January days gone by...

Oh my goodness, I swear I did not give up blogging as a New Year's Resolution! How did it get to be the 16th of January with no new posts for 2011?! Is anyone even still here?

Apparently, we've been keeping busy.

After a full month away from anything that smelled like schoolwork, we Mommy needed a few days a week to transition back into our usual routine. I was also trying to figure out what Littlest meant when he requested to "start kindergarten" right after Christmas.

I went ahead and bought the My Father's World kindergarten curriculum I'd been looking at forever. Of course, I'm not using it exactly as it says, because I don't like following directions. And yes, I wondered through the first two weeks whether I should have ordered something different, or written my own curriculum, because I'm picky, cheap and indecisive.

But, so far, it's working out.
 
I do think it's more of a preschool curriculum, as they take the entire school year to introduce the first 26 letter sounds, but that's fine because he's only four anyway. The science is pretty basic, too, but I'm attempting to expand on it by coordinating the themes with the older boys' science. And I really like the Bible/character lessons that go with each week's theme.

Other things that kept us busy...

Fake snow that came in the boys' stockings.

The big boys took up their knitting again. (The gloomy cold outside was inspirational.) And Littlest learned to cast-on.

Lots and lots of reading, thanks to new books and gift cards for Christmas!

A little Celtic crafting with our history lesson.

Escapes into the sporadic sunshine, and visits to the park after too many days indoors.

The ever-changing, ever-present fort, and Nerf war.

And yes, even a little baking (the kids' fruitcake recipe from our new Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook)...

And somehow we managed to get all the Christmas decorations put away, too.

It's beginning to feel...

  ...a lot like Christmas.

The pageant...

The baking...

The gaming...

 

A tiny bit of last minute crafting...

 The cold, rainy weather (with one afternoon of sunshine and a mad dash to the park)...

The waiting... it's almost here!

Spring knitting -- just in time for summer.

My husband gave me some beautiful hand-dyed sockyarn for Christmas, but I wanted to make something besides socks with it. The lovely lavender, yellow and green begged to made into something for spring.

I started this Lacy Baktus, hoping one skein would be enough -- and then I ran out of yarn just six inches from the end! I thought about ripping it all out and just using the yarn for socks -- but then Scott gave me another skein for my birthday so I could finally finish it!

 I'n it perty?

12 days til Christmas: The Nutcracker

On Friday, I took the boys to see a preview performance of "The Nutcracker" ballet.

Our local symphony orchestra and premiere dance studio offer a 45-minute "young people's concert" version of the ballet for two mornings before the weekend performances. Local schools bus in hundreds of kids for what might their only ballet experience ever.

Next year Eldest and Middlest want to see the full ballet, so I might just have to splurge!

A few days before we attended the performance, paint-your-own nutcrackers arrived in the mail as Christmas gifts from my sweet friend Megan! So perfect! We finally had time to get them out to paint today...


Even Eldest, who has refused to touch a paintbrush for years, rediscovered his love for color...


What are your favorite holiday events to attend?

A nature-inspired Thanksgiving banner

We were inspired to do a little Thanksgiving craftiness yesterday. I found this great idea for making a Thanksgiving banner out of natural materials glued onto construction paper. It was perfect for my boys, who aren't always crazy about cutting and pasting, but love nature.

They searched through our nature display for sticks, leaves and pine cone pieces and seeds, then went outside and found lavender, pecan leaves, and rosemary. We also had some corn husks and orange peels laying around, so they snatched those up, too.


Isn't it sweet?! Find lots more Thanksgiving craft ideas here. And more Friday Nature Table at the Magic Onions.

Give thanks with a grateful heart, Give thanks to the Holy One,
Give thanks because He's given Jesus Christ, His Son
And now, let the weak say 'I am strong,'
Let the poor say, 'I am rich,'
Because of what the Lord has done, for us.
Give thanks.

Modelling beeswax

A mama in our homeschooling group organized a co-op order of Waldorf modelling beeswax off Etsy recently, and of course I had to order some. We received it on Monday, but we were so busy this week I forgot about it until one of the boys found the box in my knitting bag late last night.

I woke up this morning to Eldest saying, "NOW can we get out the beeswax?!"

The colors are so lovely and inviting, we all wanted to dive right in. But one of the qualities of the wax is that it requires patience.


First, you cut the round into small quarter circles. Then you let them sit in a bowl of hot water for 10-15 minutes. (The instructions said 5-10, but that was definitely not enough.) The more patient you are, the easier it will be to work the wax.

It was helpful to keep a bowl of hot water and a towel on the table, so the wax would stay warm in between handlings. I needed to get the wax started before it was soft enough for their small hands to work with.

We spent over an hour exploring this new medium, so very different from my homemade playdough. The beeswax was not what the boys were expecting at first, but they slowly developed a fondness for creating with it.

Of course, I had visions of tiny woodland creatures dancing in my head -- and they had cacti and tombstones and bullets and anacondas in theirs.


But together we made a cute little mushroom (and cacti with a hat) forest, where Mr. and Mrs. Beeswax lived with their pet anaconda.

Friday Fiber Arts: Our local alpaca farm

A few weeks ago, we traveled up the hill to Tehachapi, to join friends and fellow homeschoolers for a tour of Field of Dreams Alpaca Farm. The farm owners are also homeschoolers, with three kids at home who help out around the farm.

They haven't been on the property long enough to build a house yet, so they live out of trailers and a barn. But the alpacas have plenty of room to roam, and beautiful weather!


The baby alpacas, or crias, were adorable, of course -- see this one tilting its head to flirt with us?

The mommies and young crias were together. They nurse for five months before weaning -- but the mothers are fertile and ready for pregnancy again when the babies are only 3 weeks old! So, some of these nursing mommies were also newly pregnant.

The farm is home to a few llamas in addition to the alpacas. This was the friendliest llama ever (below). He gave kisses to everyone who came near the fence, including my friend Mark.


This alpaca feigned indifference....


And this is Tinkerbell, a rescue horse. Apparently, she used her fairy dust to escape a very mean place.


After we saw all the animals, the farm mama generously offered to make felted soaps with all the kids! She provided dyed alpaca fiber scraps, soap, and pantyhose pieces to keep the wool snug while it felted.


I've attempted to do felting with my boys before, but they never wanted to get their hands messy! It was so funny to watch their faces while they did this project.


After all that, I had to buy some alpaca yarn, of course! I chose a beautiful red, chunky yarn. Alpaca fiber is super soft and very warm. Now I just have to find a pattern for a cute hat or scarf!