Monday, May 24, 2010

A trip to a farm.

Is there a better place to be in the spring rather than on a farm? Hardly any. We thought so too and headed out to enjoy a lot of baby animals at a Quite Valley Farm.

The farm itself is a Historical Living Farm that belongs to the town but all the work is being done by volunteers. They have a phenomenal homeschool program where the kids actively participate and learn about gardening and tending to animals. All the volunteers at the event were dressed in the 1800s outfits and the atmosphere of the whole place was simply magical!
We petted a 1 week old baby goat, saw chicks hatching, watches piglets fight over food, said hello to a calf, played with bunnies, fed dandelions to the chickens, stroked horses and a mule.

The whole tour took a little over two hours but we simply did not want to leave. We were hanging out and tasted home baked bread with butter and oatmeal cookies that were being pulled out from the oven in front of our eyes. However, even a not so expensive sampling tuns out to be quite an extra expense to the entrance fee for our whole family(remember, everything times six!). We had to skip on a buggy ride that was again for extra money and a gift shop was a place only for looking, not buying. But our kids are fine with that and they have never thrown a fit if we tell them no. They understand and we still have a great time.
Jumping in the straw did not cost anything, so we took advantage of that! Even Mirek and Evan had a blast.
With the trip we are contemplating in the nearest future there will be many more days like that! Spending time in harmony with nature and animals, revitalizing our souls and reviving our spirits. It was truly a therapy for us and we dearly loved being on the farm and hope to be able to live off the land some time very soon.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Tea party picnic style.

That party took place before the master inventor (aka Mom) came up with a fabulous idea of setting up a table. The tea set that Leona got for Christmas has been cherished and so far all the pieces are still together.
On the menu there was black tea with milk and brown sugar, plus the homemade cinnamon tea rolls. Oh, I just love the little hand holding up the cup! The big sister was playing a role of a hostess and made sure everything went smoothly. Don't you think growing up with three big sisters is a lot of fun? I think so...

A "new" dining set.











When creativity goes a long way so do the fun memories!

A little playing with a chain saw and a useless (for some, not us, though!) stump on our property were a part of figuring out process. Mirek had made the chairs and I came up with the table idea. Everybody was cheering for lunch outdoors!
Wait, kids, Mommy has to go grab the camera!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Civil War at a glimpse.

When history comes alive... This is a surgeon talking passionately about the remedies and procedures of his time, the Civil war era. He had tended to the wounded soldiers, treated them against malaria, constipation, fever, amputated numerous amounts of limbs and lost a lot of soldiers to gangrene.
Soldiers are setting up tents, relaxing between the battles. The ladies are cooking rabbit stew and going around asking the soldiers to sign up a petition to frohibit drinking. The Captain refused to sign it. He said it was one of the very few privileges the soldiers could have in his regiment...
This was all volunteer program presented by local Historical Society. We were able to tour a Van Kirk's historical house, see the Civil war exhibit, touch the muskets, ask questions and simply enjoy a vibrant atmosphere.
The historical oak tree deserved to be on a photo together with history loving children.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Black Pepper and learning geography.

Question: When can the black pepper be used as a learning tool?
Answer: During lunch or dinner time!
We have a few placing mats that we set the table with for breakfast, lunch and dinner: ABC's, Numbers and Letters for the little ones, Multiplications, Great Composers, etc. While visiting Grandma really protested having a Human Body placing mat in front of her. She said she would not be able to eat. We gave her American Presidents instead, we did not want her to go on a hunger strike.
Lately these two, World Map and the USA Map, have become girls' absolute favorites. And today I simply had a blast watching them talking away and pointing on their maps at the places they are going to visit.
Now, every good cook should use whole black pepper for a chicken broth. And I consider myself to be one. Since we had chicken soup for lunch they were fishing out the whole black pepper balls and using them as pointers. They collected all the balls from all of us, and when it was still not enough, they started splitting them in half.
It was great to watch them reading the names of the countries, make decisions where they would go first, second, last, why they would want to go to a specific place and what they would do there.
Leona was saying, "Mom, I really want to go to Mongolia!".
Ivana was picking out the US states to visit on our cross country trip. Yes, we have been planning it and will embark on our adventure soon.
I just love when the learning happens unexpectedly and naturally with the kids' initiative. But mine and Mirek's love and enjoyment of learning geography definitely have been passed on to the girls.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Spring Concert.

Today was the annual end of the school year spring concert at our homeschool co-op. The program was started by a choir. The theme was Early America and the students did a wonderful job memorizing all the lyrics. "50 nifty United States" was a true hit! The children were so nicely behaved, orderly, signing their melodic songs...and then, it was time for the last song and everything changed! The kids got their baseball hats, younger kids put on glasses and then they were swaying and moving to the beat of a rap song. Everybody loved it!
Milana reciting "Five little monkeys jumping on the bed" while her peers WERE jumping like monkeys on a sleeping bag=bed. Another true hit with everybody!
Leona performing with her class. Here they are reciting haikus (Japanese word puzzles).
Ivana playing her violin. "Cripple creek" accompanied by a mandolin (Mirek playing) and then another solo "3rd Minuet" accompanied by a piano (her teacher playing). Sounded beautifully!
Ivana's art work exhibit.
Leona's art work exhibit.

Remember those boxes the kids were paint spraying and then assembling in the classroom? For the art display all the individual boxes came together and created a unique work of art.
We ended the concert with an International Dinner. There were a lot of dishes. All of them delicious, sophisticated, simply yummi!

Sunday, May 09, 2010

My Watermelon bed.


Happy Mother's Day to me!
This morning Mirek and the two older girls went fishing. They woke up voluntarily at 5:30 in the morning. It got pretty cold, so they had to dress up very well not to be cold while by the river. The plan was to get fish for Mother's Day dinner. Oops... sorry, no fish.

But... I got a wonderful dessert! A watermelon bed!

The girls had gotten expired by "Henry and Mudge Mother's Day Surprise" book and decided to make me a fruit surprise as well. "Mom, you can't look, you have to stay in your bedroom, read a book or something...", Ivana told me. It was nice to hear! Read a book! And not to be bothered! Wow, that IS a Mother's Day gift already!

I promised I wouldn't look and stayed by the fireplace, warming up. Yep, it is May and we are still making fires. Which I absolutely love, so the cold outside does not upset me as much.
Mirek had helped them with cutting the watermelon and apples in half, and the rest they took into their own hands.
I absolutely LOVED my gift! It made me feel very special, loved, cared for!
Thank you, my dears! I love you too!
Then we all got the biggest spoons and dug into it! Yum!

Friday, May 07, 2010

She is 6 on the 6th!

Here is the B-Day girl! She turned 6 on the 6th!
Leona's wish had been to have a party on the beach, and so the wish came true. We didn't prepare much. I had made the turkey and cheese sandwiches, pasta salad with veggies, fruit salad, cup cakes and juice.
She also had a surprise of having her friends come over and join us on the beach. First, we picked up her best friend, Madelyn. The two were sitting together in the back seat chatting away, giggling, all excited about the prospect of spending a whole day together on the beach! Madelyn birthday gift was also a great one. "Mom, Madelyn got me some Canadian cents and some candy!", Leona announced in the car. And it was only late in the evening when we returned home and I checked in the pouch, that was quite heavy. And the heaviness didn't come from "the cents", it was because of the DOLLARS! Madelyn goes to Canada for vacation every year and she gave her best friend 20 Canadian coin dollars. How great is that!
Then, we had two other families join us, with 11 children total. It was another surprise for the birthday girl!
We had such a wonderful day! In the morning it was a bit cloudy and drizzling, but by the time we got to the beach the sky had cleared and it was warm. We had some gusts of wind every now and then, mostly when we were having lunch and a dessert making things a bit harder to serve everybody, but still trying to keep it fun.
We brought a kite with us , but due to the wind in was hard to bring it up. It was too much wind, who would've thought it could be the case?
Fishing...was another activity that was enjoyed by all. First, Mirek pulled a strange creature...After examining it closer we found out it was a sting ray, without a barb or a sting. When Mirek was pulling it up the sea creature was curled up and was unrecognizable, but after a while it got relaxed and we could all see that it was a sting ray.

A baby brother was wearing girls' necklace and playing with nice boys toys, like this big truck.

Happy emotions of a happy girl!
Cute findings... a jelly fish.
Rude, rude bird-Red Winged Blackbird. It was all over our food! Not afraid at all, sitting on the table, digging in our bags, circling around, basically flapping its wings into out faces!
And that was a catch of the day! 28-30" striped bass! It gave a great fight and , in addition, Mirek got a lot of audience and admirers. Every fisherman's dream!
We sang "Happy Birthday to you!" and gobbled up the cup cakes iced with homemade butter/cream cheese pink icing. Leona was happy to share a secret with everybody, "Do you know what we used to color the icing?..Beet powder!"
On the way back it was quite in the car. Three out of five kids fell asleep instantly, the other two were too tired even to speak.
It WAS a day to remember! Happy birthday, our dear Leona!