Happy Birthday Mirek!

Today is Mirek's 1st birthday!

First, let me show you Eaden's letter to NASA.

 And let me tell you about how the girls have once again embraced their big hair!

 Naia is enjoying her new matchbox baby dollhouse.

 Okay, and now for the birthday boy!

His brother with a birthday card.

 We made Mirek a river with a real glacier lol!

 Then we went in for sno-cones.

 And his present!

 It's a container of beer bottle caps! He loves it!

You know some people look at me and think wow she didn't even buy her kid anything for his 1st birthday. Or wow she spent his birthday money on beer (lol). I have heard people say when asked why they buy their kids so much stuff, "she is not spoiled, she is blessed." Here is how I look at it. We are SO BLESSED that we need nothing else! I need beer and the kids need food, but other than that, we are set. We are very very very fortunate! And my son is happy! He gets to spend every day with his mom! He has never set foot in a daycare and not one of my kids WANT because they are not given everything. They are thankful for everything they get. Everything is special.

Let me tell you a story about a shopping mall. Now I am not here to glorify shopping malls and I almost never set foot in them (as this story will prove). Last Christmas, my mom offered to take the girls and I to see the Nutcracker performed by the Houston Ballet. She took us shopping at the mall for clothes. When we walked in, the girls both said "Whoaaaaaa!" in amazement. They had never seen anything like it. It was special. Not an everyday thing. Not even a weekly, monthly, or yearly thing to be honest. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we do not need to spend so much money on our kids. In fact, they are better off without us buying them stuff all of the time. Everything is appreciated. We (and a little creativity) are all they need!

Our FREE Weekend

We had a lot of fun this past weekend and we didn't spend a dime! I get a little bit sick to my stomach when I see parents buying their kids crap ALL OF THE TIME. Even if you have money, why must you always buy everything!!!!? Their kids just learn to ask, ask, ask, constantly, ask, ask, ask...for every single thing they think they want. It's annoying!

Anyway, here is what we did.

We played water balloon baseball.

 Examined our celery experiment.

 Made play-dough.

 And mini ecosystems.

 With working volcanoes!

 And port-a-potties!

 Floated boats when it started to rain.

 And went inside to make ziplines for legoman when it started getting late.

Bring Back Pluto!

I got around to making Taven a marker roll. He has finally started to show some interest in drawing/coloring.

 But still prefers paper airplanes.

 We checked out a pretty awesome book from the library. It is called Thunder Birds: Nature's Flying Predators (by Jim Arnosky.)

 This next one is called Island by Jason Chin on The Galapagos. We love all of Jason Chin's work.

 Also a neat book from National Geographic on Darwin. There are quotes from his journals.

 Some science experiments.

 And a new fascination with Pluto.

 My sister is a 2nd grade science and math teacher and she gave us this old model of the solar system. Pluto is represented as a planet. However, Eaden was not willing to accept that Pluto is no longer a planet and is instead a dwarf planet.

 The kids take the solar system everywhere. It talks and tells all sorts of facts about the planets.

 Because everyone was so upset with the treatment of Pluto by scientists, we decided to make shirts.

Next, we are planning on writing a letter requesting that Pluto be reinstated and we will be taking it with us when we visit NASA in the near future.

And Peace Descends Upon Us

In my last post, I talked about staying home and switching to more of an unschooling style. Oh how happy I am for doing these two things!....at least for some amount of time. I think staying home is what my son needs right now. And unschooling is always welcome of course. We have had abundant happiness on this Tuesday! and it's not even 2 o'clock yet!

I started off the day reading about pioneers and homesteading to Eaden. That led to us baking some pioneer style bread.

 Then the kids played in their fort.

 Back to the bread.

 I should probably remember to check in on this little monster more often.

 Watching pretend t.v. Naia kept turning the channel making Eaden mad.

 Then the baby wrecked the fort!

 Rebuilding.

 Dust baths.

 Neighbors flowers overflowing into our yard.

 Back inside and the dough has risen!

 I steamed some artichokes as a treat for the kids to have with their bread.

Here's to more days like this!