Happy Feet

It's official, my feet are happy.  Today it was warm enough to set them free and slip them into a pair of flip flops!  Yay!  Of course this morning I was still in a sweater and I am still in jeans and long sleeved shirt, but at least we are moving in the right direction.

B and I also raked the leaves out of the front flower beds, had the kids haul them to the side yard garden and we moved the snowblower into storage!  Yipee!

I am sipping on iced tea and have the back door open.  I feel spoiled!  Good day!

Boots and Cats

I was fixing supper tonight when Mr. H started beat boxing.  He's fantastic at it and doesn't realize he is beat boxing most of the time.  It has just become one of the fun sounds of the house.

So, H started beat boxing in a way that made me think of the Geico commercial with the pig saying, "boots and pants".  I asked the kids what in the world boots and pants meant and why that makes the commercial funny.  (It wouldn't be the first time that I am not aware of the latest and greatest.)  The kids didn't know either and they were intrigued.

Mr. C, is my in-house techno-geek.  His first inclination was to Google the Geico commercial and lo and behold, there was an entire page dedicated to others asking my original question...what does boots and pants mean?

The answer?  Apparently (Miss K's favorite adverb--she uses it as much as "like", "ya know", "whatever", etc.  :) ) Boots and Pants is a song that uses these words to describe what the beat boxing sounds like in techno music.  Imagine now...boots and pants and boots and pants and boots and pants.  (Thank you, C!)

On the same page with the answer to my boots and pants question is another video (below) to Boots and Cats, which teaches you to beat box using these two words, along with a few other fun ones.  Enjoy!  I've watched the video several times already and laugh every time.

Ice Skating

We started our Spring Break a little early this year by going ice skating with the Venture Crew.  Miss K had been once before, but it was a first for the boys.  H ended up with some nasty blisters, which have prevented him from walking normally this week.  Yikes!  But they all had a great time and I think they'd do it again.

All three of them started the day holding on to the walls, but by day's end, they were skating in the middle.  Yay!  Fun!

Cracked

This was the view from our backyard this week after we went from weeks of temperatures in the single digits to a couple of days near 50 degrees.  The ice on the lake cracked into large chunks.  Mr. H imagined that the Titanic blasted through.  It looks as though our pontoon may be facing the same fate as the Titanic.  In the picture below you can see that the front corner is below the waterline.  B said he thinks that one of the pontoons may have taken on water.  I wonder if one of the blocks of ice cut it.  

Our kids also broke into the new youth group at the church we began attending in December.  I found these in our mailbox this week.

And here are my happy kids...

Pedagogy

Not having been formally trained as a teacher, but in fact being a teacher, I'm continually looking for methods for teaching and tapping into the learning styles of my children.  Recently I've been exploring the Classical Method of teaching and wondering if it is too late to begin something when they are in Junior and High School.  From what I can tell, no, it is never too late.

My principal (aka Hubby) and I subscribe to the thought of wanting our children to be Renaissance men (& women).  We want to be hungry for learning in many avenues of life.  At some point in my life I've felt a little plain when I realized that I was a "Jack of all trades, but master of none."  I've admired those who have excelled in a particular area of life.  Perhaps they are master carpenters, or missionaries overseas, or artists, or they can read a novel in 3 days.  They are really, really good at something.  But what I am coming to appreciate about myself is that I can do a lot of things.  I may not do them well enough for someone to recognize or ask for my advice, but it certainly has been fun finding new things to do and that I actually like to do the new things!

I am also on a journey to improve my outlook on life and people.  Since I know that it takes intentional action to begin any journey, I've specifically challenged myself to put on a new set of glasses through which to view my children.  Handy for being a teacher and mother.  Yesterday I "caught" the boys teaching themselves guitar with YouTube videos.

Thank You, Lord that I have children that are curious, driven to learn new instruments, and have tools like YouTube to help them.

Earthworms--What Happens When the Early Bird Doesn't Get Them

Homeschoolers dissect them!

Good ol' Mom was the only one to touch the worm.  Two of the kids sat with the collar of their shirts covering their noses.  One of those didn't even sit at the table.

There were plenty of pictures in our Biology book, a dissection guidebook and an online guide offered through Apologia, so even if the kids didn't want to look at the "live" version, they still had some good ideas about what I was pointing to and talking about.

Next up...crawfish!

Yarn Therapy

The winter months sometimes prove to be too much for me.  I have to admit, that the pretty snows we've received make this winter more bearable.  For the days that I'm stir crazy because it is still too COLD to be outside, I've been crafting.

I've crocheted a couple of infinity scarves, although they started off as one crocheted sweater that ended up being too small.  Instead of being upset, I decided to look on the sunny side and ripped all of it out and ended up with a scarf for myself and a future gift.  (I now keep a "Finished Projects" tote in the attic for such items.)

One of my aunts, sent a "pin" of some crocheted hairnets.  I am guessing it was because a couple of years ago I mentioned a snood to my mother, her sister. I wanted something along these lines for my hair to wear to our homeschool cotillion.  Thanks to my hubby who found some yarn at the flea market this summer, I was able to make a couple hairnets.

They were easy to make and comfortable, but I'm not sure I could keep them on my head while reeling.  Perhaps I need to become an expert in the use of bobby pins.  I made the brown first, so that if I didn't do it right, the mistakes wouldn't show up as much against my brown hair.  Since the first was such a success, I decided to make a second, this time in off-white to show off the pattern.

I have enough of the yarn to last me quite a while and I need to do some stash-busting, so I started a pair of socks out of the brown for Mr. H.  I've never made socks out of this type of yarn, so I don't know how comfortable or durable they will be, but, as the title of the blog says, this is more of a therapy for me than cranking out some masterpiece.

The two younger kids stayed home this weekend while their older brother went skiing in Ohio with the Venture Crew.  They spend quite a bit of time hooked up and plugged in, so peeling them from their devices and luring them into spending time with me was my goal.  I succeeded with some adult coloring pages (some you may see in your mailbox this week)!  Both joined me, but only Miss K finished a project.  She also saw me working on some Shrinky Dink buttons.  She had asked for some Shrinky Dink paper before Christmas, but I had trouble finding it.  Lo and behold, it was at the Education store!!!  She got it all wrapped up at Christmas, but then she said she couldn't do anything with it.  Grr!!!  I hopped on Pinterest and found some buttons.  I "borrowed" some paper and made these.

Aren't the birds cute?  They are supposed to look like they are embroidered.  The buttons are about 5/8" across.  Now I just need to make something that needs buttons!