two days: under construction

I've been singing "Construction, struction, what's your function?" instead of Conjunction Junction.

Note to self: Play that for the babes today.


Before he left home my dad asked if there were any honey-do chores I needed done. What a nice Daddy. Why, yes, there are!! :) (He likes to be busy while he's here, too, I think.)

This morning he and I scooted off to get me set up with a new back door. (Of course ours is a sixty year old home and everything must be done custom.) Our door has been messy for about three years, our dogs dug at it, and puts one in a seriously guilty mind in the middle of winter when one knows how inefficient one's door/frame is, and how much energy is being wasted. Not pretty.
So that will be ready for pick up on Thursday.
What else?
The fence!
Our back gate is falling down, and needs serious help.
Of course, keeping in line with the way things go around here (custom), one can not simply put in a few nails, but the whole dang thing must be torn down and rebuilt.

More construction.
Story construction.

Tea party construction.
Constructing music with Grammy.


* * *

Quick trip to the library to pick up the Waitings.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (movie), Divide and Ride, Dinosaur Deals, The Action of Subtraction, Arithmetrics, and Runaway Ralph.

We're making plans to play and celebrate with our Beloveds over the next several days...
lots of noisy, chaotic fun coming this way, I think.

Can't wait!

september 27: trees

All about trees we were.

Our day started out with excitement that Papa (my dad) was coming (from Oklahoma)!
Veeerrrrry exciting business, that.

Our neighbor from next door knocked to say 'twas time to take down one of our trees -a boxelder maple- in the backyard (technically their property as was within a foot of their garage)-- as 'twas tilting their garage. We had already agreed that they could do so.


We're tree people around here.
We love our trees.
But we're quite happy to say goodbye to this tree -aside from losing my clothes line-
because we get to put one or two fruit trees up in its stead.
We get peaches!

Papa comes.

To the hills we go, up to ride the ski lift to Solitude Lake, a glacial valley.


Which was lovely, except for Madeline crawling all around on the ski lift chair. psh. 'Twas better once we put the lapbar thing down, but still... a nervous business, that. [shudder.]

So a small hike with Papa and Grammy to breathe in autumn.


Then we got to go over to Silver Lake for a walk around that pretty piece.




To home, to home,
for a late dinner and collapse.

september twenty-six: saturday play

Trev and I started out our day with reading a couple of chapters of The Talking Tyrannosaurus, and then read a few MathStart books.
So far, I haven't been in love with any of them enough to buy them, but that's what libraries are for.
Tara at Periwinkles and Pine mentioned to me a book called Tyrannosaurus Math just recently (thanks again, Tara!).
I checked with our library system, and it was in there. woohoo!
I got to pick it up this morning, as well as You Can, Toucan, Math.
Trev and I read both of them this morning.
I highly recommend both books!
Both have addition problems, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
While Trev doesn't know his multiplication tables certainly, (though he's comfortable counting by two's, fives, and tens) these are great books for introducing math concepts. Especially for unschoolers, or those who don't follow a curriculum and get introduced to them formally.
Sometimes it can seem awkward or arbitrary to introduce such things, and these books are a nice way to show how a few things are done.
You might wonder at my being interested in these in the first place, as we like to discover things organically.
Here's the story: Trev said a few times for a couple of weeks something like "Oh, no, math!"
"What???"
Now this might be a common enough fear or whatever to a lot of people, but in our house (with no "to do's" regarding math), this is a bit like saying, "Oh, no... science!" Or, "Oh, no!... color!"
"Huh?"
It's all just a part of it, you know?
It's a part of cooking, it's a part of figuring, it's a part of allowance and spending... it's all the same.
I was disconcerted by it.
While I certainly am not insistent (or even very concerned) that he understands concepts at the exact same time as others his age (school children), I was concerned that he had put this part of life into a particular box, and labeled that box as something not fun or interesting. And more dangerously, I felt, something to be feared and avoided.
So, in line with showing that math is "no big deal", is connected, and not something that is to be feared or dreaded, I have since been careful to introduce certain books and ideas.
Thus the MathStart books, which have been so simple -the "level 2" ones- that he doesn't even consider math, really, but just stories. I eased into them with level two, as I didn't want him to feel pressured by or uncomfortable with the books.
And now, today, we sat through two books filled with pages and pages of problems and ideas.
No problem. (Uh...well, you know.)

We also read David Sheldon's book Barnum Brown, Dinosaur Hunter-- which was a terrific story. Barnum Brown was the one to discover Tyrannosaurs Rex.
Mucho fun.

To the trampoline!
With Daddy.

To the pool!! For the second time today.
Madeleine discovered The Joy of a Diving Board.
bounca-bounca.

Art.
Monster projects today.

Trev's

Madeleine's

Mama's

Tredmill workout.
"Because you never know when you'll have to outrun a t-rex. Someday I'll be travelling back in time, Mom."
"I don't doubt it."

Back to the tramp before Daddy scoots off to work.

Harold and Maude are returned safely back to home. With no more mishaps.

Boy comes over to play. woohoo!
Which meant lots of track and ramp building for hotwheels.

And there is laundry

and mad cleaning-- comp'ny coming!

Other than that,
we're all about Chicken Run

and Dora and Clifford and Martha speaks today.

Now we're off to make for our company-- we're so happy about Papa's visit!!

friday twenty-five

We started out today making a cd for the car filled with Arthur stories, Skippyjon Jones, and Puff songs. The babes have been loving books on tape. (or cd's. whatever.)And lots of reading and listening.

Time to clean the pool!
We have a few days of mid eighties promised to us, and after that it looks like more Falling weather, so let's play high summertime, shall we? vroom vroom...

Perusin'. (The scholastic catalogs came.)
Lotsa pbs.

Swimmin'. Or-- dippin' toes, at least. That water is cold.

Pond cleaning.
And fish resuscitation. For the second time.
The last two times we've cleaned out the pond, we've (I) have almost killed the damned fish!!
Last time evidently I overfed them (we don't feed them very often, as they live in the pond and there are plenty of critters to eat), and I found them both floating on their sides at the top of the water bowl! I had to take them in my hands and swish them back and forth, over and over again, moving oxygen into their gills.
This time, Trev comes in and says, "Mom, I only see one fish in the bowl."
"They're both in there." (It's the pond water, and is cloudy with pears and time, thus the cleaning.)
He came back again, "I'm pretty sure there is only one."
I figured they were hanging out together, as they usually do, and he can't tell as it's blurry.
I went out there.
Only one fish.
Damn!
Did Annabelle get it? Did it jump out of the bowl?!?
"Oh, no!!!" It's laying next to the pond. Not moving. Shit.
I picked it up and it twitched. It was dry, but it twitched.
Sway, sway, sway in the water. Twitch twitch.
Sway, sway, sway. It moved it's tail.
Sway, sway...
finally, it scoots a bit.
Sway, sway, sway.
Poor Harold.
Finally... after a few minutes of this, he's moving, and no longer floating at the top.
Oof. That was close.

We began (and eventually finished) another round of Brandied Pears.
Swimmin'.

Chasin'.

Next batch of Mirabelle Brandy. (For the holidays.)
Drip drip drip.

Shrinky dinks.
Reading.
The last chapter of The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and then Give me Half!, and then a couple of chapters of Talking Tyrannosaurus.

Games of tag at twilight.

I don't know how these few things took up our whole day
but they did. :)

Maybe we'll settle in now with Annie.....

september two three:

The usual early-morning quiet pursuits for Mama... checking in with blogging friends, doing research for project ideas...

And I am having my first cup of hot cocoa/coffee for the year. You gotta love startin' out just under fifty degrees and warming up to a glorious seventy-eight.

This morning I got to check on my Crones. (I placed them in the dehydrator yesterday.) They're looking quite charmingly witch-ish.They make me giggle to look at them. :)

Eventually the babes were up and we talked about a trip to the library and they played on the computers and a video game.

Trevelyn and I read a few books; Dinosaur Hunter (a book about paleontology in the 1800's), an addition book "Get Up and Go!" (a mathstart book), and then the next three chapters of Ralph.

Time for a little music and wild art.


The babes had to be encouraged to the "wild" part (you know... screaming and poking when a Mama desperately needs quiet and being flummoxed and blinking owlishly when encouraged to go crazy)... but eventually they got into the spirit of the thing.

And we played a new (made up) game on the trampoline. I put numbers (up to thirty) at the tramp's outer edge, and drew a shape underneath them, as Madd doesn't read numbers.

We used two of our new math dice... one was twenty-sided, and one was four sided,
and I called the numbers and Trevelyn added them up.


While he was doing that, I quickly scanned around the trampoline, and found the corresponding shape and color of that number.
As soon as Trev got the answer, I'd say "Okay, seventeen... blue diamond!"
The first one to find the corresponding shape and number got the point.
The first to ten won.
Trev won 10-2.
Oddly enough, this game was moving pretty slowly sometimes - rasslin', distractions, tackling little sisters while one is thinking, etc- and I thought for sure Trev was bored with the game, but he wasn't. I was, but he wasn't. Just goes to show, I guess.
And he was so excited when he won.

Next were MadLibs. "What not to eat for lunch", or some such thing.

Colour, anyone?As we mentioned the other day, white light is made up of all the colors of the rainbow. And the primaries are red, green, and blue, surprisingly. (I grew up with the usual red, yellow, and blue.) Another surprise is that red and green make yellow. Really?
Let's play.Our Light kit came with a little spinning motor thingy to test out colour theories.
We played with making white light - which turned out for us to be a grayish-yellow. In order to make true white, your charts must be perfectly balanced, a very difficult thing to do. We made cyan, and magenta, and thought we'd skip the middle man and go straight to white with making a card of red, blue, and green... which only made a pale brownish color.
Which was very interesting, as we got closer to white (a yellowish-gray) with all the colors of the rainbow. Hmmmm.

To the park!!
A walk to the park.
To meet with friends.

Where we collected amber
and lived like running
and hollerin'
and climbin'
and stompin'
and chasin'
and adventurin'
and squealing
and bein' lost for a few precious seconds
and maybe braving new heights and getting stuck
and other Daring Fetes when no one is looking..
and it's alright
because no one was hurt after all,
and everyone comes home safe
and tired
in the end.

And hungry.
We're hungry.

Let's stop off at the library to return these and get new ones
and let's send Daddy to get us some take-out.

Good.
That's settled.

Now look at these fine library movies we have....
which one should we watch first???

And that's it for us.
G'night, then.

Crow Puppets

Here's one for you.

Super easy, not messy, and fun to play with.
:) Maddie's been very attached to hers since she made it.

We only used a piece of cardboard, black yarn, styrofoam balls (I used two two inch, Madeleine's is made from two one inch), a bit of orange scrap felt, black feathers, googly eyes, glue, and a stick.
For the two inch size balls, wrap black yarn around a seven inch piece of cardboard. (Maybe thirty-five times.) For 0ne inch balls, six inches will do, thirty times (any less and little hands might get frustrated trying to cover it.)

Tie them together at the top with another piece of yarn - 14 inches so it blends with the other lengths.

Cut the other (not tied) ends, making a tassel.

Put the yarn over the first ball, covering the ball completely,

then tie it to secure it.

Add the second ball, cover, and tie it.

The remaining yarn will be part of the tail.

Poke in feathers for wings,
feathers for a tail,

add the eyes

and after cutting a diamond shape out of scrap, poke pointed scissors in the middle, and poke the beak into the face.

Add the stick

and your done!
As soon as we were done seven crows flew over and hollered at us.
We called back, of course!
Caw! Caw!!


This project is adapted from a project in the book Crafts to Make in the Fall by Kathy Ross.

september twenty-two: mabon

The very first thing I had to do was get my mullein flowers washed and dried again and ready for medicine. (Medicine making is a fine Mabon activity, don't you think?)

The next project -the babes were still sleeping- was apple dolls. Which will probably become kitchen witches.
I've wanted to do this for a few years, but really thought I'd be terrible at it, and didn't expect much other than feelings of ineptitude and disappointment.
I am so happy to say I was wrong!
I am so in love with these ladies that have come to life, and am honored that they have showed themselves to me.
It was very hard for me to stop at three!

When the children awoke there was lots of time spent doing the usual sorts of things,
playing games
chasing
laughing
tormenting
finding grasshoppers
reading-- the first three chapters of The Mouse and the Motorcycle

and Making-
art with stickers and scissors and markers

crow puppets

and bird feeders.
And that, friends, was that.
Here comes Fall...