DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN
CHIHULY EXHIBIT
OCD is rearing it's ugly head again. I hate it. I hate what it does to my daughter. Around this time of year, every year she begins to have problems. This year we have a move to add to the equation which I know is adding to her stress.
I began seeing signs a week ago and didn't want to believe it was happening, again. Tonight she had a very minor episode that I was quickly able to help her through. Now I'm waiting for the big one. The one that keeps us second guessing ourselves and everything we've ever done. The one that will take days, maybe weeks or even months to get over. We had gone so long with nothing and then, wham! It hits you up the side of the head again.
So much anxiety for such a young person. It makes me so sad to watch her struggle. Her own mind working against her.
I love my sweet daughter and I pray that she will be healed very soon. |
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We've been studying Vincent Van Gogh's work the last few months. About a week ago hubby took R grocery shopping and they came home with some sunflowers. Since Van Gogh Sunflowers are one of the prints we're studying, I thought it would be fun for the kids to create their own paintings with our sunflowers.
We read Camille and the Sunflowers by Laurence Anholt, a story that is based on an actual encounter and real people. It tells the story of Vincent coming to Camille's small town and Camille's family befriending the lonely artist.
After reading the story we broke out the watercolor paper, some pencils and the paints. I turned on some Beethoven and let the kids create. Here are their creations:
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S. chose our Carob tree for his study. He was worried that he wouldn't be able to draw it "really well". I told him not to worry and just do the best he could. :) He was also worried because he can't write stories or poems yet (he can't write! LOL). Again, no worries. If there's something in particular he feels like sharing, let me know and he can dictate the prose to me and I will be his scribe. :)
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Jun. 4, 2009 Poor little orange tree
R chose our very sad little orange tree. My sister and bil gave us this tree as a house warming gift. Citrus trees don't like to be transplanted and this poor guy was transplanted a couple of times before finding it's final resting place (and I'm afraid it truly is a "resting" place). It only gets watered from our sprinklers, which isn't nearly enough. You'll also notice the lovely gray guard around the trunk. That's there to keep the weed wacker from hacking away any more of the trunk!
Poor, poor little tree.
For whatever reason, that's the tree she picked so here is her drawing and songs and poems to this poor little tree!
Her song sung to the tune of "Found a Peanut" or Clementine, if you prefer (sortof LOL) (:
My little orange tree,
my little orange tree
is so cute and soon it will be
a big orange tree
but now it is a little, o little orange tree.
Little orange tree, little orange tree
you are so very cute
and I know you will make yummy oranges someday.
but right now you are still little, my little orange tree.
I have a little orange tree,
it is so very cute.
In the morning I go to see it
grow little orange.
When I spy
a little orange
I will be so happy
I will jump up in the air and scream so loudly
I will knock the orange right off.
So I love you little orange tree.
Story of the Orange tree:
The Story of My Orange Tree!
This is my orange tree. (note there are illustrations to this story not included ;-) )
It was brought to us by our cousins. It began to die but it has some leaves now. We try to water it but sometimes we forget to. But, I still love it.
The End |
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A. chose our Lemon Tree to study over the summer. I mentioned our lemon tree the other day, the one that gives us the most incredible juicy lemons. :)
 Here she's conducting to the music that's playing instead of drawing. LOL
Her story (middle left):
Home to Birds
Our lemon tree
is home to so many birds.
It can hide them from the hawks
and in the storms,
it's leaves protect them
from the rain like God
protects us.
Come back tomorrow to see R.'s pick for tree study this summer!
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As I mentioned in my last post, we did some nature studying today. :)
Here's what my kiddo's did:
E picked our Eucalyptus tree to study for the summer.
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And while the girls were quietly drawing and listening to the classical music, here were my boys, having a sword/gun fight out of something they made! You can see S.'s paper on the ground behind him. LOL
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I love the simple days, where things just flow one into the other, don't you? We had one of those days today. We're taking a brief summer break, probably starting back in July. With nothing, or very little, on our plate right now, I'm enjoying some lazy, laid back time with my kids.
Today we started what I hope will be our daily routine. We headed out the door for a walk around the neighborhood followed by swimming in our pool. After swimming, we had a simple lunch and the kids went off to do their own thing for awhile.
Leanne, on the FIAR boards, posted a Nature challenge to get outside and study your trees. I thought this would be a perfect day for such a study. I had the kids gather up their pencils (colored and regular) and some paper. I grabbed my camera, the cd player and a classical music CD (and the baby of course ;- ) ) and followed them outside. Their assignment was to pick one of the trees in our yard and document the changes it goes through throughout the summer. They could document the tree throughout the months through drawings, poems, songs, pictures, whatever inspired them the most. I encouraged them to look at all aspects of the tree. Check out the bark, the leaves, the canopy, the color, the animals, etc. Then I set them loose.
One of our trees happens to be a lemon tree, which has provided us with so much wonderful lemonade this past spring. I'm going to miss all those fresh lemons here pretty soon. I grabbed five of our very ripe lemons and made some fresh squeezed lemonade. Yum! I filled up 6 glasses with ice, poured in the golden elixir and brought it out, along with some gingersnap cookies, to my budding naturalists.
What a beautiful picture to see all my little treasures out there enjoying God's glorious creation, in all its varied facets.
I'll share their drawings and poems as they come in throughout the summer, so stay tuned.
Fresh Squeezed Lemonade
16 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 5 lemons)
48 oz filtered water
~ 1.5 cups sugar
Stir and serve over glasses filled with ice. Enjoy!
What did you do today to celebrate and rejoice in God's creation?
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I know as homeschoolers we don't really "do grades" but, since this particular year marks a milestone for my eldest, I thought it was fitting to celebrate it a little bit.
My daughter has officially "graduated" from elementary school into middle school. Today she finished up her 5th grade year!
 Working out the last problem as a 5th grader
It was a busy year with many interruptions, including a death (grandfather) and a birth (sister). Through it all E. worked hard and persevered, even when the books weren't what she really wanted to be reading. LOL
I'm so proud of you E. You amaze me daily with all the gifts God has given you. Love you bunches! Looking forward to starting your 6th grade year together! I'm so thankful that I am blessed to be your teacher. 
Here are some pictures of my young scholar messing around w/ all the books she read this year.
 The happy scholar
 E, where are you? Time for school
 The Philosophical Scholar
 The tired scholar |
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| You know you have a sad little blog when your only traffic is coming in off of google image searches of your son's Valley Fever rash. LOL He's all better now, if any of you strolling on in here to see the image care. :D I don't even come to visit my little blog too often anymore. Poor, poor blog. LOL I'm actually dabbling w/ a new blog over at blogger. They tell me it's easier. I know one thing that will make it much easier, I'll be able to blog w/ Safari. For some reason this blog host doesn't like safari. Which means, I have to log into firefox, which doesn't happen all that often. As you can tell from this post, w/ no formatting to it, I'm in Safari. Too lazy to switch servers. :p |
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I found the poem my 11 year old wrote for her new baby sister. The kids call her by her middle name, which is why there is an "A" as opposed to "K", like I will be writing. :)
A
You are a wonderful baby, A.
God gave you to us as a blessing.
Your eyes are as blue as the Heaven
you came from. You have stardust
in your eyes. Your hair is the color of
the paved streets in Heaven, and your face is
like a sunbeam directly from God.
You are warm because you were sitting
in God's lap before He sent you
down to us. You smell like the flowers of
Heaven. When you are a little older, you will
smile and laugh, sounding like angel babies do.
When you get your first tooth, it will be like the
little pearls from God's palace wall.
One day, you'll grow up and have babies of your
own. And you'll say, "This baby is a little bit of
Heaven. I wonder if I was like that too!"
You were. All babies are. Even the ones who fly.
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Feb. 3, 2009 Over due introduction
Our sweet gal made her big arrival on January 21, 2009. She was born at 8:39 am and weighed 7 lbs 5 oz and was 20.5 inches long. She's healthy, beautiful and absolutely perfect.
As we close on our second week with our new blessing, we're all slowly adjusting. I think that J, who will be three in a few weeks, is realizing what this all means. He struggles with being excited and then not so excited. He's missing having his Mama all to himself. Fortunately, Daddy is still home, which is taking the edge off of having a new sister a bit.
Little K is doing marvelously well. She's sleeping pretty good for a newborn. She's beginning to be awake a little more often, but is still letting me get a few hours of sleep in at night. That always helps. She calms down pretty quickly when her needs are met and seems, at this point at least, a pretty mellow gal. Thank you Lord! We definitely need a mellow child in this house. LOL We'll see what happens as she continues to become more alert, but for now, we're basking in the "easy" mode.
Here are some pictures from her first day on her own.
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Jan. 16, 2009 Green Smoothies Jan. 1, 2009 Happy New Year! Dec. 23, 2008 Books for this month
We've been reading winter and Christmas books all month long. Here is our list, so far:
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader
The Legend of the Christmas Stocking by Rock Osborne
Mystery in the Stable by Lisa Flinn and Barbara Younger
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
If You're Missing Baby Jesus by Jean Gietzen (we love this one)
We Three Kings Illustrated by Olga Zharkova (this is the song illustrated)
Mary's Treasure Box by Carolyn Walz Kramlich
Gertie the Goldfish and the Christmas Surprise by Naomi Judd
Cuddly Dudley by Jez Alborough
The Pine Tree Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs
The Christmas Pageant by Christy Colby Heno
A Child's Calendar Poems by John Updike
The Night Before Christmas illustrated by Jane Brett
Counting to Christmas by Nancy Tafuri
Hopper by Marcus Pfister
A Wish for Wings that Work an Opus Christmas Story by Berkeley Breathed
Sky Tree by Thomas Locker
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff
Father Christmas and the Donkey by Elizabeth Clark
The Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke
Norman the Doorman by Don Freeman
Frosty the Snowman musical board book
Biscuit's Christmas by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
Madeline Christmas Activity Book
Pooh Christmas Days
Dream Snow by Eric Carle
Snow on Snow on Snow by Cheryl Chapman
Snow Shapes by Judith Moffatt
Snow Day! by Barbara M. Joosse
All About Snow and Ice by Stephen Krensky
The Twelve Days of Christmas illustrated by Jan Brett
Going West My Little House Books
LipLap's Wish by Jonathon London and Sylvia Long
White Snow Bright Snow by Alvin Tresselt
There are more, but that's all I have time for right now! I'll come back later and share our favorites in more detail. |
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Dec. 20, 2008 What's Old Becomes New Again
I'm not sure when it happened. Time has a way of getting past us without us really paying attention. At some point we outnumbered in people the amount of bicycles we own. Or more accurately, we outnumbered in bike riders the amount of bicycles we own. The girls have been happily content on riding scooters, so we didn't really pay attention to the fact that there weren't enough bikes to go around and the bikes we did have were beginning to show signs of living in the desert.
Now that S. is actively riding his bike w/o training wheels the girls have taken up a renewed interest in bike riding. Uh oh, what bikes? LOL So, today we took the bikes to our local store to have the chain fixed on one and a new inner tubes put into the other. Having our two bikes ready to go, S. zipping around on his bike (which he has actually outgrown but we're not worrying about that right now ;-) ) the wagon all spruced up for J man and we're left with one girl standing alone. Kind of like the Farmer in the Dell where the cheese stands alone or more accurately, Musical Chairs where there just aren't enough to go around. One girl was left standing asking "Can't I ride a bike too?"
Fortunately, a relic of the past came into play at that moment. A veritable antique LOL was dusted off so that my eldest daughter did not have to stand there all alone asking the question, "What about me? I'd like to ride too." What heirloom of familial importance did I pass on to my eldest? Nothing less than the bike I had growing up. :-D
The history of my bicycle is grand. I'm the youngest of 4 (all girls :) ) and my parents in their infinite wisdom bestowed certain gifts on us at certain ages. Rights of passage one might call them. At the age of 8 we each received our very own Schwin Bicycle. We each had to contribute $20 to the purchase and we had to pick out a bike that would last us a long time. No fancy banana seat bikes for us (mom wouldn't allow them anyway) w/ low seats and streamers flying. No, we needed to pick out an adult size bike that would last us, well, a life time. Dad was only going to buy one bike for us, so choose wisely.
The months leading up to my 8th birthday I dutifully practiced on my mothers ancient bicycle in our backyard learning how to kick the pedals up so I could actually ride the thing! LOL I had many falls, scrapes and mishaps yet managed to not only survive but thrive (bike helmets? Unheard of back then. :D). I'm pretty sure I picked out the bike of my choice, one exactly like my older sisters only in a different color. My bike was a beautiful Aqua blue. This was the '70s so aqua was quite "cool" back then. I wasn't with my parents at the time of the purchase nor do I know when and where they stored it but when I woke up on my 8th birthday, there was my brand new shining aqua blue bike.
Ahhh, freedom was mine at last. I could travel far and wide on my not so little aqua bike. Ok, truth be told, I was only allowed to ride in a circle on our driveway, directly across the street and back onto our driveway for quite awhile. Then, I was allowed to go down to the corner and back for another "quite awhile". Then, I was allowed to go around the block for even more of "quite awhile". Eventually, I don't remember how many "quite awhile's" had passed, ahhh, freedom. I could now go exploring wherever I liked (as long as I didn't cross any busy streets. Oh, and stay out of the alleys and the empty lot - did I mention my parents were very strict ;-) ).
I have fallen off that bike so many times, crashed into things, got cut up bruised and scraped but oh how I loved my bike. Of course, as I got older, like 7th grade, my friends were now getting their cool 10 speeds w/ the skinny tires and handle bars that curled down or if you were ultra cool, you curled them up. Not me, nope, I had the bike that I was going to have forever.
I won't say I minded having my clunker one speed as they zipped on their ten speeds, I did. But, I'm venturing a guess that my circa 1970's Schwinn one speed bicycle has outlasted all those zippy little ten speeds w/ their fancy gears and skinny minny tires. It was hard when we'd go on long bike rides to keep up, but I did. For really long rides, I'd just borrow my friends brothers bike so I too could change gears and easily get my pant leg uncaught from the chain - just pedal backwards! (anyone else remember the pant leg getting caught in the chain on a pedal brake bike? You know, how you're happily riding along one minute and the next your body is being thrown into the handle bars while your leg remains firmly affixed to the chain? Argh, how many ripped and oily pant legs did I have growing up? Bell bottom pants and pedal brakes do not make a good combination!)
For my, ahem, 40th birthday a few years back my parents reintroduced me to my bike. My father had it restored, as best they could. The seat is original and it shows, there's still a bit of rust on the fenders, rim and handlebars but that bike is solid. It stood the test of time and to ride it is an experience that brings back memories and just a general good feeling. There's something about the weight of those old bikes that gives you a whole different experience than when you ride bikes from today.
So now, 35 years later, I can hand down my old bike to my daughter and she can now enjoy the freedom and exhileration of blazing new trails. She just needs to watch those pant legs. ;-)
 Me w/ my bike in 7th grade
(please ignore the squint, my mom is a notoriously poor photograher lol)
 Reunited :-)
 Passing on the legacy
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Dec. 19, 2008 Book Club Christmas Party
Our Mother Daughter Bookclub is in our 5th year of meeting. Once a month we get together with other homeschooling moms and their daughters at each others homes and discuss our book selection, play and chat. It's been a wonderful addition to our lives here since we moved. The girls love it and I've gotten to know several Moms I never would have known otherwise. Definitely a blessing to our family.
Every year we have a Christmas party where the whole family is invited to attend. We do different things year to year from cookie exchanges to an old fashioned Christmas gathering. This year we met for a little mixture of old fashioned Christmas and regular ol party. :)
Come join us!
The kids played outside, mainly soccer (what else? LOL) for awhile, then came in to chow down on some yummy food. We had homemade mac and cheese, meatballs in the grape jelly/chili sauce mixture, spinach artichoke dip w/ fresh bread, veggie tray, fruit and cheese tray, pretzels hand dipped in chocolate w/ colored sprinkles (all feingold friendly :) ), homemade Christmas cookies, baklava and white chocolate covered pretzels. YUM! Everything was delicious and looked so festive.
Besides playing outside, we had popcorn and cranberries for the kids to string if they wanted to. This was a first for many of them. I think they enjoyed it.
 Popping corn
The kids also either read a favorite Christmas story, played the piano or did both. It's always fun to see what books they'll bring each year. It's also fun to listen to them through the years on the piano as they all improve. 
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Dec. 1, 2008 Who's watching you? |
Another shot of the artists and flowers
R's age 8
He did a sketch of the tree and then decided to do a bark rubbing.
Minutes old
First Bath
J holding his little sister for the first time
S holding little sis
A looking very excited, don't you think.
E's turn!
They brought me and the baby homemade gifts. :) E wrote a beautiful poem for her little sister. If I can find it, they've misplaced it :(, I'll share it.
Saying goodbye. This always makes me cry, when they all have to leave. :(
)
Acting out their story
Just because he's so cute and was everywhere at all times! LOL
Duet!
owl in our eucalytus tree
