This month’s Mud Puddles to Meteors newsletter has a link to the Snail Mail 2015 Challenge. I love sending and receiving personal mail but it happens so rarely as we are more apt to hop on our computers or phones to send a message. There is something so warming and delightful about finding a hand-written note or a little piece of art in the mail!
If you’d like to spread some warmth this winter season, hop on over to the Snail Mail Challenge!
Yesterday was a darn cold day. We didn’t go out for the trail walk as planned due to the road conditions outside of the city. We did, however, go to Chapters so that the boys could use some of their holiday money to buy more Lego, Minecraft Lego. But, we had to finish our lessons first and I have to say, it was smooth going!
I happily wore the hat that I just finished knitting the night before. So warm. Love it!
Our lessons include handwork. X is knitting a scarf on needles and L is using one of the loom kits. He is so adept at it. If I can get him to do even 15 minutes a day he will have it finished in no time!
Xman and I did some time-telling practice with this fun little book I picked up a while ago. The pages are magnetic as are the little pieces so it’s quite fun! Xman is pretty good with telling time but when it comes to analog without the numbers it takes a bit of practice.
I took some time during their copy work to prepare some kale chips – so good!
And these cookies…oh my goodness you just have to try them – so many good things to be found.
Lessons done and off we go to get the Lego. I have to say, Minecraft and Lego really is the perfect combination…
While the boys Lego’d it up I took a bit of time to check out these new arrivals and put that Dreamscapes book to good use right away!
*if you do get the pattern for the hat here are a couple of corrections:
Row 17: *k5, p6, k5, p1* to end
Row 18: *k3, p10, k3, p1* to end
About an hour ago I received a package in the mail. The box was not the right shape for the books I have been expecting to arrive.
As I opened the box my heart warmed despite the freezing temps outside that made me shiver when I opened the door.
A wonderfully sweet package it was from a fellow homeschool blogger friend. I only expected to receive a Lunar Calendar – which is so so cool and already on the wall – so the little extras were super special gifts. L immediately put some of the salve onto a scratch on his hand (he may like it better than my plantain salve!) and Xman and I put on some of the lip balm. We all love home made anything!
Receiving the rocks was so very cool because we are big rock lovers! We will be finding a special spot for these Lake Ontario treasures. They will remind me of home as I am from southern Ontario.
Thank you, Kim! My gratitude vibration is humming. 🙂 xx
As I previously posted, yesterday was the first snowfall of the season and we were all very excited as the big flakes floated down and muffled the city sounds. So beautiful indeed!
After lunch, the boys went outside to play a bit while I busied myself indoors – after taking some quick pics of them, of course. The snow was a bit sticky but it made trying out the new slide no less fun!
Mooooon. 🙂
After a dinner of home-made pizza (so yum!) I sat down with the boys and they broke out their new felting kit and string art.
Xman had a bit of help from me placing the pins into the cardboard for his string art. It’s a tricky business getting them straight, I know, from my own string art creations when I was a kid! We didn’t get all of the pins in but it was a good start.
I was quite impressed with L’s determination with the felting, especially this being his (our) first time with needle felting. He became quite good with the needle and by the end I knew I didn’t have to keep a close eye on what he was doing to make sure he didn’t felt his fingers!
The boys are totally hooked on Kirby since they borrowed a wii game from their friends. L decided to forego making a critter with instructions from the kit and make a Kirby instead. Not bad. Not bad indeed, especially for the first time. I’d say L is pretty pleased! =¬) (face made by L)
And then today, for post-breakfast snack…popcorn! This time with some coconut oil and salt. Oh my goodness!
I know I just posted but I just had to show the snow that has begun to fall. It’s our first snowfall this season as the weather has been fairly mild for the most part.
It seems perfect to me that big snowflakes should cover everything with white, creating a white, blank slate for the new year. Hushed and full of promise.
And in only minutes…
I can hear the birds chirping. Can you? So so quietly.
Happy New Year everyone. May all your dreams come true! It’s may take some sacrifices and some work, but it’s gonna be sooo worth it! xx
What are my personal dreams for the new year? Find out here. xx
Yesterday I did some last minute groceries and came across an air popper. Xman just loves popcorn but we always buy the bags so I thought this would be a better way to go. And it was! They boys had such fun watching the popcorn pop from hot air, swirl around and fly out into the bowl. Even L ate the popcorn!
See those tired eyes? Ya, they thought they could stay up until midnight but were yawning before the popcorn was all eaten up!
Happy 2015 everyone! Enjoy every last morsel!
The weather around here lately has been mild but very rainy meaning many a day spent inside during this holiday season. I am sure the boys didn’t mind as they got their share of playing Super Smash Bros and Minecraft (along with some cool Minecraft figures for L), reading new books, playing holiday songs on the keyboard (Xman is addicted), practicing new magic tricks and learning to play Forbidden Desert – super awesome game by the way.
Yesterday, winter came without snow but definitely with low temperatures. So we all bundled up in long johns, pants and then snow pants, neck warmers and hats and hoods, oh my! and met some friends for a trail walk in -10C with an even colder windchill. Brrrrr!
Even the boys didn’t complain about bundling up for a walk in the cold – a sure sign of being indoors for too many days!
We met at Blue Mountain – Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area at a trail opening near the Maskwa aquatic club. Guess I note that for my sake so I can remember the name. Age has it’s not so great parts – too many things zooming around in the brain! 🙂
We had a great time climbing up the steep trail ways, picking icicles (and bringing home the moss-covered ones which, to note, didn’t even melt in the car on the way home!), throwing rocks into the frozen area of the lake, and traversing planked walkways over semi-frozen ponds. As always, there was so much to look at for us all and I stopped a few times to take some quick pics.
Surprisingly, we all stayed toasty warm and left feeling energized from being in nature and breathing in the crisp, fresh air. Totally worth the bundling!!
Love love love moss!
This walkway was a bit slippery in one spot and wet clothing is no fun so we were extra careful for our first trek.
Good friends make for good company!
Love the ice formations on the twigs and rocks!
Cozy family.
Frozen mossy-ness. The boys were punching holes through the ice as they walked, watching the water burble up through the holes. 
This was a wonderful trail experience and we will definitely be visiting here again come freezing temps or warm, sun-filled days (which will return some day)! Happy trailing!
Now that we have had a couple of frosty nights I decided a take a peek at the carrots and pick a few to taste. The boys were super excited to pick them and I could barely get them to hold still for pics, thus the blurry ones! We were thrilled with what we did pick and if we didn’t already have a bunch of carrots from the market to eat we would have picked them all – the boys really wanted to!
Of course we can’t supply food for ourselves without filling up the feeders with the last of the homemade suet. I figure they can’t eat frozen suet in the winter so I may as well leave it all out now. The hairy woodpecker and black-capped chickadees love this feeder. Our other two feeders have black sunflower seeds and a mix for the other visiting birds.
Purple carrots!
Just look at how cool that is when you cut it open! I boiled the carrots a bit for the boys (easier to eat with a mouth full of loose teeth!) and the water turned purple!
The boys are eating the carrots now and loving them. Love that they love their veggies.
I do wish we had a bigger area in our yard for gardening but it’s certainly better than nothing and we love watching the food grow through the season. It’s been a good year for our beans, peas and carrots. Yep, that’s all we can get with our little bit of sunshine in the summer but we still feel blessed by the earth nonetheless. 🙂
I love it when the boys bring out X’s Snap Circuits. They both love playing with it and it gets their minds working in such creative ways. It’s been one of our best purchases so far and it generally leads to other ideas such as this one:
Making your own speaker.
Snap Circuits can be put together to create a radio and speaker set with volume control which reminded L of a craft he read in a mag… The boys each have a subscription to Owl/Chickadee Magazine and they get so excited when it arrives in the mail. Suddenly, the house is very quiet as they sit themselves down to read. Then it gets a little busy here with neat experiments and crafts. Making a speaker for your iPhone (they each have our older iPhones for games) or whatever device you may have kicking around is one of them.
So L made a speaker out of a Tim’s cup – good recycling! Then he realized he could use it as a spotlight with the flashlight app. Cool! X found some a piece of red gel from a science kit and placed this in front of the light and voila! red light!
If you have an old take-out cup at home and some scissors, this will keep them entertained for a while. So fun!
Oh, and the speaker works surprisingly well!
The boys can’t wait until night-time to really try out the spotlight in their room.
Happy creating!
It’s been a looooong time since I have posted to our blog – too long! Things have been busy here as they are in so many households but I am not going to try to backtrack (at least not yet) of what’s been happening here. I’ll just try to post more often because we do love to keep track of our experiences here online.
This morning’s circle time was cut short by rambunctious children. It was one of those times when you admit that it’s not working and it’s time to get outside and shake off the crazies! It was a tad rainy out but that was okay. We were all more than ready to go outside. The boys played some baseball in the yard while I did some clean-up of the dead hosta (so, so many!) and a lot Japanese lantern plants.
The lanterns got the boys wondering what would happen if they were to plant some of the seed pods indoors. We grabbed some pots and the boys filled them with soil and the pods. When they went to water the pods they started talking about a Mythbusters episode where the hosts microwave water and feed it to the plants to see the effects of microwaves on ‘food’. The results were surprising and so we shall see what happens at home. We heated the water and the microwave and added a thermometre to the mug to watch the temperature go down to room temp – fun for the boys!
First, I think we need to do a bit of research on those seed pods because I’m thinking they need to overwinter first if they are going to grow for us! 😉