Fun & Games

This week we had another Fun & Games day with our Natural Learner’s group. I have to say, my legs are still aching and it was two days ago now! Ah, I have some fitness training to do. Running around playing chasing games all day with the kids at full throttle is something that I find so, so, so much fun but man, oh man, it’s also so so, so, so painful! How do they do it?

I must run more often. M..U..S..T R..U..N!

I had so much fun playing Fruit Tips and Fruit Salad and Rob The Nest that I didn’t get much time for photo snapping. This is all I got …

Not the best photography in the world, is it? Sorry.

I just love these times when adults and kids play freely and honestly together. Who doesn’t love to play? It’s hard as adults because I think we forget how to play. We get so caught up in our own stuff and the busyness of life that we forget to get down and play at that most basic of levels. It’s so good for us – not just physically though. Mentally and emotionally and most importantly, I think, connectionally {I just made that word  up!}. Connecting with our kids through play has to be the most special way to connect. All of the parameters of adult and child are taken away. Power and authority and all of that stuff are gone. It’s just pure fun and connection and silliness. Our kids love it, don’t they? They want more of it. I think we owe it to them, and ourselves, to play more often. Much more often.

Especially since my legs are this sore – it’s a sign that I am not playing enough running games.

 

Valley Fields here I come!

Kim xx

Write On Wednesday: Two Fat Ladies

Well, look at me! It’s Wednesday, not Thursday and I’m being diligent and organised with my Write On Wednesday. So far so good this week:)

It was such fun last week, participating in Gill’s fun, fun, fun over at InkPaperPen. So here I go again…

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 4: Two Fat Ladies (88!):

I am sticking with the timed theme. It is much easier to find a spare 5 minutes than a big chunk of time to write. Grab the 8th book from your bookshelf. Open it to page 8. Scroll down to the 8th sentence. Write this sentence at the top of your page. Set your timer for 5 minutes and write the first words that come into your head after your writing prompt. Stop when the buzzer rings! Do this exercise over and over if you wish. It will be interesting to see where all our different prompts take us. Gill

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For my first attempt at this exercise I chose our biggest bookshelf. The number 8 book was: The Unschooling Manual. I flicked to the 8th page and then the 8th line. This is what it said:

That’s what has destroyed the American family.

Oh! this was to be an interesting 5 minutes. And it was. But I’m thinking that it may not be totally appropriate to share here so I decided to try another pile of books.

This time I chose my recipe books which are piled up in an old  wooden crate on the floor in my kitchen/dining.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8….Australian Country Style Cooking. The 8th page was a breakfast theme. How very appropriate since my stomach has been rumbling since 5am! 8th line:

Greet the new day with simple yet special fare that makes getting out of bed a breeze.

Time starts….now…

Oh how I wish someone would whip me up a batch up fluffy blueberry pancakes with creamed butter and a hot cup of Twining's Irish Breakfast tea, this morning. Someone could, if they’d just open this Country Style Cooking cookbook. But alas, it’s me, the cookerer (as Lewi used to call me) who will be preparing my own breakfast this morning. It’ll be weetbix or toast without butter – urgh! Boring! I could whip myself up some pancakes but I really couldn’t be bothered. That’s the problem for me in the mornings, I really don’t feel like cooking much. Thus the state of my daily breakfast menu. Oh well, at least I’ve found a tea bag. Tragedy struck when I thought we’d run out but oh how thankful I am for the back of the cupboard and that little glass jar that I never properly unpacked after a picnic about 2 years ago. Would it be off by now? It had the lid on. Surely not? Too bad, I’m drinking it right now! Now off for some scrumptious weetbix...mmmmmm. Aussie kid that I am.

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Well that’s what I came up with. Not a Shakespearean sonnet but the best I could do at 5am on an empty tum tum. Look out weetbix, here I come. Yum yum! Ooooooh, sounding sonnety now don’t you think? Maybe not.

Why don’t you pop on over to InkPaperPen and join in the fun?

 

Kim xx

Vintage Kidlets Nests

I’m loving the trend at the moment of bringing back some hints of vintage into kids spaces. No surprise, I’m sure – by now most would be aware of my vintage obsession;).

Not only do vintage wares and trinkets bring a sense of fun and and gorgeousness to a room, but it also helps our children connect with us and our childhoods. A favourite teddy of ours when we were kids, sitting on an old vintage chair. A precious match box collection from years gone by, placed on a ledge or bookshelf or housed in an old school port.

Garage sales and op shops are perfect places for hunting down a touch of vintage for your child’s room. I’ve found lots of goodies on my scouring journeys.
What about these cool vintage games hanging in a collection on this child’s wall? Love it!

vena

Below are some lovely images of mixing vintage with other bits and pieces to create the perfect nest for any child to day dream, rest, create and be inspired. Enjoy! …

{Mostaza Seed - another lovely blog}

{Bohemian Vintage - gorgeous blog alert!!!}

{Little Sooti}

{Stylidecor}

Happy Weekend!

Kim xx

Write On Wednesday: I Remember

Yes, yes I know it’s Thursday. Yes, yes, I’m late. But, I’m hoping, better late than never.

I’ve found this wonderful, wonderful blog called InkPaperPen. Have you visited? It’s a great place to hang out especially for those of us who want to try our hand at writing more diligently. It’s a place where we can commit to writing and feel supported and supporting. If that sounds like something that you need then I strongly urge you to check it out and join in the writing fun every Wednesday {or Thursday…Gill is so forgiving and gives us a bit of extra time to get our tasks done, thankfully:)}.

So, I’m joining in today and I hope to take part as often as I possibly can. Here goes…

The task:

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 3 - I remember: Write "I remember" a the top of your page. Set a timer for 5 minutes. Use "I remember" as your prompt and write down the first words that come into your head for 5 minutes. Stop when the buzzer rings! Do this exercise over and over if you wish. I will try to do it every morning this week. I'll let you know how I go...I am hoping that the thought of having to tell you all about my progress will be the motivation I need to keep at it! Gill

I Remember

I remember when you were here. And we were there. Together. I remember us all sitting around the fire on an icy cold, winter’s evening, cooking jaffles. Melted cheese oozing out onto the hot embers. Drippy tomato sizzling as it reached the black iron.

I remember Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens and Neil Young singing about the wind and fathers and sons and harvest. I remember the Bushwhackers and my brother grabbing me in a waltz position. We’d dance around the lounge room, heeling and toeing and dosey doeing. I remember you laughing.

I remember your smile and your ‘fang tooth’. I remember your ‘dog bite’. The ‘dog bite’ that eventually took you from here.

I remember coming home from school to the smells of deliciousness. Sultana cake and warm wholemeal chocolate cake. Chewy choc bit oaties. Caramel Fingers. Chocolate slice. I remember starving myself all day at school – surviving on one green apple all day, thinking I was doing really well on no food and then coming home to gorge myself senseless on your warm, inviting goodies, straight from the fuel stove.

I remember so much about you. I remember when you left. I remember the pain. The utter, utter sadness.

I wish there was more than just remembering.

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You can read everyone else’s here.

Hey, might see you there next week?

Kim xx

Mess

Mess by Keri Smith is one of our latest book shop purchases and it’s proving to be a huge hit in this purple nest. What a great book!

The book is filled with fun defacing, messing up and wrecking activities. What a challenge! I knew that I’d find it difficult due to my analness around books but Lewi had just as much difficulty. But once you break free of that carefulness and concern about messing up a book, it’s all fun from there.

The first page Lewi did was this one…

I didn’t quite catch it before he had begun but it’s a defacing page – an image of a group of stony faced men from awhile back. There’s a little note on the page that says: Further Research: The Situationist Movement. So, of course, we googled that.

Here’s the result of a total defacing. Lew has always loved to do this. Newspapers have been a huge hit for him over the years. He’ll spend ages defacing the poor local members and business owners of our district newspaper. Newborn babies are turned into devilish, poltergeists. The mayor suddenly becomes something out of The Pirates of the Caribbean. I find it both funny and eerily disturbing.

Here’s another one. For this activity Lew had to spill something onto the page that would make a stain. Then he was to create something out of the stain.

Below are Lewi’s stain interpretations…

***Tea doesn’t always stain when you need it to. Balsamic vinegar, on the other hand, is a life saver!

There are other Keri Smith books I’d like to purchase as well. We’ve bought Wreck This Journal for a couple of people for their birthdays as well as How To Be An Explorer of The World but haven’t got one for ourselves as yet. They are both on the ‘to get’ list.

I love Keri Smith’s creativity and push for kids {and adults} to go to the outer limits of their comfort zones. She is the Andy Griffiths of creativity and kids absolutely love her. Our kids are growing up in such a fantastic time for books. There are so many fun ones out there – books that push at the confinements of academic learning and embrace creativity and thinking. She’s an unschoolers dream, Keri is.

Watch this space for more Mess{y} creations.

Kim xx

Circus Skills At Our Bega Valley Natural Learners Group

Roll up, roll up… Rhys is in town!

We all gathered on a chilly winter’s day in Bega earlier tis week for something special. Yep, we are such a lucky duck home schooling group to have a talented circus skilled boy in our midst. Rhys gave us all a lovely demonstration of all of the amazing things he can do. Here are a few of them…

tight rope walking

juggling 3 & 4 & 5 balls

juggling rings

juggling clubs

juggling and balancing clubs

unicycling and juggling

rolling, balancing and juggling!

ribbon twirling

{I don’t think that’s what you call this but I’ve forgotten…sorry, Rhys}

After Rhys had given us a little demonstration show he was kind enough to let us have a turn. Rhys and his lovely mum, Julie, helped us learn to juggle for ourselves.

Here we are…

Go, Lew!

Go, boys!

Go, me!

Go, Nicole!

Go, Mackie!

Go, Melinda!

To finish up a lovely and extremely chilly get together we helped Obie celebrate his up and coming 5th birthday with a birthday cake. Happy Birthday, Obie xxx

Thanks so much, Rhys. We had such fun and learnt lots. I’m going to continue practising my juggling skills, I promise!

Kim xx

A Birthday For Rae

 

Today my lovely, laughing, curly haired, dog loving, pink obsessed friend, Rae, turned 42! Argh! Where has the time gone?

We celebrated her birthday yesterday with a morning tea that went til 3:00pm! There were 9 of us – including 2 kidlets {plus a bluey!} and we had lots of laughs playing party games and drinking lots of cups of tea…and eating yummy food too, of course.

Rae is one of the funniest friends I have. I don’t think I’ve had more laughs with anyone else in my 39 years of life. She can laugh at the most inappropriate things. She finds humour in absolutely everything – death, injury, failure,  success, happiness, sadness, anger, guilt, pain…you name it, Rae’s laughed at it!

She’s also one of the most positive. She could make a death defying hurricane into a cool, gentle breeze on a summer’s day or a renovator's nightmare into a charming little cottage. If you’re having a bad hair day or if the clothes' store mirrors are being some what unkind I can always count on a visit from Rae to make me feel like I could become a hair or fashion model – albeit the larger, older, courser hair kind!

Today, on Rae’s actual birthday, we popped in on her for a cuppa and present giving. She needed a quiet day today so she could study for her first uni exam {tomorrow}. The other reason for her abnormal quiet was due to her straining or severing or really badly hurting a tendon in her ankle after falling down her stairs at home just before her party. Bugger!

Poor, Rae. She is a hobbling mess at the moment but insists that she wants to go ahead and do her exam, regardless.

So here’s to you, Rayza on this, your 42nd birthday. May it be a wonderful one filled  with love and happiness and lots and lots of laughing. And thank you for the years of friendship that we’ve had together since you moved to this lovely valley of ours.

Happy studying and…Happy Birthday!! xxxx

Kim xx

Winter Bluey

No, this is not Steel {Lewi’s much loved pet bluey}. This is a cute, feisty little guy that we found in the wood shed the other day.

It was almost dark and I was out in the cold piling up the wheel barrow with wood for the night. The wood stack was quickly diminishing and so I was down to the dregs at the bottom  {lots of little bits}. I heard a strong hissing sound and dropped whatever I had in my hands. Maybe I was hearing things? I continued picking up the wood when…there it was again!

Do snakes hiss at you? Me, wondering. Not sure. I don’t think so????? Hope not!

Then I remembered back to the time in summer when I was weeding in the garden and I jumped in fright to that same sort of hissing noise.

Blue tongue!

Quick, Lewi!

So, thankfully this is Lewi’s thing in life.

Lewi “Steve Irwin” D…. to the rescue!

Lewi moved every piece of wood ever so carefully, bit by bit until finally the hissing creature was in full, almost sun-set dark view.

Honestly, if you had heard this bluey hissing you would’ve thought it was the most gargantuan thing you could ever set your eyes upon. But no, he was a bubba one. And he was not impressed to be awoken from his wintery hibernating slumber. But he needed to be moved. The wood man was due to deliver wood in the coming days and this bluey would have been flattened for sure if he had stayed put.

Lewi brought him in for a little while to study him {measure, detect colouring etc}. He was one of the most feisty blueys Lewi has ever caught. Eventually he calmed down – as most blueys do {they are the most gorgeous lizard} and Lewi patted him and inspected him to make sure he wasn’t injured.

After 30 minutes or so Lewi went to find him a place to be released. He found a nice, cosy spot in the garden, amongst a pile of bricks {similar to the wood spot] where he could safely spend his winter.

Our garden is full of blueys. Such a lovely thing for a lizard loving boy to know. And even better knowing that this little guy won’t be squashed to death by a big lump of fire wood!

Kim xx