Creativity and Enthusiasm

"Enthusiasm is excitement, with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity". Bo Bennet

I love, love, love this quote!! And I wholeheartedly agree with it.

So on that note, the "pinch of creativity" took place yesterday afternoon, after rest time and before a very loooong nature walk (1 hour 15 minutes to be exact! - fun and exhausting!):

I like Saraya's ladybird!

And Elijah's sunset.

I stretched my creativity by tampering a bit with a Jamie Oliver Chicken Curry recipe - and it worked! Just added a few extra veggies, including some chopped pumpkin which gave it a nice texture and extra sweetness.

A picture of me, by Elijah! Love that I'm holding a real flower!

A picture of me, cooking, by Saraya - indeed, I feel like I'm always cooking so it's not surprising she depicts me like this ;) .....

And a banner Saraya and I made for fun the other day.

It's brightened up a bare wall spot in the children's bedroom really nicely!

The children love to get creative, and so do I. Speaking of which, I'm going to go get creative in the kitchen and do some baking while the rest of the family plays / rides bikes at the park! I've already looked through our new Math-U-See curriculum and planned math for the week. And I hope to fit in a little reading too. :) I love having the house all to myself!!

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And yes Amanda, I will share shortly the resources we are using for homeschooling this year. :)

A February Picnic

When a cool, windy February day comes along in our sunny Queensland, we can barely keep ourselves from running out of doors! Today the breeze is up, the sky is grey (again), the sun peeks through occasionally, and it's 10 degrees cooler than it was this time last week. Autumn is whispering to us, hinting that it's coming our way. *Sigh*. In short, it is a beautiful day!

The perfect day to take our morning tea and our book outside for a picnic.

We took a ball up into the paddock too, and had a good throwing / catching session. William especially loved that! And we read another chapter of our ever-faithful copy of "Little Men". I think it will just make it through this reading..... it's seriously falling apart. :( Still, it has such lovely illustrations I can't bear to use our other more modern copy! It has no illustrations at all.

Our picnic was so nice I think we'll make it a bi-weekly event, at least.

"The Sense of Beauty comes from early contact with nature". Charlotte Mason

A Bit Grey....

Today was bit grey for me.

I went to sleep feeling grey last night, and woke up feeling grey this morning. I've had lots on my mind, which effects my sleep, which of course means I wake up tired.

I went outside into the cool morning air to see the sky looking......

........... grey. It matched my mood!

Still, as a Mama you don't get to stay feeling this way for long. There is last night's grocery shopping to unpack, breakfasts to make, children to dress, dishes to wash, a husband who needs to be driven to work, children who need to be read to, listened to, and the list goes on.

So, I chose to seek peace. I prayed and I went back to the Psalms I was reading the other night, and we hooked into our day.

"My soul finds rest in God alone;

my salvation comes from him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation;

he is my fortress, I shall never be shaken". Psalm 62

I love that line - My soul finds rest in God alone. So, so true for me. Nothing else brings me the peace He does. Nothing. He IS peace!

After lessons, we headed to town to buy some fruit from the market and exchange our books at the library. How nice to have a full basket of new books, for free, to enjoy throughout our afternoon! I love love love the library.

This afternoon I did something I have found to be a lifesaver on a "grey day". I set up activities around the table, so the children can pick and choose what they want to do, cycling around as they complete/finish with an activity. Somehow everything looks so appealing when it's all laid out for you!

Eating bananas as you go is optional ;)

I also set up some coloured water-play on the verandah........

.......... which all the children chose as their first activity.

Elijah put on a puppet show for us, and Saraya was let loose in the garden with my camera:

See how big Marigold is now?! She was one of our chicks just a few months ago.

Since then I have had a lovely talk on the phone with my Mum, an easy tea tonight, all three children in bed by 7pm, a glass of red wine, and some time with my husband. I feel a little less grey, and think I might just wake up feeling sunny tomorrow. :) Thank you Lord that each day is a new beginning, a new opportunity and a new start.

Thus Far

Today, thus far, has been a good one.

We played a little game called "Directing by the squares" for our PMP (Perceptual Motor Program, not that we follow a program- for us it's basically just a planned physical activity before sitting down to do work :)); then the boys watched Playschool while Saraya and I did her literacy component, read a nature poem together, and read her Australian History lesson for this week.

I hung laundry and checked emails ........ sigh ......... I am loving having the internet back! :)

We had a morning tea break, the boys did some water play and other activities while I helped Saraya do her history follow-up activities. She's doing a great job! I'm really proud of her efforts, especially in writing which until recently was not her favourite thing to do.

I baked a banana cake with Will and Elijah while Saraya worked on a craft - I'll post pictures later. Then the kids have just been playing, riding bikes, etc. I also had them tidy their bedroom. I reorganised their bookcase because it was so messy we couldn't close the door! We had banana cake (!), sliced tomato and carrots for lunch. I also popped some popcorn, just because I felt like it.

Now the two big kids are reading on their beds while William lies in his bed having his bottle. I say 'having his bottle' because I hesitate to believe he'll have a nap these days. :( Unless he's up really early in the morning (like 5:30am), he generally doesn't nap anymore. This morning he slept until 6:30. Nice for me, just no nap today. :)

Our math curriculum finally arrived this morning. I'm happy, as we've been waiting a month for it to come. However, this quote from the Beatrix Potter biography I'm currently reading pretty much sums up how I feel about maths /arithmatic (this is an excerpt from her personal diary):

"The rules of grammer and geography are tiresome, and there is no general word to express the feelings I have always entertained towards arithmetic".

Hmmmm. So yes, arithmatic / maths is not my favourite subject either. I am a little hesitant to begin, I admit. Still, we've bought an excellent math program and will supplement with Mathletics, so I'm hoping my feelings regarding math won't rub off on my children!

When everyone gets up it will be read-aloud time (with iceblocks, on the verandah.... it's hot again today, though not as bad as yesterday) and baths before we head into town. The two older children are going to play with friends while Will and I tackle the grocery shopping.

And So You Think You Can Dance is on tonight, so I have a date with my hubby!! We love to watch it together.

So that's it, my day thus far!

A Few Glimpses.....

...... of my evening.

Today was boiling hot. I think it hit 39 degrees, and the humidity was awful too. We homeschooled. Cleaned. Washed nappies. Had friends for lunch. Went to dance class.

And then, the weather cooled (slightly), and my dear hubby came home. And he tried out the new ride-on.

Thank-you so much Petrina and Brad for the loan of yours while we financed our own. And thank-you Dad Fern for helping us with the finance part. :) We appreciate you!!

As you can see, it worked, really really really well. Stuart loves it. And so does Will, yay! Can you just spot him sitting up there with his Papa?

After photographing the mower-men and watering our poor wilted vegetable garden, and chasing the chickens away from aforementioned garden with a broom, I spotted Elijah like this.

Reading his bible in his pyjamas in the sunset. Wow. His sister soon followed suit. Honestly, I could cry when they choose to spend their free time sitting and reading their bibles. I have to say it's happening more and more lately.

I chose to follow their excellent example, and after serving out our dinner I sat here:

This is my most favourite spot in the garden to sit and soak up God's word. It's only cool enough to do so in the evenings in summer though. Oh, I can't wait for autumn!! At the moment, I'm in the Psalms. I have verses to share with you soon. I read, and watched the sun set, and the kids reading, and my biggest and littlest men mowing the grass, and my heart sang. I had been tired and hot and bothered all day until that moment of peacefulness.

And when it was getting dark and the boys came in, we all went inside to eat our dinner.

I made a big pot of vegetable pasta soup yesterday, and I'm glad. It has stretched us quite a few meals! Lunches and dinners. :) So good with ground pepper and freshly grated parmesan cheese on the top. Much to Elijah's disappointment, there's still a bit left. It's not his favourite. I'm thinking I'll give it to Stu for lunch tomorrow, and cook something fresh for tea tomorrow night. We also have baking on the agenda for tomorrow. And cleaning out the kids bedroom, top to bottom. I also need to grocery shop, and we may visit some friends in the afternoon too.

Well, I'm off to do the dishes and have a cuppa and a read.

What are your plans for tomorrow?

Shalom, friends!

Shalom indeed. Greetings. Peace. Very, very happy day! Our internet is baaaaack!!

It is fairly late at night already, so I think tonight I'll just upload lots of the photos I've taken in the last 4 weeks - many of them of my favourite subject, the children of course :) - and catch up on the more literary posts I have sitting in my head in the coming days.

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4 weeks ago the summer holidays ended, and the school / work year began.

First lesson for 2010! My sweet second-grader.

Heading out for nature study, 3 students with 3 clipboards in hand.

The two boys ditched theirs fairly quickly, but Saraya completed her discovery sheet and we all had fun searching for cicadas in the trees around the dam.

This is the children quite a way away from the house (that's our side neighbour in the distance); I am standing on the verandah and have the camera fully zoomed in. What are they doing? Working on our fun "mud patch" of course!!! Shovels, diggers, buckets, lots of little tiny toys, teapots, saucepans, bore water running ...... and MUD.

And this was how they looked an hour or so later. I had to clean the bath after I had cleaned them!

I still think they're adorable, even covered in mud.

But they're not allowed to paint themselves in mud again without asking first. :|

Saraya's history course required her to try making Adam and Eve out of playdough - to see how difficult it is to make people from scratch. And of course these ones don't even breathe, or have skin or hair or internal organs. She found it amusing that she had to take a bit of Adam's rib out to make Eve!

This is a really tricky puzzle - which Elijah completed independently during his rest time. He was SO excited he came rushing into my bedroom to tell me!!

We made a musical hopscotch to help learn the names of the notes on the piano.

We learned about octaves. And what comes before / after any given note.

The children really liked this activity. They keep asking to do it again.

I have started teaching both the older children piano. This is absolutely delightful fun - when William isn't trying to "help". Which he most often does. I'm thinking we may do piano lessons on weekends.

We've baked cookies (and numerous other things....)

The horse and two ponies who live in the paddock behind our house have been coming up to the fence, much to the children's excitement! It's good. It's like having horses without actually having to look after them. :)

Something new we're discovering about Will - he loves anything with a motor. He wanders out at random times and just sits on the ride-on mower, pretending to drive it. Complete with sound effects.

We've had fun doing some hands-on learning as well as book work ...... this picture is our little ice-creation after learning about the Ice Age. We were learning how the ice created bridges between some countries / islands. The lego men were explorers!

We made a mini greenhouse to demonstrate evaporation / condensation.

Can you see Saraya? In the distance? On her bike? In her undies?

Yep, that's her. And if you come visit you're bound to find her, just like that at some point on any given day. She's loving riding her bike!!! Such freedom!

William has taken a real interest in duplo play lately. Here he and Elijah are working on a construction together.

Sitting in the car on our way to the children's first dance class for 2010. So nice they can dance in the same class!! It's going well so far.

We found an idea for handmade bookmarks in one of Saraya's craft books. Both the older children made one for my Mum as a birthday gift. I was really proud of their efforts!

I did help Elijah a little bit drawing his whale. But the colouring is all his own.

As is her want, Saraya used all her free time for the remainder of that day to continue making bookmarks ....... lots and lots of them. Most of them she's planning as gifts for various friends. Oh boy that girl loves to craft!

We baked a cake for Mum's birthday - and had a great weekend away by the way!

Elijah has taken a real interest in letters / word formation recently. Here he is building words with our duplo letter blocks. Fun!

This is often how our table looks by lunchtime during the week. Hmmm. There's always lots going on. Great that with 3 of us tidying up it only takes a few minutes even though it looks bad!

I found this sweet boy sitting in my laundry basket after I had just loaded the laundry into the machine. Yes, he still loves his bottle. Very, very much....

And that is it. Phew!! I forgot how long it takes to blog. Wow. I just wanted to upload and caption some photos and I've been sitting here for an hour and a half!

I also notice that I've written a very homeschooling-focused post. I promise I've got lots of other things I want to share - it just so happens that most (okay, all..) of my photos are of the children doing something. So nice to be able to blog again. To share, to write again! Can't wait to catch up on all that lost time!!

Blessings! xx

I'm Still Here Friends.....

Please don't give up on me! I have this awful feeling that once our internet is back up and running, everyone will have forgotten me. :( I promise, I will be back soon!!!

That's right, still no internet. And no promise of internet until the end of this coming week. *Sigh*. Once again we are spending our Sunday afternoon visiting Stuart's work - he is hanging kid's art and doing some paperwork, the children are playing and I am using the beloved internet. :)

On a positive note, this week has been a good one. Lots of learning done, gardening, cooking and baking and having friends visit, and reading, and cuddling babies and letter-writing, and dancing! Elijah has decided to dip out of tap, but Saraya loved it. And they both enjoyed their contemporary class. Stuart and I learned the first 30 seconds or so of our first routine - we are dancing to "Don't Rain on My Parade" which is one of our favourite show songs!! We have shiny silver top hats, and it's too fun to only do once a week! :) Still, it certainly gives me something to look forward to. I woke up very sore on Friday and Saturday.... then proceeded to mow all the grass down one side of the house, the front lawn and the orchard. Hmmm. But now I feel really good!! Stu has spent about 6 hours this weekend on a borrowed ride-on lawn mower too, and our grass is looking so much better. It was waist high in places. :( We should be getting our own ride-on soon. :)

I finished reading The Tale of Two Cities and have moved on to Anne of Ingleside (one of my favourites) as a nice, lighter contrast. :) I have been given a few books by friends lately too, so the reading will continue in lieu of the internet!


We had a wonderful surprise visit from my Mum and step-dad Ray yesterday which was SO nice!! Because they live 3 hours away we don't see them all that often, and certainly never spontaneously. It was very exciting. We had a nice lunch and then sat around drinking coffee and tea on the verandah (and eating passionfruit slice and chocolate brownies!) and talking for a few hours before they headed home. And next weekend is Mum's birthday so we'll be seeing them again then, hooray! :) Saraya has been crafting up a storm for Mum lately (lots of gifts) - I'll have to blog about them sometime.

I have so so so so so many photos to upload - will I ever catch up?!? I'm looking forward to sharing them soon.

Would you join me in continuing to pray for Kimmie and her family? You may remember I blogged about beautiful Kimmie last year. She and her husband have adopted 6 children, and they are getting ready to bring home another daughter from Ethiopia. Please pray that the funds they need will come through successfully, and on time! And pray for peace and trust too.

I have had a lovely time checking in on all your blogs. I miss you very much, and look forward to sharing more with you again soon.

Much love,

Saminda xo

Disconnected from the world...

..... is how I feel without the internet! It's a sad, sorry state to be in. :) I am currently spending my Sunday morning in Stuart's office while he does some work in his prep room and the kids all play. I am loving catching up on everyone's news - I've missed you all SO much!!

Our internet should be back on sometime this week, hopefully. We've had some major troubles with service providers - I won't go into details, but it's been very frustrating. Blogging is such a release for me; it's my favourite way of recording and reflecting what's on my heart and what's happening in my family life. I have been doing lots of journalling in the absence of blogging, which has been nice too - but still, I've missed blogging!

I thought while I'm here I'd do a bit of a dot-point update post... I can't upload photos, and don't have much time, so this will be brief! I'll do a proper catch-up post once our net is back up.
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* The past fortnight has been a happy one in our home. Lots going on but happy!

* Stuart is back to work with a whole new bunch of little Prep children. He's had a busy couple of weeks, is enjoying work and throwing himself back into it with his usual gusto. :) I've missed him; the holidays were really really nice and it's been an adjustment having him physically and mentally absent for most of the week. He's a great teacher though. :) And we are making a point of keeping Friday nights aside for cups of tea and a chat and sometimes a movie. We're also keeping our weekends fairly free which is allowing for lots of family time.

* We have finished our first 2 weeks of homeschooling, and so far so good! I am slowly working out the best way to shape our day to maximise learning times, playtimes, rest times etc. and still get the house work done I want to achieve! We're getting there.

* Saraya is an enthusiastic learner. I have chosen our curriculum based on things I knew would appeal to her, and it does. Which is great. She has said that weekends are now boring because we don't do any school work. :) She's also pulled her work out independently on the weekends, just for fun. This makes me very very happy, and I'm thrilled with how hard she is applying herself during her lessons. Hoping her enthusiasm will continue throughout the year!

* The challenges I thought I might have with Will during our lesson times have been there - but some days better than others. I'm learning what works and what doesn't, when to do certain things and when not to bother! He is learning too that I'm not always available to him. I'm making deliberate times in the day for play with him, and with Elijah too. Trying to meet all their varying needs is my biggest goal at the moment - a big one, I know, and one I won't meet all the time. But it's a goal. And we're working together to get there!

* So far we are studying literacy- copywork, handwriting, grammer/spelling, oral dictation, story-writing etc., world history, nature study, music theory and beginning piano (Elijah too), and reading lots and lots and lots. The children have an hour of independent reading and quiet play on their beds while William naps each day (I read too during this time!). Saraya is really enjoying Beattrix Potter at the moment. We watched Miss Potter together last week - this is a great film! We are re-reading Little Men as our chapter book; Saraya is enjoying it more than ELijah, but he's getting more into it as we go. This is a GREAT book!! Our math curriculum should arrive this week.

* For my own reading I finished Sense and Sensibility recently and while I was in the zone of the classic old english style, I decided to read The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It's been such an intriguing story!! Wish I wasn't so tired at rest time/ night time - I might get more read then. :) I tend to fall asleep after a few pages.

* We've had more hot days, and more rain in between them. The rain is wonderful. The hot days, not so much. :)

* Things are growing in the garden. The fruit trees I planted in January seem to all be doing well, and the vegetable patch has seedlings popping up everywhere! Just walking through our little orchard makes me very very happy.

* Dance classes start up again this week. This also makes me happy. :) I'm out of shape and in desperate need of some regular exercise again. Plus the creative side of dance is something I look forward to. Saraya and ELijah are both going to be doing Contemporary dance (this is a technical, lyrical style) on Tuesday afternoons, and Tap dancing on Thursday afternoons. SO excited to see Elijah start his dance career!! I know I'm biased, but that boy is just born to dance, wait and see. :) Stuart and I are going to do Contemporary together again, on a Thursday evening. Which makes Thursday our big dance day. :) I also do markets (and fortnightly the kids and I will do the markets and book library) on a Thursday morning - quite a big day! But a fun one. Mondays and Fridays are completely at-home days - Stu takes the car, so we can't go anywhere!! To be honest, these are probably our favourite days.

* Our singing group Vivace Voices is getting together next week too, to work out goals for the year / when we will rehearse each week etc. Looking forward to getting together with those guys again too.

* Stu and I are both making some creative plans towards our Eisteddfod performances this year as well. We've chosen most of our songs and are actually already excited for August to arrive! I was telling the children the other day how I started singing in eisteddfods when I was 7 years old, which prompted Saraya to say that she would like to do the eisteddfod this year too. This is another thing to work towards and look forward to. Time to pull out all my boxes of sheet music....

* I've been enjoying some old-fashioned letter writing this past week. Watching movies such as Miss Potter, set in the era I so wish I was born in, tends to affect my behaviour. :) Journal-writing late at night by candlelight, wearing my long white nightie, seated at my antique writing desk, cup of tea by my paper.... yes, this is a real picture of my evenings last week. :) *Sigh*. I have a new friend in my life, a kindred spirit, a dear soul whose heart has captured mine - and she too loves all these sweet simplicities. :) So, we've been corresponding by letter even though we only live 20 minutes apart. :) It's been really nice. Of course, when you write these letters you simply must end them with "Yours affectionately"...... :D

* All in all, I'm exhausted and buzzing and very very content right now. :) The tiredness which comes upon me each night is a happy sort of tiredness, knowing I'm sitting where God wants me to be. I'm leading the little hearts He has given me, I'm tending the home and garden He has given me, I feel the overwhelming grace and forgiveness and love He has for me, each and every day. I so desire for all I do to bring glory to Him. I yearn to spread Jesus' love to all I meet. He is so good to me, and can hardly breathe some days for the joy which overwhelms me. Through all the daily struggles and challenges, for the times I want to hide in the bathroom out of desperation for 5 minutes peace (!), He is beside me and I am so aware of Him. I am grateful.

Well dear friends, I miss you and pray for you often, and cannot wait to be officially BACK!! Thank you for all your sweet thoughts and messages. :)

Much love,
Saminda xoxoxo