Pumpkins!

On the day after Halloween, Isaac and I made a quick trip to Lowe's, looking for a couple of things for a science project, and he found some little pie pumpkins in the gardening section. He really wanted to make them into pumpkin pies, or so he told me. I agreed to buy two of them, and he came home a very happy boy.

When we got home, he informed me he wanted to carve the pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns. That was not in my game plan for the day, so we compromised on him drawing faces on the pumpkins with marker. He got Abbie to help them, and they had a great time with their faces. I'll leave it to you to determine which child drew which face.

As soon as they were done, Isaac was instantly ready to carve the pumpkins. Do you know what he brought out for us to use? His child-safe knives, and children's bowls and spoons from Ikea. Bless him, he did, in fact, carve his own pumpkin with his little knife (to which he referred as his "chainsaw").  I was impressed by his perseverance and results! (I did have a larger knife and bowl for my own use, as well as a real spoon. Cowardly of me, I know.)

We both sat out on the driveway and carved our pumpkins. Isaac wasn't at all grossed out by the pumpkin guts, which was nice, because my girls have been known to be squeamish. He helped me get all the seeds out, too, without complaint. He did let me take over and finish up his pumpkin towards the end, and I was glad he did, because he was busily cutting it into rather small pieces, and the instructions I had said to cut the pumpkins in half to bake them.

Once the pumpkins were baked, I ran the flesh through a Foley food mill so we'd have puree for pies. Isaac was very clear that we would be making pies from our pumpkin, not muffins, bread, or cookies.

I had never cooked pumpkins before, and honestly, had never been inspired to try. This was fun, though, and even though it was a bit labor-intensive, I'm glad Isaac talked me in to getting the pumpkins. We ended up with lots of seeds for roasting, and about 3 cups of pumpkin puree after all was said and done. I'll try to remember to post pictures of the pies when we bake them.

One more picture: one of our kittens, Percy, decided he REALLY likes cooked pumpkin! He begged for it, and even growled at the other kitten when she came over to see what he was eating, in case she was missing out. She sniffed it and quickly backed away as if offended by the odor, and Percy was left to finish it all by himself. I have had cats who would eat some strange things, but pumpkin was a first! Perhaps it's because he's a pumpkin-colored cat?

Those Crazy Children

Go outside, I said.

Play with your brother, I said.

What did they do? They colored themselves blue.

Even the dog didn't escape unscathed.

"Fun" with Worms

We love the Muppet show, and have most of it on DVD. While I was sick for a week or so, my children watched far too much television, and one of the things they watched was the episode with Harry Belafonte (because it followed the one with Elton John). I know this doesn't sound like it has much to do with worms, but bear with me.

When Mr. Belafonte sings the Banana Boat Song (Day-O) with the Muppets, he has to take a break in the middle and reassure them they do not need to worry about the spider he sang about. (One verse says, "A beautiful bunch o' ripe banana, hide the deadly black tarantula." Kinda makes you rethink eating bananas, doesn't it?)

After we watched this episode, which is lots of fun, by the way, Isaac started telling me about big tarantulas that live in our yard (!) and like to dig up worms. I wasn't feeling well, so listened with half an ear, but it seemed to satisfy him, and I didn't think any more about it. The next morning, however, he informed me that it was Worm Day! (He was quite enthusiastic about Worm Day.) His plan was to go outside and dig up worms, so we could save them from the spiders and the birds. I did not know prior to these conversations that spiders would eat worms. Heh.

We have lots of worms in our flower beds, and it makes me happy to see them there, because it means the soil is healthy. It also means we don't have to look very hard to find them. Isaac walked right over to the iris bed and began digging.

That didn't work as well as he'd hoped, so he decided to try the other direction.

At that point, I asked if he'd like a little help with the digging, and he said he might, so I stepped in. It didn't take us long to find several worms, which made Isaac happy.

I  think there were even different kinds. There were some skinny, red, very wiggly ones, and some fatter, gray, more sluggish ones. He'd brought out a little cake pan, so we put them in there at first, but then we decided to put them in a jar. We have this great book called Pets in a Jar, and it told us what to put in with the worms. The book also told us to cover the jar with some black paper Isaac found a large sheet of black craft foam. He loves craft foam. (He sleeps with a yellow sheet of craft foam right now. I have no idea why.) We were also instructed to keep the jar in a cool, dark, place, so Isaac put it in the freezer compartment of his play refrigerator. I can't see any harm coming to them there, so that's their home for the time they live with us. We're also supposed to put different kinds of food in there for them, and pay attention to what they like to eat. I'm willing to do that, but haven't had great success keeping worms alive in the house in the past, so we'll see how they do.

Today, we brought the jar out to see how the worms fared. If you want to look closely enough, you can see one of them next to the "B" on the jar. If you don't want to look that closely, that's okay too. I think it's still alive, even! It might be a record. I would love to be able to study them for a week or so and see if we can observe tunnels they make.

In Need of Hide-and-Seek Training

Isaac loves it when his Daddy is home on the weekends. He helps with whatever Todd might be doing, from laundry to house projects. He loves it best, though when Daddy can PLAY.

This afternoon, Isaac convinced Todd to play hide-and-seek. First, Todd hid behind the loveseat in the living room. When Isaac came in to find him, he looked (I thought) behind the loveseat from the left side, didn't see him, and went searching through the rest of the house. He finally came back down to the living room and looked behind the loveseat from the other side, and found Todd. Isaac cackled with triumphant glee, which sent me into fits of giggles.

Then it was Isaac's turn to hide. Todd sat with me on the couch while Isaac began searching for his hiding spot. He chose to crawl underneath the dining room table. I heard him say to his sister in the kitchen, "Don't tell Dad where I'm hiding, Abbie!" Our downstairs goes in one big circle and you can  hear each other from anywhere on the first floor. The silly boy didn't even whisper! Todd, Abbie and I were all quite entertained by this. Todd called out to Isaac, "Are you ready for me to come and find you?" Isaac replied with a cheerful "Yep!"

Hiding in the dog's crate

After Todd took his turn hiding and was found, Isaac went in search of another hiding spot. Apparently Daddy was taking too long, though, because he came out of hiding (behind the loveseat), went upstairs and asked Todd why he wasn't seeking. Todd told Isaac to come back down and hide, gave him a 10-count, and then found him trying to hide behind his train table, which sits out in the middle of the floor.

Then it was Todd's turn, and he high-tailed it upstairs to hide. Isaac giggled loudly when he found Daddy again, and then said, "OK! My turn!" and began to count, "One, two, three,"  then remembered he was supposed to be hiding - "Oh, wait!" -  and ran off.

The last time Todd hid, he covered himself with an afghan next to me on the couch. Subtle, right? Isaac did look around for a bit before he noticed the giant blue-and-yellow giggling lump, though. He said, "Oh, what is that big lump on the couch? I think I'll check it out. Hello, Fodder!"

Best quote of the day: "PUT YOUR HANDS UP!" when Isaac found Todd in the office. :-D

Isaac doesn't quite get the concept of hiding. At least, he doesn't seem to understand how not to give himself away. He counted, loudly, for Todd several times to make sure Daddy "sought" in a timely fashion. He will figure it out eventually, but he provides us with a lot of entertainment in the meantime. What a great afternoon activity for this rainy day!

Sweet Summertime

I've seen lots of posts lately about what people do to keep their children busy during the summer. Since kids who go to school are done for the year, and most homeschoolers try to finish up their curriculum and have summers off too, there are lots of great ideas out there for fun activities you can enjoy with your children.

Here's the thing though - I just spent the entire school year driving my children hither and yon to activities, usually 5 days per week. We were busy ALL THE TIME. I'm really OK with just hanging around home for the most part, especially because it's so hot here in North Carolina. Also, we do go on vacation, so it's not like we do NOTHING.

We make our own fun, though. We have had a lot of rain over the last few weeks, and the kids have been having fun dancing in it. Even Grandma got in on the action when she was visiting, and Todd's always open to running amok with the kids:

Don't you love Isaac's rain outfit?

We've also been watching the butterflies on our butterfly bush by the front porch:

I know we have a tiger swallowtail (upper left) and a black swallowtail (lower right). I *think* the one in the lower left corner is a hoary edge. This one's pretty rough looking, but it is the only picture I found that comes close to what it looks like. It also kept its wings determinedly together while I was getting the picture, so I don't know what it looks like when it spreads them. The one in the upper right corner? No idea. I thought it was a Painted Lady or perhaps an American Lady, but it doesn't look like the pictures I found. If you know, would you tell me? 

I felt inspired, looking through pictures of butterflies we might find in North Carolina, to start paying more attention to the ones we see and start keeping a record. I might also try to plant more flowers to attract them, after reading about what different types of butterflies like to eat. That might be a project for fall, getting some new plants to attract butterflies, and then seeing what we get in the spring.

Isaac chose three tomato plants at the grocery store this summer, and he's been taking excellent care of them. This week, we had our first ripe grape tomatoes! He was delighted. We only had five, so Isaac got two and the girls and I each had one (Daddy doesn't like tomatoes, so we didn't save one for him) and they were delicious. There's quite a difference between home-grown tomatoes and store-bought, yes?

The girls entertained themselves one afternoon by trying to color Isaac's hair blue using sidewalk chalk:

Note they didn't want to color their own hair. Good thing their brother is pretty easy going when it comes to playing with his sisters!

So, we're not entirely bored around here. Somewhere, I have a nifty little book, sent to me by my friend Jenn, called something like, 101 things to do to be the most fun mom ever, or something like that. There were some neat ideas in there, so if I can find that, I'd like to try some. We also have some cool art projects coming up. And last, but not least, my darling girls are still finishing up their school work!

What are your favorite summertime things to do? I will post more, if I find anything especially fun, and simple. (Simple is good. I can do simple.)

You know your children are schooled at home when...

My girls have been taking their end-of-year tests this week. It's been fairly entertaining for me. You can tell we've not done much standardized testing - in the past, they've taken the Woodcock-Johnson test, which is nothing like the fill-in-the-bubble kind they took this year.

Yesterday, I saw Abbie come out and get her iPad. I asked, "Are you done with your test, Sweetie?"

She said, "No, I need to look up what 'perpendicular' means."

I got to explain that if she doesn't know something, that's fine, but she can't look things up while she's taking the test. She was not amused.

Today, I heard the girls talking and went in to tell them they needed to be quiet.

"Emma's just explaining how to factor and cancel," says Abbie.

I tried very hard to keep a straight face, and told them they are not allowed to help each other on their tests, either. The looks they gave me were priceless - they were aghast. Emma informed me that she is against testing. If she only knew, right?

Isaac wants to spend lots of time outdoors, and I'm trying to make sure he can do that as much as possible, which means I get to go, too. This is not my favorite time of year for out-of-doors adventures, but it's not as hot and humid now as it's going to be in July and August, so I go. This morning, he wanted to dig up the dirt where our little pool used to be, because he has a plan to lay a foundation with our friend Jeremy. (Jeremy is an adult friend who mulched our flower beds and has done some other landscaping for us, and he let Isaac help him. He's always amused by the plans Isaac makes for them.)

Then, we had to go explore "The Woods." "The Woods" are a small line of trees and brush between our house and the neighbors. We had a dead tree fall across our driveway last week, so he wanted to go look for more dead trees. Then he found a small, gnarled dogwood tree with a really big vine crawling up through it, and discovered he could sort of climb it. This afternoon, we got to go back out and look for more climbing trees. Alas, we don't have any that are good for climbing. Poor boy. He worked hard to climb what we have, though!

WhenI told him it was time to come in, he asked if we could please do "just one more thing." He wanted to go on a nature walk. I agreed. He said, "You know, Mom, part of a nature walk is finding out what things are." Yes, son, I know this. I thought he might want to identify things and was debating running in for an insect book when he said, "Oh, look, this is a stick. And look over here! Another stick!" We spent a few minutes finding interesting sticks and even found one that looks like a gun. He said, "This was the best nature walk, EVER!"