Throwing Marshmallows

This year marks the 10th year that we have made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch (yes, we started when Jason was 10 months old! I will have to try to scan in some of the pictures as this was pre-digital camera days for me!)

Cox Farms does a wonderful job…it is huge and there is tons for all the kids to do, as well as free apples and apple cider (if you can brave the bees!) You never know what the weather will be like…this year it was hot. We met up with some homeschooled friends and they had blast.

Kyle got plenty of time on the rope swing (his favorite part). Once the school crowds clear away around 1pm we pretty much get the run of the place.

The slides are also big favorites. What kid wouldn’t enjoy sliding out of a volcano?

Feeding the goats was fun.

Even though Jason lost his cone to one very aggressive goat.

Didn’t this picture turn out gorgeous? I know that it is not one of my kids, but isn’t he sweet?

I did get some cute pictures of my boys.

How’s this for a pose?

But lest you think they are always cooperative about posing…

All in all, another successful trip to the pumpkin patch.

If you want to check out the other pictures I took, head on over to my Flickr account!

I was going through some of my old emails and found a folder where I had stored “The Elms Boys Updates” that I had written years ago before I had my blog. Talk about memories! Wow.

It may be a bit long to put here, but I would like to have them recorded on my blog. My apologies to those who will most likely be bored with this trip down memory lane. Please feel free to skip if you don’t really care about what we were doing 4 years ago.

For reference, Jason was 6 and Kyle 3.

Elms Boys Update - March 19, 2003

I have decided to try to send periodic updates on how the boys are doing via email since it seems like I can never remember specifics when I talk to everyone on the phone.

I have no idea how often I will do this, but I will try to make it pretty regular. There just always seems like so much is going on and yet nothing comes to mind when I am asked!
I plan on printing this off and sending it to Grandma Hoffmann as well. I know that she would love to hear about the boys more then what I have been doing. Too bad she is not on email! (now how long did it take for us to get her to get a vcr??). Feel free to forward this on to anyone you think might be interested….

So let’s see…what has been going on lately…We have been keeping very busy. Jason is finishing up the basketball season and getting ready to start the soccer season. He had a blast playing basketball, especially since his friends Eric, Avery and Joey were on the team. He really liked one of his coaches and we are going to try to get him on her soccer team. She was great with him and helped give him a lot of pointers in improving his game.
He also goes to gymnastics once a week and loves it, especially the trampoline. This is his second session and he has shown a lot of improvement in his tumbling.

And then a couple of weeks ago he started a homeschool gym and swim class (held at the Y that we just joined). Twice a week he spends an hour in the pool and an hour in the gym.
There are around 12 other 5-8 year olds (about 8 of those are boys). This is by far his favorite activity. On Tuesdays, he gets swim lessons during the swim portion of the class and has started working on freestyle (but his preferred method is still doggie paddle).
The other day’s swim session is open swim. Then in the gym portion they play different types of games…lots of tag, dodge ball type games, calisthenics etc. They basically run their little legs off.

We have been meeting more homeschoolers lately which is nice. There is one family not far from here who has 2 boys, 7 and 3.5 years old. We have gotten together with them a couple of times and the boys really enjoyed it. We have also started getting together every couple of weeks with a homeschooling group which has several kids Jason and Kyle’s age. This has been good for me too, as the boys get to play and socialize and I get to talk with the other moms. We are really looking forward to the warmer weather when we can start getting outside a bit more.

Jason has been reading up a storm lately. It is hard for me to read to him as much as he wants.

We went through most of the Wizard of Oz series (who knew that there were 12+ books!). These really seemed to appeal to his sense of humor. He loved the wacky characters. Then we went through all 4 Harry Potter books (including the last 700+ page one!) this last month. He *really* enjoyed these books and I am sure that we will be re-reading them again and again. There were parts that were a bit scary for him, but he would just ask me to read it and tell him what happened which actually worked really well. We probably won’t go see the movies for a little while. I think they would be a bit too much for him. But we can’t wait for the next book which should be out in June. We are now reading my old Bobbsey Twin mystery books. He has really enjoyed them as well. We have read 3 so far and he keeps asking for more.

Jason really likes to do experiments. I am on an the Krampf email list which sends out a new science experiment each week. These experiments are nice in that they only need household items. Jason’s favorite so far has been making a fluorescent light bulb light up using static electricity (from a balloon rubbed in my hair (Jason’s hair was not long enough to generate enough charge!). I also try to scour the web for other interesting experiments. After the big snowstorm, we brought in pans of snow and played around with squirt bottles filled with colored water. Both boys enjoyed mixing the colors and stirring them around. We also filled up a cup with snow to see how much water would be left once it melted. And the geomags are a big hit as well (for me too…those things are cool!)

Jason is still enjoying learning about ancient egypt/pyramids/mummies etc. Every time we go to the library we pick up more books on the subject and it is quite surprising how many specials we have found on the Discovery or The Learning channels. We have also started reading Egyptian myths which tied in really well with the Mythology book that Jeff’s mom gave Jason for Christmas. That book was a great introduction to Greek, Roman and Norse myths and we have also read one of my favorite mythology books. Jason was surprised to see the similarities in the myths from one culture to another (he pointed out that Greek and Roman myths had the sun going over the earth as a chariot and in egyptian myths it is in a boat).

I have started going through the TIVO guide each week and taping shows that I think might catch Jason’s interest. His favorites have included a show on the history of robots (which he has watched over and over) and a Discovery channel show on Thomas Edison. Jason really liked the inventing aspects (and I loved how they talked about how many times he failed before he got a light bulb to work and the fact that he was homeschooled from the age of 7).

We have also watched a couple of shows on making a Roman catapult and one on making a medieval trebuchet (catapult). It amazes me how much of this stuff he just soaks up. He still really likes Bill Nye the Science Guy, Junkyard Wars, Techno Games (a science channel robot competition show which is really cool) and just discovered the magic school bus series.

Oh and I can’t forget audio books. He LOVES these (should make trips to the beach easier this year). We have gotten The Rescuers and Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH as well as some of the Magic Treehouse series from the library. And he really enjoys the Jim Weiss tapes he got for Christmas.

The really fun thing (for me) has been watching him make connections on his own. We were riding to gymnastics one day listening to a schoolhouse rock (you guys remember these videos on tv?) cd on gravity. Out of the blue he told me that gravity was what makes scales work (I went back and listened to the song and it did not mention anything about scales so this was his own conclusion). We ended up talking about that and what else gravity does (planets/moons rotating etc). He does this a lot with math. He will be playing with his legos (yes he is still a bionicle nut) and all of a sudden ask me if 3+3=6. We were at Zany Brainy and he wanted to get 2 lego sets for $4 each so he asked to borrow $8. When I went to pay for them, they were on sale, so I told him they were only $3. He immediately got excited because he only owed me $6. :o) He does it so naturally.

And Kyle is Kyle…just trying to keep up with his brother. He is really into clothes lately.
Usually changes outfits 2-3 times a day. The interesting thing is that he usually has a specific outfit in mind and often we do not even own what he wants! Or he only wants to wear what Jason is wearing. He also wants to wear Jason’s clothes but then gets upset that they are too big.

The other funny thing is that he likes to watch the tapes we have made of the boys over the years and he will see himself in a shirt and want to immediately go up and wear it.
Keeps life interesting to say the least. Kyle is enjoying his gymnastics class, absolutely loves it. He is really into meeting new friends. It is so cute. The homeschooling group we get together has a couple of other boys his age so he is loving it. He gets upset when we have to leave. Kyle is still into Blues Clues…he is very interactive with it and likes to pretend that he is Steve or Joe. He also usually wants to do whatever they were doing (like making juice pops or crazy hats). He likes to act out the episodes later. Oh and I can’t forget to mention that he also wants to dress like them…the latest has been that he wants Joe and Steve pajamas after seeing episodes where they were wearing pjs.

He likes playing store with the cash register and will go around finding things for you to buy. And he has just really started to like to color. Loves coloring books and has started doing a little more then scribbling. And he really likes to play Go Fish…he really gets into it (we play very relaxed rules).

Ok, I am sure that I have left lots of stuff out, but it is getting late. More later I promise!

Love, Steph

Some background…the boys had very specific ideas of what they wanted to be for Halloween. Jason wanted to be a Mage (a type of wizard) and Kyle wanted to be a Ranger (an archer) from Runescape (an online fantasy game they play). They each had very specific ideas of what these costumes would look like. So we spent a bunch of time searching the web for just the right robes and costumes. And managed to find them. So on October 10th, I placed the order. And then nothing.

I assumed that they would ship within a day or so but no word. So after waiting a week, I went to email them to see when they were going to ship. When I pulled up the receipt, I noticed the fine print that said that they would take up to 10 business days (!) to ship! Yikes. That meant that the earliest they would be shipped was this Wednesday, October 24th! And all I could do was wait and cross my fingers that they got shipped on time.

Oh and the other worrisome thing was that I was not 100% sure that I had ordered the right sizes. They said that a size 5-7 (which is what Kyle is) would fit a 3-4 year old! I gambled that the sizes were right and that the ages were wrong. But I was not sure. Which meant that if they did not fit we would be really scrambling. The boys had come up with backup costumes from capes and whatnot that we already had, but they really had their hearts set on the ones that we had found.

Needless to say, I have been holding my breath waiting for them to get here. Which they did today! And they fit! Yea! Crisis averted and Halloween is saved.

Whew.

Don’t you just love those trees? So old and stately. There were several buildings on the property…not sure what this one was…a chicken coop maybe?

Quick Back Update: Doing better today…still have to move fairly slowly and it can be painful if I move the wrong way, but definitely better. I can actually stand upright and hope to sleep on my back tonight.

Yet never really, truly appreciate. Your back. Yup. I threw my back out on Sunday. It was bothering me some before I drove home from Ocean City but seemed to get better overnight. Then last night, it went. I could barely stand up straight and finding a good sleeping position was hard. I was awake at 6am. A shower and heating pad seems to be helping, but I still can’t lift things or move fast. We skipped park day and I was able to get Jason to pottery, but other than that we had a very low key day. Jason made muffins (from a mix), worked on Kyle’s reading (he really likes the Bob books), we read about atoms and Ranger Rick (where the boys learned that chicken eggs are harder to break than you would think…they were not able to crush an egg by holding it in the their hands and squeezing!)

We also adopted out the last of our guinea pigs! For those who do not know, we had 4 of them (long story on how we got that many…I promise to share sometime…needless to say, never adopt a guinea from a pet store…) Since the addition of Ellie to our family, the guineas and their 6 foot cage (yup, you read that right, 6 foot) had gotten to be a bit too much. After much soul searching, I decided that we needed to find them new loving homes. I started looking last spring, letting folks know on my homeschool lists that they were available. I felt very strongly about making sure that they got placed in good homes so figured that I would put the word out and then wait until it happened. Seems as if fall is a much better time to try to find homes for pets. We had a homeschool friend who took the first two a month or so ago and the final two went to another homeschool family today. It is nice to know that they are happy in their new homes.

So now I just have to figure out how to fall asleep when I can’t lay flat and how to get some things done tomorrow without making it worse (luckily tomorrow is a “home day”). I feel like an old woman. Man, I want my back back…

I love photographing old houses. The boys and I are in Ocean City this weekend (they are spending the night at Jack’s for his birthday) and I finally got a chance to stop and take pictures of an old house that had caught my eye all summer.

Old house have great texture and natural beauty. I got some great shots today and have been having fun editing them.

I almost did not take them because I was worried that someone might say something about me being on the property (which was right off Route 50). And believe it or not, someone did stop and ask me what I was doing! Turns out that she was the great-granddaughter of the man who built the house and happened to be driving by. She was wondering what I was doing, but was OK with me taking the pictures once I told her they were for my own personal use and I was not planning on selling them.

Her uncle was the last family member to live there and it had fallen into disrepair when his family moved out. While the property is still in their family, if they ever decided to fix it up, they would have a lot of county regulations to deal with about the land (a lot of development has since gone up around it) and it is just too expensive. She was really nice and we talked a bit about how so many of these old houses and farms are disappearing (this house is just down the road from the Walmart). One of the reasons that I really wanted to take a picture of it was because another old farm on Rt. 50 had just been knocked down this summer to make room for commercial or restaurant space. I had taken some great pictures of it a couple of years ago and had hoped to go back with my good camera and get more. Sigh.

She asked if I would be willing to send her copies of the pictures which I gladly told her that I would. So it actually turned out to be a good thing to be caught…so neat to learn a little bit about the history of the house.

My new post is up over at Life Without School:

I have found that if my child is struggling with a concept then he either is not developmentally ready to learn it or I am not presenting it in a way that makes sense to him. But either way, the problem is not with my child. He is exactly where he should be. And either way, I have the time to figure it out. Because there are no educational emergencies.

I am very thankful to the wonderful homeschool mentors that I have had (and still have!) that helped me relax in those early years and realize that learning would happen and that I did not need to force it.

For me, it is all about finding that balance. And the great thing is that we do have time. Time to think. Time to analyze. Time to experiment. Time to change. And for that I am grateful.

I found links on Broadsheet to a whole host of articles with before and after photos of magazine covers. It seems that Photoshop retouching has taken on a life of its own.

Check out these before and after photos of Faith Hill. I mean, we all know that photos are retouched. But it really was not until I read the breakdown of what they changed that I realized how insidious it really is. So many small changes that make a big impact. And make perfectly normal, beautiful women look “perfect”.

And lest you think that it is only women who get made over, Andy Roddick did not even recognize himself when his head was put on another body for Men’s Fitness. Did they think that no one would notice?

Shoot, even Katie Couric is not “good enough” as is.

Folio Magazine ran an interesting article discussing this this issue. And all these posts reminded me about the video I posted last year which showed photoshopping at work. Too bad I can not find a video of when Jamie Lee Curtis came out with out being “fixed up” on Oprah to talk about how ridiculous it was. And that was how many years ago?

While all this does make me sigh and wonder what on earth our world is coming to, I also have to admit that it did me a world of good to see that Faith Hill (who is the same age as I am) has bags under her eyes just like me! Whew.

I saw this quote in someone’s signature line:

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. - E. B. White

This cartoon was on Slate.com and I have to say that it sums up my feelings pretty danged well.

The Democrats spent years complaining about how Republicans let good ole GW get everything that he wanted. And yet now that they can stop him and stand up for the constitution, they are not. Same thing with the war. And with Iran. They need to get over themselves and stop fretting about being seen as “weak”. They need to provide some leadership for crying out loud. Everything is so political and there is so much spin on both sides it is no wonder nothing gets done.
I am convinced that history is going to reveal that what we are finding now (wire tapping, torture re-authorization after the denial) is the tip of the iceberg.

Bill Moyers had a fascinating program talking about how the executive office authority/powers have been drastically expanded during the Bush presidency and how that is not a good thing. And how Congress just basically went along with it and let it happen. <sigh>

This article popped up in my google alerts. It is actually not about homeschooling, but about virtual charter schools. But this quote jumped out at me:

State Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, (D-Crossett), a member of the Senate Education Committee, said rural school leaders should view distance education as a complement, not a replacement, to their traditional classroom offerings.

“Nothing can ever take the place of that warm, caring, loving teacher who has a presence in the classroom and can put her arm around those elementary kids and snuggle up to them,” Jeffress said during a panel discussion that included state Sen. Kim Hendren, (R-Gravette), state Sen. Steve Bryles, (D-Blytheville), and state Rep. Mark Martin, (R-Prairie Grove).

Obviously, I beg to differ. I would say that a parent can definitely take the place of that warm, caring, loving teacher (not that we don’t want teachers to be warm and caring, of course). And do kids and teachers really snuggle?

I always thought that was one of the advantages of homeschooling…we get to snuggle while we learn…

Because there is no way that it will stay this way…

I finally got part of the boy’s “game room” organized and cleaned up. I had decided before the summer that I desperately needed something to help me organize the books and other homeschool stuff that seemed to be slowly taking over the house. Now that summer was over and we were back home, it seemed the right time to tackle it.

The game room is on the main level of our house on the other side of the foyer from the family room and kitchen and is where the boys have their Wii and tv set up (also holds the 5 ft guinea pig cage). I t is also a major “catch all” room as well. Here is a picture of what it used to look like:

…The Mess Before

So after 2 or so weeks, I finally finished. We also decided to move Jason’s computer from the family room into this room (it is still in a public area). Take a look.

The Clean After…

And there is still room for more books! Better look fast…because it won’t stay this way for long. And you will also notice that I am not posting pictures of other rooms in the house. They unfortunately do not look quite as nice as this one. And I still have a few things that were in this room that need a new home. But, hey, I take what I can.

The scenery in Luray was just gorgeous. Although I know that folks out west probably laugh at our “mountains”, I love our Appalachians. Beautiful. Rolling. Created when North America collided with Africa way back when. The boys got a kick out of that fact.

The Luray Singing Tower

According to the Luray Caverns website the Luray Singing Tower officially known as the Belle Brown Northcott Memorial, was erected in 1937 opposite Luray Caverns in memory of Colonel T.C. Northcott’s wife. At 117 feet in height, the Luray Singing Tower contains a carillon of 47 bells. The largest bell weighs 7,640 pounds and is six feet in diameter. The smallest weighs a mere 12 ½ pounds.

We took Skyline Drive to get home and stopped off at a glassblowers studio we happen to pass by. Unfortunately no demonstration, but there was a beautiful creek running in front of the studio.

Or maybe barely running is a better description. We have had very little rain here lately. But the rocks were still beautiful. I love their texture.

On Thursday, we took an overnight trip to Luray Caverns with our homeschool boys club. Neither I nor the boys had ever been (although it has been on my list of places to visit for ages) and we had just a blast.

The trip down took less than 2 hours and was a really nice drive (gosh Virginia is beautiful…especially this part of the Shenandoah Valley). The boys were a little antsy after being the car but they did manage to settle down a bit after they ran off a bit of steam. It was actually very hot that day (upper 80s in October!) but the caverns themselves were very cool.

Waiting patiently

The caverns were utterly amazing. As soon as we walked down into the caverns you just became completely awed realizing how incredible nature really is to create something like that. I don’t know what the boys were expecting, but they seemed duly impressed.

“The Towel” - You could shine a light through it.

After visiting the caverns, we decided to go through the garden maze they have there. This was one of the highlights of Jason’s trip. He was so looking forward to it. I thought that it would be fairly easy and we would zip right through it, but it actually was really hard, especially for someone as directionally challenged as myself.

This was such a perfect thing for the kids, as they could run and yell all they wanted. They had an absolute blast.

After the maze, we headed over to Jellystone Park (yes…of Yogi Bear fame - Jason’s comment - “you mean it is a real place?”) for the night. We cooked hot dogs and built a campfire (and yes, had s’mores). There was an open field in front of the cabins and the boys played flashlight tag well into the night while the Mom’s sat around the fire and talked. What a way to cap off the evening.

We ended up taking the scenic route home through the Shenandoah National Park and stopped off at a roadside shop and picked up a beautiful basket and some honey and apple cider.

All in all a wonderful trip. I know that I am not doing the description of this trip justice as I am tired and breaking my rule of being in bed early. But it was such a great trip…one of those times when you really appreciate being able to homeschool and go on adventures like these…made all the more fun because you get to do it on a school night!

I actually took tons more pictures then I have included here. Feel free to go check them out!

I had a realization this summer. I am a morning person. Not sure why I did not really realize this before. I like being up early. There is something peaceful about being up before daylight, in the quiet morning. I am more productive. Things that I struggle to complete the evening before, seem to just be easier in the early break of day. Posts and articles write themselves. Doing dishes seems much less daunting of a task. I feel the need to clean and organize, believe it or not. But all I want to do in the evening is crash on the couch. Which is what I usually do (although I am usually doing work on my computer).

The interesting thing, though, if you happen to notice most of the timestamps on this blog,  is thatI tend to stay up late. Very late. Usually at least to 1am, often later. And then I can’t wake up early, so I sleep in, usually until about 9am. By the time I check email, shower and take care of a few other things, I find that the entire morning is gone! And I don’t have time to clean or organize or barely get the kids something to eat before we are off somewhere.

So this past week, I have been forcing myself to retrain. I have been going to bed around 11:30pm and waking at 7am., sometimes a bit earlier. This seems to be the right amount of sleep for me as I am waking up without my alarm clock. I have not been perfect about this, but at least when I have gone to bed late, it has been midnight and not 2am!

The good thing is that I like it. I get the same amount of “alone” time as I did when I stayed up later (the boys usually are not up until 8am or so, and they usually watch TV or play on the computer for a little bit while they wake up). And I feel like I get more done. And I am finished with showers and email and whatnot earlier in the morning so I feel like we have more of the day when I am actually motivated to do things.

Now I just have to keep it up. I think that I will. I like it. It feels right.

Of course after writing all this, I have started to wonder about this whole need to be “productive” thing. I seem to be trying to cram way too much into too little time. And I don’t seem to be overly comfortable just relaxing and not “doing” anything. Definitely something wrong there. Definitely need to think on that one.

I have been, believe it or not, cutting back on some of my email lists…not a huge amount, but some. I have realized that I actually get a lot of email advertisements (promotional emails that I have subbed to) so I have been cutting back there. Although it is easy enough to delete them, I am finding that the still contribute to the “clutter” in my life. And I am trying to remember that taking breaks is ok.

The interesting thing is that I am still trying to figure out how my life got so cluttered and busy. I have always tried to be aware of making choices and focusing on things that I enjoy and bring value to my life. I seem to have a bit too much of a good thing going though…between homeschooling the boys, participating/moderating several homeschool email lists, my VaHomeschoolers volunteer work, writing this blog, wanting to jump in on other blog conversations, writing for Life Without School, writing for the VaHomeschoolers newsletter and everything else, I am a bit overwhelmed. The problem is that I thoroughly enjoy everything that I just listed and do not want to cut anything out! But I think reality is settling in. I can’t keep doing it and I can’t truly enjoy myself when I have too much on my plate, even if they are things that I enjoy. Drat. That whole danged “finding the balance” thing again!

Looks like I need to go pull out my Voluntary Simplicity books again. It has been awhile.