The last week in March

I wish I had time to write every evening, but unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way. So this week I'll try to remember back...

Monday we stayed home. Aahhh. I love staying home. I did an obscene amount of laundry and finally got my seeds into starter and under lights. I'm only doing flowers this year. I have zinnia, pansies, and carnations. I've been moving things around in the front garden, and need some new stuff, so rather than buy plants I went for the seeds, which are a lot cheaper. I'm a week or two behind in starting them, but so what. I also have some seeds (cosmos and statice, for example) that I'm going to plant directly into the garden once it's warm enough.

Tuesday I can't remember. There is nothing but chores listed in my date book; mail a card to Uncle E for his birthday; do R's eye exercises, and a bunch of phone calls. Oh yeah, I did play a game of Risk with E. And I've been trying to spend time planning our vacation in April. And R had his last indoor soccer practice from 5 to 6 pm.


Wednesday I picked up my new glasses at Sears. R doesn't like them because now I look like everyone else. He liked the big black square ones because they were more unique. I like the big ones better because I like to see. I prefer having a wider range of vision. I had actually gotten the progressive ones, which are no lined bifocals with a mid-range which allows for good computer vision, but man, the range of vision out of those things is ridiculous; I felt like a horse with blinders on. I can't believe they even let people drive with those things; I had to turn my head to see clearly out of my side view mirror. Anyway, I exchanged them for lined bifocals, so things are back to normal and I can see again. But I do look like everyone else.

After picking up my glasses we headed to playgroup. We have some school friends who got out early on Wednesday, so they joined us. It's interesting to see how they kids are starting so segregate themselves by sex.
All the boys continue to play as usual, but the girls are starting to sit off to the side and watch. It's ironic that all the girls get to that age where they sit aside and think about boys, and the girl many of the boys like the best is the one who actually still plays with them.

After playgroup we went over to our school friends' house and hung out for a while until they had to go to parent teacher meetings, and we had to leave for E's last indoor soccer practice. They were nice enough to feed us too, which was awesome. We all had an enjoyable time; the boys having fun running around with their friends, and my friend and I catching up as well. We are looking forward to camping with this family this summer!

I've been enjoying listening to podcasts on my iPod during soccer practices. Eventually I'll write a post on my other blog about all my favorites.

Thursday was our return to our classes at the Beardsley Zoo. We took a few months off for winter, and it feels good to know that spring is here and we have returned.

This time they talked about rain forests. They also kept the older kids together with the younger kids, so the group was quite large. They brought a parrot and lizard and a hissing cockroach into the "classroom" for everyone to look at. I was glad to finally get a photo of R touching an animal! We also had new instructors this time. I don't know if that will be a permanent thing or not, but the new guy is really relaxed and very refreshing.

After the classroom portion, we all headed out to the rain forest exhibit. The woman in charge of that area met us and was not prepared to present anything, so we basically walked around and looked, and asked questions if we had them.

Then we returned to the classroom and each child had the opportunity to make his or her own animal exhibit. E did an excellent job making one for monkeys, and R worked with a friend to make one about the Ocelot we had seen. He was thrilled to reunite with his friends from the fall, and is looking forward to restarting our classes at White Memorial next week.

The zoo provided lots of great materials for the kids to work with, and they all made terrific exhibits. R got to bring home the one he made with his friend, so we now have two on display in our living room.

After the zoo we stopped at the library and got a few books on The Great Smoky Mountains, the civil war, Davy Crockett, and slavery; all topics we will learn about more on our vacation in April. We also got a few videos to watch.

Friday we were home again. My car was being worked on all day, so we had a friend come by for a few hours. J and the boys had lots of fun sending matchbox tracks down from the second floor to the first, then down to the basement and up a ramp, and finally into a giant box. J's mom and I had a nice visit too.

I was happy to see the surveyors at work on our property as our friends left; now we know whose trees are whose. After they were done I took photos of all those posts. I'm sure our back neighbor is not too thrilled that we had to move furniture to mark our property.

Today R went to the Cheshire pool with one of his soccer friends. The rest of us went fence shopping.

Wordless Wednesday

"Old Mystic Seaport"

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It's warm outside...

E ran inside to ask, "Where is a short sleeve shirt so I can feel the nice day into my body?"

Easter

This is the first year we've spent Easter home in quite a while. We didn't do anything spectacular, on Saturday just tidied up all our gardens around the house, but it was nice to just be home. The gardens look so neat now, and it is great to really appreciate all the crocus coming in. Plus we have hyacinth, daffodils, tulips and iris sprouting. I'm glad we got a jump on the outdoor spring cleaning, since we will be on vacation in April and soccer always puts a cramp into it anyway.

Saturday evening we colored our Easter Eggs around our kitchen table. This was a big change for us. Usually we color eggs at Grandma's house in Maine, along with about 25 other extended family members. Then there is a contest to see who has the "scariest", the "funniest", etc. This year it was nice to not have direction. We mostly all concentrated on making beautiful eggs.

You can click on the photo to enlarge it and see them up close. Down in the front is R's pig, and you can also see some made with rubber bands, reinforcements, and stickers, and tie-dye eggs made in the sink with drops of food coloring. We had a really relaxing evening and were very happy with our eggs.

The boys went to bed a lot later than I would have liked. Then they woke up at 6:30. We had given notice that they could wake us up at 7:30, but when we heard them we got up.

They got way too much candy from the Easter Bunny. They also got a few gifts, evidently so the Easter Bunny could bring less candy; Webkinz, DVD's (Spiderman for R and The Brady Bunch The Final Season for E), t-shirts, posters, and a Transformer for E and a Scene It game for R.

Check out the differences in style when it comes to emptying the baskets:
If you guessed that the left pile belonged to R, and the right pile belonged to E, you guessed correctly. And now you can appreciate how the Easter Bunny goes a little overboard for us.

After opening everything up the boys spent some time searching for all the hidden eggs we had colored the night before. They were hidden all around the living room, and in the end we had to help. Then B and I went back to bed and left the boys with The Brady Bunch and candy. That extra two hours made all the difference.

Nagy Papa came for dinner and we had lasagna in front of the TV; watching Spiderman. And we had some leftover cupcakes from our easter egg hunt for dessert.

It was a very easy going day. We really enjoyed spending Easter at home, and will probably do so from now on. Maybe next year we can talk Grandma into coming here though; we all missed her.

The beginning of Easter at home

Usually we go up to Maine for Easter with my mother's family. I looked in the archives, but it seems I've never blogged about it. Oh well, I do have the photos to show for it.

Anyway we decided to stay home for Easter this year. The boys were disappointed, but after discovering that it was the activities they were going to miss, and not their cousins, we decided to recreate the activities here at home with friends.

So Easter began today with an Easter Party at our house; an attempt to recreate part of what we would experience at Uncle Larry's house on Easter afternoon. If we had realized kids had off from school today, we may have invited more people, but we decided we were happy having just our "core" playgroup friends over.

We started with making a craft. All the kids seemed to enjoy making their egg sun catchers. They are made out of tissue paper stuck to clear contact paper, with a hole punched into the top and hung on suction cup hooks. They all came out great. The craft is something we had never done at Uncle Larry's, but all the kids had fun, and the moms seemed to appreciate having the art to bring home.

One tradition at Uncle Larry's has been to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. So we did that. Our friend J guessed 353, and there were 361, so she got to bring the jar home.

I attempted to get some real food into the kids with a selection of fruit and vegetables and some pizza rolls, which everyone actually ate and seemed to enjoy, before heading outside for the point of the whole thing.

The main tradition we needed to recreate, was of course, the egg hunt. So I hid 72 plastic eggs filled to the brims with candy, all around our backyard. And of course, there had to be one large, special egg. So we had a "golden egg" (large, yellow) well hidden with $5 in it. Oh boy, that really inspired the kids! I hid it well though, and had to give them an obscene amount of hints until one of them found it. Another J was thrilled to find that.

After we determined we'd never find the four missing eggs, we decided to come in and enjoy the cupcakes R had made and E and I had frosted.

I do have a photo of all the kids together, but I decided that this time around I'd post a photo of the moms, since my blog readers rarely get to see photos of my friends.

We had a really nice afternoon. For a few hours work (yes, I have a clean house, for a few days anyway) and less money than the trip to Maine would have been, the boys had a fun time running around looking for eggs and we all had fun being with friends.

Tomorrow night we will color our eggs...the next tradition I have to "match".

He wants to donate his organs!

While driving past a cemetery this evening...

R: Mom and Dad, you both want to be burned when you die, right?

Me: Yes, I want to be cremated.

B: Well I haven't really decided yet.

E: I want to know if there is a way to give my heart to someone else who needs it when I die. You know, if there is someone whose heart doesn't work good, can I give them mine? Can we find out about that?

Wordless Wednesday

"Green Eggs and Ham (Happy St. Patrick's Day)"

Learn more about Wordless Wednesday, and find the blogroll of others who are participating here.

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling #115, the Oh, The Things That You'll Do! Edition has been published.

I have an entry posted in this carnival. Check it out.

What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Wordless Wednesday

"How Unschoolers Learn to Tell Time"

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About Us

Welcome to the party!



I go by the name of Love 2B Homeschoolers; welcome to my digital scrapbook of sorts. There's a glimpse of me on the sidebar to your right, and a post which elaborates about me on my other blog, but this blog is about my family, so here I thought I'd elaborate about them. Then if you find that we are people you can relate to, you can stop by again.

My husband B is a Computer Analyst for Cigna Healthcare. He likes his job well enough. His office is 45 minutes away by car, which makes for a long day. He leaves the house around 7:00 am, and usually returns around 6 or 6:30 pm. He is a dedicated, hard worker. And of course, they don't appreciate him nearly enough. He gets four weeks vacation a year.

B is all about his family. I sometimes lose myself in the love I see in his eyes. He is a great dad, but like most dads, often forgets to be a dad, and tries too hard to be a friend. He's working on that though. At least in front of me ;-)

R is my 11-year-old. He is very much a first child: intelligent and logical. He is warm and empathetic and kind. He is a gentle soul and incredibly sensitive.

He loves Lego Bionicals, YuGiOh, building anything, and is thrilled to have just gotten his own email address. He wants to be an architectural engineer when he grows up.

If he were in school, he'd be in the 5th grade, although he may have been left back at some point; he pushed off learning to read until very recently. It's true what they say; that homeschoolers can learn something in a few months that takes schools years to teach. R is a builder though, so he never cared for reading, loving instead, math.

E is seven. He is a Gemini. Big time. He is incredibly energetic and always on the go. He is witty and incredibly charming. Also very silly; he'd do almost anything for a laugh.

He loves jumping on his trampoline, playing with action figures and Matchbox cars, dressing up and acting out different characters, and calling his dad on the phone several times a day. What does he want to be when he grows up? Something different every day. I think he'll be an actor.

If he were in school, he'd be in the 2nd grade. They would try to have him on Ritalin despite the fact that there is absolutely nothing wrong with him, other than his enormous amounts of energy. He is pretty much on "grade level" for reading. He hates math.

As a family we love to travel, go on outings, play games, watch movies, and snuggle in bed. Often.

Wordless Wednesday

"Melting Ice"

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Evidence of Learning

A few photos from the past week...

E and I read a book about magnifying glasses. It contained lots of "try this" things, and we had lots of fun seeing things up close, including our fingerprints, salt, the dots on newsprint and money. We also enjoyed learning how water is convex, and therefore makes things appear larger. Good stuff.

I sometimes get bummed when the boys get presents which find their way onto a top shelf, or inside a closet. We've gotten lots of things which I feel would be great if the boys would only do them. However the gifts do belong to them, so I don't complain when I open a closet and find tons of unused fun things to do. I was happy that one of these things made its way out this week. R made a robot out of coins. First he had me bring him to the bank to get four rolls of pennies and some other change (for a total of $5.26 he keeps telling me), and then he spent time locked away in his room putting it together. Click on it to check it out large; it's really cool.

We went to Brooksvale Park on Wednesday. The Ranger there is the dad of a friend, so it was that much more fun. He does the program for school kids every year and since his mom is part of our homeschooling group she asked him to do one for us.

We had seen a demonstration of making maple syrup at Old Sturbridge Village a couple of years ago, but it's been several years since we've seen a demonstration of more modern methods. The Ranger talked inside for a while, giving a lively history of how it may have been discovered by local Indians, then talked about the different collection methods today, the different grades, and the difference between maple syrup and pancake syrup.

Then we headed outside, where the kids all got to make a tap out of birch wood. The Ranger then passed us on to the woman who is running the sugar shack this year. She brought us out and showed us a functioning tap, and taught us how to tell the difference between Sugar Maples and other maples. (It was really cold out!)

Then she brought us down to the sugar shack, where she showed us how they boil down the sap and make it into syrup. It smelled really good!

Finally, they brought us back up to the building where we started, and we all got to sample some vanilla ice-cream with their hand-made maple syrup on it. Yum! The boys had a good time watching this demonstration. I can always tell something is enjoyable because it gets repeated, in detail, to Dad when he gets home in the evening.