View From My House

View From My House
Sunset

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

More Antics from the Boys

Dante seems to be copping it lately. Here is a picture of his back after a light bookshelf scrapped his skin after young toddler Raven pushed it onto him (fortunately, it didn't have any weight on it as we are doing another major move around - again.)Kai has got some testicular fortitude. He ripped his two front teeth earlier this week, they were loose but honestly! Dante pussyfooted about for a couple of weeks over his last one, but Kai got them out in a few days by sheer determination. I've seen this kind of thing from him before, last year when he broke his leg. That was a nasty thing that was.

The Amazing Sea Monkeys....Part 2

And here they are, finally:



Young Dante has been hassling us since back here. Apparently the ones we use for feeding the fish (frozen and in cubes) are simply not the same. A very good thing about Dante is he makes sure that we get what he wants. Originally, we agreed to do it and let him spend his pocket money, we went to the shop to find they weren't in stock there or anywhere.



We later decided OK, we'll do them as an Easter present, he won't have to buy them. Easter can and went without sea monkeys because it was still dry. He reminded us then, and we managed to find them last pay, and we had a choice of three types, the ordinary kind, a castle and the above one - Mars. So, the homeschool money paid for it (not some money we get out of the government, unfortunately, we just put $40 aside for such things out of our pay, more if needed).
Above is Dante stirring in the salts. It takes 24 hours to "purify" and salinate the water.



Above the eggs have been stirred in, and we await for them to grow. Ugly little buggers. The pictures they use to market them don't do them justice. Here is what they really look like:

Here is a picture of one of my favourite artists, Frieda Kahlo, in a spoof Sea Monkeys picture to commemerate our leap into owning some sea monkey pets of our own.

sourced from: 7deadlysinners.typepad.com/sinners/2006/01/monkey_sea_monk_5.html - 33k -

I love how the sea monkey is holding a sachet of a real sea monkey.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Widdle Black Ducks... awww



Swan's feeding their cynets off Bridgewater Bridge, not far from home. Photo curtesy of Andrew, who went to great lengths to get these photos for me. But oh so worth it, I'm sure you would agree! We've been watching this family with five cygnets for some time now, I do hope they survive the winter, they are just so small and cuties

These are the drawings of the swans the children did today. First is Labyrinth's Swans styled in Mem Foxes Time for Bed, it says "Time for bed, little swan, little swan, the stars are out and on the loose."
Dante's picture is below, with swans and sharks, and a man fishing near a boat.

Above is Kai's most excellent swan picture, which has a diplurodon in it too. Perhaps a little anachronistic, but very cute!
That's all for now, tommorrow I'll be posting about our amazing sea monkeys! Q.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Random Pics and Thoughts

Dante is a real Otaku. The boys really like ZOIDS, pokemon, Hamtaro and they also like Ben Ten. Labyrinth, at the moment likes pokemon, sailormoon, and studio Ghibli stuff and Hamtaro. Above is Picachu and Ash.
Kai finally did a picture which doesn't involve gunfire! YAY for Kai! This is the four eldest children playing at McDonalds. Raven is at the end of the slide at the bottom.
Here Monika is doing what she does best - makes the whole world smile with her :)
A beautiful, strange, endearing photo of Raven.
If you can read it says: Dante 14/3/08. Obviously out of date, but hey, it was so good it had to go onto the blog at some point. This picture has been in our "gallery". Anytime the kids do something exeptional, it is put up on display in the hallway, and often guests will check it out and make comments on these special pictures. It really makes them feel good and worthwhile. Which is important right now for Dante, as his "unique" talent for drawing isn't so "unique" anymore, as Labyrinth and Kai both are starting to move along with drawing. Which isn't to say he can't do it anymore, its just he feels he can't say he is the best anymore, and it irks him.

Anybody can learn how to draw, it isn't difficult. Each of us has the ability to do many things, its how we do them that is important. I was reading some comics by a guy called Jack T. Chick today, a link off a forum. That was a bit scary. He is a christian with a bit of an attitude. I guess I am quite liberal, and to see a very talented artist doing comics like this was astounding!

Today the children at a play at HJ's and an icecream. Despite the morals of eating at a global coperate cichlid establishment - lol- it is incredibly convenient, and the children love it. It was good because a lot of play areas were today saturated with rain, which is also a wonderful thing. I'm thinking to myself that the drought will break in the next year or so I hope. Our little garden got a good drink, that's for sure!

I'm wishing for wonderful great things to happen, but I'm putting in the ground work and finishing off my degree by distance, so tommorrow I'll be working hard on something I despise - the essay. Some essay writing is good, it's about stuff I enjoy learning about or thinking about, but not this one. Its about mobile phones! I use one sometimes, but I don't really care for them. They are not made for hands like mine, they are made for delicate people, which I am not. Nails are also an issue. To me socially speaking they are an annoyance and can zap money too. But I have to think about all the good stuff too, like emergencies or whatever.

A friend has recently invited me to jam with her sometime. I will probably take up the offer, considering I haven't for a long time it will be good for me!

Have a good nite *Q*



Garden of Earthly Delights...er I wiish...part 3

Osirus' Rose, growing every day, and ohh so thirsty *)

My Jasmine Plants, slowly growing, but sending out new shoots which is a good sign!

Herb seeds, planted on Thursday, still no sign of them poking out of the soil just yet. There is mustard salad thingies and Rocket.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Make Love Not War, Man...

We had a traditional Aussie lunch of roast lamb. We then had a lesson about the ANZACs, which was basically an online study guide for young children, it can be found here. By the end of it the children were restless so they went outside for a long play. They were impressed by Simpson and his donkey though. They were more interested in the stories than the events, at thier age, who can blame them?

We then began cooking a traditional Aussie tea of scones and ANZAC buscuits.



They now want to go check out a war memorial so they can see some of the names of our brave soldiers who died. We discussed what freedom is, and how we have a form of freedom where we can have some choices, but we are not really completely free, though. Ideally, we would be free to make nearly every decision we would like to that doesn't interfere with another's choices or safety. This is not the case here in Australia. Like many nations, we have ridiculous and stupid laws, some are so out of date they literally are not kept by anybody. Some of them are cute though, like a pregnant woman can have a wee any where she pleases.

Our scones are heart shaped. This is what the title of this post refers, Make Love Not War! I am of the mind set that I would go to great lengths not to go to war, but I certainly wouldn't entertain the notion of not fighting in the act of defence. This does not include war on a nation for financial gain, nor putting one's belief system over that of another's.

While I appreciate the freedom I do have, especially to raise my children safely and homeschool them, I do think that as a global community are not ready to quit the notion of war. Too many individuals are not like minded. While I am not paranoid about terrorists, I am prepared to fight for the lives of the people I love in defence, and for our freedom to live as we choose. I am prepared to fight on home soil to keep the freedoms I enjoy, that is I won't be sending my children into the education system to be dumbed down. I would sooner leave this country of mine than give up my right to home educate (and they give home edders money per student to acquire curriculum and learning materials in NZ, well technically they do in NSW and VIC as well, but I don't live there!)

I hope you all had a good ANZAC day. Enjoy the freedom that was hard earnt by our nations heroes because of the stupidity of other nation's leaders. Q.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

I'm Goin' Outside to Eat Some Worms!

Wonderful Worms at the Botanical Gardens

We had a wonderful time at a homeschool gathering today at the Botanical Gardens, Hobart.
Thanks to our lovely host, Miriam (who's blog is in my faves list). It was one of the educational experiences that the Botanical Gardens host, and we get to do it as a homeschool group!

Below: peeking into the children's world of wonder under the canopy of a wonderful tree. Who doesn't hug trees? I'm a proud tree hugger, and feel quite reverent around them.

Below: our very own resident tree hugging elves.
Exploring the gardens the children were introduced to how trees reproduce, what a worm's role in the garden is, how to respect mother nature, and appreciating the world around them. Labyrinth as always, collected enthusiatically, as did the boys, and now we have a lot of leaves, seed pods, cones to work with in craft over the next week or so.

Below: Raven was quite taken by the Chinese Lion statues. If only he could remember in ChinaTown, in Brisbane Valley, where we watched the Lion Dancers (like the dragons) how the danced and hopped up on stilts. Then there was the fireworks. Tasmania is way too slow, unfortunately, but I love it for other reasons.


Above the woman who led the learning experience talks to uninterested children. I mean come on, there were worms on the table to play with! What beats that? Hands on experience.

Here is Labyrinth looking so pretty, holding out a small portion of what we have brought home.Young Monika. Isn't she just so beautiful? Her enthusiasm about being around other children was lovely.
One of the delights of being around nature: as soon as the children cleared out of this area the Rosella pair came in because the children had stirred it all up, in search of food I have no doubt.
Below, drawings of their experience of worms today:

1. Raven 2. Dante 3. Labyrinth 4. Kai




Random art from today: Kai's army, Rabbit lose in the carrot patch by Labyrinth, A School of Fish by Dante, and last but by no means least is Labyrinth's impression of "Whispers of the Heart" by Studio Ghibli. We recently acquired a copy, and it's all she wants to watch. I appreciate she has good taste, but I'll be soon stir crazy about the song "Country Roads". Stand out moment from the movie for myself is the line in reference as to why the fat cat is called Moon, "just look at him" and its a shot of his bum! I laughed at that so hard!




Nighty Night, Sweet Heart, Q.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Tom Foolery...

I've always loved that word. My primary school headmaster used it a lot, usually about me. Boys are irrepressable. This is a before and after shot of young Dante, who very nearly broke his nose when all three boys took to racing around the house and collided. They all got hurt, just Dante happened to cop it the worst!


Its a bit swollen, some bruising around the left side, and on side view a large bump. Oh well, tis what lads will do...