Spring is coming! Spring is coming! ;D

What a glorious day!! The sun shone most of the day and the temp got up to a crazy 62 degrees! There is nothing left of our snowman now, only a sad pile of seed pods and a carrot!! The children and I did our Yoga again this morning, I cleaned out the cat litter boxes ( whoopie! ) and we sorted out the recycling. ( finally! Man that stuff adds UP!! ) I watched with longing as several cyclists rode past our house today. I NEEEEEED to get back on my bike. It would have been a good day for it but Rex's friend came over to visit and they spent the day out of the house. Maybe tomorrow! I finished off my little felt bird ( which really wouldn't have taken long if I'd just done it all at once but TIME is the trouble around here!! )the kiddies played outside with a small skateboard that their Daddy found for them, I read some of my book ( and by some I mean about half a page ) and then fell asleep for an hour on my bed as a lovely breeze blew in from an OPEN WINDOW in my room!! Yup!! We opened windows in the house today and FRESH AIR came in !! ;D What a treat!!

hmmm.... what else did we do?!? ;D Oh yes....535 today was Michelangelo's birthday. I thought I knew "stuff" about Mickey, but turns out I really didn't know very much at all! :D I know a lot more now though thanks to Alicia ( again! ) She suggested in her column that we learn about the fabulous artworks of his .... can you imagine all that talent in one so young? and that we try and recreate "God Creates Adam" whilst lying on our backs under the dining table!!! Well naturally that appealed to my crew and we gave it a go....! Here are our results!! :D





Jack went for a more abstract approach!!!!




Jessie and I took Lucy for a quick nature walk this evening. We were amazed at the snow run off POURING down the streets. It sounded like a river running into the drains. We noticed the grass was taking on a greenish "hue" !!! I told her today that this year it really feels as if we have survived something by making it though until Spring. I know I had begun to doubt if Spring would ever come!!!!

A full day!

Good grief we had a full day today! ;D Started out with Yoga and then bread making ( bread sticks again today! ) I then paid the bills and got some work sorted out. I had Jessie try a Kakuro puzzle based on the wonderful blog of my buddy Risa. I helped Jessie out to start with and then she swiftly got the hang of it and finished it off in no time!! Yeahy!! Math!!! ;D

I'd been reading the Fabulous Alicia's Blog and saw her idea for painting snow balls. Now, this always, ALWAYS happens to me. I hear of a great idea for something to do in the frozen depths of winter....and you know when I finally think of doing it??? Spring. Without fail. tsk. Anyway, this time I thought QUICK let's just DO it...!! So Jessie ran out and grabbed balls of snow and I went to fetch the paints! Sadly, at 47 degrees any remaining snow is more like ice, but still, we had a go anyway!! ;D







It turned out very pretty and the kiddoes enjoyed themselves! :D After our painting I thought we'd try another of Alicia's ideas.... Elephant Toothpaste!












Wow!! That was TONS of fun!!! The children REALLY enjoyed that one and they had a great time adding drops of food coloring to the expanding foam to see what pretty patterns they'd come up with ! It was a great experiment and really interesting! Thanks, Alicia!

Our next project was based on this idea from the Rhythm of the Home website.... We decided to try another way and use a cloth to sprout the seeds on in the bottom of a bowl. We'll see if it works! We decided to try Chia seeds and Jessie didn't know what would happen with Flax seeds, so, since we ARE homeschoolers after all, we thought we'd put some of those in and see!!! ;D






When the seeds have sprouted I want to put some painted eggs into the "grass" so I'd blown some eggs the other day and decided to try painting a couple this afternoon.




I'd bought white eggs as they are a) cheap ( cheep cheep ) and b) I can paint all sorts of colors on them if I wanted to! :D Closer to Easter I'll get lovely organic brown eggs and we'll use natural methods to dye them....they come out so wonderfully muted and beautiful! ANYWAY....!! I painted one egg brown




and will probably add a few more "speckles" when it's good and dry and another one blue.



I'll add some spots to that one later too! They're going to be really pretty! ; D

It was beautiful outdoors so Jessie insisted we get going for our nature walk. I offered the dogs a walk too and strangely Brecon, our old lady lab / retriever mix did not show her usual boundless enthusiasm for the idea. You usually can't even SAY the word walk or she'll be at the door squeaking and squealing with delight. She did muster up enthusiasm as we were just getting ready to go but looking back I realise her heart wasn't really in it. We went for a lovely walk, the children ran ahead, playing on the frozen puddles, marveling at the rivers of melting snow coursing down the sidewalks and thrilling at the almost raging waters of our tiny little stream that is often all but dried out in the summer time. Melt waters will do that to a tiny little stream! Of course this proved the perfect opportunity for Pooh Sticks!! The kiddies dropped sticks or leaves on one side of the bridge and raced to the other side to watch them float back out!!!



Brecon began to limp very dramatically so we cut our walk short and headed slowly back home.



I had thoughts of baking some cookies but a) the children suddenly and quietly occupied themselves and b) I'd only flaming well eat them, wouldn't I ?!! : D Instead I yapped on the phone for a little while and cuddled my cat then went upstairs to tackle the laundry baskets which seemed to be breeding in my bedroom!! I got the majority of it folded up without any interruption but then Jackster came to join me and he had a wild time playing with the kitten. Soon Jessie came along to keep us company and she spent her time sitting on my rocking chair looking through the photos albums. Once the laundry was folded we decided a little more Yoga was in order so we got down and stretched out! Before long Daddy came home and the evening began to wind down. We were none of us hungry so we had cereal and apples for dinner! Jack and Daddy played catch whilst I checked my mail and Jessie wrote a blog post in her new blog! I took Jack up to bed and relaxed him right to sleep! It's like a magic trick!! Now, once again, night is upon us. Rex has just brought me a beer and some popcorn and wants me to watch Zombieland!!! He's the Yin to my Yang I'll tell ya! ; D Couldn't live without him!

G'night!

More yoga, more bread, some friends stop by, some science experiments, a nature walk, a bit of work and maybe an early night!

We have had another lovely day! We started out the day with Jessie's Nature Plan and did some yoga to start the day ( I'm loving this Yoga thing! ) and the children once again made bread. This time we made whole wheat bread rolls and made the dough into buns, heart shapes, braids and twists ! I got a little bit of work done and then we scurried around to make it look like the house is always tidy (ish!)!! Luckily it wasn't too bad and didn't take much scurrying!

Our friends came over and brought with them some neat science projects for us to try! It was lots of fun and we always enjoy science! There was all together FAAAAR too much giggling going on for it to be "REAL" science though surely!!! ;D We drank several pots of hot tea and we ate the kids bread fresh and hot from the oven with lashings of buttery stuff. Ymmmmmmm!! The children then voted for a Nature Walk so we headed out in the balmy 57 degree heat and looked at the melting snow, saw a squirrel, checked out the ice and basically ran around like maniacs!! They had to leave not long after we got back from our walk and Jack sobbed. He hates when they go!!! : (

I got some more work done over the remainder of the afternoon along with playing with Jack for a while. I'm finding I can manage my work a bit better right now as there doesn't seem to be so much but my desire to spend so much more time with the children and focusing on them makes what little work there is seem trickier to fit in!! ;D

I decided to have the children eat eggs for dinner tonight.... all part of my cunning plan! I blew the eggs into a bowl so Jessie made scrambled eggs and I have 5 lovely white egg shells ready for me to paint tomorrow! I am really looking forward to doing that! ( I know, I'm bonkers! )

Anyway, I thought I'd also have a go at writing my blog a little earlier in the day so that I can spend my evenings with hubby instead of him falling asleep on the couch and me sitting working on the computer all night!! We'll see how it goes! Right now it's Yoga time again and then beady bies for the children!! ;D

I hope your evening goes marvelously and don't forget, there's always room for chocolate! ;D

Yoga, bread making, nature walks, some rainbows and more yoga!

So this morning we started our day with some Yoga. Jessie was very insistent that we all do some first thing this morning and I really appreciate her insistence actually. We did some Sun Salutations, Downward Facing Dogs and various other poses. It felt lovely to start the day in such a way. Next she and Jack got everything out to make Bread Sticks. We have a great recipe from an awesome online friend and it's really quick and easy. The kiddoes got all the stuff out and with only minimal assistance from me, made the dough. I showed them both how to knead it and roll it out









and we had Jack use a pizza cutter to cut his strips.



They both did a lovely job. Jack had made something of a lattice pattern with his bread so I simply advised him what was going to happen as they cooked and he thought maybe separating them would be a good idea. I was happy to let it be either way ( it's only flour, folks! ) so that he would see the results, but he chose to make them the old fashioned way! ;D It was so lovely watching them both work so very carefully and Jack was doing his absolute best to follow my instructions! Bless 'em!











Whilst we were waiting for the bread to bake Jessie went a little rainbow crazy ...












Finally the bread was ready!

Safety first...!!







After our bread making and bread breaking we decided to go out for a Nature Walk! We thought it would be fun to try and incorporate all 5 of our senses on our walk and so we "tasted" the fresh air by sucking as much as possible into our lungs! We touched ice,



we listened to the birds, we smelled the earth and the wet ground and of course we looked around us for signs of warmer weather including noticing the geese flying high above on their way to the lakes! We also found a couple of new senses including balance



fun,



adventure and humor!




All good ones!! ;D


After dinner Jessie wanted another Yoga session so we tried several new poses and limbered ourselves up before bed. It must have done the trick as Jessie was fast asleep before I even got Jack into bed. He didn't take long either ... this meditation and relaxation business works like a charm! ;D


















We did a bunch of other little things today too including cutting out the fabric for one of those "Sweetie Birds" from the website I shared yesterday.







It's going to be so pretty I really excited to sew it together! For now though, I'm worn out. I can't wait to go to my cozy bed!! G'night all! ; D