Category Archives: Family

Happy Mother

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What a privilege it is to be a mother.  A privilege, a responsibility, a joy.  My family made Mothers’ Day very enjoyable for me today.  There were lovely cards waiting for me this morning, plus a model of a boat at sea made by B8.  This afternoon we played tennis together for an hour or so and then returned for a delicious dinner made by Andrew and A12.  They had been watching Master Chef Australia and were inspired to create something from the ingredients available to them.  We sat down to a beautifully presented meal of Spanish Meatballs with baked Acorn Squash in an Orange Capsicum, Lemon and Garlic sauce on the side.  To drink we had an Iced Tea and Ginger ale mix.  The flowers on the table were done by B8 and the clean up by L14.    Perfect.

Winter days

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Officially winter has not yet begun, but if you look out our window, you can see that it is well and truly here.  We have had quite a few snowfalls with more storm warnings ahead  so a white Christmas looks certain.  The days are much shorter.  We find it hard to get out of bed in the dark and to turn on the lights at 4:30 in the afternoon.

The end of the the school term is near and we are eagerly looking forward to a few weeks holiday.  Each of the children have some academic tasks that they are trying to finish by Friday at the latest.  B8 amazed us all by deciding that he would like to finish earlier than Friday and to that end he completed three math problem sets on Monday then two plus a test on Tuesday.  This has never happened before! But now I know it is possible…

L14 is working on her last writing assignment for this year, a Christmas poem and A12 is finishing up a research paper on trench warfare.   Our Christmas preparations are well underway despite the need for school to continue.  On Monday night we picked up a Balsam fir tree which is looking beautiful in our lounge room. The other  night Andrew and I put up lights on our front porch.  It was minus 7 at the time so we kept going inside for a little thaw break.  All the hard work had to be done by Andrew, some on a ladder some on the snow covered rook.  I just stood and gave advice and wondered if the hedge would be enough to break his fall if he slipped off the roof.

Lately, the girls have had several opportunities to play violin in the community .  Today, along with their friends H and P they provided Christmas music for a Senior Christmas Dinner at H and P’s  Grandma’s church.  A couple of weeks ago they did the same for the seniors dinner at our church.  Last Sunday L14 and P performed  at our church’s  Youth banquet.

This time next week will be Christmas Day, which we will be spending with friends we made back in Wollongong when A12 was a baby.  They are in New York now and will arrive at our place on Christmas Eve.  Everyone is looking forward to their arrival.  Like us they have three children, very close in age to ours.  There will be fun and games for sure.

Gingerbread village

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For the last two weeks my dining room table and several kitchen counters have been covered with gingerbread shapes and structures.  They are the components of four different entries for a local gingerbread house competition.  Last year we teamed up with another family and entered a lighthouse and the little house on the prairie.  This year the Group of Four families are all involved and there are four different entries.

B8 teamed up with the two other 8 year olds in our homeschooling group to make “Gummyville” a gingerbread village inhabited by gummy bears.  This worked very well because each child made two houses and was able to decorate them as they wished.

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There was some negotiating done about surrounding parkland, but they were all very accommodating of each others ideas.  It was their idea to have a little frozen pond with gummy bears skating as well as some parkbenches for those gummies who just wanted sit by the fire.

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They also came up with the name “Gummyville”  but no matter how hard I campaigned I could not get them to agree to have “…where life is sweet” on their sign!

There were several tense moments during the assembly day, but you can always turn a broken wall into a little shop.

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I will post photos of the other three entries soon, so check back later.

Wrapping up her birthday

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A12 turned twelve during our trip to China, but the party happened just a week ago.  Our children have birthday parties every second year if they wish.  Even while we were in China we were thinking about the party.  While shopping in Shanghai A12 picked up a few things to give to her guests.  Originally the party was to have a China theme but it became an Olympic party instead.

The guests were asked to pick a country and come with some representation like a mascot or flag or maybe dress in the country’s sporting colours.  Australia, Canada, Italy, USA, Great Britain, Botswana, Mexico, Israel and Argentina were represented.  The games were not all athletic, which was just as well, as it turned out to be a grey rainy day.  We had an obstacle course, balloon volleyball, an “eatathlon”, 1-100 sprint, ball toss, card relay, and a triathlon including horseriding, weight lifting and hurdles!

In most events gold, silver and bronze stickers where given out to be stuck on the medal tally chart.  I was very happy to see that every country placed in several events!  All competitors received a chocolate medal during the closing ceremony.  The athletes ate chicken, chips and salad together before consuming birthday cake made by L14 and decorated with the Olympic rings.

Campaign Close-up

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Friends of ours and fellow members of Group of Four welcomed an important visitor into their home this morning. The Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, was given a short cello lesson by B7’s friend J8. Mr Harper then used his new skills to accompany E12 as he played a fiddle tune. E, J and their brother M were able to chat to Mr Harper about their interests and music lessons. 

We were also able to experience an aspect of the current election campaign at very close range today when we were invited to the Conservative Headquarters to attend a policy announcement.  Mr Harper, announced three new initiatives to help Canadian families. One of those initiatives is to establish a tax credit on fees for children taking music, art or drama lessons.

We were present for the whole announcement and the question time which followed. The children listened to the Prime Minister outline the policy, which involved more than just the tax credit, and heard him field questions on a range of topics relating to the election. After the announcement he took a few minutes to meet each member of the three families invited. When talking to the children he asked them about their involvement with music and told them a little about his own piano learning as a young person. He also chatted to them about the instruments his son and daughter like to play.

It was great to be behind the scenes and see the large media contingent in action.  We were briefed before the announcement by one of the PM’s staff about what to expect and appropriate behaviour.  We were also warned that the strong lighting can get very hot and just last week someone fainted during a press release.    We had stood for twenty minutes or so and were just listening to Mr Harper answering the last question when I realised A12 was swaying beside me, I whispered to her but received no reply.  Not a moment too soon I put my arms out to steady her and maneuvered away to the side of the room, where someone picked her up and carried her to a chair.  As soon as she could walk we went off to a back room where she recovered.  That is why you cannot see either of us in the photos here.  Mr Harper did come back to the room with the rest of the families where A12 and I were able to speak briefly with him.

You can read the press release here or watch it here

Chore changes

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After two years of rotating the chores, we decided to move back to a system where each person has the same chores each week.  I compiled a list of all the chores we needed to do on a regular basis and divided them into five groups of four chores.  We then took turns picking a chore from each group with a different person getting first pick each time. Some of the chores are more time consuming than others but we seemed to end up with an appropriate distribution. It is a bit soon to know whether the new system is an improvement but I feel that we are keeping up better than last year.  The real test will be when all the outside activities start up again and we are in and out of the house more.

I read about an interesting chore system on Pioneer Woman a few weeks ago and told my children about it.  The girls felt that they were a little old for a “Chore Store” but B7 thought it was a great idea (no surprise there).  When children did all their allocated daily chores they earned Mom money or Dad dollars, to spend or save for purchases at the Chore Store.  We have never paid our children to do chores, looking after the house is just part of family life.  My hope is that over time they will learn how to do all the household chores and see it as a way to serve the family.  However I do want to recognise jobs well done, so I might come up with my own tokens of appreciation.

One of the girls came by as I was working on this post and wondered why on earth I was writing about chores!  Why indeed?  I just want you to know it’s not all watercolours and international travel around here.

Results

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Today the girls found out their results from the theory exams.  Both did extremely well with marks over 90%.  They were very pleased, Andrew and I were very proud.  A12 has to keep up the momentum now and work towards her Grade 2 theory exam next year.

I was excited to receive in the mail a magazine containing an article I wrote.  Homeschooling Horizons is a Canadian magazine and my article was about starting or joining a Co-op.

After lunch today, none of us were in the least bit excited to be joined by a mouse in the kitchen!  I am embarrassed to say I did my share of screaming and jumping out of the way.  Of course the tiny little creature was terrified as we all stood looking at it deciding what we should do.  Any time it looked like being brave enough to move we roared at it.    B7 had a few bloodthirsty ideas on how it could be dispatched; needless to say I didn’t go with any of them.

Glimpses of our school day

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Not only did we manage to get up in time for school this morning, the girls and I went for a run before we began. Running is very much in the trial stage, today was the second day. We are only running about 2km, which took us 15 minutes this morning. I spent the last 5 minutes telling myself I must not give up even though everything hurt!

We began with a short prayer and bible memory time using the fruit bowl to help learn the Fruit of the Spirit verses. Then it was into Maths, the girls just opened up the beloved Saxon tests and got to work. B7 and I did not get out the text straight away; I have designed things a little differently for him, devoting more time to games, drill and activity sheets which will hopefully help him to memorise his number facts and tables. As the maths got harder last year he could understand the concepts but was slowed down by the calculations. We did much of today’s lesson orally, covering the first lesson in the text but without the laborious copying of questions into a workbook. I spent quite a bit of time searching through recommended online Math Games during the summer so I could supplement the drill with some shooting of asteroids and the like. It will take me more time to prepare this type of lesson, but I was very happy with today’s results and so was B7.

L14 has designed her own schedule this year, which we will tweak as the days progress. I think a couple of subjects may need more time allotted to them but time will tell. For the first time (other than violin) she is taking a class with a different teacher. We have heard excellent reports of a writing teacher here in Ottawa who runs a thirty week program, teaching a range of writing styles and techniques. She sends lessons, assignments and feedback to her students by email and runs an optional 1 hour class each week.

The rest of the day ran smoothly with Language not being too painful for B7, I read him a story that I found very strange, but which he loved. Although he complained about spelling and writing I was thrilled to see how much he had retained over the long summer break. This year he will join A12 in using Excellence in Writing, the program I have utilised to teach the girls factual writing over the last few years.  Reading other people’s ideas over the summer I became convinced that B7 should have his schedule by his desk so he can see how his time is divided up.  He referred to it often today and could see that the lesson times were not too long and there were BLANK spaces during which he could take a break.

A12 managed to get all her work done in plenty of time, so she accompanied me to the library to borrow a secret codes book.  Tonight she created a very authentic looking Secret Agent membership document on the computer. (Not that I have actually seen any secret agent membership documents!)

So there you have a few glimpses into our first day back at school.  As I suspected, now we are back at the books the real summer weather has arrived, 30° today and tomorrow!

Summer Daze

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Today is the last day of the summer holidays, but it is definitely not the last day of summer. I keep telling people that summer could last another month or so yet. Wishful thinking, I know. I don’t know where all the summer days have gone. Even though we were only in China two weeks, it seemed to affect my whole summer. The weather also threw me out, it rained almost everyday through July and half of August. After the extreme heat of China the mild days here were pleasant but not the summer days we are used to.

On returning from China A12 and L14 threw themselves into studying for their music theory exams. For four weeks they spent large chunks of every day working, L14 did Grade 2 and A12 Grade 1. I think B7 found this a bit tough as he had already missed their company for two weeks only to find them always working on cadences, scales and Italian terms. They did take a break on the August long weekend, which included L14’s birthday, and we all visited our friends at their cottage in the Laurentians.

After the exams were finally over they both breathed sighs of relief and then realised there were only three weeks of holidays left. B7 and A12 went to a soccer camp run by SU at our church which they thoroughly enjoyed. Both came home each day hot, sunburnt and happy. L14 and I fitted in several games of tennis, some swimming and a little shopping. Throughout these weeks of theory and sport I steadily sorted and cleaned through many rooms of the house. I also spent hours planning for the coming school year.

As has been our custom since we came to Canada we went out for an “End of School Dinner”. We had not eaten out together since I was diagnosed with celiac disease so we decided to try one of the restaurants recommended by the Ottawa Celiace Association. It was Indian and the food was delicious. We all chose something to share and I was able to eat just about everything. I had prepared certificates for the children as I have in past years. The awards can be for excellent results, considerable improvement or consistent effort. I also had movie gift certificates for them each this year and they bought a cd for Andrew and I. As in past years it was a very enjoyable night.

We returned to our friends’ cottage for a week of swimming, kayaking, card games and more school planning (the mums of course, not the kids!) It was very relaxing, as it always is; the days were sunny and warm, the nights crisp and the company refreshing. Both families returned to celebrate H’s birthday, which was a fancy dress party. L14 made alterations to a “Queen Guinevere” dress I had made years ago and turned it into one of the Princess Bride’s costumes. A12 created an Arabian nights style costume to be Aravis from “The Horse and His Boy”. (I’ll try and post a photo tomorrow)

This past week has disappeared as I have tried to get the house to rights, attended several planning meetings and worked on details for the upcoming Stellae Boreales retreat. Tomorrow we begin a new year and according the levels here in Canada we have a highschooler, a junior highschooler and an elementary school student. I think everyone is looking forward to the year’s challenges, the first one being getting out of bed at a reasonable time tomorrow morning!