Proud

In preparation for some family pictures today, I wanted to try to make a necklace similar to the adorable Allora Handmade rosette ones. Amy has a green one and let me borrow it so I could copy it.

I followed what I could tell from this necklace that I hadn't done with rosettes before: fold and iron the first part of your strip like it's bias binding and don't start twisting the fabric at first. Just make a super tight "snail." I really like how mine turned out!

I bought this lace trim a couple of weeks ago at a craft fair I went to with Colleen. This was the perfect use for it! Here's a side-by-side comparison of the necklaces. Mine isn't perfect, but I love it for a first try:

Yay!

On Monday Levi went to Disneyland for the first time--with Grammy and Grampy.

Autoreply

Nate wrote an email to Jon. Since Jon was out of town, his email autoreply message came back. Here's Nate's response to that:

On Oct 19, 2011, NateV wrote:
i don"t know what you are talking about but i will talk to you later ok ! love nate


Dear Howard CDM contact,

I will be out of the office Tuesday Oct., 18 to Thursday Oct., 20. I will be checking email and voicemail while I am out, but my response may be delayed. If you need immediate assistance please call Christopher Duvali at 562.427.4124.

Thank you,

Jonathan Varela

Hi

Homeschooling update: charter school

Over the summer, I tried to get Nate enrolled in a charter school. We would still have been homeschooling, but with the charter school enrollment, I would meet once a month with a teacher and show her the work we were doing. She would sign off on each subject area and attendance. This would mean I wouldn't have to file an affidavit with the state saying we are our own private school in our home, since Nate would technically be enrolled in a school. It would also mean we would be able to use funds through the charter school to purchase curriculum and supplies and enroll in classes (like sports classes, music lessons, or other extracurriculars like this awesome one).

I chose a particular charter (Sky Mountain) because it was the most pro-parent, the most open to whatever style of teaching/learning the parents chose for their child.

But the application process got majorly stalled in July because of Nate's special ed history. There was lots of back and forth, with emails and calls to various people at the charter and also at our school district trying to get the appropriate proof that Nate no longer needs services. The school year start date came and went, and we didn't get enrolled, so I moved on to plain old homeschooling and planned to file the affidavit in October, figuring that, at best, we would have to wait until January for the charter.

Then at the end of September I got an intake interview phone call, then an enrollment meeting call the next day, and then I signed the enrollment paperwork the day after that! Woo hoo! So Nate is enrolled in Sky Mountain.

I really like our Education Specialist (ES), the teacher who meets with us once a month. She has good ideas and is totally on board with how we "do" school around here--some formal (textbooks, worksheets, curricula), some informal ("natural" learning through cooking/making recipes, talking about stuff in our regular day, etc.).

As for using those funds we are allocated, I've sifted through the huge approved vendor list and found several great things. Nate is most excited to do a sport (which he never asked to do until he saw Lucy do gymnastics); what I've found so far either doesn't work with our schedule (on Mondays when I'm working or on Wednesdays during AWANA) or will have to wait until January to start. BUT it's so nice to have all these possibilities opened up to us!

Before & After

Before (I couldn't find anything taken from the right angle that really shows how stained the carpet was...)



During (Sunday)



After! (I left Levi's cars and ball there since that is the natural state of things anyway.)

Another Tanaka Farms day

On Saturday we went to another CSA day at Tanaka Farms. This one had a wagon ride, petting zoo, and small tour of the farm to view the pumpkins. The kids also played one game each. It was actually quite a warm day and a fun family outing!

Kitchen adventures

I tried pickling for the first time several weeks ago, and I've been on a pickling kick ever since. It started when I got some cucumbers in my CSA box (Lucy and I ate the first ones today--delicious!).



I've also tried radishes (easy recipe here--SO good), green beans (also delicious, recipe in the same place), and garlic (ask me if it's good in 3 months when it's ready--I think it will turn out sweet! It's supposed to be a treat to take when you're getting sick with a cold).

Here's the pickled garlic recipe. Making it this way preserves the raw garlic benefits (mostly from allicin, which is formed from garlic when a compound called alliin in garlic comes into contact with the garlic enzyme alliinase when raw garlic is cut, crushed or chewed. When you heat or cook garlic, alliinase becomes inactivated, preventing the production of allicin).

Fresh garlic cloves (several bulbs worth)
Tamari or soy sauce or apple cider vinegar
Honey, raw if possible
Jar with lid
Wax paper

Carefully peel the cloves of garlic without nicking them. (If you nick them, they will look funny but are still usable). Peel enough to fill a jar. You can use any size jar.

Fill the jar with either tamari or apple cider vinegar. Not sure which you'd like the best? Make a jar of each to compare! If the jar's lid is metal, cover the mouth of the jar with wax paper and then screw on the lid. Place a label on the jar. Shake daily for 6 weeks.

After 6 weeks, pour off half the vinegar or tamari. (Save this for using in cooking). Add honey to fill to top. Recover and shake. Shake daily for another 6 weeks.

The garlic is now ready to eat! You can eat them as a treat or take at the first sign of illness. Delicious! The liquid can be used in cooking. It makes a great marinade for meat.

Swimsoup

Gymnastics

Lucy has been asking for a while if she could take gymnastics. I heard about a good, affordable local place that is directly across the street from the Aliso Viejo library (perfect for homeschooling!). Today she took the free trial class and loved it. I think it'll be a weekly thing now! A testament to how much she wanted to do it was that she wore this outfit without complaining--and even wanted to keep it on afterward to show Jon. :)

"Jon" 3:16

Nate got a new pen tonight from AWANA and was excited to write some stuff with it. This is what he gave me, written from memory. For any words he didn't know how to spell, he wrote the first letter and then an arrow to complete the word. So cute.



Jon 3:16
For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotooon
son that w--> b--> in
him shall not p--> but
have entral life!

To: mom

In which I have a pity party

I thought I would never get too busy to blog. Alas, it has happened! Things with homeschooling, preschooling, working, housekeeping, laundry doing, cooking, and ministry participating have seemed to take over. I told Mama the other day that, in these past few weeks, I get literally 0 minutes to myself each day. Nap time, which used to be reserved for some relaxing, has been completely filled with editing work. Evenings after the children go to bed are now for homeschool prep for the next day, lunch packing, and more proofing work.

However, today I finished a huge editing project that work threw my way (30 hours of work!), and now I feel like a new woman. I actually relaxed for a bit during nap time today and even did a little crafting.

My boss knows they've been giving me too much work lately, and she and I have talked about it. They just hired another full-time, in-house proofreader (they already have one), so that will take a lot of the burden off of me. My boss also asked if I would transition to mostly working on special projects with her (yes!), which will also ease some of the day-to-day stress.

Edited to add pictures of today's crafting completion:

Lucy's first day of preschool

Lucy had her first day of 2-days-a-week preschool today. She was nervous. She cried at drop-off but I think had a good time overall. I'm trying to keep my bad comments to myself regarding her attitude.

OK I'm back. With a few hours removed from the bad attitude, I can now write some more comments. :) This evening, Lucy told me the following about her day:

- she painted on a big piece of paper (not just tiny) and got lots of paint on her hands
- she made a friend named Kara (I wonder if her name is actually Kiera) and played with her on the playground, pretending to make cakes and using a sequin Lucy found as a candle
- she played dress-ups with Kara, and there were two purple dresses with sparkles
- it was pretty crowded on the playground
- she swung on the swing all by herself

I think she loved it and am hopeful she won't cry at drop-off on Tuesday.

Second time's a charm

I am proud to announce that Levi is now potty trained. Woo hooooo!!! We started (again) on Monday, with barely any success. Tuesday was only marginally better (still pretty bad). But on Wednesday, something clicked. I think it was because I let him play around the house with only a shirt on; the different feeling of having no underwear or diaper made him notice what was going on, and he ended up going to the bathroom about every 3 minutes for over an hour. That certainly was enough practice. He had only one accident on Thursday and no accidents on Friday (well, no wet accidents anyway). Poor boy's system still needs to kick into gear for the "other" kind of practice (is that TMI? Sorry). Yay Levi!

Reflections on the week

This was a great first week of homeschooling. I love the prep/planning but can see that I might get burnt out after a few months, so we'll see what I end up tweaking. Nate loves the work so far--mostly because there is nothing too hard yet. I foresee some problems arising when we get into more difficult work (in math, for example), because he gets very frustrated if he doesn't understand something right away.



The other children have stayed happily occupied (for the most part) during any times I've been working with Nate. It helps that the work goes by so fast! Today, the day I had the most planned (I filled 8 of those workbox boxes), still took less than 2 hours--and that even included his Friday chore as one of the boxes. Today Levi and Lucy got a little impatient during school time, having exhausted the coloring activity I provided and knowing we were going swimming afterward, but overall I am so happy with how everything is going.



The more I think about it, the more thrilled I am with our homeschooling setup!

One down

Today was our first day of homeschooling, and it went very well. In fact, it went very quickly--maybe too quickly for Nate's liking. I hadn't planned too much since I wanted to ease into the new routine, but even what I had planned didn't take as long as I thought it would. Nate ended up doing two lessons from his math book, the first lesson in the English/grammar book, read one chapter from the fiction book he's reading, and completed one worksheet I created on vowels and consonants. Tomorrow I'm also adding a couple of things from other subjects (we are going to make a flower/leaf press for science; begin talking about liberty and freedom before doing some U.S. history; and start learning about the instrument groups in the orchestra for music). Yay for an easy start!

Vanilla

N&L

Another cute picture from the zoo. Love my boys.

Videos from the visit

Levi with Mimi and me



and Lucy putting on a show for Grandpa

Visit

We had a great time with Daddy and Mama here! Nate's favorite activities were using his new binoculars while going on bird walks with Grandpa and playing Wedgits with Grandpa. Mama and Daddy gave Lucy a "real" digital camera that she loves. And they gave Levi some new cars, which--really--are the only perfect gift for him. :)






We all went to the San Diego Zoo on Friday. It took a while to get there, since we missed the train we planned on taking (Jon and I weren't prepared that morning). But we did eventually take the Coaster train from Oceanside to SD, then a trolley, and then a bus. The kids loved it! The zoo highlights were the warthogs (a mama and her crazy, acting-like-puppies babies), lions, and the sky train.

















M&D left this morning and we miss them!

In the works

I posted on the homeschooling blog about the workbox system I set up for homeschooling. I'm excited about it.

Now I'm still trying to decide when to have our official "start." The traditional day-after-Labor-Day start would be September 6. Or I could wait until the following week, when Lucy's Tuesday-Thursday preschool, AWANA, and CBS all start. That will be a crazy adjustment week either way!

In other news, Mama and Daddy are coming this week! Yay! We're planning a day trip down to San Diego, including a train ride that I'm sure the kids will love.

Scavenger hunts

This morning, Nate said, "I want to write clues and tape them up--just like we did at Mimi and Grandpa's. Remember?" It's funny that he remembers that, because I think it was at least a couple of years ago. I had to help him with the concept of how the clues lead to one another (clue #2 will be at the location clue #1 directs you to), and I think he finally got it.

Clue 1 was "Find the big green wedgit."

Clue 2: "Find the 2 box!"

Clue 3: "Find the purse"

Clue 4: "Find the PS2" (Playstation 2)
















I have to add a cute post-script. A few days after I posted this, Nate told me about an email he had written to Jon. He said, "I wrote 'Hi Daddy' and lots of loud things." Those "loud things" he referred to were exclamation points. Love it.

Shapes with Levi

My favorite pronunciations:

diamond = "diamint"
octagon = "ockagon"