Don't sew with cats

It is snowing rather insistently outside at this moment and that adds to the festive feeling that is beginning to take over the house. Our morning project was to light the tree and, although it's still awaiting all but two ornaments, it does add a cheery glow to the place.

It actually rained all day—a driving, frigid rain that finally talked us out of running the errands we'd had planned. We spent the morning on the tree and on a few tidbits here and there, like piano, Legos, and rediscovering favorite annual books. Then we got as far as getting dressed after lunch only to stand in the front window and watch the rain blow in sheets, listening to the wind batter the house, before we turned right around and changed back into pajamas. It was just that kind of day.

So a little more decorating, a little time spent with human evolution and migration (we found a great new book: Evolution, The Human Story), and some rediscovering of our favorite seasonal books (ahhh, the Polar Express, just for my train lover).

And then there was a lot of crafting.

We did some prep work for Christmas cards, and then we tackled a sewing project. Sewing on the floor with a cat in the room is near impossible (I could not convince her that the thread was not a toy). Still we actually finished two ornaments together and learned along the way; I learned a blanket stitch, and Calvin got his first go at sewing, something he greatly enjoyed.

And that snow outside, if it does what they say (although when does it ever?), will blanket us with up to five inches of wet snow over night. I love that first morning of waking to white, but I hope it doesn't slow us down on the errands that now must be run—our St. Nicholas celebration practically right around the corner.

The great Dire Woof

We spent today with good friends, so while we started out with some chores, some piano practice, and some journal writing, we ended it with an early bedtime due exhaustion from wild giggling and activities. Legos, play kitchen, books, a walk to the park, and even a fall craft. The two little ones (who aren't so little any more) were lost in every kind of imaginary game they could think of. At one point they were hiding out in the toy tent—scientists on an expedition!—when the meat-eating Ollie-saur (or the Dire Woof, as they later named him) came lurking around and needed scaring away with loud shrieks and roars. It didn't really work, because he wanted to play, too, which meant that Ollie made the perfect play thing today, and that he is also passed out with exhaustion tonight.

We walked to the park, collecting things of beauty along the way, like brightly colored leaves that we brought home to laminate for hanging in the windows, or setting on the table. We were busy, we were happy, we had a great time.

Trick-or-treating take one

We spent the morning waddling through downtown Dexter collecting candy from the participating businesses along the main drag (read: the one street in town), and the afternoon waddling around the rec room at our homeschoolers group Halloween party.

Waddling is what penguins do.

A doughnut for lunch?

Cookie decorating (and eating) for snack...

spooky searches...

making salt dough ghosts and pumpkins and gluey and sparkly crafts plus a plethora of homemade munchies warm fall drinks...Halloween party homeschooler style.

And when we got home Calvin dove right into his candy, but not to eat it. We pay him ten cents per piece that he turns in to us, so the candy sparked an hour of learning about money and counting up his earnings. He opted to keep only one piece to snack on (tomorrow, since we'd had enough sweets today), and earned $3.50 for the rest. After all that excitement we were too tired to carve pumpkins after dinner tonight, so that has been postponed, but still, the Halloween weekend has begun.

Getting up and doing

Most of our days start exactly the same way—with some quiet reading while we slowly wake up to the day's possibilities. I vaguely remember days, before Calvin was born, when waking up on a weekday morning meant rushing to get to get to work where I spent most of my time doing what needed to be done, then getting home in time to eat and retire for the night. Waking up in the morning to a day that can hold almost anything our hearts desire is a new and rather expansive feeling for me. What can we do? Almost anything! But the other side of that coin is that it is surprisingly easy to end up doing almost nothing. I (and now Calvin also) can get too lost in a book that we start in the morning and end up spending most of the day there. At the end of days like that, even being the book lovers that we are, I feel like we have failed to use our time well.  With all the rainy, dreary weather that we've been treated to this spring we've had more days like that than I care to count.

But maybe those days have their place, too. Activity in waves. We've spent much of the past couple of weeks (when we weren't on vacation) lost in books, our imaginations wending their way through other places and times, then today the sun came out and our energy to get up and do came with it, and so, after our usual morning, we got up and did. And it turns out that the things we've been reading make their way into the things we are doing, and vice versa. Plus, after so many languorous days we were ready for a busy one or two, and then again we'll be ready to recline in repose.

Today we played volcano games on the iPad, we made Roman face pots (an activity from our ancient Rome explorations), we played Qwirkle, we watched birds and Calvin wrote in his journal about them.

Qwirkle on the back deck, where we could watch the birds in our birch.

And at the end of the day we're still reading while we watch for our bird friends out the front window.

It's about the weather again

Yesterday was so dreary, so dark, that I wasn't able to take any pictures. And last night was the season finale for our one and only weekly show. How depressing.

We checked our frog (rain gauge) this afternoon. Three inches of rain in two days. I'm worried about our new trees, but the gardens look so beautiful when the sun comes out and they're still wet with rain, and that is the kind of weather we finally got this afternoon. Finally. Though we spent the morning reading, writing in our journals, playing games, and visiting the library, we spent the afternoon with the windows open, watching the birds while we waited for the outside to dry a bit, and then we broke out of our prison and toured the gardens. We played more games, we made granola, we made play dough. We read books in the garden. And the house is still open, long after dark.