August 18, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Gospel Message (Proverbs on the iPad):
Ettin helped me cut some delicious beans (gifts, mine aren’t quite ready yet. Maybe next week?):
Alright. Ready for swimming?!
Ettin actually stayed in the pool the whole time. With me sitting on the wet pavement right beside him.
We got back home and worked in the garden. I had a special helper:
…my usual helpers were a little tired:
In the afternoon we shelled peas. Giant and I watched some time-lapse videos of plants growing:
Then Ettin woke up and we brought out the paints:
Oh. And we had a lesson on what to do if your younger brother gets a really bloody nose while rough-housing with his older brother. Wrong answer: Hide under your bed until mommy comes back upstairs from doing laundry. Here is Ettin, cleaned up a little:
Poor little guy.
August 17, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Alrighty. My garden after 2 weeks of tender care from some great friends:
A RED tomato! I hardly ever see these, and certainly not before the middle of September (I usually just bring them in green):
The tomato/carrot/chive pots (an interesting idea, but germination was a little sketchy with my intermittent watering and living under the gutter where they were deluged with waterfalls when it rained):
Raspberries! Getting taller!
Grapes. Growing!
Blueberries. I ate one!!!
And the 3 sisters I was so worried about? The corn, beans, and pumpkins that were so tiny before I left…
Uh-Oh. The pumpkins have completely covered my paths. The beans are growing as tall as they can and stretching out to other plants. The corn is definitly taller, but It think it might be stunted:
5 feet maybe? They are forming heads at about 1-3 feet high on the stalks. Mini corn!:
Crazy:
White onions and carrots (the onions are perfectly spaced. The carrots need some more thinning):
Zucchini (a few small ones were ready) and new carrots and beets:
Brassicas. Well loved by white moths:
Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers:
Baby brassicas and peas (peas are definitely DONE):
New peas (one or two white flowers):
OLD peas:
New peas and baby lettuce and spinach growing in their shade:
Strawberries! Just a couple of berries left on the plants:
Parsley, WELL LOVED by mason bees:
Lemon balm:
Cute oregano, just starting to get their purple flowers. Basil:
Chives. Tarragon?:
Echinacia. Rosemary:
My Garden:
August 17, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
So, I have a problem with shelling peas.
I just can’t shell faster than they can eat them:
August 17, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
It seems that getting back into routine includes a favourite pass-time…
…Reading! The boys love reading to themselves in the morning:
This morning in particular though, the boys claimed they were sick.
Too sick to go swimming. I’m not sure if this had something to do with mommy dragging them to the pool last night so Ettin could practice listening to his teacher (he’d sat the Tuesday morning class out, refusing to get in the pool). It was rather cold last night. Galoot didn’t stop shivering until we got home!
So sick, or just sick of swimming (though they didn’t want to swim even when I explained that sick boys don’t eat candy or watch movies or do anything fun. Sick boys just sleep so they can get better…), they stayed home a read a whole heap of books:
And, because I didn’t want them to miss out on swimming just because the were a little sick, we practiced blowing bubbles and putting our heads in the water in the bath:
Oh, and I’d had some tutaledge from my Hubby on programming sensors. It is pretty simple, actually. I was just not confident enough to do what I thought I should do!
The light sensor sensed!
Very cool!
Since it sensed light and dark colours, we experimented what it would see on our pictures. I told it to play a note high or low depending on whether it saw light or dark colours respectively:
Even Ettin was up to play:
…and then Galoot woke up. Which pretty much ends robot time around here.
Outside mommy played in her garden and boys learned about shelling peas:
August 16, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Back to routine!
We had a Gospel Lesson:
They really wanted to work on math sheets I’d bought from the dollar store:
…while they worked I got caught up on laundry (actually, is that even possible? Does one EVER get caught up on laundry?)
Soon a friend was over to play for a bit before swimming. I continued working on laundry.
On our way back from swimming, we found a very interesting friend. A spurge hawk moth:
We wondered if we kept it if it would make a cool cocoon and moth (It doesn’t. It burrows underground to make a cocoon). But mommy wasn’t sure she wanted a critter hanging around in the house that long, but the research part was fun!
After lunch we worked on robots!!!
Even Ettin joined in, delighted to create his own design. Giant followed Daddy’s instructions (Daddy Bear made some simple preschool type mindstorm building instructions so we could build and program and still hold Giant’s attention in one session).
I’m still learning about the programming part.
I did get it to spin around jerkily:
And Giant thought it was cool that it lit up (what the light sensor does automatically when it’s turned on):
After Galoot woke up from his nap, we released our multi-legged friend:
Giant and Ettin were fascinated. Galoot, not so much:
This is what summer school is about!
