Our Coon

     We finally caught him!  He managed to get the food out of the trap without getting caught about four more times before he finally got trapped.  Abriel, who was terrified of raccoons because of all the sounds in our attic, (Every time raccoons were mentioned, she would vehemently say, "I hate raccoons!") fell in love with it once she saw it.  Samuel was heart broken at not being able to keep it, but he seemed to feel better when we explained that the raccoon had to go live in the woods, where it would be happy.  We did take it to some woods about 10 mi away, but something tells me, that this coon will be seeking civilization soon enough.  He is a little too fond of garbage. 

     Here he is getting ready to go bye bye.  See all the insulation in the bottom of the cage?  Apparently he spent his night in captivity grabbing all the insulation as far as he could reach, and putting it in the cage.  Grrr.   So long Rocky. I won't miss you.

Valentines Day

     Valentines Day.  Usually not my favorite holiday, (not sure why; maybe it has something to do with all the pink cheesiness) but this year I got into it a little.  I found some info and worksheets on St. Valentine, who was killed for performing marriages when it was illegal to do so; hence the romantic aspect to the holiday.  It made me feel a little fonder towards his day. 

        For the kids, I made these little felt pockets with cookies and notes inside, and then hung them on the kids bedroom door, to be discovered in the morning.  The twins were thrilled to find them, as of course, anything to do with cookies is great!  Anna didn't like hers.  I think she was disappointed that I had made her something, and she wasn't able to finish what she had been working on for me.  So she quickly finished it that morning, and gave it to her Daddy instead. Ah, motherhood! A thankless job. Anna is so sensitive and emotional, and all I can think is, "She's eight! These are suppose to be the good years, what will she be like at thirteen?" I shudder to think.
       For Dave I made his favorite kind of breakfast, (sausage, eggs, biscuits, and gravy, all from scratch) as this seemed to me better than getting him a card.  After all , you can't eat a card.  I had Anna help me make the gravy and get the table ready, and that helped perk her up. 
        On a completely different note; I have a raccoon (!) living in my attic.  We are trying to trap him (or her), but so far, the wily bugger has managed to get the food out of the trap without getting caught.  I can hear it right now.  I never thought I would be sharing my house with a raccoon.  I'm not sure what we are going to do with it once it's caught, but I am envisioning some pretty cool nature studies.  Then maybe we'll take it far, far away, and hope it never returns.  You can't help but admire such a clever animal.  I am just waiting to see what it will do tonight.

Creative Playing

     I love seeing my kids creativity in the way they play.  Anna set up a camp site in the living room.

This was their fire.  The red playsilk is the flames.

And of course, you've got to have a hammock.

Dyeing Yarn with Natural Dyes

     I decided to dye the wool yarn I bought to teach Anna to knit on, because I thought it would make the process more complete for her, and also because I really wanted to try out some more natural dye stuffs.  The process of dyeing wool is a bit different than silk; mostly because you always have to be aware that the wool can felt up, and it is also very fragile when wet.

The first step is to make your yarn into long skeins.  I am assuming the reason you do this is to keep the yarn from becoming hopelessly tangled while you're dyeing it.  Anna just wound hers on the back of a chair.  A very easy way to do it.

After you take it off the chair, tie it in a few places to keep it together.  Then the next step, I did not do, but really wish I had.  You are suppose to wash the yarn in a gentle detergent in order to wash out the lanolin, and make it absorb the dye better.  I thought that this yarn, not being hand spun, had surely already been processed enough.  Apparently it still could have used a wash, since the yarn didn't seem to take the dye as well as it might, and there was a oil sheen on top of the water, as well as a strong smell of lanolin.  So, live and learn.

Presumably, after you've washed your yarn, you need to soak it in a mordant.  I just used vinegar.  I didn't measure anything, but it might be about 1 part vinegar to 6 parts water.  It has to soak for at least thirty minutes, so I went ahead and prepared my dye stuff while it was soaking. 
      I used onion skins, turmeric, and pine cones, but added tea to the pine cones when they didn't make the water dark enough.  The onion skins I collected over a period of time.  Whenever I cooked an onion, I would just toss the skins in a mesh bag.  Doing this, I got a lot of skins without wasting any onions.

I boiled the onion skins and the pine cones/tea until the water looked pretty dark, and then fished out the bulk of the dye stuffs, but didn't strain it.  The turmeric, I put into the pot right before I added the yarn. It didn't need to boil. After that, I just added the yarn and waited..., and waited.  The yarn really didn't seem to be absorbing the colors like it should, so I gave up getting them any darker after about four hours. 

 After rinsing, and rinsing, (the turmeric took FOREVER to rinse out) I hung them to dry.  Not as dark as I had hoped, but still very pretty.  The turmeric is crazy bright.  It does not look like it was dyed with anything natural.  It's Anna's favorite.
     All in all, a very fun project.  I can't get enough of natural dyeing.  The results are so wonderfully unpredictable.

Planning for next year, already

     Come February, my homeschooling steam starts running pretty low.  That's when I start planning for next year, in order to get that "big picture" in front of me again.  Figuring out what books I need to buy, what additional resources I need to line up, and etc.  This is the stuff I love.  I could plan and research forever.
     In searching for Marco Polo resources tonight, I came across a wonderful film called In The Footsteps of Marco Polo I will definitely be using this as part of our Marco Polo geography studies, but I am wondering what else to do.  I like this Marco Polo book, by Demi, but I am still searching for blank maps of that area similar to the ones BF books has for the Holling books.  Does anyone know if one exists?  You would think, considering how many people study Marco Polo's travels that someone would make one.  Hmmm... maybe that's a summer project for me to do. 
     I have also been getting all the AO books for year 3, that are available, downloaded to my kindle.  I like actual books best, but boy! you can't beat free books.  I love my kindle for getting all those free or cheap classics, but as far as buying regular priced books on it; no thank you.  The way I see it, a kindle book is just on loan.  If you can't give it away, sell it or loan it out to whoever you want, than you don't really own it.
     Speaking of kindle books; a book I have recently fallen in love with (and have on my kindle) is Grammar-Land.  What a great little book!  I am definitely going through this with Anna next year.  I also love the fact that you can get free worksheets to go along with it.  I already have them all printed out and hole punched.  How's that for planning ahead? 
     I am tired.  I know I should go to bed, but Dave is working late- again. Blah.  After spell-checking my post, I know I need to go to bed.  This might be a record amount of typos for me.  I think I even spelt "year" backwards.

Happy Birthday Samuel and Abriel!

     My babies are three.  It doesn't seem that long ago that they were tiny little babies; not running, talking, singing, memorizing Bible verses, learning to count, toddlers. 

    They got their Birthday measurements done.  Abriel has kept her lead on Samuel.  I wonder if at some point this will bother him.  He sees himself as older, or at least more capable at doing things, and Abriel is more than happy to let him open doors for her, or pour her a glass of milk, so I don't think being a little shorter will bother him much.
     

     We had a very simple party for them, which I think they were able to enjoy more than if I had gone all out.  I made some permanent decorations this year, that all of the kids can have for their Birthdays.  This banner was fun and easy to make.  Even better because I didn't have to buy any thing to make it.  It was made from scraps I had leftover from other projects.

     The Birthday ring I bought from an Etsy dealer.  I love it.  The wood is so beautiful. I made the decorations for it.  I had a lot of fun thinking of what to put in it.  The snowman is because their birthday is in the winter, the heart is for February, the squirrel and the bunny are just because they like those animals, and of course there is a number three.  I also have a little picture of them as newborns.

This picture was taken when they were just a few days old.  Maybe I'm biased, but I think they were the most beautiful newborn I've ever seen.  When I was looking through the old photos to find one to put in the Birthday ring, Anna looked at baby picture of them, and said, "I miss them."  I know how she feels.  They are babies for such a short time, and then they're not.  However, as sweet as they were as newborns, I don't think I would like to re-live that time.  Newborn twins are tough.  That whole time is sort of a hazy blur. 

      Here's their cake.  Two little squirrels sharing one acorn.  Kind of like their life.  Being twins hasn't always made them the best sharers, but they are definitely familiar with the concept.  The idea for their cake came from my desire to not use dye in it.  I've been trying to cut back on the amount of dye the kids eat, and so I couldn't see avoiding pre made food with too much dye, and then adding a bunch into something I made for them.  Anna's birthday cake this year was simple, as she wanted a cheesecake (Yum!), but I wanted to do something a little more kid themed for the twins.  A girl cake is easy because you can dye it pink with raspberry or strawberry juice, but what can you do for a gender neutral cake?  So a snowy cake, (It's white!) seemed like the perfect solution.  They like snow, and they have really been into fir trees since Christmas.  When we are driving around, every fir tree they see is a Christmas tree, and they get soooo excited about a tree they see in the highway median.  We have tons of squirrels, (too many) so that seemed like a perfect animal to have on it.  I sprinkled coconut on everything to make it more snowy.   I think it turned out cute, and it was so easy to decorate compared with other cakes I have done in the past.

It was good too!  The cute little boy in the middle is their nephew.  He is two months younger than they are, and they just looove him. 
     They were so excited about their Birthday this year.  So much so, that next year I'm not sure if I'll tell them they are going to have a party until seconds before the guests arrive!  They woke me up at FIVE O' CLOCK in the morning, asking, "Is it Birthday party time?!"  And they continued to ask that about every five minutes, until it finally was BIRTHDAY PARTY TIME!

Learning to Knit

     Anna has been begging me for years to teach her to knit, and I've been putting it off and putting it off.  I taught my self to knit as an adult, (when Anna was a toddler) and I had a really hard time getting the hang of it at first.  I'm not sure why; maybe it was partly to do with the fact that I was so comfortable crocheting, (which was learned as a child) that my hands didn't want to adjust to the new moves.  So, even though knitting is just as easy as crocheting to me now, I still had the idea that knitting was a lot harder to learn.  I taught Anna how to crochet a few months ago, and she's been making all her dolls scarves; but since she sees me knitting all the time, she kept asking, "Mama, when are you going to teach me how to knit?"  I have to admit I was intimidated at the thought. 
     I knew in Waldorf schools they teach every first grader how to knit, so I thought, OK, what's their trick?  I started researching how Waldorf schools teach children to knit, and came across this little rhyme: 

"Look in through the front door,

Go around the back,

Peek in the window,

And off jumps Jack!"

     I know this is a common little rhyme, but I had never heard it before.  After I saw it, I knew that I wasn't going to have any trouble teaching her.  I wish I had learned to knit this way! I decided to have her go through the whole experience of learning to knit, starting with making her own needles.  Ideally, we would have seen a sheep get sheared, then see the wool get spun into yarn first, but since it's winter, we will have to wait until spring to see a seep shearing.  I already have a farm that we can visit lined up.    She has seen someone spin a couple of times, and I thought that would do. 

     For the needles, I got a 1/4 in. dowel, fine sand paper, and some little caps for the ends.  I cut the dowel into ten in. lengths, then Anna got to work.

     First she sharpened them on our pencil sharpener, just like you would a pencil.  Our pencil sharpener does a very gradual tapering off, which I find a little annoying with pencils, but worked perfectly for the needles.

     Next she sanded them as smooth as smooth can be, starting with 150 grit, and ending with 600 grit, which was the finest I could find.  She also rounded off the tip so they wouldn't be sharp.

The ends were glued on by dipping the end of the dowel in the glue bottle, then putting on the caps.

     After the glue dried, they were waxed with a beeswax polish and buffed smooth.  They turned out to be a size 10.5 according to my needle sizer.  The needles were now ready to be used, and she couldn't wait to try them out. 

     She caught on so quickly I was amazed.  The rhyme broke every step down, so the she could understand what she was suppose to be doing.  So much better than me saying, "Now put your needle in here, around here, now in here", etc.  I can't get her to weave the yarn through her fingers to control tension, but she seems to get on OK without doing it. 

     I got single ply "fulled" wool yarn for her to learn on, since I figured that would be easiest, and I got cream so that we could dye it too. 

     I used turmeric, onion skins, and tea to dye it.

     Here are the skeins drying.  Didn't they turn out pretty?  I have a wonderful book "Making Toys With Children", which has some simple knitted animal patterns.  I decided to use these for her to learn on, since in very little time you can actually have a neat finished product.  Anna has trouble finishing any project that takes longer than a couple of days to complete, but nobody wants to just make pointless little swatches.   The pattern for a chicken couldn't be easier, (It's just a square) so that is what she did first. 

Isn't that cute?  She is thrilled to have not only learned to knit today, but also have a little stuffed chicken to show for it.  I think she took the chicken to bed with her. 

     Of course, now that she has her own knitting needles and yarn, she needs a bag to keep it in, so I made her a linen drawstring bag with an "A" on it, just for her. 

Abriel the Artist

Abriel has really gotten into drawing faces.  They are so funny and expressive, that I just had to share.  Of course, I know I might be a bit biased. ;) I found these on the marker board today.

This one looks rather angry, or maybe just determined.

This one has something on his mind that he's not going to share yet.

And this one is worried.

     I'm having trouble accepting the fact that my babies are going to be three in just a few days.  Already they are talking so much, and are getting bigger in so many ways.  Good bye babyhood.



No More TV

      It's funny how you hardly notice something slowly encroaching on your life, until one day you look around and think, "What happened?"  That was TV for us.  I've always been strict on the amount of TV that I allowed the kids to watch, but then the twins started really liking it.  And it was so much easier to get supper on while they were watching a movie, and then a little TV in the morning didn't hurt, and it was so nice for them to have something to do during school, and, etc, etc...  Until suddenly I woke up and thought, "What am I doing?  This is not what I want my children to do all day."  So I made a New Years resolution, to get the kids off the TV. (and the computer, as Anna was getting way too into computer games.)  I was dreading doing it, since I knew there would be constant whining for awhile, and I really didn't know how I was going to keep the twins from turning on the TV when I wasn't watching.  I tried unplugging it once, but they figured out that trick within seconds, and Dave wouldn't let me disconnect the cable.  It turns out, I didn't have to do anything.  Our TV broke right before New Years.  Completely flat-lined; not even any static.  Haha! It's great when things work out like that.
         Of course, the day after it broke, Dave was looking at adds for a new TV.  Out of everyone in our household, Dave watches the least amount of TV, but he absolutely will not consent to not having one.  Grrrr.... I have tried every argument I can think of in favor of not having a TV, but to no avail.  However, we haven't replaced our old TV yet, so I might prevail after all.

     Here's my guys zoned out in front of the TV with their cousins.  No more toddler zombies for me, thank you.

Nature Journaling- More Fungus

    Last year because of all the snow we had, we were able to do more traditional winter nature studies.  This year has been so mild it has hardly snowed at all, but apparently all the damp cold has brought on a different type of winter nature study; fungus.  Anna found some Witches Butter today.  Another bright spot of color in a drab winter landscape.

This time she happily wrote about it in her nature journal without any prompting from me.  She did ask me when I was going to write in my nature journal.  Ummmm.... sometime?  Here's her entry.