Mud Pony

Here is our beeswax rendition of the Native American Legend "The Mud Pony".

I am not posting the beautiful Enki Education version we read. But you will get the gist of the story here. Mud Pony

These are sculptures of the boy, his mother, 2 teepees (green and blue), a fire pit with dried meat hanging on sticks, leather drying, a basket, a clay pot, the river with a fish in it, a buffalo sitting down, and the mud pony.

Ramblings....

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was in college I fell in love with Emerson's essays. His writing spoke to me...it just made sense. Perhaps it was his anti-slavery views or his love of nature. His essays just seemed like common sense to me.

I am finding myself returning to his words again as inspiration in my life currently.

Although I feel at ease with my parenting choices, there are times when we all question ourselves and I find the above quote as inspiring now as I did when I first read it (and highlighted it and "X-ed" it in my beautiful copy of Emerson's Essays many years ago. (Which happens to be a centennial edition that belonged to my mother's father.)

I feel very much at ease and comfortable with my mind and my life style right now. I think I really have an idea of what I need and want (and do not need) from this life and I have an idea of the things and people who make me happy.

"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sun Catchers

Grammy sent us this cool project that she did with her kids during The Harley School's Feature Teacher week.
Thanks Grammy, we had a lot of fun making these beautiful sun catchers!

Our Hummer

Who knew hummingbirds liked tomato blossoms so much? This beauty is so content in our garden that we often catch it taking a rest on our garden trellis. We think she is either a Ruby Throated Female or a Black Chinned Female. She has a lot of personality often "playing" with the chickadees and wrens.

OK...so now were on a quest to find a hummingbird feeder at Goodwill to attract more.

Oh, and we need to find a way to get better pictures through the solar screens. When I take the screen off the window the birds get nervous and won't come.

You can spot her in motion in the top photo near the red zinnia in the middle. I'm only inches away in the bottom photo and she looks huge. She's really very tiny.

Drums

Pablo introduced the kids to drums. Here they are playing his big set. OK.....now I'm wondering if they need a drum set for Christmas.... and a piano... and a guitar. Hmmmmm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcktK_Wuzt4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4vZHIIdo5w

Happy Birthday, Uncle Jeremy!

The kids had such a great time making party hats for Uncle Jeremy which he proudly wore while we ate yummy birthday cake to celebrate his special day!

Mini Vacation

Even though Emerson wanted to invite America to our house to celebrate her Birthday we decided to celebrate in Fredericksburg, TX.

Fredericksburg is a quaint little town and one of the prettiest towns I've seen in TX. It reminds us of Brockport or Fairport along the Erie canal in NY. It was settled in 1846 by German immigrants and is laid out like the German villages where many of the colonists came from.

Today Fredericksburg is home to many wineries, B&B's, lots of German Biergarten's, and tons of unique shops. We spent our time swimming in our motel pool, watching the fireworks, touring a pioneer museum, and a living history farm.

One of the highlights of our trip was daddy beating mommy in a potato sack race at the Fredericksburg Pioneer Museum. We also enjoyed being able to check the hen house for eggs this morning at the LBJ State Park and Sauer-Beckman Living History Pioneer Farm. We didn't find any eggs but the turkey's left us two very large feathers which the kids got to keep.

Flag Cake

Check out the beautiful Jello Flag cake we made today.

Laundry Day!

This is the way we wash our clothes, so early in the morning....

Gramma Jan brought over some rope, a clothes pin bag, and clothes pins and we washed our baby doll outfits in wash pans and hung them on the line. What an awesome activity to keep cool while exercising our fine motor skills, singing songs and talking about the "olden days".

(I do miss being able to hang my clothes out on the line...between allergies in the winter and the intense summer sun here we hang our clothes in the garage on hangers.....)

Marble Painting

MONDAY , JUNE 30 , 2008

In preparation for the 4th of July we painted using only Red, White and Blue. We got our poster paints, marbles, cookie sheets and paper. The kids squeezed globs of paint on their paper and rolled the marbles (large and small) through the paint. They had so much fun, got super messy and created some beautiful marbled paintings!