Kentucky Horse Park, Summer 2013

There's a LOT to be said about a week of school vacation! I was actually kind of bummed about it the first day, when my rotten little monsters basically just watched videos all day (the weather has NOT been as nice as I'd hoped, sigh...), but ipad issues aside, I am getting a ton of work done while the kids... rest their brains, is what I'm going to call it.

And that's how I'm *finally* getting around to editing the photos that I took during our family visit to the Kentucky Horse Park back in June, yikes!

Horses of the World show

SO much petting!

Horse evolution in the kids' barn!

Kiddo jump course

Hall of Champions show, featuring retired winning racehorses

You gotta double-fence the fields to keep the stallions from killing each other.

Sydney and I LOVE doing dorky statue mimicry.

Love. IT!

Sometimes random horses and riders in costume just go riding by.

This was a VERY patient pony.

a very, VERY patient pony

The park's museum is EXCELLENT, with, again, an extensive section on horse evolution--right in our sweet spot!

Of course, now that our free week is halfway through, the girls are (somewhat) over their Netflix Instant frenzy, and there's the imaginative play that I'd hoped they'd spend the day with, the fort building, the playing with chickens, the baking of delicious foods, and the heady anticipation of Halloween. We've had playdates and swimming dates, the invention of cinnamon/butter/salt popcorn, some time at the office with Matt, and ice skating to look forward to after they clean out the chicken coop later this morning. During all of this, I deep-cleaned the house, finished a set of chair covers for our janky old living room table chairs, planned a Harry Potter book club for Syd and some of her friends, finished the chore for pay magnets that I've been wanting for, like, a year now, and now that I've gotten these Kentucky Horse Park photos edited, well, I might as well plan the rest of the Kentucky unit for our 50 States Project!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: The Backpack and the Biography Fair

I LOVED both of the projects behind this week's Crafting a Green World posts. These vintage medal zipper pulls are one of my favorite finished projects EVER, I think:

First place in the district History Day in eighth grade!

Third place in the State History Day!

Silver medal in the National Latin Association exam in twelfth grade!

In other academic pursuits, the kiddos and I created display boards out of recycled cardboard for their Biography Fair projects:

Poor Syd was frozen with terror, basically only able to stand up in front of the other children, squeak "Harry Potter!", and then sit back down, but Will gamely read her report out loud--more quietly than we'd discussed, but at least the other kids could hear her, I was in the second row, and nobody else would care:

Matt's still reading The Mysterious Island out loud to us at bedtime, and I can't recommend the practice of reading "big" novels out loud to children highly enough--sure, I've read them "kid" novels like Little House in the Big Woods before, and we've listened to novels on audiobook, and goodness knows that Will has read a small library's worth of grown-up books, but this has turned into something different. Matt pauses his reading all the time so that we can discuss the Civil War, or bemoan Verne's racist depiction of Ned, or make fun of how all the characters hero-worship Cyrus Harding ("Oh, Cyrus! If anyone can build us a fire out of nothing it's YOU!!!"). The second that it takes to pause an audiobook is just enough to make us not bother with many of these discussions when we're listening together in the car, and I'm sure that the girls simply skip over the more sophisticated stuff in their own reading.

Together, though, we're finding that everyone has a lot to say about... well, everything! So Matt reads, I braid tiny braids into the girls' hair, and we interrupt him constantly to talk. It's perfect family time.

The Ladies Laid Some Eggs

Finally, weeks after I had taken to simply telling anyone who asked about them that our hens were barren, we have eggs!!!

And perfectly, there was one for each kid! They ate them with their lunch, and never were two eggs declared to be lovelier, tastier, or more satisfying than these first two eggs from our own Fluffball and Arrow.

I have to say that our chickens are more rewarding pets than even I thought they'd be, and I was hoping that they'd be pretty great. We all adore them, and the girls take complete care of them--actual, genuine, kid-chosen responsibility! They're gentle, and funny, and if they're out of food they holler at the girls so they can come and feed them. If you let them out of their tractor a bit before sunset, they'll play for a few minutes in the backyard, eat mosquitoes for us, and then walk to their coop and put themselves to bed. I now keep a jar of stale bread on the kitchen counter just because it's blissfully fun to feed them treats. Sometimes, when the girls are outside, I'll walk by an open window and spy one of them with a chicken next to her, both of them deep in conversation with each other.

We've got some chicken-related DIY projects coming up--I'd like to have the girls help me build this automatic chicken feeder, and this automatic chicken waterer, and I'd like to get the heat lamp re-installed on a timer before it starts getting super cold at night, and I'd like to finish our months-long chicken yard project before it snows, and I'm wondering if I should buy some hay bales to insulate the coop some from the wind, and I want to start the girls raising mealworms and sprouting grains for chicken feed...

Pets AND pet-related DIY projects?!? It's like my own personal crafty fantasyland!

Work Plans for the Week of October 21

...

There aren't any!!! It occurs to me that we haven't had a week completely off of school since our wonderful vacation back in June (We miss you, Mac!), so I am taking that week right now. The weather, though brisk, should be nice, so I'm anticipating a lot of outdoor play, a lot of time hanging out with the chickens, daily visits to the park, and maybe another mountain biking excursion like the one that we just tried out--and survived!--today.

We've got our volunteer gig at the food bank, horseback riding lessons, aerial silks class, a playdate, another Friday Zone taping for Will (Good LORD, not Syd!), a park day with our homeschool group, the first ice skating class of the season, a science department open house over at the university, and a workshop with a Girl Scout LEGO League that sounds *quite* intriguing.

As for me, I might actually get a chance to update my etsy shop for the holidays (autumn and Christmas candles, yes?), burn some home videos and school videos, finish compiling the girls' animal biology portfolios, clean out the basement, and plan a Harry Potter book club.

And maybe tempt the girls with some tasty little paint sets and science kits and craft supplies and broken appliances and unfinished wooden beads and interesting library books that I've been sitting on, hmmm?

BOLOGNA?!?

In case I ever forget that I live in a college town...

Tutorial: Teeny-Tiny Tooth Fairy Pockets

I used the exact same technique for these tiny tooth fairy pillows that I use for my envelope pillowcases, cut way, waaaaaaay down:

The big fun, however, came in personalizing them! I replaced Will's old tooth fairy pocket, too, so that the girls could match, and for hers I used the same tooth fairy stencil that I used for the original pocket (although I should have replicated the monogram, too--I LOVED how it turned out that first time!):

For Syd's tooth fairy pocket, however, which I made just as her very first loose tooth was getting pretty darn loose, I had Matt draw a diagram of the primary teeth (using a diagram from Google Images as a model), then when Syd finally lost that tooth, I let her color it on the diagram and I wrote in the date:

Neither kid has ever been interested in having the Tooth Fairy take her teeth, and the pockets are also a good place to simply keep those shed teeth between visits. The Tooth Fairy does, of COURSE, take the letters that the children write to her. She gives them back to me later, though, because she knows that I'm making a collection of the children's correspondence with all fairies and Santa and imaginary beings.

Because Syd often writes to unicorns and asks them to send her candy. I don't really know why. They never do. But they do write back with silly messages, so that's fun, too.

Tutorial: Roll-up Felt Hundred Mat

We have a laminated cardstock hundred grid that works with our number tiles, and I've recently realized that I can make some sturdy yet disposable hundred grids pretty easily from cardboard record album covers, but I was also wanting a hundred grid that would look nicer longer, and be easier to toss in my backpack for trips to the library or park to do schoolwork.

So I made one!

You make this hundred mat around the number tiles that you already own, so first you've got to make them. We have a set of clear one-inch number tiles that were great for matching to a printed hundred grid when the kids were littler, but now that they're older (AND have lost a couple of those tiles, sigh), I've made them a couple of sets of upcycled cardboard number tiles that are the same size, so they can be interchangeable. I've long wanted to make a set of number tiles out of Scrabble tiles, but I think their inevitable loss might break my heart, so...

Measure out the grid AROUND the tiles, so that when your kiddo puts a number tile on the grid, they'll still be able to see the border around the tile. A little extra space is always good for those fumbly kid fingers, anyway. For me, this meant measuring at one inch + 1 centimeter, and I still did a lot of double-checking:

Notice that I measured and drew this grid in chalk. I didn't end up making a mistake in my measuring, but if I did--chalk equals second chances!

When you've got the grid drawn out, get out a tiny paintbrush and some fabric paint, and carefully paint over your grid:

And that's it! You can roll up your mat, you can wash it, and you can play with it on the carpet:

I remember when Syd was first learning how to find numbers on the hundred grid, and now we're using it for multiplication and division. Ah, time...

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Luminaries and Luminaries (and Luminaries and Luminaries and Luminaries and...)

a post about the Boo bottle luminaries found in InstaCraft

and a tutorial for luminaries that use tissue paper instead of paint

I have to say that the kids loved making these luminaries. LOVED. THEM. It takes a little more prep work than many of our kids' crafts, since you have to soak the labels off of old glass jars and scrub them clean before they can be used, but seriously, the girls couldn't have been more content working on these, and couldn't be happier watching them glow with candlelight every night. 

I need to do a little more soaking and scrubbing, but I plan to set aside a collection of glass jars, easily accessible, just for at-leisure luminary-making. I'm betting the scraps from our rolled beeswax candles would look pretty amazing here, and I've never tried the watercolor + olive oil luminary craft...

A First Horse Show: The 2013 PALS Fun Show

The kiddos were THRILLED to ride in their first horse show over the weekend! The program that the girls take their lessons through, PALS, does mostly therapeutic riding, and once a year they hold a big show to celebrate all their clients'--therapeutic and recreational--accomplishments over the past year. Although it's non-competitive, it IS a real show, with an announcer, and judges, and numbers on a placard safety pinned to your back and everything. The kids also spent the couple of lessons before the show practicing show procedures and etiquette--giving verbal commands loudly enough for the judges in the middle of the arena to hear, circling and reversing and backing their horses, lining them up, etc. I don't usually pay too much attention during their lessons, but on the drive to PALS for the show, I did hear Syd behind me nervously repeating to herself, "I need to keep control of my horse, and I need to smile," so I'm pretty sure that was a big part of the prep lessons, too.

They had no trouble remembering that last rule!

One of my many favorite things about PALS is their emphasis on rider safety. Will is mostly free of sidewalkers during lessons, but for the show she had "horse buddies" with her, one to keep a loose hold of the horse's lead rope, and one to walk next to her:

Syd started her lessons young enough that she had THREE sidewalkers once, one to hold the lead rope and one on either side, and they actually had to keep a hand on her when she trotted, but she's a hugely confident rider now, and during both girls' lessons their sidewalkers are mainly helpful now as sort of personal teaching assistants, helping the girls with technique and reminding them of proper form while their instructor maintains the lesson.

Some of the main pieces of therapeutic equipment in the ring are these nifty elevators that will lift a rider up to the level of their horse's back to make mounting easier. The girls have LONGED to ride these elevators, but of course never have, so imagine their glee when they discovered that since there was a mix of therapeutic and recreational riders in every class, it made things nice and even to have everybody mount using the elevators!

Syd waits her turn to mount Cody using the ELEVATOR!!!

 The girls weren't nervous at all to ride in front of judges, an announcer, and an audience. Frankly, I think they had the time of their lives:

After their show, they lined up while the judges came over to congratulate each of them personally, tell them some specific things that they did really well, and give them a ribbon and a trophy and a high five:

Syd, in particular, was almost comically pleased and surprised to have a real live ribbon and trophy just for her:

In the end, I had a couple of VERY happy, VERY proud little riders--

--who LOVED their ribbons and trophies:

I think they may have caught the horseback riding bug BAD now.