Five on Friday

1. We made snow cream! Probably the easiest food recipe we've ever made, and the main ingredient is our lawn. I may have added a York patty to mine. Stellar.

2. The girls' first day of ballet was yesterday. We had decided not to continue with dance after we moved, unless we found a more-- wholesome?-- group than the one Abigail was a part of in Pittsburgh (in Brookline, if that means anything to you). A mom in our HFH (Holy Family Homeschoolers) group here organized a homeschool dance class. The timing is good- ending an hour before karate, which gives the kids time to change, for us to run any needed errands, and get back to Verona for their class. Since we live so far from everything, I figured one trip out for both dance and karate would make a lot of sense. And I get to talk with other moms from our group out in the waiting room during class while the girls get to know some other girls their age- a win for everyone, since we still don't know many folks out here.

3. I love having a mudroom. Believe it or not, it's pretty clean right now, but only because the kids haven't been allowed outside due to the extreme cold (I haven't told them it's warm enough now to go out). I love not having to venture down to the dank back basement to do our ever-increasing loads of laundry (potty training is still very much a work in progress). There's a spacious food pantry, an extra sink, and a second stove, which is actually very useful. And all of that extra cabinet and drawer space is a homeschooler's dream. Perhaps one of these days, I'll find better ways to organize all of that space, but it's such a nice place to stash craft supplies. And random stuff we have yet to find homes for. There's no coat closet, so that wall with the hooks acts as our catch-all and is constantly overflowing with all of the winter coats and scarves and boots... Have I mentioned I can't wait until Spring?

4. Opal loves kitty. She just doesn't know how to show it yet. She was very gentle (cautious?) at first, but she's gotten too comfortable, and her pats have turned into all out smacks on the back/head or fistfuls of back or tail. Kitty does not like. I've been trying to teach Opal "No touch. Just say hi," but she can't resist the temptation to torment, as evidenced by the scratch on her cheek (Athena's first inflicted injury that I've noticed- not that Opal wasn't completely deserving of it, I'm sure). That hasn't deterred Opal one bit. She loves that "Kiddy kiddy kiddy!"

5.

I recently finished reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. After listening to The Screwtape Letters with Mike, I was thinking that I'd have to reread each page a couple of times, but this was much easier for me to grasp (perhaps because I was reading it myself instead of listening to someone else read it to me?). I love his natural wit and his way of illustrating complicated things so simply. I've earmarked so many pages for future pondering, but here's just one (though long) that I find relates nicely to what I hoped would be a theme of this blog--

“Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

the snowy days

One of my favorite poems-- Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening (basically Rice Krispie Treats with popcorn) Lois Ehlert's Snowballs inspired our collaged snowpeople using coffee filters, ribbons, buttons, birdseed, popcorn, feathers, fabric, paper, leaves, pop can tabs, beads, jute, metal washers, and snacks (even wasabi peas). Yellow belt snow boy! (with all his stripes!) my snow mom Pretty much all of our days this winter have been "snowy days," but we're giving some special attention to the white stuff in our reading and activities this week. Iris seemed concerned one morning this past weekend, when it seemed she had just noticed that the snow wasn't going away like it occasionally did when we lived in Pittsburgh: "The snow won't come off the grass!" How true it is. We have three to four foot drifts in places. Our once flat garden is now hilly, and our pole barn is slowly disappearing from view.

We have enjoyed many good books- from the library and our own collection- centered around snow, making paper snowflakes and snowflake ballerinas, doing some fun activities from the Jan Brett website, making popcorn "snowballs," collaging snowpeople, and of course, watching our favorite snow-themed movie, Snow Day The Snowman, as well as some other snow movies. Tomorrow, we're making snow cream, as my grandmother keeps telling me we need to do. Even she has made snow cream multiple times this winter, and she lives in North Carolina! We're on it.

I confess that since the move, I've been in a bit of a rut, and it's definitely affected my homeschool prep. I hadn't planned as many fun activities. Other than some educational computer games or videos, the work was kind of drudgery. Who wants to complete workbooks day in and day out? They certainly should enjoy learning, especially when we have been blessed with this amazing opportunity to teach them at home. I could only use the moving excuse for so long. My in-laws were such a huge help to me last week while Mike was in CA, and I was able to take it a little easier than I normally do, as my back was still in a lot of pain. That respite seemed to help considerably, as the past few days, while my back still feels little sore, it's no longer a shooting, debilitating pain. And I feel less tension. Long story short, an X-ray of my spine three years ago showed decreased fluid-releasing disc space between the vertebrates in my lower spine, which in turn causes increased stress/moodiness. For the first time since we moved, I finally had the energy to plan a themed unit, albeit mini. Scheduled fun activities this week truly seemed to invigorate the kids (and me) and give them an incentive to finish their not-as-much-fun work. Granted, nothing was breaking down, and we had heat for the first time upstairs since shortly after we moved in, but this was one of the best weeks I've had in a while.

I'm still making use of this book for planning lessons, and I'm trying to at least read to them about saints/keep up with important church days with simple print-out activities/coloring pages from the internet. But I'm hoping that this week's success will propel me to plan more in-depth activities and themed units on a more regular basis. It requires being more organized/focused in my internet searches and reserving books from the library well in advance. Our library here doesn't have nearly the inventory of the Carnegie system, but I am slowly learning the ropes of our current catalog and am thankful to have that resource for some things. I haven't quite decided when we'll wrap up snow (the beauty of homeschooling and learning as we go), but I'm beginning to look into all things backyard birds for our next unit. Seeing the kids motivated about learning is worth every extra minute of planning.

We are so very blessed.

just a few

pictures from the past week... Paging Doctor Abgail: Your waiting room is full up. first Play-doh