Field Trip time...

This has been the week of spur of the moment field trips.

On Monday I found out that the King Tut exhibit here in town had a deal for the month of September you got a free kids ticket with the purchase of an adult ticket, but only until Sept 30th, aka Friday. So I asked the Boy and sure enough he really, really wanted to go. So I bought the tickets, added the audio tour as a lark and we got ready to go on Tuesday. It was not the most 'kid friendly' exhibit I have seen in town there were no touch stations and interactive exhibits, my kid was still enthralled. He had his audio tour and listened to each station, he let me read some of the exhibits to him that we not part of the audio tour. He shared some of the tidbits he learned with me. All in all we had a lovely time.I ended up buying him this mouse pad. It was $2 and by far one of the most affordable bits of tchotchke available there. ;)

Then yesterday morning before we were able to leave for the Art Museum I received an email from my Mom letting me know that the LAS Pathfinder portion of the Orion space craft was going to be at the DMNS on Tuesday and Weds this week. The Orion spacecraft is what is slated to replace the Space Shuttle for missions to the International Space Station. The LAS Pathfinder is the Launch Abort System to be used to help protect the astronauts from problems at launch.I again asked the Boy if he wanted to see this and again a VERY enthusiastic YES. So today we are off to see the LAS Pathfinder at the museum.

Then last night at scouts we had an amazing storyteller come and share with the boys. She was wonderful. She kept the boys enchanted for 45 minutes telling them stories, teaching them songs and dances. It was wonderful to see. She has a beautiful voice and writes amazing songs. If you want to see what she does please go to her website.

So while we aren't getting much in the way of practicing times tables and sitting at the table talking about verbs and adverbs, we are learning lots of interesting things and enjoying our life. Ahhhh, I love this gig. (please don't come over and see the mess that is my house because of these fun trips)

Knitting, learning, and letting go...

I'm still working on the big old lady lace project for myself. ;) I am loving it but am finding I am not spending that much time on it. I have also started knitting a 9 inch square in orange angora to make a bunny for the Boy. He picked the yarn out last year and has decided since it is bunny yarn it should be knit into a bunny. Here is the pattern, it is very, very, very easy and turns out cute. I have made one before but I don't remember who ended up with it.

The Boy has decided to learn to read since he really wants to get Lego Mindstorms and make robot minions. Whatever works to motivate him I will use. Also just have to put in another plug for Timez Attack he gladly spent another 40 minutes playing it today and has nearly memorized all his 2's facts. If only I could find something as engaging for addition and subtraction. Sigh.

I freecycled away the rest of my maternity clothes. The pants I loved so much and basically lived in for the last month of my pregnancy and the first month of the Boy's life are gone. I am ready to move on. I started a diet and I'm working out. I won't be getting pregnant again and I think I have really accepted that. My life is busy enough right now with my one boyo and while I go through moments of mourning not having a daughter to share things with, my son is pretty darn fabulous and teaches me new things and I am having to stretch beyond my comfort zone to encourage his interests.

Tearing things apart to learn

Yesterday I was introduced to the MAKEcation Family Challenge this really is perfect for us. We love MAKE magazine. We have lots of dead electronics lying around the house, no really, I think DH may have gotten rid of the VCR that he moved, broken, from his Mom's house to our first apartment, to our second apartment, to our first house and then to the house we now live in, but only maybe. We have 3 dead computers sitting in our garage, one in the office that is actually waiting to be converted to the Boy's new computer, and the Boy's old computer sitting around here somewhere. We also have various other bits hanging around.
When we got a new cable remote the boy tore into the old one to see what was in there. Now we have a pretty good excuse to tear into something catalog everything (this is where I get excited) and maybe win something. Plus it really will be teaching the boy something new.
I read about it at 4, I told DH & the Boy about it at 6 and by 6:30 there was a computer on the living room floor waiting for its time under the screwgun. There is no before picture to this because they were too excited to get going to stop and take a pic. There are some pictures of the middle bits, and there are a couple of very long videos, that if anyone can tell me what I need to edit them on the PC I will edit and work on making them more viewable to others beyond myself and my family. ;)
So is anyone else thinking of doing this with their kids? Or you know by yourself, or with a friend? Let me know.

Times Tables, Boo Boos and knitting....

In case you couldn't tell by the title this is gonna be random, very, very random. "enjoy"

I had heard for a while about a game called Timez Attack was a great way to get kids to learn their times tables. I wasn't sure if it was the things for us but since it is free to try I thought I would download it. I played it the other day and it seemed ok, not perfect but ok. I was a little annoyed with the interface but it did have an interesting way to do the repetition on the times tables. So I left it on the desktop of my computer and waited until the Boy saw it. He did, the icon is a little green alien looking thing, and wanted to watch me play it, he then wanted to try it for himself. He asked me to stay next to him and give him the answers in case he didn't know them. The game shows you the answer and he figured it out quickly. He picked up the facts quickly and only had a problem when he miss-keyed something and got flustered. (In case you didn't know, no one has ever offered to give me anything free for any kind of review, let alone Big Brainz)

There was a time in my life when I had a hard time finding a band-aid and first-aid cream in my house. It was there, I just didn't know exactly where, and the first-aid cream was most likely well out of date. Those days are long gone. Having an almost 8 year old in the house has necessitated my knowing where these are and actually buying new first-aid cream. He had a boo boo on his toe this evening. So I got the first aid kit out and bandaged him. Do Moms of little girls have this intimate knowledge of their first-aid kit? I can remember when the Boy was 3 and he fell at the zoo. He skinned his knees really bad and was in tears. Another mom came up to me and said "I have 5 kids I always have band-aids in my purse" I thought at the time she must have really clumsy kiddos. I now know she just had kids, and enough of them to warrant constant band-aid need.

As for knitting, I'm driving myself crazy with this shawl. I have started it 3 times now, simply because I can't read a pattern. It is a very simple pattern and I kept ignoring vitally important bits. I have gotten past the worse and hope that I will be able to continue on with this now that I've got the pattern set. My next challenge will be to decide where I'm going to change the colors.

School and knitting

We have survived the first week of school, ok most of the first week of school. We still need to get today behind us and then we will be done, done, done.

Yesterday we took a slightly different route to school. I decided I HAD to have a swift. I had 5 skiens of yarn that needed to be balled up, (more on this project in a bit.) Using the back of my chairs was a pain in the neck and my son and husband are not patient enough to sit for the hour or so it would take to do it by hand. I have been wanting a swift for years now, but at $50-$70 I was not willing to shell out the money, not even my birthday/holiday gift card money. I would rather have more yarn or knitting books than to spend the bulk of my money on a piece of hardware, no matter how useful. So I found instructions online to make one, went to the hardware store and the Boy and I made it yesterday. He worked with tools, did math, and had fun. I love this homeschool stuff.

I'm starting a new knitting project that is just for me. I'm knitting a circular shawl the Super-Spiral Shawl from A Gathering of Lace. Here is the Ravelry Link , I'm hoping it will turn out pretty. I'm using 5 different colors of yarn to make it. I was given a sampler of Knitpicks Shadow lace yarn a few years ago. I don't know why it has taken me this long to realize I can made a multi colored shawl but it has. So I'm going to start it soon, as in as soon as I can find a set of size 10 dpns.

Last thing is I am entering a contest to win a picture on canvas from Freely Educate, here is the link if you are interested in it. It ends this afternoon at 6 so hurry.