I DON'T NEED A PICTURE! I DON'T NEED A PICTURE!

I have to remind myself. I don't write because I have to upload a picture. Sure, I love adding a pic but it isn't needed. So now I am going to try to write.

I have picked up a new hobby. QUILTING. I am really enjoying it. I do not have any of the necessities but I will soon. I am going to do it by hand until I can get a quilting machine. (and when I know I am going to stick with this)
It is therapeutic. I make a place mat with a friend. Well, WE made a place mat. :) It looks beautiful! I like getting into new products because I see it as an opportunity for my children to join in.

We have not been doing much of anything educational. It has been lazy. (As lazy as it can be!)

Christmas was nice. It wasn't too crazy. Not much to say here.

My sister and good friend is pregnant. Do we all know what that means? Tick Tick Tick. Kidding here. I do want another one but I want to wait for Ron to have a good stable job. For now I will settle with a mere 5 of them. Hahaha.

I am loving my life.

Ricky and her Art

Does it need an explanation. Look at all of the purposeful detail!

Here are some more pictures of Ricky with her art. She could literally sit all day drawing. She likes to have everything perfect.
Sometimes when I used to worry about Ricky and her lack of interest in reading and writing, I would think about her and her art. She definitely takes after dad here. As a side note, I don't worry anymore.

GORGEOUS

GORGEOUS!! If I had to pick one picture out of the millions that we have THIS ONE signifies EXACTLY why we unschool. Look at their faces! Let me tell you what they are doing.
Last year Ricky was getting frustrated with reading. We put her books away and I told her to let me know when she was ready again. The other day out of the blue she said, "I want to read my BOB books again!" So here she is reading to Dad. She just finished the book. Look again at that face! Priceless! Look at Ron's face. Priceless! I wouldn't miss these moments for the world.

Our Day

Our Day. Together. Love. Sharing. Happy. Content. Determination. Pride. Family. Interest. Smile.
Here are just a few words shown here. I love unschooling. I love my family.
This is Callum crawling for the first time. Ricky interested in a book. Amelie and Cohen reading together and Cohen enthralled in his train.

Speech Night

Last night was our local homeschooling groups 1st public speaking event. It was amazing to see all of them head up there and battle their nerves. I was very proud of them.
I also loved afterward. The parents all got to chat while the children played. It was nice to see them play together.
One of the pictures is of my friends son Dylan.
Ricky decided not to go up this time. She sat and intently listened to all speeches. Maybe next time. ;)
Oh ya, look at the 1st picture of Amelie. You can see Reagan in the background.

The Human Body

We were given this Human Body game by a friend. I am ecstatic! This game has trivia while putting together the body. Not only does this game have that, you can dress up the skeleton after. There is also a game where you have to keep the skeleton alive by giving him food, water and rest throughout the day. So basically you are learning healthy living. The girls absolutely love it! The best thing is that they can spend hours on this if they like.
THANK YOU Doris!!!

She had a craving! lol

I do believe we have a little Ricky on our hands!

I am busy setting up a game on the computer (see above) and Roo is quiet. Uh oh! Is it the sugar jar? Is it whatever it is that catches her fancy throughout the day? Nope. It is a whole bag of Halloween candy! I found her sitting on the couch like she was supposed to be there, opening chocolates. Instead of feeling frustrated, I laughed. Perfect camera moment!

Ramblings

Ricky is writing. Or should I say printing? Amelie and Ricky have been writing Ron and I letters. Amelie is learning a lot of spelling lately. I can't believe that the things I have been worried about fall into place. Writing and spelling. I do not sit them down and do lessons. I wondered if they would learn this. The answer is yes. They do learn this. Amelie is walking around spelling everything in sight. She is 70% right. I help her with the spelling. Ricky has been printing notes. 20 or maybe 10% are right. I try not to correct her too much or she will give up easily. I first asked her if she wanted the correct spelling. For the word "there" both girls spelled "ther". That was perfect because I could show Ricky that her big sister makes some mistakes too. This helped her feel better. Keep in mind she is 5 so I am very happy with 10-20%. I am very happy that they are taking an interest in printing. Amelie is very easy to correct. She is eager to learn. So is Ricky but she has a very strong sensitive side to her. You could crush her in a sentence so I tread lightly. Amelie has been playing this game on the computer where you flick up a ball and it hits squares that disappear. She plays way better than I do! She loves her computer games on Room 108. Ricky still likes to play with dolls or babies. She is very happy to play on her own. She has always been that way.
Cohen is a talking machine. I do not remember the day when I wanted him to talk more. If I could see my future self back then, I think I would tell myself to shut up and enjoy the SILENCE! My beautiful little man can talk! And guess what. He still has a soother to fall asleep and he is ALMOST 4. And guess what. I don't care! Sometimes I think...oh no! He is too old for that! That is society talking. He has it for about 15 min while he falls asleep and then spits it out. I don't have the heart to take away his mine suckie. He loves to play with his trains, cars, truck WELL anything transportation related. He is clever in his playing. Did I mention I could eat him. Right from his little ears that stick out a bit right down to his little toes. And oh boy, for a mom that has SPD, GOD sure is testing me! Cohen constantly loves to touch. He loves to touch lightly. All.the.time. It is very trying but I know he just needs it.
Reagan has a VOICE. She is LOUD and SCREACHY. She CRIES and WHINES. Are you irritated yet? Cause I am! I do love though how she is developing her own little personality. She is spunky and cuddly. I love her little smile and her crossed little arms and a pout.
Callum is a chunky little baby who is about to crawl. LOOK OUT! He will now be able to put every little thing in his mouth that he only sees from a distance. We are going to have to become best friends with the vacuum.
Oh I love my children!
I have two books to recommend. First is The Unschooling Handbook and the second is The Unschooling Unmanual. I am just starting to read the latter. Oh I love our life!

Let them learn MOM!

I don't believe in sitting my children down and making them write or spell. I don't feel it is the natural way to learn. From time to time I panic and think...OH NO they can't write yet! I concoct creative ways to get them "on track." Then I go back to normal. I sit back and let it happen the way I know it will.
I was at the computer the other day and Amelie brings me this letter. She said she wanted me to make her something to eat. I told her that dad was on the way home with groceries. She then wrote the next letter. She seems to be writing fine and spelling just fine. Back off mom and let them at it! I "catch" Amelie and Ricky writing throughout the day at their leisure. That is much more rewarding than making them do it. I know that they WANT to and that is important.

We went to a Halloween fair. The kids got to have their faces painted.
Look at the picture of my little girl talking to friends. It just so happened that some little girls from our homeschooling group were there and recognized Amelie. Is it so bad that mom was there with a camera taking pictures of it? lol Do they have to grow up? Do they have to gain more independence? I always want to be the center of their worlds. One day they will have husbands/wives/children and mom will be on the back burner. But that's ok. Mom will be there to help them through everything. Hopefully they hear what I say now for decisions they will make as parents. I don't look forward to the day when I have to close my eyes to something I don't agree with. That will be a hard hurdle! But they are still babies right now and I am going to soak it up while I can!

Here is a quick look at how we spend out days.
Ron was making coffee and 4 out of 5 children went to grab chairs so they could watch how to make it. This is HUGE and I will tell you why. Last year I was making coffee somewhere and I didn't realize that you had to pour the water in the top. I left it sitting in the pot while I waited for it to brew. So at the very least my children will know how to make coffee ;) haha
I was sitting in the living room and looked over at my children. I went to grab the camera. Here they were sitting together playing music. They were scribbling on the doodle, rolling a plastic bus, shaking the abacus and hitting two pieces of chalk together for sound. Off to the side are Reagan and Callum hugging. I wish I had a camera built into my eyes so I could record our days minute by minute. (minus me stressed out or overwhelmed! lol) The tape would be full FULL of kids overflowing with wonder and curiosity. Not only are they thinking but they are acting on it. I think soon I am going to go through our day with our camera and capture a day in the life of... Again minus mom getting frustrated. Hmm..maybe that would add flavor :) We'll see!

Nature Walk

We had a nature walk yesterday. The kids have colds so we can't bring them around other children. It felt nice to get some fresh air and explore the nature.
We found a large dead tree with the roots hanging out. (Psst..we even got Amelie to taste the root. We told her it is sweet. Haha) They played, found a snail, climbed over fallen trees, ran, talked, yelled, smiled and enjoyed the family. What more could one ask for?
People often wonder what we learn. Isn't it obvious?

We went on a Field Trip with homeschoolers to the Airport. The kids got to go up inside the planes and walk around inside the Historical Aircraft Association. You can see the kids here flying around outside like airplanes. :)
They then went to the rescue operations building. Their fire trucks are a lot larger than normal ones.
I really love to see my children soar!

Our Poor Ricky

Ricky was playing outside with a bright green caterpillar. She suddenly runs into the house crying. The caterpillar stuck its fur into her hand. It took us 2 hours to pull out each hair with tweezers, all the while she is crying because it is burning. She also let this caterpillar crawl on her belly. The next morning she woke up with this rash. It turned out that this was a stinging caterpillar that had venom in its fur. Isn't that fun. But wait, it isn't over!
Then she runs up to Ron with a handful of these delicious looking berries. The next day I am on facebook and another mom I know has pictures of her daughter in the hospital. It so happens that she has eaten berries from a Yew bush. The hospital told her to rush her daughter in within an hour or her daughter would be dead. One or two of these fatal berries can stop a beating heart. I am looking at the pictures on facebook of these berries and Ron says they look familiar. Ricky had just brought him a bunch of these. Ricky brings us outside to show us where she gathered them. Right off of our front porch! Two whole bushes of them. I am SHOCKED that in three years none of our children have eaten these! Not done yet.
Ricky is playing hockey outside and gets whacked in the forehead with a stick. This leaves a big bruise in the center of her face. One more.
She continues to play and shortly after is stung by a bee. Of course! So we put some natural ointment on it that we got at the bee farm the day before. It was perfect that we had a bee that we found for her to take the stinger out. It was therapeutic I think.
We have decided to keep her in a bubble from now on!

And this is what happens to something that hurts our Ricky

Only homeschoolers would ask the bee place if we can take home the dead bee we found :) We got to dissect him and Ricky got to pull out his stinger. Soon we will be looking at him under our microscope.

Can this get any better?

Can it? I don't think it can. I wasn't paying attention to what the girls were up to. I look up and Amelie is teaching Ricky how to ride a bike. Amelie has just taken off with bike riding and she wants to teach her sister. You should have seen the 2 proud faces I saw! Absolutely beautiful! I love how incredibly close my girls are. I am happy that I went to grab the camera to catch this special moment.

Roo's 2nd Birthday

What an interesting event this was! Her favorite present was her baby. She has been holding her ever since!
What can I say about Roo? She is the sweetest little thing you ever did see :) She knows what she wants and she is going to get it! There is no beating around the bush with her. I like that. As trying as that can be at times it sure does make me proud.
That day my mom fell and broke her leg. I think she just didn't like all of the attention her 2yo granddaughter was getting ;)
I love my little Roo SO much!