I bought this lovely print from Geninne Zlatkis at Geninne's Art Blog well over a year ago.  Eeuwe has framed it for me and it is now hanging on my wall.  It is called "Botanical Garden".

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Well, we finally made it to the Monet and the Impressionists exhibition at our national museum in Wellington, Te Papa.  We really enjoyed the exhibition, which included paintings by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Corot and Degas, along with a couple of sculptures by Degas.  There was a short film of Monet painting in his studio and some large black and white photos of him in his garden by the water lily pond.  It is amazing to see these paintings in real life.  Some of them were much larger than we expected, others were smaller.  Photos and sketching were not allowed in the exhibition so you will have to settle for some links to the museum's Flickr albums and some short notes on our favourite paintings.

Here is the album on Flickr for the exhibition.  It is quite interesting to look at the photos of the museum staff setting up the paintings.  There are some photos of the inspections of the paintings upon arrival in New Zealand.  Wow, do they go over those paintings with a fine tooth comb to check for damage!  There is also an album of the opening night, where several ladies dressed up as subjects in some of the paintings.   It is worth a look!

This was Eeuwe's, Ainsley's and my favourite painting in the exhibition:

 Woman with a parasol and a small child on a sunlit hillside

Pierre Auguste Renoir, c1874-76

The two things that really struck us about this painting were the large brush strokes and the beautiful vivid green.  This picture doesn't do the real painting justice!

Bethany's favourite was this one:

Gathering wood in the forest of Fontainebleau

Theodore Rousseau c1850-1860

There is a tiny figure in the middle of the painting, a bit hard to see in this copy!

Emily's favourite painting was the cathedral...

I'm not sure why, perhaps the haze fascinated her.  This painting was definitely better viewed from a distance!

Ruby's favourite (and it came a close second for me) was this one:

Again, the beautiful colours appealed to us and the detail achieved, even though larger brush-strokes were used here too.  Ruby especially liked the little babe reading a book.

Fashionable Figures on the Beach

Eugene Boudin, 1865.

This image isn't very clear, but the painting made us laugh - imagine going to the beach in all that fancy attire!

Fisherman's Cottage on the Cliffs at Varengeville

Claude Monet, 1882

This was beautiful, the white fluffy clouds, the pretty blues & greens in the sea, the reds in the flowers.  Monet love reds.  This painting makes me want to live by the sea....

I could go on...there were so many beautiful paintings.  We were thankful for the opportunity to go and see them all.

We finished off our museum visit by viewing the colossal squid!  It's not quite as colossal as you might imagine, but still pretty amazing.  There was a 3-D movie showing the squid catching prey - it's long tentacles seemed to come out and catch you!  The most fascinating aspect of the squid for me was the model of one of it's oscillating hooks - amazing!  Have a look at the presentation on this website for more information.

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I have completed my first nine nine-patches for the quilt-along. 

Here they are:

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I've taken up AmandaJean's challenge to piece a nine patch block a day with the aim of using up scraps and ending up with a colourful quilt.  I made 4 blocks yesterday!

We'll see how long I can keep up, in between feeding a hungry baby boy and homeschooling the girls!

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We have been enjoying some beautiful Autumn weather lately.  It has been warming up during the day, cool air some days, but there's been plenty of sunshine.  At night it is getting quite chilly, so we light the fire now.

We talk a walk through out local park this week...

some fun...

some nature study...

and even some poetry...

This poem about one of our native birds, the tui, was carved on the plaque:

The Tahe Tui

The tahe tui at Kowhai Park

mimics what he hears.

His repertoire of favourite words

brings unbelieving stares.

"I love you" he confides

and fluffs his feathers on his chest.

"I love you too" then echoes

from his iridescent breast.

He gives a raucous cry and then

he hisses like a cat.

His intonation clearly means -

"Now get a load of that!"

Perhaps he'll "Beg your pardon"

or "Hello" he'll sweetly say.

This friendly feathered creature

cannot fail to make your day.

Audrey Bismarck

Disclaimer:  I tried in vain to google Audrey Bismarck, but I cannot find out anything about this poem, other than what was on the plaque.

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Our latest game craze is Sjoelbak.  It is a Dutch game which involves pushing (no that's on the IEW banned words list!) scooting, shoving, hurtling, (however you like really!) little wooden discs into slots at the end of the wooden board - called the sjoelbak.  You get three attempts at getting all the discs into the slots and then your score is added up according to the points on each slot.

Instructions for the game can be found here. 

We had a game on Easter Saturday night, accompanied by my first attempt at making hot cross buns

(minus the crosses & fruit, but they were still delicious).

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"Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee."

~ Psalm 119:11.

"All children have it in them to recite; it is an imprisoned gift waiting to be delivered...out of the woodenness of even the most commonplace child steps forth the child-artist, a delicate spirit, who shall make you laugh and make you weep."

~ Charlotte Mason in Home Education, p.223.

"I hope that my readers will train their children in the art of recitation; in the coming days, more even than in our own will it behove every educated man and woman to be able to speak effectively in public; and, in learning to recite you learn to speak."

~ p.224

(Oh, I must read Charlotte Mason's full volumes!  They are available online here.)

I know the benefits of memorization.  As children, my father used to have us memorize Psalms, Proverbs, catechisms & creeds.  I have retained most of these, and at times in the past, we have also had our children memorize them.  For the past few months we have been going through Starr Meade's Training Hearts, Teaching Minds.  This is a family devotional book based on the Shorter (Westminster) Catechism.  Each week a new question & answer from the catechism is introduced, with short devotionals to read each day.  We have required our girls to memorize each one.  Even 3 year old Ruby has memorized some of them.

Along with this catechism memorization, I have decided to have the girls memorize other things from different subject areas as well.  Inspired in part by Kendra Fletcher's Circle Time over at Preschoolers & Peace, I have typed up a few passages & lists that will be included in our daily memorization times. 

This is what we are currently working on:

 Catechism: Q & A 13 - Westminster Shorter Catechism

Did our first parents remain as they were created?

Left to the freedom of their own wills, our first parents sinned against God and fell from their original condition.

 The Helping Verbs & State of Being Verbs - required in First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind Level 4.  These were quite easy to learn once we turned them into a bit of a chant.

Am, is, are, was, were,

Be, being, been,

Have, has had, do, does, did,

Shall, will, should, would, may, might, must,

Can, could.

(Those in bold are state of being verbs, those in the entire list are helping verbs).

Common Prepositions (also required for FLL4)

Aboard, about, above, across.

After, against, along, among, around, at.

Before, behind, below, beneath.

Beside, between, beyond, by.

Down, during, except, for, from.

In, inside, into, like.

Near, of, off, on, over.

Past, since, through, throughout.

To, toward, under, underneath.

Until, up, upon.

With, within, without.

(This will be a great help when trying to find those prepositional sentence openers for our IEW paragraphs!)

The 3 times table

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, Who art in Heaven,

Hallowed by Thy Name.

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory,

Forever and ever,

Amen.

My plan is to also add a poem and scripture to the current list. 

This is Bethany's latest hand-sewn project she has been working on during "reading" time in bed at night :-)

It is based on a full-size tote bag pattern I used to make these.

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Here is the first painting by Monet on the list for the exhibition:

Woodgatherers at the Edge of the Forest

circa 1863.

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God decided it was time to take Opa (my father-in-law) home last week on Wednesday 25th February.  We had a funeral for him this past Tuesday.  It was a lovely service and this was the text:

"For to me, to live is Christ, but to die is gain." 

~ Philippians 1:21 ~

This was truly his life's motto.  My parents came to stay with us this week, which was a wonderful help and comfort.  They have left again this morning to visit other family members. 

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