Pioneer Farms

This was a great trip... although we hadn't planned on doing both, but ended up doing it anyway and I am so glad I did. My kids loved it! Those goats were a kick. I have about 20 more pictures of the 45 minutes they followed Logan around. Every time he would run, the would BOLT to catch up... sometimes nearly knocking him down in the process. Of course, Logan throught it was great fun. :) All in all a good day for us in the Rose Garden.

Hurts and haircuts

So we have had an eventful couple of days. The other day Cyan fell off her scooter and bashed her face into the concrete. She is toothless as it is (in the same way all 2nd graders are) and then she fell off her scooter and went teeth first into the concrete. Now one of her brand spanking new permanent teeth is chipped (it isn't even half way in yet), as well as another one (baby tooth to the side of the two front teeth) is broken IN HALF and the other side of the two missing teeth is super loose and the gum is terribly bruised. This would be teeth 4 and 5 she has chipped. The girl just falls RIGHT on her mouth! Every time!

Good news: The two teeth that were knocked loose have teeth coming in soon, so they don't have to do much of anything to them, although they look awful and she JUST lost (like June 27th) the last tooth that was chipped from her baby teeth. UGH! But if that is all, my dd will have snaggle teeth until she gets all her big teeth, and apparently that is all there is to it. (*Sigh*)

Bad news, she displaced one of her permanent teeth (not the one she chipped, the other one that is barely though, she has a lot of gum damage that goes with that) and pushed it back. There is still strong root foundation so he says it isn't dead or anything, but she may need pediatric orthodontia to move it back where it needs to be with in the next year if she has a cross bite (which is the most likely, but not terrible).

All in all, she was lucky. The worse damage is on teeth she is going to loose in the next 6 months anyway, and he said that the bump just speeded up the process and that she should wiggle them and get them out as soon as possible. This isn't great, because she doesn't have any front teeth (4 bottom, two top) as it is, so loosing 2 more is going to be a REAL pain until she starts getting those in all the way, but it is better than needing lots of dental work I guess.

A picture of Cyan's teeth after accident

I am leaving this picture off the post because it is a bit graphic. In this picture, you can see the broken off tooth on the left, the partially broken new tooth in the middle, and how the tooth to the right middle is pushed back pretty badly. You can see where her the tooth was (bloody line) and then where it is now. That is the biggest thing we are worried about. The other one on the right is knocked loose, but he said that wasn't too bad because the other tooth is RIGHT behind it, so if there was a time to have this happen and have it be 'good', now would be it.

The other big news is Logan got his first haircut!

I nearly cried as all his sweet little curls were chopped off to make way for a big boy look... but I think it is cute and he was ready as it was starting to get right in his eyes.

He made it through like a champ thanks to this place called "Jack and Jill's", which is a little kids salon and worth every penny of the extra $6 per hair cut compared to Super Cuts. :)

He even got to sit in a police car and 'drive' while she was trimming the back of his hair... isn't that cute?

Make way for the big boy! He will be 18 mos tomorrow and is by far and away the youngest my children have ever needed a hair cut... so it sorta broke my heart, but it looks great, he was not traumatised, and I will get used to not having those sweet curls to play with pretty quickly all things considered.

Racing horses and Thundering Birds...

Oh wow. What a great day for good pictures! I took Alex to the airport this morning for his annual 6wks with his dad in FL. Logan LOVED the planes. He was so excited he didn't want to leave. Every time I said it was time to go, he ran to the window and pointed at the planes again. Even after Alex plane had taken off and gone down the run way. Logan wanted to yell "Bye! Bye!" to all the planes that were moving around the airport. It was super cute.

While we were dropping Alex off at the airport and saying 'bye-bye' to planes, one of my dear homeschool friends took Cyan with her to Emerald Downs to watch horse races. Logan and I met up with the group after dropping off Alex and having lunch. We got to the race track about 40 minutes before the horse races started. The kids got a personal tour of the place beforehand and Cyan says it was amazing. I can't wait to get the pictures. :)

The horse races were great though. What a sweet place too! They had little pony rides, a big blow up slide, and a bounce house for the little kids, and of course, they had the horse races for us big kids. It was $5 for us, and no charge for all of the kids.

The kids watched with mouths agape while the horses were running. They even got to witness a horse get pulled for being too jumpy at the start of the race.

It was completely a My Fair Lady moment where they all stopped what they were doing and watched in awe as the horses ran back around the edge of the track and started to round to the finish line.

#4 won...

Isn't that the sweetest surprised face?

#4 getting a pat on the head for running a great race!

Soon after we left for home. We had, after all, been up and in the car, airport, or seat at the horse race since just before 9am. It was time to settle down for an quiet afternoon at home.

Then, on the way home, we started to see the most beautiful fly overs from jets. Logan, still completely in the mood for airplanes, was pointing and yelling each time they flew over. The closer I got to the air force base, the more I realised that these were the Thunderbirds!

Some of these shots take my breath away... they were flying over us at hundreds of miles per hour... we stopped on the side of the freeway with a slew of other gawkers, stopped to watch the Thunderbirds fly over and do their tricks.

I already had my camera set to take action shots due to the races... so I couldn't help pulling it out.

What a fun day to be behind a camera. :)

Come one, Come all!

Birthday Funnies

Dialog witnessed by a dear friend between my daughter and her 6 friends at a birthday party:



Girl #1: "Just step on it!"



Cyan: "NO! You don't have to, it will go away."



Girl #2: "My mommy squishes them with shoes."



Girl #3: "My daddy gets poison and kills them all!"



Cyan, getting more and more dramatic by the momemnt: "Don't you care about LIFE??"



Girl #2: "They're just bugs!"



Cyan: "Bugs have feelings! They have life!" At this point she starts pinching the other girls (not hard) and saying "See this!?! Do you feel that? That's because you have LIFE!"



At this point, dear friend steps in: "Girls. We all do differently and I think Cyan has something she would like to say. Cyan, what is it?"



Cyan: "I just care about LIFE!" Exasperated sigh and rolling of the eyes as she walks away arms crossed dramatically.



Apparently there was much more to the converstaion that dear friend did not catch beforehand... and all the girls are friends again after dear friend explained that everyone does things differently in every family.



Which I demonstrated as I grabbed a moth from the house and tossed it outside while one of the dads said "You just grabbed that with your hand???"

School Party

A dear friend of mine's daughter had a school birthday party... complete with a school bus. We were all asked to wear 'first day of school' clothes and bring along some show and tell. It was an amazing party and when I get more pictures I will post them, because it was wonderful. Cafateria food, show and tell, heads up seven up, and a bus ride home... how much fun is that for a group of homeschooling girls? They giggled the WHOLE time.

Look at these two friends, waiting for the bus. So cute!

Pictures of a good day, complete with chocolate.

Hot cocoa for all...

Yes even him. ;)

A bad picture of me, but the only one ever with my guitar.

Taking a picture of Alex, taking a picture of me...

Taking a picture.

And some fun, lighting things on fire:

It rained that night... and it was COLD that day. But I am sure the fire fighters were glad. They didn't have anything to do in our neck of the woods on the 4th of july. No fires on that cold cold wet day. But it cleared up just as night fell, and we got to have some fun anyway. Perfect, if you ask me.

And another year begins......

The start of our year is going beautifully! Cyan said the sweetest thing to me today. She said that she likes doing homeschool so much better that school now because I make it much more fun. :) This is the face of a happy mama.

Alex is a bit more difficult, but he is used to being told what to do, and then the teacher accepting whatever he did with the assignment he was given. I don't do that. What a harsh reality for him. I actually expect him to 'show his work', 'explain his thinking', and learn how to summarize. I also expect him to be quiet when I am working with Cyan or Logan. And that is going amazingly well from his end. Cyan on the other hand, will need a bit of help in that dept. But all in all, we are doing great for the start of the year.

Currently, Alex is working on 'order of operations' for his algebraic program that he is starting in August. I found this wonderful site that really has been helpful with it! Amby's Math Resource It was fun for me to play through to see if I still had what it took to do 8th grade math. I do. Teeheehee... it was quite the little rush.

Cyan is working on the same stuff she stopped on in May. The next Explode the Code, Singapore Math, and a few early readers which when she tries, she can really read. We are working on digraphs, and compound words in phonics, and she is loving that... Starfall has been great as a reward for her after she is done with her book work. Who knew a educational website could be such motivation?

I have adjusted our weeks to work with Don's already. I don't know how that is going to work out, but I do think it will be incentive for them to do their school work quickly on days like today and yesterday, where their friends are home, and ready to play.

The ice cream man has been another reward for a school day well done. What a wonderful way to end one of these horridly hot days. Who knew that such a cold spring would turn into such a scorching summer?

All in all... life is good. :)

California Condors

My mom sent us this picture from down her street today.

Sweet Summer

Our yard is bringing forth bounty once more. We have had endless salads of our spinach, chard and beet greens. The strawberries are producing and we are starting to get the years first few raspberries... which makes the kids so terribly happy! I LOVE watching my kids be proud to bring in eggs from our chickens, and to go out and pick chives and other herbs for dinner dishes, spinach for salad, and now strawberries and raspberries for fruit salads. There is something so comforting and fundamental about growing your own food. I feel blessed to be in a place where I can really share that joy (and mild obsession) with my children.

The children are starting to look like Palomino horses. The bronze skin with the sun bleached hair... beautiful. They spend 90% of their time outside. That is going to double when we get the trampoline this weekend. It is their birthday gift from us... a 14 footer... with safety net attached. It should be SO much fun. I am actually excited to get up on the thing and try it out.

Here is the promise of more bounty to come. I am pinching some of the flowers now for salads, along with Borage flowers, and some new cilantro leaves... but soon there will be peas, and then beets, and soon after sunflowers and blueberries. After that the tomatoes, basil, and... oh... my mouth just waters thinking about August and the beauty that will bring. Summer is such a beautiful thing.

Summer school for me

CS Lewis some Turkish Delights...

 I have always loved things that bring stories and ideas together with reality. Say like a book that comes with the perfect stuffed animal, or the cookbook that comes with a set of cookies made from it with notes from the gift giver. Those are my favorite types of gifts and I try to make my gift giving as three dementional as I can in that way. When I read the book "Prince Caspian" to my children a couple months ago I bought Turkish Delights "Aplets and Cotlets" for them to snack on while I was reading. It was a neat experience for them, as I don't think they had ever had them before. For me, as a kid I went to the Aplets and Cotlets factory each time we drove through the area and I remember eating them our tiny B2-10 Datsun with my brothers and my mom very well.  

All of us homeschooling, vacationing mamas picked up some "Turkish Delights" while on our woman's retreat this weekend... and tonight the kids and I sat and watched Narnia while eating them from a silver plate.  I don't know if it is a memory that will hold for them or not... but I like to collect the moments where I can.  :)