The Beautiful Dance

Naomi has been wanting to write a post ever since her brother was invited to guest post a month ago. While she hasn’t earned her very own post featuring her photography, she would like to share her thoughts on our recent trip to our “School Picture” Park. I’ll be sharing my own thoughts at the end.

 

I love the “Let it Go” pose (on the right) because I like Elsa. The normal “Me” pose is great because Mama loves it. My blue dress has two pockets and is my second favorite color, the color of a blueberry. What I like about my pink sandals, is that they are my most favorite color. Ever.

 

I love dancing. It was really fun to dance with my little sisters and I love Corra more than anything else…Whoa! It was so fun to throw pebbles into the pond because I could practice my toss. At the park I loved playing with the toy animals and my friends. Bye! [end Naomi]

This tradition has become an interesting one I didn’t think I’d look forward to. When we joined our homeschool group it was brand new and so we have been there for all of its changes and growth spurts. I didn’t think we would get to the third such picture day…I wasn’t sure if the group would last or if we would last as a part of it. But we did, and to be with the same very cool group of families has been more rewarding than I expected. It’s really cool to watch the kids run around with a pack of similar kids who share the outlook of “Oh you’re new? Well, come on! You are part of the pack because you’re here and you’re you!” However, the big difference between this and any other park day are the gorgeous pictures of my kids that come a few weeks later. Having beautiful children is one of the most fun things ever, not going to lie. Granted, there is usually mud and little man ends up sweaty in his pictures and since Layna is Layna I worried about the lake way more than before.  Corra was toddling and flirting with everyone and Naomi came home with green duck poopy feet.

  

Garyn informed me that we need to come back and stay for a few hours because he found the perfect reading spot. He was right, it is the perfect reading spot. And maybe we can also try non-arms folded poses.

  

Pretty sure she is the most photogenic baby I’ve ever seen.

Corra’s photogenic-ness is probably to karmically off set this one’s current phase. The middle picture is her telling me “no” when I told her to smile. Meh. I’m just thrilled she is voicing the first consonant, finally. Yay for Down Syndrome and Speech Therapy teaching me the finer points of silver lining hunting! [note: that could be read as being sarcastic and a tad bitter. I’m totally serious. This little girl is teaching me all sorts of stuff about perspective and what is, in fact, worthy of freaking out (Not very much it turns out). These lessons are carrying over to parenting my other monkeys, being a better wife, and a better human being overall. So, Yay!]

 

“All the world’s a stage” and my girls take that at face value. Naomi knows how to get her jig on.

I’m teaching a poetry class starting next week and it’s going to be epic. [Get it? Epic Poetry? what ever, it was an awesome pun.] In preparation I’ve been reading and sorting through amazing poetry and it’s changed my outlook a little bit. It’s hard to read “If –” by Rudyard Kipling or “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman and not live a bit better. More intensely sincere in your attempts. Sigh. I love poetry. Anyways. More on the class later and Fall is on the way so I need to go get my own happy jig on…

The Peterson Automotive Museum

[Over the Summer Little Man got to go spend a few days with my Dad in California. They got to do some pretty cool stuff, like visit a car museum that I loved when I was a kid. Garyn took our camera and had his first taste of photography. He’d like to share some pictures and his thoughts on this awesome place.]

The Peterson Automotive Museum by Garyn McGuire

This car broke the speed of sound and it was my favorite car at the museum (it was in the parking garage!). The cockpit on this car is off centered to make room for the jet engine. It was amazing that it broke the speed of sound and I wonder what it looked like when it did that. This car wasn’t the only cool looking car…

This small model was of a solar powered car. The solar panels are actually on the big curve over the top of the rear of the car. I think it would be a great car for Las Vegas because we have lots of sun to fuel it here in the desert. Driving this car would make me feel important, with all the people waving and pointing at my spaceship-looking solar car.

I was surprised to see that the museum had a model of “Herbie, the Love Bug.” I’m not sure if it was the real thing or a model, but I’m guessing a model. Herbie was the main character in a movie that I like a lot. He seemed to have a personality of his own, especially when he was racing! Here’s another race car that also got banged up in a serious crash just like Herbie…

I could tell just by glancing at this car, that it had been part of a huge chase and crash. The front of it was obliterated! As you can tell from the name, it must have been driven pretty fast. I would love to drive a car super fast…but I’d have to be careful of sudden turns! Not all the cars there went really fast though.

I was guessing from when I first looked at this car, that it’s outer housing was taken off. But then I wondered if it was meant to be this way. What I liked most about this one, was that it was skeletal and you could see it’s whole engine.
Here is an engine from another car. I think it’s cool and I’m guessing that the orange swirls are the spark plugs. I liked taking pictures of all the machine parts and the pictures can help me decipher how they all work.

I really like this picture because it shows license plates from all over the world. The red one on the left looks like Arabic. I’m glad my grandpa took me to see all these awesome cars!

 

Balance in the Universe.

Pretty ostentatious title for a post about swim lessons, huh?

First children seem to get the short end of the stick of life. They are pressed into service at an early age to be “Mommy’s Helper” as soon as another kid comes to steal their stuff and mom and dad’s time. Not to mention that said mom and dad have no idea what they are doing with the first. However, there is balance in the universe.

When Little Man was a baby, not even turned 1 yet, we went swimming all the time. The kid never wore floaties because I was there every step of the way to teach him to swim. He is a pretty strong swimmer thanks to those 2 solid summers of my undivided attention at the pool. Naomi is not so lucky. While I figured out a few things that made her babyhood better (nursing…coughcough…), she didn’t get the same swim time. So this summer I figured it was time for actual lessons. I need her to be independent in the pool as I have two more baby fish to keep track of, and she was so ready. Quickly I ran to Facebook, because that’s what you do when you need help raising your children. It was there I found out that my lovely cousin had taught swim extensively (and is a nurse and a trained lifeguard, Score!) and would be willing to work with Naomi.

  

  

Kicking practice, “Dead Girl Float,” photo bombing big brother, and more kicking practice. She has improved so much and it was great to have her working hard for someone else. I don’t think I could have pushed her like my cousin did, but it was exactly what Little Girl needed. She is not totally an  independent swimmer, but will be by the end of the summer. Her confidence is so high, “Swimmer” is in the Things I Want to be When I Grow Up rotation. It’s right up there with “Engine Painter.” (I’ll explain later.)

 

These monkeys even got to tag along occasionally.

Swimming with babies is one of the few things that makes summers bearable in the desert. Stay cool and hydrated my friends!

it starts.

We live in a place that gets crazy, stupid hot in the summer. You all know that…desert = heat. We have made use of the kiddy pools in the past but with burgeoning swimmers we needed something more. Last summer we sprang for (had sprung for? did spring for? My grammar fails me) a 14′ above ground pool. Best summer purchase ever. We learned a few things about pools, especially those of the non-cement variety. For example, they don’t like rocks. A new liner will be budgeted in for next summer because of the bajillion little pin pricks that are causing mild hemorrhaging. This year we wised up and set up the pool on the concrete slab. Also we learned that pools smell like chlorine for a reason. You need a freaking truck load of the stuff to keep your pool from turning into a swamp. Neil is on it this year and so far so good. Turns out talking to pool guys in a pool store can be really useful, no green muck for us! Swimming has been happening for almost a month now. I’m a mean mother and made the kids (and husband) wait until after we got back from Ohio. Naomi is starting swim lessons today, Layna loves her floating boat thing (pictures to come), and I am happy to report that Corra has carried on with the uber brown baby tradition. Sunscreen is still used at our house but not totally necessary. Of course Naomi is already putting my teenage sisters to shame in the tan department. They love that.

  

  

  

  

Having a pool that we can actually swim in is glorious. However, there is something magical about those first few ice cold inches of water. Babies can crawl around, big kids can slide and fall down and be goofy, and it marks the start of a pretty great season. Happy summer to all!

 

Olympiad

Ok so it hasn’t been 4 years since our last Olympics, but we can be on a modern schedule right? Honestly this post probably won’t be much about the event itself (which was fun and laid back). I love our homeschool group and was glad to put on the Olympics. The kids probably would have been just fine with playing at the park, but meh, they liked winning olive branch crowns and drinking grape juice. This post actually might be more about how I’m doing with homeschooling over all.

It’s absolutely the best thing ever for my family, my kids are thriving and they are way beyond where they need to be (Garyn and Naomi both). I just feel like I’m floundering. The feeling is similar to trying to find the last piece to a jigsaw puzzle in a bag of random pieces, when you aren’t even sure what color it should be to fit your puzzle. I don’t know what is missing and I don’t know why I feel like something is missing, but the stuff I’ve been trying lately seems forced. Unnatural. Because its the wrong piece. This all probably stems from the fact that I have a lot of conflicts raging in my head all the time. Granola, energy workin’, mystic hippie meets capitalistic, pragmatic economist. Un-schooling, child led education meets structured, mean, one room school house Marm, where dang it! you need to work on your handwriting! But…um…only if you feel inspired? Little man is turning 8, he would be going into 3rd grade and Little girl would be starting Kindergarten in the fall. One side in my head says, “Sure he’s ahead, he’s super gifted. But how much further ahead would he be if you worked with him and really pushed him?” and the other side says, “Psshhh! If she pushes him he will hate learning. He is so far ahead because he has had the freedom to pursue what he loves.” And I’m standing there nodding to both of them, because they both are talkin’ pretty to me. Gah.

The one thing that saves me is the fact that I get help when I need it, either from God or good friends or moments of brilliant clarity (so I guess all my help comes from Him, and I’ll take it!). The other thing that saves me is my sweet husband who listens to me freak out, rubs my back while I cry and then totally agrees with me when I say I’m screwing up our children. He’s good at making me laugh. Also there are always the moments when Garyn busts out math problem solving based on stuff he had to put together on his own, or I look up a reading level on a book he sped through, or I see him taking care of his little sisters like a boss, and I relax. A little bit.

Wait! That’s three things! I’m horrible at math! My kids are DOOMED!!!

Epic Sigh.

The athletes all performed well. However, Layna was not impressed with her goat-cheese-and-honey-cracker. Corra just approves of the world in general. Especially when there is food.

Thanks for letting me vent. Someday I’ll figure out academics and in the mean time at least I’m nailing hard work, kindness, and good people-ship. If I have to choose, I’ll take those.

 

Wetlands

No really! There are wetlands here in the middle of the Mojave Desert! This is because the city of Las Vegas has perfected the art of faking stuff…I mean, we have a Coliseum. We went with our homeschool group to the Wetlands park and it was kind of a shock. The only time I had been before was pre-little girls and it was basically a mobile trailer at the start of some trails around some man made lakes. Now they have a full blown compound and a really impressive mini natural history center.

Hoodies and flip flops are how we roll around here.

I hope you can see it…Naomi had requested Rapunzel hair. So that ended up being a French braid with every flower clippie we own in there somewhere. I think we fit about 11.

“Not happy, Bob. Not happy.”

That’s our go-to quote when one of the kids is cranky. Layna loves to ride in the stroller so we were playing musical babies. This meant that I hadn’t strapped her in when she decided that touching her toes would be hilarious. She caught herself on the sidewalk with her face. It was pretty gnarly for awhile but luckily didn’t leave anything permanent, and PB&J makes everything better.

My friend put it best…”The wetlands park is awesome, for Vegas.” If you are from Florida and are thinking in terms of Mangrove trees you will be underwhelmed. But for us desert rats it was a fun (if long and hot) hike and really cool hour spent at the learning center. No pun intended.

Genius.

Genius = museums with lots of hands on, kid friendly displays. Genius = Leonardo da Vinci. Genius = combining the two. Once again the Springs Preserve delivered on the awesomeness front with their new exhibit: “Leonardo da Vinci: Machines in Motion.” We went today for the first time and I’m already planning two more trips (one to take good pictures, not crappy ones from my phone, to enter a contest; and the other to bring sketch books, because of course!) Oh and it’s pretty great when you are prepping your kids on the way to the place even though you should have done a whole unit study on said place and you quickly are informed by your 7 year old that the Magic Tree House book about said place already taught him all he needed to know. Well everything you wanted him to know at this point. Not sure how I feel about Magic Tree House books picking up my slack…

  

  

You know, from one inventor to another. He was in heaven.

  

Love that look. And she liked playing with the big wooden toys models as much as her brother. When he would let her and not steal every new one she found. Gosh.

  

Drinking in the knowledge. The docents thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread and there were several times I turned around to see where she was and they were holding her, helping her work a display or just talking to her about everything. It made my day, a lot.

  

So in addition to the 40 or so models of his various machines that you could play with, they also had life sized models of his flying machines, his tank, and some other things. It was SOOOO COOOL!!!!

  

Gratuitous fat baby pictures. We always have to play at the park and since she was on my hip in the exhibit (never again will I forget the stroller…Littlest girl is heavy!) this was my first chance to take a picture of her. Oh and yeah…she sits up now. I’ll be posting a 6-month update on all that soon.

 

It is kind of rare that these two play very well together so it was photo worthy. And really the reason for the huge butterfly picture is because Naomi informed me that not only was its name “Redyellowpinkblacky” but her pet dog was riding on it. Never a dull moment at the park for us.

Inventor Class

Little Man wants to be an inventor when he grows up and has wanted this for at least a few years. If it is robot related in any way, his answer is “Yes, Please!” Now take that bit of information and store it away for a minute while I explain some homeschooling stuff. It won’t take long I promise. Our overall philosophy for homeschooling follows the ideas of Oliver and Rachel DeMille and their book “A Thomas Jefferson Education.” One thing they discuss is how kids (well, all people) move through developmental phases of learning which actually build on each other. The first is “Core” phase and then “Love of Learning” and so on. So even if one is in “love of learning” they never leave “Core”, if that makes sense? So in light of the fact that Garyn is moving beyond “Core” to “Love of Learning,” I realized that he is ready for a bit more structure in his education. One principle in the book that is considered a Key to helping a kid get themselves a great education is “Structure time, not content.” Ok back to him wanting to be an inventor…We started doing “Inventor Class.” Every week on Wednesday nights he gets an hour to work with his dad on stuff. We structured the time, and he is choosing the content to fill that time, and here is some of that stuff.

 

A for real model airplane. This will be finished and hung from his ceiling, because too many hours have gone into it for it to be blasted to smithereens when it crashes on its maiden flight. And before you think we are mean parents, we got him a cheaper version that he has already flown to death.

  

Random bins of “usable” parts are scattered around the house. They have so far dismantled our old cd player and car stereo (hence the speaker next to Winnie the Pooh), various Nerf guns, and an old camera is on the docket.

  

The current project is sooo cool! He has been saving his money for a Lego MindStorm set. They are very nifty and very expensive. Well, he got a robotics book at the library that had projects for another robot platform that uses a real breadboard and real electronic circuitry. You also use a real programming language to program the robot instead of a fake one developed only for Lego stuff. It is also half the price which means he could get it now. Needless to say the “NOW” part sold him pretty quick. There was much rejoicing over his choice. It’s called a BOE Bot and he loves it!

  

I’ll have better pictures later but already I’m so impressed with the stuff he is learning while he plays with his robot. His face just lit up today when he programmed the LED lights to blink in a certain way. He was so proud of himself. It’s also fun to see him and his dad head to head, totally engrossed in something (I married really good stuff). Makes my homeschooling mom heart go pitter-patter.

And just for fun, more random Garyn updates:

– He is now missing all 4 lateral incisors and has a big fat gap between his two front teeth. Incidentally, since I am the worst tooth fairy known to mankind…I had to level with him about the whole thing and so now he is very clear where he places his teeth and reminds me about 12 times before bed that the tooth is there and waiting. Sigh.

– He loves reading. Like I can’t keep up with his voracious appetite for books. Recent devoured titles include, Any book from the How to Train your Dragon series, the Dinotopia series, the Redwall series, anything by Roald Dahl, The Hobbit, The Life of Fred series, and My Little Ponies anything. With three little sisters, his feminine side has been firmly embraced.

– His still says pistachio, atom, avalanche, and banana like a snobby British school boy but only the last word is intentional.

– He has a blue stuffed dog named “Blue Puppy” that he sleeps with every night and has since he was a wee little one. Also he has probably 18 imaginary pets, and a rubber mouse named “Maximus.”

The way his mind works and his enthusiasm for life make me smile in a big way.

They have returned…

The Prince and Princess of Dirt have returned and that fortuitous omen can mean only one thing…more garden adventures at The Angry Dwarf Dairy!

  

All children of the Royal Family.

And yes, that is a hand full of cookies in Layna’s hand, accepted as acceptable bribery for not running across the street when no one is looking. After the first time she escaped, I sacrificed my dignity as a mother and handed her the bag of cookies to hopefully keep her in place long enough that we could finish. She is both quick and stealthy. Oy.

Once upon a time the Queen of Dirt noticed some tires out by the dumpster of a tire repair place by her castle. She basked in her brilliance when she remembered that people plant gardens in tires all the time and she rushed home to her beloved internets, which make all things possible. [dropping third person story telling for everyone’s sake].

I did some research and found a family in Arizona that basically created a self watering garden with tires for the beds. We took their ideas, made a lot of mistakes (and learned from them), and came up with this:

  

Rows of tires stacked on sawed off five gallon buckets that are fitted to a main PVC line which hooks into…

  

a master bucket (to maintain a certain water level) with a float valve that is fed from one of our rescued IBC totes. Dirt is placed on the screen that is sandwiched in-between the two tires (see above above) and it sinks into the water just enough to wick the water up to the top soil level, and the roots of the future plants. I’ll also put straw around the base of the plants to help with evaporation and keeping the soil temperatures cooler. I also painted some of the tires white to help with temperature, but then I got lazy. I’m calling it an experiment to see if it really helps. I think lots of science happened from people being lazy.

  

This is Naomi’s happy work face (she actually had a lot of fun, I just snapped the picture at a weird time…just saying so you don’t think I force my kids to do too much manual labor). Layna ended up eating more dirt than cookie but meh, she’s had worse.

  

We filled them with awesome garden dirt and I’ll check on them in the morning to see how high up the water was wicked. Also every Prince and Princess needs a domain that is all their own…so Little Man and Little Girl get their own garden tires to tend.

It’s taking more self control than I would have thought to not rush out right now (in the dark) and plant seeds. I know it’s mid January and February is going to freeze my toes off. But it’s gorgeous and the last 20+ years of experience living here doesn’t necessarily mean it will get cold again (like every other winter), right? Perhaps it is a good thing that Layna got into all my seed trays (I should vacuum the dirt off my bedroom floor at some point) and made it so I have to buy transplants and they won’t show up anywhere until mid February. Dang self-control inflicted upon me!

Also, as a preview of sorts…the husband man has decided to do a for real aquaponics system again, but this time based on a proven system and not one of our own experimentation. We will be doing a straight raft system (to avoid our previous problem with growing media) and it will be around 128 sq. feet of growing space. It will be something of an investment but I am really excited to get started, and as he has ordered most of the complicated stuff online already, we are committed! I will be documenting all along the way.

And for anyone curious, here are the current animal counts: 3 cats, 27 chickens, 1 goat buck, 4 pregnant goat does, 1 milking doe, 1 four month old goat wether, 1 rabbit buck, 4 rabbit does, 40 rabbit kits of various ages (numbers to be reduced Saturday, stay tuned for that!), and 3000+ earth worms. The worms totally count.

Discovering again…

I’ve written about the Lied Discovery Museum before (and I’d link to it if I could find the post), but we got to go again the Tuesday after Winter Break ended. It was bliss. Very few other kids (all of them 4 years old or younger), no field trips, and we didn’t even go as a group so it was just us. Like I said…Bliss. We discovered some new things and Layna was out on her own because Corra is now the designated stroller baby.

  

Corra discovered that taking a nap is always the right answer.

 

I discovered the raincoats with ears! [squee!] Layna discovered the holy grail of all plastic balls! So much awesome!

 

More ears…tehehehe! Unfortunately Naomi discovered that they put a cover on the swirling vortex of greatness, and so it is much harder to toss a ball in and get it in one of the holes…I’m guessing some kid’s baby brother got tossed in. Just a theory.

 

As if I wouldn’t have a matching set of kids in ears. Garyn discovered that there is actual building stuff in Waterworld…not just the water canon. It was fun to see him playing like a big kid.

 

 

It was so nice to just meander and not hurry the kids through or encourage them to give the other kids a turn. There were no other kids! I’m thinking the Tuesday after Spring Break is over might just be a museum date for us…#awesomethingabouthomeschooling #justkiddingihatehashtags