Feeling Better

Mark is back to feeling himself again.  He has been sick for at least a month, maybe longer, with a nasty case of giardia. 

He lost 20 pounds in three weeks and never missed a day of work.  Can you imagine having your guts lined with hungry parasites sucking every last bit of nutrition out of your food, and STILL snorkeling a 7 mile stretch of river?  It was no wonder that he would come home from work and feel like he was dying.  I was so relieved when he finally went to the doctor and got a diagnosis a week ago.  I thought he had something much worse than giardia.

After four days on medication, Mark is back to his old self.  He is diggin' in the dirt, chasing guineas off his new grass, and getting back into Taekwondo with the kids!  I am so, so happy I have my husband back! (And I'm so, so happy the little kids aren't asking me if their daddy is going to die anymore)

Changes in the School?

So, our wonderful state is trying to find a way to save money in the budget.  Most of their ideas aren't that well-thought out.  That is how we ended up down here at Twin Firs in the first place.  This time around, they are trying to eliminate our family's ability to participate in the school program that we have used for the last five years.

The way they will do this is by making the rule that you cannot participate in a school district's program unless you reside in the district.  If you live in a neighboring district, you can use the program, but you have to spend 20% of your instructional time in the school itself being instructed by a certified teacher of Washington State.  I wouldn't have a problem with this except for the fact that not all school districts have a parent partnership program.  If my local district had one, I would use it.  But it doesn't and neither do any of the neighboring districts.

I've written letters to my legislators explaining how our particular program works and why they shouldn't change the laws.  Hopefully other parents in our and other programs across the state are doing the same.  It would be a shame to lose the support we have been receiving.  But if the changes do occur and we do have to leave the program, I am confident that we will do just fine on our own.  The kids won't have the opportunities they have had in the past, but they will continue to be in rich learning environment here at home.

In a sad, twisted sort of way, regulating these programs like this is actually really bad for their budget.  Everyone knows that cash flow is increased by reduced spending...but it is also influenced by Making More Money.  In the 2010-2011 school year, the public schools spent $10,013 per student.  Every student in the parent partnership program brings in full funding from the district's funding sources, but they use only a small, small percentage of that.  I teach for free.  My kids don't ride a bus.  And they don't use the bathrooms, electricity, or lunch room.  When the families leave the programs, the school districts lose their extra cash... oh well!

The Beach was Fun

Evie and Turkish Towel

Daniel and "Sea Cookies"

Fiona with snails and a little chiton

Lula on her first beach walk

Ian finds a starfish experiencing regeneration

My two friends! Whatta great find!

Shane carried crabs around in his boots...

...he got pinched by a Red Rock Crab for his efforts!

"Shane, where is your shirt going?"

"Can I bring them home? Please?"

Yes, those are the same clothes he wore to the zoo yesterday.

Too cute for words!

Daniel and his best friend throw rocks

Shane and his best friend catch some rays

Ian and his best friend swim

The Day Scholars

This is a beach that our family had never visited.  We've driven by more times than I can count though.  The parking is just a shoulder on the side of the highway where cars drive at least 45 miles per hour.  You have to wait for the cars to pass before you open the driver side door!  And since this is the only way on and off the Key Peninsula from the Gig Harbor/Tacoma highway, the road is always busy.  The bathroom is a Honey Bucket right next to the road.  Enough cars have driven off the road at that spot because of a combination of left turns, ice, cell phones, dogs on laps, and speeding cars that it is easy to imagine being hit while in the Honey Bucket.  That was a fear I did not share with my 9-months pregnant friend until after she experienced it for herself!  Once you get past the whole traffic/small children and Honey Bucket issue, the beach is quite lovely.  I had intended on staying from 10:30 to 1:30 and then heading off to the YMCA for PE, swimming, and Taekwondo.  The sun was so nice and the kids were so active that it was easy to stay all day.  My sunburn proves it.

Going to the Zoo

I took the kids to the zoo yesterday.  The day before that, I started singing "Goin' to the Zoo" and here is our trip (along with some modified lyrics)!

Daddy Mommy’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow,
daddy Mommy’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow, and we can stay all day.

(Chorus)
We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, how about you, you, you,
you can come too, too, too, we’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.

The elephant that never looks at us.

See the elephant with the long trunk tail swingin',
great big ears and a long trunk tail swingin'

Snuffin' up peanuts with a long trunk swingin',
and we can stay all day! (Chorus)

Snack break for little monkeys!

See all the monkeys they're scritch-scritch scratchin'
jumpin' around and scritch-scritch scratchin'

Hangin' by the long-tail (huff huff huff),
and we can stay all day! (Chorus)

The Downen Kids and Cousin Carson

There's a big black POLAR bear he's a huff-puff-a-puffin'
His coat's too heavy he's a huff-puff-a-puffin'

We've never seen the polar bear! It was the best part of the day!

Don't get too near the huff-puff-a-puffin',
or you won't stay all day! (Chorus)

Daniel sees the big walrus!

Well the seals walrus in the pool all honk-honk-honkin bubble-bubble-bubblin',
catchin' the fish and honk-honk-honkin bubble-bubble-bubblin'

This walrus has been around since I was a little girl!

Little tiny seals Big Giant Walrus all honk-honk-honkin bubble-bubble-bubblin',
and we can stay all day! (Chorus)

Taking time to roll down the hill-we are on no time restriction and can enjoy the day anyway we want!

Well we stayed all day and I'm gettin' sleepy, sittin' in the car gettin' sleep sleep sleepy
Home already gettin' sleep sleep sleepy, 'cause we have stayed all day.

Napping in the Ergo

We been to the zoo zoo zoo, so have you you you
You came too too too, we been to the zoo zoo zoo

Cousin Carson joined us today!

MOMMY'S TAKIN' US TO THE ZOO  BEACH TOMORROW!

Jaws

Zoo BEACH tomorrow, zoo BEACH tomorrow!
Mommy's takin' us to the zoo BEACH tomorrow, and we can stay all day!

And it's true.  We are going to the beach today!

Frog Prince

Spring Break School

The good thing about being in two school districts is having two spring breaks at two different times.  Our parent partnership program took its break two weeks ago.  We kept on learning, but at a slower pace.  The local school district is on break now, so our public schooled friends are available for play this week!  Ian has been very busy with his friends, so we are learning at a slower pace again.

"You think this is bad, you should have seen what I did in the bathroom last night!"

Shane is learning about mean, median, mode, and range in math.  He was really struggling with the way the material was presented in his math book, so I created "cookie math" to remedy the situation.  I bought a big box of assorted cookies in single sized packs at Costco yesterday.  Today I had each of my kids, plus Ian's friend, pretend they were a scientist from a different country.  They had to announce their field of expertise and what country they originated from.  We had biologists, a mathematician, a herpetologist, and an anthropologist.  Even Daniel participated! He said he was a "ball" scientist from God's country.  We called him a physicist from Israel.  Shane had to type the name of the country into a spreadsheet in Excel.  Every "scientist" received a bag of cookies, counted the number of cookies, reported their data to Shane for entry, and consumed said cookies.  Shane will be responsible for calculating the numbers later.

"Look, Mom. Six is three twos!"

Spring also means the kids are outside when the sun shines.  I remind myself that workbooks are for rainy days and sunny days are for exploring.  I let Evie take the camera outside so she could take pictures of birds.  The camera is my most important tool, so I have a hard time sharing it.  But Evie has an artistic eye and a love for nature (so much like Ami), so I take a deep breath and let her go.  She always comes back with a memory card full of blurry bug/flower/dog/chicken pictures and movies that make even the most steady person motion sick.  But this little video is a gem (it is her first attempt at a nature documentary):  oh, and ignore the groaning in the background.  It was just Fiona expressing her boredom in the most passive aggressive manner...

Can you tell the kids have been watching a lot of nature shows on the National Geographic website?

Daniel is Three

I love this boy so much.  My heart just aches with my love for him.  When I told him I was going to put clean clothes on him and take him outside for birthday pictures, he fought me.  He said, "This shirt is CLEAN!" (It wasn't)  When I brought his clean jeans out, he exclaimed with happiness, "My plitty boy clothes!"  (Which means "pretty boy")

 I love his blue eyes, his goofy smiles, his sticky-outty hair and ears.

Climbing Hairy Scary Rock

I love his sense of adventure and determination (I bet Mark was just like Daniel when he was little) and the way he thinks like a problem solver.  Just now he was putting on a new pair of shorts.  After he pulled them up, he gave a little jump and said, "There. These won't fall off.  My other ones fall off and you laugh at me."  Can I help it if I laughed again?

Three!

I love the way he can count to five (really, even after all these kids, little accomplishments are always amazing and wonderful!) and that he calls every letter "H."  I love the way he only draws spiders.  And I love the way he cuts paper into tiny little confetti-sized pieces, picks up one, and gives it to me as my "plesent" (which means present).

"Wings of Justice! Ca-caw!"

I love his sense of humor and the way he quotes movies (his favorite is Kung Fu Panda and A Bug's Life).  Yesterday as we snuggled for a nap, he started saying, "Hubba, hubba, hubba" like the ant that fans the queen in Bug's Life.

I love the way he wants to work.  No task is too difficult for him and he never whines about being tired or things being too heavy.  He will say he doesn't want to do something until we offer the job to someone else...then his competitive streak kicks in and the job is HIS.

"Smile for the camera!"

I love his grasp of opposites.  His mastery is part of his defiance (which is something I don't love, but I do find hilarious at times).  He will never need one of those cute lift-the-flap books about opposites.  He knows wet/dry, good/bad, dirty/clean, pretty/ugly, boy/girl, you/me, etc... I think his favorite part is the big, loud NO that goes before his opposite.  "NO! I'M buggin' me!" or "No, these pants are DRY!" or "No, I'm an ugly BOY!"

Looking for bugs and snails-way more interesting than smiling for me.

I love how he is so in touch with his masculinity, he wears nail polish.  Someone in our family worried about Daniel being surrounded by "so many sisters," but I say he is so manly that the sisters will tone that down.  He hasn't done it yet, but I can totally see him running around shooting spiders with an imaginary machine gun while wearing a tutu (if Fiona shares).  He will be one heck of a sympathetic husband by the time he grows up with all these girls around him.

"I love you, Mama!" Really, he said it and smiled, just when I took this picture!

I love the way he looks for me every single morning as soon as he wakes up so he can have a snuggle while I drink my "poffee" (coffee).  He isn't crawling into bed with me every night anymore, and when he does, he snuggles up to Mark because Lula is in his spot.  I'm starting to miss that closeness and I cherish the morning and nap time snuggles.

Still wearing those purple boots.  I love his purple boots.

We are spending his third birthday quietly, some doing schoolwork, others curled up in blankets with tummy aches.  I've made a chocolate cake and we have some ice cream in the freezer.  His siblings have made cards and gifts out of paper.  He hugged Evie's paper snake to his chest with a huge smile on his face!

Happiest of third birthdays to my little man!!!

Gardens and Chickens

This was a wonderful Sunday.  Nothing is better than spending time with the family.

Inner Peace: When your kids are old enough to do all the work!

Daniel helps with the rows...

...and gets a little help from Shane.

Planting carrots

The Cornish Cross are let out for some "free ranging"

Why they aren't completely "free"

In our gardens, we have squash, carrots, beans, peas, beets, spinach, lettuce, kale, and chard.  Oh and asparagus and rhubarb!  I've started some tomatoes and peppers inside, but I need more Jiffy pots (or get around to making some DIY pots).  We are also going to plant pumpkins, cucumbers, and I'm pretty sure there is more, I just can't think of it right now.  I'm going to need a pressure canner by the end of the growing season!  At least I hope I will!