mustardseed freeschoolers

herbs and bird feeders

 

another of Lucy's "paper + plastic recycling bin find + watercolor painting + glue= treats for birds" projects. This time, as we didn't have any birdseed, she grabbed nuts and seeds from the pantry. We'll see how the songbirds like almonds.

We've been going on almost daily foraging walks and gathering nettles and dandelions and violets. Here was a lovely fuzzy foxglove before it flowers.

and here's my monstrous two year old calendula plant which self-seeded about a dozen seedlings this spring. I keep a box on the sideboard just for calendula. I set the blossoms on top of the box and when they're dry, I toss them in the box. I know, real high tech. It seems to work, and I fully intend to mimic a friends rather amazing calendula salve this autumn.

in the garden

the littlest sprouts of last year's gobo burdock in a shallow little pot. Clearly, as their roots get incredibly long, I need to get this puppy in the ground! I was so happy to see it!

We harvested oodles of dandelion flowers and leaves from the yard prior to the first mow. We ate some of the flowers and dried some for seeding the side yard. The leaves are in an infusion right now, and it smells just like spinach. I think we'll harvest the rest of the unmowed yard's worth of dandelion leaves and plantain for a big pot of "lawn soup" ... you know, just to scare the neighbors.

lemon balm going strong... as always!

Lucy masterminded this birdhouse. She insisted that this idea would work and that birds would just come in droves to nest here. I do like her lovely painting job. She just kept coming to me saying things like, "where's the wire"   or  "can I make a glue paste"..... any of these phrases coming from an unmonitored child's art project could mean disaster. Fortunately, no.

egg decorating 2012

 

 

Each year, egg decorating gets more and more elaborate. These kids pulled out all the stops this year. We had the favorite sharpie eggs, ribbon wrapped eggs, beaded eggs, crayon eggs for the littles, glitter, stickers. Fortunately they're also old enough to clean up after this mess of a project. They had so much fun and the eggs came out really fun. Egg decorating with teenagers resulted in angry bird eggs. I don't even know what angry birds is other than infectiously popular and rather cute on a teeshirt. This was Harrison's first real Easter egg hunt, and he loved it.

At the end, he plopped down with a rogue dirty egg and ate it shell and all.

opening night has come and gone

 

The big weekend of Chloe's play has come and gone. I tell you, those kids really did an awesome job. This show looked pretty rough one week before the show was set to go on (as is always the case with community theater, I tell you), but by opening night they were golden. There was so much energy and talent in this cast! The tiny jester in the back is Chloe, by the way.

The spring weather has certainly come. We've been out in the garden adding medicinal plants here and there and discovering things we didn't remember we'd even planted! It's been so soul soothing to spend most of the day outside getting dirty. We've got a new kid flower garden and Papa even built the little guys a sandbox!

where we've been

 

 

 

what a week. I've hardly touched this space. I wasn't quite avoiding it, but there's been some ugliness around us. It's going to be ugly here again this week, and I'm not looking forward to it. Needless to say, my children are sweet and lovely and easy to waste a day staring at in wonder. It's funny how much you fall in love with a person, watching them grow up. Watching these little boys, I remember back to when the fourteen year old was a little person. That little person doesn't exist anymore. I adore the person who has replaced him, but I alone get to treasure who he was and hold that memory in my heart. The older I get, the more I realize I have in common with all mothers of all ages and from all places. It's absolutely universal. and magical.

Clearly, the above pictures have little to do with the yammery post. Simon started yet another track season, and the kids tested for their next belt level. Sadie and Simon are now brown belts, and Chloe has earned her green. Another year of cheerleading tryouts are nearly upon us, and Simon has toyed with the idea of going to 9th grade full time.... Where did it all go?!

13

 (terrible photo, my apologies. little people adjusting settings on my camera. This was the sweetest Harry Potter themed gift basket from some little friends. It had some licorice wands, pumpkin pasties and a raven feather writing quill among other little goodies.)

 (The oldest brother bought her a locket... a cooler, trendier locket than that of her younger years.)

 Harrison sang her a happy birthday. His rendition, though not word for word accurate, was full of strong emotion and sung with gusto.

 

 (relighting candles never get old.)

 (Simon's birthday serenade)

It's not everyday a young girl turns 13... sorry, couldn't help myself. What a week. Without inundating my readers in an ocean of drama, I'll just say some ugliness is testing my sweet children. I tell you, I am SO wildly proud of them. They are truly tough, sweet people. They're not perfect. There are fights and mean words and laziness and sneakery. They're CHILDREN, not saints. But, having said that, they're awesome. They're caring and responsible and able to roll with the punches. Even in my current awesomeness ;), I was never this stable or resilient of heart at their age.

Chloe celebrated her 13th this weekend. She attended a Harry Potter movie night (4pm-9am: all the movies!) at a local theater. I think she learned a thing or two about real friendship as well. It's funny, when you homeschool, you miss out on a lot of those ugly but necessary lessons about people. I didn't want my kids to miss out on life lessons like that, but I wanted them to get these lessons when they were older- in a better place emotionally than say, kindergarten.

 

sloppy toddlers, new-to-us board games and the end of a show's run

The joy of mess. It makes a two year old's day (or one and three year olds in this case). I've thought about doing this with food (mashed potatoes or even yams or pea soup) though I'm not sure why.

We scored these awesome boardgames at a garage sale for two bucks apiece!! Scattergories is my ALL TIME favorite game, and the kids have been playing game after game after game of it since it hit the house. Cranium has always been one of their faves and the other two are newbies to us. We'll see how they rate after some time in kid hands....

I'm so sad that our most recent show is winding down. It's been an amazing show. Really. The Papa grabbed some shots from backstage (a vantage point not every one gets to enjoy) and I really feel like it captures the mood of a show like this. Where the words are just as  important as the abundant physical comedy. Being a community theater, we don't always put on Broadway quality shows. This one, however, is pushing perfect. I just adore our little playhouse.

PS 66 light cues in this one and run by our own first-timer, Simon!! He has done a fantastic job, and I'm really proud of him. He's already been recruited for the next show's lights and is being eyed for the following show.... I'll make a theater geek out of him yet.

spring water play and spring sprouts... SPRING!!

Every year, I forget how much I love spring. I'm pretty happy in any weather. I like snow and rain (fortunately), but I sure do adore the newborn colors of spring and that blossoming sunshine! On the warmest day of the year thus far, the kids wanted to have a squirt gun fight. On the whole, I'm not a big fan of guns as toys. We have many other fun objects to play with before we start pretending that shooting each other is fun. Having said that, water guns are different, I think. The boys pretended like they were reading in the rain (under umbrellas) while the girls enjoyed shooting at them ... win, win.

Of course, the game degraded to just plain water fight by afternoon's end after the boys came into the house with the fully-expected tears and arguments that come along with an "anything" fight. sigh. what can a mama do? I explained before the fight that someone always gets their feelings hurt/eyeballs hurt and that it would end poorly, mark my words...... I did give them the slightest "I told you so" glance when they came in, clearly upset with each other. Strangely, they said nothing about their troubles..... It's taken years for them to be able to have those kinds of struggles with each other and not come directly to me, the not-self-appointed, one-man house judicial system, to have their problems solved. Hey, I was just chopping vegetables over here.

(crossing our fingers as this one has to over winter....)

It's funny when the kids get out the camera. I got a nice stock of all the things growing in the front yard. Thane has been on a watering kick and anytime we get to play outside, a good portion of his time is spent watering. Apparently today, he gave a little extra attention to the teeny little madder plant and hawthorn seed we have percolating till after next winter. Some of our herb seeds are sprouting up quite nicely. We have dill and clover (my poor husband just shakes his head when I plant clover and dandelions.... I did promise not to plant the stinging nettle in the yard.)

ants on a plateau, three year old writing and first pair of knitted gloves

Thane copied down his name all by himself the other day. He was very proud though it's hard to tell from the photo. I think he was going for a serious, scholarly sort of look.

I was saving the celery for the soup, so we had ants on a.... rock (I suggested plateau, but no one seemed to like that one). Lucy was very proud of these concoctions, and she's wearing the dress we made with the fabrics she chose.... she's obviously not afraid of color or patterns. The top's an old long sleeved tee and the bottom stripe is a bed sheet- I couldn't help myself.

Finished up the second glove!! My first pair of fingered gloves..... and you can most certainly tell. In the background, the Papa's next directorial endeavor- Sherlock's Last Case by Charles Marowitz. So far, it's a hilarious read. He directed another play (Clever Dick) by this author last season. Originally, it was to be under MY direction but as I now have eight million children, I'm a smidge busy. Ah well, I'll share. He does a darned fine job of it, so it's okay. Our little playhouse is how we met- I cast him to play a role in a suitshirt and underpants. It was awesome, but that's a story for another day.

(photofrom erinellenbergermarch.com)

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These giveaways are a hoot! I hope I'm simply sharing the great information with all my internet friends and not irritating the living potatoes out of people!

 

banana watermelon ice cream, toilet paper tubes and seed starting

This is a favorite around here, and with how well Thane's stomach doesn't do with dairy, he's been convinced that this is ice cream. Freeze some bananas and some chopped watermelon. When you're ready to make the ice cream, let them sit out for a bit so they soften just a little. Play with this idea to determine whether you're a banana heavy or watermelon heavy fake ice cream kind of person. You can make this with out one or the other- lots of people do. Some throw in avocado for fatty creaminess- it's really good too. You can add a sweetener if you'd like.

I had mine for dinner after blending in some strawberries. It turned soupy (I was making fruit soup) and I chopped some pineapple and pink lady apples and drizzled it all with honey.

I wandered past mayamade the other day and saw this funny little post. I happen to have an eight year old who is obsessed with making things out of toilet paper tubes.... I don't know why, but if she wants to craft, I'm on board!! So I copied, stitched these up and sketched a little face on one side of a few of them for the smaller crafters.

http://mayamade.blogspot.com/2012/03/tp-cat.html

 

 

It must be sticker season- I gotcha cricut, right here! This is the commercial sticker signage machine that tends to come up from the basement for race cars and summer event banners. Grandma was wonderful enough to give us replacement metal water bottles (all our lids had disappeared in our last move a couple of years ago and I've gotten creative with transporting mason jars.... and shattered my fair share in the process) and I'm hoping the papa will make everyone their own fancy sticker for the side of each.... hint, hint.

and, of course, the obligatory seed starting shot. All our left over medicinal herb seeds from last year went into the soil. I am so excited for the possibility of having all these herbs! It feels like Christmas!