Celebrating the Solar Eclipse

Thanks to our impending and unexpected move, I was not as prepared as I would like to have been for the solar eclipse, but we managed to have a pretty fun day.

We had eclipse viewer glasses, but I wanted to make a pinhole viewer so I could take photos with my cell phone. I had forgotten to do that before today, though, so I had to be quick about it. I remembered seeing a picture of "2012" projected through a pinhole viewer, so I added a "2017" to mine. It was so cool, so I made more viewers with all the kids' names and my name and a heart and today's date. I only wish I'd had time to have the kids make designs.

It was neat to see how the images changed as the eclipse progressed.

While were outside viewing, my seven-year-old son and I made some observations about nature. When we first got outside, there were some ants out and about, and we received a few bites. After a little while, I noticed the ants were still around but not biting. Then the ants disappeared altogether. I sat in the grass, ant magnet that I am, and didn't see a single ant for about 45 minutes. Suddenly, they reappeared. A few minutes later, they started biting again, so we went inside, the best of the eclipse behind us. As we discussed our experience, my son pointed out that the breeze had stopped. He was right! There was no breeze a few minutes after we got out there, which I noted when I was able to stop adjusting my viewing paper because it was no longer moving. Shortly after we came inside, the breeze picked up enough to aggravate our motion-activated camera. Fascinating.

I wanted to make eclipse shirts, but I hadn't gotten to the store, so we made chalk art for the walls using cupcake liners as stencils.

When my hard-to-impress nine-year-old pulled off her stencil, she said, "COOOOOL!"

I stumbled upon an eclipse keepsake worksheet a few hours after the eclipse and had my children complete it. Nothing beats documenting their handwriting and spelling in these early years.

(I found the worksheet link in a HUGE list of resources by Life of a Homeschool Mom.)

Mikey, 7: "Geting to look at it" 

Ellie, 9: "it lookt like a fingernail moon"
(That's what she's always called a crescent moon)

Angela, 6: "See moon in front of sun"
(She wasn't the most willing participant in this.)

I wanted to do something fun and eclipse-y for dinner to finish out the day, but I didn't quite get there. Instead, we had eclipse cookies for dessert.

Overall, it was a good day for having been completely unprepared and getting less than 70% coverage. (And knowing we're moving to the path of totality in two weeks. Two weeks! How unfair is that?!)

What did you do to celebrate the eclipse? Were you in the path of totality? Did you blog about it? Share with me!

It's breastfeeding month again!

August is National Breastfeeding Month

...and an update on my breastfeeding journey has been posted on the Sweet Pea Births blog, like the last two years.

You can view it here.

Father's Day!

I love Mother's Day and Father's Day.  I know they exist to make money and that they shouldn't be different from any other day, but they mean a lot to us anyway.  Being a parent is the best thing that's ever happened to us.

I dream of years of hand-made goodies from my kids.  So far, we haven't had much cooperation.  My mom has better luck, so most of our goodies come from time spent with Grandma.  Nevertheless, I do manage to get the kids to As You Wish Pottery for our yearly handprint/footprint frame.  (This is probably the last year I'll be able to do this unless they come out with a bigger frame...I'll have to switch to a larger matted frame!)

My mom helped the kids make "Daddy's Helper" toolboxes for my husband.  Each child dictated his/her contributions, and Mom wrote them on the tools.  All Mikey wanted to say was play catch and play cars, so Mom helped him a bit.  Ellie understood the concept a little better.

Mom had a good time with gifts this year.  She got all the men Whoppers for being "a Whopper of a dad."  Most of the men got chocolate candies for this play on words.  Not my dad...

Happy Father's Day!

Quick Gardening with Children

My kids love gardening, but their attention spans aren't too long, especially in this triple-digit heat.  I aim to get us outside every day to do something in the yard, like pull weeds or water the edibles.  Someday that will be our reality.

Around Mother's Day, Home Depot's kids workshop project was a small planter, in which a Home Depot employee planted a bell pepper plant.

The plants were too big for the planters to begin with, and, within a couple of weeks, the roots were pushing the plants up out of the dirt.  We finally had no choice but to replant.  Ellie got bored with the dirt scooping, but Mikey would have completely buried the plant had I given him the opportunity.  That night, he told his daddy he "played with dirt!"

I let both kids place the plants in the new pots, teaching them to grab the plants by the stems close to the roots.  They both did great.  Not a leaf was lost.

Finally, we couldn't find the watering can.  It really is a great mystery.  My best guess is it somehow flew out of the yard during a windstorm, but we haven't really had that good of a storm yet.  It'll probably resurface eventually.  In the meantime, I grabbed the tugboat (or crab boat, as Ellie says) pouring toy out of the bathtub.  Sadly, it was too shallow to effectively transport water in little, shaky hands.  I ended up taking the hose to the two plants.  Ellie was long gone by this time, and Mikey was too busy trying to keep adding dirt to his to notice he didn't get to use the water.

Mikey helped me place the plants back in their spot on the patio, and, impressively, did not spill any dirt in the process.

When we got back inside, I thought it was a good time to finally bust into the $1 plants I bought at Walgreens after Easter  They are eggs with faces that have seeds that grow into hair.  (No, they're not Chia Pets.)  The top cracks off when the shell is adequately wet, revealing the seeds inside.  I decided the best way to apply the water was using a custard dish and tablespoon.  Besides minimizing the mess and improving fine motor skills, watering took longer this way, making the task more fun.

One of these days, my kids will really be able to help in the garden.  Until then, we'll keep seeking out these quick gardening projects to keep them interested and learning!

'365' one-a-day-challenge

Featured Photo of the Week

In case you missed my first post, here it is:

Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning has issued a challenge: '365' one-a-day-challenge.  I took them up on it, starting today!  You can find my photo album on Kandid Katie's Facebook page.  There are a lot of fun albums linked on Irresistible's page, so check them out!

'365' one-a-day-challenge

Featured Photo of the Week

In case you missed my first post, here it is:

Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning has issued a challenge: '365' one-a-day-challenge.  I took them up on it, starting today!  You can find my photo album on Kandid Katie's Facebook page.  There are a lot of fun albums linked on Irresistible's page, so check them out!

'365' one-a-day-challenge

Featured Photo of the Week

In case you missed my first post, here it is:

Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning has issued a challenge: '365' one-a-day-challenge.  I took them up on it, starting today!  You can find my photo album on Kandid Katie's Facebook page.  There are a lot of fun albums linked on Irresistible's page, so check them out!

'365' one-a-day-challenge

Featured Photo of the Week

In case you missed my first post, here it is:

Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning has issued a challenge: '365' one-a-day-challenge.  I took them up on it, starting today!  You can find my photo album on Kandid Katie's Facebook page.  There are a lot of fun albums linked on Irresistible's page, so check them out!

Build a Monster

I joined a busy bag exchange group on Facebook.  I decided I wanted to finally start making the cloth quiet books for my kids that I've been planning, so I made pages for all my trades.  The first one I completed was for the preschool group.  The activity is a create-a-face monster made of felt.

I sewed the monster's head onto the page.  (I used muslin, but any cotton - any fabric, really - would work.)  I backed the page with a piece of felt and another piece of muslin.  I would like to have bound the edges, but the muslin I got was ridiculously thin and was trying to disintegrate.  Instead, I did a couple of messy zigzag stitches around the edge to hold it together and minimize fraying.  I made all the monster faces out of green or dark purple felt.  I used light purple thread for contrast.  I also did not take care placing the stitches because I wanted chaos to go with the monster theme.  (I apologize to the neat and orderly monsters out there.)

Since I was going for chaos, I picked a wacky, mustard-colored, animal-print fabric for the storage bag.  I put a button on the bag to keep the pieces in and attached it to the page with a sparkly orange ribbon.  The bag holds the three eyes (well, two sets and one single eyeball), three noses and three mouths I created to stick on the monster face.

Most of the members are not making cloth quiet books, so I added one or three buttonholes, whatever their preference, so that the page could be joined with other quiet book pages of other mediums on a ring or in a three-ring binder.

I also included directions:

In case you can't read that:

MONSTER FACES!

Includes: Monster Head, 3 Eyes, 3 Noses, 3 Mouths and Attached Storage Bag

Get creative and get scary!

Optional 2-person Game:

The first person designs a face with one of each part without telling the second person what it is.  The second person creates a face, trying to guess what the first person designed.  The first person tells the second person how many parts are correct and how many are wrong.  The second person tries to guess again, and the game continues until the second person guesses the correct combination of eyes, nose and mouth, counting how many tries it took.  The players switch roles, and the player who guessed with the fewest tries wins!

Happy Mother's Day!

Many people believe Mother's Day is unnecessary for any number of reasons: it was created to sell stuff; mother's are/should be celebrated every day, so setting aside a special day is silly; it just doesn't matter to them.  There are many more, but those are the ones I've heard the most.  I don't agree with that sentiment.  I joke that I like any day that celebrates me.  I could justify my desire to celebrate by saying I don't insist on anything but love handmade trinkets that mark the day.

The truth is Mother's Day is one of the more special days of the year for me.  For me, Mother's Day exists to celebrate the most life-changing and life-enhancing part of my life: motherhood.  Motherhood is the greatest blessing God has given me, after salvation, of course.  I cannot put into words what being a mother feels like, what childbirth feels like, how the heart grows bigger with each passing day.

At times I think I don't want to leave this earth and go to Heaven because I will no longer experience being a mother.  But then I think - or the Holy Spirit reminds me - that Heaven is far greater than we can imagine, far greater than the experience of motherhood.  And then my head wants to explode trying to imagine that feeling.

I love being a mother, and this day is about celebrating that gift.

I can't possibly write this post without acknowledging the ache I feel for mothers that have lost or who never were.  Mothers who held their children and mothers who didn't because they were lost or were never made.  I wanted to acknowledge one friend who has lost and has tried for years to become a mother, but I didn't want to hurt her.  I feel like she needs to know she is a mother, even if she hasn't yet held a child in her arms.  I'm sad that she hasn't known this feeling, but I know God has greater plans for her.  It's hard to have faith in these situations, but that's exactly what faith is for, the faith that breeds hope.

Well, I don't want to end on a sad note, so let me share with you the wonderful gifts from my family.  Ellie painted a puzzle, Mikey colored a picture of an owl, and Mike cooked me breakfast and gave me a Willow Tree statue that I stared at during every prenatal appointment with Angela.

"Angel of Mine - So loved, so very loved"

"This piece is inspired by the memory of holding my children when they were really tiny … holding them so close that it involves all of your senses … the scent of the fuzzy head against your cheek, the skin-to-skin warmth, the realization that you can love another being so very, very much. I wanted to capture that sensory memory that every mother has from when she held her newborn infant — an innermost quiet joy. The sentiment has a lullaby feel to it. When I finished carving this piece, I liked that the composition and the form as a whole seemed to work from all viewpoints."
(from the Willow Tree website)

'365' one-a-day-challenge

Featured Photo of the Week

In case you missed my first post, here it is:

Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning has issued a challenge: '365' one-a-day-challenge.  I took them up on it, starting today!  You can find my photo album on Kandid Katie's Facebook page.  There are a lot of fun albums linked on Irresistible's page, so check them out!

'365' one-a-day-challenge

Featured Photo of the Week

In case you missed my first post, here it is:

Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning has issued a challenge: '365' one-a-day-challenge.  I took them up on it, starting today!  You can find my photo album on Kandid Katie's Facebook page.  There are a lot of fun albums linked on Irresistible's page, so check them out!

'365' one-a-day-challenge

I am so forgetful!

Featured Photo of the Week

In case you missed my first post, here it is:

Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning has issued a challenge: '365' one-a-day-challenge.  I took them up on it, starting today!  You can find my photo album on Kandid Katie's Facebook page.  There are a lot of fun albums linked on Irresistible's page, so check them out!

'365' one-a-day-challenge

Featured Photo of the Week

In case you missed my first post, here it is:

Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning has issued a challenge: '365' one-a-day-challenge.  I took them up on it, starting today!  You can find my photo album on Kandid Katie's Facebook page.  There are a lot of fun albums linked on Irresistible's page, so check them out!

'365' one-a-day-challenge

Featured Photo of the Week

This is the reason my brain missed a beat (or hundred) and this post is late

In case you missed my first post, here it is:

Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning has issued a challenge: '365' one-a-day-challenge.  I took them up on it, starting today!  You can find my photo album on Kandid Katie's Facebook page.  There are a lot of fun albums linked on Irresistible's page, so check them out!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am so late on posting lately.  Since I just took down my decorations yesterday, I'll pretend that's the reason for the timing of this post.

I misplaced most of my Valentine's Day decorations from last year, so I had to buy new ones.  Fortunately, I realized this close enough to Christmas to take advantage of Christmas clearance and buy dozens of heart-shaped Christmas ornaments for $0.10-$0.30 each.  I also hit Jo-Ann, where I got last year's decorations, and picked up a few more.  My mom also got some of Jo-Ann's for Ellie's Minnie Mouse birthday party, so I ended up far from short on decorations this year.  Imagine next year after I find all the lost ones!  Scary!

I didn't really like how the decorations went up this year, but it was still fun to have hearts everywhere.  Plus,  to fill the space, the kids and I made a bunch of decorations that I laminated to reuse next year.  I didn't do anything fun for the kids, like the heart curtain in Ellie's doorway.  Still, the kids loved their goody bags - and the Hershey kisses within - enough that they didn't care.

Wall o' Hearts

Four Corners

Up close of Mikey's hand flowers

Up close of my bug garden, with contributions from Mikey
We drew grass and flower stems on the paper along with some flowers.  Then we stuck on foam flowers and bugs and some other cute bug stickers.

Our spring garden wall in its entirety
I added a few leftover Valentine postcards and the finger puppets the kids made