Walking the lights

we went and walked the lights at the botanical garden tonight, had faces painted, drank hot chocolate, braved the cold. itis nice to enjoy lights not inside the car. we also went this year and drove around twickinham with the luminaries. the doorways are my favorite with the greenery and especially the ones that put fruit over the doorways....yummy to look at!

Thanksgiving

celebrated a lovely meal with all my family and all michael's family, it was nice and fun to all get ready for this day together, the tables, the food......delicious turkey by kurt from mountain fork farms, i recommend brining a turkey it makes an amazing difference and i am so happy we have some for the freezer! We read again the book 1628 about the real story of Thanksgiving. There is so much to be thankful for, even that alex got sick today, we can find thankfulness in that, that we are here to comfort him, that his body has an immune system to make him better. Mostly i am thankful right now for TIME, and for the knowledge that it is a gift and I am thankful to know that in my heart and try to live every moment for we never know how many moments we have left....if you are reading this, you have touched my life and i am thankful for you! Happy Thanksgiving......KT

Last Leaf Pile

Wow! we got a family photo! Here is the last leaf pile of the year. It was massive in the backyard. The kids have been jumping in it with goggles on, to "see" through the leaves. Luckily it has been dry so it has stayed playable a while. Jumping in leaf piles is one of those visceral memories from childhood, i can remember the smell, the air, exactly what it felt like to be small enough to land cushioned on the leaves, what it felt like to hide inside that tiny outdoor space.....

Space Station Sighting

We got to see the space station "pass" over our house this evening. It moved very fast through the sky, just looked like a faraway plane. It came towards us from the western horizon, near the moon and the planets that you can see there this time of year, went over the house and then kind of faded suddenly into the eastern horizon as the atmosphere got too thick to see the light from it. Here is emma laying in the front yard watching it, it was COLD! We were kind of glad that it only lasted about 30 seconds!

Wake Now Discover Park Day

a friend started a yahoo group for local unschoolers and we have had several get togethers, maybe more when it gets warmer. Today we went to have a park day and it was warmish. Alex enjoyed flying his kite in the field by the park. Here is the group if anyone is interested!

Vision Boards

I finished a & e's vision boards today. This was a fun idea coming from several places at the live and learn conference. To have each family member have a board that is their vision board for their life. It is kind of anything goes, something you want to see, something you want to do, something you want to experience or feel, something you want to accomplish or make or get, etc. Owen wrote his name solo for the first time on his, Emma put a drawing she made of her riding a horse on hers, and Alex has yellowstone and the great planes r/c software on his. I can't wait to put my vision board up and work toward what I want to add to my life in the future. I don't have a picture on here of the actual "boards" but we sewed them, one side fabric and the other side chalkboard fabric. They have names and kites and animals sewn on the border. Hopefully i will finish owen's one day when he starts showing an interest in adding to it.

I Spy a Helicopter

If you look real close you can see Alex landing his orange helicopter on top of the landing area built on top of the fort they created this morning. This helicopter is quite fun to fly and is giving our r/c flyer some experience and joy flying while he can't outside and while he is wishing for that amazing software that he hopes to have someday soon to learn to fly larger r/c planes.

Thankful Turkey

Emma helped me make a leftover, but non-edible pumpkin into a centerpiece for our table for a Thanksgiving dinner that we are having everyone over for. The feather are all either cut out paper or drawn feathers. We plan to write on the pumpkin body things that we are thankful for and let others do the same.

Leftover Candy

If you have a bunch of leftover m&m candy and you just can't eat it anymore, make pancakes out of it! This is what Kurt created for us today, they have been requested many days after. He could market them in the frozen section, I think. The m&m gives it just enough sweetness that they are perfect on the go pancakes, and they happen to be GF! I can hand one to the kids if we are in the car one morning and have yummy breakfast on the go!

Costco Carriage

Inde is so patient with all this discovery she has created. She is amiable to any carry, activity around her, etc. AMAZING! Here she is in the "Costco Carriage" Emma and Owen made for her. They pulled her around the house for quite some time. Emma is doing well with her broken arm. She fell out of a dogwood tree when the branch she grabbed broke at my parents house two weeks after inde was born. Has to have it casted about 6 weeks--we are glad summer and most of our 'water' time is over. She is missing doing a lot of her drawing, and would LOVE a bath, but seems still able to create with paints and window art without to much trouble. We are glad she wasn't hurt more and know in a few weeks she will hardly remember it.

Late Leaf Hike

We went on a late afternoon hike to enjoy the final leaves. They seem to be really late completing their fall this year. This was behind the house, so we all went, even Major whose hiking is limited by his legs these days. Found some gorgeous reds and oranges, you could smell the chill of winter coming in the air. The kids enjoyed climbing fallen trees and the cliff area.

Snacking on Eyeballs

From this book we have, titled something like gross things to make eat and do, the kids decided to make eyeball drinks this evening. They really did look like bloody eyeballs floating in battery acid, get your selves some marshmallows, some toothpicks to hold them up, some tootsie roll pieces for eye centers, and some red food coloring for vein lines, YUM! Emma widened her eyes each time she took sip, we told her to be careful she might lose an eyeball if she opened those eyes any wider!

From High Green to Blue

Alex and Kurt both tested for their blue belts today, kurt in TKD and Yong Moo Do, alex just in TKD. I finally got a pretty good action shot of the board break. Each test has board breaks that they have to do in different ways. I enjoyed seeing Kurt do the Yong Moo Do test, the running rolls are spectacular. Afterwards we celebrated at Red Robin with lunch. Emma had tried TKD for a couple of weeks, and then decided she didn't want to continue, Owen is still on the fence. It is fun to watch them each experiment with things and find the things they love and the things they just want to try on for size.

One of last Bonfires

This is one of our last bonfires of the year, it is just getting too cold! Owen is adept enough now to do the sticks in the fire and smoke them around the yard like he has been watching alex and emma do for years. I loved how he watched and tended the fire tonight. He kept roasting others of us marshmallows, "just like you like it momma..."

Experimenting

This is a gift Alex got from a friend that the kids experimented with today. It is hard to tell from the photo, but the "balloon" is about ten or more feet long. It is very light and sensitive to the warmth of the sun. As the kids had it in the sun it rose like a blimp, as it would hit a shady spot it sank. They enjoyed experimenting with it around the yard, and Alex kept it out of the trees, amazingly, he has a running joke about getting everything he flies either in a tree or in a body of water!