What have we been up to??

When things are pretty quiet on this blog it usually means we've been up to a lot, and there just aren't enough moments in the day to give us the time to keep up here! And when Momma (me) gets the time at the end of the day while Nick's playing with the kids, Momma is reading and resting. But, for those of you who want to know what we've been up to, here's a synopsis:

The kids have been enjoying all the winter snow, and we even had a day where we went "sleuthing" around the backyard, using high tech detective skills (animal track identification) to see what creatures had been romping around back there and what they must have been doing.

This included a pack of dogs--or could they be coyotes, heading back to the fields from a night time hunt through the neigborhood. We determined that that was the most plausible explanation.

We also noticed numerous bird tracks, we're talking hundreds here, that were lingering around where the cow had been weeks ago. We were quite stumped as to why. They hadn't been where her food was, they were where, ahem, where she used the bathroom.

We also noticed that a stranger (neighbor kid) had been lurking back there. If these neighbor kids weren't so great we might have been disturbed.

Savannah and I (Liam gets bits and pieces) have been enjoying delving into the Little House on the Prairie books. Such a wonderful childhood classic. She really gets into it (so do I) and what's neat is that our family has actually done some of the old techniques that they do in the book.

Savannah is continuing her "learning to read" adventure, which includes us reading lots of books together, working together on reading workbook exercises when the rest of the house is napping, and now we are challenging her to read a set number of new words a day, whether they be on food containers, signs, toys, etc.

Liam is working on tracing workbooks, which he loves! Oh, and he's playing plenty of cars and appropriately wearing out the knees of all of his pants.

On another note, recently, by finding a listing on craigslist for free barn wood, Nick, his Dad, and brother went out to the middle of nowhere to bring back all sorts of stuff, barn wood for refurbishing, an antique Westernware vase, wagon wheels, vintage advertisements, antique windows, antique doors (we're talking skeleton key hardware here and peeling depression blue paint- the things my dreams are made of), all for free because the landowner thinks it's junk, and well, to him, it is.




While raiding the junk, Nick met a neighboring cattle farmer who is about to tear down 4 very old homesteads and gave him his card so we can raid them for all there worth, door and cabinet hardware, antique lighting, who knows? May turn out to be just a neat experience. I can't explain how much we love old things. Nick and I both sigh when we see old homes being torn down, silently hoping someone got to take advantage of the antique treasures that might be in them.






Other things that have been going on, well we went to the zoo on spring break with Nana, which just so happens to be a tradition she started with me over 20 years ago, and a tradition which we all love to keep up. The kids had so much fun...
Nana with all 3 grands, Felicity loved the baby bunny.



The kids enjoyed exploring the new children's zoo that just opened...





And then the next day, Nick and the older kids took off for a camping trip to the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge with some of our good friends and their kids (it was all Dad's and kids, they had a blast).

The kids look like they're about 2 inches away from a dangerous fall.
"Wait for ME!" says Liam.
The dam.

The campsite at breakfast- they look like they are having sooo much fun here!
Ready for the days adventures with Savannah's BFF Sidney.


Awesome Dad.

Liam thinks the world of little Kayman (the girl in the striped pants), when he saw her for the first time that day he said "Kayman you look beautiful". No other girl gets that kind of attention from him. We've warned her parents ;)



Seeing the buffalo.





That's a quick run down on some of the things we've been up to, spring weather is here and we have been enjoying it, about to get some veggies in the ground:)

Learning Encounters of the Felicity Kind...

Yes, our littlest Kittredge has been learning so much lately! Did you know she says “Uh-oh” when she drops (or throws) something? Did you also know that she says “Di Dat” for “kitty cat” every time Helios walks by? She’s also saying “Da Da” now when he walks into a room. She’s so smart- she’s not even 9 months yet!
Can you tell we’re just a *little* bit proud of her? We’ve never had a baby talk this soon. She now army crawls everywhere...
Oh, and she’s also turning into quite the feisty little spitfire. Yelling at anyone who takes her toys away, dramatically throwing toys down when she is tired of them and we keep giving them back, trembling her whole body while grunting with puckered lips to try to manipulate us into picking her up already, when honestly the baby gets held more often than either of the other two when they were her age.
Can you see her spitfiery-ness as she attacks her brother while wrestling?

This facial profile is just oozing with her spitfiery-ness.

And this picture just screams fiesty.

But she’s also so sugary sweet, and I mean sugary, deliciously sweet. She talks in sweet, breathy babbles when she’s feeling particularly content, gives us huge smiles and lunges at us when she wants us to hold her, she’s cuddly when she wants to be, loves to play with her own hair, loves playing and laughing with her big sister and brother.

Remember the picture where she was attacking her brother? Now she took a break to just talk to him.







And now she's just cuddling with him.




She is such a wonderful, unique little baby girl. We are so blessed to have her.

Glimpses

The word around here is demolition. I don't know really why or what sparked it but Nick and I went absolutley crazy these past couple of weeks with home-remodel stuff. None of it is anything extravagant or expensive, and a lot of the rebuild supplies are coming from a heap of FREE old barn wood and antique windows and doors. But really, we went crazy and currently have 3 unfinished, trashed looking projects.
But amidst the chaos, we have been playing and teaching and learning as always, which included at this time of year learning about Martin Luther King Jr., watching his speech on youtube, and following African American history. I think we were all touched when we watched his "I have a dream" speech together. It seems like we hear it so much in the background of life (radio, newsprograms, movies, almost like a song in your head) but actually sitting down and listening to it, was like hearing it for the first time with my kids.
Savannah is on the brink of reading, she is very interested and we have been focusing a lot on that, along with math and workbook activities. Liam has been working on controlling his cute little fingers while coloring with some coloring exercises.
The kids made a very complex board game with Nick complete with specific rules and playing cards. Savannah drew and colored a lot of the game board and came up with most of the rules, it's crazy and fun and actually flows like a real game. They have played it over and over with us.

More to come soon, just thought I'd share some "glimpses" of life out here latley.

Christmas 2009

Man did we have a wild Christmas!!!

We started the week out with a few Christmas crafts...

We made goodies for the animals to enjoy for Christmas.We made candy cane reindeer.



We went to a few Christmas parties.

But then all of that was forgotten when we woke up on Christmas Eve to THIS...

Can you see Nick? Heading back to the house from breaking up water for the chickens? He then proceeded to milk and take care of the cow for about 2 hours, in THIS weather!! And never complained! He's one tough daddy. It's a good thing we planned a hot chili day!



The makings of a ginormous snow drift...





And all the while THIS was going on, Nick's parents were on their way over for a Christmas Eve lunch, in a full blown prairie white out storm, all on country roads. Miraculously (thank God) they made it safe and sound. Christmas Eve lunch turned into dinner, breakfast and another lunch. There was no gettin' out round these parts. It was fun, and we stayed nice and warm inside and opened presents...

(Felicity is trying to show her Mema what she got)

The kids braved the blizzard, for about 3 minutes...

The next morning, we enjoyed a little time just us in the nook in our room upstairs, sang happy birthday to Jesus and opened up our presents by the sunrise. I didn't realize God's creation at one of its most beautiful moments was photographed during this precious time with my family...

Of course, we took some intentional photos of the sunrise, but the accidental ones took my breath away.

Then after Nick and his dad helped clear the roads, we got to make the trek to my Mom's (Nanna's) house, where we opened up presents by the sun setting over the snow and the lake. What a perfect end to the perfect day, the perfect Christmas day.

But actually, that was only the end to the kids Christmas day, because our Christmas day ended with this...2 years ago Nick and I have would have never thought we would have been milking a dairy cow on Christmas night 2009.

Our Christmas (so far) in pictures

We have really been enjoying this Christmas season! Lots of crafts, decorating inside and out, setting up the manger, Christmas cookies... Here are pictures of us decorating the tree. We have a book Called The ADVENTure of Christmas and it is what we have been doing a lot of our activities from, including decorating a tree for the animals, lessons on the origins of the Christmas tree, lights, candy canes, Santa and more. I highly recommend it if you are looking to add a little more intentional learning and celebration as you do the normal Christmas activities, and if you want to start some new traditions.My girls being silly together. Felicity loves being silly with her big sis!Our new, beautiful 1950's Tappan Doughboy stove. We love it and I've used it probably 500 times since Nick wheeled it in to the kitchen, it works great! It makes my kitchen life so much more beautiful (silly, I know!)This little beauty makes my kitchen life more beautiful, as well ;)

PJ Day at our homeschool co-op. These matching PJs were a black friday find for dirt cheap. They look so cute all dressed alike. This was the first time any of the kids have had matching outfits.

Our co-op Christmas party, complete with line dances, kids break dancing on the stage, inflatables, yummy food, the kids and parents all had a blast!This is Arabelle, she's an Ayrshire dairy cow,and yes, she IS in my backyard, and no, we don't own her. We are just cow sitting through Christmas, complete with milking her twice a day... by hand... I thought my hands were strong. Nick's been doing most of it though, which is good for my hand pain threshold. We are living in a sea of milk, which Liam appreciates. He loves his milk :)This is the Kittredge Christmas party. We all had a blast getting together with these people. We are so blessed!We have been having a lot of fun, but Christmas always brings to the forefront those who are less fortunate, and every Christmas we explain to the kids that they are truly blessed and that it is our responsibility to bless others who go without this Christmas season. The kids and I got to go shopping for some children who definitely will be without this Christmas. Savannah enjoyed learning their names and picking out what the kids would like for Christmas. We are also starting a sponsorship for a child through the ministry "4Him". I'm not trying to show off our giving here, it is certainly nothing extravagant. But giving (no matter how small) is part of our Advent activities, and in my opinion the most important thing we could do this Christmas season. We are blessed to remember and give anything to those without, no matter how big or how small ;).

From coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com

Something I had to share from Jenna at coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com I don't think anyone could have written this better. I feel a little on the "nerdy homesteader" side when I am moved by a piece such as this, but I can't help it. Move me it did, so much that I had to share. Thanks Jenna.

we're not from around here

We're not from around here. I know you see us all the time, but trust me, we're from someplace else. We may have lived our whole lives right next door to you, but we left quite some time ago. We found another place and it suits us just fine. It's not far or hard to get to. Chances are you pass it all the time when you're driving too fast to work or throwing another frozen dinner in the shopping cart. You can't get to us that way. We aren't there. We're the ones in the next aisle buying yeast, flour, sugar, and coffee. We buy provisions, not groceries. We learned that food tastes better when you grow it yourself. We started with just a few recipes then learned to chew at a trot and now the idea of Lunchables and drive-thru hamburgers makes us tilt our heads a little. We're not above them, not by a long shot, we just don't have those where we're from. Or maybe we did and forgot about them? I can't remember. It's easy to forget about such things when you hop the fence to go where we went. There just isn't a lot of shrink-wrapped circular ham there. We're from another place. It's just like yours but the naps are better. We came for a bunch of different reasons but we sort of set up shop in the same community. It's not a physical location, of course. (It's much better than that.) It's a place in our actions, our decisions, our conversations, our hope. It's a place in our hobbies, our skills, our secret desire to know what a warm egg feels like in lanolin-wet palms. It doesn't matter where we came from or who we were before, this new place kinda took us all in and showed us how to calm the hell down. What? You're confused? Oh, well, you probably saw us there and just didn't realize it. Remember when we didn't pick up the phone (even after twenty rings) because we were in the garden? Or that time we gave up a weekend to make a chicken coop? Or last Saturday when we spent the whole day at that indoor farmer's market talking to the people at the wool booth we'd never met before, but felt like we knew while you kept telling us the movie was starting in thirty minutes... That's where we left to go. Sorry we missed the previews, we were talking to our neighbors.You can spot us pretty easy. Our men aren't afraid of facial hair and our women have been known to grab goats by the horns. Our children go barefoot, so do we. We're the quieter ones, in the corner, feet propped up on a second-hand coffee table in a fourth-hand wool sweater. That's one of us, right ober there, see him? The one with the guitar slung over his back, and the black dog following his bike? See him now? He's the one with the saddle bags on the back wheel overflowing with a half bushel of tomatoes. No, he's not a tomatoes fetishist, he's canning today. He'll be eating fresh organic marinara in January pulled off the larder shelf. He'll let the black dog lick his plate when he's done. Yes, I'm sure. He's from where I'm from. We know our own. See, where we come from people aren't scared of dirt—not even mildly abashed by it. My people will spend an entire August morning with a potato patch. We'll also spend an entire October night in front of a bonfire with some home brew and guitars. My people know how to darn a sock and bake a loaf of bread. They know how to cast on and be cast away. Sure, we'll join you for dinner in a restaurant, but we'll probably opt for pasta. Where we come from food animals know what sunlight feels like and have felt grass under their hooves. We don't eat the animals from your place. We saw what they saw before they died. We're not from around here, but you'll see us everywhere. We're walking down the streets of Montreal, Chicago, Seattle, and L.A. We're waiting for a Taxi on the Lower East Side. We're mucking out the chicken coop, chatting at the farm stand, jumping on the back of our horses and riding the L. We're everywhere and right next to you all the time, but we left that place and now we're gone. None of us are going back. We thought about it. It passed.HOOOO! You should see this place. Man, it's so beautiful. I mean a Wednesday afternoon at 3:47 is fall-down-the-stairs stunning. We learned to see this. We watched the fireflies come out on the porch and missed the new CSI. Truthfully, we barely look at the television anymore. It's a side effect of the new place—there's just so much to do and we're scared if we let ourselves get distracted we'll miss the fireflies. We can only take so much tragedy, you see.And hey, this place we went to—it's yours too. To be perfectly honest we're getting a little tired waiting for you to show up. Yeah, what you heard is true. The work is hard and the hours long, but I promise it's the best quiche you'll ever taste and the coffee is wicked good. When you're ready we'll show you how to hop the fence like we did. It starts with a mason jar or a day-old chick in your palm and the roadmap kinda unfolds from there. Somewhere past the cloth diapers and the raw milk we're hanging out, yes there, over past the used trucks and beat tractors. See the bikes and carts along the barn? Keep going and you'll find us. We know when you start coming to our place you'll get it. You won't want to go either. And hey, we'll wait, because we've got another saddle in the barn. We planted an extra row of beans. We put aside a few spare jars of tomato sauce and let the hens know there's more breakfasts on the way. We'll make room. There's always a place for you at the table. (And just between you and me, If you want to get on the black dog's good side, let him lick your plate...)

If anyone out there is interested, check out her book Made from Scratch...discovering the pleasures of a handmade life by Jenna Woginrich.

Heaps of learning!

We have had soooo many learning “encounters” lately that I am overwhelmed by even trying to post some of them!
We had a geography fair 2 weeks ago and our family learned all about Jamaica, which was the county we presented. Savannah and I had already done a unit study on Jamaica for the book How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World and learned its geographic location, nearby oceans, and major crops (sugar cane, bananas).
We honored Veteran’s Day by making a war timeline that outlined ALL of the major American wars. Savannah and I sat down by our trusty map of the world and discussed the countries involved and the oceans traveled. We talked about our relatives that have fought in wars. We discussed freedom, what a civil war means, the sadness of slavery, the way the colonist treated the Native Americans. We learned about Harriet Tubman and read a story about her. What a RICH time of learning the two of us had. Now, of course I left out A LOT of the horrors of war and slavery. Savannah will unfortunately learn about those when she is ready. But she got it, in an awesome way. She learned compassion for the slaves, for the Indians. She learned that some people were brave enough to fight for it to be ended, that some were brave enough to escape and help others do the same.

When we learned more in depth information about Jamaica for our geography fair, she already knew where slaves were taken from, what ocean they crossed, and now when she sees a Jamaican in the typical dread-lock image, she knows why most of them are black (Jamaica was the most slave dependant nation in the world due to their export of sugar cane). Liam got to hand pick the other crops that grow there from our kitchen toys. We served pineapple and coffee and sugar at the fair J. We played Bob Marley all week around the house.

Savannah glued and wrote a lot of what was on our board.
They got to tape down the coins for the currency exchange from the Jamaican money that a friend gave us.

Savannah colored her own Jamaican flag and we displayed it.

That night, the kids learned a few things about some other countries, too. We ate sushi (well, the adults did) from Japan, plantains from Africa, vegemite from Australia, you get the idea.

We have been reading The Story About Ping and have been discussing Chinese culture and geography. We have flipped though a Chinese art history book, a book about children from different cultures, the geography of China, etc.


We also, coincidentally have learned everything there is to know about the King Cobra, and how it lives in China. Makes me not want to go there.

Speaking of the king cobra, we have animal fact sheets that have a wealth of information on them about each specific animal, and as you can imagine, this is Liam’s favorite subject. As we read about the cobra, the great white shark, the Nile crocodile, the bald eagle, my hand becomes the carnivorous weapon of choice for the animal being discussed and we get very…very…very into the devouring tendencies of the animals. It sounds incredibly gory but the kids like it. We also learn where the animal lives in the world. Ask Liam where the Nile River is, what country it’s in, and he can show you and tell you who lives there that is “very very BAD!!!” with a very exaggerated “b” sound for the word “bad”.

On the great white shark front, we saw an omnidome feature “Wild Ocean” where Liam sat and waited patiently for the sharks to come around. We worked on our planets in the solar system knowledge and quized Savannah on the names of each of the models at the omniplex.

We checked out a book and discussed the history of thanksgiving, why it’s in the fall (which really hits home since we have our own harvest going on), what happened on the first thanksgiving, etc.

We have finished our Advent Calendar.

We celebrate Advent starting December 1st and it is a way for us to count down the days and commemorate Christ’s birth through various activities. So while we used to just put up the Christmas tree and be done, the activity of putting up a Christmas tree is on our advent calendar for tonight and we will all do it together and read a lesson on the history of the Christmas tree and its origins. We will do the same for many of the typical traditions of Christmas. We will intentionally be giving more to under privileged families and we let the kids in on this in a big way, every year. I’ll be posting more of our advent celebrations on here soon.

Savannah has been working on addition, penmanship of lower case letters and also numbers, spelling, the usual.
Sorry this was long winded. It was basically a synopsis of what we’ve been up to the past few weeks (with a lot missing). There are some of you out there who really do want to keep up with everything we are doing, so there you go J. For me, I will treasure remembering all of this when my kids are grown and gone, so thanks for bearing with me through this loooong blog post.

Oh, and I almost forgot about Felicity’s learning encounters! The word for her lately is “roll”. She is now rolling to get where she wants and has developed even more rolls of chub ; )