Super Heros in Action

During our move from the town house to our current house, and in between all the driving back and forth from city A to town B, I lost our camera battery recharger. I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by other Nikon camera owners, all with the same type of charger, between them they have (without planning) visited frequently enough that I have been charged since Christmas without a charger. The time has finally come, were the battery has died and I am left waiting for my ordered charger to arrive.

Being camera less has encouraged the kids to pull out their cameras and me loading the pictures up. Since I don't do the latter part very often, we found lots of older pictures.

These photos were from a visit from friends a few months ago. The kids took the pictures with the intention of creating special effects. The first picture is supposed to be Elias and his friend S flying under the bed. The second one is their friend S 'standing up' holding the bed and Ben in the air. Hilarious!!!

Good Times

We were thrilled to have some more close friends visit this past weekend. I am so thankful to have visits with friends, my whole family enjoys. There is such a sense of comfort and ease, two words I am fortunate enough to associate with visitors. We spent our time cooking in the kitchen, bowling on the wii, attending school, giving music concerts, exploring outside, feeding the birds and enjoying each other.
On top of a fabulous visit, our friends kindly shared some of their maple syrup buckets, taps and knowledge, leaving us set up to make our own maple syrup! We are feeling soooo excited and thankful for such an unexpected treat!

photos courtesy of the kids and their camera

It's really Here!

A sign of spring?

We woke up to find these large mounds of dirt all over our three acres.

From the window we thought a large animal had used our entire property as its bathroom.

On closer examination, the mounds of dirt (some of which are quite large) are beside a hole(s) coming from underground. Some of the holes have tunnels which leave lines across the ground, some up to 10 feet long. Weird.

After a tiny bit of investigating we think these are vole holes, apparently common in this area, although new to us. Its a good thing we aren't particular about the grass!

Spring Craftiness

Rubber boots are out, spring coats sharing the rack with the winter coats and fingerless gloves added to the basket. The gloves are new. I am loving the ease of the pattern and the possibilities that come with their practicality. Taking photos, yard work, knitting on the porch on cool yet sunny days, morning walks for the mail- they are the perfect glove.














I followed the pdf kindly shared by Foothill Companion for fingerless gloves made from felted sweaters. For a learning knitter like myself, these give a similar feel with far less the work!

There are so many amazing crafters in blog world, mamas who are extremely talented. As spring rejuvenates and inspires my list of projects gets longer. Many of these on my list are tutorials kindly shared - yeah for sharing. I thought I would share a few I have found.

Rubber Stamps- at wisdom of the moon there is a tutorial for making your own rubber stamps, we have all our supplies and plans in place, we are very excited to get busy! There is also a fabulous tutorial for a book bag and library card ! pretty awesome

Gratitude Wraps- I was amazed at how easy it was to put together, especially since I totally wing it when I am sewing. :)

Wrist Bands at jchandmade she shares lots of tutorials and also sells patterns for some great stuff to make

Pillow case dress from mayamade. this was on my list last year, and as spring arrives its on my list again (she also has the cutest elf slippers tutorial)

Amazing Paper Crafts- we are inspired by old the beautiful paper crafts, the easter basket is quite cute

Every Time

They have known each other for as long as they can remember, playmates for over eight years. Even though its been awhile since they have romped around together, you couldn't tell time had passed watching them. Dressing up, singing, games to play, baseball in the snow, hiking to the falls, late nights, trivial pursuit, lots of chatting. Just like every time. Which made it great.

(summer 2008, weekly meeting at the lake)

The Way a Weekend Should Be

The temperatures were above zero each day this weekend, the sun shone mercilessly, we ate lunch on the deck, hung the laundry on the line and enjoyed two fabulous hikes. We have three provincial parks at our door steps here, two of which we visited this weekend.

Arrowhead on Saturday (pictured above), for a look at Stubb's Falls. Here we climbed big boulders, watched huge sheets of ice come down stream and break apart as they are swept over the short falls. We collected tons of birch park off the ground and had a few runs down the tubing at the end of the day.

Sunday was Algonquin park. At the visitor centre we watched blue jays, evening grosbeaks (whose colours are stunning), finches of all kinds. We decided to explore the Big Pine trail, which is the proud home to over 75 majestic white pines which are over 250 years old (they can reach ages of 350 years). The biggest white pine on the trail measured 37 metres tall, has a diameter of 1.4 metres and weighs an estimated 20 tonnes. They were truly amazing. Along the trail we learned about the importance of fire, the mark lightening can leave, some history of logging, the best conditions for large white pines and how stunning these enormous trees are.

The warm weather is supposed to continue this week, which is fabulous because we have hiking with guests in the plans.

What's all the Twitter?

At the entrance to the trail we came across a very VERY friendly Gray Jay. It sat pretty for us for quite some time, Elias was even able to hand feed it some nuts. It was particularly exciting as Aria has been working hard on a book about Blue Jays (a relative of the Gray Jay).

In fact all the kids, on their own, decided they would make books about specific birds. Elias' is on the Great Horned Owl and Ben's is about the Brown Creeper.

The fact that they are interested in birds isn't new. Making books is not something new either. They are constantly sewing, hole punching, tying books together. It is the filling part that has me caught off guard. They are making maps, copying out bits of interesting information from books, masters of the index and google, requesting printed pictures from Dad, etc. All of their own accord. It's been very cool to watch the three of them take this journey together.

Birds.

We really dig them. We have gathered activities and ideas with the purpose of sharing something we love with the homeschooling community in our new town. With Spring around the corner there have been lots of birding activities in blog world.

feeding birds with fruit and special signs

bread wreath

how about squash

bird watching

Audubon

identifying birds and more birds

general bird info

great backyard bird count

Some activities we have been enjoying (most of which we have made)

Bird of Prey Bingo

Match the picture of the bird with the name (in a memory game style)

What type of Beak? we put different types of bird food (nuts, flowers, different sizes of seeds) and a bunch of different types of instruments, each of which represent different types of beaks (straws, needle nose pliers, large thick pliers, a hook) and a pile of bird pictures. We link the three groups. ie. animal (puppet), hook, red tailed hawk, straw, flower hummingbird.

A clock is used to tell another birder where a bird is, for example it is at 6 o'clock in that tree. We created a tree poster and took turns placing a 'bird' in the tree and sharing what time it was at. We then did this on a walk, using binoculars.

dissecting owl pellets and fallen down birds nests

attempting to build our own nest, a 6 foot bald eagles nest and a 6 inch robins nest

food chain challenge- we see how long we can make a food chain for a bird and then if we can turn them into food webs

this is not an exhausted list by any means....just part of what we are enjoying :)

He's the Boss

Shai loves seeing his picture up, he is still calling himself Baby Shai. I have to listen to the boy.

Happy Birthday Grampy!

Grampy's birthday is today! While we were down we decided to hit the BIG city of Toronto to celebrate at Medieval Times. None of us had ever been before, but the lure of eating without utensils, horses, jousting, sword battles, cheering for your sections knight was enough to get us there. My kids need no reason to dress as knights, in fact it is not rare to wear tunics to the grocery store, shields coming to the library and swords on hikes. Being the loving daughter I am, needed no nudging at all to gift Grampy with his very own tunic made of sparkling black and silver material with a bear paw coat of arms painted by Elias. Crown to accompany, I must say he look chivalrous yet daring. He is a good sport that Grampy!
Sunday we had breakfast together with cake and gifts. Ben and Aria was over the moon to put their corking together that they have been working on over the past 6 months and made him a mat.
We hope he has a fabulous day exploring the ROM, going to the movies and eating Turkish food with his fair lady!
pictures of grampy in costume are to come, my assistants are sending them to me from their cameras

A gift to cherish

Shai has been under the weather. Runny nose. Fever. Cranky. Dosey. Cuddly. He wants to be close to me all the time. This means the sling.

Oh how I cherish the sling. Now that he is just over the two year mark he rarely agrees to be in the sling, there is too much to explore on foot. It is a treat to have him there, snug against me. I have missed this special closeness. Feeling his warmth, his little jumps when there is something exciting, the heaviness of his body when he totally relaxes. Its a language all of its own, that the two of us share, like a secret code. I feel him tense if someone invades that space, letting me know to step back, without a word. The comfort it provides just nestling in close, moving our bodies together as one....again.

The gift of having my hands free to work, wipe noses and truly multitask, while also having him close to me where we both want him to be. This seems especially true when he is sick. But it was just as much a gift when he was a new born, the sling mimicking the womb. In the early months providing a cradle for those many naps. Then the growth spurt nursing sprees, which seemed to go on forever, could be given on 'the go'. The days when bravery of exploring quickly turned to uncertainty and in need of security, the sling never failed. So many days wearing my baby (babies) has been truly a saving grace.

Those sling days have slowly become more spread apart, the desire to explore on his own, or just needing a quick cuddle are becoming more common. We aren't done with the sling, but from past experience I know this is something we will seeing less and less of. Sigh. While I don't love seeing him sick, I do cherish these days where we spend it heart to heart, truly connected.

BIG NEWS

We have high speed! After three months without regular, convenient access to the Internet and then three months of painfully slow dial up Internet, we have finally been able to access high speed. How did we celebrate? We watched you tube videos, we looked at pictures on all your blogs, we found pod casts, we played on games, we checked out the Lego site, we listened to our favorite music on my space to which we danced. It has been sweet.

The Never ending Party

We promised the kids that they could each go back to 'thee city' to have their next birthday with their friends, this was part of the deal that was made when we moved. Saturday was Elias' day for his party. It made total sense that he would choose to go to one of his favorite conservation areas, where he wanted to play predator and prey, and roast hot dogs over the fire. It also makes complete sense for him , that the pouring down rain in cold temperatures and ice on the ground not be a deterrent in any way for completing these things. He is an outdoor guy.
Well we played a slippery game of predator and prey, tagging people when we could see them through the down pour. We did change the menu to boiled hot dogs but that meant visits with the in house residents. Two snakes and three rats paid the kids a visit.

It was a blast, bad weather and all.

Back for a visit

With itinerary in hand, we headed back to our forever special town for the weekend. On the Friday we joined the family coop for a trip to a local children's museum. There is currently an Andy Warhol exhibit, which was the primary reason the group planned on going. We have visited other exhibits which were very hands on, interactive and left us walking away having gotten something from it. Unfortunately this particular special exhibit didn't. It was more of a showing of work, than an exploration. It was also guided, as opposed to self exploratory, which the others had been, giving it a very different feel.

That said, we were still thrilled to be exploring this museum and the regular favorite spots with friends. Building very tall towers, negotiating the water table, trying to weigh down the nail bed, the plasma cars and water fountains. The new favorite spot being the photo booth, which was a hoot!

With Socks!

We have been busy tracking. Books in hand, our favorites being Animal Tracks of Ontario by Ian Sheldon and Wild Tracks ; A Guide To Nature's Footprints by Jim Arnosky, we set out to the perfect tracking conditions of hard crunchy snow. We have found mice, raccoon, rabbits, white tailed deer, chipmunk and fox. The thrill of finding a print and identifying it has been such a rush. Even more enjoyable has been joining the kids as they follow the tracks, seeing where they lead. As they follow, they chat, sharing their guesses as to what the animal was doing, where it was going, and why the tracks stop.

Perhaps it was a mama raccoon, and was searching for food for her babies. The mouse could have been eaten by a hawk since its tracks stop abruptly. Maybe it was a city mouse and didn't know to hide. The stories have been the real find.

Saturday morning Chris called us all to the window to watch this fox (with socks!) sniff around outside. It stayed for about 10 minutes, which was long enough for us to get a really good look.

Back out every went to follow the tracks, finding out they crossed with rabbit tracks. Perhaps it was time for tea?