A wool felted sheep

Flash is leaving in the morning for Oregon!  I miss him already.  He's going for the Burning Bush Festival at Summer Lake w/ some family friends (yes, they have 6 daughters & a baby boy!) for 2 weeks.  The family who is hosting it keeps sheep, so I thought I'd make one out of wool as a little thank you for hosting!

It is bigger & sturdier than the fox I made from the kit, and went much faster.  I used some partially felted wool for the insides & then covered it w/ a nicer more carded wool.  I also added facial features w/ thread - something I haven't done before.  I don't know if I'll do that again though; I don't have a good place for the knots.  HB wants a llama so that's next...

Woodworking with Grandpa J. & Flash

Back in March "Mr. Michael" gave Flash a very nice (sharp) birthday present.  It is the same as his favorite knife to work with when he's helping prepare a catered event or pop up dinner - but it didn't have a case to keep it safe.  So, he & Grandpa J. sliced up a nice cedar log from the neighbor & made one!

The knife fits right down inside w/ a holder - really cool & no one lost a finger ;0)  When we get them moved out here (soon I hope!) he plans to set up a workshop & make stuff all the time!

The other garden, a bit of henna, and chinese writing

We have another garden a few miles away at a friend's house.  She's getting up there in age and doesn't feel like maintaining a big garden anymore - but the soil is so rich it would be a waste for it not to be used!  We have our green beans, sweet meat squash, onions, many tomatoes, peppers & zucchini there.  When we're picking we get to see the most spectacular sunsets!  She is in the middle of farmland, so she can see more sky than we can...

Those romas are hard to see in the thick growth!

Jams usually gets smeared before it dries....

Last week Tweeters had a "quiet time" instead of a full blown nap - we gathered some things for her to work on & play with for an hour or so.  One was an OLD book called You can Write Chinese (she's been into the 7 Chinese Brothers lately).  She went through the whole thing & wrote her favorite words on the small dry erase board!  The book is falling apart though so I plan to put it into protective sleeves...that way she can trace right over the characters w/ a dry erase marker, too.

Another Park Day

We have so much fun at the park :0)  If I walk out my front door & stand in the street in front of my house, I can see it, so it's really close.  It has a simple fort/swing set which is fun, but we have the most fun doing other things....

Tweeters & Jam love pretending to be bunnies - they balance all along the woodpile near the campfire ring & have a little grass "nest" on one side they curl up in to sleep :0)  They will spend a good 15 minutes gathering grass to fluff up their little nest!

Even though we live really close to this area, I usually take a bag w/ a few things - elevensies for one!  This day it was orange watermelon from JG, yum. 

This time we brought 2 pieces of sidewalk chalk & made a long road with familiar places on it.  Like Hyvee!  Everyone from Radiator Springs shops at Hyvee ;0)

Yes, we have 3 Maters....

The road goes from the lake, then by our house, through the countryside to both Grandparent's houses (even the one in Florida) & then south to Mexico (why they wanted that I do not know?!) & northwest to Denver where our cousins live.  Many happy hours!

A night walk to the beach....

Summer is winding down.  It's getting dark SO early now - I think I'll move to Belize.  Really.

JG went along, carrying Honey Bunches!

JG is moving to N. Dakota this week and we will miss him!

JG is going to miss Little Z!

Kiss kiss for the Bruce

A little bit o' picnic table gymnastics...

They love the simplest things.  When we come down here to swim I always bring the bag of tows - buckets, shovels, cars, boats.  What do they play with?  Sand, water, sticks, leaves, algae.  Ok, and Jam does play w/ a car, but really they love the natural stuff best & play with it longer than anything I could buy at the store.  Well, except a matchbox car.

Tweeters just loves to fly!

Show off!

What are you doing to wrap up your summer?  Are you soaking up every last bit of it or are you ready for fall?  Please leave a comment & let me know what you are doing this week!

Sunflowers, the moon & sunset

We went crazy planting sunflower seeds this spring - and so glad we did!  They are just in the pathways & edges of the garden, but so pretty.  It's been fun for Tweeters & Jam to have been able to plant the seeds, watch them grow, and now see the bees coming to visit.  We'll also harvest the seeds to feed the birds this winter, and leave some on the plants so we can watch the birds out there.

How tall IS that??  12 feet??

A blue moon.....hard to capture w/ my camera....

Another lovely sunset...

Math & puzzles....

Tweeters has started doing cool random math things lately - & I think it was really triggered by the (gasp!) Disney Princess Sticker Book Treasury.  On the way to town the other day she said, "Mom!  Did you know that 5+2=7?  Did you know 4+3 is also 7??  How about 4+4=8?".  She was doing this using a toy spider she found in the car, counting it's legs :0)  It was really cool....so then later I set out the old Math U See blocks - so glad we kept those.  She could then see what was equal by putting the blocks side by side.  I'm debating whether or not to start her in kindy or 1st grade math??

It has also been awhile since the puzzles were out - and they wanted all of them!

Ok, so we didn't get to the big floor puzzles or geopuzzles, but they worked on these for a really long time & it was so sweet to see them working together :0)

Handmade tree blocks!

If you look online for these, you can very easily get overwhelmed with how complicated some people make it!  Papa J just cut up a neighbor's old dead tree & made these for me :0)  We've been hand sanding here & there as we feel like it & they're now all nice & smooth...now for either a coat of tung oil or honey & olive oil to seal them a bit.

Jam still loves to play 'baby Moses' - here's the Nile River & the baby in the basket....

Tweeters continued the game by adding Pharoah's daughter & hand maiden - and making the palace very tall!

Try it!  And let me know how they turn out :0)

Book recommendation

I picked this up at a yard sale years ago because I recognized it from a Sonlight reading list.  We've never done Sonlight, but we have read many many of the books they use!  Tweeters is just a perfect age for this :0)  Look for more book recommendations soon, including some for grown ups....


We are nearly finished with The Dragons of Blueland, the last book in the series!  I just found some lapbook stuff for these though, so maybe we'll do that & some coloring pages.  I found the second book at a thrift store for .25 and got the third one free through paperbackswap
http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php 
Oh, on a final note, we also love the cartoon series Jane & the Dragon & have 2 of the DVDs.  I don't know if it's still on TV since we don't have any channels (just do videos) but it's also really good for a very wide audience.

Highly recommended!

Random learning activities this past week...most repurposed materials or from yard sales!

These don't really have a category, but I wanted to share them anyway.  I haven't been to many yard sales this summer but I hope to start up again this week....I have a pretty long list of needs for the little mother's day out we're opening next month!

These are made of sturdy cardboard and are just like the wooden pieces you can get for Handwriting without Tears.  I love that program!  I stupidly sold my wooden letters about 10 years ago, so can't get myself to buy them again...these will do ;0)  You can make every capital and lower case letter w/ just these pieces.  I think Tweeters will move right to cursive in first grade, but this is fun and serves it's purpose for now.

Really into chalkboard art right now, on this larger yard sale find and the small HWT board.  The colored chalks are just from a yard sale, too, so not as brilliant as some, but again serve the purpose. 

Jam is loving this geoboard - he doesn't feel like he's really done til ALL 100 rubber bands are on!  Great yard sale find at a retired teacher's house :0)  Came w/ a book, too!

Not from a yard sale, but it was SO delicious I had to take a picture!  Flash the Chef made this for dinner one night...eggplant & zucchini deliciousness with fresh cilantro!!

Gotta have some good music in our education....

It's just too bad these guys are having their last concert tonite!  Only HB & Flash are going, but we were able to attend their second to last concert last week :0)  It was free, sponsored by a large nearby church - they even had bounce houses & activities for the littles!

Cool stage, huh?

Flash & Jam dancing

Tweeters racing through the bouncy thingy

Jam sliding down at the end of the bouncy thingy

Jam got attached to the drumsticks...so Papa J bought some for him & the drummer, Chance, signed them.  Maybe they'll be worth 10 grand some day!!

See http://www.listentothecorners.com/ to listen to or buy great music - I think they are also on facebook if you are into that.....enjoy!

This week's henna tattoos

HB did this one at the beach - my good old friend came to visit w/ her 5 children.  It was such a blessing to catch up & keep in touch!  Henna of course looks like wet black mud going on, then you wash it off when it gets dry & crusty.  The actual stain is more of a medium brown. 

This one ended up being a full sleeve!  I didn't get a pic of the full thing but may post it when I get one from HB.  She did this at a concert in the park for the wife of one of the band members.  See the tube?  It squirts out kinda like icing.  Oh, and HB does all these freehand!!

This is good old friend's oldest daughter - she'll be going back to school w/ a tattoo!!  Great way to start your first day, right?!  :0)  Love you S family!

Color wheels! And now for a bit of Montessori

Ok, so this is learning to waldorf...but as I've said before I am not a purist!  You might even catch me doing some Classical Conversations memory work at some point ;0)  I haven't pulled out the color grading work in awhile, so recently I just randomly took these out and started working on it myself (they were a bit jumbled anyway so a good exercise!).  Tweeters jumped right in to help, yeah!  I pulled out the primary & secondary colors & we talked about those a bit, then extended it to include painting.

These are just free paint samples - you can see that Tweeters helped to cut them apart about a year ago....

Color mixing to make secondary colors - Jam got to green (the first one) & then just added more & more to it to make...brown!  He'll get it someday ;0)

 Joyous Day!  I forgot we had these REALLY old Discovery Toys wooden blocks & cards!  We have the newer set that I got when Honey Bunches & Flash were little w/ the foam shapes, but the cards in this one are more of a challenge.  It had a color wheel in it, so these came out later in the day & really reinforced what we were doing w/ the paint.  And, Jam was super into these for like an hour AND a few days afterwards!

Care Packages for moms

 As minister of record for His Holy church, Papa J receives various offerings to redistribute to those in need.  One family makes amazing goat's milk soap, and sent 10 bars of it to him recently to give away.  There is a women's shelter in a nearby town that we have made offerings to in the past, so we called and asked them if they could use some gift baskets.  Sure!  they said!  So we used some of the offering money and some of our own to purchase baskets & tea cups at Salvation Army, added in some organic tea, shampoo, razors, lip balm, new hand towels, gourmet chocolate, and handmade cards.  Everyone in the family had a hand in helping: HB collected spearmint flowers for small bouquets, Flash has been drying flowers so he used some of those to make handmade cards w/ a message from Isaiah 41:10 inside, Tweeters put everything in the baskets, and Jam...well, he didn't really do anything!  We dropped them off last Thursday to the shelter & they did a give-away for the moms at a back to school event for their children.  We pray it will be a blessing and we are looking forward to putting more together in the future!

The baskets almost done, ready for cards

Cards drying & waiting for inside sticker w/ bible verse & contact info for HHC

Tweeters loved helping at every step of the process!

Sweet little bouquets

How about your church?  What kinds of things does your group do to reach out to others?  I'd love to read your ideas :0)  If you would like more info about HHC, here's a link:
http://www.preparingu.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page this is the main page

Flash is planning to go to Oregon for the Burning Bush Festival (listed on the wiki page above) at the end of the month!  Hope he takes lots of pictures...he is traveling with another family - a family who has SIX girls and one baby boy!  I think the dad needs some male companionship ;0)