lately...

well, we finally kicked all the butts of all the cruds we'd been passing around here the past few months!! bye bye cruds!! so after that we had some fun!!

on the 1st, we went to my parents' house for a combined birthday party for me and my little sister, paula. it was a beautiful day and i was super hyper from all the wonderful sunshine. we had vegetarian taco salad and ice cream cake, YUM!! and talked and laughed and had a really good time. i made a watercolor card for my sister and she gave me "nightmare before christmas" socks and a shirt. my parents got me some hemp cording and wood and glass beads (which i used for the first time the other day to make some chokers for some friends in oregon). then there was more hanging out and talking. we went home happy and tired.

the next day we had our sofh homeschooling group at the park, it was another sunny day but a little on the windy side (jess had the sense to bring kites!!). it's always really nice to just sit and talk with these friends while all the kids play.

on the 3rd, we went to columbia for an amy steinberg house concert at the lovejoy's "opulent 'possum" and had a totally wonderful time!! it's always good to see amy AND get together with our friends from all over. we spent the night, although some of us didn't get a lot of sleep for staying up late playing bananagrams and talking!! silas never even went to bed! the next day, amy picked out a vietnamese restaurant to go to for lunch and i decided to go with them (which surprised even me!). i had a really great time talking and laughing with all these fabulous people...and the vegetarian pho ("fa") wasn't too bad either!! we came back to the house and kelli, jan (tim's mom), and i went to pick up a cake to surprise austin for his birthday which was the next day. when all the men came back from golfing, we all sang happy birthday to him, it was loud and beautiful and his smile was a mile wide =). after cake and packing up, i decided to leave a little earlier than planned as silas was suddenly falling asleep on the floor and i did not want to have to try to wake him up once he got all the way into it. so we headed home and it was a nice quiet ride as all the kids drifted off into sweet dreams...filled, i'm sure, with friends, laughter, and amy's awesome voice singing "it's a wiiiiide skyyy life..."

we spent a few days just quietly recovering from the weekend, watching it snow, and hoping for nicer weather...and finally, yesterday, it came!! the kids and i went to the park and played for awhile until the wind got a little too chilly for me. i surprised the kids with a trip to dairy queen which we hadn't had in a long time. samuel started having a migraine on the way home and i helped him kick its butt with some herbs and he was fine...no "turn off the lights!" or "be quiet!" and especially no puking, it was great, i gave him a cayenne tincture and a nerve tonic and it really does work folks!! later, ren, sierra, jalen, and austin came over for supper and some catching up and casual hanging out. it was a pretty good day.

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the holidays are over!!!!!!!

i woke this morning to the sound of the loudest and longest thunder clap i think i have ever heard in my life. i thought "well, i'm awake now. i might as well update my blog!" LOL, no!!! that is not what i thought...but it IS what i'm going to do!

i'm so relieved to finally have a few days of simple quiet. it's been a busy busy holiday season for us this year. if i thought our thanksgiving weekend was wild, i was sadly mistaken. it was the solstice/christmas/new year that was wild!! we started out with our homeschooling group making christmas crafts and hanging out talking and laughing and eventually heading to austin's house afterwards where i made 2 big pots of vegetable stew and got to hang with alice, rachel, and jake awhile. on the 20th, after samuel spent the afternoon at the comic shop drawing and meeting other local artists again, we drove down to columbia for a wonderful weekend spent at ben and kelly lovejoy's place for a house concert with danny schmidt and carrie elkin. their music is amazing and soul-satisfying...the stories they weave are rich with intensity and life. and their voices, well you'll just have to go listen. the kids had a great time with their friends and i had a chance to get to know my fellow unschooling moms a little better...and of course learned so much from them. like that going swimming in a freezing pool is really okay, really, it is OKAY!! thanks for the perspective kelli!! there was not a lot of sleeping that went on. too much excitement for that. i think silas was up for almost 36 hours or more straight (mostly playing "halo" i think) before he just crashed! we were supposed to go to the zoo for christmas lights sunday night but the kids were so tired they did not want to go anymore and so we went for ice cream instead on probably one of the coldest nights ever. you've never seen such a fun and full marble slab with all of us unschoolers in there making merriment. oh and i almost forget to mention the sasuke costume that kelly gave to silas...he was sooo excited about it that he even wore it to austin's christmas eve party thinking we were going to a halloween party, he was getting in the car when he suddenly realized it wasn't halloween but decided to wear it anyway. thanks kelly, he just loves it!!!

we spent christmas eve and christmas day with friends (oh you know who you are!) and then headed to my parents' house for christmas supper and presents. my family pooled together to get us a group gift this year...the wii. the kids had known about it already because we had been planning it ourselves until my mom and sisters decided they wanted to get it for us instead. so they've been busy with the wii ever since christmas so there hasn't been much tv watching going on. they really like making miis. especially of famous people and political figures. they've made miis of the clintons, micheal jackson and some others i can't even remember right now. they are hilarious. i find myself wondering about this avatar making thing. it's always fun to find a site that you can make one on, meez, gaia, yahoo...what is it about making a cartoon of yourself that is so fun?? i also wonder if someone else might be able to make a better one of you than you can. i'm going to test the idea today. i think maybe we'll make miis of each other and see if they look more like us than the ones we made of ourselves. if you are not confused yet, you are probably more awake than i am right now and not listening to oldies love songs, typing, and uploading pix to slide.com for your blog. oh yeah, my little sister has started giving out lottery tickets each year on christmas and this was the first year anyone got anything...samuel won $27 and sadie won $2!! samuel ordered art supplies! i think sadie still has her money in her purse...for a rainy day i'm sure. i also have to mention here that austin got lots of really cool and colorful plastic dishes for his party...just like kelly lovejoy, because she is so very cool!! i took pictures of them to show her so that is why you will see images of dishes that make absolutely no sense...ha!!

anyway...moving right along...we spent a really nice afternoon last sunday with the gavins who took us out to the movies as a christmas gift. we saw YES MAN. it was hilarious!! can you say "unschooling"...yep, it reminded me of my own journey towards YES and away from NO!! karina and i both agreed that it was one to add to the library.

then there were new year's celebrations and birthdays at the allen's and the gavin's houses (happy bday taylor and trevor...woo hoo...and i forgot to mention that we celebrated rachel's birthday on christmas eve too...see i told you we were busy). and going ice skating and to the speedway in lights (thank you to deanna for our free ticket) on new year's day and freezing our asses off! and suddenly i am too tired to recount all the FUN that was had this last week (yep, there was some snark in that comment), and i don't think i even have any pictures of any of it...i seem to have stopped taking them sometime just after christmas...oh well, enjoy the 3 million pictures that i do have (there are a lot so i set it to go fast, if you want to see a picture real well just run your mouse pointer thingy over the slideshow and it will stop):

and as i was finishing this up, i noticed that the rain had stopped, the sun had come out and was shining in the window. i opened up all the blinds and it is bright and warm inside. i think there is a book calling my name...Share

amy steinberg house concert

still just trying to catch up on some of our big get togethers this summer. i'm way behind!! this one is from august 10th!! sheesh!

last month ren had brought up the idea of hosting a house concert for amy steinberg and wondered if anyone would be interested. scotty and samuel thought it would be great (since we had so much fun with our acoustic jam/potluck party at the house)...i didn't think so. i wasn't up for it, so i declined. luckily there's this awesome lady, JESSICA SCHMESSICA, who was willing to do it!! so on a beautiful sunday night we gathered at her place to eat, talk, laugh, listen to music, and dance. it was a beautiful thing. first thing's first, we took a tour of jess' garden, there are some crazy big sunflowers growing down there!! then it was time to eat and the kids played a lot on the tire swing and the swing under the deck as well as explored all the little nooks and crannies of their property. finally amy came and got set up. no more tire swing kids, it was right where she was going to be performing...sorry! she started off the set with "exactly" which made us all happy as that song holds a lot of meaning for us. we danced and sang along, the kids got to run around and play in the wooded areas some more. after the concert, we went up to the house where amy shared her vibrating bowl with us. it felt amazing to hum and chant with the vibrations. we talked for awhile after that, just enjoying all the powerful energy created by the vibrations and the people there. later, a few of us walked up to the cow field to look at the stars. it was a beautiful night. must've been the moon...

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