Blackberries and cows in the backyard... almost

It is really quite cool having a farm almost next door. The kids have discovered much to their delight, that the field is full of wild blackberry bushes. They want to go on an almost daily visit to pick the newly blackened blackberries. We could hear the cows mooing from the backyard so I took the kids over to see them, and they were not as close as I thought... a few paddocks over, but the kids still had fun looking at them through their binoculars. I love it because it reminds me of the trips to the woods we would take when I was younger growing up in Barnsley... and the blackberry picking and blackberry pies and blackberry jam my mum would make from the collection.

 The view from our front garden

 The girls looking at the cows

 Anna-Maria posing for the camera

 Ella-Rose following suit

 Little Lily trying to see whats going on too

 Four kids having fun

Picking and tasting blackberries... yum!

As for Narnia, we are 3 chapters away from finishing 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader'. I can't believe I didn't read these when I was a kid. There are some really great values in there - in addition to the awesome adventures of course.

The shopping trip - what a disaster. I had wanted to get a freezer before Tane went away so I could fill it up and not have to take all the kids shopping for a big shop... or even not at all. However we were pretty busy and that ended up not happening. So today we were running pretty short on supplies... we were down to our last carrot after morning tea... you know you're low when the kids have to have carrots for tutti fruiti time.
At first Joshua and Joseph decide to have some kind of crazy wrestling match in the supermarket. Talk about  embarrassing. However I managed to distract them by sending them on search and find missions to various regions of the supermarket looking for items on our list. Phew survived after an hour and a half... with poor Lily intact, but it is impossible to have her and Ella-Rose in the same shopping trolley. Ella just wants to bite, scratch and basically terrorise her sister.

In the evening after dinner, we had our family home evening and planted our winter garden. Joseph chose brussel sprouts (or little soccer balls - as he calls them), Anna-Maria chose cauliflower - her favourite thing for dinner, Josh chose broccoli and I got pak choy, spinach and leeks. Unfortunately as the older kids were transplanting their seedlings, Ella-Rose decided to pull all the leek seedling out... so only a very small fraction of them were planted in the garden. Also mental note to myself... to make this garden work we need to get a soak hose tomorrow - the gardern is so dry, even despite multiple trips to the tap with buckets, it remains as dry as ever.

Ella-Rose: Has been practising counting. We have a funny game she likes to play on the trampoline. She jumps and we count to 10 and then splat - she splats onto the trampoline, has a giggle and then gets back onto her feet to start again. She is learning her colours by gardening. She is learning not to pick the green tomatoes but to wait until they are orange. We have some strange orange tomato variety. They are simply delicious and taste almost a cross between a tomato and an apricot if that is even possible.

Joshua: Is reading 'Call of the Wild'. Although he only needed to read 1 chapter today... he of course became immersed and didn't come up for air until I suggested we go outside to look at the cows. He really likes animals, so is also reading a book all about horses, the different breeds, purposes and how to look after a horse.... He also likes to look at the horses available on Trademe... and is dropping hints to me such as 'we need a paddock to put a horse in'.

Joseph: Is enjoying practising the piano and committing his pieces to memory. He played 'Set' with Anna-Maria. It is a really great game for pattern spotting, he was teaching Anna-Maria how to identify a set. She was initially frustrated, but in the end she managed to put a few good sets together. His homeschool goals consisted of 'lots of PE every day'. So today that consisted of lots and lots of bouncing on the trampoline.

Anna-Maria: Is the most motivated child. She wrote in her journal, practised her spelling words and played 'Set". She also had a really unfortunate accident today :(  She was bouncing on the trampoline and moved back too far. As she came down she landed with each leg astride the bar and then fell onto the floor. Poor thing. She was beside herself, but after spending an hour in bed - doing paired reading with Joseph (Hansel and Gretel, & Bubbles) she was back to her normal self. She was happy because we put her new curtains up in her room. And I was happy to because they are much thicker and make the room much darker and hence it hopefully will be easier to convince the girls it really is bedtime even though the sun is still shining outside.

Lily: Had her first taste of solids today. She seemed to really enjoy it after the first 2 tsps of wondering what on earth is this new stuff. She had pear and banana with baby rice. She is also really enjoying trying to grab hanging toys and she is smiling and chuckling a lot.

L&P in Paeroa

Yesterday we went to Paeroa. Tane had to be dropped off with the army as he was going on an annual field exercise (which interpreted means 7 days of survival in the bush with not much to eat, no showers and sleeping under a tarpaulin which is  apparently called a hutchie, and then having to carry a 40kg pack and gun and ammo everywhere they trek, oh and dig their own toilets). Better him than me.

When we got to Paeroa I told the kids we had to buy some L&P. They were a little bewildered as they didn't know what this was and when we explained it stood for lemon and Paeroa, they wanted to know if it had actual dirt from Paeroa in it. Hopefully not! They all liked it and Josh stated "it is the only lemon soft drink that actually tastes like lemons".

Paeroa is where Tane's father Monty is from. I had never been before and it is such a magical little town, it would have been such a nice place to grow up. The kids had heaps of fun investigating all the antique shops... I have never seen so many antique shops along one little shopping strip... the kids loved looking at all the old-fashioned stuff - a mangle, a spindle, old fashioned sewing machines, record players, money, postcards, and best of all, old fashioned army relics like WWI metal helmets  and WWII German army berets, and a sword also caught their fancy.

We had lunch by the river, a beautiful spot. The kids collected drink cans for their scrap metal collection.

 If you are wondering what is wrong with Anna-Maria, she is enjoying being a tiger at the moment.

As we were sitting by the river having lunch, Ella-Rose says "stinky hot, stinky hot", her way of saying stinkin' hot. Her other funny thing she says is when she gets a prickle in her foot she complains, lifts her foot up saying 'spicy, spicy.'

We went to the cemetery to try and find Tane's grandparents grave. There is something sacred about walking through a cemetery  As I read the names of those who had passed on, it always makes me emotional to think of the pain on the passing of these loved ones. After searching for about half an hour we found the grave of Tane's grandparents Herbert Brunt and Lucy Brunt (nee Pakinga). We realised it was a week before the anniversary of his Grandfather's passing, and that he had passed away when Tane was 12 days old. What a sweet day it will be in the Resurrection when they will get to meet each other again.

We dropped Tane off to be taken down to Waiouru for another grueling week and drove back home. Joshua really made my day in the evening. We got home late, at twenty to eight. I fixed them dinner while the boys read, and the girls had their bath. We started eating dinner and Joshua was about to ask me something, then he said 'oh no you're feeding Lily". So I asked him what he wanted... a fork. I showed him I had already brought them to the table. Then he hugged me and said "oh mum you're a brick". It was so sweet.

If you're wondering why he would call me a brick... well after reading a number of classics with the kids... in particular 'The Railway Children' and 'Narnia', they have heard the word a few times, and now it seems it has worked it's way into his own vocabulary. The amazing thing to me is that they can remember the precise point in the story where and by whom this is said. I can't... must be showing my age.

A few other things that must be said. Thanks Mum and Dad (Grandma and Grandpa Key) for the trampoline. It is just the best present. I can't keep the kids off it.

Today I asked Josh to put the clean washing away... kids catch on quick..."I can't, it's Sunday'. Oh well will wait till Monday... its just 1 sleep away.

Pikelets for breakfast... Thanks boys

Today I had a lovely surprise. Joshua and Joseph decided they wanted to make pikelets for breakfast. Normally Tane does this most Sunday mornings and we alternate a variety of favourite toppings.

As the boys were getting the pancakes ready, Ella-Rose decided to be helpful (of course!) and cut up all the bananas and place them on he plates in anticipation. Although she left the rotten banana excluded but managed to squish it up a bit.

 The other kids all enjoyed them.

Yum, yum. Thanks boys :)

Beach fun!

Yesterday was a stunner of a day... and being a public holiday we went to the beach. We went to Raglan for a Stake activity. Anna-Maria was so surprised to see black sand "I have never seen back sand before!"

And she was full of questions about how it became black.

Ella-Rose was initially cold in the water so spent some of the afternoon snuggled up in my jacket.

Later on in the afternoon we couldn't pull her out of the water, she loved it.

The boys and Tane waited for high tide so they could jump off the bridge. Josh and Tane jumped a few times but Joseph thought he would wait till next time - (because by then he would be taller and the drop would therefore be less - according to him). But he still enjoyed hanging on the edge of the bridge with his Dad as and still felt pretty brave about that.

Joshua also had fun creating a sand dam on the beach to prevent water from high-tide returning back to the estuary.

I know it looks like they are playing in mud, but it is black sand honest!

I tried to keep little Lily in the shade as much as possible, but that didn't stop her from smiling a lot. But it is so difficult to catch her smiles on camera. She smiles, I point the camera, she thinks I've gone and stops smiling... and this just repeats itself over and over till I have about a hundred half smiling photos. So here are the best ones.

She is such a little cutie... and seems so much older than she was when she was born nearly 4 months ago.

After exhausting ourselves silly and working up a big appetite... we got wind of a rumour that there was a tsunami warning due to an earthquake in the Solomon Islands. Well, we had been at the beach for about 6 hours and our rumbling tummies were craving some junk food, so it was time to depart. But of course we had to take a detour to Manu Bay so Tane could goggle at the surf. After a while I asked him whether he wanted to come home with is or hitch a ride home... I think he got the message, as he was getting hungry too.

I think you could say, a good time was had by all.

Rockets, Trigonometry and Monkey Ella

Firstly a photo of Lily-Grace. What a little cutie. Holding herself up for tummy time and rolling over.

One of the many reasons why I love homeschool. Last night Joshua was reading on the New Zealand Rocketry Association website (NZRA). He was reading an account by a group of boys who were very successful at making and launching their model rockets. He is very interested in rockets and explosives and prior to me finding this site for him, he had found a recipe for solid rocket fuel. A comment captured his attention... the boys who were good at trigonometry were good at calculating the heights of their launched rockets.

This led him to comment to me. Remind me in the morning to do my mathsbuddy. This was exciting for me as he himself was becoming motivated to study in the area which a year ago was his weakest area of interest... and not because he couldn't do it, but because of the repetitive simple maths he was required to do over and over again.

So this morning (and on a Saturday too) I reminded him to do his mathsbuddy. I suggested he do his year 5 angles and progress from there through all the year levels till he reach trigonometry  Well he had other ideas. He picked the year 10 trigonometry lesson. After watching it for a few seconds he pressed pause. I was thinking ok... he wants to go back and do the more basic lessons, but he surprised me and said

"you'd better get me a pencil and paper so I can write all this stuff down." 

So there he was scribbling down pictures of right angled triangles and labelling with new words such as theta, hypotenuse, opposite and adjacent. Then he was introduced to the equations of SOHCAHTOA. Once again he eagerly wrote those down and then proceeded to complete the worksheet. He really enjoyed it and asked me why he hadn't learnt this at school, and then was very interested in real life examples of this. So his dad took him outside and they used trigonometry to find the height of a tree in the back-yard.

It was so cool to
a. be a part of the learning process
b. teach him something he has a real interest in

And after that he went up the hill to our friends house, who happens to be an engineer, to help them split wood, play in the water and eat pizza. So I was left wondering how much of that he had taken in... but when he came back he had more questions about what he had learnt... and he didn't do too badly either getting 83 percent for his first attempt.

A few funny comments by the kids...

Ella came walking in with a mouth full of something. I asked her "What's in your mouth?"
She opens her mouth wide and points inside and states matter-of-factly, "Grandma!".
I look surprised and ask her "Is grandma in your mouth?"
Ella answers "Yes!".

Ella climbs on the top bunk, laughs and chants "Monkey Ella, Monkey Ella", referring to herself.

My little monkey Ella

Ella loves movie night and goes round saying "Moome"

Explosives for kids...just kidding!

Joshua is fascinated with explosives at the moment. He is constantly talking and scheming about how to make gun-powder and other explosives. So for homeschool this week he wanted to do some science with explosives. He has done the vinegar and bicarb experiments, but as a friend brought over pepsi - which we do not drink, he wanted to try the coke (or in this case pepsi) and mentos experiment. What he actually wanted to do was make a rocket airbourne, but it just did not seem to work out like that.

So the theory is... diet coke and approximately 3 mentos are combined and as you can see there is a bit of a chemical reaction. We googled a few versions of this experiment and found a great rocket version and a crazy car powered by coke and mentos.

There is actually a bit of science behind it all as well. Apparently this explosive recipe is not a simple acid-base reaction like the vinegar and bicarb, but is caused by the rough surface of the mentos disrupting the water molecules and creating bubbles as a result. We also discovered that diet coke is better than normal coke due to the effect of the sweetener aspartame which creates more of a reaction than sugar.

Resources
The science behind the experiment

Sunday Kung Fu!

In our home the Sabbath day is a special day being the Lord's day and we try to teach this to our children. We encourage them to choose activities which help them grow closer to their families and to Jesus Christ. The following conversation was over heard today.

Joseph - "Do you want to play Kung Fu?"
Anna-Maria - "Yes, but everyone in the Kung Fu class has to be in the true church because today is           Sunday."

Today was Lily's blessing - performed by her Daddy and assisted by Grandpa and Uncle David (Brother Morris). Lily is such a cutie. Tane left us again for 3 more weeks of training in the territorials in Waiouru. I think he is in for another 3 weeks of PAIN!! Better him than me... motherhood is certainly makes me tired and grumpy at times but is not associated with that level of PAIN.

Tane took the boys for a hike up to the Pinnacles. It took them 5 hours to get up to the hut. The boys were so proud of themselves to have made it... and their Dad was even prouder of them. They had a great father-son outing and Tane had lots of opportunities to teach them skills and tips he learnt during his army training.

They slept at the camp that night and walked down the following day. They were so wasted the following day, but they really loved it. Joshua keeps saying how much he is going to miss his Dad and I think it is mostly because of the great bonding time they had together.

Welcome Lily...Surprise Home-birth for Baby No. 5

We arrived back in Auckland on Sat 13th Oct from our year-long escapade in Australia. I was 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant. Besides me was my husband and the 4 children in tow ranging from 9 years to 22 months. As if that was not enough, we had 10 large suitcases, 2 car-seats, a double buggy, a port-a-cot, 5 carry-on cases, and a baby-bag.

The kids had been very well behave considering they had been travelling or transiting in airports from 12 noon on the 12th. The only hiccup we had was a few bouts of vomiting by Joseph in the last hour before we touched down in Auckland.

We unpacked at mum and dad's and I contacted my previous midwife on the 15th to ask if she could deliver my 5th baby. She was delighted. She came over to see me on the morning of the 17th Oct (Weds). I had been having some reasonably convincing braxton-hicks contractions earlier in the morning, but they had died down before she arrived. She did some basic paperwork and gave me a form to get some blood tests done. However... I never got to do that. Tane took the boys to get their hair cut and I was baking alphabet cookies. I rang my mum as she was out to ask her where the cocoa was and she said she was going for a walk and would be back in an hour. "That's fine" I said as there was no action in the baby department.

However, a few minutes later the braxton-hicks came back... or so I thought. I felt sick too so I went downstairs to bed. By this time Tane had come home so he watched Ella while I went and laid down on the bed, with Anna-maria, bless her, giving me sips of water between the contractions. Tane came downstairs to check on me and said we had better go to the hospital, I told him we had better wait till mum gets home... as she was not yet. As soon as she arrived he called the midwife and told her to meet us at the hospital, however when he came to get me I told him it was to late as the baby was already coming. In the meantime Anna-Maria was a good helper and put towels over the floor.

I have never seen him run up those stairs so fast to call the midwife to tell her to come to mum and dad's house. The midwife arrived about 5 mins later and listened to the heartbeat... all good :). She told Tane to get the towels out of the dryer as the baby was about to be born. I stood up for my next contraction, my waters broke and out came our baby. I caught her just-in time so she did not land on the floor. When Tane walked back in the room he was in shock... There I was standing by the door with the baby in my arms.
The kids were so excited and were in there to see the baby.

Love you Lily-Grace... our beautiful baby number 5.

Hand-Clapping Games

Today I showed Anna-Maria some of the hand-clapping games we used to play at playtime at school.
We played 'Miss Mary Mack' and 'Under the Bramble Bushes'. We also did 'A sailor went to sea, sea, sea'. She really enjoyed it and picked the up very quickly. I wanted to show her these games so she had some less boisterous games she could play while we are at social gatherings and there may not be much space to run around. It seems sad to me to see a bunch of kids huddled round a computer while one or two are engaged in playing, when they could be doing so many more things with their time.

Ella also had a great time trying to join in and we taught her how to do  pat-a-cake.

Resources
Funclapping is a cool website that has videos of children doing the clapping game so you can learn the tunes as well as the actions.

Today in home education...

As Tane and I are still in a quandary about where we are going to live and what Tane is going to do for work/career, we are currently homeschooling the children.

We dropped Tane off this morning at the domain as he was leaving for his basic training with the army for the territorials. So that means its just me and the kids for 4 weeks. On the way home I remembered I had seen a sign which was a public notice and said something about explosives. As one of Joshua's interests at the moment is explosives/explosions/fireworks, I thought I'd go back and read the notice. As luck would have it, the quarry was going o do an explosive on the 16th Nov... "That's today!" Joshua exclaimed excitedly.

So we waited around for the explosion standing from a good vantage point above the quarry. Further good luck was that a worker from the quarry came around and set up some seismographs to measure the earths movement with the blast. I told the kids not to bother him before the blast, but afterwards they just went for it with many questions... "what's that? (the seismograph , "what's it for?", "Why was it just a small explosion?"  etc... they loved that. They found out the quarry was a scoria quarry, which is used as it is good for drainage. They also learnt that the quarry is being prepared to be filled, so the explosion was just required to flatten out some of the hills. And little did they know they just had a geology lesson. As I am just getting to grips with the new camera I did not get a pic of the blast, but here  is a pic of the quarry.

We did our formal school work, which consisted of science (vascular plants), maths worksheets and spelling.
After lunch I put on some 'Love to Sing' songs for Ella to dance to, but it did not stop the bigger kids joining in.

After music-time (Singstar with ABBA and Queen), the older kids went outside to hep Grandpa. He decided to get them to move all the bricks, being used for the construction of the house next door, from the pallets to the scaffolding. So that's what they did... in between climbing up ladders and sliding down the poles like fireman's poles. Then the  neighbour took them for a guided tour of the house... which they liked. Anna-Maria was surprised.. "There is a staircase in there", and Joseph decided be wants to be a builder.

Notice the neatly stacked brick piles with 3 bricks per layer and alternating orientation - maths.

At bedtime Joseph enjoyed cuddles with Lily and Joshua messaged his best buddy Brother James.

Then I tried to get a decent photo of all the kids so we could send a photo to Daddy.

Learning at home is FUN!!