Happy 4th!

Really the only problem I have with blogging, is the fact that everything (especially holidays) are blogged a few days after the fact and that’s if I’m very on top of things, which is usually not the case. Oh well. Was your holiday everything you hoped it would be? Mine was. And it wasn’t. I had a great time, don’t get me wrong, it’s just this holiday (even more than most holidays) brings out the homeschooling mom guilt something fierce. We read the preamble for the Declaration of Independence Monday night for our family night. That was it. No craftiness, no in depth unit study of the Revolution, no memorization or reenactments. But here’s where the guilt happened…I’m totally good with our lack of academic exploitation of this holiday. However, I was feeling the guilt enough to make any homeschooling mother proud, until my 6.87 year old and 3.5 year old stood up, put their hands over their hearts and belted out the National Anthem. They know it and they understand it. It got me to thinking that they know how much their Mom and Dad value and love this country and that’s enough for now. We don’t need to do more if we’ve got that covered. Guilt overcome!

Here is a run down of the highlights.

 

We swam. And by swam I mean “wade in ankle deep pond water while Daddy emptied the pool with a 5 gallon bucket.” Refilling and running the filter might just make the pool swimmable for me again. I say for me, because the rest of my family doesn’t care about silly things like being able to see your feet when you swim.

Grandma hosted the BBQ and we figured since it was so stinking hot, a movie would be nice. “Wreck it Ralph” is one of our current favorites, (go see it!) so we piled on the couch and watched a bit of it. Uncle Ian is our family game master so he and Neil got their geek on and played “Boss Monster,” which is every bit as gamer geek as it sounds. Also the munchkins loved it. Especially Layna, who knows that cards of any sort are meant to be eaten.

 

 

My little pyromaniacs-in-training. My big pyromaniacs teaching the rising generation.

 

This one. Sigh. Little little girl cried, giggled and clapped her way through the fireworks. Mostly cried, and clapped when they would stop. But she loved the “jumping jacks” and ground spinners that made silly noises so the evening wasn’t a total trauma fest. She’ll learn to love them, right?

 

 

Sparklers, ground spinners, and things that launch in the air and make noises…the cheapest stuff we bought…were the favorites far and away. You’d think we would know this now as veteran parents. The fountains were fun, but after 3 minutes you start wondering if this burst is the last one. But they are beautiful, especially the crackling star burst ones. All in all though, it was a nice holiday. I just need to sort out my guilt issues.

Good food, good people, and my husband turned 12 again…that was my favorite part.

Last Day of School!

Not really! Well, Kind of! Why? Because we homeschool! HaHa. Actually we did end school (meaning 1st grade) today, because it was the last day of school for most kids in Las Vegas.  Second Grade and Preschool are starting July 1st. Arbitrary? You betcha. Mostly we never really stop doing school so if we take massive breaks because Mommy is, I dunno, having a baby…it’s ok. The big change I’m making is to be much better at recording everything we do. Nothing is really going to change because I like how things are working, but I think I’ll feel better with a record of what was done.

It’s been fun to laugh at myself and all my big plans for this year. I had some awesome, ambitious intentions (I was going to read Plato and Shakespeare…riiiight). Then our van, which had our entire language arts curriculum and my beautifully illustrated hardback copy of The Hobbit, got stolen. Then I got pregnant and sick. Then I realized that since my almost 7 year old’s favorite book is at a reading level way above where he needs to be and Daddy is helping Little Man to not only love math, but believe he is awesome at it, and his writing is coming along nicely (turns out he likes cursive more than printing and is better at it…weird kid). I gave myself permission to ease up and let go. So did we do even a tenth of what I planned? Can I get a resounding “Heck No”!? In spite of that, however, the year was a success and we had a fantastic time. Our homeschool group and the friends we have made really helped with that, and we (meaning all the moms) just finished planning next year. So Excited!!!

At our end of the year homeschool party things went about as you would expect.

 

Little girl army crawled down the slip’n’slide.

 

Little Little girl enjoyed snacks. “Please sir, I want some more.”

 

And the boys (and cute girl that Garyn should marry) had fun stormin’ the castle.

Hope your last day of school (if you still have those) is magical.

Lied Discovery Museum

There were exactly 100 pictures dumped from my camera to my hard drive after our latest homeschool field trip. I saved you from that by exercising self-control and reminding myself (repeatedly) that not everyone is as enamored of my children learning and developing as I am. But this place is really, really cool, so here are my favorites.

The museum shares building space with The Smith Center and opened this past March. It’s well-designed for kids of all ages (even one year olds…because you have to pay full admission price starting at age one. I would have had to pay for Layna anyways I’m sure, but next year it will be rough to pay for baby too) and convenient for moms with strollers, so I’m a fan.

 

Have I ever mentioned my chronic inability to be late? To anything…ever? It’s a joke to my friends and a mild annoyance to everyone else. Not sure why but 10 – 15 minutes early is my modus operandi. “Seriously, Mom?” she says patiently with the long-suffering of the young martyr that she is. Once other friends arrived and the kids could work on breaking the door, waiting wasn’t so bad.

 

 

WaterWorld! First up was the best part. Something about playing and manipulating water, I think, equals play perfection for most kids. It certainly does for my fish. Little girl loved the balls thrown into the vortex, Little little girl had full access to all the water she wanted (still at toilet height) but with no mom to shoo her away from it (funny side note: even with the water table and toys, while I was standing and talking to a friend, she snuck away and was booking it for the women’s bathroom across the way. A kind lady pointed her out to me before Layna actually made it to a stall. What is it with kids and toilets?!). Little man loved the ball launching device that would splash everyone in a five foot radius every time it launched a ball. I loved that he had that look on his face the whole time.

 

You should know by now that I’m a sucker for cheesy face-in-hole photo ops. Naomi and her friend sat in the throne together overseeing, discussing fashion, and generally ruling the populace as only three year olds can.

 

Pirate ship with working canon. Done and Done. TWO mirror friends to alternate kissing. Also done and double done.

When we got home Naomi informed her dad that he would be building her a castle out of paper, and a Rapunzel dress, and a small queen dress, and prince clothes. She provided him with random books constructions so he could get to work immediately. We now have a daily ritual where I explain that the reason I took pictures is so Daddy could get to work without having to go to the museum to see it for himself and that he will begin full-scale production “this weekend.”

 

There were lots of other things to play with and make and move and hear and see and touch. Layna enjoyed her graham crackers before we had lunch (in our own private room with our homeschool buddies). Little man and Little girl surprised me by how much they loved all the playing pretend. And in the lobby was a very cool exhibit about leverage and lifting up a car. There was so much more, but in the end we loved it all, and if a baby wasn’t due smack in the middle of the summer we would probably be getting a season pass. I’m thinking that will happen after baby so we have a full year to enjoy it, when I can walk around pushing a stroller or wearing baby in a cute trendy baby-wrap, instead of waddling like an uncouth duck, failing as I try to not bump into people with my stomach. People are so nice about stuff like that. And having the rest of the kid population of the city stuck in schools starting in the fall will be really nice too. Can’t wait!

Kangaroos!

We got to go back to Roos ‘N’ More, but this time we did it right. One of my friends in our homeschool group volunteered to be point-woman and arrange a group tour. That meant that it was just us, on a non-public day and so we got to see and do way more. Too bad major zoos don’t offer the same thing.

 

Granted we still had a bit of standing on the other side of the fence from the animals. (In case you were wondering, Layna was looking at the huge iguana and tortoise, and the other two were checking out a capybara.)

 

 

Yes that is a lemur on her head and a ferret in her arms. I don’t remember what kind of lizard or deer…but the deer’s name was “La-Fawnda.” HaHa. Good times.

 

 

Little man loved the fennec fox (they are so fluffy I’m gonna DIE!)(<— Quick, name that movie!) The hedgehogs were really cute, and both kids could have walked under the camel’s belly and not touched it. The boy who was the…um…camel rangler? camel rider? camel boy? was just bringing him back from a school tour. He told us all the things he taught the camel to do, and it is basically his camel as he bottle fed it since it was a baby. I wondered how one becomes a “camel boy” and one of our guides explained that the boy’s parents own Roos N More. Ohh that’s how. One of the coolest parts of the trip was going in with the mob of kangaroos. Have you ever seen them run on Discovery Channel? It’s way cooler in real life. One of the does (or flyers) had a joey in her pouch and the guide pulled it out and we all got to see it. So crazy.

It was by far one of the coolest things we have done as part of our homeschooling adventure. Unfortunately, the Nevada State Government is considering legislation that would force them to close down. And that sucks. Maybe I should turn it into a lesson on civics and political activism and go storm the capital. Maybe. Or not. But either way I’m glad we live in a cool city surrounded by cool people who are passionate about really cool stuff.

Ye Olde Pirate Shirt…

Luckily pirate shirts are easy to throw together. And since they are fairly gender neutral, they can be passed down from brother to sister. Why does all this matter? Because we got to go to a Renaissance Faire, put on by our homeschool group in honor of the older kids completing an intense Shakespeare course.  We needed to dress the part and Little man had out grown his shirt. I made him a new one and got to work on our booth. Every family was asked to choose a booth to be part of a market place and to design a coat of arms to go with it.

 

This is the actual McGuire coat of arms. Well minus the cranky goat guy holding a tray of cheese and bread. It should be a knight on a white horse, but I like my goat guy better. I opted for cheese and bread, because I had a hard cheese in the fridge ready to be cut and, honestly, I like to show off. Trader Joe’s supplied a few crusty loaves of bread and some Swiss, gouda, and sharp cheddar to round out the booth. My ego is happy to report that my home-made goat milk cheese was a hit and one person even asked how he could buy some for real (on his fifth or sixth trip back to the booth).

 

Have I ever mentioned what a good sport my husband guy is? Years ago I made him a pirate shirt for the Las Vegas Ren Faire, but never finished putting elastic in the sleeve cuffs. So they are a bit long. And baggy. But he loves me, so  happily (and sarcastically) he rolled them up, wore his belt over the shirt, and helped our kids enjoy the market place.

This is Layna’s pirate face and the closest thing I could find to Ren Faire wear. She enjoyed swiping cheese off the table (I think she ate half a wedge of gouda by herself).

 

The way the market worked was everyone got a cup full of “ducats” (they were acorns of some sort, I’m guessing from someone’s park or yard.) You could then buy stuff at the booths with the ducats. I think little man’s favorite was the homemade ale (root beer) and sword fighting. Although he did come home with a nifty crown and a jester hat. His new shirt is my best attempt (third times the charm, what?) and he just wore some dark khaki cargo pants and a belt from the dress up bin. I was going to make him a vest or a tunic, but I ran out of time.

 

This one came home with a belly full of cheese, root beer, and popcorn and…TWO PRINCESS HATS! It was a good night indeed. Daddy also helped her make a clothes pin doll. I tried to tell her that pirate girls have laces on their shirts and wear their shirts tucked in, but alas, she wouldn’t have it. I tried. The skirt was a mini-ish skirt from my sister that I plan on turning into a real shirt for this one eventually. For now two safety pins were enough.

There are no pictures of me. Which is a shame because I’m not sure when I’ll fit into my pretty Ren Faire corset again. As it was Neil couldn’t pin (I use safety pins up the back because it is another sewing project that I never finished) the bottom and I couldn’t really breathe, especially if I was sitting down. Oh well. I have big plans for a real Elizabethan outfit once I’m back down to a size I would be willing to sew for.

Overall it was awesome and this always strikes me about homeschool kids…no fights, no tears, no drama. Garyn had a conversation with a very tolerant 15 year old girl. Then he went back to running around with his friend who is a very advanced 5 year old, but almost 2 years younger than him. Everyone plays well with everyone and for the most part not one of the kids is socially awkward (including all the teenagers who came to buy bread and cheese). It will be great when that stereotype finally bites the dust. [climbs down from soap box]. I’m so grateful for the work that went into the evening and all the very cool families we get to be friends with.