Saturday, September 20, 2014

Cake Smash and Kittens!

Friday is normally a lighter day for us schoolwork wise, allowing us to spend time in nature, with friends, on field trips or catching up if we had a mid week field trip, etc.  Well, this Friday was spent adopting our first furry pets!  KITTENS!  

So far we have only had a beta fish and the baby chicks.  And although the chickens are entertaining, friendly and productive pets who do enjoy getting pet, it's not the same as a little purball furball kitten!  

We had promised the kids we would get a cat when we got a house...like 3 years ago...but when we got the house we had to get settled, by then we found out we were moving again and putting our house on the market so we held off again till we completed that move, but then we had a baby on the way so we held off till after the baby.  Well the baby just turned one....yeah...I can't believe it, ONE already, where did the time go?  I can't believe it was just a little over a year ago that the midwives showed up at our home on Labor Day to help deliver this little guy into the world who is now walking ALL OVER!




 The vultures have descended the second it appears baby is done with his cake....

So....yeah the kids have been waiting and waiting for a kitty and now that we passed that first birthday, it seemed like we could start thinking about it...like FOR REAL this time.

I get Farmer Sue's emails from The Art Barn and normally I don't open them because like most newsletters I subscribe to, who has time to actually read them?  Well, randomly I clicked on the most recent one and saw a picture of a kitten and the contact info.  
Apparently a pregnant stray cat showed up at this 76 year old lady's home and so she was looking out after her and when the kittens came she started taking care of them but was unable to find homes for them.  When I went there I had the intention of getting one male kitty.  Hubby and I agreed on only boy cats as based on our past experienced, male cats are way more chill and cool than females.  When we arrived at this womans home, she had 5 kittens in her screened in porch and they were a little older than I had anticipated and seemed more like wild cats.  I didn't realize they were wild cats essentially until I got there.  The first one I was drawn to was the most BEAUTIFUL kitten I'd even seen but if you went within 2 feet of it, it would hiss at you.  There were 2 others that didn't hiss but seemed terrified of people and were running up and down the wall railings to stay away from us.  Then there were 2 identical kittens, one male and a slightly smaller female and the kids were actually able to pick them up and hold them.  The kittens were 11-13 weeks old (not sure exactly) and after being unable to find homes and also not wanting to actually keep them, they were going to be sent to a shelter that night.  I picked up the boy and we left.  I pulled out of her neighborhood and was getting gas across the street and started debating.  Then as if they could read my mind, the kids started saying "Can we go back and get the twin sister?  They'll be so lonely without each other!" ugh I just decided what the heck, she was going to be sent to a shelter that night anyways, if we took her too and she ended up being wild and crazy we could still try and find her another home.  So we went back over and picked up the girl.

When we got home, I got anxious...like WHAT DID I DO?  The cats were so skiddish and would only run away and hide from us.  I was remember back in college when one of our roomates found a kitten that was adorable but it was wild and it ended up being like a devil cat.  Did I just bring home TWO devil cats?  

However, by that evening they started warming up and by the looks of this picture I took today, I can say within 24 hours they've gotten quite comfortable with us and made themselves at home, they spent the day on the screen in porch and J spent the whole day playing with them, petting them and napping with them.  They are turning into purballs!  If they were on the slightly less people friendly side of the spectrum, they are quickly warming up and enjoying the family....except for Cameron and his screeching whenever he sees them.

THE BOY

THE GIRL











Waldorf-ish Chalkboard Drawing - Dolphin

So I was really inspired by the Waldorf classroom and chalkboard art and the kids have really enjoyed every reveal so far.  I don't do it every day because I just don't make time for it each night but have been doing it at least once or twice a week.  They are still pretty simple compared to the beautiful Waldorf chalkboard drawings I've seen online but it's a pretty small chalkboard and I just am having fun with it.  I find it helps get me excited about the upcoming material and topics as I look over my schedule and decide which subject/lesson I'll feature on the board.  a huge PLUS for me is it actually gets me doing some art...all be it simple and quick but still...just getting to sit down and make a fun chalkboard creation for the kids sparks that passion in me and makes me happy that in this BUSY BUSY season of motherhood, I can channel that artistic side of me...even if it's just a little dolphin drawing!  The kids then copy this in their drawing pad, We had some ocean stencils so they traced the dolphin stencils and then created their ocean scene and on the next page J copied the block style letters and the curly style letters for marine biology...now she's started making her letters fancy and curly in her spelling book, which actually has improved her hand writing! She tends to grip and press hard when writing and fatigues quicker than I would like so any way to make writing more fun for her is a big plus.


What spurred on the dolphin interest was watching Dolphin Tale 1 and 2.  We streamed the first on Amazon and then last week we went to the theater to watch Dolphin Tale 2 and I downloaded and printed the free curriculum that goes with it from the homeschool movie club.  I also found some other fun dolphin activities online and put it all into little folders for both kids, they were so excited! I was going to make lapbooks but I honestly don't have time for that, I realized why do we always have to go all out on everything? Or think we need to do it a certain way and all perfect but then it doesn't happen at all because there's no time...so I kept it simple, printed all the pages I wanted, hole punched and tossed them in folders! and DONE! lol! (and the kids were so excited about their folders I really wonder if they would have been THAT much more excited if I had spend 2 hours making lapbooks)  If you haven't watched Dolphin Tale and Dolphin Tale 2 with your kids yet, I would highly recommend both movies! And yes I know...watching movies is not so Waldorf-ish....