We're on our way.

Heading to my Grandma's house to bring home a family heirloom. Very excited about this.

It's a four and a half hour trip, so we've got to stay busy.

We'll see if we make it there in one piece. Psychologically speaking.

Pie-uts, Katrina Daisy Petal, and an owl.

Danni asked me if Ains had had any special birthday wishes. She had. A doll with pink hair is what she wanted. And something pirate (she is a self-proclaimed 'pie-ut girl').

We give our children four things for each birthday.

Something they want.
Something they need.
Something to wear.
Something to read.

The want was obvious.

I'd been working on a doll with red hair, but she was adamant about the pink, so I gave it pink hair instead. She wuvs her. Her name is Katrina Daisy Petal.

The need was also pretty obvious if you've been watching the pictures of her of late - a hat of her own.



I'm not totally happy with it, but she is and it's the first hat I've made, so I'm cutting myself some slack (even if I did cut the brim too short. Grrrr....)

Something to wear was a skirt. Easy, peasy (if you don't count all of the gathering, which I don't or I'd go crazy) and such a sunny skirt for the beginning of fall.

Katrina Daisy Petal got a matching skirt.

Something to read was When Stella Was Very Very Small which was bought a week before her birthday, back in the good ol' days when she was still proud of being 'wittle'.

Luckily, the book ends with Stella becoming a big girl ("Like me?!?!?" says she), so we're good.

Also, siblings give to siblings. Hannah gave her a blanket that she worked hard on making for Katrina Daisy Petal. Luckily it was almost as big of a hit as the doll.

She stayed up late with me the night before Ains' birthday sewing the buttons on the blanket. She was falling asleep while she was stitching when she cuddled up to me and said "It's fun loving someone so much that you'll make stuff for them, isn't it?" Yes it is.

About the pirate something. We decided on the cake.

Everything on it but the pirates, chopsticks and sails, and licorice is edible. Who eats licorice? (Besides my husband and mother.)

The sailboat carries the captain of the pirate ship - a Pirate Girl. The only pirate Ains won't let Gray play with.

Hannah made a kick-ass pirate flag.

Here are some other snapshots of our day.











(See the pirate walking the plank? You can't see the pirate standing behind him with a sword. Ains put him there "or the otha pie-ut not go on pank." My girl's a bit bloodthirsty methinks.)

Thank you for all of the lovely birthday wishes!

'Free' at last, 'free' at last!

Then.

Now.

*sniff*

Love. Peace. Two.

You see this sign?

It's one of my favorites, and it has three meanings.

Peace. Specifically "Rock Obama say PEACE." Pulled out when mommy gets 'canky'. She learned it from her sister who coined the phrase after one of the presidential-nominee debates last year. Barack Obama did indeed say 'peace' many times in that debate. It's been a year and the phrase - and sign - is still going strong.

It also means "I love you." Hannah and I have always done the actual 'I love you sign' with each other, but Ains' little hands couldn't do it. She tried, and her efforts produced this sign. It has become our own 'I love you'. I love it.

And it means 'two'. As in "I am two." As in "I am wittle, right Momma?" She flashes that sign and a proud "I too-an'-haff" to anyone who asks her name, compliments her hair, or glances in her direction.

Today is the first day of autumn. She was born on the first day of autumn. This year, her birthday falls on the day after the equinox and my little girl is so excited that tomorrow she will be 'free'. Three is so big in her mind. Overnight, sometime in her dreams, she will go from being 'wittle' to big.

Tomorrow that sign will have only two meanings.

It shouldn't be this hard. I was so excited for Hannah to turn three. I don't want Ains to go there. I want to wrap her up in two and hold her there for just a little bit longer.

Just Hannah.

H: "Dad, are you a big boss at work?"
Matt: "Yes, I'm one of them."
H: "Then why do you go to work? I thought big bosses just sat around and, you know, do nothing."
M: "Most of them do."

I walked in on Hannah having a discussion with one of her toys.
Duck: "I'm a doctor."
H: "No you're not. You're a duck."
D: "But I like helping people."
H: "Being a doctor is more than just wanting to help people. You have to be able to tell what's wrong with them and you have to know all of the diseases. Do you know all of the diseases?"
D: "No."
H: "Then maybe you can be a vet'rinarian."

Hannah was frustrated because it had taken so long to clean the toy room today. Since her contribution to the cleaning had been some cleaning and a lot of wandering around in circles wondering when the cleaning would be done, she was exhausted later. So exhausted that she accused me of having 'tired her bum clear out.' "Now how did I do that?", I asked. "Well, when I was walking around, waiting for you to get done, my bum was jiggling all around from my legs moving it, and now it's tired out and it's your fault."

Farmer's Market Day.

Yesterday was Farmer's Market day. Today I heard Ainsley pretending that her Littlest Pet Shop animals were going to the Farmer's Market with her. They wanted too many vegetables and her basket was overflowing. The bunnies and the pony got into a fight over the carrots. The dog ate her fudge. She was a very frustrated mommy.

Shapshot Sunday 09-20-09

Truth in labeling laws at work.





How it began.

Other snapshots -
Heart Rockin' Mama
SunnyMama
Steph
Ramblings
RinnyBoo
Phyllis

We have a deal,

my sister and I.

One week I go over to her house and we do a project.

The next week, she comes over to my house and we do a project.

Sometimes we deep clean a room,

sometimes we work on a craft that needs to be finished,

sometimes it's just housework that one of us is drowning in.

This week it was canning pears at her house.

But it's while the two of us are working

(and taking tiny breaks every now and then to care for children),

it's then that the best stuff happens.

Our kids are becoming the best of friends.

Our day is ending.

I had a whole 'nother post planned for today and then this happened right at bedtime -


(Hannah was doing a show titled "Fairies. Do they have presidents or queens?")

It rhymed so well with our morning that it made a beautiful stanza of our day.

It was a good one.

Our day has begun.

It's shaping up to be a good one.

This week it was back to school.

I know that 'unschooling' or 'life learning' can seem obscure to the uninitiated. That it can be disconcerting to look at an unschooling family when you still think in terms of 'subjects' that life is broken up into. So I've tried to break the beginning of our week up into subjects for you.

It started out with Art.

And Writing.

Then came Gardening mixed in with English (limericks to be precise).

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."

The teacher was told to knock it off by her unimpressed students.

Then Economics. (The girls were selling the peppers and sunflower leaves to each other.)

Fast on the heels of Economics came Healthy Communication and Safe Interpersonal Relationships.

Then Logic, Math, English, Reading, and Art delivered in Computer class. During Lunchtime.

Then Architecture.

Then naptime for the youngest student who thought he was attending Demolition.

Physical Education (in the form of bike riding) to expend energy.

Animal Husbandry.

Theatre. In the bathtub with mermaid dolls.

Organization. (For some reason it became Very Important that all shoes were lined up in pairs on the table by the little one.)

Shop Class.



Mathematics.

Alchemy.

(Water and cement dust and rocks turning into a hard rock is magical. You can put this in 'Science' if you'd rather.)

Foreign Language. (via Rosetta Stone, Diego, and Kai-Lan)

More Botany. (Looking for more of this.)

Science. Entomology, if you must know.

Animal Reproduction. Again.

No Octomom jokes, please. My cat deserves better than that. (And this eight kitten litter has finally convinced my husband that it's worth it to spay a barn cat! I'm over the moon!)

Geography. And Prejudice and Tolerance. ("Mother, what's a Mexican?" "Someone who's from Mexico. We're American because we're from the United States of America. It's just the label for the country you're from." "Oh, I thought it was an insult." *sigh* For some it is, unfortunately. So we talked about that.)

More art.


And Grandparent's Day, of course.

After reviewing their day, I came to the conclusion that the only thing that they missed was recess.