Big Brother, Little Brother

Baby and Shmoo drawing together 

Sustainable Living Festival, Penguin

    

 

Kite Design

 

Bunnings Gardening Session - Homeschool Group

  

Bunnings in Burnie generously hosted a gardening session for the younger homeschooled kids yesterday, with all materials provided free of charge.

There were 2 activities. First our boys planted spring bulbs in a little pot. Afterwards they got to decorate a little cardboard pot with paint, glitter and foam shapes. Each family was also given a box of gardening magazines and each child got to take home a bag of bulbs.

Update

   

Finding beauty everywhere

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Loo Bear has been enjoying the puzzles in the CSIRO's Double Helix magazines.

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Shmoo has been perfecting his gluten free raspberry and lemon friands*. He has now made them several times, including a batch for our homeschool monitor. We had our review (and Loo's initial monitoring visit) in August and it went very well.

*We made the friands with Nuttelex a couple of times so that they were dairy-free and whilst they were okay, they're definitely much better with real butter.

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I'd given up on our cauliflowers and hadn't checked on them too closely for a while. While collecting herbs one morning I glanced over and noticed a huge head of cauliflower. We've had 3 more since and we're also still getting lots of yummy silverbeet, parsley, kale and beetroot.  Shmoo has taken to helping me weed the beds and keep an eye on the developing cabbage heads.

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The last few months I've been getting back into making our own yoghurt and have even branched out into making labneh. So easy and yummy.

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We had fun making some bird feeders recently. The OH poked a hole in the bottom of 5 plastic cups. We then used a length of kitchen string to tie 2 craft sticks in an 'X' shape and threaded the other end through the hole inside the cup and securing to the outside with sticky tape. Repeated for all 5 cups. We mixed 1kg wild bird seed mix with 250g softened lard. The boys packed the seed mixture into the cups; removed the tape; and pulled the string tight so that the craft sticks rested snugly against the top of the cups. We froze the cups for a few minutes until they had set and then removed the seed mix from the cups and hung them up outside.

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Baby Bear had a cardiology review a while ago. At 18 months old he was not impressed with being stripped down in front of strangers in a strange environment, attached to strange machines, and poked with strange equipment. He put up with being weighed (9.29kg with a nappy on - below the 3rd centile line still) and then cracked it. He was very vocal about his displeasure. I breastfed him through the ECG and that somewhat distracted him but by the time we got to the echo he was totally over it. He wouldn't feed anymore and refused to be distracted by the apps on my mobile. They couldn't really get a good view of his heart because of his screaming and squirming around but it looked like there probably wasn't anything 'significant'. The cardiologist was happy enough to schedule the next review for 2 years time, when Baby Bear should be old enough to be a bit more cooperative and allow us a better look at his heart.

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It's been a tough winter with us seeming to catch a cold or flu every 2-4 weeks for the past 3 months. The last cold has left Baby Bear with a mild chest infection and a horrible case of oral thrush. His mouth is causing him a lot of pain and I haven't been able to brush his teeth because he screams and his mouth and gums bleed so much. Our GP has just put Baby Bear on antibiotics 3 times a day for the chest infection and to make sure nothing nasty has gotten to his heart through his mouth. He's also on nilstat 4 times a day for the thrush. Poor baby. He's terrible at taking meds and I'm also giving him probiotics, kefir grains, xylitol and coconut oil so it feels like I'm trying to coax him into opening his mouth all day. Fingers crossed that it all clears up very quickly! 

Lego Lab

Shmoo's Lego science lab, complete with a microscope that can be raised to place a petri dish underneath. 

Trees

In between project excavate-the-dino-tooth-from-the-driveway and swinging from the clothes line, the boys decided to make 'trees' to prop up in front of the kitchen window. While they were out at their preforming arts lessons, I snuck out and tied glow sticks to their decorations to surprise them when they returned in the dark.

Patches

Last year The OH started collecting patches for the boys. He found some cool canvas satchels on sale at a camping store and will sew on the patches as the kids 'earn' them. Shmoo has earnt his martial arts patch. Loo, a fossil hunting patch; Beanie, a 'Be a Star' patch; and Baby Bear, a Valentine's Day patch.

My Kind of Flowers

The boys know that I much prefer my flowers to be growing out in the garden rather than dying in a vase inside so Loo Bear made me a gorgeous bunch of paper sunflowers :)

Magic Lemon-Scented Smurf-Dough

(Okay, so it's just blue playdough with glitter and lemon essential oil mixed in)

Correspondence

Grandad is in rehabilitation after a recent stroke and is suffering from memory loss, amongst other things, so Shmoo and Loo have been writing to him to help try and cheer him up and jog his memory.

Candle Making

The boys loved rolling their own beeswax candles. A lovely sensory experience... The warm beeswax, the texture, smell. And they're looking forward to having one lit at the dinner table.

Birth Wall

The boys have been helping with the artwork to decorate my wall of inspiration for labour/birth.

Excited...

 

Can't wait for the boys to unwrap their new art kits next week! Ohhhh the beautiful rainbow of colours and the smell of the beeswax crayons... magical!

I managed to score 3 x 36 packs of Lyra Groove pencils on Fishpond at a bargain price. So excited that they'll have all of those lovely shades to choose from. And the Stockmar block crayons are from Rainbow Tree... I love those crayons. The quality is amazing and they last forever. We've got a few from a little set that I bought when Shmoo was a toddler and they're still going strong (trust me, with 3 kids they've certainly been tested to the limit!). And the gorgeous, colourful crayon cases/holders that they're in were made by the very talented Allana over at High Maintenance Hippy. They fold in half, book-style, and can be hung from a hook when not in use. Pretty cool, huh?!

The Joy of Giving

Shmoo's old enough now to know how fortunate we are; we don't have much but we have so much more than many other people. With Christmas fast approaching, we have been discussing how some people will go without; how some people won't get presents; how some parents might not have enough money to buy their children gifts for Christmas; how some people may be lonely/sad/hungry at a special time of year that should be about love/joy/family.

Whilst next year we will be reconsidering the organisation that we go through (we would prefer a non-religious group), this year we continued our tradition of giving to the Kmart/Salvation Army Wishing Tree Appeal. As usual we just give a couple of gift cards and don't specify age or gender on the tag so that it can be given to whoever needs it most. This year Shmoo contributed $5 of his own savings. He did it joyfully with absolutely no hesitation; glad to be able to do something, give something, that might make someone else happy. I am so proud of him. I can tell that he gets it.

One of our projects for next year will be for the kids to make some small crafty items throughout the year, I'm thinking maybe some mini Waldorf-style kite paper window stars. They are colourful, cheery, simple and cheap to make. With a little practice the older two should easily be able to make them themselves. And then next Christmas we can give them away. We'll see what organisations we come across throughout the year and were thinking there are also people in aged care homes or people who are in hospital over Christmas.

'Mama' - Art by Beanie

Somewhat abstract, I think. I am told that my eyes are on the bottom right; the rest of my face is the line on the centre left; my two legs extend up and out to the right; and the circle is my big tummy with baby brother inside. :)

The Acornians

Here are the little people that we made from the acorns we collected yesterday. We glued their hats on and stuck them on to spiralled up pipe cleaners. The boys had lots of fun drawing on faces and using nail polish to paint their hats (2 coats - one plain base colour and then a glittery top coat). They have decided that the two cute fellows in front are to be sent off to live with a friend of theirs.

The Acornians make sweet little finger puppets or pencil toppers, depending on how tightly you coil the pipe cleaners. Or they just sit there, bobbling their funny acorn heads about when little fingers poke them. :)

Fostering Creativity

I'm all for it, really I am.

And I do appreciate the 'mum'.

Just not all over the walls. In marker.

#-o

Loving all the new books at our public library...
Such a great resource. We came home with 30+
books and a few DVDs today.

Shmoo Bear experimenting with oil pastels.

Learning to Loom

Shmoo had his first go at knitting today. As I can't knit with needles it was a round loom. He really enjoyed it and was so proud of his progress.