farmer kaya and family

So much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it.

2010-06-22T00:25:00.001-04:00

I've found that lately I've been spending less and less time online. Even facebook, which I used to always be so excited for just barely interests me anymore.

It all started with my yahoo groups. I kinda just stopped reading them. Those daily digests would pile up by the hundreds in my mailbox. Then when we decided to go on the road I knew the internet situation was going to change so I unsubscribed or went to no mail on most groups. I didn't miss it at all really.

After a few months of slow or non existent internet. I found the only thing that I really cared about was facebook. I can keep up with almost all my friends in one place. And I still do love it for that. But even so, I find myself going there less and less and pretty much not at all on the actual computer. (I can see a condensed version on my phone) And just focusing on being here with my family instead.

I don't think its all because of the annoying internet. I'm not sure why really, i just don't seem to have time. And I'm not one of those people who thinks playing on the computer is a waste of time believe me. It seems that right now. (And always) my kids are all growing and changing and learning things at such an alarming rate I'm racing to keep up with them. I just need to be here.

They are all swimming like crazy, Kaya by himself in the deep water. Pearl and Fern just started using their swimmies and now already Fern is trying to swim without them. Pearl is really getting comfy in the water and isn't minding getting water on her face anymore, which is HUGE for her.

Pearl and Fern are riding their bikes by themselves and also riding in the bike trailer we got so Kaya and I can go fast ;)

Besides that there's always the massive pretending sessions, reading, writing, coloring, dressup, cooking, making food out of playdough, obsessing about our latest obsession (right now: harry potter). You know, life stuff.

So, I'm sorry to anyone who I haven't been keeping in touch with. Its really not a strength of mine. It doesn't mean I don't love you, I do.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

heaven

2010-03-17T02:41:00.003-04:00

i would upload more pictures but im tired of waiting 10 minutes for an error message. SO ill just leave you with this.
there's bananas, apple fruit leather, pumpkin seeds, cashews, pecans, walnuts. what more could you even want? well i guess chocolate macaroons. then it would really be perfect.

alligator farm

2010-02-27T11:52:00.005-05:00

we went to the alligator farm in st augustine a couple weeks ago. it was pretty expensive but luckily pearl and fern were free (because i said they were 3, lol) everyone had alot of fun though so it was worth it.
the alligator farm has every species of crocodilian on the planet. its the only place that does. we got to see them feeding the alligators and one was just a few feet in front of us (behind plexi glass) eating a dead rat. mmm.

these funny guys were saying "hello" the kids thought it was awesome of course

relaxing

2010-02-27T03:16:00.006-05:00

some pictures of the kids hanging out in the rv waiting for the weather to warm up . . . and i think it has :)

i'm realizing that road life can get too busy for us slow moving folks if i let it. being in saint augustine was so fun (and i hope to go back before we leave florida) but lately its been really nice to just hang out and not be rushing to get to the beach or some tourist attraction everyday (doesnt that sound rough?!) but seriously time to regroup is good :)

changing plans...

2010-02-03T04:39:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure why I even bother calling them plans or telling anyone what we are going to do until we're actually doing it! We're in orange park right now, north of saint augustine, south west of jacksonville. Very suburban. Lots of thrift stores, very cheap rv park! AND shannon and jack are here and we just can't bear to leave them, hehe. We were just going to stay the weekend but we've been hanging out with this other family who lives in their bus and we've been having fun. The kids have been playing almost everyday since we got here and me and shannon have managed to keep each other laughing the whole time. We found a super cheap (but not so beautiful) rv park here that we are going to stay at for a month (bc that's how you get it cheap). Hopefully by the end of the month we will get all the broken things fixed, all our legalities in order (becoming florida residents bc its easier for the rv life) and get some money saved.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

What's going on... What's going on...

2010-01-29T05:48:00.002-05:00

I'm writing this fron my phone so things are automatically capitalized and punctuated. Very out of character for me, eh?

We have been staying with our friend bonnie north of jacksonville this week. Even though its only 20 minutes to jacksonville it is very country-like, this is the south and I keep getting funny reminders of it. Anyway its been nice staying here. Bonnie has a a nice yard and a big trampoline that the kids have been enjoying. They are having fun just playing with her and going out to run errands and stuff too. Its been a nice relaxing week so far.

On saterday danny has a pro poker tournament that he is excited to go watch a little south of here. We will go park by there for the night and then we are thinking back to st aug for a bit more. I have a few more touristy things I want to do there and we need to get our water pump fixed before we do much else. We also have to say bye to all the awesome people we've met around here!
So ya, our water pump is broken. I'm don't want be a whiner and I'm trying to be positive about it but seriously, shit keeps breaking! We got about to the carolinas when the batteries and generator started acting up and then the engine. We got all that taken care of a while ago. Lately its been electrical stuff and both tvs shorted out. Not to mention dannys computer has been messed up since before we left. It all piled up so quick we have been choosing the big stuff to take car of. It will all get done anyway and we are having fun no matter what! Its been warming up, not beach weather yet but it was so cold a couple weeks ago ill take anything now!

Staying here with bonnie has made me realize what an awesome network of unschoolers and other awesome friends we have at our fingertips. We want to go and hang out with new friends and old friends and staying with other families is way cooler than campgrounds and parking lots! I'm going to try to be more organized with my online life so I can find people who will have us stay with them(we will pay for whatever electricity and water we use of course). I need to join groups and actually keep up with them and keep in touch with the people I meet. If only all my socialization could be through facebook my life would be so much easier ;) I also need to keep better track of when all the conferences and other fun stuff is going down so we can try to do some of that on the way to where ever we are going!
For now our general plan is to get to southern california by the spring and head up the coast for the spring and summer. I'm not going to even try to imagine more than that right now!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

the old jail

2010-01-21T02:27:00.009-05:00

here's some pictures from some site seeing we did in st augustine last week. we had planned to go to the top of the lighthouse but pearl and fern got denied on account of being too short. they were upset but liked the old jail ok. kaya really liked it alot. actually, fern was a little scared of the weird animatronic figures but she liked some parts. we got to walk around in the grounds of the lighthouse anyway and it is really pretty. i love the big old oak trees here with all the spanish moss and ferns growing on the branches.

we also have been in major creating mode. we been up to all kinds of crafts and i even got out my sewing machine. we did some painting one day and spent a whole day making necklaces. i got the sewing machine out and kaya made the girls head bands. kaya has been crosstiching and he is way better than the last time he tried :). kaya and i have been playing lots of board games, especially chess. he's having a mental growth spurt i think. in between all his goofiness he's had some serious thoughts going on! he has been really recognizing words lately and using clues to figure out words. just the last couple days he has been asking lots of math questions. adding subtracting and multiplying. i've been showing him how to do stuff and he writes it out on paper. pretty neat.
fern wrote a song today. she said she was wishing bonnie would come out to jump on the trampoline when she thought of it. it went "butterfly butterfly come out and play" over and over and the at the end there was something that totally made sense and rhymed but now i cant think of it! i knew i should have written it down right away. hopefully she'll remember tomorrow. she had the tune and everything just right. she really loves music and i am always surprised how well she and pearl remember the words to so many songs. i think im going to go cuddle between them in bed now :)

more beach pictures :)

2010-01-18T03:28:00.007-05:00

one of the major reasons we are in florida is the beaches and let me tell you, the beaches around st augustine are pristine. we have been thoroughly enjoying them

the orange posts are for sea turtle nesting spots

pelicans

sea oats

historic working lighthouse in the background

the rocks they are standing on are coquina

coquina

villano beach, north of st aug. the beach is ALL tiny bits of shells! we found a few sharks teeth that day too

i cant get this picture to turn the right way no matter how many times i upload it!

saint augustine (get ready for pictures)

2010-01-18T01:46:00.010-05:00

ok, first off i can not for the life of me figure out how to get rid of the underlining! wtf??
whatever, st augustine is fricken beautiful, right? i could of taken pictures of the fort all day long! the lighting wasnt so hot on these first ones of down town but you can still tell its gorgeous.

flagler college

we thought it looked alot like the jedi temple ;)

dont remember what this statue was for, lol

i think this one is ponce de leon

gates to the city circa 1808. made out of coquina, a rock formed from shells and coral

posing on the drawbridge of castillo de san marcos

we got to see them blast some canons off

the intercoastal

BEACH

2009-11-28T19:54:00.004-05:00

if you been wondering what we've been up to, well this about sums it up ;)

2009-11-24T03:29:00.001-05:00

Bloggy? Blog?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

october?

2009-10-25T02:48:00.003-04:00

ahhh, so when i put off posting for a month SO much stuff happens that i start to put it off even more because now i dont even know what to say because so much has happened!

well, we are in pennsylvania right now visiting some friends and they are so kind as to let me use their network so i knew i HAD to blog! since i posted last we have spent time in plymouth and worcester ma. visiting my parents, sister, and lots of friends. it was really great to be there and have our own place to stay. we had pearl and ferns birthday. i wanted to do a whole post for that (and kayas!) but i guess not! we had it at an indoor playground thing and they loved every bit of it. we had pumpkin pie on their real birthday at my parents house. they were just THRILLED that it was all about them. they picked all the plates and decorations. most of it was disney princess stuff :)

we had a spur of the moment stop in conneticut to visit one of my oldest friends. we have know each other since we were 3, and hadnt gotten to hang out in years. its SO cool to be able to stop whenever and where ever!

i have to say, the rv is pretty awesome! we are getting used to the stuff that takes getting used to. filling all the tanks, checking the levels, figuring out how long stuff lasts and how it all works. learning how to drive it! we've had some issues but we are learning from them and all in all its been really fun and its just going to get better! ( in florida enjoying the non-snow :P )

the kids are loving it, they have met so many new awesome people already, done stuff that we couldnt do before. theres been lots of talk and play about maps, states, towns, etc. everyone has done really well with the change so far which is relieving to me even though i kinda knew it would be fine.

i wanted to link to my latest facebook pics here but i cant seem to get them uploaded tonight. i'll try to do it later . . . and maybe another post too ;)

so busy and other excuses

2009-09-15T03:09:00.002-04:00

ya, im kinda busy and we cancelled our cable internet and are now using tethered blackberries. its all working out pretty well but will take some getting used to. im going to look into mobile blogging which can be set up here. i wish i could document more about moving in to the rv and all that but i guess its hard to do it and blog about it at the same time. eventually. . . . i ll make a real post but for now i want to change the song because "little boxes" is starting to drive me crazy and now im addicted to this:

enjoy!

out of the boxes

2009-07-21T15:30:00.007-04:00

so me and danny started watching weeds a couple days ago (and its awesome by the way) and i fell in love with the theme song. the song is "little boxes" by melvina reynolds
its this huge social criticism but is still a fun and catchy song. i cant get it out of my head, which is fine because it reminds me how happy i am to be out of the boxes in all aspects of our life ;)

AND. . .

here she is folks, ramblin rose! shes a 1997 holiday rambler vacationer and shes SO awesome! we went and picked her up in rhode island a couple weeks ago and now we are slowly but surely getting things together here.

we camped for a couple days in rhode island and mass. it was kinda scary how much we dont know about working the rv. we'll get used to it after a little while i think. we were also pretty unprepared for camping since we didnt even necessarily know we were going to buy it. it will get easier. the kids had so much fun. ill get some more pictures of the inside soon. shes parked at our friends house till we are ready to go because we cant park her here (association rules).

heres the link to my facebook pictures from the last few weeks. we went to plymouth for the fourth and visted aunty jo jo in worcester, camped in rhode island and some other random stuff.

sharing pictures on facebook is free and so much easier than fliker or other sites since im there all the time anyway. i should get rid of my flicker badge, its is much cuter than putting a link to facebook but it just doesnt give enough free space. . .eh

rain

2009-06-26T04:28:00.006-04:00

ya, alot of rain. we decided to take advantage and take a nice long rain walk. actually, i really wanted to get out of the house and lured the kids out into the rain with hopes of finding wild strawberries. . .

kaya was some kind of superhero strawberry finder

score!
ALOT of strawberries

they ate all they wanted and i picked enough for a berry crisp. we found some other interesting things too . . .

it was raining lightly the whole time but then it started pouring. kaya got impatient and ran ahead . . .

but pearl and fern took their time stepping on EVERY railroad tie the whole way

some quick splashing to get really wet before getting home and into the bathtub

the chester eastman homestead

2009-06-22T20:14:00.006-04:00

this post has been hanging around as a draft forever so i figured i publish it. we miss our friends at the farm!

on the road again . . .

2009-06-21T01:17:00.009-04:00

we will be soon and i'm pretty excited. for those that missed my announcement on facebook (why aren't you on facebook? dont you know its awesome?) we have decided to ditch the buying a house plan for now and buy an rv. because we've always wanted to. because it will be fun. because we havent found anywhere we want to buy a house. because we can. why not? lots of people do it so it must be ok, right? im saying that in my most sarcastic voice . . .

its really not going to be that weird. we're not going to be constantly traveling. the plan is to go from place to place (where ever we feel like going) and stay in an area for a couple months (or however long we want to) to get a feel for the place, meet people, etc. the kids are excited about the change and to get to go new places. i want to go to the beach! for a long time. preferably a beach in a town with tons of culture. . .

we're looking for a nice but cheap used rv with low mileage. and we're pretty ready to go besides that. i went through the whole house and got rid of anything we dont need/want (there was a lot). i still have to go through everything in the storage unit. that should take a day i think.

i do still want to buy a house and have a farm eventually even though i have no clue where. . .
we'll know when its time for that to happen i guess.

besides that news, its been raining for days and then 10 day forecast shows nothing but rain. sweet.
we started reading the first book in the boxcar children series today. everyone liked it especially kaya. he cant wait to get to the ones with a mystery. i think the first one isn't but the rest are mysteries. he's been into scooby doo and superhero stuff so solving mysteries is a favorite lately. its the first real chapter book that pearl and fern actually listened to. i was surprised at how much they paid attention. they were slightly disturbed the fact that it had no pictures. they kept asking me to stop so they could look at the picture on the front :)

finally a post . . .

2009-06-18T03:25:00.005-04:00

kinda.

henna

2009-05-02T11:17:00.005-04:00

a warm week

2009-05-02T10:54:00.004-04:00

its was a beautiful warm week here. we took advantage and played by the water whenever we could. its was freezing in the water but at least there arent many bugs yet!

a week in plymouth

2009-04-27T00:03:00.008-04:00

ah, this half written post has been sitting here for so long, i guess i should finish it so i can move on to something else . . .
we had a really fun week visiting friends and family in massachusetts. on the way there we stopped at the beach. the sun was setting and really beautiful and everyone was glad to be there after a rough 4 hour drive.

the kids enjoyed all the flowers and greenness there, its just starting to be green here in NH now.

we visited some old and newish friends. this is my old friends son who we had never met before. it was really cool to meet tyler and catch up with mike and we cant wait to hang out with them again.

then another day we went to meet jean and her family. we know each other from blogs and facebook and it was neat meeting her and her awesome family in real life. there were a few other local unschooling families there too which was so nice.

jean lives right next to an ocean marsh,
it was a marsh party! or maybe i should say a mud party :)

i have so many pictures of this week! heres the public links to them on facebook
album 1
album 2

easter '09

2009-04-21T09:43:00.007-04:00

i've been sitting here trying to think of something to write but i think i'll just leave the pictures. im such a photo blogger . . .

#3

2009-04-16T02:51:00.003-04:00

kaya lost another tooth! its been a year since he lost the bottom two.
hes pretty excited that we have this one since the other two were lost/swallowed :)

easter prep

2009-04-10T01:12:00.005-04:00

easter is one of may favorite holidays. i LOVE spring!
its 2:00 am and truthfully my brain isn't fully functioning right now but i just wanted to get these pictures up because i'll have a whole bunch more after this weekend. my parents are coming, today is dannys bday, the kids are pumped for easter, we're making pinkalicious cupcakes tomorrow and tons of other fun things.

the eggs are cute in the still very wintery backyard

an awesome piece of litchen

blowing them out was kind of gross and kind of hard

we also got some cute and tiny bantam eggs and dyed them too. we glued ribbons on them all and hung them on our easter tree (a birch branch in water so the buds opened) i'll try to get a pic of it on here too. . .

peanut butter playdough

2009-04-10T00:59:00.004-04:00

mmmm. . . . .
we used a mixture of pb, whey protein powder (you can use powdered milk but i wanted to use this stuff up), honey and lots of playdough toys.

thats my girl

2009-03-27T23:54:00.005-04:00

the other day we were sitting on couch watching some kids show. it was talking about school and fern said, "we dont need to go to school, we already know how to learn!" hell ya

a few pictures of life

2009-03-27T23:14:00.007-04:00

i love these toes

marley went for a walk

the rock lady came with presents. . .

lots of pretty rocks

kaya got a spiderman comic book

one of her many strange spots

goodnight!

weekend in mass

2009-03-22T10:22:00.009-04:00

last weekend we went to see my parents in massachusetts. i had mentioned to my mom that we might come but then told her that we decided not to (but told my dad that we were secretly coming). we really surprised her ringing her doorbell at 10:00 at night! it was really nice to get out of the snow for a couple days even though it wasn't very warm. the kids had a blast with my parents. i cant wait to go to the beach this summer! kaya learned how to ride a two wheeler on my old bike, he's getting so old! and its funny, it happened just like skateboarding, he just tried and could instantly do it!

i didn't take many pictures and forgot to get the ones off my moms camera.

me and my mom spent literally 4 hours in savers (i hadn't been to one in a year!) this was my favorite find. its a set of four, i really wish there was one more though. they're so cute to put food on for the kids. the picture really doesnt do it justice. its covered in some kind of sparkly pastel rainbow finish and there's an indent in the corner to put the cup. oh, i LOVE thrift stores. i got some old pyrex to add to my collection too.

luckily we had pepperoni to entertain us on the way home! really, everyone did really good on the drive. the girls slept pretty much the entire ride on the way there.

superhero skateboarding

2009-03-19T23:16:00.006-04:00

kaya learned to skateboard today! oh wait, before i tell you that story, look! its only been one day since my last post! ok, its kinds been two because the last one was written ridiculously late on tuesday night and once i published it it was wednesday but still thats good, lets see if i can keep it up.
so. . . it was warm out today. (50) we had blueberries, banana pancakes, and salt and vinegar chips for breakfast. (11:00) well, i just had pancakes :) after that pearl and fern finger painted. fern put her hands in the paint, made one picture, and then washed up and asked for a paint brush. pearl was really into painting with her hands. in fact, she does it all the time with watercolors, stamps pads, markers and whatever else she can find. this is why her finger nails always look black, just in case you know us in real life and wonder why she always looks dirty. she almost always has smudges of artwork or intentional artwork on some part of her body these days. i just ordered some facepaints and henna to keep to the body art theme. kaya was playing a video game and came and painted for a few minutes. after i finished cooking mass amounts of pancakes we got ready to go play outside. not that special at first. it was nice and sunny, the girls were playing tag which was pretty hilarious.

kaya decided to get dannys skateboard out. he hadnt played with it since last year and at that point he would kind of kneel on it and scoot along. today he literally took it out, stood up on it and started skateboarding! ahhhh, natural learning! isnt it beautiful? he is SO proud of himself! he couldnt wait to show danny. he practised for at least an hour. it was really cool. i really shouls hav taken a post practice video too. this is the very first few minutes.

i know this is the worst picture ever, im sorry, but look at fern, shes doing a couture pose. thats what shes learned from watching americas next top model with me ;)
see kayas knight/superhero cape? i have been promising to make it since his birthday, i finally did yesterday. its reversible and has a hood, one side is red fake crushed velvet and the other is gold sequiny stuff (that was a pain in the ass to sew with!) he loves it. i'll have to get a better picture.

i asked pearl to show me her hands. she never looked away from the paints!

i guess im on a little sewing kick, i made this today with more of he velvet material. im going to applique a heart on each panel with the opposite color.

spring is springing

2009-03-18T00:17:00.009-04:00

well kind of, theres still alot of snow on the ground, probably a foot at least and the huge plow hills are another story. but its been warm enough to make some good puddles and the ice came crashing down off our roof in big sheets. pearl and fern really like this kind of weather because they do like playing with the snow just not really in the snow! they made a bunch of snow castles with buckets and also filled them with muddy sand from the driveway. kaya got out his scooter for a while but mostly tromped around in the woods playing superheros.

ive been dying to update this blog! i know i said i was gonna do it more often once i got my computer :( i really want to be one of those people who writes almost everyday with a short summary of happenings. i would love to have that to look back on in the future. but maybe im just not one of those people. the kids have been using the computer alot during the day. its still very new and cool to them. the girls are even figuring out how to use it. by the time i get it late at night by brain is too gone to remember what i wanted to write! excuses, excuses huh?
i just updated my blog list. im going to do an update post with lots of pictures of what been going on. i really want to do a "what unschooling means for us" kind post and have a link to it at the top of the blog for folks who are unfamiliar with it. want to update my you tube. thats a big pain in the ass by the way! everytime i do it something gets screwed up and i havent yet been able to get the multiple uploader working right.

ok heres the pictures . . .

see ferns green hat? isnt it awesome? my friend caitlin made it!

doesnt jack look pissed here? hes usually smiling in all his pictures!
this is his "proctectin' the kids"face!

there were lots of "rivers" to explore

the trusty red wagon, what would we do without it?

friends food fun

2009-02-27T11:29:00.004-05:00

what more could you want?
hanging out with good friends is one of my favorite things and i know the kids agree.
one reason i love it is that all of my friends are such awsome parents (and their kids are awsome and fun to be around too!) and are always trying to be better. at the end i always leave feeling renewed . . . inspired to stay joyful and connected with my family. reading parenting books and articles also helps me with this. its especially important to me in the winter to focus on happiness. after a few cold days stuck in the house i start getting grumpy sometimes ;)

buffalo chicken pizza makes me happy too!

anyway, heres some pictures of our fun day with our friends yesterday

2009-02-04T22:09:00.002-05:00

kaya

iwatchedstarwavs

pearl, kaya, fern, jack

2009-01-25T15:59:00.003-05:00

is this math?

2009-01-25T15:28:00.003-05:00

a couple days ago, we were getting ready to go out, well i was getting ready for us all to go out and the kids were playing. i was getting some snacks together to bring with us and making breakfast, cleaning up the kitchen, and probably a few other things at the same time. it can be pretty frustrating when your doing a million things and you kids want to play or even just listen to them talk can be hard. when this happens i do sometimes ask them to play without me if i really need to but i usually compromise by asking if we can do something where i can do what i need to do and play at the same time.

on this day kaya wanted me to play store, so he brought our toy cash register which works like a real calculator into the kitchen. when i needed to use something i "bought" it from him. we've done this many times before but he's never been much interested in how its really done. he would just type in random numbers and play around with it. but on this day he asked about how people at a real store do it. i told him that they take the prices of all the things you buy and add them together with the cash register. i showed him the plus sign and the equals sign and how you use them. and then i showed him how to do 2+3 on the calculator. then i showed him 2+3 with real things that were on the counter. he looked at me with this huge excited grin on his face and said "is this math?!" im not sure how he even knows that word because we've never talked about it before. we've talked about and done many things related to math over the years but i've never sat down and said "do you want to learn math?" ive read comments on unschooling lists lately saying that even offering to teach a child thing like math and reading can be detrimental because no one can learn these things until their brains are ready. since everyones brains are different we dont know when they're ready. this is why so many kids get labels with learning disabilities or get put in "the slow class." its not because they are "bad at math," its just that their brains arent ready yet.
when they are ready they will learn

tree of happiness award!

2009-01-20T18:12:00.007-05:00

this is my first award! (sniffling) jane passed it on to me, thanks jane! sorry it took so long! i love your blog too, maybe someday i can give you an award.

so heres the deal, i list 6 things that make me happy, then tag 6 more bloggers with the award and they all do the same. (if they want :) )

well it turns out six is the perfect number!

1. danny

2. kaya

3. jack

4. pearl

5. fern

6. delia

i put everyone in order of who i met first, no favorites ;)

its a good thing i didnt have to pick seven because marley really pisses me off more than she makes me happy and our hermit crabs dont do much for me at all.

and i will tag . . .

1. lisa, and awesome mom and friend, and my first in real life blogger friend. seeing what her family is up to makes me happy!

2. nicole at the soaking cabinet - fellow WAPer and unschooler, i love to see what shes been cooking

3. tabitha life at home - i thought tabitha could use a tree of happiness

4. carl at the pile of o'melays - one of my first favorite blogs

5. majik faerie - love to see whats happening on the other side of the planet through this fun unschooling family

6. kimi at the nourishing gourmet - yummy recipes, pictures and articles. my favorite foodie blog hands down!

i some of these folks might not want to participate but these are the blogs that make me happy, what can i say, i gotta pass the love along!

winter

2009-01-12T19:17:00.005-05:00

my last post had no pictures (gasp!) so here you go. . .

update rambling. . . cooking, computers, robin hood, new links, and lots more

2009-01-10T18:27:00.008-05:00

im so inspired to write right now for some reason. ive been trying to wait till my new laptop arrives but it hasnt even been shipped yet and i cant wait that long! i went through my emails which i always let pile up until theyre driving me crazy, there were 135 and now theres 16. they were mostly digests from message boards and alot of them i didnt even read but getting it all cleaned up has energized me. the kids are watching disneys robin hood for probably the 10th time since we brought it home yesterday and im not exaggerating. at christmas kaya stayed up with my sister when we all went to bed and watched robin hood men in tights and since then he hasnt been able to stop talking about it. so, we went to library and rented this version, it was the only one they had and he likes it even though he usually doesnt like disney movies (we bought toy story from the thrift store and they all said they didnt like it). the disney robin hood was one of my favorite movies when i was little (along with davey crockett (!) which was also by disney i think. i guess ive always been weird :) ) so ive been enjoying it.

i thought it was funny that kaya liked the men in tights version, which i love too by the way. i guess most people would think its inappropriate for a six year old but we usually let the kids choose what they are comfortable watching and it works well. kaya lets us know if he doesnt like something and either asks us to turn it off or goes somewhere else where he cant see it. strangely its usually kid shows like disney movies that scare him. pearl and fern dont pay attention unless its something that they are interested in, which is pretty much only kids shows. they do like family guy and simpsons though.

i just made the kids a quick dinner, steamed broccoli and shrimp with chicken stock, butter and garlic. i guess shrimp are in season and the grocery store had the most amazingly fresh shrimp from maine. they were so yummy and sweet i bought a bunch and froze them. even here its rare to see any shimp that arent farm raised in asia, so i was exited, they werent expensive either as long as i bought them with the shells (skins?) on anyway. theyre super tiny so theyre a pain to clean but pearl and fern have been helping me out. this was a big deal for me because ive always had tons of anxiety around my kids handling raw meat. they wanted to help and it felt really good to let go of those fears. we actually had fun peeling shrimp together!

i CAN NOT wait until my computer gets here, im so excited its crazy. having this slow crappy computer has been a blessing because it made me realize how much we need a computer to ourselves downstairs. weve had night access only since danny has worked at home which is almost 5 years! kaya loves computer games and i obviously have lots of computer stuff going on. i think its just an awsome resource for kids especially homeschoolers to have so much at your fingertips. i spent so much time reading reviews and learning about what we wanted in a computer. i also got a external hard drive so i can put all the home videos and hundreds of hours of music on something safer than the six year old (but still going strong) computer that im always worrying is going to crash.

what else can i talk about. . . ?

theres about a foot to a foot and a half of snow here that we've been enjoying in frequent but short spurts. kaya could stay out all day but pearl and fern arent that into being cold and all bundled up. ive been putting them in fleece pants instead of snow pants since were not out for very long anyway and that seems to help them move better and be more comfy. pearl is so concerned with what shes wearing lately that its really hard to get her in enough clothes to go out. she wants to wear sleeveless dresses with nothing underneath and maryjane shoes. i give her warm stuff and she complains that its not pretty enough. once she gets outside she changes her mind (usually) and then we have to go back in and change. getting dressed has been quite a process with her lately and she changes her clothes at least 10 times a day.

ferns eczema/candida has been getting better even with the crazy amounts of crap we ate at christmas time. we did a super strict no sugar and super low carb (but lots of good protein and good fat) diet for a month, then a little cheating for a couple days at thanksgiving and then another month until christmas. it was really good for me and fern, in fact ive never felt so good. but it was SO hard for kaya and pearl (and danny too). in such a short time i saw them become super obsessed with food. when they access to anything interesting they would totally binge unless i intervened. of course, this is the whole reason we unschool food and seeing it was just killing me. when parents are always making food decisions for their kids the kids dont learn to trust theyre own bodies, also they want to taste all the forbidden fruit. when its not forbidden its become so much less desirable. it becomes just another food and they relearn how to eat what they really want/need. anyway, fern is much less into food than pearl and kaya so ive gone back to everyone doing their own thing. me and fern are still trying to eat low carb but not to the extreme. whatever grains weve been eating are sprouted so our bodies use them better. the candida should still heal this way it just may take longer.

fern doesnt seem to mind not eating as many carby things as pearl and kaya and i took some time to make extras of stuff that kaya and pearl enjoy to freeze and reheat whenever they want. this is something i alway want to do but dont do nearly enough. i pretty much wont buy most processed food from the store unless the kids really want something in particular, so i end up constantly cooking. i bought a whole bunch of fresh, wild caught cod that was on sale and made fish sticks with sprouted flour breading, the night night i made beef and bean quesadillas, and i have all the ingredients in the fridge to do pizza. we had all these things for dinners and then froze the leftovers. if only i could get my big freezer in here then id really go crazy but i have so much meat in there now theres not much room. oh, i also made a ton of bulk breakfast sausage with half pork and half chicken. im going to put up some recipes on my food blog for real this time, hazelnut truffles, citrus cheesecake baked in tangelo peels (SO good), and more that i cant think of, ive been saving up.

i have a whole buch of good links that ive been wanting to add here. i'll link them here in the post to make it easier to tell the new ones.

our friends caitlin and joes kid stuff store:

http://www.stinkerbells.com/

my favorite food blog lately, lots of good recipes with nice pictures and good info:

http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/

pile of omelays is one of my favorite blogs. this is the omelay mamas blog:

http://omelay.wordpress.com/

change. org . . . a "central platform informing and empowering movements for social change around the most important issues of our time."

http://www.change.org/

summer sprouted flours is one of the few companies selling sprouted flours. theres lots of good recipes too:

http://www.creatingheaven.net/eeproducts/eesfc/

a very funny blog written by the woman who puts together the life is good unschooling conference:

http://zenmommasgarden.blogspot.com/

a traditional foods blog that i just stumbled upon, i can tell im going to love it already:

http://www.foodrenegade.com/

im reembarking on my sourdough journey. i love this site. making sourdough is so much more than could be written in a recipe and this site addresses every aspect:
http://sourdoughhome.com/

christmas '08

2008-12-26T19:20:00.010-05:00

oh, i havent blogged in so long! im writing this on my sisters super fast laptop and hopefully soon i'll be writing on our new laptop. we waited till after christmas hoping for some good deals and i think we've found it but havent ordered yet. i cant wait to sit on the couch with a nice computer at our finger tips!

theres so much going on here! we celebrated soltice, hanukkah, now christmas, my sisters birthday in a couple days , and soondanny and my 7th anniversary. we've been preparing for christams since thanksgiving! the kids are so exited to have my parents and sister to hang out with. theres tons of new toys AND my sister got a wii. right now theyre all playing outdoor sports for wii and its making me think that we really need to get one. for now im just going to put up some pictures up and talk a little bit about each one. hopefully i'll do some catch up posts of whats been going on in the last month. im also updating my videos on you tube and will put some new recipes on "im hungry" (yummy christmas and hanukkah recipes)

so, we started our christmas off with about a foot and a half of beautiful powdery snow,

christmas eve

trying on dress up clothes from blah and pappa

kaya got a nintendo ds but we had to take it back and are working on getting another, long story!

he's really exited about it

delias annual playing in the boxes picture

chistmas morning in their new pjs eating candy from their stockings.

pearl and fern have been wanting feet pjs and kaya got paper mario ones. i also got some mario pj pants from my mom! (i LOVE them!)

new toys!

making the lego castle was a group project

finished! what a good aunt!

pattern blocking

how to be a good unschooler . . .

2008-12-06T15:15:00.002-05:00

heres an awsome post from pam soroosian on the always learning yahoo group. its also here:
http://sandradodd.com/pam/howto along with tons of others great acticles and stuff.

i know i have lots of family and friends readers who dont know alot about unschoooling and i dont always do the best job at explaining it. its not as simple as it seems sometimes. . .
anyway, i think this is one of the best explanations ive come across, it adresses the schooling part of unschooling as well as the everyday life, respectful parenting part, which for us is equally if not more important. hope you all enjoy this, i promise im going to do a general update of what we've been doing really soon!

"1. Give your love generously and criticism sparingly. Be your children's partner. Support them and respect them. Never belittle them or their interests, no matter how superficial, unimportant, or even misguided their interests may seem to you. Be a guide, not a dictator. Shine a light ahead for them, and lend them a hand, but don't drag or push them. You WILL sometimes despair when your vision of what your child ought to be bangs upagainst the reality that they are their own person. But that same reality can also give you great joy if you learn not to cling to your own preconceived notions and expectations.

2. Homeschooled children who grow up in a stimulating and enrichedenvironment surrounded by family and friends who are generally interestedand interesting, will learn all kinds of things and repeatedly surprise you with what they know. If they are supported in following their own passions, they will build strengths upon strengths and excel in their own ways whether that is academic, artistic, athletic, interpersonal, or whichever direction that particular child develops. One thing leads to another. A passion for playing in the dirt at six can become a passion for protecting the natural environment at 16 and a career as a forest ranger as an adult. You just never ever know where those childhood interests will eventually lead. Be careful not to squash them; instead, nurture them.

3. Bring the world to your children and your children to the world. Revel in what brings you together as a family. Watch tv and movies and listen to music and the radio. Laugh together, cry together, be shocked together.Analyze and critique and think together about what you experience. Notice what your child loves and offer more of it, not less. What IS it about particular shows that engage your child-build on that. Don't operate out of fear. Think for yourself and about your own real child. Don't be swayed by pseudostudies done on school children.

4. Surround your child with text of all kinds and he/she will learn to read. Read to them, read in front of them, help them, don't push them. Children allowed to learn on their own time table do learn to read at widely divergent times-there is NO right time for all children. Some learn to read at three years old and others at 12 or even older. It doesn't matter. Children whoare not yet reading are STILL learning-support their learning in their ownway. Pushing children to try to learn to read before they are developmentally ready is probably a major cause of long-term antipathy toward reading, at best, and reading disabilities, at worst.

5. It doesn't matter when something is learned. It is perfectly all right for a person to learn all about dinosaurs when they are 40 years old, they don't have to learn it when they are nine. It is perfectly all right tolearn to do long division at 16 years old, they do not have to learn that at nine, either. It does not get more difficult to learn most things later; it gets easier.

6. Don't worry about how fast or slow they are learning. Don't test them to see if they are "up to speed." If you nurture them in a supportive environment, your children will grow and learn at their own speed, and you can trust in that process. They are like seeds planted in good earth, watered and fertilized. You don't keep digging up the seeds to see if the roots are growing-that disrupts the natural growing process. Trust your children in the same way you trust seeds to sprout and seedlings to develop into strong and healthy plants.

7. Think about what is REALLY important and keep that always in the forefront of your interactions with your children. What values do you hope to pass on to them? You can't "pass on" something you don't exemplifyyourself. Treat them the way you want them to treat others. Do you want respect? Be respectful. Do you want responsibility from them? Be responsible. Think of how you look to them, from their perspective. Do you order them around? Is that respectful? Do you say, "I'll be just a minute"and then take 20 more minutes talking to a friend while the children wait? Is that responsible? Focus more on your own behavior than on theirs. It'll pay off bigger.

8. Let kids learn. Don't protect them or control them so much that they don't get needed experience. But, don't use the excuse of "naturalconsequences" to teach them a lesson. Instead, exemplify kindness and consideration. If you see a toy left lying in the driveway, don't leave it there to be run over, pick it up and set it aside because that is the kind and considerate thing to do and because kindness and consideration are values you want to pass on to your kids. Natural consequences will happen, they are inevitable. But it isn't "natural" anymore if you could have prevented it, but chose not to do so.

9. We can't always fix everything for our kids or save them from every hurt.It can be a delicate balancing act-when should we intervene, when should we stay out of the way? Empathy goes a long long way and may often be all your child needs or wants. Be available to offer more, but let your child be your guide. Maybe your child wants guidance, ideas, support, or intervention. Maybe not. Sometimes the best thing you can offer is distraction.

10. Be sensitive to your child's interest level. Don't push activities thatyour child isn't interested in pursuing. Don't let YOUR interests dictateyour child's opportunities. If your child wants a pet, be realistic and don't demand promises that the child will take sole care for it. Plan to care for it yourself when the interest wanes. Do it cheerfully. Model the joy of caring for animals. Model kindness and helpfulness. Help a child by organizing their toys so they are easy to care for. Plan to care for them yourself much of the time, but invite your child's help in ways that are appealing. If YOU act like you hate organizing and cleaning, why would your child want to do it? Always openly enjoy the results of caring for your possessions-take note of the extra space to play in, the ease of finding things you want, how nice it is to reach into a cupboard and find clean dishes. Enjoy housework together and don't make it a battle.

11. Don't pass on your own fears and hates about learning anything. If you hate or fear math, keep it to yourself. Act like it is the most fun thing in the world. Cuddle up and do math in the same way you cuddle up and read together. Play games, make it fun. If you can't keep your own negativity atbay, at least try to do no harm by staying out of it.

12. Don't try to "make kids think." They WILL think, you don't have to make them. Don't use every opportunity to force them to learn something. They WILL learn something at every opportunity, you don't have to force it. Don't answer a question by telling them to "look it up" or by asking them another question. If you know the answer, give it. If you don't, then HELP them find it. Speculating about an answer often leads to a good conversation. If your child stops seeing you as helpful when they have questions, they'll stop coming to you with their questions. Is that what you really want?

13. When you offer a child choices, be sure they are real choices. Offer them choices as often as you can. Try to limit the "have to's" as much as you can. Frequently ask yourself, "Is this really a "have to" situation orcan we find some choices here?" "

Pam Sorooshian

a little note from kaya

2008-11-05T22:47:00.002-05:00

kaya
lefant
sumit
the
anima
rescur

fall update

2008-11-02T22:29:00.012-05:00

we've been so busy with lots of fun fallish stuff and we've also been practising for winter hibernation and just hanging out at home, cuddling on the couch. this weekend we didnt even leave the house once! danny, kaya, and i had lots of mario kart tournaments on our new gamecube. tomorrow we have to take our biweekly trek to the dairy farm though so that will break the run. last time they had two newborn calves - we cant wait to see them again.

last weekend we started preparing for halloween with a fun halloween party at our friends dayna and joes house. dayna hid candy all over their big yard and down a spooky trail into the woods and the kids all ran around looking for it at dusk. i should have taken a picture of the food! we had bloody worms (noodles tomato sauce), punch with a floating hand in it, veggies with a green slime dip, finger dogs (hot dogs with almond finger nails wrapped in croissants) and lots more fun stuff. i made pumpkin raviolis which werent very scary, but very good! we also played a bunch of games like a race to wrap the first mummy with tp, a rolling apples with your nose race, and a game where everyone puts their hand in covered bowls of gross "body parts" (cold spaghetti, baby carrots, jello, and cooked and oiled pearl onions). everyone had a blast.

friday night we met at our friends rachel and bens for some pre-trick-or-treating fun. we had dinner and some cocktails and got the kids all dressed up and painted. we trick-or-treated in the neighborhood near down town and it was packed. there are so many rural neighborhoods around here that lots of people go where all the houses are close together. these people were really in the halloween spirit. probably 50% of the houses were seriously decked out with decorations and costumes galore. there was even one "haunted house" where you walked though the backyard on a scary path. it didnt take longer before the little ones got tired but kaya had a blast and he could have kept going all night. he marched right up to every house and said "trick-or-treat" loud and clear. last year he was shy and didnt want to talk to anyone or go up the stairs by himself. everytime we stopped he was trying to get us moving again! this was exiting for danny because he's been waiting for the time when he and kaya could go out by themselves and bust out as many houses as they possibly can! afterwards we went back to our friends house and ate lots of candy and watched a movie. it was a good night.

we went pumpkin picking before halloween. it was a pretty nice place, there was a hay ride to the pumpkin patch and the corn sandbox was a big hit. i usually get a nice close up picture of the kids together with a bunch of pumpkin but everyone else was already on the wagon waiting to go back to the farm and pearl fern just couldnt decide on a pumpkin. turned out they wanted small pumpkins and we were in the big section! once we figured that out they found the perfect ones.

kaya picked out on huge one and one little one. all the littles ones were so greatly loved and carried around everywhere that they rotted way before halloween :) we got more though. we had fun carving. kaya did his entire (very thick skinned) pumpkin by himself. he asked for a little help scooping out the goop but he did all the cutting. he drew a picture of what the face should look like and cut it exactly like the picture. i drew some shapes for pearl and fern and asked them what shapes they wanted for the different features. i cut ferns and pearl held the knife with me as i cut hers.

fern

pearl

fern and pearl

had to add this! i just learned to crochet and this is the first thing i made. i cant believe how good it came out!

happy 3rd birthday pearl and fern!!!

2008-10-14T01:59:00.007-04:00

i can not beleive pearl and fern are three, but looking back at their baby pictures i cant beleive they were ever that small either! i really wanted to do birth stories for them and before when it was kayas birthday but i think i might save it for later when i dont know what to write sometime. i couldnt resist doing the huge belly picture and some baby stuff though.

i wanted to post on their birthday but there was so much to do! we had a little celebration on their real birthday. they said they wanted pizza and blueberry pie. it was yummy and fun.
then we had an awsome party over the weekend. they pretend about bithdays all the time so they had very specific expectations of what should be at a birthday party. they definately wanted lots of balloons and birthday hats! we made butterfly cake, one chocolate for fern and one vanilla rasberry for pearl. they were so happy to have a party all about them!

big mama with a month left

tiny girls (fern, pearl)

3 year old fern and pearl trying on their new princess dresses

fern and pearl with their cake

after the picture they decorated it with m&ms

happy kids eating cake

fern, pearl, kaya

had to include a picture of kaya at his 3 year party!

with his friend naiya expediting the unwrapping process :)

faries and beads

2008-09-21T18:48:00.003-04:00

we got a big pack of glass beads last week for me and kaya to make necklaces. we've been having alot of fun with it. kaya loves making things for people! hes made a necklace for me and pearl so far. i didnt really think pearl and fern would be able to do the glass ones because they are pretty small but we had some big wood ones that i thought they could use. but they wanted to try and they both did it easily! fern kept putting beads on and then taking them off so i didnt get a picture of her but pearl filled up a whole string. then when we werent looking fern took them all off! dont you love their fancy dress-up dresses?! they both wore dresses to bed last night instead of pjs!

pearl

our other big project has been making flower fairies. at first kaya experimented making them his way which turned out pretty cute. i should get a picture of them . . .

the one in the middle (with the rainbow hair) he made with a little help. basically, he needed me to hold it while he wrapped the yarn and i did the hair but he told me how to do it.

just sit back and enjoy the fun!

2008-09-19T01:19:00.004-04:00

it seems like so many people these days are anti- this and anti- that. and i know usually its well meant and of course i have my own things that bug me. but as an unschooling parent i try really hard to leave those hang ups behind, at the very least with things involving my kids. i want them to be able form their own opinions and feel free to follow their bliss.

i've been thinking about this because of two things that happened this week. first pearl and fern got their first barbies and we borrowed a video game system from a friend to see if kaya would like it (and he LIKES it!). first i should say that toys arent really a thing i worry about in general so it wasnt really a big deal for me. but i couldnt help thinking how much joy my kids were getting from these toys that are often dubbed as bad. kaya was SO proud of himself when he figured out how to work the controls of the video game and i really enjoyed helping him with the parts he couldnt get and just watching him discover something new.

instead of worrying that pearl and fern will develop eating disorders from playing with barbies or about how much plastic it takes to make them and whatever else, i watched the happiness on their faces when they brushed their hair and made them talk to each other. its natural for people to want things and i dont want my kids to feel guilty for this or to feel like i dont approve of the things they want. i choose their happiness over my issues.

my "thing" is food though, its REALLY hard for me to enjoy the happiness they get from eating. . . conventional candy for example. in the past i could usually avoid being around the types of things that i dont feel comfortable with but as they get older its harder to avoid. i know its part of my journey as a parent to learn how to let these issues go so my kids can grow and learn how to make their own decisions.
when i feel myself getting uncomfortable i try to think of it as them exploring their world and i just sit back and enjoy them enjoying their life!

making pasta!

2008-09-15T19:11:00.005-04:00

last night we made a big italian feast for dinner! well, it was really just fettuchine and meaty tomato sauce but we made it alot harder than it sounds! we made the pasta from scratch which seriously is way easier than you'd think. and i bought alot of tomatoes from the farm so i made a huge pot of tomato sauce from scratch. the sauce was not easy. it took a while to get all the tomatoes peeled and seeded and i didnt do the best job seeding them either. im thinking theres some seeding technique that i dont know about! i also made fried eggplant slices with mozzarella.

it was yummy and the kids had a blast with the pasta machine! me and kaya had a good rhythm going with him crankin the dough through while i caught it. pearl and fern both did some turning but they really like hanging the noodles on the rack the best.

pearl and fern

pearl and kaya

kaya doing the pre-machine roll

mmmmmm

Exactly -by amy steinberg

2008-09-10T20:33:00.005-04:00

i think this is the coolest song ever! i found it on daynas blog and i've been going there just to listen to it! first i decided to add it to my playlist -which i did- but i wanted to add it to a post somehow. so i googled it and finally found amy steinberg's you tube page and was so exited to find that theres a video!!! so turn off my playlist- here it is . . .

oh, and heres a link to the lyrics

LEAP not back to scool picnic!

2008-09-10T12:16:00.002-04:00

leap is the unschooling group for southern new hampshire. its apretty big and active group and i've been wanting to go to one of their events for a while and this was the perfect big event to make the 2 hour drive worth it! it was held at an awsome sate park by the beach in rye, nh. it wasnt a good swimming beach -there was LOTS of rocks- but the kids had a ball plying with seaweed and looking for periwinkes, crabs, and anenomes. there were cool secret paths through the woods with little hiding spots under the bushes - should've got some pictures of that! it was fun meeting lots of new families and kaya really enjoyed being with so many kids.
heres a link to a bunch more pictures taken by one of the leap mams who is profesional photographer:
http://capturedbyjess.smugmug.com/

our friend sebastian getting painted to be a dragon

kayas birthday - finally!!!

2008-09-09T20:20:00.008-04:00

FAMILY PARTY!

we went to the toy store and kaya got to pick whatever he wanted. he picked this really cool set of animals. all the body parts come apart and you can mix them up and make crazy animals. this is really up his alley these days!

his pick for dinner on his real birthday: lobster. . .

and strawberry pie!

the birthday king

FRIEND PARTY!

decorating the firetruck cake

opening presents

kaya got hermits crabs!

friends

PINATA!

it rained the day of kayas party so we couldnt swim or do the pinata. so . . . we had another party! this time the weather was beautiful and we had alot of fun! kaya was the first one to hit and he broke it before anyone else had a turn! he thought it was pretty cool! heres the video of him breaking the pinata.

my new spot

2008-09-09T19:23:00.003-04:00

we have a computer downstairs now! we've been wanting another one, we are so exited!!! my mom got it free from her neighbor and brought it up for us! we had a few problems getting it going at first but we figured it out and now we got a wireless router and voila --- im blogging from downstairs tonite!!! its way easier to get online during the day now bc of danny working on the computer of course but also the kids like playing down here way better than upstairs where the other computer is. danny said its going to be my new spot! but i definitely have some competition for that space! kaya been playing lots of games and theyve been watching cartoons on you tube too.

on the downside, this computers way slower than the other. its been a little hard to get used to but we will or maybe we can get something to make it faster. dont know what that is bc im semi clueless about that stuff but im sure we'll figure something out. its WAY better than staying up till 3 to get computer time! but i'll probably do that sometimes anyway!

"have a nice day!"

2008-09-07T10:02:00.003-04:00

here's an great quote from scott noelle's daily groove. its definatly a topic that i internally struggle with sometimes. i don't force my kids to say "hi" to people if they don't want to, or to hug someone that asks for a hug. if their is a time when i feel a "thank-you" is expected and they aren't going to i just say it for them. i do this because i think that kids learning to trust their instincts and do what they feel is right is more important than being polite. but a lot of times their is still that voice inside of me, kinda embarrassed and wondering if the (usually a total stranger in a store) person thinks i'm rude or my kids are obnoxious or whatever. i don't even know why i care?! I'm trying train that niceness out of me and let the authenticity shine through!!!

:: Have a NICE day! ::

Most of us have been thoroughly trained to be "nice."
The 2-part Rule of Nice goes like this...

Part 1: Only say and do things that please others.

Part 2: If you feel like saying or doing something
that might possibly displease someone, see Part 1.

So, to obey the Rule of Nice at all times, you have to
get pretty good at *not* being authentic. But being
inauthentic is not very nice, so the only way to win
this game is not to play it!

Children are naturally authentic, which means they
often aren't "nice." You're supposed to pressure them
to obey the Rule of Nice, but wouldn't it be nicer to
let them inspire *you* to be more authentic?

http://dailygroove.net/nice

Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

fern decided not to wear diapers

2008-09-05T00:07:00.004-04:00

hmmm, i never know how to word it. potty training is just not a good description of what we do. the title pretty acuratly describes what what happened but its alot longer than just saying "shes potty trained! so, all this happened without any pressure or coersion whatsoever. now is the time that she felt ready and we are helping her in her choice.

anyway, 4 nights ago she decided she didnt want to wear a diaper to bed which has only happened a couple times before and that was by accident. no biggie for me bc she always wakes up dry anyway shes just always wanted to wear one to bed before. so its been 4 nights with no pee on the bed and i dont think shes worn any dipes during the day either. when were at home they usually dont wear dipers at all and are usually pretty good about getting to the toilet but we put have been putting them on when we go out somewhere. they have never cared until now. so today we went to the park and a store and every thing went super smoothly. fortunatly we were close to bathrooms bc they mostly wait until they can barely hold it in to tell me they have to go.

another funny side note is that i just got my box of cloth dipes out of storage that i havent used since we moved. i got burnt out on washing them, plus the move, plus it seemed like pearl and fern were almost done so i wouldnt be adding to the landfill too much :)
things were taking longer than i was expecting and i was feelin some guilt so i got them back out just a couple weeks ago. the girls actually think theyre super cool. i wonder if they learned better by feeling wet . . . or maybe i just needed to let go of wondering when theyd be done before they could really be done . . .

happy not back to school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-09-03T02:39:00.005-04:00

today (oops, i guess its yesterday now) was the first day of school for kids around here so we got together with our unschooling friends and celebrated at the lake. we were pretty much the only one s there - definitely a plus of everyone going back to the grind. its also a nice reminder of why we live the way we do. we were all full of appreciation!

catching up on august

2008-09-03T01:18:00.010-04:00

wow! its already september, i cant believe it! we thoroughly
enjoyed our august even though it rained quite alot at the beginning of the month. hey, ive literally only watered the garden a handful of times! one of my favorite things about august is all the yummy local produce and this year we have been getting most of it straight from a bio dynamic farm in conway. its such a great place. the kids visit the animals and try to catch frogs in the pond while i shop. i love to see exactly where our food is coming from!
in boulder the health food stores carried such good local stuff in the summer that i was never motivated enough to go to the farms or the farmers market! also pearl and fern are getting older and its easier to add more stops on our errand trips these days. anyway, its been fun, we're getting awesome food, and supporting a local organic family farm.

fern, pearl and kaya

they LOVED cleaning corn with me!

i planted lots of nasturtiums and theyre starting to really go crazy

some tiny tomatillas i picked early bc i was dying for fresh salsa

now theyre starting to really be ready. weve had some cherry tomatoes but no romas yet, theyre BIG but still green. theres been a few jalapenoes and alot more to come. the sweet peppers are starting to grow too. this is my first time successfully growing peppers (i started them too late last time) and i have some eggplants that just got a flower which is the farthest ive ever gotten with eggplants. they probably wont have time to mature before it gets cold but you never know. im happy with a flower . . . next year maybe an eggplant!

we have this awesome huge field in north conway next to the saco river and surrounded on the other sides by forest. its great for running and hiding in the grass!

we love this lake! kaya swam out to the dock (with his life jacket) for the first time

how cute is this??? seriously!!!

as you can see all the animals are getting along nicely! jack is definitely the leader of the pack, he helped me teach delia to not eat marley by barking at her when i yell for her to stop chasing marley. now delia doesnt pay any attention to marley at all. marley is still pretty interested in delia though. delia usually gets up and leaves when marley gets too close. now jack is helping me out to keep marley in line. he does the same thing pretty much. whenever i yell at marley he runs up to him and barks in his face.

marley is doing really well adjusting to be a house rabbit. in the last month shes become way more social. she will come up to us for pets or lay down right in the middle of all the action in the living room. she know what to do when i tell her to "go in her cage" although i still have to chase her alot too. and she still has lots of "accidents" but alot less than before. shes still only 4 months old . . .

lots of dress up lately!

fern with a salamander. these were one of my favorite things to find as kid.

bedtime

2008-08-04T01:02:00.002-04:00

look! its 1:01 and im on the computer. its early for me huh?
well, after lots of thought, experiments, and LONG nights we've decided (by popular demand) to bring back bedtime. basically the staying up all night thing wasnt really working for us. really mostly danny and i but the kids too, they just dont notice as much.

now dont get me wrong, im not talking about a BEDTIME where if your not in bed by 6:30 there'll be hell to pay!!! im just talking about intentionally getting ready and getting into bed when ever everyones ready. tonight it was around 10 and thats about the time id like to shoot for. that would have them waking up around 9 - 9:30 which leaves us plenty of time to get out and play and it also leaves me and danny some time to ourselves.

the 3 biggest problems were:

waking up too late to do anything.

no time with out kids!

being on the opposite schedule as danny = us not seeing him as much and being loud and crazy while hes sleeping.

besides all that, they were staying up later and later (5 AM was the latest for them i think) and getting really grumpy and crazy instead of going to sleep. alot of it could have to do with being cooped up in the house for a big part of the day too!

we had to wake up early to go to storyland yesterday so a couple days before we started trying to get in bed earlier. going to storyland really helped bc they got so tired and fell asleep really early - us too! the hard part is convincing them to go to bed, especially kaya. if we're not going too they dont want to go so we've been saying we're all going to bed and then danny and i get upwhen they are asleep. im not sure how i feel about lying about it. i know id rather not but i also know we all really need our rest - so for now thats the best option.

i guess we'll just have to see how it goes!

storyland!

2008-08-04T00:17:00.004-04:00

this weekend we went to storyland, an amusement park thats only 5 minutes from our house. its been around since the fifties, so some rides are antique which is pretty cool. i used to go all the time when i was little, it brought back some fond memories! the really cool thing is that its specifically designed for younger kids so all the rides are on the chill side. a couple did go pretty fast but kaya (and danny) went on everything no problem. he had SO much fun! (i on the other hand almost thew up from the tea cups!) there was a few that pearl and fern couldnt go on but they probably wouldnt have wanted to anyway. they really loved the ones that go around in a circle and go up and down. fern liked the tea cups but pearl decided to skip it.

everything is story book themed and theres a whole section with houses and playscapes from nursery rhymes. there was the three little bears house, the old womans shoe, ciderellas castle, little red riding hoods, house etc. i remember this being my favorite part as a kid but my kids werent that interested. i guess i wasnt that disapointed, when kaya was born i realized how wierd all those nursery rhymes are. . . im not sayin i censor them or anything, theyre just not my favorite thing to read!

anyway, it was an awsome day! the weather was great- not too hot. it wasnt too crowed, everyone had alot of fun!

get ready for some goofy pictures!

fern, kaya, pearl

me and fern and pearl watching

me and pearl

me and my tiger!

fern and pearl

my 3 blackbirds

me and fern

me, fern and pearl

kaya

kaya, fern and pearl

videos

2008-07-25T05:17:00.002-04:00

ive been foolin on youtube! this is what i have so far.

bananaphone! this ones from a while ago. pearl and fern used to love to dance on the table!

decorating cupcakes

kayas first time swimming with his face under water

rainy days

2008-07-25T04:45:00.004-04:00

its been raining ALL week here! i know, you folks out in colorado are saying "see, its sunny 355 days a year here!" we've blown through those 10 rainy days pretty fast over here! you know what though? i really have been enjoying the rain! maybe its just exiting after years of no rain in colorado but i really feel like its nice to have a break from the sun. in the summer time anyway! we'll see how i feel about it after the winter! this week though its been nice after a couple weeks of hot sun to snuggle up in the house and just relax (and clean ;)). it reminds me of how we get all the beautiful foliage here - its like a rain forest!

the kids needed to get out today so this is what we did!

going to the farm

2008-07-25T03:45:00.004-04:00

one of the first things i started looking for when we moved here was a good raw dairy farm. in colorado it is illegal to sell raw milk, so to get it people "buy" the cow. basically pay a fee and sign some papers saying its your cow but its really not. a bunch of bullshit really, but for some reason i didnt want to deal with it so we mostly didnt buy any milk unless we wanted to make ice cream or something. anyway i really do believe in the benefits of fresh raw dairy so i decided to go for it here in nh.

any excuse to go an adventure to a farm is worth it for us! we've been having so much fun and both farms that we've hooked up with have been SO nice. the first family had two guernsey cows and some chickens. their 8 yo and 12 yo kids are homeschooled and are so sweet. they let us hang out and check out the farm. their daughter even took us to help her collect eggs in the chicken coop. guernseys give extra yellow milk with high butterfat and it was damn good milk! after a few weeks we decide that they didnt really have enough milk for us though. we wanted 2 gallons a week and he could really only give me one. also he didnt have cream and usually didnt have extra eggs.

they referred me to the place we go now. its called the chester-eastman homestead and its such a cute little farm. the property has been in their family for a long time. its really out in the middle of nowhere! i guess because of its situation around the mountains its just not an easy place to get to and its never gotten tourists or anything. we can get there in about a half hour because we go over an insanely treacherous mountain road. its closed in the winter though so we'll have to go around. we'll have a carpool going by then :)

the milk at this farm isnt quite as beautifully yellow but these are jersey cows which still give yellow milk. the nice thing is they sell cream, butter, eggs, and maple syrup and its all way cheaper than the other places. the milk is 3.50 a gallon. thats pretty unheard of even for pasteurized organic milk!

this family also homeschools but her kids are older. i think one boy is in college. the mom is super sweet and she always comes out and talks to my kids and shows us around. they have 5 mama cows (ones named pearl and they had one named fern before!) 3 babies, tons of chickens, horses, pigs, a puppy, a rabbit, and a frog pond. kaya just discovered the frog pond and hasnt caught any frogs yet.

here's some pictures of hurricane mountain road! they dont call it that for nothing! two cars can barely fit on it at the same time and in the way down its like a roller coaster. im not kidding my kid actually are screaming in delight and yelling "weeeee!" the whole time. the way up is like hiking in a car! it really feels like that bc the road is so narrow and theres not many other cars. the whole trip is quite an adventure!

organizing

2008-07-22T05:03:00.003-04:00

today (actually i guess its yesterday now but since my kids just went to bed an hour ago it feels like today) Today i organized the kids toys!!! yes, this is a big deal for me, its not something i do that often bc well, its a huge pain in the ass.

when i say organized i mean DEEP cleaned. my kids have so many little toys with millions of little parts and they love to dump them all out at the same time. gradually things get put into the wrong places like in the wrong box or under the couch or in a pile to remind me to put it away later. also other stuff get mixed into the toys like bits of ripped up paper, bottle caps, pistachio shells, pieces of broken toys.

so, i went through EVERYthing that they own downstairs. i dumped out the baskets and the boxes and put it all in little piles of stuff that goes together, i took a cardboard box and filled it with all the crap that didnt belong anywhere and since i was on a role i took out things that they dont play with. this is SO hard for me bc i try so hard to not judge their toys as crappy or lame or whatever. i really try to give them anything that might have a shred of potential fun. so deciding what to put away really is hard for me. i ended up with a big box of stuff and put it in the basement for now. and i moved around the rest of the stuff to make it more acessable and brought out some stuff that hasnt been played with in a while but i know they'll enjoy. they had so much fun the rest of the day and the living room seemed so clean and way more peaceful and relaxing.

i really do think it becomes hard for my kids to enjoy themselves and find what they do want to play with when theres too much extra stuff everywhere. talking to some other moms the other day reminded me that it was time for a toy re-evaluation and i glad i woke up this morning with the energy to do it!

unschooling BBQ!

2008-07-22T02:22:00.002-04:00

this weekend dayna and joe had an unschooling potluck barbeque at their house! it was so awsome to be around a big bunch of unschooling families for the first time in a while (made me miss all you guys in boulder! :) )
there were kids of all ages which was really cool for me bc i havent gotten to experience alot of older unschooled kids.

my kids had a blast playing and eating yummy food all day. i was so happy to get to meet and spend the day talking to all the other parents. it really was a special day.

pearl, fern, kaya

decorating cupcakes for the party

popsicles!

decorating daynas steps with chalk

marshmallows

im pretty sure this was kayas favorite part

can you tell by the look on his face??

part five: post vacation fun

2008-07-17T03:56:00.008-04:00

i know i said we crashed after coming home from massachusetts but i have all these pictures that prove otherwise. is that why i'm so tired? someday i'll use up all my picture space here on blogger but for now ive only used 6% of the memory so its a picture free for all! what can i say, i love pictures!

rain drop flowers

fern, kaya, and pearl at the fireworks. everyone liked it this year!

kaya at the jackson falls

devin and kaya

devin and kaya

isnt this the coolest looking root?! not to mention the cute kids in it!

kaya

running in the sprinkler

at our pool with dayna and her kids. we've been using the pool alot lately! its so cool that we can take a 2 minute walk to the river or the pool whenever we want.

fern and pearl picking herbs from the garden

part four: plimouth plantation and the mayflower

2008-07-17T03:32:00.003-04:00

i really thought the kids would enjoy the plantation. kaya thought it was pretty cool but i think he really liked the mayflower better. both places have actors who pretend to be pilgrims and answer you questions in full character. there is also an wapanoag village. pearl and fern werent all that exited about the plantation. lets just say it was really hot, there was a lot of walking and they wanted me to carry them the whole time. cant find the mayflower pics right now. i'll post them later.

kaya grinding some corn

kaya, me, pearl, and fern

fern

kaya checking out the sheep and goats

part three: the beach

2008-07-17T03:14:00.005-04:00

theres two kinds of beaches near my parents house: the rocky beach and the sandy beach. i always loved the rocky beach the best as a kid (and now!) because theres all kids of things living around the rocks. we found crabs, periwinkles, starfish, hermit crabs, swarms of tiny shrimp . . . we had a blast and no one wanted to try the sandy beach. maybe next time!

kaya

big crab!

little crab!

fern and pearl

pearl collecting periwinkles

fern digging in the sand

fern, me, kaya, pearl, aunty jo jo

part two: blah and papas house

2008-07-17T02:35:00.005-04:00

we all had a lot of fun staying at my parents house. they still have alot of our old toys from when my sister and i were little. we went into the attic and dug out some old favorites. they have an awsome yard with tons of flowers and a long driveway for riding bikes. the kids had tons of fun just playing around the yard. we went to the beach a few times, the plimouth plantation, the mayflower. it was a good week.

the kids got lots of clothes from my parents (thanks guys!) kaya said thanks and kept playing, pearl and fern wanted to try it all on!

my dad fern and pearl

pearl and fern

playing bed bugs

this was one of my favorite puzzles. its called candyland

fern in the sandbox

fern and pearl riding bikes

jordan and me

where have we been? part one: dan zanes

2008-07-17T01:15:00.002-04:00

yes, anyone whos been paying attention probably has noticed that i havent posted in a while. first we went to massachusetts to visit my family for a week, had lots of non-stop fun and then we came home and crashed or a while. ive been feeling tired and yucky and just couldnt get myself up here to use the computer. thank goodness i have lots of pictures to remind me what we did!

when i found out there was going to be another dan zanes concert near us i knew we just had to go! we were planning on going to ma. anyway so we kinda planned the trip around the concert. the tickets were only ten bucks a person - how could i pass that up?? my sister jordan and her boyfriend artem drove from worcester to meet us. the concert wasa benefit for a local soup kitchen so instead of his usual band it was "dan zanes and local friends". they were alot more folky than his band. we got to hear lots of good songs including the girls favorite, "malti". and because he's so cool dan zanes always signs autographs and talks to people after every show. this time we were smart and waited until the crowd died down. we were the last ones there and it was nice to get to say hi with out a million other people waiting behind.

kaya, jordan, and artem

the band, notice the 3 kids on the right

during this song they had a guy drawing the song. really cool

the last time i tried to get the kids to take a pic with dan but they didnt want to. this time i said, well im going to take a picture with him! and then of course they wanted to.

a few good things

2008-06-25T05:32:00.002-04:00

first of all, you've probably noticed my list of blogs changes all the time. theres a few staples, but sometimes i put some on there thinking i like them and realize i dont, and take them off. well i just stumbled upon undone mama and its such a great unschooling blog. the posts arent super frequent but they are meaningful.

im also really exited to have another blogger friend that i know in real life: lisa at the marvelous mc connells. well written info and cute kids - what more could you want!

and, since scott noelle says things *so* much better than me, heres a few daily grooves. they've been so good lately!

:: "What's GOOD about that?" ::
If it's raining, you're supposed to call it "bad weather" and complain.
Complaining makes you feel bad, but you've been led to believe that the source of your angst is the rain-- the weather *conditions*. That's conditionality.
UNconditionality means wanting so much to feel good that you stop using conditions to justify feeling bad.
One way to practice the Art of Unconditionality in the face of "bad" conditions is to ask yourself,"What's GOOD about that?"
What's GOOD about the rain? It vitalizes the soil and plants... It makes the air smell clean... It's fun to get drenched and then go take a hot bath!
What's GOOD about children "misbehaving"? It means they're trying to engage, explore, connect, create,etc... It means you get to practice loving and feeling good unconditionally, which is the key to your Authentic Power.
Eventually you'll realize it's neither good nor bad -- it just IS. Welcome to Reality. :-)
http://www.dailygroove.net/unconditionality
Feel free to forward this message to your friends!(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

:: Go With the Flow... Even If It's 'Wrong' ::
Sometimes we think we're doing our kids a favor when we tell them the "right" way to do something:"No, dear... Do it *this* way."
We think we're just saving them the hassle of reinventing the wheel, or preventing something from being "wasted," or saving time. But our corrections also send unintended, unspoken messages, like...
* The end result is more important than the process.* Efficiency is more important than joy.* There is no value in making mistakes.* Better to go with a "sure thing" than to take risks.
In other words, frequently correcting children undermines their (and our) creativity!
So next time you see your child doing something the"wrong" way, ask yourself if it's really so bad that you can't go along with it. See if you can relax andenjoy witnessing his or her process of discovery.
Children who are allowed to find their own way learn that they *can* find their own way.
http://dailygroove.net/wrong-way
Feel free to forward this message to your friends!(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

always learning

2008-06-23T03:11:00.003-04:00

so, im sitting here with kaya at the computer while he watches every tom and jerry episode that has ever existed on you tube. he already blew through all the chip and dales. (btw, i NEVER would have thought a few years ago that id be encouraging my kids to watch these types of shows. but i'll save that for another post) we've never done much with you tube before. i guess i've never thought about it but theres so much awsome stuff!

anyway, i've been thinking alot about how kids (at least mine anyway) go through stages of learning. of course everyone is really learning all the time but sometimes it can be alot more obvious than others. for instance about 6 months ago kaya was in a super high absorbency learning stage. he wanted to read constantly. at one point we read the first three little house on the prairie books in a month! plus tons of other stuff. he is really into animals especially dinosaurs. it was like he wanted to read every book, watch every show, play every game about these subjects. it was very obvious that he was learning and it could easily have been categorized into "subjects".

i was happy of course to facilitate kayas learning by helping him find new stuff, books, etc. and also a little relieved to see how much he was learning and to have something to tell all the friends and family who wanted to know what we were doing!

but all of a sudden he wasn't interested anymore! i think he was realizing, for one thing, that he knew a lot about dinosaurs and animals. he learned way beyond basic stuff and as we progressed things became geared for older people and probably got more boring. whatever the reason, he was done. it wasnt fun anymore, so he stopped doing it!

unschooled kids are so lucky to have this choice even though it seems like something all people should get to choose. kids in school are constantly subjected (i use this word bc they are not necessarily learning it) to things that dont really interest them. when i was in school i just tuned out the stuff i didnt want to hear or memorized it quick for a test. what do i remember now? the stuff that i liked, that made me happy, that i wanted to learn.

i trust kaya and i trust the humans natural drive to learn - so i dont worry even though kaya hasnt wanted to do much "academic" stuff lately. theres so much more to learn in life anyway!

2008-06-21T19:17:00.002-04:00

wow, this is such a great video about natural multiple birth. heres a link to the blog where i found it. makes me want to post my birth story! maybe later . . .

happy solstice!

2008-06-21T17:49:00.004-04:00

we went to daynas house for a solstice potluck last night. we had so much fun! we dont really go out at night much so the kids thought it was really cool. they swam in the kiddie pool and kaya did the slip and slide. there was lots of yummy food! kaya caught his first firefly! i think kayas favorite part was roasting marshmallows. he loves cooking on campfires and marshmallows are so manageable for kids. he must have roasted 2 bags to himself! he was the only one out there still roasting for a little while! when we were leaving he said it was the best day ever! (sound familiar?!)

on the way home kaya was talking about how much fun he had. he said: "i had fun with my friends and you had fun with your friends, mom." then he thought for a minute and said: "your friends made my friends, right mom, like how you made me!"
it was pretty hilarious.

along with his millions of marshmallows kaya drank 2 cans of grape soda. when we got home he had a stomach ache. he got out of the car and ran to the house saying "mom, mom, i need you to make me a salad right now! i ate too much sugar and i need some vegetables to make me feel better! " i laughed and and told him he probably just needed to relax his stomach for a little while!

ooh, another great kid comment. at the party i was talking to another unschooling mom who lives nearby. she has lots of earings and some tattoos. devin(9), daynas son was admiring one of her tattoos and then said "your weird and interesting!" it was so awsome! he totally meant it as a compliment and caitlin took it as one! i just love how kids (especially unschooled kids) say whats on their mind and dont really worry about what people will think. ive witnessed it alot in different situations. theres a book about always saying whts on your mind, radical something. . . i think "radical honesty" or something like that. dont know if i could do it all the time. . .
anyway, i think catlin's weird (good weird-i love weird people!) and interesting too, but can you imagine an adult saying that to another adult?! an adult would beat around the bush and say something like "i like you tattoo!"

pictures of our week

2008-06-21T17:17:00.004-04:00

the kids have been very into dress up. mostly faries, super -men and super-ladies

kaya made some glasses with sparkly pipe cleaners

we puffy painted some shirts. they loved it and love to wear them now!

had lots of fun swimming and playing in the sand

avery, kaya, and devin building a sand kingdom

my little ferny fairy of the lake

yes, fairies do know how to swim!

about to fly off

garden pictures

2008-06-15T01:58:00.006-04:00

after much ado here is my tiny garden with sandy soil that doesnt get alot of sun! i think it going to do just fine. if there wasnt so much poison ivy everywhere i might have dug up more space. but i think im done for now! i mixed a bunch of top soil in with the dirt and put a big scoop of good organic compost under each plant. then i top dressed with more compost. i put cherry tomatoes by the edge so the kids can pick them with out tromping on the rest of the stuff. the big tomatoes and tomatillas in the back are ones that i started inside a little too early. they were starting to get real leggy but i planted them deep and theyre doin good now.

we took a walk to the river today and found this little algea eater fish hiding under the rocks. it was so neat! i didnt realize they lived here.

we have the best family ever!

2008-06-14T02:38:00.003-04:00

yep, its true. kaya said so!
yesterday i was making breakfast and i made scrambled eggs with just whites bc i had saved them after using tons of yolks for other stuff. kaya wanted to know why the eggs were white. i explained and he seemed very unsure if he was going to like them. (and i didnt know what theyd be like either!) anyway, they were really good. and kaya happily told me that he loved them and that i am the best cook. he thought for a moment and then said i am the best mom ever! he went on to say that danny is the best dad "and he never tells me not to climb up the slide at the playground" (we were at the playground a while ago and a dad was harassing his kid for climbing up the slide and looking at me like i was a deadbeat for not telling kaya to stop)
pearl and fern noticed all the lovey talk and came and sat on my lap and told me how much they love me too. watching this, kaya said "we just have the best family mom!" i agreed of course!

enjoying the summer

2008-06-14T01:48:00.004-04:00

oooh, its been really hot here. last week it was almost 100 or three days in row. it finally rained and thunder stormed a bunch and then cooled off. we've been swimming and eating popscicles and ice cream and all that fun stuff! theres also alot of bugs and poison ivy which we havent been enjoying quite so much! my poison ivy is starting to go away finally but i think the girls have it now. theres started as tons of bug bite and i think now from scratching so much theyve got poison ivy too. ive been wiping it with diluted lavender oil and then putting aloe gel on it. the aloe really made it feel less itchy to me. but i have no will power for that sort of thing and i spread it all over.

wanna hear a goofy story about my childhood experimenting?

i was probably between 8-10 years old and had never gotten poison ivy even though we had tons in the yard and i was always outside. so what did i do? i wanted to see if i could get it! i rubbed it on my leg! i remember it clearly. i was sitting on the branch of this huge pine tree that i loved. the poison ivy was growing up the tree in a vine. i was a weird kid. i also tryed to sharpen my finger in an elecric pencil sharpener once. it didnt work. the poison ivy worked though. i got it all over my whole body including my eyelids and in my mouth. yeah. . .

heres some pictures!

eating frozen yogurt pops

fern and pearl eating pocorn at the pool.

they like wearing their suits but havent really tried swimming with them yet!

kaya enjoying the pool

the kids swimming at echo lake

pearl and fern at echo lake

fern giving pearl a very enthusiastic hug

after a few minutes pearl decided to be more photogenic

tons of tadpoles in the water. we also found tons of water snails and caught a big fish with our hands. yes, there must have been something up with the fish!

a ladys slipper. a very rare flower.

this is for you elizabeth!

more marley

2008-06-14T00:56:00.004-04:00

marley is doing so good. hes such a sweet cute guy! (I think hes a guy?!) hes really on his way to becoming a cage free bunny! he has a little cage where he likes to go to chill out and do his buisness - which he does alot of btw. i have to really be on top of cleaning the poop or my house starts to smell like a farm. if hes out and its been a while that he hasnt pooed or peed i put him in his cage to go. if he goes on the floor i show it to him and say no and put him in the cage for a while.

the other obstacle was the other animals. jack is SUCH a good dog it only took him a few days to leave marley alone and even then all he was doing was trying to lick the crap out of him. hes such a pleaser - as soon as he realized we didnt want him to obbsessivly lick the rabbit, he stopped. delia on the other hand was intent on eating marley - or at least chewing on his neck and then playing with his body - sorry for the goriness, but she is just stone cold killer! she hasnt caught anything since we moved here so i think shes been itching for a kill. i guess theres not too many mice here? (too bad!)

at first i was avoiding it and only letting marley out when delia wasnt around but i knew id have to face it sometime. and the kids were always asking to take him out. anyway, it only took a few times of me being super on top of her and physically stopping her from jumping on him. now she watches him and bats at him a little when he comes near. but for the most part she ignores him. that said, i wouldnt leave them alone together!

hes actually strting shed and looks alot different than in these pictures his grey baby hair is falling out and its whitish underneath. harliquin rabbits are usually spotty. we'll have to wait and see.

the kids are trying really hard to find a balance between playing with him and holding him and being respectful. hes more cat-like in the sense that he doesnt really want to snuggle most of the time. ive been telling them that when he starts to wiggle hes asking to be put down. hes really fast so a lot of times they cant even catch him!

playing, bouncing, and ice cream!

2008-05-30T02:09:00.003-04:00

we went to the memorial day craft fair last weekend. the kids had a ball. of course they loved the ice cream but also the bouncers were pretty empty and they got in them by themselves. i dont think pearl and fern would have gone in if there were other kids in it!

kaya, pearl, fern

we all had ice icecream all over us by the end!

pearl looks like a ballerina!

pearl, at the river
pearl

mazie, pearl, and fernavery and kaya catching some rocks

meet marley

2008-05-30T01:43:00.006-04:00

meet the newest addition to the robins family! marley is about 6 weeks old and he/she (you cant tell till theyre a couple months old) is a harlequin rabbit. hes so cute and sweet! we just got him today at a local farm. one of my spur of the moment decisions, (how we got all of our animals!) we were doin some shopping at the health food store/farm and they had bunnies for sale! danny and i had talked about it before. . . he's going to be a house bunny - litter box trained. were a little scared of how jack a delia (mostly delia) will interact with him, especially since hes so little so we'll keep him in a cage at night and when we go out for now.

he was nameless for a while. we were on a run of naming our pets from grateful dead song lyrics.
jackaroe is a character in an old traditional song covered by the dead. its actually a girl calling herself jackaroe after jack, her lover. she poses as a man to go off to war to save him.

delia is from a traditional song called stagger lee. shes avenging the death of her lover.

well, we couldnt think of any unisex dead song names that we liked so marley is named after bob marley. hes a little rasta rabbit. (that doesnt really mean anything i just thought it sounded funny!)
i'll get some better pictures soon.

happy memeorial day!

2008-05-26T01:48:00.005-04:00

does this mean its officially summer now? i hope so!

we were a bit sad to miss the boulder creek festival this year bc its pretty awsome. but while driving to do an errand today we realized that theres a little craft fair in n conway this weekend. it had some of those jumpy things which kaya noticed and was exited about. we'll go check it out tomorrow.

look i figured out how to make real links! im so proud of myself! but really, ive tried doing the same thing i just did before and i swear it didnt work! now i have to go back and ix all my old posts or it will bug me. but not now. oh, and im going to use millions of links now that i know how!!

ive been sick or a few days now. it was mostly a head cold kinda thing. i was sick exactly a month ago too with a stomach thing. its crazy how much this candida crap messes up my immune system. youd think id be so healthy from the way i eat but until i can stop being a sugar addict . . . (and i REALLY dont eat that much sugar! but NONE is SO hard!) i get sick SO much!

today in the store we asked a elderly salesperson or help finding something. as she was talking to us pearl reached down my shirt then looked at the lady and said "boobie!" um, yeah. remember were in the boonies wher most folks arent all that open minded AND this was a really old lady. i tried not to laugh or look at her and prayed that pearl didnt ollow up with the typical comment "gimme that boobie!" she didnt, thank god. im cracking up just writing about it.

ive been jotting down other unny things that they say lately and saving them up.

another good embarrassing stranger moment with pearl: we're in the grocery store in the middle of an isle. kinda far at the end of the isle a man with a really big fluffy beard walked by. pearl pointed at him and yelled "big beardy!" then she started running towards the end of the isle repeating it. i think everyone in the grocery store already recognizes me as the neglectful parent who has no control over her kidsanyway, so its not that bad! i always end up with one of the HUGE ass, immpossible to push "car carts". then kaya is the only one who wants to sit in it and pearl and fern chase each other around while i try not to knock stuff over with the cart.

fern likes to do impressions of calliou (her fav show) but she seems to only like the ones when calliou is pissed. she pulls it of quite well! (with her arms crossed across her chest and a scrunched up face "no, im NOT going to enjoy myself!" and she pulls it out at the most random times.

she also likes to tell me and danny that we are her "most favoritest mommy/daddy"

the other day kaya came downstairs and one of the girls said "whered you come from?" he looked at her and said "from mommys vagina (pronounced bagina)" the funny part is he was serious (theres a lot of potty humor around here lately so it easily could have been a joke) then all of a sudden he realised what she meant and started cracking up. it was pretty funny.

i cut kayas hair a little shorter than i meant to.

he likes it though he said it feels like dog hair!

theres a little playset in our neighborhood. the kids have been enjoying it. . .

pearl

fern

aunty jo jo

2008-05-21T02:22:00.007-04:00

my sister jordan just got back from spendig a semester in puerto rico. so we havent really seen her since we got here. last week the kids and i went to worcester ma (3 hours away) to pick her up and bring her to our house for the week. it was actually an ok drive and we hung out for a bit and got some lunch before heading back. the kids had So much fun hanging out with thier aunty jo jo (and me too)! at the end of the week we all (danny too) drove her back to her apartment and stayed for the weekend. it was quite an experince hanging out college style for the weekend! it brought back some fond memories! we went to a cute city park and hit up the local heath food store -which was awsome btw!

fern LOVES jo jo

everybody loves jo jo!

eating candy at the lake

fern loves her pink rock candy

pearl loves her maryjane too

no, it was not THAT warm out!

kaya standin' on a stump

on a little hike to the river (k,p,f)

kaya liked this spot

kaya fishing at the river

sandy butts

this water is FREEZING AND it was not THAT warm out!

new post- its about time!

2008-05-21T01:02:00.005-04:00

wow, it really has been a long time! i didnt realize it was that long! what have we been doing? i dont even know?!
ive been on a cooking frenzy, pearl and fern could win any tv watching contest out there and kayas been off in animal rescue land with his friends dora, diego, summit, jack and annie. some of you know that kaya is a pretend-a-holic. he has his team of "friends" (dora and diego just got added to his list) who help him do very important "jobs" like rescuing animals, building all kinds of special equitment and lots of other cool stuff. hes such a good kid!

i decided today that i am going to made a garden in the yard here. i was counting all the plants i started (which ended up being kinda alot) and figuring out how much stuff id have to buy to do it in pots on the porch. screw it. we have the perfect spot in the side of our yrd that doesnt get mowed (the association mows our lawn) but its insanely weedy and uneven and just a total mess. im pumped though! i cant wait for a nice (non buggy) day to get out there and rip it up. danny thinks im crazy! he asked if i thought weeding was fun. i kinda do -especially at the begining of summer. all i can think of is going out to pick fresh baby chard for salad and the kids picking grape tomatoes off the plant and eating them! then i remember what my garden looked like at the end of the summer last year! 3 foot weeds - oh well! we have some kind of berry vines all over the place around our yard. i cant wait to see what they are. my guess is blackberries.

i have nine tomatillo plants which im super exited about bc ive never grown any before. one is already starting to bud (i know i need to get then in!) and 5 plum tomatoes. i want to get some other tomatoes. probably grape or cherry. i also have a few peppers and eggplant but theyre not doing so hot. plus a bunch of herbs. i'll do some peas and beans in the ground and probably some melons and cucumbers.

ive been on quest to find more afordable local organic food here. weve been doing alot of shopping at hanafords. we hardly have stepped foot in regular grocery untill we moved here. its an unschooling nightmare for me because their all kinds of "junky" (or what i think of as) food everywhere. its SO hard for me to let go of that! they do have a nice natural foods section and weve been able to find almost everything we used to buy in colorado. except its all double the price! of course theres a huge market for organics in boulder but it seems like its getting more popular here, and theres lots of organic farms in southern nh , western ma and vermont. anyway i decided to boycot hanaford organic friut and veggies bc they wrap thm in styrofoam and cellophane. whats up with that? i know theyre trying to keep them safe from the evil conventional veggies. . . ;) anyway, theres a really nice little health food store thats owned by a really sweet family and ive been buying our produce there instead.

theres also a biodynamic farm on the other side of town that will have stuff soon. and theres two other health food stores in reasonable driving distance that ive been wanting to go to. we took a trip to one the other day and im SO happy we did. the people who own it have a small farm and they sell their free range eggs (for the same price as the big brand ones at hanafords!) raw goats milk, and local free range meats and local grass fed beef. all of it was super reasonably priced too. its a little bit of a drive but totally worth it.

anyway, half to save money and half to be slightly more sustainable ive been doing more "from scratch" kinda cooking. anyone who knows me knows i aready am super into that. one path ive never gone is making ALL our own bread. ive made lots of bread but just for fun really. ive been really into the "nourshing tradtions" style grain soaking so ive made lots of soaked flour mufins, quick breads, pancakes, and waffles. i made sandwhich bread the same way and it came out awsome. even danny liked it and he can be picky! he said it didnt even taste healthy! i started the flour for a double batch today. i made tortillas but not with soaked flour. im looking for a recipe - kinda scared to experiment!

what else? i said it was a cooking frenzy i started kefir with some of the raw milk i got. i made a bunch of kim chi thats already in the fridge. and theres some fermented bean paste sitting on the counter next to the kifer right now! i cant wait till i have all my tomatoes and tamatillos to make fermented salsa! some friends aand talked about having ethnic potlucks where everyone brings acertain kind of food. were doing asian first and i found a cookbook by martin yan (he has a show on pbs) that is so awsome! i have a few asian recipes that i can cook but most things seemed so hard. this book really makes it easy. i made up this awsome thai peanut soup that ive been making alot and now spring rolls are my new favorite thing. oh, one night i made crab rangoon. the kids loved that!
maybe someday i'll get it together enough to write down some recipes. most of time i just trow stuf together and somehow it usually tastes good!
this is getting rather long. im sure theres only so much anyone can stand to read about what i make for dinner and my garden plans!

look at my cute kids!

2008-04-30T22:17:00.003-04:00

they love each other! my furry kids:

fern and pearl:

a kaya profile:

art class! (just kidding)

2008-04-30T21:36:00.003-04:00

the kids have been drawing SO many pictures lately! this is just a small sampling. i didnt write down what pearl and ferns are. they usually go in waves of always drawing rainbows or flowers etc. lately its been people so thats probably what these are. kayas favorite thing to draw is monsters or anything scary.

drawn by fern
drawn by pearl
"a monster in the time of dinosaurs"

"a crocodile monster eating a person"

a guide for sailing: "when you go sailing you need to watch out for whales, sharks, and sting rays. you need to bring life jackets, flippers and a face mask to breathe underwater."

a visit from blah and pappa

2008-04-24T23:10:00.002-04:00

it was my moms birthday and kaya picked out a special rock at a store downtown for her. he was so happy to give it to her.
the kids had so much fun playing with their grandparents!
jack waiting for me to throw his stick

yea, its spring!

2008-04-22T19:03:00.002-04:00

fern with her pearl dog
its been SO nice and warm here! yes, theres still a little snow on the ground but its been in the 70's and 80's or days now! we didnt have any summer clothes out so we had to go to our storage unit and get some stuff fast. pearl and fern had been eyeing shorts and sandals for a long time. everytime we saw someone with them one they'd say "can i get some shorts/sandals?" they were so exited when we opened the boxes. it was like i brought home boxes of new toys or something! they dug through it all and tried on like a hundred different outfits!

pearl and fern with their new shades. kaya got some too. hes been exited to wear all his tye-dyes. for some reason he has lots of short sleeved ones but no long sleeves.

we went swimming at an indoor pool last week. i cant wait till our pool opens! probably not for a little while though. we've been walking to the saco river by our house to throw rocks. jacks been enjoying swimming. its really fast there though so he cant go in too far. if we walk farther theres a good swimming place but the path is still snowy and its not quite warm enough yet!

special visitors

2008-04-14T01:55:00.003-04:00

yes, we had some very special friends visit this weekend! elizabeth, robert, isabella, and nicholi -our friends and fellow unschoolers. elizabeths sister colleen came also. it was quite a party! all the kids stayed up late and played hard! the extra special thing was that they ARE our friends from boulder but we havent seen them for a year because they've been away traveling. we all had so much fun . . .

pajama party at dan zanes house!

2008-04-14T01:07:00.004-04:00

we went to see dan zanes and friends last weekend in somerville ma. it really was a pajama party, we all wore out pjs (except fern wore her "purple outfit"). most kids in the audience did but not many adults - those party poopers! pearl and fern kept saying we were going to dan zanes house. even once we got there i'm not sure if they got it, but they they had fun! me and danny were totally exited to go and had a blast too! kaya definitely had fun but he tends to be shy and a little overwelmed in big groups of people. he only likes to dance at home! he thought it was really cool to watch the band and hear them play songs that he knew. pearl and fern let it all hang out and were running up and down the isles and dancing like crazy! at the end the band came out and talked to people and signed autographs. we got all their autographs and ferns said "hi dan zanes" to dan zanes. they didnt want to get their picture taken with him - oh well. i should have gotten MY picture taken with him! i figured there were lots of little kids who wanted to more than me!

after the concert we drove to my parents house in plymouth ma. it was only a 45 minute drive instead of a 2 hour one to our house. the kids were exited to stay there too. heres a picture of them with their "blah". yes, they call her blah. kaya said it instead of gram and it stuck!

heres a picture a mine and kayas neighbor snow fairy houses. we'd never made them in the snow before. it was really warm all last week so we were playing in our front yard which is mostly the dirt driveway. the backyard is still pretty deep snow. kaya said playing in the driveway was like being at the beach! they had buckets and shovels and were collecting sand, rocks and snow. kayas been amazed at the moss thats all over the place here. he gave me a big peice that he found for my birthday present!

snowy day

2008-04-01T01:12:00.011-04:00

today i wrote this post on paper while hanging out with the kids. i think it worked out well. theres something about the computer, it sucks you in and its hard to pay attention to anything else. now i just have to type mindlessly. its actually a bigger deal than youd think because i am a one handed typer. yes, i took typing in school but i hated it and refused to learn. danny says im the fastest one handed typer hes ever seen!

anyway, when i started writing yesterdays post i intended it to explain why i havent been posting regularly. like a shout out to all my loyal fans. (all 10 of you! ;) ) it ended up more like me whining about my kids sleeping habits . . . oh well, sorry! ideally id post every day but it probably wont happen often. i want to give a good idea of what unschooling life can be and also, i just like to write. i always used to keep journals until i had kids. then it wasnt a priority anymore i guess. i would try and end up writing every 3-4 months . . . i would just forget. somehow having it on the computer reminds me and makes it easier.

my friend elizabeth (whos be traveling around europe with her family for a year - heres a link to an awsome interveiw on baby wearer.com http://www.thebabywearer.com/index.php? )
just told me that she has a friend in slovania that reads my blog. HI friend in slovakia! thats so cool that i have a reader in europe somewhere! and how cool is it that elizabeth is spreading the word about attachment parenting and unschooling life all over europe!

right now my kids are jumping on the beds like they are trampolines! they gotta get their exercise somehow in the winter, right? pearl just got herself dressed (shes been naked most of the day) shes wearing some of dannys yellow socks pulled up to her knees, underwear and a dress. earlier she was wearing some of kayas boxer-briefs. they looked like baggy shorts on her.

today kaya and i woke up at 11:30 am. fern slept till 12. we didnt even go to bed that late. weve had a few late nights in a row though and i put blankets up on the windows to keep all the light out. if paerl and ern see the light they wake ip no matter what. it was also a little dark bc it was snowing. it snowed big fluffy chunks all day it didnt seem to add up that much but it doesnt really matter much when theres already 2+ seemingly permanent feet on the ground!

we had a nice quiet snowy day playing playdough, coloring, cooking and just hanging out. i totally miss all you guys out there in boulder but its been kinda nice not having the option to go out much (dont know many people and not much to do in the winter). weve been staying in our pjs all day and enjoying our family! we did get to meet dayna martin ( http://www.thesparklingmartins.blogspot.com/ ) and her awsome family a few days ago. they are they only other unschoolers in this area and our first friends! weve been totally blessed to live close to a family with such similar values up here in the forests of new hampshire!

heres some pictures of our day . . .
kaya grated all the zucchini and carrots for our bread! pearl and fern helped. . .

snow out our back door. . .

my babies are starting come up! basil, parsley, nasturtiums, sage, tomatoes, tamatillos, peppers, eggplant, i know theres more. just a few of each bc they have to be all on our deck! in the back you can see my sad plants that i brought from colorado. they made it here fine and then i forgot to take them out of the car and they froze overnight! succulents dont like that much!

life ever changing

2008-03-30T14:57:00.000-04:00

here i am trying to write a post at 3:00 in the afternoon. ive always been a late-night computer person but lately my kids have been staying up later and later and waking up late. last night we all stayed up till 12:30 and then woke up at 10:30 (fern slept till 11). my parents think its completely crazy. i'm not exactely happy about it, i liked our previous deal when i knew i would get some time to myself every night. kaya has been staying up late with me for a while now - i got over that fast. but how is that pearl and fern, two and a half year olds, need the same amount of sleep as me?! i shouldnt be surprised since around 3 months they already were only sleeping twice a day and by 6 months they sometimes took one nap. they quit naps taking naps around 1.5.

so anyway i need to figure out a way to get my computer time without staying up till 3 am! when i first sat down pearl and fern followed me to the computer and demanded to both have milk at the same time. i sat down with them for a little while and since then they've let me have some time with an occasional nurse (one at a time though). i guess i dont like stopping while im trying to type. i CAN be spacey (only sometimes ;) ) -it throws off my (very complicated!) train of thought! i shouldnt complain so much about though. weve actually been having lots of fun staying up late!

ok, now its quarter to five. i stopped around 3:30 to get the kids some lunch. it was the the 2nd meal of the day so i guess i can call it lunch!

its been semi warm here, like 40s and the snow is melting! slowly but surely. heres some pictures of pearl and fern enjoying the melty snow. i can figure out how to get it on here i have a video of kaya sledding down a hill made by the snow plows.

FERN

PEARL

for easter the kids go a set of "blo pens". they look like markers but you blow through the top and ink comes of the tip and sprays onto the paper. it came with cool stencils and lots of different colors. i had never heard of them before and was a little sceptical, especially about whether p&f could do it. it was so fun though, they all could do it easily and no one got marker in their mouths! heres some pictures:

hello from new hampshire!

2008-03-24T00:23:00.000-04:00

wow, i cant believe i havent written in over a month! it doesnt seem like that long - we've been so busy. this is really the first night that ive the time/engergy to write, and its already so late. i have alot to say though! and lots of pictures too. this is the view from the road by our house. kaya says we live in the forest. once we drive out of town he says "are we back in the forest now??"

we had a nice easter weekend. my parents came up and stayed with us, the kids were really exited to see them. easter was always a big deal when i was growing up. my family is italian/irish catholic. its always been one of my favorite holidays - maybe bc its near my birthday but i really just love the spring too. anyway danny and i dont do much of the religious part now but we still like to celebrate easter. i love to cook all the stuff that my gradmother and mom have always made. we had ham, stuffed artichokes, au gratin potatoes, and asparugus. then we had biscotti and pasteri (italian noodle custard) for desert. my grandmother always made lamb and eggs but the past couple years ive been doing ham instead.

the kids drew on some eggs with crayons and then we soaked them in vegatable dyes. we used blueberries, beets, and onion skins. the beet ones didnt come out very dark. i think i didnt use enough bc last year they worked fine. kayas are the ones with swirls all over.

we hid the decorated eggs and plastic eggs with candy. when i was little my mom always hid a pineapple and a coconut. the kids thought it was funny to find the hidden fruit. i got 3 young coconuts, i usually just get one and its never enough bc theyre so yummy! so this this time i got three and they were the hardest coconuts ive ever had to open! it took me an hour to get them all open, but it was worth it! the kids ate nothing but candy until 4:30 (we didnt wake up till 10 tho) then they finally decided to eat their painted eggs. (i was so happy;) )

kaya and i have been waiting for the new "walking with dinosaurs" show on tonite. we were slightly disapointd that it was basically an updated version of the old one. it was still fun to watch though, and after there was another dinosaur show about scientists trying to find dino dna. they were trying to prove the birds evolved from dinos and figure out whether they could clone them. we thought it was pretty neat.

kaya loves playing in the snow! hes never seen this much before!

things i like to do (by kaya)

2008-02-21T23:32:00.000-05:00

i like to play rescue.

a day of firsts

2008-02-21T03:00:00.000-05:00

kaya finally lost that tooth! the only problem is that he swallowed it! he was actually pretty upset about it. i guess he had planned on keeping it even though he decided that there is no tooth fairy. hes been asking alot lately about that kind of stuff and the conversation was finally right to tell him that we gave him the presents at christmas also. that was a load off my mind! danny never wanted to do "the santa thing" to start with but i pressured him into it. but as he got older i started feeling bad like i was lying to him. i really wanted to tell him before pearl and fern were old enough to get it but i didnt want to bring it up randomly either. anyway, we're going to go to the store tomorrow so he can pick out something instead of a tooth fairy present.

while i was poking around in his mouth i realized that another tooth right next to the one that fell out is loose. it really took a long time to fall out! what a pain in the ass - he has to chew with the side of his mouth and it hurts when he forgets! i remember it felt so gross and slimey when they first fell out.

pearl also had a first today!

she slept all night (not literally-she woke up many times to nurse!) with no diaper on! it was actually an accident, we were all up late, they were playing and i was packing and in all the craziness i just forgot she didnt have one on. there has been a few times that shes woken up dry lately but i would have been too scared to leave her without a diaper intentionally. fern is always soaked when she wakes up. which is kind of weird bc she nurses less at night than pearl.

the past week they've been going all day without diapers exept when they have to poop. then they ask me to put one on. they say "dite-doo" for diaper! so cute.

speaking of diapers, im officially done with cloth! i just cant do it anymore and moving made it final. i was so good at washing them the first year and a half but then i started leaving them and using disposables in between. i know its bad - but so tempting. maybe it was bc of the time in between washings (never too long) or maybe theyre just getting old but i just cant seem to get them clean. even with conventional detergent or bleach. they always still smell poopy. and after one pee - then they really stink.

ok enough about poop and pee. . .

kayas loose teeth are making me realize how old hes getting! its crazy! pearl and fern want to do everything themselves and now they usually can. pearl got herself completly dressed today. she stuck her arm in the neck hole of her shirt and i helped her get it out. the rest she did herself. she was very proud.

theyve also been mastering puzzles. we have a big stack of old "playschool" brand puzzles. you know, the ones that are cut in completly random peices that makes them hard to do. theyre getting really good at them!

they are also playing together so nicely. i just love to watch them make up games together. pearl and fern can talk so well now that they are really starting to contribute to the play. kaya has said to me afew times lately that he really loves playing with his sisters. how sweet is that!?

grossy head

2008-02-17T02:52:00.001-05:00

kaya was going to post about his picture. he lay down in front of the computer (its on the floor bc we gave away the desk that it was on. and yes its hard to type while sitting on the floor!) and i went to brush my teeth. when i came back he was asleep!

happy valentines day!

2008-02-15T01:56:00.000-05:00

its a good thing it was valentines today or i wouldnt have been able to think of a title for this post! i just want to call them all "today" - that would be kind of boring though.

im so exited i finally figured out how to get my slideshow and music on here! it was easy i was just totally missing it.

we had a nice valentines today. i didnt actually make any valentines, but kaya had been talking about it for a while. he made two for his friend amber across the street and one for his friend jameson. hes always making an art prodject for someone, but he always stashes them in wierd places and they very rarely get to the person. when i was cleaning the space above our kitchen cabinets i found some little papers he had cut up and drawn on! im sure he had a good reason at the time. he has such a great imagination!

i think theyve all been a little bored with most of their toys put away. theyve been watching more tv than usual. when we get to our new place it will be so exiting to explore the new house and area. they been finding interesting things to do with whats around of course. this is what kaya and pearl did tonite:

oh man, i cant turn this around now that i have it here and i cant get it off! oh well, just turn your head a little!

pearl and ferns current favorite game is dress up. not dress up with dressup clothes though. dress up with their own clothes! they love to pick out thir own outfits and sometimes it takes quite a while before they find the right "look". then they change MANY times during the day! pearl doesnt have a favorite outfit but she really likes dresses, tye dyes and overalls. she almost always wears a dress. fern has a specific dress that she loves. its very 70's: polyester with red, blue, and yellow flowers. if thats dirty she also likes her "purple oufit" which consists of purple pants and a purple shirt.

the first outfit of the day:

what we ate today

2008-02-12T00:54:00.002-05:00

one thing ive been loving lately is raw egg smoothies. yes, it might sound gross to some of you. in fact i would have died to even think of eating raw eggs not very long ago. but im over it! there are so many good things you miss cooking your egg yolks! and you can have a protien shake with out all the yucky stuff like soy or zapped whey protein. heres a great link about the safety of raw eggs especially if they are free range organic eggs. http://www.mercola.com/2003/feb/5/eggs_salmonella.htm

2 Tbsp each melted butter and coconut oil
3 egg yolks (you dont want to eat raw whites save them for later cooking)
couple tablespoons raw maca powder
1-2 tablespoons raw cacao powder
1-2 teaspoons of spirulina
1/2 cup plain yogurt (raw would be nice)
sweetener, i use stevia or raw honey
add some raw milk/cream, coconut water/milk, nut milk or whatever you like to thin. it usually makes a half a blenders worth for me.
(more cream makes it like a milkshake!)

im supposed to be on a gluten free, dairy free, all sugar free diet bc of candida but it hasnt happened the last couple weeks. . . oops.
we made these awsome cookies tonite for dessert. they kind of ended up being a part of diner!
gluten free peanut butter chocolate chip cookies:
1c pb http://www.worldpantry.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMacro/nspired/maranatha/faq.d2w/report#17
(see "what is aflotoxin" to find out why maranatha pb is one of the safest brands of pb.)
1c sucanot
6 oz chocolate chips
1 egg
1 teasp baking powder
1/4 teasp salt
1 teaspoon vanilla ex
mix all together shape into flattened balls. bake at 350, 10 minutes. the batter is as good as the cookies!
variations: today i added a cup of shredded coconut. once instead of choc chips i put 1/2 cocoa powder and 1 mashed bannana - they came out awsome, chewy and chocolatety.

food

2008-02-11T01:24:00.000-05:00

food is such a major part of our life here. i know it is for everyone - you need food to live. but we're a little obsessed. in a good way most of the time! i'm always trying to make good healthy food for my family but at the same time i really like the classic nostalgic stuff that isnt always so good for you. (right now im envisioning chocolate chip cookies) i ususally comprimise and make healthier versions of the junky stuff. anyway i wanted to some food posts about what weve been having fun making and eating. we didnt make anything very interesting today and ferns begging for some "milky". so im going to go lay down with her and surrender the computer to kaya. GOODNIGHT!

fern and kaya having waffles and smoothies for dinner

"some science stuff" from kaya

2008-02-11T00:31:00.000-05:00

i saw aq big centipede. i went to the time of dinosaurs and big bugs

a bunch of sick kids

2008-02-10T23:04:00.000-05:00

oh man, my kids have been sick! we havent been out to play in 2 weeks! yesterday we went grocery shopping and it felt like we'd been let out of prison (packing prison!). i havent been able to post or do anything on the computer bc pearl and fern have been taking naps and then staying up till 11. but it wasnt just regular stay up late - it was whiney clingy stay up late and nurse the whole time!

first pearl got a cough and runny nose. her nose just got more and more amd more runny. her whole face was dripping. she was drooling and her eyes were tearing for 3 days. just as she started getting better kaya and fern started dripping. kaya has it the least though. probably woulnt have been so bad if i could have remembered to give them all their tinctures. all i can think about is packing! and getting things ready for the move. thats what we get for rushing to be out by march, but we really wanted to get the house on the market and this is the best time of the year.

we've gotten alot done in the past couple days. we booked painters, carpet cleaners, movers, got a starage place in nh, reserved a hotel for while the painters and carpet cleaners are here. we also cleared out a bunch of furniture and stuff we dont want to take with us. we put it all on craiglists for free and it was almost all gone in a day! danny cleaned out the whole garage today so we can start putting boxes out there. i tend to just chuck stuff that i dont want to deal with at the moment in there so it was a big project.

we still havent gotten much fixed though. we got a roller for our sliding door and took the door out but the roller was too small. then we got another one that was too big. there arent any that look like the one we have. maybe we'll just have to pay someone if we cant figure it out. then the new sink we got was taller than our old one so the pipes dont fit now. we finally got another peice to make it fit but danny has to cut it before i can put it in (yes, im the plumber of the family but i dont like the electric saw) meanwhile one of the water line will NOT turn all the way off no matter what we do so its been dripping into a bucket. the kids keep bumping into it so theres always a puddle on the floor.

kayas first loose tooth!!!

2008-02-03T23:41:00.000-05:00

we were in home depot today and kaya was having some trouble eating his dryed mango. i took a look and realized it was loose! i noticed yesterday that it looked funny. it looked more crooked than usual. i tryed to wiggle it but it wouldnt. he is really exited! he has some friends that have lost teeth and hes really been looking forward to it. he was full of questions! he said he thinks it will take 6 days to fall out. hes going to ask his friend jameson (who has lost some teeth) about it on tuesday.

we finally have an official moving date! we bought plane tickets for me and kids today for march 7th. we were thinking about danny driving a truck and me driving the car with the kids. but decided that 3 days of driving was too much for pearl and fern. i must admit, im a little scared of a day of air travel with two y.o. twins by myself. but im trying to remind myself that it will be better for them.

the kids have been helping me pack by decorating the boxes! they really want to help so much. kaya actually packed a box of books prety well. we probably have half of our stuff packed up now. we just ahve so much more stuff (and kids) than the last time we moved. today we went to home depot and got stuff to fix all the little things we've been neglecting. anyone whos been to our house will be glad to know that were finally fixing the sliding door! its way less of a big deal than we thought too.

another day of trying to pack. . .

2008-02-02T01:44:00.000-05:00

but it didnt really happen. it was so warm here this morning that me and the girls ended up sitting on the porch for awhile playing and having a snack. it was so nice to be outside and we didnt even need coats! thats colorado for you - and it snowed two days ago! when kaya woke up we made some california roll burritos (thanks for the idea melinda!). it was fun and yummy.

kaya wanted to take a picture of us and himself while he was holding the camera. but his arm was only long enough to get a close up of his face. i helped. it actually came out pretty good. pearl and fern look like theyre up to some trouble though!

ive been exited about starting this blog and telling danny all about it, so he made his own tonight: http://dannyrobins@blogspot.com

so that was our day. i finally got kaya to take a bath. hes enjoying it now that hes in there! danny and i are ready to go to bed and hes still going strong as usual.

good night!

kaya wants to type

2008-02-01T01:41:00.000-05:00

im about ready to go to bed, but kaya wants to type. ive been looking at other unschooling blogs for awhile now - my eyes hurt! so it time to give him a turn i think!

last night i stayed up really late trying to put a slideshow on here. i made it and it took forever but couldnt get in on. im too tired to try again tonight!

kayas been watching his usual lineup of nite time shows: animal police, orangutan island, good eats, unwrapped. some new favorites are: myth busters, some assembly required, smash lab, and dirty jobs.

kaya wants to post these pictures that i took of them a few days ago. he thinks its hilarious! i told him no privates on the internet . . . i know butts are private but it doesnt seem quite as private as the other side!

so these are in order of how it started, with pearl drawing on ferns face to kaya being completely covered in black marker. kaya couldnt get his back so he asked me to do it for him. i didnt really want to at first, but it was kinda fun i guess! not how i would have done it if i could choose the design. but hey, who am i to critique the artists!

so heres a little bit from the farmer:

blah
zebra
walrus