Our day today....

Focus...Cleaning the back bathroom and the kitchen and clearing out some of the stuff in the gardens.

We got her done! :)

we also picked a whack of ground cherries, hot peppers, carrots, beets and jalapenos.

Also took time to practice what we learned that tigers do...
We took cat classes.

Little cat learned to stalk prey.
Little cat learned to pounce on prey AFTER running really really fast after it.
Little cat remembered what big cats eat.. buffalo, deer, leopards,etc. and that little cats eat grasshoppers and mice. :)
Little cat learned to play with mommy cat.
Little cat learned to defend himself.. and the importance of protecting his tummy.
Little cat had a WHOLE lot of fun.

Taught by my son....

So here I am...have a sore gut most of the day and all I want to do is sleep or read or just kinda "be".

So at night I did what I normally do and I asked Justin how his day was, and I apologized for not playing with him because my tummy was sore.

"Mommy, when my tummy feels like that I just ask God to make it better it better and he does".

Me feeling like an idiot and amazed at my lad.

"you're right buddy, I should do that. Mommy didn't even think about doing that. Mommy needs to ask God to make her tummy better."

and so we did...

It's not better yet, but my attitude is. :)
Feeling a bit humbled too.

You Can't Rush a Cat

Did you know that you can't rush a cat?

This delightful book is a blue spruce book. And my boyo just loves it. :) he's even got the line down "you just can't rush a cat granddaddy".

So just why am I blogging it?

well the lass in the book sings some songs to the cat and I wanted to look them up and this gives me a place to blog them.

The owl and the pussycat went to sea

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five pound note
The Owl looked up to the stars above
And sang to a small guitar
O lovely Pussy, O Pussy my love
What a beautiful Pussy you are
You are, you are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are

Pussy said to the Owl, You elegant fowl
How charmingly sweet you sing
O let us be married, too long we have tarried
But what shall we do for a ring?
They sailed away, for a year and a day
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose
His nose, his nose
With a ring at the end of his nose

Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring? Said the Piggy, I will.
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill
They dined on mince, and slices of quince
Which they ate with a runcible spoon
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand
They danced by the light of the moon
The moon, the moon
They danced by the light of the moon

Pussycat, pussycat where have you been

Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussycat, pussycat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.

ding dong bell pussy's in the well

Ding dong bell
Pussy's in the well
Who put her in?
Little Johnny Flynn
Who pulled her out?
Little Tommy Stout
What a naughty boy was that
Try to drown poor Pussycat,
Who ne'er did any harm
But killed all the mice
In the Farmer's barn!

Today's Activities

Got to bed late on Monday, so got up a bit later this morning.

before I went out to take care of the bunnies, the lad got up, so I got handy manny on for him and went to do the bunnies, where I discovered one of my kits died overnight...total bummer that. back into the house to see that my hubby was up, tired from lack of sleep.

Threw some sort of breakfast together and talked with mom on the phone for a minute.

Worked through day one of the Terrific Tigers unit study from Download N Go. We had fun doing this. Watched loads of videos and did a bunch of stuff on-line including this cool tiger puzzle that Justin did twice. :)

Did laundry, taught the boy how to pull a fitted cover down over a mattress, and he also learned how to clean a bathtub! :) He had the fun part of bathing the tub clean and then having a bunch of hair bottles end up in the water with him to scrub, and then rinsed it out really well for me. What an excellent young helper he can be.

We had planned to drive the library, but decided it was such a nice day so we walked instead. Good exercise. Got out one tiger book from the library and then played trains for 45 minutes. We had hoped to visit one of the seniors on the way home but we forgot and went to the dollar store for a drink instead. We enjoyed our drink sitting out back of the dollar store and reading books. Very nice to do that with a lad.

Home to work on more laundry and to make supper. I did sausage with potatoes and corn, and the lad did potatoes, corn, tomatoes and cheese since he is not real up on sausage yet. I only did sausage because I'm emptying the freezer of all meat products before I start buying more. They need to be used up! soon I'll be doing the same with the veggie and fruit freezer. I want it empty by spring. Pt the lad to bed and then vegged on the computer for a while since Jim was at a meeting. he came back in good spirits. :) we talked a while and then watched NCIS: Los Angelos together. As Justin would say "this has been a good day, I liked all of it."

Checkers

On a quiet Sunday afternoon I decided to teach a five year old how to play checkers.

We had fun. Played two games.

I won one, he won the other (granted, I 'made mistakes'). But we had fun, and he learned how to play a game by the rules, this is sometimes a difficult concept for him.

We sandwiched a walk in-between.

Door's Open London

For more on what Justin learned go here.

We had a really good time going out for the day to Doors Open London. We got off to be bit of later start then anticipated, but we managed to cover four of the five that I thought we could do.

We went to the agricultural center, the train club, the HMCS Provost and the Secrets of Radar Museum.

The agriculture center it was fascinating learning about what they are doing in their search to find better ways of handling pests and disease in crops. I learned that was TWO of my potatoes had this year was potato scab which is found quite literally all over the world and they are working on figuring out what causes it to be a problem at times and when it isn't. Justin touched a horn worm. Boy..they are big, and I've never seen one on my tomatoes (yeah!) The making steam was just sheer fun AND we got to listen to bugs eating...sounded just like Justin eating an apple. (that made him giggle). :)

The train club was just huge. Absolutely fascinating seeing all those trains zooming around.

HMCS Provost was for the most part a bit boring for the lad but he found it a hoot running around the upper deck. It was so big and open. I learned how to make a figure 8 knot. Justin and I got a mirror for trying the monkey fist rope toss into a kisby ring. And here's a video on how to make a monkey's Fist knot.


Secrets of Radar Museum. Just a small museum it was interesting walking through it. We found radar points on a big board, and Justin matched pictures to old planes. But what he enjoyed the most was when we looked at various voltmeters and parts that belong to radar stations and I told him what they all were. Rather fun that.

Blue Spruce books

I asked our town librarian the other day if she could recommend books for our lad to read.

She said she couldn't recommend a particular book as there are so many good ones out there, but that we should read some of the Blue Spruce books. Here are some titles to some Blue Spruce books.

From what I understand, Blue Spruce books are some of the best of Canadian authors in Children's literature.
I do know that of the few we brought home today from the library our lad has enjoyed them immensely. They are a good read for adult and child. :)

Here's a list of the nominees for 2010.

Today we brought home eight, I"ll have to list them for you sometime, but the lad wants to read them a bit more first. :) Cheers!

Sept 13, 2010

Today we took J to Gymnastics for the first time. It was a bit of a rush to get out of the house on time (sleeping in doesn't help). Took some mice along with me. There is a guy in London who will take my mice whenever I have some so that makes it nice. :) Anyways, the lad had fun at Gymnastics despite being very uncertain about the whole deal. He said he'd like to go again. :)

Afterwards we went took the lad for lunch as he was apparently starving. :) And then off to gramma's. After gramma's Jim and I went to Costco where I had a hotdog and we did a spot of shopping. Off to the western fair afterwards. We had fun.

- watched versatility in western riding. That was fun...especially when the calf got away from the cowboys.
- the raptor show put on by the canadian raptor conservatory. We had a great horned owl fly just 2 inches from our heads. :)
- Double Vision. a magician act done by twins. it was a bit goofy oddball...but had some excellent magic as well.
- Horse racing. :) Ah, I love watching the ponies run AND I haven't lost my touch at picking the winners.
- and then we browsed. Really enjoyed watching the potter at work. I hope to do that with the lad sometime.

Then home, put lad to bed, check on bunnies (totally freaked them out - silly things) and do some computer stuff. A good day.

the lad laughed

NGBTS picnic and other stuff

Today we attended the NGBTS picnic hosted by KLC and A Different Drum from London. NGBTS stands for Not Going Back to School, it's a picnic for homeschoolers.

We had a scavenger hunt which our lad thoroughly enjoyed. :) I really liked how they had this one set up. It went beyond the normal find this find that and bring in all this stuff. It worked with all the five senses... can you hear, can you smell, can you see, can you touch, can you read, can you find. Justin had a lot of fun with it too. He even tried to catch a squirrel to put in his pocket. :)

We picked up some new books. Okay...these were "new to us" book. Most were on science experiments or teaching books. There was a lady there who had five cases of books and apparently has another 90 cases in her home yet. In one of the books the lad found an experiment that he desperately wanted to do IMMEDIATELY! To read how that went, go here. oh the book was this one (101 great science experiments):

After having a picnic lunch and chatting with a lady we met at the HOPE picnic and a couple other people we ended up not going the play area for a play time, but instead ran some errands and went home.

The lad experimented, we had supper and the two of us went to pick grass for the bunnies and had fun with the "pink cats" that like to sneak up a body (and then one needs to hide in the corn field). Only the mommy pink cats are dangerous. The baby ones are fun and like to follow you like friendly cats, and the old ones with purple around their eyes are safe and like to say hi, and be petted. (active imaginations the lad and I have). :)

Then time for bed and book reading and conversation.
Overall a good day.

Discovered when we got home that hubby dear expected we'd be in London late today, whereas I expected to get home by 5/530. So I was delighted with how the day went whereas Jim wasn't quite so. Shoot... what can a person do but learn to communicate these things more clearly......It's always a learning process. :)

Sketch Tuesday - something that grows on trees

This is Justin's first sketch that we've submitted to Sketch Tuesdays. :)

We were to sketch something that grew on trees.
Justin chose to do crabapples. The top one is very mouldy. (yes, I forgot to rotate the pic).

We have a crabapple tree out front that Jim grew from a wee seed. It gets nice crabapples, it also gets a lot of not nice (as Justin would say, mouldy) crabapples. :)

In case you wonder what the black circles are... those are the branches that the Crabapples grow on.