Spring

The days are warming up and getting longer and the veggie garden is loving it.

Some of the kale is going to seed. 

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! 

"The world is mud-lucious... and puddle-wonderful" (EE Cummings)

 

Green

 

Silverbeet and Green Mignonette lettuce.
Perfect, crisp, yummy, home grown goodness. 

Autumn

 
Baby Bear testing out his new shoes.
Little Princess, Shmoo's tamed feral.

The veggie patch is growing well. Rocket, parsley, chives, onion, kale, beetroot, lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage and silverbeet. The OH has surrounded the boxes with seaweed to help keep the snails and slugs away. The boys help to water and weed. They've also planted some garlic.

  
Grasshopper.
Big brother, baby brother. 

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.

Catch Up - Pigs, a Birthday, Teeth and More

  

 

We've visited Mount Gnomon Farm for their Rare Day Out. In between the rain, wind and hail we enjoyed some delish food and took a tour of the farm, seeing the Wessex Saddleback pigs and Belted Galloway cattle.

We celebrated Loo Bear's 7th birthday with our traditional jelly cups and bubble bath. This year Loo requested a chocolate cheesecake with berries on top so I had fun making and decorating a simple but very yummy Toblerone cheesecake.

The Burnie Arts & Function Centre hosted the Da Vinci Machines exhibition. We all thoroughly enjoyed the fascinating and hands-on displays, as well as the more in-depth explanations that one of the workers gave us. We also took the opportunity to turn it into as mini study on Leonardo Da Vinci.

Last year, when Baby Bear and I were at the hospital in Melbourne, the OH took the other 3 boys to the Devonport community gardens. He discovered that we were eligible for the Youth & Family Focus Inc.'s Veggie Patch Project, so he signed us up. Recently the team came out and installed 2 awesome raised garden beds as well as a compost bin.

We've discovered samphire at a local beach, so have gone foraging while collecting seaweed for the garden. Samphire has the saltiness of olives with a nice freshness and crunch. We ate it after blanching and it would go well in salads.

Meeting lovely new people while out and about...

 

After years of watching our tooth fairy visit his older brother, Loo Bear finally got his first wobbly teeth. One fell out recently and we popped it and a note into a 'Tooth Jar'. Bramble Ravenwing, our boy-tooth-fairy, exchanged the tooth for a letter and a dinosaur candle (he doesn't do money).

And speaking of teeth, we've started using xylitol. I dissolve it in water (about 1.5g of xylitol per 20ml dose) to make a mouth rinse that we use after eating. I chose a mouth rinse over substituting it into our diets so that we don't have to worry about how much we're consuming and possible side effects. We also have some Epic gum and mints that we use, mostly for when we're out and about. The kids love the fresh fruit 'mints' as they're not actually minty - they have a cool, tangy, fruity flavour. The OH and I like the spearmint gum. We are occasionally using the xylitol toothpaste too but I'm currently researching making my own toothpaste with a betonite clay, bicarb soda, coconut oil and xylitol base.

Nature Spotting - Pademelon

We were all very excited when The OH spotted a sweet little pademelon nibbling on the vegetation by our driveway the other evening.

Waiting For A Sunny Day

Shmoo and The OH put together the little solar powered rainbow maker today, one of our Christmas 'family' gifts (ordered through one of those fundraising catalogues during the year). It's stuck up on our kitchen window now. Just have to wait for a nice sunny day to get some direct sunlight shining through those crystals! :)

Science Experiment - Magnets

This afternoon I came across Shmoo playing quietly in the hallway. As I walked past he excitedly said "Look, Mama!" and, with great delight, showed me his latest discovery: the magnets on the end of his wooden train carriages affected the needle of his compass. I asked why he thought it did that and he wasn't sure so I gave him a brief rundown on compasses and the Earth's magnetic core etc.

After lunch and a quick Google to refresh my memory about some basic magnetic facts, we gathered up a few bits and pieces for a little experiment... a couple of magnetic toy train carriages, compass, fridge magnet, pin, sticky tape, craft foam, and a small bowl of water

 

We ran the pin along the fridge magnet a number of times to magnetise it and then taped it to the craft foam. Apparently a cork is generally utilised in this experiment but we didn't have one. I was rummaging through the activity cupboard, looking for inspiration, when I came across a scrap piece off a sheet of craft foam and figured that would do just as well. We floated the foam-with-attached-pin in the bowl of water and watched as it slowly spun and settled into its desired position. I nudged the compass over next to the bowl so that Shmoo could see that both the pin and compass needle were both pointing North.

  

Then I encouraged Shmoo to see what effect the different ends of his train carriages had on our homemade compass. We discussed North and South and the way magnets attract and repel. He was absolutely fascinated.

As we played and chatted conducted our experiment and discussed our findings, I wrote down the key points and results in Shmoo's notebook. I then left him to it and he continued the research on his own for the next half hour or so before he drew a diagram of the experiment next to my notes.

All of the boys were then distracted by the repair man who came around to fix our heat pump. They watched with intense interest as he installed the new bits and pieces.

Once the repair man left, Shmoo examined the dislodged dust bunnies that had been residing in our now-fixed heat pump for the last couple of months. Tut-tutting his disapproval, he promptly got out his vacuum and sucked them all up... and then went back to his magnet experiment :)

I love watching his curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. And it totally blows me away watching how quickly he makes the connection between things. Like when the tape securing our pin to the craft foam got wet and wouldn't stick anymore. He asked if there was anything else we could use and I stuck the pin to the foam with a small piece of Blu-Tack. After observing it in the water for a few moments, he then complained that it wasn't working as well, that it was much slower to move now. I asked him why he thought that was and after a brief pause he confidently stated that it was because the Blu-Tack was heavier than the sticky tape. And there I was thinking he'd just give me another one of his shrugs and a "Don't know."

Proud Mama :D

First Snow

The last few days have been very wet and windy here but not too cold. However, last night before we went to be I commented to the OH that it seemed colder than usual, there was a real chill in the air. We woke in the morning to find that we'd had our first snowfall of the winter. It wasn't much, barely enough to settle on the ground, but it was enough to get us all excited.

We went outside briefly, just long enough for the kids to try and catch some falling snow on their tongue and to have our first ever snowball fight. The boys were fascinated but it didn't take long for them to start feeling the cold and asking to go back inside. Poor Shmoo was cold and wet and it was a bit of a sensory overload for him. Once inside he warmed up with a meltdown. But later on, after a big breakfast and some warm cocoa, he couldn't stop talking about the snow and said he really liked playing in it.