Butterfly

Brayden and I were outside getting cuttings from the lilac trees and saw our first butterfly this year! It was very easy to catch, and appeared to have just emerged. The wings seemed to be just drying out. It was very docile, so we brought him inside for a closer look, and the boys were able to identify it themselves as a black swallow tail.

Rylan put him back on the yellow forsythias where we found him.

Sexy Lumberjack

We went to the flea market this morning and Bryan bought a wood splitter. We've been needing one to split our big logs near our fire pit.

Now we can clear a few more fallen trees in our patch of woods and have more firewood!

SPRING!

It has sprung!

Aside form the bike trail we have been to several times already, our yard has totally sprung from the winter too!

Here's some pictures from the yard. Excuse the landscaping. We finally have the INSIDE of the house almost complete (1st floor anyway) now we can work on the outside. Bryan has been out of town all week, but we plan to spruce it up this coming week with a good mowing/weed whacking and figuring out what on earth to do with a large, step hillside we finally cleared.

I am so happy the lilac bushes have started to bloom! Last year they were at the beginning stages but were killed off by a late frost. We had a frost scare last week, but they seem to have pulled through well, and these pictures do no justice for how many buds there are on the huge bushes. The birds have been very happy but they eat SO much! We have 3 feeders and one suet block. They only take about 2 days to go through them! We have a wacky Woodpecker with a fun personality. He starts getting noisy around 5:45am, but he hangs out on the back deck around 7, I think he waits for us to have breakfast. Its been so nice out, we eat breakfast outside, then we've developed a habit of leaving the plates out on the table for the woodpecker to "peck" at. We watch him from the kitchen window and he does a little happy dance for us.

Last year I accidentally put part of a winter squash into the compost bin. So far, no squash plant, but I am keeping a close eye out for it. I bet I'll have to move the bin since I am sure I'll have a plant coming up soon. The clothesline is getting use too! I love the smell of line dried laundry, but with Bryan's allergies, I use the dryer for his clothes and pillowcase.

Speaking of allergies, Bryaden has poison ivy again ;(
It seemed to come on suddenly, with the side of his face swelling and turning red. He was crying because it was burning and itching so bad. I gave him more medicine (Rhus Tox) and applied some herbal tonic and it seemed to help. This morning, he has some on his ear, but it hasn't been as severe as it normally is. I hope giving frequent doses of the Rhus Tox helps, I don't want him miserable and on steroids all summer.

Our Big Night Out

Bryan and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Saturday. For YEARS we have discussed going to the Melting Pot in Pittsburgh, but never cared to spend the $ or the drive time....until now!

Aunt Babe and Jack took the boys for the night after their games. Jack took them to Twin Lakes to go fishing. Rylan said he "caught a bleed fish".

We headed home to get ready for our night, then headed into the city, unaware of the TRAFFIC and road closures! (see Bryan's road rage pic)

The Melting Pot was wonderful! They even gave us a champaign toast to celebrate our anniversary!

After dinner, we walked around Station Square and took a few more pictures.

Season Opener!

Brayden's season opener was Saturday morning at Lynch Field!

We all had a great time. Mommy, Daddy, Rylan, Grandma, Babe and Jack came to cheer Brayden on for his first T-Ball game. (Yes, its actually T ball, but Brayden can hit a pitched ball so he isn't required to use the T) He did great, and had fun.

Rylan had his first soccer scrimmage during Bray's game also. He had a great time, but of course was more excited about the post game snack than anything else ;)

Little Fish

Brayden and Rylan's last swim class until the fall was on Friday. They had a great time. They can both swim the length of the pool now, and a few weeks ago Brayden mastered his goal: He can swim to the bottom of the big pool to touch the bottom. Its 10 (!) feet!

First bike ride this season!

We had a great time!

Rylan learned how to ride a bike last fall, and since winter came quickly, he didn't get much practice in- but BOY did he do GREAT! Even more impressive was his side-kick Brayden. The ENTIRE time we rode the trail, Brayden cheered Rylan on, encouraged him, and coached him. "'Good job, Rylan'!, 'Push, push push the pedal after it gets to the top!', 'Wow! I can't believe how fast you can ride'" He was SO great with his little brother.

Ry only bailed three times, and two of those times, he was able to JUMP off his petals and spring to his feet without actually falling. A woman speed walking behind us was impressed. She said he's lucky he has good balance and good reflexes. I bet her jaw would drop if she ever saw him run across the high beam at gymnastics or do a front tuck onto the mat with no hands. Rylan's third and final bail was seen first by Brayden, who jumped off his bike and went to the rescue. He was able to get to him and pull the bike off his FACE before I even got there.

We made it past our goal of Agway, all the way to the health food store. We sat at a picnic table and had a nice lunch and break. We all did some leg stretches, and headed back to the van. the kids rode even faster on the way back.

Brayden was so impressed with Rylan's bike riding skills, he made him a present when we got home. Rylan was so impressed by Brayden's generosity, he made Bray a present :) (Bray wrapped up a wooden castle, Ry wrapped Bray up a baseball)

A good day indeed!

A Young Golfer!

The boys LOVE to go to the driving range with Daddy.
The boys have a couple child-size clubs that Bryan cut to size out of beat-up clubs. But, when Bryan took them out to the driving range yesterday, this is what they came home with! Apparently, our local golf course has a promotion to get more youth involved in golfing and give a free bag of clubs to a "young golfer"! Brayden was SO excited.

We spent time last night getting the bikes out last night- cleaning, adjusting, re-acquainting! We are headed out to the 5 Star trail today. Their goal is to make it the whole way to Agway to see Aunt Babe.

Homeschool

Because Brayden is now "Kindergarten age", we've been getting more questions and comments lately about our decision/method/reasons to homeschool.

First, it was a family decision. We took into account all options, all preferences, concerns and opinions of not only ourselves, but each of our boys. Included was their take on the situation, their temperaments, abilities, strengths and areas that could benefit improvement- notice I don't use the term "weakness".

Of course we want our children to be educated. By teaching them at home, we feel they will not only gain a strong foundation for lifelong love of learning and education, but also remain free thinkers- a natural benefit of childhood. We want them to question things, and figure out things for themselves, not restrained in doing things "the group way". There is no right way of learning, and living. We wish to hold onto their purities of their own beliefs, not have them told their way is wrong. They are young still, and we have that advantage. They can write the letter "F" from the bottom up, and not be told it is wrong, and therefore need to correct their penmanship. At home, we can foster learning in their areas of interest, not push interest aside to work on the areas that need improvement.

Here's an excerpt from a friend's thoughts on school:
I'm reading a book by Derrick Jensen and this is what he says:

I've since come to understand the reason school lasts thirteen years. It takes that long to sufficiently break a child's will. It is not easy to disconnect children's wills, to disconnect them from their own experiences of the world in preparation for the lives of painful employment they will have to endure. Less time wouldn't do it, and in fact, those who are especially slow go to college. For the exceedingly obstinate child there is graduate school...

Take the notion of assigning grades in school. Like the wages for which people later slave- once they've entered "the real world"- the primary function of grades is to offer an external reinforcement to coerce people to perform tasks they'd rather not do.


...The process of schooling does not give birth to human beings- as education should but never will so long as it springs from the collective consciousness of our culture- but instead it teaches us to value abstract rewards at the expense of our autonomy, curiosity, interior lives, and time.

And another response:
The first thing I'd like to say is that our current compulsory form of schooling was implemented in 1850 in Massachusetts. It was met with sometimes armed resistance from citizens (approximately 80% of them opposed it) Some places continued to vehemently resist. In fact, the last community in Massachusetts finally surrendered the children in the 1880's only after the area was seized by militia and the children were taken to school under guard.

Prior to compulsory education the state literacy rate was 98 percent.

I also agree with Mrs Bee. School is meant to produce meek "good" citizens who follow orders. Children in schools are robbed of rights, or privacy... homework makes sure the interaction children have with their community and family is at a minimum. Schooled children are disconnected from families, from communities , and are for the most part disinterested in adult life. They live in an artificial microcosm with bizarre and arbitrary rules, no privacy, and an aritifical "society" made up of others who are exactly like them. This society consumes them to such an extent that they truly see the "outside" world as the one that is artificial and irrelevant. Talk to a middle or high school aged child if you don't believe me. School takes children away from any possibility of being an active participant in community life.

Students are taught to conform, to wait for others more knowledgeable to tell them what they should be doing. Good students do the assigned thinking with a minimum of resistance and they muster up some sort of enthusiasm.. even if they have no genuine interest in the subject matter. BAD students struggle against this and try to make decisions for themselves about what they want to learn -- the way they wish to learn it and when.

They must turn their interest on and off as the bell rings and they move from class to class -- nothing ever truly seen through to completion except on the "installment plan" children get very little true "meaning" -- but instead a toolkit crammed with disconnected facts.

I am appalled at the slanted political things that are crammed down my children's throats. They are taught that "the US is the best country in the world" and every single thing they are taught about the rest of the world comes from this arrogant underlying indoctrination. It took me until age 30 to even recognize this fact, and I'm still struggling to overcome the indoctrination of 13 years of public school 10 years later.

Fact: The USA ranks at the bottom of nineteen industrialized nations in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The very very bottom.

Many educating gurus will tell you that these skills can be taught to a student in 100 hours. Provided the student is willing and interested in learning these things and they are presented at the time the student is open to learning them. AND if they are taught in a natural progression.

and I'll just end this with a quote from John Gatto: (New York State teacher of the year 1991 and New York City teacher of the year 1990 among various other awards)

"It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety; indeed it cuts you off from your own past and future, sealing you in a continuous present much the same way television does.

it is absurd and anti-life to move from cell to cell at the sound of a gong for every day of your natural youth in an institution that allows you no privacy and even follows you into the sanctuary of your home demanding that you do its "homework"."

I know much of what I have to say is really shocking. But before you react with total outrage, consider this.

Do you really thing that great poets are taught in English classes? or novelists? do you believe that brilliant scientists are a result of science classes in school? or do you believe these people develop alongside or even in spite of formal education?


So to sum up, and answer some questions:

No, Brayden will not be going to Kindergarten this fall

No, we don't know how many years we will homeschool. We would like to at least give them the strong foundation of good esteem, sense of self, and free thinking into the elementary years. We'll likely continue, but we have no set "time" we plan to continue through.

We've been doing about an hour to an hour and a half of "learning time" daily for the past year. We take weekends off, but Brayden often wants to do "school" on weekends, and I have always obliged. We do not take summers off.

Yes, we can teach them. When you learn to read well, and have access to books, internet, materials and your community, your possibilities of learning are endless.

No, we do not have a specific curriculum, nor do we plan to at this stage.
Currently we use the following resources:
www.enchantedlearning.com
www.starfall.com
www.abcteach.com
Workbooks from Kumon and Learning Zone
Interactive CD ROMS from Broderbund, Knowledge Adventure, Scholastic, Living Books and more.
And books, of course.

Yes, they socialize with other kids. They have sports, clubs and friends. A list follows:
Swimming, gymnastics, Tae Kwon Do, Capoeira, ice skating, ice hockey, dec hockey, soccer, baseball, 4H.

Here is a good a short movie clip to watch that sums up a lot of what I have already written. Follow this link, and click on the purple button in the middle to watch "Animal School"
http://www.raisingsmallsouls.com/

If anyone is interested in more homeschool resources, books, etc, I have compiled a helpful list.

Oops

Oops. Well, obviously there was excitement in our home when Bryan finally arrived from being out of town all week. If you know our family, you know our kids and their ability to roughhouse. This is an imprint of Bryan's back in our living room wall.

Welcome home, Honey. I'll see you when you get back from Home Depot.

Finally Friday!

Fridays are fun.
We get to swim for 2-3 hours. :)

And, Bryan gets back from being gone all week for work.

I'm also looking forward to tomorrow. I'm attending a 6 hour homeopathy class. Here's the link to the speaker's website:
http://www.redpeacecross.com/homeopathy.html

In other news, Brayden's poison ivy hasn't spread the past 2 days, and is drying up. He has developed a bit of a cough, and I am hoping its not related.

We got my cousin Stephanie's wedding invitation in the mail yesterday. She's having it at this place on June 14th:
http://www.antiochianvillage.org/
It looks beautiful, and we plan to spend the night. Rylan is practicing his Chicken Dance for the reception.

Neena, our one year old lab/border collie tried to eat our neighbor's cat when it wandered into our yard this morning. Brayden got up with me at 6:30 and I supervised while he made french toast. We had just woken Rylan up with the surprise of having the table set outside on the porch with his favorite breakfast. It was a nice, relaxing morning until the cat came to visit. Luckily, she only chased it out of our yard, and didn't enter the neighbor's yard. I'm glad she didn't catch it!

Next week is our Wedding Anniversary. We're not sure what we're doing yet. We were going to a La Leche League conference, but it interferes with Brayden's little league season kick off party. I've been REALLY wanting to go to The Melting Pot in Pittsburgh, so maybe we'll finally splurge and go there.
http://www.meltingpot.com/locations.aspx?z=15601&n=559545

A Relaxing Wednesday

We finally have a chance to spend the day at home. The last 4 days have been a rushed blur- gymnastics, karate, swimming, X biking, Pliates, visiting Nana, Financial Peace University, hike, walk, baseball field. Yard work. And, to top it off, Bryan is out of town so its just been me and the kids.

But because Bryan is out of town this week, we did something exciting, that could never happen with him being home: We are on day 3 of a week long TV strike! I unplugged them early Monday morning. Its been good. Luckily, the weather has been decent, so much of our free time has been spent outside. In my opinion, there's no reason for my kids to be sitting in front of the TV when there is so many other things to be doing. We don't even have cable, and haven't for years, so its not like they are TV addicts by any means, but its just nice to not have that choice/temptation to vegetate.

The Poison Ivy on Bray did spread. To his foot, ankle, leg, hip, belly and forehead. Its wasn't severe, but his thighs saw the worst of it. I think (and HOPE) he's on the mend.

I got to talk with 2 good friends on the phone today that I hadn't talked to in awhile. That was nice to catch up, and have some "girl time". Now I need to start having some face to face adult interaction. The kids are 4 and 5 now, so I think its time!

Pictures from last year's poison ivy:

Poison Ivy strikes again!

After only a few snow free days, it has already struck :(
He has it a little worse on the other thigh, but he didn't want me to pst that picture because he was embarrassed because his underwear was showing.

I have NO idea HOW he could have gotten it on his inner thigh. He hasn't worn shorts outside yet! We are very adamant about keeping him out of the woods. I have done hours and hours of research on poison ivy, and I realize its spread by contact only, but I swear he gets it from the air. He does not go in our woods. He doesn't go near it!

Here's a picture of Brayden's thigh from today. After 3 ped visits, an allergist and an ER visit last summer, we know our options are limited. Because of Brayden's age, we cannot treat with steroids more than twice a season. Last year we maxed out the doses. I had to rush him to the ER one morning because his reaction was so severe, his airway began to close. Luckily, massive benedryl doses reduced the inflammation of his airway. I don't want to have that happen again.

The pediatrician instructed us to keep him indoors. The allergist suggested moving to Nevada, the only place in the US where poison ivy does not yet exist. Of course, we don't like either options.

And now it begins.....

Here we go!

Because we have so many friends and family who live afar, we created a website to share pictures and our family news and updates. We'll try to update at least weekly, but with warm weather finally approaching, we cannot commit to regular posting ;)