Navigation Project and a Beautiful Hike

Our weather took an amazing turn for the better this week.  We have had sun since Sunday...that's FOUR WHOLE DAYS!  When the weather is good here, you take advantage of it.  Laurel and I have been hiking the same trail all week, partly because it's close, and partly because I wanted to show her how with hard work the trail would go from being hard to being easy. 

Success.  But it didn't come easy.  3 days equals three fights about not wanting to go, wanting to quit before we started, wanting to quit after we started...and I'm sure there were others.  We had to talk a lot about positive attitudes, postitive outcomes...but in the end, only my ugly voice would push her along.  Sigh. 

I digress.  The first day was just re-introducing ourselves to the trail.  The second day I let her take charge of leading me on the trail.  The third day we sat down and made maps to route our path to and from (and including) the trail. 

 

With maps in hand I let the kids lead the way, figuring out at every turn whether it was right or left, how to read street signs, how to look for landmarks and how to be safe.  

 

 

Getting to the trail is the hardest part (before the fun begins) and thankfully as the "leader" Laurel stepped up to the plate and tried to be a positive role model for Luke (instead of whining her way up the road like she had been).

 

 

I won't lie, hiking with kids is rarely 100% fun.  You have to coax and push and bribe and trick sometimes to get them to want to keep going. This time I was able to get them into trading off who was the leader every 3 minutes.  This allowed each to feel like the one in charge, and took us through the whole trail with no more whining. 

 And with kids sometimes you just have to stop and play, or eat or let them take charge of the camera.  It's always amazing to me how quickly a snack can boost their moods.

And when it's all said and done you get that one last amazing view of the insanely beautiful place we live. 

 Then the kids finished navigating us back to the house. All in all they did a great job getting us there and back.  They had a couple of wrong turns, but they got back on track and figured out not only how to make a map and plan a route, but how to follow the map to get there and back.  It was a fun project, a beautiful day and a fun morning with the kiddos.

DIY Kids Valentines: Whales & Sharks

We are all about sea creatures here.  We also like to make our own Valentines, it's sort of a tradition in our family.  The designs started with an idea, then a sketch...then a desire to have something you can take home (besides just the card).  Cards end up in the trash (or the woodstove) pretty quickly, so it's nice to have a keepsake that people can take and use.

These are nice because a kid of 5 or older can do it themselves.  And since it's felt, no need for fancy machines or finished edges.  The work goes pretty quickly if you cut all the felt first, then sew them up.  We spread this out over a few days, and incorporated it into our homeschooling.

 The front was made with scrapbook paper in a variety of ocean-y shades. After all the felt-creatures were sewn we had a family craft night to finish the cards.  We set out all the materials for card making---to make each other homemade Valentines---and to finish these.  The kids cut and pasted everything themselves, then we taped the creatures onto the cards.

THEN...we made our own cards.  Pop-up was the theme this year...

And what Valentines would be complete without a love-inspired meal?  We went simple this year by making heart shaped burgers.  Special does not have to mean expensive or complicated.

 

Wordless Book Review: READ IT

 

Homeschooling Fun: Building a Boobytrap

If you're anything like me, your knowledge of boobytraps consists of childhood memories of watching The Goonies and Indiana Jones. (if you're a little younger, maybe Home Alone is a better example)

Luke is particularly interested in booby traps, and likes to set them to catch all the potential robbers that might be entering our home. (it's less of a paranoia thing, and more of a creative hero thing)

I was surprised to see that a quick Amazon search for boobytraps (for kids) resulted in some disturbing returns. (everything from fake boobies to REAL boobytraps...like bombs and such...yikes)

After some basic web searches we yielded some slightly more helpful (though not THAT much) images of what is called a simple Tiger Trap. (It's one small step up from the bucket of water on the door gag)

It's basically a simple pulley system, though ours is pretty crude...consisting of tape, a tape holder, a plastic container (filled with ants from the Ants in Your Pants game) and string.

One end of the string is taped to the ceiling, then to a container (open end facing away from the tape on the ceiling), then run the string through a tube that is hooked to the ceiling, and secure the string to the door in such a way that when the door is opened the string will detach and the weight of the container will pull itself down and dump it's contents on the the offending door-walker-inner.

Get it? Simple. Realistically it took us a few tries to get this done...all of them are on video of course. Our first try was a complete failure. Our second was successful. Our third was a failure again. This is a good thing, I promise. Kids need a little failure so that they learn that success for effort and hard work feels GREAT. Don't be afraid to let your kids fail! (how else will they learn?!) AND, don't step in to fix it...let them figure it out...that is after all THE POINT!

I think we've begun down a dangerous road of one-upmanship.

The last man standing wins...(insert evil laugh here)

Isn't homeschooling THE BEST?!?!

No plastic ants were harmed in the making of this boobytrap, but my hanging wall lantern (I'm sad to say) did not survive our crazy antics.

How To Use Butter to End a Fight

As part of our Family Mission and Family Values project---the ongoing journey---we are trying to live the life we want. (even if we haven't been able to capture it on paper yet) I think this is a HUGELY important part of the process.

(Though it might just be a justification as to why I can't seem to cement it in writing yet.)

Realistically this project takes time to iron out what you most value. And to be honest, I'm a little stuck right now...call it writer's block.

So to unblock myself I've been reading and listening to others views---and unexpectedly it is changing the way I think about even some of my deepest rooted values and habits.

Case-in-point, I never would have paired values and habits together---until I heard it from the Organic Sister. It was such a new way of thinking about this that I really had to pause and give it some thought.

Your habits are your values in action.

OUCH!

No hiding from that.

It's one thing to say you value something (say patience) and yet yell at your kids as soon as trouble arises. The proof is in the pudding...you in fact value IMpatience...no matter what you THINK you value. This is where you have to start working out who you want to be and how you want to get there.

And it's a learning process for us. Sunday my husband and I had a fight. Over something stupid, I'm sure. He went to the store and I stayed home and ran through the whole thing in my mind. When he came back he had made a second stop to the grocery store and bought organic whipped cream so that we could make butter. Of the many things we need to learn before we have a farm (our ultimate family goal) one of them is how to make butter...and he thought of one little activity we could do together to bring us into an active role of trying to be our best selves.

No apologies needed after that.

So everyone stopped what they were doing and made butter together for the very first time.

Then the kids convinced Jon to pull out his saxophone (for the first time in TWENTY YEARS!) and show them how it worked. And for the next hour we took turns blowing on it, dancing to it and generally just laughing.

We also sprouted something new...lentils.

And made some more bread to go with our butter.

Mary Sumner speaks to my soul

Who speaks to yours?

2013: Family Goals Project

I love the New Year. No offense to Christmas, I love Christmas. But I also love when it's over. I'm usually ready for a return to the routine, and to refocusing on what's important.

This year we have decided to focus on setting our family goals. After years of reading articles about finding your parachute and 7 daily habits and all of that...I've decided to put the knowledge to practical use. We are going to make our way through 2013 (and hopefully 2014-the rest of our lives) with the goal of improving ourselves as individuals by improving ourselves as a family.

I first encountered this idea of unity goal setting 10 years ago during a 3-day Franklin Covey seminar at work. At the end of the three days we were charged with writing the Mission, Vision and Value Statements for our company. It didn't mean much to me at the time (because I was 24 and couldn't have cared less), but I see now how having a singular mission for a group of people can help keep your goals focused and ever-present.

To kick off this project we started by doing a family vision drawing. This came from the Families With a Purpose Blog, specifically from their 31 days to Fresh Starts calendar, which divides a bunch of these activities (and others) into easily planned daily chunks. Some are as simple as cleaning out a closet, others more time consuming, like creating your Mission Statement.

The question was posed: draw a picture of your ideal family life. (Our future, our goal, our vision...our heart and soul) We cleared the table, and sat down with hot tea, blank paper and colored pencils to begin our evening's journey.

There were laughs and stories and silliness. All in all, it was a pretty perfect night. Our family vision pictures came out nearly as I would have expected. Farm animals, love, adventure, reading, exploring and being happy were reoccurring themes throughout almost everyone's drawing. (I am glad for that, I was little afraid that legos and Disney princesses would be more prevalent)

For the most part the kids seemed to understand that we were aiming for true happiness, not passing fancies like toys. There were a lot of grappling hooks and rockets in Luke's picture...but he swears it's because true familial happiness lies in exploration...even in outer space. And really...who can argue with that?

Next step...the family Mission Statement.