The Root Children

Hibernating

2012-02-12T17:32:00.000-08:00

It's finally cold enough that I just don't have any desire to go outside. Except that B is working hard on the chicken coop, so I do go out to see the progress, and offer my probably-not-helpful input :) He's doing an awesome job - these birds will be living in style!
There's still a dusting of snow left on the ground from the all-day snow we had yesterday.
The boys had a blast in the snow yesterday... R made this big snow (now ice) ball, it's good and dirty, having been rolled on a ground that only had an inch or two of snow. And it's now conveniently located right in front of the door so no one will forget about it :)

ZB and I were wimps and mostly stayed inside today. I worked on some mending and finished getting items ready for a big children's consignment sale, that I'm participating in this weekend. We did our best to keep bellies warm and full and made these super yum buckwheat pecan rolls!
Of course ZB was very helpful, as usual ;)

Putts 4 Pets

2012-02-06T12:43:00.000-08:00

Reed and I volunteer weekly at a local no-kill animal shelter called Brother Wolf. This started because he went with a friend to play with the cats there, and came home begging to "get a membership". My loving boy!

Another love of his is putt-putt golf. So when I got our weekly volunteer newsletter from Brother Wolf, and it said they were doing an indoor mini-golf fundraiser, I knew we *had* to go. I'm not a huge fan of mini-golf, so Reed brought buddies and I volunteered with dog adoption area.

Of course ZB wanted to help, too (and don;t be fooled, that cute little doggie was thrilled with ZB until I came close up with the camera :) ...

She had a blast climbing on everything...

The kids entered the mini-golf tournament, which turned out to be a "wacky" tournament. Here they are golfing blindfolded!
Reed was excited to win a fun prize to take home...

At the end, 2 dogs were adopted and lots of donations were collected for all the awesome work that Brother Wolf does!
We were glad to get a chance to support two great organizations/businesses in Asheville today. Check 'em out if you get a chance: Brother Wolf & Sweet Tee Mini Golf.

My Little Chicken

2012-02-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

ZB taking some measurements on this sunny day (and maybe testing out the spot for the birds)...
It's actually been much too warm! I'm a big fan of mild winters - but 69 degrees in February isn't good for our trees or the bug situation come next Summer. The plants didn't get the groundhog's forecast today, everything is starting to grow! We have daffodil shoots and swelling crocus buds in lots of gardens... Here's our blueberries and anxious elderberries who can't seem to wait until Spring!

Around the Home

2012-01-29T07:54:00.001-08:00

I love to see the sunshine during these long Winter months, even though the wind chill is still cold for me! We spent the day at home catching up on and starting new projects... Tried out a new whole wheat sandwich bread recipe... yum!
While I was kneading bread, ZB was playing underfoot, and then crawled out of the kitchen to explore. Once I noticed it had been quiet in the house for a little too long, I went to investigate. This is what the newly 10-month-old was up to...

After we tidied up the bathroom, we let the bread rise and went to see what the guys were up to. Turns out B was supporting cheap child labor and hired the kids to help him work on the poultry pen :)

After all that work (well, the boys work!), it seemed a good time to test out our new ice cream maker. I scored this beauty at the thrift in new condition, even with the box and instructions for $2! We used to use a hand crank, but man, you really had to work for that ice cream - the kids were BEGGING for a plug-in ice cream maker, and I just wasn't willing to spend the $10 that most thrifts price theirs at. This one was priced so cheap because it has a quarter-sized hole on the back of the motor casing. So, as long as you aren't prone to putting your finger into a running motor, this was a good buy :)
And not long after we figured it out, we had delicious mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, made by the kids! Even for someone like me who doesn't really like ice cream, I'll admit, it is pretty good!
Here's Reed's photo for the day. I used to dress up my cat when I was little, so I can't really blame him - and Bear is a good sport, too... haha!

Stay warm everyone!
~ Julie

Zzzz...

2012-01-27T05:32:00.000-08:00

We thought ZB was done with the johnny jump-up, so it's been at a baby friends house for several months now. When it was returned, ZB realized she loves it again! She loves it so much she doesn't even want to leave it when she falls asleep :)

Fancy Livin

2012-01-18T18:24:00.000-08:00

I'm not a particularly high-needs kinda gal - I'm fine with old furniture, knowing that kids will destroy it sooner or later... I keep the house a comfortable level of messiness - a controlled chaos of sorts. One day I'll pay more attention to it all, but for now it just doesn't bother me...

B, on the other hand just discovered Craigslist. He bought his first computer not long ago, and now is discovering all it's wonders! Now that hes figured out all the great deals on craigslist, he's getting all *fancy* in our house! He had some gift money burning a hole in his pocket. First he bought this cute breakfast table - it fits perfectly in the kitchen and reminds me of the sweet table and bench we had in my childhood house. The benches even have underseat storage for homeschool books and art supplies - I love it!

Then, he started clearing out the living room of a sagging sleeper sofa I picked up from Freecycle several years ago, and a well-loved, hand-me-down rocking chair. He then freshened up some of the paint:
And found a great deal on a furniture set and table set - look who's fancy now!

Good thing B likes doing this sort of thing - I'm terrible at picking out furniture and arranging it. Now on to the other million projects on the list...

Oh, my sweet kids!

2012-01-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

I love these sweet kids in my house! The boys made dinner tonight from a new cookbook from the thrift called "Super Sandwiches" (highly recommended for folks from older kid/tween ages through adult - yummy stuff and great photos!). In honor of our friend Joe visiting, they made Sloppy Joes. Super delicious, indeed quite sloppy and not any left in the pot!

After dinner, the kids are all happily entertaining themselves, so I decided to open a pumpkin homebrew (oh yes, they're delicious!!) and finish my book...

I did end up finishing the book, but not without stopping to videotape the cuteness of the baby noises (oh, the silly things I can be convinced to put on video!)

TCMU

2012-01-07T06:58:00.001-08:00

We love TCMU (The Children's Museum of the Upstate)! This is a pretty, 1-hr drive south of us, in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. It is a huge museum, and there's no way to explore it all in one day, but we keep trying :)

This was ZB's first trip to TCMU, and she loved it of course. We met up with a few homeschool friends there, and even got to enjoy a picnic lunch on the lawn in the warm sunshine...

The most popular exhibit with my kids, this trip, was the science of motion area. They got to explore wind tunnels... both small -

And large!

They also could design paper airplanes and fly them through hoops, play in race car simulators and build their own miniature race cars, then race them on tracks that also let you experiment with friction on the course. Here's 2 of the boys working hard to design the fastest (or sometimes just coolest) racecar:

The families all re-united on the lawn for a picnic lunch and ZB had a nice distraction in an adorable puupy that one family brought:

We then went downstairs and while the big kids built dams in a model of the Reedy River...

While ZB had a blast in the lilypad table!

The music room kept everyone entertained for quite a while:

And then they were captivated by the stop-motion animation area

We had a short stop in the toddler area, and the kids had a blast helping ZB particpate there:

We were all nearly ready to go, when the kids realized they hadn't checked out the kids grocery store! By far, this was ZB's favorite - even the older kids LOVED it! The cash registers & scanners really worked, the store was very intereactive even with a bakery that you could decorate the cakes. ZB didn't notice any of that because she had her work cut out for her by pushing a little shopping cart around the level. I thought she'd give up after a few minutes, but she wheeled it non-stop for at least 20 minutes! It did the trick to tire her out, and she slept the whole way home :)

Around the homestead

2011-12-31T13:10:00.000-08:00

The holidays are nearly over now! The boys went back to Memphis to be with their grandparents for Christmas, and returned home where we missed them dearly! Even ZB gets out-of-sorts without her brothers at home for so long!

In our great tradition of not having a tradition :-D The boys were welcomed back home with a treasure hunt of sorts leading to a few presents (keep me up too late at night and the rhymes and riddles I come up with as clues are pretty hilarious!) We don't like to associate the birth of Christ with presents and at the same time, there's a huge social pressure for the kids to be getting gifts this time of year. I'm sure it's that way for people even celebrating alternate holidays than Christmas. So we just did a few presents for the boys on days of our choosing, and they are entirely happy with that!

One of the much-loved presents was a new camcorder - the boys had friends over today and have so far spent about 3 hours outside filming mock-fight scenes.

The gardens are getting cleaned up and ready for Spring planting! I did get two beds filled with garlic - a regular California white, a beautiful purple striped one, and Elephant garlic with the huge bulbs. We can't harvest until the beginning of Summer, but it's fun to watch their shoots come up now!

B is also working on building a duck enclosure & chicken coop. They'll be able to live together, and we'll be getting ducks that don't *need* water (though they like to swim every so often), so their needs should be well met here! B is going to build it behind the glass blowing studio... I'm excited to finally see it start to be here! This will hold about a dozen birds.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

And finally little ZB is 9 months old! I can't believe she's so close to a year it seems like. I'm trying to give and get as many snuggles as possible, since I know babyhood will soon be gone! She isn't walking yet, though she's just on the cusp! She crawls crazy fast and does all sorts of cute things like shaking her head, clapping, doing a few basic signs, and even rocking on her rocking snail :)

Love to you all - hope you are staying warm this Winter, and I'll try to start posting more often again!

Peace

2011-12-31T12:48:00.000-08:00

Hello friends! It's been quite a long time since I've updated, and after a call from B's mom (hi!) with a gentle reminder about it, I decided to give an update! Here's a brief timeline since I last wrote. I made a blog post when the boys were either at their grandparents or just about to go there (this is to Memphis, TN) for their great-grandmother's funeral. Since the funeral was so close to Thanksgiving, they decided to just stay with that side of the family for the holiday. ZB and I went to a potluck at a friend's house on Thanksgiving afternoon. When we got home, my email started getting flooded with updates on a dear friend of mine, Karen who went in to liver failure after having battled breast cancer for only 8 months. She had 2 daughters, the same ages as my boys and we've been friends with them in the homeschooling community for about 4 or 5 years.

On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Karen passed away surrounded by her family.

Her siblings soon set up a website with beautiful photos and info about Karen:
http://karenswonderfullife.com/

The homeschooling community here doesn't take the loss of a parent lightly, especially since Karen was so active in our community, and her and her daughters were very special to so many of us! We quickly started organizing, and developed a core group of about 7 moms that pulled in amazing resources and put together an auction and benefit night only 3 weeks later!

Leading up to Dec. 20, my life became nearly consumed with putting together this auction - as was the case for all of the women planning it. Preparing for the holidays, homeschooling our kids and continuing my regular work-from-home job is consuming enough, but throw a huge benefit auction on top of it... whew! Hence, blog writing was not a priority.

The event was amazing! A downtown church donated space, local vendors donated beer, wine and food, a caterer donated her time to set up and prepare all the foods, an auctioneer donated his time, and the amount of donated items for the auction was incredible! In fact, we put 100 items in a silent auction, and the other 100 were supposed to go in a live auction, but we didn't even have time to auction off everything in the live auction! We had a great turn out and even went over our monetary goal, raising over $11,000 in only 3 hours! The remainder of auction items are listed for sale on a website that was set up to promote the auction. Our group had two newspaper articles written about our efforts and a TV news spot to promote the unsold items. All of this money is being put into a trust fund for Karen's daughters. We are so pleased with the outcome, and honestly I'm glad it's over - it was wonderful and exhausting at the same time!

The website is:
http://auctionbenefit.weebly.com/

I will post some photos of around the homestead in a minute, I just wanted to explain my absence first :)

Big Kids

2011-11-19T06:59:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how fast these kids are growing up! It's a weird mix of sad and happy at the same time for mama. Clay decided he wanted his hair cut! yikes! He said he was tired of being called a girl, and though it doesn't happen much in our hippie-bubble-town, it does happen a LOT when he goes out of town, which is happening this week. Here's some before and afters:

That last one looks SO much like a glimpse into teenage years! Holding on to the last of these "kid" years! The boys went to Memphis this week to be with their Dad's family, since their great-grandmother passed away after dealing with dementia for too many years. I'm sending peace to them through this difficult time of adjustments.

Here at home, Blossom had some ADORABLE photos taken by a local (amazing) photographer. Here is a link to the sample photos that were posted on the photographer's blog:

http://lenkahattawayphotography.com/blog/portraits/asheville-baby-photography/

Go check them out, and if you're in the area and need photos done, don't hesitate to contact Lenka!

Blossom is also at a sweet age of entering toddler-hood. She's crawling like a champ and trying to stand by herself. And what perfect timing to find this at the thrift (for $2!), since we're getting rid of the big baby toy stuff - and she LOVES it!

Stay warm this chilly week - I probably won't be posting much since the boys are out of town, it means I have a lot of projects that need attention!

Fall Catch Up

2011-11-13T15:59:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've checked in here! Our Fall has become super busy, and my camera has mostly not been tagging along. Halloween was fun in a friends neighborhood - C was a hobo and R was conjoined twins with one of his best buddies, each walking in the leg of a pair of size 58 shorts :)

B harvested a mass amount of peppers before the first big freeze - now our fridge is filled with pickled peppers and the freezer has chopped peppers! I planted 2 beds of garlic (each 4'x8'). I just plant the garlic from the grocery - there are 3 kinds this year, including 2 rows of elephant garlic.. now we just wait for them to sprout!
Time to harvest seeds from all the beautiful sunflowers we had this year...

Our neighbors came over this weekend, and we are getting to soak up these last warm days with plenty of friends...

Good tunes...
And sweet family...

Be well! Love, Julie

Fall LEAF'in

2011-10-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

BRRRR!!! I now remember why we stopped camping at the Fall LEAF. It's COLD! At least I remembered to bring enough warm clothes... we also snuggled under down comforters, so it wasn't too miserable...
And ZB in all those layers looked pretty darn cute!
Tents covered in frost, in the morning...
With nights like those, we were happy to crowd around the fire in the morning with the other campers in our group. Could we *be* any closer to the fire??

I didn't sleep well at all the first night, the rest of the family slept fine; I just kept worrying someone would wake up too cold! So, we actually slept at home on the second night and returned Sunday warm and rested :)

The line-up this Fall was great! Usually LEAF draws lots of great bands and entertainers from all over the world, and usually I have only heard of one, maybe 2 of them. This year, I actually did know quite a few of the bands! We were excited to see and hear The Mighty Diamonds, Galactic, Toubab Krewe, 7 Walkers, Leo Kottke and Sweet Honey In The Rock!!

Here's a pic of Leo Kottke performing - he's such a great entertainer, I love that dry humor and story-telling intro to his songs

Sweet Honey in the Rock was also amazing!! I've never seen them live, and we LOVED them! They played very last on Sunday - what a great performance to leave for home with :)
The wonderful thing about LEAF is that it isn't just about the bands! For kids, there's a huge Kid's Village and plenty of room to run. For the whole family, there's classes going on all day, impromtu performances, a parade, a dance hall and so much more... can you tell I LOVE this festival?
On Saturday, I went to a hula-hooping class led by the Asheville Hoops... pretty fun! And ZB had a good time crawling around until she wore herself right out and slept under the hoopers...

At one point on Sunday, music started randomly blaring, and these teenagers did a coreo-graphed dance right in the pathway...

I could go on and on, but you've really got to check this festival out in person, if you are in the area. It happens every Spring and Fall (though I think I'll stick to day passes in the Fall from now on, and keep camping to the warm Spring!) Their website is http://www.theleaf.org

See you there!

Wednesday

2011-10-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

Birthday Sweets

2011-10-18T05:52:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the sweet birthday wishes from everyone! In the midst of our whole house sharing a cold with each other - they were very sweet to me (and slightly snotty -heehee ;) B got me a wagon - not just any wagon - a HUGE, garden wagon - it's awesome! I'm excited to take it to LEAF this weekend, have it for trick-0r-treating, have it for vending water at concerts and just having it around the yard... and the kids *love* it, too!

The day was pretty busy with Homeschool Co-op in the morning, and the boys met with their OM (Odyssey of the Mind) teams in the afternoon.

And my little sweetness serenaded us over dinner with her new found ability to make zerberts (I think that's from the cosby show, but we've always called them that, I don't know what else they're called!)... so cute!

We were also visited by Senor Duct Tape...
After dinner, ZB and I went to a La Leche League meeting to meet some other mamas & little babies. Then we met some of my lovely girl friends at the French Broad Chocolate Lounge (chocolate torte in berry sauce accompanied by a local beer - yum!!). Thanks everyone for the good wishes and love!!

New Family

2011-10-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

What a fun weekend! We had Bobby's sister and her sweet family in town this weekend, and we all got to be tourists in our own town, which is always fun. Not only did we go around town on LaZoom's big purple tour bus, we also walked all over downtown and through 3 different festivals (and a protest - gotta love Asheville!), had a s'mores roasting firepit going in the yard and went for a hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The BRP is in Full Leaf-viewing season, right now. It was very overcast, and the original hike we wanted to do has lots of balds for good views, but it happened to be surrounded by clouds, so we went to lower elevation...
The kids were grinning and literally running around in the parking area - here's ZB with her cousin...
We stopped for a mini-picnic on the trail (I think Blossom ate mostly leaves!)
And checked out a beautiful waterfall (wishing is was warm enough to use the swimming hole at the bottom).

The kids climbed some trees...
And jumped the rocks in the creek...
Then we headed back up the mountain trail to the car, where the kids promptly collapsed while the adults caught their breath!
I was not good about taking photos this weekend! Glad I at least remembered the photos for the hike!
Love
Julie

Laughing!

2011-10-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

One day, I'll have other things to post, but seriously the most fun parts of our days right now center around baby! The boys had some friends over and when ZB crawled right into their room, they had the best time playing with her!

Thanks to Reed for getting a video :)

6 Months!

2011-09-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

Woo-hoo! We have a 6 month old in the house - Boy, that went quickly!

The girl is so strong, and still working on the coordination. She has quickly learned to crawl - she can make it across a room now before getting tired out. She's doing pretty good with eating foods, though she's not terribly excited about the idea yet. Today she tried plain, whole-milk yogurt for the first time - you wouldn't guess by the amount on her face and bib (and hands and floor and table...), but she actually did eat quite a bit.

We found a fun score at the thrift store today - a big, sturdy Step 2 slide! The boys are okay with keeping it in use while we wait for ZB to grow big enough for it...

And a little humor for you today - I thought I'd try to some new things from the grocery today - so I bought this Central American cheese... looks kinda neat, right? I even read the label and everything to make sure no funky ingredients were in it...
Unfortunately, I didn't read *all* of the label, and we soon found out our tropical cheese is from the far away paradise of... New Jersey. haha! Perhaps I should read the whole label next time!

ZB Buddies

2011-09-28T19:41:00.001-07:00

Miss ZB is one of the most popular babies I've met... she attends monthly baby get-togethers - okay, really just an excuse for the parents of the babies to have a drink together and discuss the woes of sleep-deprivation and triumphs of baby milestones! Here she is at her last get-together, being tackled by her buddy... of course i probably should have been helping her out, but she seemed rather content, and let me take photos :)

When we go to homeschool co-op, she's nearly immediately handed off into expectant arms of sweet mamas and children...
And she LOVES the attention! She's doing great in the nursery for a couple hours in the morning without me. During one of the hours, the Duct Tape class is next door to the nursery, and all the boys in that class wanted to make Blossom a hat - they even all went in and presented it to her - so sweet! And cute!
So here's a big virtual hug from ZB to all her buddies out there!! ((hugs))

Can You Stand Anymore Cute Baby Photos?

2011-09-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

This baby never stops the onslaught of adorableness, and is so easy to take photos of!

ZB is 5-1/2 months old now. She is super strong and can (slowly) crawl! She's only been doing it a few days, and I think she'll get quick pretty soon. My boys didn't crawl until 8 and 9 months old, so this seems so young to me. Just today, she also figured out how to sit up on her own... big stuff!

Patient, patient Bear:

One of the cuter photos of taken in a while (crawling around the porch) :

A good shot of all the youngins!

Dinner Time! Freshly harvested (by a friend) Chicken-Of-The-Wood wild mushrooms (SO good!)
Served the mushroom and garden veggie casserole with potatoes from the garden and pasta... on my new stove! woo-hoo! I didn't want anything fancy, I did want something that wouldn't spontaneously catch fire (yup, that wasn't fun).
And as long as I have the camera out while making dinner, I may as well photograph what's going on under-foot...
The day is coming to an end now, and we thought ZB might like to try some food! We thought all was going well... some was swallowed, a lot was on the face...

And right after I took this photo, she vomited it all up... oh well, maybe the food can wait a bit longer!

Wonderworks

2011-09-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

Homeschooling has so many benefits - a fun one is all the random discounts we get to places! This week there was an amazing discount at a science museum in Pigeon Forge, TN. It's called Wonderworks, and they offered 2 homeschoolers to get in free from each family and only $10 for each additional person. Normal admission is $17.50/person! We went with friends and had a blast!

The museum is designed to look like it was grabbed up in a tornado and landed upside-down on top of another building...

The boys loved proving their strength (helped out by the pulleys ;)

It had a ropes course that was SO cool! And also very hard to photograph. All lit up in neon, it was overhead, and went up 3 levels! Both boys did it a couple times, but it was too dark to get any good photos of them doing it - this is the view looking up from the ground:

This is a giant replica of one of those handheld toys with the little plastic pins that you push to the other side to make imprints of your hands and such. Pretty fun in 6' tall size!
By this point Blossom was sound asleep all cuddled in her sling - so sweet!
Clay in the Bubble Room:
Took a picnic break outside (or a wrestling break as the boys would call it):
Went back in to do the ropes course again and check out a few things we had missed the first time through. Blossom was super cute in the astronaut suit ... until she started licking the inside :)

Looks like my Facebooking days are coming to an end. There's some glitch on my end that doesn't allow me to do much on there - can't read messages or check event invites, etc. So I guess I'll have to go back to good old-fashioned email :) And try to update my blog regularly so friends will still know what we're up to!

Have a great weekend, y'all!

A Little Catch Up

2011-09-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post, and I don't have many photos to show for it. We've just been busy, I suppose! Homeschool Co-op has started Fall semester. We meet every Monday, there's 30-something families participating this semester. I'm teaching a class on fruit! It was Reed's idea, and it's actually pretty fun - trying new fruits, making fruit recipes, fruit crafts, you get the idea :) From our first class we tried Scuppernogs and Figs, and have carved apples drying to make apple-head dolls with!

Reed is taking my Fruit class and also an Outdoor Games class. Clay is taking a Duct Tape crafting class, and a class called "When Zombies Attack" - which sounds weird - but is actually pretty neat - they are faced with the challenge of recreating society after a zombie attack nearly wiped out civilization. They've already researched various kinds of government and selected how they want to run the country. They are going to make new kinds of communication, even do some dissection!

Blossom is 5 months old now - she's really trying to crawl! She can squirm all over the room (backwards, though), sit up for quite a while and laugh and make all sorts of sounds. She's totally fun to be with right now! Here's a couple 5 month photos of B-girl. She LOVES her excersaucer - it's her favorite big toy so far! This day she actually fell asleep in it - still holding the toys :)
And I had to do a re-shoot of the DJ Z.B. shot now that she's sitting up!

Playing Dress-Up

2011-08-27T19:35:00.000-07:00

I think I don't want to see my sewing machine for at least a month! That's probably not reality, but it has done it's fair share of work lately. I love creating funky stuff with it, and was luckily asked to come up with a "Rainbow" costume for a sweet friend of mine who is headed to the oh-so-funky desert festival, Burning Man. I thought and thought and couldn't figure out how to actually sculpt a rainbow short of old-skool cardboard fashioning. So instead, I made a rainbow-themed outfit. This was 99% fabric from the thrift store bins down the street ($1.10/lb!).

I'd like to mention that just after I took this photo of the fabric sorting, Blossom, being oh-so-helpful, burrito-rolled herself into that purple fabric she's lying on :)
I even found a green tinsel wig to go with it!
So, I made the basic skirt, and it still needed something. Perhaps some "clouds" under the rainbow? A thrift-found wedding dress will do just the trick - and keep the baby entertained in ruffles...
Then to make the top and have the Burning-Man-bound mama come try it out...
She likes it! And those ruffles gave it excellent twirling weight! Yay!

Okay, so that was a project over the last couple of weeks, with most of the actual work being done in the last couple days (procrastinators unite!). This morning I woke up and had to make two more costumes!

The kids were invited to a Harry Potter-themed birthday party and asked to come in costume. I altered Clay's grim reaper costume from a couple years ago, added a white shirt, clip-on tie and magic marker on the forehead, and Reed was transformed into a fantastic Harry Potter!

Blossom was a bit more complicated. For her, I found a long-sleeve onesie, cut a huge heap of triangles out of an thrift-found towel and hoodie, and made her into Hedwig the owl. It would have been a LOT cuter if I had made a little hat with cute ears, but time was short at this point, the party was also today! Turned out pretty cute though (and the insta-fraying on the unfinished edges actually looked kinda neat)...
I wanted to share some photos from this birthday party, too, as it was easily one of the most fabulous I've ever attended! Cassandra, I am infinitely impressed by your party-throwing skill!! Here's Reed getting sorted by the Sorting Hat (rigged with a cell phone inside the hat, that had a parent inside the house talking through it ... "You seem brave... Gryffindor!!")
Potions Class:
"Did everyone measure out their Peruvian Beetle Extract??"
"Now you must stare menacingly at your potion for 30 seconds..."
Thanks for having us out, and Happy Birthday G! And one more pic of my cute little owlet...
Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Happy Mornings

2011-08-26T12:39:00.000-07:00

It seems finally our morning routine is a little bit normal (knock on wood!). We had lots of adjustments when I ended the daycare - like do we even have to change out of pajamas?! Haha! Or the boys waking up early just to watch their allotted 1/2 hour of netflix (which meant knocking on *my* door in the wee hours of the morning to get the computer). ugh. We've seemed to hit a smooth time now where the morning flows along, everyone gets dressed and fed within a reasonable time, noone is getting frustrated for being woken too early, etc. I think this working from home thing could work after all :) This morning Reed was teaching Blossom to read via the refrigerator magnets... pretty cute!

It's at least a start, and definitely still a work in progress. If anyone has great tips or routines to share that make for a smooth morning routine when you don't actually have to *go* anywhere, I'd love to hear it! Peace y'all!

Water Baby

2011-08-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

Lots of photos, but not many words! Too tired tonight!

Here's our sweet smilin 4 month old!

Reed working on his spelling (it's Anakin Bananakin :)

Today we went to swim in Lake Eden for a homeschoolers "Not-Back-To-School" fun day. Blossom loved the sand and water!

Got some fun photos of the boys diving in the lake...

Blossom is learning how to sit up!!

4 Month Old Cutie

2011-08-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

I got a new nephew today!! Little Hudson was born in Charlotte early this morning. I can't *wait* to see photos of the lil' sweetie!! Congratulations to Scott and Julia and new big brother Corrin :)

Besides the monumental occasion of a new LIFE being added to the earth (!!!), our day was pretty non-monumental - nothing very photo-worthy - and of course Blossom filled the day with love and even let us take video after video of her sweetness! I ended up choosing this one to share, since just in the last couple days she's figured out how to stick that tongue out, which is pretty darn cute. She's also started to laugh - I'll have to capture that on video if I can remember!

Visits & Reed's Perspective

2011-08-16T06:03:00.001-07:00

We are coming down from a pretty busy weekend! B's dad came to visit for a few days. It was his first time to meet Blossom, and a perfect age for meeting her - she's all smiles! He got a pretty good tour of Asheville, from the Black Mountain Sourwood Festival and the Folk Art Center, to the Lazoom Tourbus and The WNC Nature Center. I'm tired just thinking about it!

Bobby's dad grabbed a shot of us, too:

Reed was the camera man at the Nature Center, and took about 50 shots and some videos! I'll just share a few of those with you - he worked hard!
Thanks to his homeschool "Fungi" class, Reed easily identified all these shelf mushrooms!

The man behind the camera (and his new haircut!)

On Saturday, my beautiful Sister-in-law in Charlotte had her Baby Blessing for her about-to-be-born son! I am so excited to get another cute nephew! While we were in Charlotte, my nephew handed down his Exersaucer to Blossom (who loves it - thanks guys!). He was a little unsure to see it go, but it will return soon :)
Now, back to home life - projects need to be done, muffins need to be baked, and the Summer seems to be slipping through my fingers too fast! I'm NOT one to complain about the crazy heat waves this Summer. For me, that's more excuses to go to local swimming holes in the river, eat ice cream and play in the garden! Yet the weather has started to cool down, and public school's are in full swing. boo. I'll try to savor this last bit of Summer!

Around the Homestead

2011-08-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

Bear with me - lots of photos tonight... Summer is just one of those times when the gardens and the kids seem to be doing something new every minute!

First, some fun thrift store finds. The kids cookbook is from 1971, has adorable drawings throughout, and super easy instructions, so adult help really isn't too necessary. I also like that is was written before the times of "super careful parenting". I mean it's nice and all to think a kid will help make dinner with only the use of a plastic butter knife... but in reality, kids want to actually help, and they're very capable, if we can just let go of our own fears and trust 'em :) This book has kids browning meat on the stove, slicing and dicing veggies, and of course making plenty of 1970's desserts to go with it (jello salad, anyone?). And as a side note, a recipe should NOT be called "Never Fail Fudge" because when the fudge turns out a gooey (but delicious) mess, and never becomes firm, it's mighty easy to get a bit angry at the title of the recipe.

This is our bean patch. Pretty sad state of affairs. Stupid Mexican bean beetles are trying to get the better of me, but I'll win in the end, you'll see. I didn't catch on to the beetles' diabolical plot until pretty late in the game. However, a lot of the plants are sending out new leaves, so I think we may get a second round of harvest there. These are my fave Jacob's Cattle beans. They look all dead and brown there on the plant, but look how cool inside:
The first sunflower opened up today ~
My new patio garden bed is being over-taken by something from the compost. Not sure what, and it's fine with me, as there's not much planted there anyhow. Always a fun mystery, for sure!

Clay's black-skinned watermelon plants are Rocking Out!! They have completely covered the trellis he built for them:

B's dad is coming to visit soon, which means he's looking around restlessly at all the unfinished projects he'd like to have done before the visit! Including the skate ramp tarping system. That was destroyed in the big hail storm earlier this Summer, and with much grumbling, the project was put on a back burner for a while. Hopefully it will be resurrected soon!

Reed was determined to pick all the "pricklies" off of the cucumbers. These are Edmonson cucumbers from Seed Savers. Oh so yummy!

Figs!!

Hardy Arctic Kiwi plant climbing right up the porch
...

And a few cute baby photos to send you off with. At four month old, little B-girl has started to figure out what her hands can do...

Grab everything!!

This little girl is so full of love, I feel blessed every day to be around her spirit!

So, that's what we've been up to this weekend, hope your days are just as lovely~

Cherokee

2011-08-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

We had a great Adventure Day in the town of Cherokee, last week. It's a beautiful hour-long drive from Asheville. We stayed really busy this trip, and decided next time to just hang out :) This time, we played at Islands Park, their new town skatepark, went to the Oconaluftee Cherokee Village, and saw the Unto These Hills outdoor drama at night, before heading home. Everything was really nice, can't wait to go back! And thank goodness to groupon for enabling us to buy half-off tickets for the living history village and the outdoor drama!!

A war re-enactment at Oconaluftee Village:
Reed and one of the Cherokee bears (they were all over town!)
Relaxing time at the river!
Blossom cuteness!
A rare photographed smile from Clay :)
Love to all!

Firefly

2011-07-19T10:37:00.001-07:00

This weekend we went on our first camping trip as a family! Blossom's first ever :) There is a primitive skills gathering out in the woods near Hendersonville, NC each Summer called Firefly Gathering. There were tons of classes offered and so many each of us wanted to take. As it turned out, we went to some we wanted and helped the boys in some of theirs and decided next year to go for a longer time (it's offered for 4 days) so we can get more class time in.

Blossom at the campsite, with the neighbor campers' kitten coming for a visit:
Slingshot and other Projectiles class:
Swimming time!
Clay and his buddy on their way to Snakes class:
He knows how to make the girl smile :)

Reed and his pal making tulip poplar whistles:
Soaking the poplar:
Blossom had a great time on her first camp-out! Not surprisingly, lots of friendly folks wanted to hold her during classes so I could get more involved - which was great - we also went to classes on critter processing, mead-making, bamboo cup making and home orchards. We had a great time with the drummers and dancers at night around the campfire as well!

Thank you Firefly folks! We'll be happy to see you again next Summer!

Last Day of Quiet

2011-07-13T07:23:00.000-07:00

Last day before the boys get home! I should probably have super productive plans, but I can't seem to find them :) Just enjoying the quiet...
My sweet little angel baby:

Bobby finished up the front steps - so beautiful!

Ew!

2011-07-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

Yet another reason to grow your own food! eat locally produced food! eat minimally processed food!
LINK

This article has a list at the end of common companies that are using wood pulp as fillers in their foods - saying that it provides more fiber (although humans cannot digest wood pulp, so it doesn't provide us any fiber).

The more I find out about what big corporations think is okay to sneak in our food, the more disgusted I become! It takes a little more effort, sure, but grow a garden! Support your local farmers market. Make your own foods.

A shot of the garden on this rainy Summer morning - Clay's watermelon are starting to creep up the trellis he made!

New Threads!

2011-07-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

The boys are out of town for 10 days! Each Summer they spend about a week with their Grandparents in Memphis, and usually I take a vacation somewhere. Well, this year finds me not totally kid-free this week :) I'm actually being boring and really trying to cram in some work this week! We are certainly having fun times, too - tried a mom & baby yoga class this morning, and did a little crafting yesterday. Here's Blossom's new cute dress I made from a T-shirt:

Pretty cute, right? I love it! It was super easy to sew, I pretty much copied one of her dresses that I really like, and it took about 1 hour to complete :)

Much love all!

3 Months

2011-06-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

It was near this time last year that I had the scary realization that in only a year, I would have a 3 month old baby... And undoubtedly it's happened - and she's such a sweet thing, I can't complain a bit!

Here's Miss B sporting her new headphones (sound isolation, not for listening to music :) so she can go to concerts with me (and okay, I was dying to take this photo of her... DJ Blossom!)

The boys' Aunt was in town for a few days, and we got to hang out with her and take a beautiful hike today! Reed found plenty of cool mushrooms:
Clay got to practice parkour:
The trails were dusted with rhododendron petals:
And the water was perfectly chilly:

I'm feeling very blessed with my sweet family, and especially getting to love on my lil' 3 month old!

Around the Homestead

2011-06-26T18:57:00.001-07:00

Some photos of our ever-evolving urban homestead!
A new row of veggie beds being put in:
Baby trees: plums, cherries, persimmon, almond, butternut
The garden I made while pregnant, to protect B's dogwood tree, will be mostly mostly medicinal herbs and flowers. Now has swiss chard, echinachea, lavender, our Scarlett hosta (the hosta planted on Scarlett's grave 3 houses ago that keeps getting split and spread to each house :) and some irises that were a baby Blossom present
My new garden! B just made this for me - it wraps around a corner of the back patio, and will have kitchen herbs in it. Today I got to plant the first things in it! Rosemary & oregano have found their home :)
B's project for the day was working on the steps of the front porch. The steps were from the side of the porch. The logs are from a few cedar he fell in the Spring.
Lookin good!

Adventure Day

2011-06-25T10:13:00.001-07:00

This Friday's "Adventure Day" compliments of the towns of Hendersonville and Fletcher, NC!

Little boys comtemplating a BIG bowl! Hendersonville Skate Park:

Clay catching some air:
Blossom just chilling:

Clam digging and lots of splashing around in Cane Creek in Fletcher:

Hey Mr Dragonfly ~~

And home for dinner including fresh-from-the-garden kale, purslane, salad greens, garlic and some home-brew to round it out ... yum!

More Adorableness

2011-06-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

Zion Blossom is cute cute cute! About 12 weeks now (?? I've lost count, but not quite 3 months)

Blossom and her daddy at LEAF:

Party Time!

2011-06-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

Clay and Reed decided to have a dual birthday celebration this year! Well, okay, I had to convince them that they could not separately rent out the gym for each of their birthdays :) They had a pretty rockin time, though!

We partied in downtown Asheville, at Asheville Gymnastics:

Mama time ~

Fort-building turned into foam battle:

What a happy little lady !

The birthday boys about to dig into homemade key lime pie and oreo cheesecake ... yummmm!

Adventure Day

2011-06-21T06:53:00.000-07:00

We are doing 'Adventure Days' again... taking the kids out of the house on a somewhat regular basis, to go on daytrips somewhere new or that we haven't been in a long time.

For the first one, we tripped out to Hot Springs, NC. We know two lovely families out that way - and got to spend time at both of their houses. Thank you mamas for letting us invade on your houses! The kids got to find swimming holes, catch salamanders, and romp to their hearts delight :)

Checking out the salamander:

Giganti-moth

2011-06-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it wasn't gigantic - but it was pretty big ... big enough to get the boys pretty excited about it choosing our house to snooze on :)

Big Summer Storm!!

2011-06-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

Crazy storm last night! It hailed for about a half hour! This destroyed most of the garden, also ripped one of the skateramp tarps down, and snapped the framework under the second tarp.... Just when we thought we could take a break from big projects for a minute!

The tomato plants took a serious beating - they all snapped in half:

The beans look like a lawnmower went over them:

Good thing kale and purslane are hardy plants!
Hopefully the banana tree will spring back - it took such a beating!

~ All Smiles ~

2011-05-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm just going to have to be one of those parents who posts lots of baby pictures - but c'mon - this baby is ADORABLE!! She sure makes some cute faces!

Weighing In

2011-05-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to take this photo every so often to document the every growing baby in our midst! Here's Blossom at 2 weeks (9 lbs, 9 oz):

And here she is this week at 8 weeks old (11 lbs, 9 oz):

No time!

2011-05-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Hardly any free moments to update the blog these days! Between the boys, the constant needs of a newborn and trying to squeeze in work and gardening and housekeeping, any spare moments are usually spent sleeping! But as a brief update - Blossom is 8 weeks old today! She coos a lot, and is starting to smile and focus on people longer. She sleeps like a champ - she's such a great baby!

Here's her 8 week video ~~

Some sweet moments of the week ~~

Baby Time!!

2011-04-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

So happy to announce our new Spring arrival - Zion Blossom! Born early in the morning at a chubby 8 pounds and 12 ounces, she's just so lovely - we can't stop marveling at her! Born at home into the water, and surrounded by Bobby, our homebirth OB and his midwife apprentice.

The Birthday Cake I made for baby during labor. Kids came home from a friends house to decorate it (and eat it :)
New baby love!
Blossom:
Getting some big brother lovin:

I love co-sleeping because I get to wake up to this cuteness!
Blossom at about a week old, in her first dress :)
Silly brother!

Soon!

2011-03-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

We think this baby is coming soon! This Saturday is called a "Super Moon", the moon is not only full, but the closest it's been to Earth in 18 years! If that doesn't have some serious gravitational pull on this child, I don't know what would.

The guys getting some tree work done! We're sad to cut down any trees, especially the hemlocks, which are already disappearing in our region. Ours are all infected with the wooly disease and were planted much too close together to start with... also we'll be glad for more sunlight!
No, we didn't really let him use it, but it was fun to pose with anyhow :)

~ Henna ~

2011-03-05T06:47:00.001-08:00

Wow! I am so blessed - my dear mama friend Shonna gave me the gift of art to celebrate this new baby! An amazingly talented artist friend of ours (link to Julie Schantz Henna facebook page) came and henna painted my big belly. Here are the progress photos that Reed took:

Finished product:
Side view:

And this was an extra challenge for Julie to paint - the baby would NOT stop moving!

I am 37 weeks now, so let the countdown begin - so excited to meet the new family member!

Camp Greenville Homeschool Day

2011-03-02T08:39:00.001-08:00

In an effort to squeeze in a few more homeschool activities before the new baby arrives, the kids and I went down to YMCA's Camp Greenville in South Carolina for their bi-annual Homeschool Adventure Day. It was pretty chilly in the woods all day, but still the sun was shining and we had a lot of fun! Clay did classes in using a compass, archery and riflery. Reed did a solar system class, nature crafts and reptiles, that I went to also. Then all three of us went to the Appalachian Heritage class.

Here is the Appalachian Heritage class making johnny cakes & fresh butter over the fire...

And then letting the kids check out some old tools and showing how they were used - Reed augering it out:
And Clay feeling out the maul that they used to make shingles:

Even though this was a reptile class, they brought out some other animals too like this super friendly rat:
Reed loved holding all the animals!

And now that that is over, we can take a break for a bit before baby comes. Homeschool co-op classes do start next week, but for the first time, I'm actually NOT signed up to teach or co-teach anything! So, we basically just have to show up :) This week I get to relax and even get henna painted on my ever-expanding belly as well as gather with friends for my blessingway. Hope everyone else gets some relaxation in their week as well!

Wilderness at the Smokies

2011-02-19T10:15:00.003-08:00

We planned this trip months ago, anticipating getting a break from gray Winter skies - it turned out to be a GORGEOUS week here in the mountains, but the change of scenery was still welcome!
We ventured to Tennessee to the Wilderness At The Smokies indoor waterpark. We stayed with 3 other homeschooling families, all sharing one gigantic hotel room. We love these mid-week Winter trips - very few hotel guests meant practically no lines to wait in, as well as discounted rates. Didn't get too many great photos since most of the fun at a water park is inside dark slides or in the water! The boys spent most of their time in the wave pool, and doing slides. I did snap some pictures of Reed doing the Surf Rider machine - he was a rock star!

The hotel room slept 15, had 3 bathrooms, a fireplace, and a FULL kitchen - so we had potluck-style meals and plenty of grown-up and kid time :)
Late-night UNO game:
Reed getting a little swing time on the climbing structure:
Here's hoping there's many more sunny days for the remainder of the Winter!

Weekend Projects

2011-02-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

Just to catch up - this was the first quilt I made! I made it a couple weeks ago for my dear friend Melanie's birthday! I am consigning a bunch of vintage feedsacks for her on ebay. I used some that had too many flaws, cut patches out of them and made this wall hanging. Pretty cute!
Here's the biggest project for the weekend - which will most definitely stretch beyond the weekend! Bobby is painting the kitchen!! To say I'm happy is an understatement. The walls and shelf above the cabinets were such a dark brown they looked black. Primer for now even looks like an improvement.... I'm thinking of going orange for these walls :)
And my project for the weekend was to give a little more love to the baby! This is his/her changing table/clothes storage, etc. Needed a little somethin' - I think love was the answer :)

Beautiful Weekend

2011-01-30T06:48:00.001-08:00

The weather was so lovely - I know it won't last, but it was a really nice break from all the gray skies! 2 days ago, I took the boys and their friend to Greenville to go ice skating and to a fun playground (okay, and so I could shop at Trader Joe's :). I've started using a program called swagbucks, where I got a great coupon to go ice skating, so it was super cheap! The kids had a blast, and I even got some skating time in!

Then we headed to the playground next to the zoo - it's a really fun playground, plus you randomly get to hear monkeys making a racket in the background :)

Yesterday we actually spent indoors at an indoor skate park birthday party. The boys, of course, had a great time!

I'm glad it's looking like another beautiful day today, as I have some outdoor projects I'd like to work on ... and I'd like to just soak up some sunshine before it disappears behind gray winter skies again!

31 Weeks!

2011-01-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

Here I am at 31 weeks of plumpness. We're starting to get really excited to have our first homebirth! Looking very forward to having the baby in my own time, crawling into my own bed and not have nurses wake me up every couple hours to check my vitals.

I've been doing a lot of sewing lately, though my latest project was a birthday present that hasn't yet arrived to the birthday girl - so i'll have to post photos later on.

We've been busy getting ready for baby, planning Spring gardens, and getting things together to get ducks in the Spring. It's already shaping up to be a very busy year!

Love to all~

Snowy Day

2011-01-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

The weirdest things happens in this part of the country - there is sunshine and precipitation at the same time... we don't mind :) On this sunny day, the snow keeps falling!

We went to the horse farm across the street to do some sledding where Reed proclaimed, "This is a Winter Wonderland!!!"
Clay dying to have a snowball fight:
Bear, the snow dog:
Reed eating snow off the weeping cherry... yum!
Stay warm everyone!
Love,
Julie

Connect The Pox

2011-01-04T10:10:00.000-08:00

Finally the boys got chicken pox!! We choose not to vaccinate, so this is a big deal for the kids to get it & get their immunity to it before they become teens. We've tried to expose them several times, but it never took. They now got it from the homeschool supplement classes they attend once a week. They started showing spots right when they got home from the hotel with their grandparents. Both boys had relatively mild cases (compared to some of the horror stories I've heard!). Reed had about 2 sick feeling days, and is not still spotty, but feeling back to his usual crazy self. Clay was hit a bit harder than Reed, and had 3 days of feeling pretty lousy, and today is just taking it easy. Both boys were excited to get new DS games out of the deal :)

I attribute their mild cases of CP to having them go to acupuncture. Neither boy had done it before and I didn't think they would follow through - but we went an AWESOME local acupuncture clinic who was wonderful with the kids and they sat through it like champs! The acupuncturist sent us home with a chinese immune building tincture. Taking that along with a homemade essential oil lotion for the itches seemed to keep it manageable. We're all glad it's over and done with, and the boys still have some good spots to show for it...

Random

2010-12-29T08:25:00.000-08:00

Here's a random shot Reed took of himself - I thought it was pretty darn cute, and that's my only excuse for posting it :)

The boys are with their Gram & Papoo staying in a hotel in Asheville for a couple days - a super special treat for them, as they love their grandparents, they love hotels, and they love to not have to drive out of town. I miss 'em of course, and am also savoring these last few times I'll have good chunks of no-kid time... Because in a couple months, even when the boys are gone, we'll have a new little squirmy lovey bundle in the house to keep up occupied!

Now if I can only get motivated to actually do something productive...

Edited ::: Thought I'd share the cute photo Gram just sent of the boys and Papoo in the hotel pool - nice!

Christmas

2010-12-26T07:09:00.000-08:00

I do believe this was one of the loveliest Christmases we've had in a while. First of all, it's dumping snow outside, and still coming down! We decided to take the present part out of Christmas. Of course the kids would be super sad if there were no presents at all, so we just did them a few days before Christmas. That way Christmas day can be about family and LOVE and not about "stuff".

We woke up Christmas morning to lots of fresh snow!

We stuffed ourselves with eggs, bacon, oranges and homemade cinnamon rolls ... yum! We kept the woodstove going all day while the boys watched movies, cut snowflakes and drew pictures next to the warmth of the fire.

Reed worked on his new puzzle:

We had wanted to go see a movie at the theater, but didn't trust the road conditions. We did have lots of fun building snowmen and sledding ramps in the yard! Hopefully we'll go see that movie today (writing this on the 26th). We got more snow last night, and here's the view out the front window as I write this (looks like someone wants to come in from the cold!)...

Stay warm everyone! Love, Julie and the boys

Wintery Goodness

2010-12-26T07:06:00.001-08:00

A couple weeks ago, we got our first snow. We had our friends Shonna and Leah over and made some graham cracker houses and played in the new snow. Thanks to Shonna for all the great snow play photos!

22 weeks

2010-11-24T05:36:00.001-08:00

More than half way along now. Got to see an ultrasound yesterday, and little Baby Bealle was hanging out with it's knees to face, and feet straight above the head - yoga baby!
A big yawn - picture looks kinda weird, but it was pretty cute to watch baby do it :)

~ Week in Review ~

2010-11-17T12:29:00.000-08:00

What a beyond beautiful week we've had in the mountains!! Perfect weather for driving to neighboring towns to check out their skate parks:
Clay rockin his ollie:
Got the kids to help rake the yard, which they made into a fort of some sort, with bedrooms and such - I'm a little confused by the whole thing, but hey - at least they raked.
While I relaxed and checked out the remaining Autumn leaves and the clear skies...
All that raking meant finding lots of sticks, which of course (for boys at least) means FIRE!
Reed got a great find at the thrift store down the road. We had a smaller version of this wooden marble run, we found a HUGE set still with the box and instructions for $7!
And in case you didn't know, or just thought I was eating too many donuts, I am indeed cooking a lil' bun in my oven :) This week I am 21 weeks, so just past half-way!
Love, julie

Halloween!

2010-11-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

I really do like this holiday, even though I gripe about all the candy-begging that goes on :) I'm a big fan of costumes and parties and apple bobbing and all of that - so all of my friends should stop calling me a party pooper already! The boys rocked out their costumes this year. My sewing machine is being used by the Homeschool Co-op right now, so the boys were left to their own devices for costumes, with mainly the use of the hot glue gun. Clay made an awesome zombie and Reed did a spooky mummy (okay, I made it, but Reed certainly helped :)

The trick-or-treating kid crew:
Part of the grown-up crew:
The hot and tired trick-or-treaters sorting and feasting!
For the last photo, I'll leave you with the fairly disturbing image of Clay eating a warhead candy haha! I think he nearly cried...

Happy Halloween!!

Hunter's Moon

2010-11-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

Basking in the chilly nights of the Hunter's Moon and I LOVE this season! Leaves changing, warm soup, apple cider, halloween parties...

Our homeschool co-op had a great halloween party this year. There was a bounce house, a bake sale, a costume contest, scarecrow making, cupcake walk, face painting and more that I'm probably forgetting! It's good for us to have this a few days before halloween, or else I will literally put off making costumes until Halloween Eve (if not later)...

Reed won "Most Mummy-ish" in the costume contest:
This was my contribution to the party - a "feelie" box with all sorts of random foods inside - leaving the kids to guess if it was actually brains, or maybe just a boiled cabbage (the smell gave that one away for sure :)
Awesome cupcakes made by a homeschoolin' mama for the Cupcake Walk game:

Another day we went to the Eliada Home Corn Maze with the Homeschool Co-op... the kids had a blast, especially burying each other in the corn box:

A not-so-great thing about the season is it brings to an end the farmers markets. The one in Black Mountain had an end-of-season Harvest Party with demos of sheep herding, mozzarella cheese stretching and more. The kids got to hold animals and milk a goat!

Midwest

2010-10-27T13:11:00.001-07:00

Took a mini-vacation to Nebraska to visit with family this weekend. You can't even mess with the corn mazes out there - I was so impressed! We went to Skinny Bones Corn Maze if you ever are in the Omaha area, I highly recommend this place in the Fall - HUGE corn maze, beautiful scenery, lots of extra things to do including a nerf gun war zone :)

Corn!!

Even haunted outhouses - the kids had a blast!!

We stayed with my mom and one of my brothers. Their dog is the funniest I've ever met, he can do this trick, as well as play fetch with himself by lying on his back with the ball in his front paws above him, roll the ball down his legs, catch it in his mouth, and do it over and over again... so cute! (and Reed's new best buddy :)

We went to the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo, which is a must-see if you are anywhere near Omaha. It's one of the top rated in the country, and does use the reciprocal zoo pass, if you are a member of another zoo. It has a rainforest area, which included these funny tapirs:

A butterfly and insect house, with great benches for photos with Grandma!
And a really neat aquarium (the boys were SO excited to have sharks swim over them!)

Will post more soon! Lots going on around here ~ Love to all!

Laying New Roots

2010-09-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

We moved again! (just can't get enough of it apparently!) The boys and I are still in Asheville, just moved in with a most wonderful man :) I apologize to all my friends I've been ignoring this last month (yep, that's all of you - I'm lame). Big changes happening!! After 5-1/2 years of providing childcare out of my home, I've called it quits. I was ready to head a new direction, and have been feeling that the boys were getting their homeschool activities put aside in leiu of toddler nap schedules and such. So, the new house is bigger, even with bigger yard destined for fruit trees and backyard ducks and chickens and lots of new goodness! The boys love it! I'm still getting settled in, a little bit living out of boxes, but glad to be in a comfy spot and feeling the love...

I hardly have been taking photos lately, but remembered to grab my camera when Bobby and the boys made a new skate ramp in the back yard this week.
Boys lending some body weight:

Love you all! I'll try to update sooner than later.

Carolina Hemlock

2010-07-20T05:45:00.000-07:00

A beautiful day to go on our first tubing trip of the season. We went down to the South Toe River and tubed at the Carolina Hemlock campground. I went here several times as a kid, and was so glad to re-explore the land and share it with the youngins.

Taking a watermelon break with a friend:
Reed tries to catch minnows:
A good swimming hole was found:

And then back to do a little more tubing before heading home:
Always plenty of fun happening in these parts - come out for a visit!
Much love, Julie & the boys ~~~

Weekend Shenanigans

2010-07-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

I love where we live so much! The parks have swimming holes and forests, the downtown is beyond hip, good friends are found everywhere ... does it get much better?

On Friday, the kids and I went to Montreat Park in Black Mountain. Plenty of spots right next to the playground to make dams and take a dip in cold mountain water.
At night we went downtown to go the the monthly "Downtown After 5". I actually didn't get any photos from the music, but on the way back to the car, there were tons of street performers out, and I snapped a picture :) These are some pretty cool hillbilly musicians. In case you haven't seen these guys rockin on the streets of Asheville, the fella on the left is indeed playing a saw.
Even though I love our town dearly, it is nice to escape to the big city every once in a while. With cities being so close to us, it's not that hard. On Saturday afternoon we went to Carowinds in Charlotte. They have a great discount if you arrive after 4pm. The park stayed open until 10pm, so the kids had plenty of play time.
The kids did the water park side for a couple hours - wave pools, big slides, lazy rivers... the works! The we went over to the amusement park side, and the boys did their first roller coasters. I can't figure out how to take a decent photo at night, but here's my attempt at getting a shot of Clay's first coaster - called "The Hurler" haha!
It was a big one, and I was not up for joining the kids on it, but they had a blast!

New Toy

2010-07-16T07:28:00.001-07:00

Thanks to our friends for giving the boys scrap wood... completely kid-made new toy:

Gratitude for Rain

2010-07-12T19:06:00.001-07:00

Getting the children outside to play is no task at all when it's warm and raining ... all. day.

A little more water can't hurt at this point, right? And to think just this morning I bought balloons so we could have a rainy day party, and they ended up being used as gigantic water balloons... oy!
We haven't had rain in a bit too long for this neck of the woods, and the plants sure opened right up to it

Except of course for the shy cosmos who duck their heads down to avoid their fragile pedals falling off
Rain to also help loosen up the ground so we could dig up some carrots for today's meals. These were grown in soil that was not worked further down than about 4". You can see they grew around rocks and tough bits of clay down there... my favorite are the two lovers on the right, separate, but completely intertwined
Reed and his buddy did get some out-of-the-house time at their first day of Kung Fu camp ... nice stance boys!
Love,
Julie

Summer!

2010-07-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

Summer is official now that the kids have had a lemonade stand! It was their idea, Clay helped make the lemonade and pour it. Reed painted the sign and added ice to the cups. Their friend delivered the drinks to car windows and took the money. I think they made about $12, not bad considering the lemonade was only 25 cents a cup... and I'm thankful to all our great neighbors who came by and bought a drink, and gave the boys generous tips :)

Am super excited to go to my old friend's wedding this weekend, meet his wife and their new baby!!
Much to my children's dismay, i made eggplant gallette for dinner, from the recipe here. I am *loving* that Smitten Kitchen blog, though don't have nearly that much desire to be in my kitchen, the recipe are so freakin good! The kids actually ended up liking it, but don't be fooled, they put up a good fight to try to get out of eating (fresh from the garden) eggplant for dinner :)

It's sliced eggplant and minced garlic spread on a ricotta-based cheesy filling, all wrapped around with the most delicious buttery pastry crust ... mmm...
Have a happy weekend everyone!! Love, Julie

To the Lake

2010-07-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

We took a nice, refreshing trip to Lake Powhattan today. It was much enjoyed as the temperatures climbed higher and higher! Reed was determined to play his new Pokemon Heart Gold DS game he got from Grandma & Uncle David yesterday (thank you!). He did finally give in, and take a break in the lake (with his clothes on :)
Clay and his best buddy:
I thought he was too old to roll in dirt - apparently not:
If you've never been to Lake Powhattan and live in Asheville, check it out! Great for cooling off, and at only $5/carload, it's very affordable (or you can hike in for free through Bent Creek forest's "hardtimes" trail).

Stay cool!

Party Time!

2010-07-06T06:10:00.001-07:00

Reed's party was great - only a minor amount of stressing from me, which was resolved by my letting go of a few projects I wanted to have done for the party. Reed likes having his parties at home - he requested a small amount of friends, pizza and water balloons (this kid's easy!)

We got a $2 pinata from a thrift store and filled it with fun stuff from the Dollar Tree. Here the kids are sharing their finds to make sure everyone got what they wanted:
Happy boy!

It was B's birthday as well, he got a mocha stout chocolate cake with chocolate ganache icing. The recipe is here. The cake is freakin delicious!!
A blurry photo, but it's the spread - Reed wanted Little ceasars pizz. Also had fresh veggies, crackers, figs, lychee berries, strawberries, blueberries, keylime pie, and the 2 cakes.
Mama Shonna coming to pick up leah and definitely enjoying some stout cake:
Kids looking their birthday best:

A new trip around the Sun for Reed!!

2010-07-05T09:28:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday to my Reed-a-roo! This guy turns 7 today and couldn't be happier about it :) He's glad to be home after a few days of travelling, and just in time for fire works and birthday celebration. I've enjoyed all the time I've had to watch him grow and be part of each other's lives, can't wait to see what the next year brings for this guy (he's hoping to finally get those front teeth in)!!

Newborn Sandwich:

Mischievous on the loft ladder in Colorado:

Ice Cream stop on Chicago roadtrip (2005)
Grove Park Inn:

Buncombe County Fair (2007-ish)
Music On The Mountaintop Festival - 2009
On Reed's 7th Birthday - showing off his Lego collection:

Summer Day

2010-07-01T04:57:00.001-07:00

Another beautiful day of Summer!
Kids playing catch:
Finished new gardens. Borders from colorful cinderblock pieces from a rubble pile. Center of bigger garden is the rhubarb which will eventually spread. For now the extra space is filled by flowers and herbs from the local discount store. The back, smaller plot has hostas and other shade-lovers. It leads up to the girls' hide-out beneath the privet branches...
Eggplant waiting to be picked:
A little friend examining the carrots ready to be pulled, but won't be for a little while longer as I have a bunch in the kitchen and these are good to stay in the ground until i need them:
Cooling off (redneck style):
A mass of children run to get some late afternoon treats of peanut butter & cocoa swirl cookies ~~
My kids are off to a *very* long sleep-over while B and I go to Phish in Raleigh and Charlotte. Then I'm taking the kids to a third show in Atlanta, and to visit some friends that just moved down there! So excited to see those friends, see my phish friends, and boogie down to my favorite tunes!!
~~ Have a great weekend everyone ~~

New Garden

2010-06-28T19:02:00.000-07:00

We're not buying any bread products these days except for the occassional box of $1.99 organic cereal from the scratch n dent store. The problem is my kids don't like my homemade sandwich bread, but fortunately they don't eat sandwiches very often. So most sandwiches are make-shift and served on things like homemade tortillas, or like today's lunch, on a leftover homemade waffle:
Reed and Leah decided they *needed* to collect unripe walnuts from the black walnut tree to make crafts out of. I have no objections, since I don't know anything else to do with the things besides make a garden not grow (any ideas for uses for these things are appreciated!)
Clay helping with the effort:
Put in a new garden today that is primarily for rhubarb and herbs and flowers, and will probably also be for brassicas, since I read they are good companion plants with rhubarb. Hopefully these are far enough away from the black walnut trees so they can actually grow. There will be a second garden just to the right of this one, leading up to a little fort the girls like to play in - it will probably have impatiens and hostas and other pretty things that like shade:
Now I am dirty with sweat from digging and horse manure and compost from finishing the garden and think it's time to call it a day :)

Weekend Scenery

2010-06-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

B's malamute/wolf/bear dog, Bear, was so handsome with his new haircut - all hair donated to the gulf oil disaster. Thought he'd enjoy a nice bath after that
Drive out to the commune:

and into Useful Plants Nursery to their amazing selection of purely edible & medicinal plants (came home with rhubarb, 3 different blueberries and a serviceberry)

I am so in love with where I live, it's just silly.

Skate Camp and Reed Time

2010-06-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already seen my daily schedule - it's ridiculous! Really, I buy the large print, office size calendar, and each big square day is filled with notes, daycare kids' schedules, homeschool activities, playdates, classes, around-town happenings, etc. I make sure to get lots of just me-and-my-boys time, but a very rare time is when I get one-on-one time with one of my boys. It finally worked out that Clay had been in day camp all week, and I had a 2-hr slot before we picked him up on the last day, and there were no friends over or daycare kids. Inspired by my friend Bryce, we had a date :) Reed decided to go to Fun Depot - the mecca of weird lighting, noisy games, greasy food, screaming kids, over-valued prizes ... what kid wouldn't love it?!?
My guy beating me at mini golf ~
And totally stoked about his new slap bracelet he won (way cooler than this new silly bandz fad, in my opinion :)
At lunch time, the families of campers were invited to come hang out at the skate park, have pizza and see what their kids had been doing all week. Clay did camp at the skate park in downtown. It was just our style, with free skating the entire time, and adults present to give the kids tips and help them if the kids were ready to try something new. Clay did his first 6-foot drop-in this week!!

Camp buddies (good and sweaty from a long hot day of skateboarding) - and Clay with his new deck from his Birthday:
Clay riding the concrete waves on the 4 & 5 foot ramps:

Work and Play (not necessarily in that order)

2010-06-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

I'm not a huge fan of Montessori philosophy of education, but I do like that they interchange the words "work" and "play", because really it's all the same thing. We've got to do things, things to keep us happy - and happy for us includes having income, having a clean house, being healthy and having exercise, exploring new places, running around in the woods, etc. So it kind of makes sense that work and play can be the same thing.

Our lovely little town just finished a huge park renovation in downtown that they've been working on for years! It includes all sorts of water features that we are so happy about, and will surely be enjoying a bunch as the Summer just gets hotter! This is how we celebrated Summer Solstice ~

Reed had a friend over and they decided they wanted to earn some money. Which of course is fine with me! I'm super tired at the end of the day, and the house is usually trashed after all the little ones go home, so I'm not opposed to some child labor around the house to get it clean :D

I know for alot of unschoolers, chores can be a sensitive subject. I simply made a chore chart with very low wages, so they can do chores if and when they feel like it. We keep track of what they do and they get paid on Fridays (no cash advances in this house!). It also solves most of the "I want's" in the toy department, since they've got to earn the money themselves! We've had this for a couple years now and it works great, they still enjoy doing the chores at least :)

Happy Summer Solstice everyone!!

New Parks

2010-06-17T10:20:00.001-07:00

Found a new skate park right in town! A real hidden gem, as it is free (the main one in asheville has a fee), low-key (great for our not-so-pro boarders), has shaded parking, and has an adjacent playground with shade, so great for all the kids :)
Went with some good friends

How many kids can you fit in a plastic hippo?
The admiring girls on the side lines

oh yeah.

2010-06-14T18:58:00.000-07:00

The only titles I can think of for this post are things like "oh yeah" or "nuff said" or "that's right" haha! A completely necessary week-long break from work and all things kid-related left me with these:

Love to all!!

Party!

2010-06-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Some shots from Clay's 10th birthday party! Clay choose to have his party at one of his favorite parks. Part of the park sits in a small valley with steep slopes on either side. One side has a slide built into the hill. We brought big sheets of cardboard and our plastic sleds and the kids had a great time.

Got to hang out and relax with some of my favorite folks
I made Clay a cheesecake and a keylime pie. The cheesecake had an oreo crust and M&M and fresh-picked strawberries to spoon on each piece. I did end up making a second cheesecake (the one pictured) since the first was so ugly. Now it's taunting me from my refrigerator! So delicious!!
Legos, DS Games & Teck Decks (who woulda guessed? :)

Goes to show that you don't have to spend big bucks to have a fun party! Menu consisted of: homemade bread, cheese slices, carrots sticks, young peas from garden, sun chips (oh, i'm a sucker for supporting compostable bags... okay, they're yummy too :), and halved bananas (from the disounted produce bags). To drink was soda cans (this is something we only get for REALLY special occassions, got 2 12-packs, which of course what not enough for everyone to drink soda the whole time, which was okay with me!). Also had out home-made lemonade (lemon juic.e, sugar & water), and a water cooler. Both cake & pie were homemade. Paper cups from a yard sale. Favor bags were hand-painted brown paper lunch bags. They were filled with fireworks, some party straws from a yard sale, some happy meal toys from the thrift store, and some mini-size playdo from a thrift store. This party probably cost under $40, with a bunch of happy kids!

Scenes from a Lovely Friday

2010-06-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

A sweet way to end the week for us! We did some urban foraging. On our morning walk, a daycare child found 2 mulberry trees down a road we rarely walk! We ate a few, they were hard to reach. We then got our pail and headed up to the highway behind the house. There are about 6 serviceberries planted along it. Serviceberries (also called sarvisberries or juneberries) grow all over! I discovered them growing wild in SW Colorado, and here have found them all over town, being used in landscapes. Most people don't realize they are edible and delicious!! If you are local and want to know some easily accessible spots to get these, lemme know!

Great for eating straight off the tree, also good in baking or for freezing (remember to freeze your berries in a single layer on a cookie sheet, before you put them in a freezer bag!):
The new 20 sq ft garden plot:

I am busy this night getting ready for Clay's birthday party tomorrow. Bobby took the boys to ... drumroll ... WWE Raw Smackdown at the Asheville Civic Center (oh yeah!!!), so mama has some time to get all birthday crazy :) Making party favor bags (as you can see in the top right corner, i am just *that* mom that puts fireworks in party favor bags heehee)
Made cheesecake and key lime pie for party. This is only my second cheesecake, and my first to make in a spring form pan, and it cracked :( poo. hopefully it'll still taste yum tho :) It has an oreo crust and will have a choice (or combo?) of fresh strawberries or M&M's to put on it
Bread rising for party food (dang, i am still in love with the Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day book - buy it!!!)
Happy weekend to all!!!

A Whole Decade Of Clay Goodness!!

2010-06-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago today, a very smooth and fairly short labor ended at 7 pm to this lovely little baby Clay Elijah. He can be very quiet and reflective, and very out-going and fearless - a true joy of a person to get to know!

This morning bouncing on his new pogo stick (I think I got one that's too small, he grows too fast!):
Happy Birthday Love!

Busy Days

2010-06-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

Too busy to get photos up often! Today I started...er... completed a garden space. I actually had made a bean tee-pee for some Jacob's Cattle beans that were a gift from one of my favorite people, and were sent to me in the mail in a plain white envelope :) I didn't realize they were bush beans, not pole, so they did look kinda silly just bushing it up around the tee-pee, laughing at my desire for them to climb on up.

The bamboo was pulled, as well as my make-shift coat-hanger stakes that held down the twine and vines for more bean supports. Now to square off this little space and gain about 20 more square feet of gardening goodness!
And my extra motivation to get this project done is that a great little greenhouse tucked back in the mountains started their clearance sale tonight! Music, free food and free local beer got me right in the mood to buy too many plants :) I came home with a couple flats as well as some bigger pots. Of course if I had a normal size yard instead of the pitiful excuse for one I currently have, I would have bought a ridiculous amount of plants ... haha!

I came home with bell peppers, lavender, rosemary, echinachea, and loads of flowers, as well as some blueberry bushes to be gifted elsewhere. I think I spent $22 total - the clearance sale goes on for a couple more weeks if anyone wants to check it out. The place is Painter's Greenhouse in Old Fort. Most things are $1 or $2. A great way to fill out the garden on the cheap!

I'll post pics of all the goodies I bought in a later entry. For now, I'll just show what the boys and their friends were up to while the grown-ups were shopping: (making lounge chairs in a big pile of dirt ... ahhh, boys.)
And certainly the most exciting event is coming up! Clay is turning 10 tomorrow!! Hard to believe it was 10 years ago... even harder to believe in 6 years he'll have a driver's liscense or in 10 more years he'll be 20! sheesh. too fast. Here's the kitchen table scene beside me waiting for Clay to wake up in the morning. It's after midnite now and he's still in bed mumbling that he's too excited to sleep. aww, I love that kid.

Stitchin

2010-05-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

These last couple days have been teaching the kids how to hand sew. They did some really cute work, I'm very proud of them!
All the kids first started with a square of felt and a simple applique (a circle, heart, star, etc.)

After everyone figured out simple appliques, the older kids starting making some pretty cute projects - these girls are making doll sleeping bags and pillows:
Clay stitched around a pouch and then decided to hot glue the skull on haha!
The projects from the older group of kids. The left row is Reed's work, the second to left (minus the heart) is Clay's work. They did mostly pouches with velcro closures. The others were done by 4 and 5 year olds. The center one on the second to right row is my fave of the daycare kids'. She made a hanging picture of an owl, who's wings even flap. She made it for her mama :)
And even the littlest ones loved playing in all the embroidery thread and felt, as well as playing with my finished products (tucking in the little mermaid and her construction worker friend :)

Our tadpoles are quickly becoming frogs!
We transferred them to a bigger container, they were looking too cramped
Peonies are filling up the kitchen with their lovely scent!
I just thought the moon was too beautiful shining through the clouds
Clay and his friend Lincoln had fun making skateboarding videos. Here's Lincoln filming Clay doing an acid drop and a power slide:

Looks like it's going to be another beautiful day - we're busy planning out Summer beach trips, birthday parties, festivals and lots of little adventures in between, and of course spending the day outdoors to soak up some sunshine...
Love to all!

Say Hey!

2010-05-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

Aw, Michael Franti is definitely one of my favorite celebs! He played a last-minute free acoustic show before his concert tonite in Asheville. I didn't have tix to his show anyhow (am probably going to see him in Charlotte or Atlanta later this Summer), so I took the kids downtown to see him. Not nearly as mellow as other acoustic sets I've seen him do, it was pretty rockin!!

There's Reed front and center patiently awaiting Michael's attention (unfortunately he had to go inside and do a sound check) - I think he was pretty excited to stand right next to Michael though :)
And just throwing in one from last week... this is my sweet little nephew Corrin who lives in Wisconsin and was down in Greenville, SC to visit - what a cutie!!

Tadpoles & Strawberries & other Springtime Goodness

2010-05-20T17:54:00.000-07:00

Our town is getting so many beautiful days! Nice and sunny with rain every couple days to keep the temps cool ~ love love love it! We're able to eat fresh salads from our garden every day:
Today we took a little group of kiddos down to the neighborhood park. A community garden is right next to the playground. Clay made a make-shift net from bamboo, a colander and duct tape, to catch tadpoles with:
It worked pretty good, we caught about 6 frog-babies
The younger kids quickly lost interest in the many attempts at catching tadpoles, and wandered among the strawberries finding a morning snack:
warm, organic, fresh-picked strawberries, and juice stained faces are all so lovely!
We wandered over to the playground where Reed finally figured out how to pump!
And this little guy also was kidnapped from his pond home today. Anyone know what he is? One visitor guessed a dragonfly larvae... I have no idea. I also sent the picture to the non-profit local river conservation folks, so hopefully I'll have some knowledge soon! Also, anyone know what to feed tadpoles? The gal at the pet store had me buy juvenille aquatic turtle pellets, but even tho the tadpoles are large, they can't quite seem to grab the pellets. Okay, here's a pic of our funky new mystery house guest:
Hope everyone's gettin outside and getting to soak up some of this lovely weather!

Legolegolegolegolego

2010-05-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

sheesh - talk about a long phase. a neighbor gave my kids their first big stash of legos about 5 years ago and the obsession has never stopped. In fact, some of the worst moments for Clay have been when we move and he has to dismantle and pack up these huge creations he's made. Currently, they have a huge storage bin, each boy has a work area (base), and they each have 2 shelves for display. It's madness - but at least it's (mostly) contained to their room :)

This was not the entirety of our day, but I thought I'd provide a glimpse to the activity that consumes a huge portion of their time :)

Boys with their friend Blake:
Reed's newly cleaned/decluttered workspace (and the reason I decided to take photos :)
I just put in some wall shelves for Clay since his work was getting cramped on the regular shelves (on the top shelf is the castle and catapult he made at homeschool co-op toymaking class):
Clay's Base:
project for today was boys were making all-terrain cars:
We have lots more adventures to post, I'm just slacking on remembering to take my camera with me around town!!

Homeschoolin Goodness

2010-05-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Asheville is such a great place to homeschool - the opportunities are endless, the laws are easy to follow, and the community is STRONG!

This week we went down to Pisgah Forest in Brevard to these awesome free classes they have once a month. They have classes for older kids and the younger set, too. They are such enthusiastic instructors, siblings are welcome and I am so grateful this is around! This week's class for the older kids was on archery where they spent hours target shooting and had a great time :)
Reed got in on the action, too:
On Wednesday, we went to The Health Adventure's 'Homeschool Happenings' where the kids learned about robots. I arrived with a nice little crew of 6 kids. 5 of them were in the younger kids class, so unfortunately I couldn't go peek at Clay's class. The kids got to build their own crazy robot creations and zoom them all over the room. These classes are also once a month, and again the teachers are excellent! We are so blessed to have these great resources :)
Reed & friends working away:

Spring LEAF 2010

2010-05-12T05:11:00.000-07:00

Another LEAF has come and gone. This one was definitely my least productive yet :) This is the Lake Eden Arts Festival in Black Mountain, NC. We filled our days blowing bubbles, drinking homebrew, catching up with friends and enjoying the scenery...
My lovely friend Deb and I bought new earrings from Sonja's booth:
Got good and sunburned hanging with the youngins while they sold their handmade crafties in the Kids Village "Kids Market" area:
The bazaar style Kids Market:
Kids Village this year was moved to a different spot of the festival grounds, which was a longer walk, but did provide for the tennis courts, which is where Clay (here showing pogo sticks tricks with a new friend) preferred to spend most of his LEAF time:
We camp right above this jam tent, which is wonderful to stroll down the hill from camp and hang out at:
Reed and I did the zip-line one day, which was a first for both of us, but SO fun! You have to jump off the side of a mountain, sail over a main walking path, and land in the lake :)
LEAF parade on Saturday:

Rock-climbing wall has been opened up this year - it's Sweet! Reed is on the left:
Clay getting geared up:
Probably my favorite thing about LEAF is that there is so much to see and do, this is just on the side of the path:
and the Zumba class we could see from our camp site (which I really had wanted to go to, but at this point had too much food and drink in me to be motivated)
Our friend Leah with Reed running by some vendors to get to a fire show:
LED hula hoops - I *need* one!!
Fire spinners, shot with the "fireworks" setting on my camera:
You can volunteer, as I do every year and get in for free (I usually do set-up, but this year did clean-up for a day, you can also do shifts during the festival). There will be another LEAF in October - hope to see you there!

Projects

2010-05-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

There's always some sort of project going on here! The weekend was pretty darn productive ... yard saling, plant swapping, beer bottling, beer brewing and of course beer drinking to round all that out :)

The mead is still bubbling during fermentation, it will be ready to rack pretty soon (transfer to smaller fermenter before bottling). I did make a Belgian Tripel this weekend, tweaking the recipe a little bit to use local honey - should be delicious! Except it is supposed to sit in bottles for 6-12 months to be at it's tastiest (we'll just see how long I can wait :) No pics of any of that, so sharing some pics from our Monday.
It was muggy and overcast today, nice for being in the garden to love on the plants. Salad greens are making their way
Peanuts I'm finding are pretty fun to grow, they sure sprout up quick!
The Playmobil castle from a yard sale this weekend - we've got to put this together so I can get it up on ebay. It's just about a zillion teensy pieces, though, so not exactly motivating! I did have it about 1/2 way built, but the kids came and reaked havoc (hence the police helicopter and ambulance arriving on the scene):
Reed and his friend deconstructed a toy cell phone and are now making some pretty funky art projects with it
My sweet friend Shonna came over and was convinced (twisted her arm only slightly) to stay for ginger-pear upside-down cake!

It was super delish! If anyone wants to make this special treat, here's my version of the recipe from Jeanne Lemlin's "Simple Vegetarian Pleasures" book (one of my FAVE cookbooks):
CARAMELIZED PEAR AND GINGER UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3-4 Tablespoons finely diced candied (crystallized) ginger
3 firm but ripe Boc pears, peeled, cored and thickly sliced
The cake:
4 Tbs. unsalted buter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1-1/4 cups flour (I mix whole wheat flour with a little white)
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk

1. Heat oven to 350. Put 4 Tbs butter in a round 9-in cake pan and put it in the heating oven to melt (but watch so it doesn't brown). Once melted, swirl it around, so it can get up on the sides of the pan. Stir in the brown sugar and spread around bottom of cake pan.
2. Sprinkly candied ginger evenly in pan, and arrange the pear slices on top of those to fill the bottom of the pan.
3. Mix all cake ingredients one by one in your mixer until very smooth.
4. Scrape batter over pears and smooth the top out.
5. Bake for 45-55 minutes until knife comes out clean from cake part. This may overflow with juices, so best to have a baking sheet on the next oven rack below the baking cake.
6. When good and deep golden brown, remove from oven and loosen edges with a knife. Place serving plate over cake, and carefully invert (tapping the bottom of the cake pan helps it come out nicely). Serve with whipped cream if you like!

I have no pics of Clay today, he did the last day of homeschool co-op this morning. He's been on the computer alot this afternoon, listening to AC/DC as well as not so classic music like this (i have no idea if this is from a tv show or something, but all the kids around here freakin love it!):

haha! that link's not really for the grown-ups, more for your kids to enjoy and for you to have stuck in your head the rest of the day (you're welcome.)

Relax

2010-04-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

I'm groggy from all the good relaxing that was had today! A very peaceful day with only 3 childcare kids (2 in the morning, 1 in the afternoon). The boys made a make-shift ramp for Reed's scooter. They are wanting to make a real ramp that Clay can also skateboard on, so we're on the look-out for free plywood (and instructions on how to do this!). In the mean time, this will have to do:
Once our little friends went home, we drove 45 minutes out to Hot Springs and hung out at Becca and Chris's new house (which is SWEET! Congratulations you guys!) Reed had a good time trying to catch a backyard chicken:

We had a special dinner of chocolate chip pancakes and roasted veggie frittata (yum!):
And then scooted right off to the town's namesake, the hot springs. It's pretty cool that they kept the ruins of the old hot springs. These used to be a huge reason people were even in Asheville. Back in the old days, people would come through Asheville or vacation from all over the mountains to the hot mineral springs for it's healing properties. Nowadays, it's not actually too widely publicized, I don't think, but it so nice for a soak! Here's a look at the old springs area:

Now it is piped in to private hot tubs ... ahhhh ....
View from the tub:
Reed and his friend didn't want to get out, even as the tub drained, they stuck it out
Max and Reed at the firepit outside the hot tubs ... peace out!

Doughday

2010-04-27T15:59:00.000-07:00

Gray day outside = creative day inside ... I've been baking all our own bread products for a while lately (crackers, sandwich bread, roll, pizza, tortillas, etc.). My friend Amanda lent me this great book to give me some new ideas - it's pretty fabulous! It's the idea of making a very moist dough that can sit in your fridge for a couple weeks and you can pull a bit off and make beautiful breads anytime. (scroll down to see a pic of the beautiful bread I made!)
Got a great curb score this weekend - I actually almost bought one of these from the thrift a couple weeks ago :) Just a perfect size for the early toddlers.
New bean tee-pee with Jacob's Cattle Beans.
Reed's lucky day! I am a member of an online survey company that occasionally sends out surveys in the mail and usually sends cash in the envelope. This was the first one for one of the kids. Reed was all too happy to actually get paid a two-dollar bill for doing a survey about gum and candy! If anyone reading would like to join this company's website, comment or email me and I'll hook you up with the link (of course I not only get paid for surveys but for referrals :)
Reed was on a money high and decided to do some chores to get some more cash (he has an actual payday on Fridays and a tally of chores, all optional, posted on the wall). He's saving for a LEGO set right now, i think *sigh*
Oh my goodness - this bread is SO beautiful - the picture doesn't do it any justice! This is officially my new favorite bread cookbook.
It was perfect for dinner, accompanying an egg scramble with portobellas mushrooms, garlic, feta and spinach ... yum!!
and to leave on a pretty note - my fella is so good to me ~~

Much love ~ Julie

All Go West

2010-04-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

Saturday started out pretty sunny, got some nearly-too-pretty-to-crack-open eggs from a friend

and admired the random selection of sprouts soaking up sun (peanuts and baby corn, anyone?)

We headed to West Asheville for the All Go West Fest, that ended up getting rained out and relocated to neighborhood indoor venues. But the kids had some fun in the rain!
Extreme Hopskotch:
Walked through one of the coolest public gardens in Asheville

Even rainy weather is fun to play in... I did feel bad for this band. It's Brushfire Stankgrass, they were pretty rockin. Unfortunately, most people left from the rain.
Can't wait for more festivals and trips that warm weather will bring. LEAF is in only a couple weeks!!! Hope everyone's enjoying Spring...
Love ~ Julie

Friday Farm Adventures

2010-04-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

I didn't forget that President Obama is in Asheville this week, I just didn't think it was SUCH a big deal ... sheesh... it took us 1/2 hr to go through downtown. The interstate ramps in downtown were blocked, so everyone was smooshed in little tiny downtown. We finally got out of traffic and made it out to Warren Wilson College in Black Mountain.

At the farm we met a few mamas and their new babies - if I had to nurse that many little ones, I'd be making the same face.
But they were so darn cute, some spotty, some brown, some pink ... ahhh ... piglet love...

BIG papa!

Lovely ladies who were very protected by their cock-a-doodling menfolk...
Walked down to the river ... ah, I love where I live, beauty everywhere you look:

Anybody home?
The throne tree:
A big effort for something that's about to be thrown in the water!

Reed trying to surf on the log:
My boys just went home with the other boys in these pics (thanks bryce!). They'll have two sleep-overs in a row, so I can go out early yard-saling tomorrow and have some fun tomorrow night. Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Love, Julie