns, and knights shields which she proceeded to play with there in the isle. She fore footed all that booty for a "My Little Pony" doll with bottle and one toy gun. The girl cracks me up. We had to do some budgeting and all the things both of us chose were not in the budget. We split the money I had between the two of us. I got the boys some toy tractors, plastic dress up hats, and a strange tiny plastic horse which you set in water for 72 hours and watch it grow to 600 times it's original size! I also got Parcheesi, Yahtzee, and Uno. These games conjure fun memories for Dom and me as kids, so I thought I would get them to see if we could make some fun memories with our kids. You can see from the comparison that Niki's pony baby she just had to have was a tiny bit expensive.

We came home and checked on our Webkinz and I got online and read her some political satire links I found on one of our group posts. I was excited that she asked me to read it to her until I looked @ her to ask if she understood what I had read only to discover she was asleep! What a day!

So, are we unschoolers? Yes. But with all the talk/reading of late I think I have to add that we practice a child led life style. I think the term unschooling is so vague. We obviously do things all day and I know the babes are learning. Sometimes I just need to put my pile of doubt aside and make sure I am trusting our kids. They know themselves and I always witness what they have learned when I truly let go of expectations. Now time to crawl into my bed and see whose in it tonight.

Happy, Happy, Birthday Aunt Jessie!

Happy Birthday Aunt Jessie! We love you!

Adventures in Paradise

These are about half the pix I wanted to post. I have been having issues with loading pix since I have been using the new camera. All the images are RAW. While will it take some and not the others? We did visit some friends this week and we also had some friends over. I have a few pictures of the kids on the computer, and doing crafts, and observing nature but I can't post any of them currently. More later...

Sweet...

one word to describe the day today. I spent most of the day with Niki while Big Daddy stayed home with the boys. We started the day by ourselves when we picked up Reeses from the vet. (That is for another post.) We had donuts for breakfast. Niki rarely gets to eat anything so sweet but since yesterday was difficult for all of us (Reeses accident) we decided a morning spike in the blood sugar would easily be recovered from by mid-afternoon. Once we arrived home Daddy was off to do "Daddy" things and we all jumped on the trampoline. The boys napped and Niki and I read book after book from the library. We haven't been to the library in about 3 weeks. Every time we make it there I rarely locate anything I am looking for since I am chasing the boys around. The boys each chose books, Luke found a giant reference book on classic cars and Ezra found some Dinosaur books. Niki chose some books on Egypt and I got some craft/activity books since our local library has nothing decent to read besides classic literature-which is fine if you don't already own all the classic literature one person can stand! We made it to the check out counter, where the boys sat on the counter and watched the librarian sticker all our books, when suddenly the fire alarm begins blaring. I turn around because the screaming alarm is directly behind me, and I see Niki standing near the fire alarm with her hands behind her back and an embarrassed look on her face. I smiled @ her and she came over to my side. The children's librarian walked past quickly, smiling as she went, to the back office to call the fire department to alert them of the false alarm. The librarian behind the counter did not smile, or comment, or laugh. I smiled as I told her I was sorry, though I wanted to laugh! We all lugged our heavy books outside and loaded up in the Beast and drove home listening to our music loudly.

Flash forward to this afternoon and Niki is sitting in the kitchen in a sea of books asking me to tell her every other word on the page. We played on Wekinz and Club Penguin and then we decided once Big Daddy was home we wanted to go to the new park here in our town. We took one of our friends with us. Then it was onto the book store, as if we need more books! We spent 2 hours there choosing books for everyone. Once we arrived home we had to read ALL of them and play Pirates of the Carribeain. We also watched a movie we purchased. Now I think I may get to sleep...maybe not. Niki is still up asking to play now. We are planning our next big toy purchase!

4th of July

Friends

We ended up spending 2 days with friends this week. Mady leaves to visit with some family, for a month, tomorrow. Even though we wanted a quiet week @ home just visiting with our cousin Danielle, Mady needed to see some of her friends one more time. Of course when we left there was a silent protest for us not to go which ended with us leaving anyway.

So Tuesday and Wednesday were spent with the family in the evenings and Thursday we went to do a science experiment with some more of our friends. Mady and Ezra played in the cornstarch all afternoon while Niki and Luke chose to test it out for a few minutes and then clean up and play in the multitudes of toys in the Rebecca's garage! 4th of July came and we thought the fireworks ban had been put in place. A quick call to the courthouse cleared up the misinformation and we were off to purchase a small fortune in gun powder filled, exploding cardboard! We hung out with the family while watching our own fireworks show which ended up lasting 2 hours! We had a few technical difficulties...and Ezra and Luke difficulties...and wind difficulties. Ok it wasn't smooth sailing but we all had a blast! Family traditions are a major part of our extended family life as well as just plain fun to do. Dom took the girls to watch a movie this afternoon then onto Home Depot for some math lessons, which is actually measuring for a backyard deck.

Smiles!

 

 

Mady and I took a canning class last week @ the County Extension office. During the course of the day we realized we were surrounded by homeschoolers. Once we struck up conversations Mady realized she had a great deal in common with these particular homeschoolers-they love animals too! All of them are in 4H and began talking with Mady about the Vet Science program they are involved in. As they spoke I could see Mady's expressions and realized she was completely absorbed by what they were talking about. After talking with Mady @ length this weekend about all the pros and cons of this program, she has decided to take the leap and become involved with the 5 year Vet Science program.

I think this is the beginning of a great adventure for Mady-one of her own, one where I won't always be, not like pet sitting and baby sitting which she has done in our home. This adventure will set her out in the world on her own working with people who work with animals for a living. Some of the activities that have been mentioned are volunteering with a farrier, visiting a sonogram lab, & performing a necropsy, to name a few.

Our kids constantly amaze me. Ezra and Luke have started using the potty-on their own! The only way I have been involved in that was bc I was the one that dug the tiny plastic potty out of the attic and scrubbed it and placed it in the bathroom next to the big potty. They usually follow me in there anyway...so there you have it, some major milestones in the kids lives all achieved with little to no help from me. I am in awe. The more and more I let go of all these old paradigams and societies standards the more happy everyone seems and the more they really are learning when I am not standing over them "making" them learn. It's a shiny moment! :)