School this week

Do you ever have those days where you look at your kids and just keep noticing, "I made that" about what they are wearing? Yeah, me too. I made her shirt, yes its too small. I made her pants, and now they have a hole in the knee. She is making a birthday card for a swim team friend for art class here.

My punk boy and his Taylor, Frank bought this guitar his 2nd tour in Iraq, lost interest so our son gained a 3/4 Taylor. This was so surprising to his guitar teacher (he was 8 at the time) as it is apparently a very amazing instrument and most people wouldnt trust their children to not tear it up. After knowing him a few months, he said he would loan Tad his OWN Taylor. I think that is a compliment.

Pugel sticks, Frank and I bought these one evening on our date night. We spent the evening at an education store and came home with cool toys. These are great for super cold or windy days, for garage PE.

Kitten is considering a pounce...

"You cant see me!"

"Oh. Hi."

He LOVES Frank's clothing items, worn or not. Frank sometimes has to fight Kitten out of his pants, he has to remove the cat in order to put them on and even as he is putting his foot in, the cat is climbing back into them. It is hilarious to watch.

Counting change, I think this was for fun. Just counting pennies, how big of a pile makes 10 $ I think was the challenge. Kitten is in front of the TV, getting ready to jump on Tad's counting hands and penny piles.

Africa puzzle again, Nathalie can complete this in 2 minutes now, and then reads all the countries aloud. If she reads each country name before placing it, the puzzle takes longer but that is her assignment for the next 2 wks, then we will move on to Europe and Asia.

Tad found this lovely ice sculpture. It is violet flowers, encased now in ice from a rain storm before a freeze. I think he set it in the shade and it is still just like this, covered some in snow. we will not get a thaw now until April more than likely. We have a 9 wk grade report and project sample due date coming up, we have to turn in the report and projects to our contact teacher for our homeschool program. The kids are working on their work samples, Tad has 9 classes and Nathalie has 8. For swim, dive and gymnastics, we show videos to the teacher.

Barn life

These are shelves that Frank and Tad built for my feed room. They made the part that is screwed to the wall in the shop and carried them down, and then put shelves on top. The bottom shelf holds my feed container and the others are for supplies.

This is our water solution, rather than using multiple heaters and still hauling water (hoses freeze and will bust) we will instead fill this barrel as needed. When we walk down for chores, we take 2 gal of water and use them first. As we are walking down a minimum of 2 x a day that makes sense, we take down 4 gal that way. We use about 6 a day. We have to stretch the hoses from the garage down to the barn now that we are in a hard freeze. The timer in the outlet here allows us to have a "sunlight" bulb on a timer for the chickens. They have a heat lamp also.

Rabbit stand, we built this in the garage a few wks ago and I posted the making, but not its use. The big rabbits have litter boxes with hay in their cage, they eat the hay and at one end, they potty. Daily we dump this and refill, they leave little waste hay. This keeps the area under their pen completely potty free, they never potty outside of a box if they have one available. These 2 bunnies are our last from the butchering, we want to keep one of the females as a breeder so she has a friend as well until we can move across to breeding row.

I found wool crepe a few yrs ago, 7 to be exact, for 2$ a yd because it was damaged. I never found a use for it until now. This brings the barn temp up about 10 degrees, possibly more. It is water and wind proof. yes, the wind can blow it open but it does not come strongly from that direction.

The chickens have a heat lamp full time, and plastic on their upper walls for warmth. The sun bulb is on during the day and it encourages egg laying.

Most chickens do not lay in the winter, but the electrical cost for the sun bulb comes nowhere near the cost of eggs, and I am going to feed them for the winter anyway. These egg crates make great egg laying boxes. We lined them with cardboard.

So it is that season again, it gets cold and the moose join our zoo. They will be in our yard all winter, we wish we could eat one! 1 would take care of our red meat for a yr, and we have decided against grocery store beef anymore. We do not want the hormones and antibiotics. This moose decided she did not want her photo taken.

We assume these are mama and last year's baby. Often they have 2, which is quite cute in the yard come spring.

When their ears are forward, they are curious and dont mind you. If you get closer and their ears flatten, you want to not aggravate further.

Here is part of why I love homeschool. This is education, Frank found a seat head rest thrown out and pirated the magnets from it. It took some time, he had to pop all of the discs out of the seat inside. The kids have spent hours playing with it, they take them all apart, use them as toys, pick up other things that they did not know had metal in them with it. Even the cat plays with them.

These have spawned new magnet research for the wk.

Africa Geo puzzle, Nathalie prefers this to her computer map program. She can put this together in about 2 minutes now, so she and Frank started working it upside down. She cannot pronounce all of the countries without a reminder, but knows them by their written name, as in she can see it written and know where that one goes.

She and Frank love puzzles. Tad and I are happy to let them play them.

I did not get a finished picture which according to these two, was total my fault.

Nathalie getting her key turned, there are 2 tiny holes in her herbts apparatus. You put the key in the front hole, move it to the back and then take the key out. 1 turn a night for 22 nights. 

This has created several gaps in her front and side teeth on top which is what we want, this will spread the spacing out by pulling open the suture in the center upper jaw. This suture closes around 12 yrs of age, so the ortho was pleased she is so young. He said whatever spread is done, will likely stay instead of going back to original place. He will take off this appliance and put a bottom one on, and a month later we are ready for braces. Nathalie is good at dental hygiene, she has a water pik and uses it multiple times a day. Frank does any mouth care that she requires, and unless he is gone one evening it will stay that way. I dont do spit...ewww.

Girl Punk

She loves her cat, she calls him her dog. Her dog is much like a dog, he is a Savannah cat and they are much more dog-like than normal cats. They fetch, they follow, they lead. He plays well with her during her outside games, and loves her very much. If she is sick, he stands guard at her bed, often on her feet.

We bought him a small dog bed as he seemed to want his own space. He loves it, and often shares with her. she sits in it when he is not using it. She wears the same clothes that I made for her when she was 4-5 years old. She used to cut her own hair, and it does not grow well. She has my type of hair, thin, fine and slow growing.

She will say that she does not like to work, or do school. She loves math and housework, and if asked how that plays in she says, those are not work, they are playing. She will scour an entire bathroom or kitchen, top to bottom and does not call this work. she will often beat me to the barn in the mornings and do all of the chores before I am even awake.

She loves to grind wheat because it smells good, she loves to bake with her fresh flour and she likes the way the flour feels, warm and powdery.

She is good at math, so very good and yet for some reason she hates to read. She is a good speller, and a has beautiful handwriting. She loves art and draws well for her age. she loves fairies and fancy and believes strongly in imaginative creatures. Despite her claims that she "hates work" she is one of the hardest workers on her swim team. She is fiercely competitive against her own self, working to better her last times. She wants to marry a man that is just like her daddy, and she wants more children than are humanely possible.

Capes and bouncing

I sent Frank out to buy his birthday present, and he came back with this! Which the children are so excited about.

I have been unsuccessful today with blogging photos in order, I just cant get it to work so you have it all messy. This was Nathalie's cape making. She spent about 2 hrs, on an off all day making this. It is a piece of red velour that Frank bought for her at Joann's once, in Ks. she never found a use until this Halloween. She found a gold uniform button and sewed it at the neck, I did have to help her with the button hole but everything else was done alone.

Kitten was unsure of the gilly suit, he did not mind the red cape. This is Tad's gilly suit that mama bought a couple yrs ago for him. He is going to wear it for Halloween, she was just seeing how it looked with her cape.

Kitten says he is all done being here...

Putting together the trampoline. Nathalie loves disguises and dress ups, I am not sure this will change. She will be an adult with children, and will be wearing capes, tutus, funny hats, fake mustaches and noses...

"Hey baby girl, go get the rubber mallet from the shop."

"Mama, take my picture! I be flying in my cape!"

She has been sewing for years of course, but often needs a little help. She laid this out, cut it from her written measurements leaving a wide neck that could be gathered, she hemmed her sides and bottoms, pinning them up alone, found her thread that matched and threaded the machine, and ran her elastic casing and elastic in the neck. Then she sewed on her button and said HELP with the button hole... My mom had to do my buttonholes until I was probably 12, she was asleep one night and I wanted button holes. I say this because, we do them by hand. My machines can do them, and messes them up often enough (hard to rip without destroying the fabric) so we just do hand ones. They are not easy to make perfect.

Finished product!

The kids are both in tumbling, which is 1 of 4 aspects of gymnastics. We could have put them in to learn all apparatus, but they are considerably older than when they were in gymnastics in Sc. So we chose just tumbling to increase diving skills. The coach said that Nathalie is struggling some because she does not remember, Tad can do round-offs, cartwheels, hand stands, walking hand stands and with help can do his back walkovers and back hand springs. She can do her cartwheels if she really focuses, that is all her body remembers. Her upper body strength is not up to par. The coach put them in 2nd level, it is tough for her. She has now learned to do assisted back hand springs, but we need to do more work with her at home. Frank is strong enough to spot her on all of her practice, and we are looking for a used mat on the living room floor. I am NOT strong enough to spot her so it is safe only with daddy home. He also stretches with them many nights. Tad is still struggling with asthma, we are hoping to have that worked out soon with an allergist so that he has more lung capacity and endurance in his sports. That is it for now, lots of things going on, we butcher rabbits tonight so are going to finish school and house cleaning now before we leave for swim practice. We have another meet coming up on the 19th!

This was our 2nd swim meet, the first was much more informal though according to the more seasoned parents, many of the officials/judges were quite picky. About some pretty crazy things! Kids were disqualified left and right, same as last meet though largely by the same judges... Poor kids were hoping to NOT get lane 1 on the girls side and Nathalie got it, on her breaststroke. It was a great breaststroke, she did so well and was disqualified for something the coach said was not even a rule! She is not upset though, its all about learning. This pool was larger than the others we have been in, they had 2 sides so both boys and girls ran races at the same time vs taking turns.

"Let me see your hand, what events are you in? Do we have the same heats?" Nathalie and one of her friend. They are comparing hands.

Coach writes their events, heats and lanes on their hands. There were 45 races on the girls side, 48 on the boys. Frank did timing again, they are always short on timers it seems and he finds it less boring than just sitting in the stands.

"Look, mama be taking pictures of us." The bleachers for the parents were up top. It was not as hot at this pool as the last meet thank goodness, it causes a migraine! The kids can come up to the parents in between their events for a snack, a drink, a hug, or to talk about their race.

It was pretty cold for the kids, the water was colder which makes for better races but the kids get cold between racing. They have a warm up/cool down pool in the center of the racing areas and many children put on sweatshirts between their water times.

Tad is speaking with his timers, I do not know what they talk about but my kids always check with their timers, maybe being sure they are at the right lane/correct heat.

On the block

Take your marks!

Go! I do not have a picture of his dive/entry though I do from last meet. He goes in so neatly!

His glide. As the kids come out of their glide, they begin their stroke. This race is an IM, equal meters of butterfly, backstroke, butterfly and freestyle.

Why walk when you can fly?

In between breast stroke kick.

And he is finished! He ran 3 more races after this, they only allowed 4. Tad is still struggling with his breathing, his lung capacity is low yet and he has to take cough medicine in order to swim, which means he is tired. It slows him and causes him aggravation. We see an allergist this month and hope to fix the problem with his asthma.

Out, next to the next competitor. Sadly, many of the other teams have either been taught to be unkind, or they are simply unkind. My kids are confused by that. Many of the children say MEAN things instead of saying good job or just nothing at all!

Nathalie's first race, adjusting her goggles. She is always nervous for the first race, but seems to love the meets.

Talking to her timers. Each lane has 2 timers, and this is the job Frank enjoys.

On her block...

Take your marks!

In between breast stroke, it was difficult to get pictures of her for all the little girls standing at the side cheering their friends.

Freestyle-coming in at the end of her IM race.

Waiting to see her time

And she is out! Now she goes to see coach, they have to see coach before mama/daddy. It is the rule. They ran more races, but I didnt take a lot of photos. I usually would, but as I had several photos of their starts and in the water, I instead just watched them not through a camera lens. They have been on the team for just over 2 months now, they love it very much. They enjoy practice, but the meets are still a little overwhelming. It is like running up a stairway with someone chasing you, they are nowhere near as fast at meets as they are in practice. It will get easier!