Reed has been going to "Thursday School" this semester, which he loves! It is a group of homeschoolers that meet for classes once a week with hired teachers. He's taking a hands-on geometry class and a drama class and it's really one of his favorite things. I'm happy just to see him do something new and without me there or any siblings - neat to watch him make his own friends that aren't in our regular circle of friends. He came home very excited from this week's class because Mr. Ian had them make projects on his nail board. Reed wanted one of his own, and immediately set to work sawing and nailing, even after the sun went down.
Then he quickly showed us how to make really neat geometric art on it:
He's a very proud guy about this!
I'm glad the boys are keeping busy (and helping keep ZB busy), because I'm in countdown mode to the little lady's 2nd birthday!
1. Finish making curtains for ZB's room ... check! I finally had an idea of curtains to make and had been procrastinating getting more than half-way done for too long. They look awesome though! I found white curtains at Target that just needed shortening. Then I simply appliqued dragonflies and bubbles on... I can't believe I put it off so long!
2. Make dragon eggs for the Harry Potter class I'm teaching at co-op. This is tomorrow's work. We're planning a dragon egg hunt for the class the day after Easter. Must finish before the weekend birthday party. Photos to follow, I'm sure :)
3. Make party favors for the birthday party
4. Figure out the party menu
5. Test some grain-free cupcake recipes
6. Have a cooking day with another grain-free family - I'm so excited for this! Lots of cooking, mama-time and toddler play date time.
7. Help the boys build a birthday-gift sandbox
Hello Spring! Wait - snow? We woke up to a good covering of snow this morning - not a very inviting welcome into Spring. Fortunately the sun came out and melted away most of it by afternoon. Our plants don't seem to know the difference.
The almond and plum trees and just flowering away:
The sunshine did lure me outside to do some yard work. There was this row of daffodils along the fence in the very back of the yard. It seemed pretty random to me, about 10' of daffodils way out in the back, and they've been annoying me for 2 years now! Today, ZB and I dug them all up. I'm going to replant them in the front, along the road. That seems logical and all until I had this bucket full of blooms and was ready to go and realized - what the heck am I thinking?? I can't do planting with a toddler on the side of the road! This project will have to be postponed until B can help out.
This pink-nosed child didn't seem to mind the cold at all. She even got thrills from dipping her hands in half-frozen buckets of water and squealing, "COLD HANDS! COLD HANDS!"
Finally, check out this sweet idea for plant markers... I cut pieces of bamboo about 18" long, and split the top few inches with a machete. Then I put thin pieces of wood in and secured with jute. Old paint stirrers worked great for the wood, since it's so thin, I could cut it to size with my kitchen scissors. With the new Spring seeds and last Fall's garlic, our garden area is already 1/4 full!
Reed finally got his Christmas present! That's just how we roll, I guess, the delayed presents and all :) He got a rabbit hutch and a stuffed bunny (to trade in for a real bunny of his choosing) for Christmas. The hutch was from craigslist and needed a little repair, but it was so large, there was nowhere to work on it before Christmas without Reed seeing it. Then the weather stayed cold and windy for quite a while so our motivation was delayed.
Finally, the warm Spring weather is creeping into the mountains and projects are starting up again! B and I (okay, mostly B) fixed it up, added latches, legs, etc. Reed chose a very nice red to paint it (and did nearly all the painting by himself).
We have been keeping an eye on craigslist for bunnies. Reed couldn't decide between the very furry Angora breed or a small, dwarf breed. Then we saw an ad for Jersey Wooly rabbits and knew they were the one! It is a mix between French Angora and a Netherland Dwarf - perfect! Unfortunately, this litter hasn't had much human contact, so it will take some patience on Reed's part, but he's a persistent kid, so I'm sure it will work out fine!
Meet Norbert, our new bunny friend:
Of course, even little ZB wants to get in on the bunny lovin', but Norbert's not quite ready for that, yet!
We are following Ramiel Nagel's guidelines right now for healing our tooth decay. I just received this email today with a free video from Ramiel. If you are struggling with tooth decay and not believing that modern dentistry is the answer - I highly encourage you to check out this great resource! It is basically an overview of the first chapters of his book - highlighting the key points.
Keep an open mind and enjoy!
Hello! My life has been consumed by a couple different projects lately and I just realized yesterday that I had been completely ignoring the blog - so here I am!
For one - the boys are both doing Odyssey of the Mind (OM), and their competition is coming up in only a couple weeks (eek!). Clay's team is having 2-4 meetings per week. I am the coach for Reed's team, and we're only meeting once a week (I'd actually love for them to meet more, but our team members all live outside of town, all in opposite directions and it seems hard to gather them too often). My team meets at my house, so we have entire days of focusing on OM, and can't escape it on the other days because there are props tucked into corners and scripts on the countertops and supply boxes as end tables - 2 more weeks... 2 more weeks... Wish them luck!!
Around the house, we are delighted that our chickens have finished molting and others seem to think it's Spring and have finally caught up to laying as much as the others. We get about 8 or 9 eggs a day (from 13 layers, most of which were last years Spring hatchlings, that's not so bad). A funny thing about layers is that when they first start popping out eggs, the eggs are quite tiny and they don't know to use the nesting boxes yet to make their deposits. So, we'll find these tiny little eggs just randomly set in the coop. A couple days ago, I found the tiniest one yet! When we cracked it open, I discovered the reason was it was all white - there was no yolk!
Our other main project lately is that Blossom is having some pretty major cavities - how distressing! I eat low sugar, no soda, no coffee, mostly organic, mostly from scratch/homemade, etc. The dentists are honestly no help! They tell us to stop giving her candy, no more soda! I tell them patiently, of course I do not give my toddler candy or soda. They start to grasp at straws and just find out what we may do that's out of the ordinary and put blame there. The most personally irritating dentist advice is to wean her. Now, I know it is not super common to nurse a toddler (well, in this country at least), but c'mon - I really doubt that that nature's ideal food for babies would cause severe tooth decay. I've got a little more faith in the grand design than that!
We have been loosely following a Weston Price type diet for a few years now, but I am now stepping it up while reading this great book Cure Tooth Decay. It is based on Dr Price's findings of whole cultures existing with virtually no tooth decay. Also, no toothbrushes, no flouride, no dentists, no refined sugars or processed foods of any kind. The book is sprouting fresh ideas of why modern dentistry isn't helping our teeth, not giving any long-term solutions. Cavities go beyond the modern theory of cavity-causing bacteria and into the realm of whole nutrition.
Main premises of the book are going grain-free, using high quality dairy (raw milk from pastured animals), grass-fed meats, low consumtion of fruits & honey, as well as adding more minerals through bone stock and organ meats.
So, we doing it! I should say Blossom and I are doing it. The boys and B are free to add grains to my meals as they wish. I already feel so much more energy through the day just cutting out the grains. We've been doing most of the other things already, although I have started cooking with organ meats (usually mashed and added to ground meat dishes - shhh!!). Getting more nutrients into the toddler is a little trickier, as she is a bit resistant to new foods, but popsicles seems to be a good place to hide nutrient-rich foods!
Anyhow, the grain-free part is by far the hardest part to implement in our diet. Like most Americans, grains are a staple! Grits or oatmeal for breakfast, sandwiches or pasta for lunch, baked goods or popcorn for snacks, bread with dinner... ugh. Thank goodness for the internet - so many blogs of grain-free families that are amazing resources for food ideas. There are some alternative flours which I have just tried making for the first time. One is coconut flour. It takes some time, but not a lot of work. You start with plain shredded cocounut and make milk out of it (like here). Then the leftover coconut is dehydrated and ground into flour. So easy, even Blossom can do it!
Wish us luck in this new venture. I know I have a lot to learn, but hopefully good results will be posted soon!!
One of our great neighbors came over on Chrstmas eve day to help B put new hardwood floors in the new bedroom. Here's the scene from the morning:
The guys wanted doors open, power tools running and a VERY loud air compressor in the hallway. So the kids and I took our leave... except Clay, who as he gets closer to the teenage mark seems to have the magical power to actually sleep through anything!
We went to one of the few places that was open on Christmas Eve day, the hands-on science museum. It was probably only open because it is connected to a mall, and was surprisingly full of little kids (I figured it would be desolate from the holiday for some reason). It was ZB's first time there and she LOVED it! Reed found plenty of science experiments set up for him to explore and ZB was enchanted by the sprawling toddler areas.
Hey, hands only, miss!
I didn't actually get many photos of Reed since I was chasing a busy toddler around, but did find Reed had been sculpting big legos and wanted to capture the creation before a toddler came along to destroy it!
And this is the lovely scene I came home to. There were some tool malfunctions which took up some unaccounted-for hours, but they finished before nightfall. I can't wait to get started finding furniture and making ZB's room a cozy place to be:
