Exploration Boxes

As I try my hardest to bring about a greater sense of rythmn to our days, I have been looking back to my roots of teaching. There are so many things that I love/loved about my chosen profession, and the biggest thing was the kids and how they responded so well to the planned and unplanned learning opportunities that we had together. Now as Ben and I enter harder parenting terrain with an incredibly smart little boy, we are in need of more ideas to occupy our days. Being winter and not able to get outside as much (we still try every day!), I was happy to know that the Urbana Free Library once again saves me.

I recently discovered the exploration boxes at the library. I checked out the gardening/growing one to help us anticipate a little bit of what will happen in the spring.

The box is filled with toys and books. I made a huge deal about bringing it home, set it within eyes view, but out of hands reach and ceremoniously took it out with River was napping, so that Asher could have some good exploration time with it on his own. He loved it. He loves that it is like going to school- learning with new materials. He loves that it is something special. River eventually joined in on the fun and got to eat the garden tools. We have read all the books and now the box is part of Asher's day. He wants to do the same thing, make a farm.
With a wooden block fence to keep out the rabbits and raccoons. He calls himself the farmer and whoever (boy or girl) playing with him, wife. Today he was growing flowers for our wedding. The farm is carefully planted each day.
and then harvested into buckets.Cauliflower Harvest
and then of course the harvests are put into the delivery truck.
Which Asher drives to the kitchen and delivers to papa who is normally cooking at this hour of play.

Of course this play has me thinking of how I can needle felt something similar and make a garden play mat for his birthday. I love these kinds of plans.

Into the Woods:: 1/18

We did hit the woods last Thursday on our regularly scheduled day, and wow it was amazingly beautiful. I went to take a first picture on that day and was very sad to discover that my memory card wasn't in the darn thing:(

So what else is there to do in town with kids on MLK day? The woods are always open. Luckily we were joined by some friends that answered my last minute playgroup plea.
Asher cracked ice with sticks.
River hung out in the usual place.
We found the evidence of what we expect was an unexpected fall into the ice for someone. Not something I would want to happen to me, be careful of thin ice.
Leaves refusing to decompose.
Our favorite seahorse surviving the cold.
Deer Scat: I was so happy to see this. We have a lot of talks about poop here on a daily basis, asher reads our big field guide to animal tracks while he poops on the potty and when he finishes he declares what kind of animal he is. He had bear and fox scat yesterday. Plus with all the deer in Busey Woods I never see the poop.
Osage Orange parts showing off their color.

Tarzan style swinging from a vine.

And Icicles. There was a lot of snow/icicle consumption on the trip. I think asher really got a big immune system boost with all the dirt particles he consumed.

But who could deny someone such simple pleasure? (rhetorical question, I actually know the answer.)

Little Bits

I got to have a little fun over the holidays and use some little bits of fabric scraps from my unfinished wall hanging to cover up a bit of our new computer desk. The desk is nothing fancy, a craigs list find, but with the hard drive on the floor it was a baby magnet, so I made a cover that velcros in place, letting us access the printer and hard drive easily while keeping it hidden. River has shown some interest and likes the sound of the velcro, but for the most part it is working great.

While we are now officially a tv free family, we do like to enjoy a movie every once in a while. Ben and I got to enjoy a lot while Asher was with my mom and River slept- it was so relaxing and enjoyable after a dry spell.

I also fashioned a cover for the computer moniter, because, really who wants to spend a lot of time looking at it?

11 Months!!

The youngest member of our family is getting ready for a pretty special celebration. We are really looking forward to all of our family coming into town, but for now we are trying to focus on what this little guy is up to at 11 months.

Walking, walking, walking... he is all over the place though he will crawl if he needs to make a beeline for anything in particular. He also is standing himself up in the middle of the room.

Most interesting is his new obsession with the alphabet song. Ben always signs it to him, and for the past couple of weeks I swear I heard him say "H, I, J, K" now he does that tune while moving his fingers trying to sign the letters. I am shocked with how recognizable the tune is for me, as I feel Asher is just now really carrying a tune well.

He signs for more, is pointing more and more, saying hi-when he feels like it, bye as well. Is finally discovering his fondness for books. Loves things with wheels, nursing and food.

Bacon

Ben did a silly thing over a year ago, he got rid of our old oven that we had fashioned into a smoker that totally rocked the meat world in our home. We used to sit on the driveway and have that thing running with some good 'ol bbq ribs and I really think it is how we met the majority of our neighbors. On the thought of no longer looking ghetto now that we are parents and all, and Ben's desire to rid our home of things that we don't need, the oven left the property. Silly boy though, we don't have surplus cash to buy an actual smoker, and I don't know if our home can survive without Bacon, we were stuck in a not so good place until push came to shove and the trash can smoker in Ben's head became a reality.

A trash can re-purposed from housing chicken feed from all those years ago when Ben did his master's research. A bought electric hot plate, some metal cutting screws, duck tape and old shelving and the Lubchansky's are back in Bacon for the cost of a belly from the Moore's and the $5 hotplate and oh so far from being trashy!!

Into the Woods:: 1/7

Thought the snow and freezing temperatures tried to keep us out, we were able to ditch our baby with the papa and have a solo mama/boyo outing adventure in the snow.Kicking the powdery stuff, so fun.Carefully climbing down the stairs, thank goodness some kind Urbana Park District Staff had shoveled all the way across the bridge! (Asher totally had a face plant on the last step after I turned my back from taking pictures of him, good recovery though: brushed off all the snow inside his coat via the neck and were on our way.)While you may have thought this was the face plant instead it is Asher as a Fox.Trudging through the snow. It was very powdery, but the kid is pretty short, so snow to height ratio made for some tough walking.

The quiet of the sun shining. I really love winter in the woods after a snow fall.

All the winter plants catching it's beauty.

And nothing is better than extremely watered down warm chocolate after the trudge. Except for a special mama made mint echinacea tea, which we had four cups of. Only 2 inches of sugary substance- hooray for Asher's good choices.

And papa cardinal galore- while mama had a little time to knit.

I could do this everyday. I am so happy that we got some snow. Not so thrilled that R has gotten some sort of bug, he was throwing up this morning into the afternoon, but appears to be on the mend. I hope the echinacea boost at the nature center helps the rest of us.

Wee Gifties

I finally made some soap again. I haven't gotten the lye out since before I was pregnant with Asher. Why does anyone buy soap, I mean besides the obvious reason of not knowing how? It is so so so easy... my soap making life was changed by this book.

For reals all you do is melt the solid oils, mix it with the liquid ones in a crock pot and then with a stick blender, blend in your lye/water mixer until is traces. Cook for one hour, add essential oils if you like, throw it in a mold, wait (the hardest part) 8 hours and cut. I dried mine in back of the woodstove for a couple of weeks as the bars were a little softer than I found to be ideal, but that wasn't necessary.

No more are the days of stirring the mixture for what feels like foreve with a wooden spoon until it traces. And I am very happy to say farewell to the waiting 6 weeks for all of the lye to saponify and the fear that there may be some lingering, just lying in waiting to burn an unintended gift recipient. I was happy to get so many bars out of two batches and stock up a year worth of supplies for our family as well as hit all the family members with a bar.

Yarn Dyeing

As I geared up to make the boys solstice sweaters, the crazy notion popped into my brain to buy a bare washable merino for A's wallaby.

As I have little time to begin with, this really wasn't a rational thought- not that many of my thoughts are these days- but it was sooo easy and I was pretty proud of my first attempt. Granted it isn't streaky and variable like some beautiful yarns out there. It is a solid blue, I am but still happy. I just wish that someone would have told me how to keep it from becoming a freaking rat's nest as it cooked away. I have at least untangled one skein- 3 to go!!! Yikes, really that is no fun and I thought about it as I dipped the yarn in, but darn it, I was just too excited to get the color on the yarn to worry about it user friendliness.

Do try this yourself if you have been thinking about it: buy dye, dump into water.

Stir, add yarn.Bring temperature up slowly to just under boiling and cook for 30 minutes.

Let cool overnight and drain and rinse. I didn't have to rinse much though as the water that was pouring off was amazingly clear!Dry and then ball up- still working on that. I will post my beautiful balls of yarn when they are ready, but I need a couple more movies to get to that point.

Fun with One Kid

We were so lucky again this year to have some Asher free time. We love him, really, but we can't get all that much done with an active two year old tagging along. Plus River really needed some center stage attention of his own. This sequence of pictures was almost to much for us. He loved the spinach soup that the Food Nanny whipped up last week.

He also mastered walking without his brother around to "accidentally" knock him over.

Plus the signing and saying, "hi." Oh he is a ball of fun. And we are counting down: 6 weeks until the number one birthday! This final picture, really just a babe? He looks like an aging man.

Happy New Year

Quickie post as I need to resume with blogging.

I am thrilled to enter a new year, while I know that life doesn't just change with a single day, this past year has been considerably a bigger challenge than most of my other years... I am happy to have it behind me and look forward to the days of juggling two kids and a home based business becoming more familiar and dare I say routine? We are searching for our daily rhythm and I am thinking we may be on to something.

Back soon with pictures and a lot more rambling.