I know, I know

Above: Dante and Kai have painted Wall-E, and Raven has done a night time Plants Vs Zombies painting. Below: Labyrinth had done a still life of our fruit bowl, and Monika has done a wonderful colourful picture!

It's way past due for blogging, and I apologise but I have been super busy...

I've been to Armidale for a Residential School for Intro to Preformance and Presentation (Drama), that was fun and a big stretch for me as I haven't preformed on stage for a long, long time. I've been doing my best to get fit, keep the studies up, both the children's and mine, and get on top of all my other needs... basically this came not quite last as my scrapping has that honour. Yes, I'm pining for the time I can sit down and just do some fun stuff for me.

Last week on Thursday I got all my mid semester essays in, a week since getting back in the state, I had three assignments due on Wed/Thurs last week, one was fun, that was a workbook for my drama subject which meant designing a stage and drawing up a scene ready for designers/actors to go. The other two essays for the same subject (which could have been a great subject) Reading Pop Culture, which was about Steve Irwin and Micheal Jackson. I mean come on, it could have been Princess Diana - I figured I'd do the lesser two of three evils...

I've also been sick, trying to get the children prepped for a mini gluten challenge (which all the details will be on the other blog.) I've also got my Mental Health First Aid certificate, my Mother has had complications from a bowel operation, Andrew has been recovering from a nasty foot injury from Dante's birthday. On the up and up now personally for health, which got a huge boost from my four day Res School, which was quite physical. I've barely had time to scatch!

During this time the lessons haven't exactly been um... consistant. However, they have made huge bounds in reading/writing and maths, which are the subjects we have been mostly concentrating on while I've been otherwise occupied. Monika and Raven have been learning the phonic alphabet, learning new dancing song combos like Incy Wincy Spider etc.

About a week before going to Armidale, we went on a homeschool excursion to the Molesworth Enviroment Centre, learning about Aboriginal history right in the area with a bushwalk and building temporary huts, complete with mini lecture to begin. They have had lots of play and they chat online with cousins, so they haven't been lacking for social contact.

Naturally, they have had access to painting/drawing. We've also been enjoying the interactive WII that has been brought so I can do cheap Yoga, I get the WII Fit tomorrow, we got it on special, it beats paying for the gym. We also do SingStar which has substitured for music lessons for now. Dante has been getting into modelling, we keep fish, still eating out of our garden but it will have to be settled for the winter months coming up...

Current Books:

Labyrinth: W.I.T.C.H. no 3

Dante: The Spiderwick Chronicles - The Field Guide aka no1

Kai: The Strange Museum - The Royal Switch

Raven & Monika: If you're happy and you know it - song'n'action book.

Me: Sookie Stackhouse Books, Rereading No.1 Dead Until Dark- I've read up to No. 9 (Andrew's and my Anniversary present to each other - Yeah we had one of those on the 7th of April, it was our 12th!)

2 Little Fairies tend the Flowers....

My daughter, Monika, and a friends daughter play fairies in her garden, they are tending the gardens... It was so cute I had to break the silence, I've been way too slack. I've actually been enjoying my holidays! I've read the Twilight Saga, almost finished my Halloween off the page album, which I'll post pics of on here soon. Yes, I feel incredibly guilty that I've not done anything so I'll have to begin posting again!

Dragons: Myth or Real?

Is this myth or real?

This is the question posed to my children today. We watched the mockumentary entitled The Last Dragon a.k.a Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real. It fell so well into learning about myth and legend, and when Andrew discovered it, it definately made its way into our learning environment.

Done so well, my children very nearly believed it was true, the eldest two were skeptical originally, which is good. However it even made me really wish it was true. How wonderfully made! Find the wiki here and the official site here which includes a lot of learning and thinking information.

While the sun has shined, we've been very busy in our garden, which unfortunately meant I didn't get any photos yet - but as soon as I don't have dirt all over my hands/grass through my hair/and the sun is still shining I'll get pics up. I'm really pleased about how we are progressing! We've got real gardens with real plants growing, some of them are th*s big!

Every time I tell the children a mythological story, I get them to retell it in some way. I'll have to get some examples up about that too. Unfortunately so much has been happening and I haven't been keeping up to it on here! Really attempting to do well at Uni has something to do with it, that is changing though. I'm getting real serious and am putting Uni off next year to concentrate on writing a novel/children's books/poetry.

The children are coming along very nicely, and there is a the official THEAC (Tassie Home Schooling) picnic coming up on the weekend too. With any luck we will get there, but Andrew doesn't sound enthused about it, unfortunately.

Raven is a smarty pants, he can write really well, he is beginning to read, but oh so lazy. It's unfortunate. He wrote for me "A Bug" today and wouldn't write any more. The big three are slowly working through their writing workbooks, we have a routine now - chores/maths/writing/english/computing/typing/reading lessons daily as a standard, plus we have myth lessons. Although we've taken off the last couple of days to work outside and the children have been helping or playing, as they will.

I hope there may be some readers still out there! Q.

Belated Birthday Blog

Firstly: Our Spring Garden. Well this is us weeding it and finding out after our very wet winter what survived. Well, we got ourselves a few cauliflowers and a bean stalk or two still OK, and our blackberry cane is going strong. Very pleased actually, chuffed that we have some hardly plants going, the cauliflower/blackberries are fantasticly hardy. YAY.

My very naughty princess above, after shes been into the gluten free flour, which happens on the occasions the older children leave the kitchen door open (frequently) or on the odd occasion we forget to (like when she's been asleep). OK we are all guilty, but at this stage there is no stopping her from getting into EVERYTHING... just a case of trying our best. But isn't she cute?

Well, it should be the birthday girl first, but blogger won't let me change the photos around without much screwing around so its this way. As I've mentioned in previous birthday posts before, our family birthday tradition is the birthday child gives a small gift to the her (in this case) siblings. So, considering the cute but cheap (in the big toy sales) small interactive animals were about, Monika got a baby duckie (fur real).

Ahhh, the birthday girl. Here is a littlest pet shop interactive toy $2 at Toy World. Makes her very happy, and it doesn't burn a huge hole in our pocket, since we're trying to be frugalish. On the other hand here are her new DSI accessories. These were quite well priced, all under $20, its the DSI that hurt. But we've made the decision to have these little hand held games machines for the older ones during the time we may or may not have electricity (or limited) while we build our new house. It can be recharged off the car battery as we drive!

Obviously this was the After above, and the During below, lovely blogger.

Below we have a wrapt Kai with his gift, a Wall.e PS2 game, he and Dante have played the demo that was free to absolute death, and when we saw this for $10 we thought - Christmas! Then we realised we didn't have a gift for him from Labyrinth, so guess what, he got this to his utter joy. So happy all round there.

Here's Monika with her duckie in a box, she's still not used to the whole notion of birthdays yet.

The best photo of Dante and his Trike, which is from the makers of Fur Real, only labeled differently. Kota and his dinosaur pals, he got the Trike...

while little brother Raven got the T-Rex. Considering that Labyrinth's birthday was late last month, these are still favourites with the children, all of the above presents, I think we chose well. I admit we get it wrong, I'm sick of buying toys which are forgotten in a week or less. These are not worth having! I spent alot of money on the Little People, which got a fair amount of use with the three biggest, but neither Raven nor Monika use them, they might use Duplo/Lego, but it's the rare toy they actually play with. Monika is a bookie kind of girl, puzzles and mischief is her prefered play activity, whilst poor Raven is just too sickly to really enjoy play. When he is up to it, he'd rather play silly buggers, racing around the house, now spring has come along, he's actually enjoying a little time in the dirt outside, and a bounce on the trampoline. Monika is actually fitter than he is, he has the energy of the couch potato many days out of a week.
I must apologise for the long gap between posts. Life has caught up with me and after recovering from my broken arm, I've had a few weeks of assignments, the last of which is due on Friday. After I finished my last one last Wednesday, I've been frantically organising Monika's 2nd birthday party, and had my first breather yesterday for the first time since Labyrinth's birthday. YAY the birthday season is no over, the beautiful weather is making me feel much better and I have been getting out into the garden a little (really must get those seedlings in tomorrow at the latest). I also have a great need to catch up here! So, I'll be doing my best to put up Monika's party, and a big catch up on thier school work very soon, but we're about to lose internet until Friday, so I'll do my best to get as much up today as possible! I've also have my assignment and getting a few last minute online things done. Til later then. Q.

Garden of Earthly Delights... er...I wish cont

Bad news first: My tomatoes and basil didn't survive...

Funnily enough we have a thriving pea patch on our hay that we haven't used yet.

Our surviving baby vegetables. I was really concerned about the survival of seedlings in a Tassie Winter, but these have most definately done so and are thriving. There has been alot of rain, some have died from being flooded, or being thrashed about in high winds. So we have around 9 plants still going, plus the pea patch, so we are pretty happy with what we do have. No where near able to see ourselves eating from the garden any time soon because they still are babies, but we might yield some edible food from the vege patch yet!

Our Jasmine, which I haven't gotten a photo of, is growing very well, and I am sad we'll have to leave it behind to be honest. Thats nearly 3 years of growth on those two plants! But they won't be happy to be moved and I couldn't move them interstate anyways. I guess I've grown attached to it!

As for homeschooling, it couldn't happen again today, as it was their day with their carer. As it turns out though I think we won't be needing her services for much longer at all. She's probably losing her best paying job and I feel sorry for her, but we have some issues - and there is the broken feeling to the week and to their lessons that I don't like and have never appreciated. Having a break from them is all well and good but we've done better in the past without that.

So, that is all really, Q.

Garden of Earthly Delights...er I wish....part 9

Our little seedlings have grown up and are more than ready to head into the big garden... above on stakes are the snow peas and pea plant experiment. In front are the kale/cauliflower/bok choy.

Kai is pointing out the pea plant experiment, completely his idea and nuturing right from the start. We didn't really think it would grow (it was a seed found in a bale of pea straw hay!) but it was a great learning experience for him!

Of course, this is only a tiny beginning. I'm hoping I won't need to buy much fresh veges at least, but ideally I'd like to be growing all my own veges, fruit and nuts eventually. Its so hellishly expensive to buy decent nuts and real yummy veges, and this is an attempt at starting a new sustainable lifestyle, one that can benefit the children's minds as well as thier bellies *).

Today we did some cooking, we cooked buckwheat pancakes for brunch. Andrew didn't like them but the children ate them up and I liked them too. Later it was Quinoa/amaranth pasta (orgran) with spagetti sauce. The children watched Life in Cold Blood Dragons of the Dry yesterday and have been doing so much art. I'll be dedicating a whole post to just that in the next day or so! Q.

A Camping they'll go... and while the cats away...

While the big two have been at Buddy Camp and living it up, the younger three have been doing some nice quality stuff with mum and dad. Like antique/second hand shopping, lunch and play at McDonalds, doing collages, watching new movies, and making a new safe recipe of Gluten Free Choc Chip Cookies with mum. (Its a step by step recipe if your interested). The cookies are smaller but really, really yummo. Maybe a touch drier but still melt in your mouth.

Tending our little garden doesn't change. Here is Kai's Pea Plant experiment (obviously a success!)

Below our seedlings are just about ready for planting, but I'm so scared they'll die out in the cold.

Snow peas are looking like they need some stakes so they'll need to be planted ASAP.

Bananna Plant is doing well.

Our resident Picasso/Monika I mean, drawing anywhere and everywhere she possibly can. Way, way advanced. She could care less about toys, but drawing and books she can't get enough of:

Oh dear she's cute! She either bringing me books to read her all the time, or she's off making her beautiful art around the house somewhere, anywhere... She also loves to sing and dance, which is taken care of by Justine Clarke, and singing and dancing together, or singing the ones with movements like "I'm a little tea pot" or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or "Peter Rabbit" you get the idea! Oh, and its not a case of playing in the yard with ride on trikes/play equipment (why waste the money - she never uses them anyway), she'd rather dig in the dirt with her spade.

The other's were well looked after, doing art, playing games, having a ball but missing their older siblings. I tried keeping them busier than usual. They also had a holiday from chores so they could enjoy it more. While its been lovely having the break, I miss them dearly. It's quiet without them.

Day of the Dead, Drawings etc

OK, so it just seemed like the day of the dead with our resident zombies, above is Raven's art, below is his face art:

Below is Monika's art/face paint (this is her first ever face painting, no adverse reactions so all is good:

And here we have Kai's work/face painting. This is a really great photo of Kai! Usually he looks mournful, which would have been appropriate. Hey, his a contrary wise young man...

Dante had to be a bit different. His art/his face, a big cat.

And Labyrinth's work/face painting. She's put real effort into her Africa drawing and she kept this a secret from us for over a week! She does art therapy, and this is a fantastic example of what she can do (but rarely does for herself).

They may look the zombie part, but I sure feel like the zombie-girl lately. Been drugged out on anti-depressants, can't sleep at night, can't wake in the morning, so it makes for some interesting mistakes. That and I've still not weaned Monika so I can't actually go onto another drug. Anyways, lots of natural learning going on but very little formal I'm afraid. We've been gardening, drawing, visiting people, going out to Fit'N'Fun, cooking, using the computer and watching TV etc. We had lots of fun making music yesterday, I brought I Love to Sing, by Justine from playschool. We watched the DVD they danced while I folded the clothes. Then they played drums and made a great hulabaloo! So cute they are, and it was fantastic to see Kai get into music and laugh and smile lots and of course the little two had a ball. We do a lot of spontaneous singing/dancing in our house, I love it! Next I must post pics of our seedlings, pea plant experiment!