Blissful E

20 Aug, 2010

Vi eats a banana

Posted by: blissfule In: Perth ()

... but her favourite food is cheese!

19 Aug, 2010

While Ben was plastering during our long home-improvement weekend, I dug up a third of our lawn where the grass had died. The next morning I raked the area somewhat smooth, sowed grass seed, threw in some fertilizer, gave it another gentle rake, and watered. As soon as I turned my back, the family of doves who have grown fat from our olive tree invited some friends over for a little seed party.

So I called in my older children, the ones who yell "baaaaaahh" at the top of their lungs at any feathered sighting. I never knew this would come in handy...

4 Comments

Tags: preschooler, toddler

18 Aug, 2010

moving ahead

Posted by: blissfule In: Perth ()

This morning Vi pulled herself up on the stool and started moving forward on two feet!

Nikki and Michael are so pleased for Vi and her newfound mobility. They encourage her with "good work!" when she stands and walks, and protest that "that will never do" when she crawls.

I managed to catch a video of Vi's second trek across the living room floor. Enjoy!

5 Comments

Tags: milestones, months 10-12, video

17 Aug, 2010

our first attempt at vegetable gardening

Posted by: blissfule In: Perth ()

Before we bought this house, I double-checked with my mom that the front garden would be suitable for growing veggies. She thought it would provide sufficient sunlight and space, so I've been excited to try my hand at growing something useful for a while now.

My first step was to clear out the cacti and succulents a former owner had planted there. I offered them on Freecycle and the prickles were a thing of the past. The Freecycler who took them even sent an update several months later about how well the trailer-load of plants were settling in next to his house.

Next I needed to transform the sandy wasteland into a fertile, moist haven for flowers and vegetables. A farmer delivered 20 bales of organic hay and set them in place on my patch. The hay bales have been mouldering there all winter, much to the amusement of guests who inevitably ask why we have so much hay.

Mulch is the answer, as I have decided to test Ruth Stout's method of Gardening Without Work. Basically, she claims that if you keep eight inches (20cm) of organic matter on your garden year-round you don't need to water, weed, till the soil, or spray. She makes gardening sound so easy, but does it really work?

I had the kids help me plant some capsicum, jalapeño, and rocket seedlings this afternoon. We pushed aside the mulch, dug tiny holes big enough for the little root systems, put the plants in place, watered (sorry, Ruth Stout, the kids insisted!), and snugged the hay right back around the plants.

I have no idea if this will actually work. The man who took the cacti away warned me to watch out for snails, "you think they're slow, but they can move right quick!" I do remember that snails ate some of our mail, and I can only assume they find veggie plants tastier. Will mounds of hay foil their plans? Can our fledgling garden really survive without water?

Here's hoping the lazy method works!

3 Comments

Tags: gardening, preschooler, toddler

16 Aug, 2010

the box room is no more

Posted by: blissfule In: Perth ()

Ben hoists our heavy blackout-lined curtains from Egypt to check the length on our Perth walls

Ben took a couple days off work last week to give us a four-day weekend. We used three days for full-on home improvement, and I am pleased to report that the box room is no more.

We now have an empty shell that has been patched and plastered: floor (where the fake fireplace was), ceiling, and all four walls.

Next steps: making a pelmet, sanding the woodwork around the doors and windows, cleaning the woodwork, walls and ceiling, priming and painting, fixing new cornice and skirting boards, and moving our furniture into our new bedroom.

4 Comments

Tags: Ben, house

13 Aug, 2010

the ABC song: violin and drum duet

Posted by: blissfule In: Perth ()

In order to earn the privilege of choosing a book to take in to their beds with them at naptime, each child must have practiced his instrument sometime before lunch.

Both of them were already playing every day; I added the book incentive just to ensure that the main practice time where Mama needed to pay attention to notes and provide coaching happened before lunch rather than later in the afternoon when I have less time and energy. They LOVE taking a book to bed, so this has been hugely successful.

Nikki has been learning to read music as part of her violin lessons. She practices at home as well, primarily sightreading the notes A, B, and C, with a few D, E, and G thrown in. Nikki's practice times are eclectic and last anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. She may choose to name notes on the staff, practice "ti" "tun" "tah-un" and "great big whole notes", play several songs, or anything in between.

Michael will usually drum and sing worship songs (Tim Hughes' "The Highest and the Greatest" and Seeds Worship's "Sing for Joy [Psalm 95:1-4]" are his current favourites). After a while Michael will exclaim "I need to play A, B, C!" and then proceed to sing and smash his way through the alphabet. (He clearly believes that ABCs are what make practice time "official" and thus are critical to earning his naptime book. I only "enforce" Michael's "practices" out of respect for his clearly taking his instrument as seriously as Nikki takes hers.)

During one of these drumming ABC songs, Nikki joined Michael with her violin. The two young musicians graciously agreed to repeat the performance for the video camera. I noticed one slight alteration: Nikki sang the alphabet song rather than Michael.

4 Comments

Tags: drum, music, preschooler, toddler, video, violin

12 Aug, 2010

kiddo quotes

Posted by: blissfule In: Perth ()

I have begun collecting quotes from my older kids as they talk to each other throughout the day. The photos are totally unrelated except that they also make me laugh. Enjoy!

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Michael: "Nikki, wake up!"

Nikki: "No! I need to grow!"

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[Nikki and Michael are riding around the house on the Like-a-Bike and scooter.]

Nikki: "I'm going to America, but I don't know which way. Straight or curved...
Mama, I'm going to America, but I don't know which way, so I'm looking in my map book."

Nikki: "I'm going to a store that has BIG pants, 4 age pants!"

Michael: "I'm going to a shop that has WET pants."

Nikki (explaining to her bemused Mama): "They were washed, that's why they're wet."

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[Nikki hops in clothes basket.]

Michael: [runs over] "Are you the laundry? I will wash you!" [He rocks the basket back and forth.] "Wash, wash, wash!"

Nikki: "I'm in the wash machine!"

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Nikki: "I put his nametag on his back. Michael's shirt is on backwards, too. So it's OK."

5 Comments

Tags: preschooler, quotes, toddler

11 Aug, 2010

the latest train track creation

Posted by: blissfule In: Perth ()

I continue to be amazed at the different tracks Nikki and Michael create with their IKEA train set. Here's one from this week.

2 Comments

Tags: preschooler, toddler, train

10 Aug, 2010

science with Baba: relative and absolute time

Posted by: blissfule In: Perth ()

Ben took the kids through the first few pages of Physical Geology, his first geology textbook from university days, this past weekend.

In this video, Ben explains the scientific principles of "relative time" and "absolute time" to a three-year-old, a two-year-old, a not-quite-one-year-old, and a cat:

3 Comments

Tags: Ben, homeschooling, months 10-12, preschooler, toddler, video

09 Aug, 2010

Nikki is reading

Posted by: blissfule In: Perth ()

I brought home this library book about Animal Food, and Nikki just sat down and started reading it. She didn't try all the animal names, but "kangaroo," "wombat," and "pink cockatoo" are some of her first multisyllabic words.

4 Comments

Tags: homeschooling, preschooler

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Vi eats a banana

supersonic scarecrows

moving ahead

our first attempt at vegetable gardening

the box room is no more

the ABC song: violin and drum duet

kiddo quotes

the latest train track creation

science with Baba: relative and absolute time

Nikki is reading

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