Sage and Emma watching one of our current faves. You should have heard these two singing along. Cuteness!!!

Saylor was trying to get Stone 'in motion'. I think he got it!
My baby sisser. I think we're watching the Will.I.Am video here. I love my sister! (no matter who she voted for!!! ;)
Saylor requested a lock-pick set. We ordered one up and here is his first try at it. It'll take some practice, but he's determined.
Bust a move!

Landon and Stone snuggling Ruka. We had the pleasure of 2 nights with this terrific little guy! So Much Fun!

The boys searching for their dream Triker.
Have you ever seen Benny & Joon? (One of our ALL-TIME favorites, btw!) This is how *they* make grilled cheese sandwiches, so we had to try it for ourselves! The result, you ask? They don't sizzle and crackle like on the movie, and although they tasted fine, they really didn't get all that grilled. But, our goal wasn't really simply to make edible sandwiches, it was way more about the Craziness of it all. (but, all the sandwiches did, indeed, get eaten!)

We've also purchased a Proclaimers CD, just so we can have this song. We blast it loud and sing our fool hearts out!


We also did some ironing of crayon shavings between waxed paper. Pretty!

My Therapy

This is what helps me, writing it down. It's in my brain, it won't go away. This helps me to feel some sort of a release.

I'm meeting with an attorney in the morning. I'll post what comes of our visit. He's hopeful that we can show that we have been homeschooling the boys, and that it's a simple case of poor record keeping. I have friends from across the state and country writing statements for me, confirming that we have been homeschooling since the beginning.

We spent some time this afternoon at the park, it was a wonderful 60 degrees here. The boys were peeling sheets of ice from the edge of the lake and stacking, crushing, tossing, carving and inspecting them. They were careful not to lick them (though they really wanted to!) because of the goose poop that was certainly part of their composition!

We stopped by Albertson's to grab a movie from the Redbox and a candy for each kiddo. Sage wanted what he chose, then didn't, so Saylor traded with him, then Sage decided he really did not want Saylor's, but wanted his back. Saylor was upset because he was being yelled at by his little brother, so I held Saylor until his tears dried. And, it was a tough time for Sage. I held him and loved him and reassured him. I carried him upstairs to our quiet, dark bedroom where he nursed and fell quickly to sleep. I talked to my mom and felt near tears just hearing her reassuring voice.

I'm sure we are all feeling the stress of what's going on. I know my back physically feels like it's about to break, but I'm hoping a call to a massage therapist friend tomorrow will remedy that.

And in the midst of it all, I will count my Blessings, for they are many.

An Update

Some of you know the history behind the following update, others may not. E-mail me off-list if you want the digg.
*************************************************************************************
Well,

Court was uneventful, really. I got there at 8 and at around 9:35 the judge called me. He read me the 'charge' (failure to send child to school) and asked me what I would like to do about this? I said I'd like to plead not guilty, because I homeschool my children. He said, "ok, then, let's schedule a dispositional conference for a couple weeks from now that you can come to and explain your position and allow the prosecution to ask questions". I explained that we were selling our house, closing on Dec. 4 at which time we were moving away, so I *get* to go to court again on December 3.

That's where it's at right now. I'm trying SO very hard to put it out of my mind so I can be present for my kids and helpful during all of our other things we've got to do until then. I do plan to do some research as to what to expect during a 'dispositional conference' so I can prepare accordingly for that. I really, really think that at that time, I'll show my exemption (of which I should have a copy back, approved from the school district) and that should be case closed.

I am disgruntled at the "charge", though. The only charge I should be having was that I didn't exempt, not "failure to send...". That charge is a class 2 misdemeanor, which can mean a fine and jail time, not that I foresee that happening. I just think it's ludicrous that that was the charge used. It's simply not accurate. Part of me right now is wishing I was a member of HSLDA or something with some legal clout. If I were, it may be that they could have sent a simple letter to the powers that be, and this whole situation would have disappeared.

So, doing my best to let the stress flow out of me and treat my boys with kindness (and myself, too!)

More later!

Peace, Love, Free,
Karen

Preparing for Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day I go in front of a judge to explain "why my kids aren't in school". I'm feeling very peaceful and confident about the whole deal. It will all go as I've manifested it to go. Certainly!

We've been busy knocking our to-do list down, checking things off as we go...that's always so gratifying! I sold some books today and upgraded our cell phones (we now have Smartphones! Yay!!!) while John and the boys worked on projects around the house. Our wonderful neighbor, Sam (the one who likes to toss spaghetti to the ceiling...ya, he's *that* cool!) was here helping out some, too, and even ran to buy some KFC for lunch for all of us. He's the sweetest! There are so many people I'll miss from our life here. I know they'll never leave us, just as we're not leaving them. Friends are forever. The real ones are, anyway!

So for right now, I'm focusing only on my task scheduled for 8:00am. Once I've checked that off my list of things to do, we'll be sailing onward to getting more boxes packed, preparing for the moving sale we're having this weekend, and loading up the bus.

The clock is a'tickin!

Sending love to the Universe...

Gummi-Bear

A catchy little tune we dug up tonight...

Enjoy ;)

Thursday

We had an overnight guest last night, and the boys insisted that he spend another night, so of course, we made it happen! He's a great homeschooler, with a GREAT family! He's the oldest of four children, and I was his mama's doula at her last birth. We spent most of yesterday playing at his house and then brought him home with us. We watched Wall-E last night, in between the other things they did until midnight...yawn! ;o

They've each crafted themselves some sort of a gun with an 'added on with duct tape' light. There's this little space you can access through one of our closets that they've claimed as their fort. Saylor even hard wired the space today with a functioning lamp, so they've got lightness in the dark now (we're all looking for that). He figured out how to go through one of the phone jacks by taking the plate off the wall, stringing through an extension cord, replacing the plate and Ta-Da! Light!!! Very clever, my son. Of course, my first instinct was to say something like, "well, you probably shouldn't have done that...blah, blah, blah", but thankfully, I was able to really share in his excitement and see what an accomplishment it was (i'm pretty sure i never would have thought of such a thing!) My boy was so proud and he came to share it with *me*. I'm so lucky!

We went swimming today, they've spent some time on the internet, we played the Wii for a bit. They enjoyed winding down last night by watching some pre-recorded Mythbusters. And tonight, we watched a program on Animal Planet about the vanishing frogs. We learned all about a parasitic fungus called amphibian chytrid and how it's killing thousands of frogs all over the world. We also learned why that matters to us, as human beings. It's been a great couple of days. We're watching Napoleon Dynamite right now. Why, yes! I can watch a movie and blog at the same time!!! :) Can *You*???

Except for the farting dogs laying at my feet in front of the fireplace (peee-eeeew!) everything is peachy! Hoping the same for you...

Techno Talk

The boys discovered the game, Dinosaur World a couple years ago, and have played it a lot. It's on our desk-top, so Sage spent a little time last night exploring there.

Another of our favorites at the moment is Bloxorz (from the Miniclip Games site). Sage can get to level 4 by himself, and then he starts recruiting people to help him. Before you know it, we're all sucked in working together to get the block to fall. It's addicting! :)

Oh, and another bit of *EXCITING* news...

We got the Wii!!! So, yes, there's been bowling, tennis, boxing. All that good stuff is a happenin' here! We picked up 'Super Smash Brothers: Brawl' at a pawn shop, too, so that's keeping us all busy. And Sage chose a Simpson's game for the PS2. He enjoys running Homer around and having him kick things and speak his Homer-ese, which entertains fully!

Sunny and Warm

It's forecast to be 68 degrees here today, so we're heading to the parky-park! We'll grab some Q-doba and Jimmy John's and have a picnic and some friend time.

We're looking at 15 days before we need to be O.U.T. of this house! Wow. I'll be getting my calendar out and start mapping out our strategy...later today. Yes, after we soak up some Vitamin D.

Have a Groovy Day!

It's Just for Fun!

We all laughed our butts off while we played at PhotoFunia the other day. Check it out if you're up for some Fun!!!

It's a New Day!

This is so how I was feeling the day after the election, and still am so excited!

No matter who your vote went to, you can't deny the power of this movement and the possibility this guy inspires in all of us. The pictures from the video remind me of someplace else, another country, perhaps, the kind of country that fights and demands to be heard FINALLY. I'm proud that this time, it's us!

to Peace & Healing...

Birthday Dinner

I had dinner with my mom and sister tonight. It was a combined birthday celebration dinner for all of our birthdays, which fall in September, November and December. We had to get it in this week because my sweet, sweet Mama is moving to Reno on Friday. ...sniffle, sniffle...

BUT, it's all good. As long as I don't think too much about her actual absence, I'm really quite fine. I'm sure when Saturday morning rolls around and then Saturday afternoon, and she still hasn't come through our front door like she so often does, it'll hit me. And of course this has to go down while John is away. BUT, I'll be ok. Yes, I'll be ok. If I just keep telling myself that, it has to be true, right?

Anyway, back to dinner. We had a great couple hours tonight, eating too much, laughing together, and just really enjoying each other so completely. I'll cherish the feeling I had sitting there with them both for as long as I live.

In this picture, Barb said something that got us all laughing, and then it was contagious and we just couldn't stop. Y'know, the kind of laughing that you know you *must* contain, but you just CAN'T!!! Yep, that kind of laughing. So, although we took a couple other normal looking photos, this is my favorite of the evening! Gotta love it, baby!

Sage is 4!

Our baby is 4. We celebrated yesterday (his actual birthday) with a small gathering of family and friends. He's an awesome 4 year-old and I can't wait to see what the coming year brings for him. He still rules the roost and he's still nursing, very occasionally. He's a whole lot of fun and if he's not happy with the way things are going, never fear, you'll know about it! He's a ball full of energy and he loves to do whatever his brothers are doing. Happy, Happy Birthday, my Son!

Here are a few shots from yesterday:

Stoney Boy

Missing something?
The other one is very loose, too.
"All I want for Christmas...!"
We had a non-functioning electronic that Stone was delighted to dis-assemble. He spent 2 hours working on this, very seriously, I might add.
Some stuff from the inside, all laid out so the master technician could keep track of his progress.

What do you do in *your* backyard?

Saylor has a love affair with fire. After this, he rigged up a water boiling contraption. Studying to be the next Bear Gryls or Survivorman, I do believe.
Fire on a shovel
Happiness...
Max watching over the activities, seeing that we're all safe.

Catching up

CHEESE!!!!



We were invited to Isaac's 10th birthday party. He was a weekend camper at the campground we stayed at, and we struck up quite a relationship with him. He's a very kind little boy, so patient with Sage and loves anything I happen to be cooking...adding his sweet little..."mmm, that smells good" even when it was nothing but a huge pan of vegetables sauteeing in olive oil to be served over scrambled eggs. We'll miss him, but will keep in touch, no doubt.

My birthday was spent in Aitken, MN (john was working there, so we followed along). John returned to the room with a pizza and a cake and a funny card for me. Sage enjoyed the cake! (so did I...it was marble truffle something or other. Veddy goooood!)
Sage's bridge contruction and a safe crossing for his wooden mouse.
More friends from the campground.

At the Como Zoo, in St. Paul with our new friends from Rochester.The cutest little baby you ever did see!
Turtle boy...
Swimming in September...in MINNESOTA! It was a gorgeous 80 degrees, so we headed to the beach!
The river had many interesting little things to catch.

To Thine Ownself Be True

Grubby Gurgle, Stanky Stoo and Ooga-Mooga have it all figured out! They’re so sure of themselves, they sing this song:

“Oh, we are Nasty Gnarlies,
We like to make a mess.
Getting stuck in yucky muck
Is what we like the best!

“We’re fabulously smelly,
Like pungent potpourri.
What could be more beautiful
Than nasty gnarly we?”

But then along comes Snooty Judy Butterfly, quickly setting them straight. *She* is exquisite, PERFECT, actually…(her words). Of course, the poor nasty gnarlies believe that they are now less, and that they really need to live up to her standard of beauty. In vain they wrap themselves up, on Snooty Judy’s advice, hoping they’ll wake up in the spring as beautiful as she.

Of course, they cannot change who they really are, and thankfully come to realize that maybe Snooty Judy Butterfly has it all wrong.

“Our beauty IS our gnarliness.
We were pretty all along!” says Stanky Stoo.

“I like that thought,” said Grubby.
“Our funk is quite divine!
I don’t want to be a butterly,
I’d rather bathe in slime!”

“I gotta be ME!” sang Stanky

Fittingly, I read this book to the boys at a time when I needed reminded of the simple message inside. Embrace who you are.
Love who you are.
Be Grateful for who you *are*.

And tell all of those Snooty Judy’s in your life just where they can go!

And then, rush to your library and read this book to your kids!

_Three Nasty Gnarlies_ by Keith Graves

HolyKow!!!

The following post was written a week ago, finally getting published today:

We spent the day (Friday, September 12) with a fabulously fun unschooling family! There’s hardly anything better than being with people who are so incredibly gentle and respectful towards their children. We all have so much to offer and to learn from one another. It’s such a gift to really *get* that.

Stone was reluctant, at first, to go. The night before, he told me plainly that he didn’t want to. I asked if we could sleep on it, and see how he felt about it in the morning. Upon waking, he tells me again, “I don’t want to go.” This time, I offer up the option of going and then leaving right away if he just isn’t into it. He agrees. And it ends up being Stone who is the hardest to drag away from his new found buddy and their secret hide-out among the bushes. They’re already making plans for their next meeting, MD agreeing to leave the stick Stone discovered in the exact place until he returns, adding that it’ll actually be invisible, too, and only he and Stone will be able to see it.

We were educated (as much as we could be during one afternoon!) on the whole dairy cow operation. We saw beautiful mama’s and had babies suckle our fingers; we fed hay and tmr (total mixed ration) to a few, giggling as we watched their gigantic tongues slurp up the goods. Sage and I accompanied Gigi and her papa out to the pasture to bring the cows in for milking. There are 94 who are all named and recognized by the father of the operation. It was a beautiful thing to see the love he has for them. We all watched the milking process for a while, and chatted with the two men doing the work. Saylor and Alex are making plans for Saylor to bring along his machete and hatchet next time. It appears Alex has some brush she’d like cleared! ;) Boy, has she found her man!

We had corn dogs and chicken nuggets and tmr (for humans) salad, and strawberry shortcake and Kool-Aid for lunch. The kids played upstairs with oh so many new and interesting toys. They played the Wii together for a while. MD introduced a new on-line game to the boys, and the boys helped him with his new World of Warcraft character. They all climbed onto the treadmill together. They watched snippets of My Little Pony and The Last Unicorn and The Simpson’s and Family Guy. We’ll be visiting them again soon, hopefully a couple more times before we head back to Rapid City.

Another beautiful family is entering our circle and for that I am deeply grateful. It’s truly exciting to think we could point randomly to almost any state in the country, and know we’d have an open invitation to be with people just like this, with open minds and open hearts. It just doesn’t get any better than that!

****UPDATE****
As I publish this post from last week, we find ourselves at the PolyKow residence once again. We came up here on Thursday afternoon, and spent Thursday and Friday night here with our friends. I'll post more about this visit with photos soon (maybe?)! No guarantees!!! :)

Have you met Eli?

You gotta check him out! He's got the funniest dirty jokes, we've gotten many a belly laugh from them. This is one of our favorites, but do take the time to check out some of the others. Some are dirtier than others, but funny anyway!

Enjoy!

We made a trip to Northfield last weekend (so I could shop at Target, they've only got an x-mart here...;) While Sage and I were shopping, the big boys and dad did some fishing, and snake cathcing, it appears!

Stone wanted to do some night fishing the other night, and the moon over the lake was just so pretty, I had to capture it to share with you all!Being crazy!


Baiting the hook. Thank god the boys do that themselves, I'm such a wimp about tearing a poor little worm in half. Can't do it. Yick.

Sweetness....

Random Shots

the campsite (can ya tell 3 little boys live here?) currently not pictured are the dirt bike, the borrowed-from-Uncle-Jim 4-wheeler, and a battery powered 4-wheeler. And things that may be just out of view include a machete, several walking sticks, frog-catching nets, swimming gear, fishing poles, hatchets...and the list goes on! :)Our wee littlest boy now rides on two wheels!!! He asked for his training wheels to be taken off last Saturday, and away he went. That makes for all of our sons to be two wheeler dudes at age 3. They amaze me!
Too cool for school! :)


Oh so proud! He was super stoked to be just like his big brothers.
How fitting that we should have a sign like this! Note the knife that kid is wielding! If you knew our boys, you'd REALLY get it!

Birthday Pictures

...and a rare photo of the mama & the papa...can't remember the last time we were in a picture together


a family photo! Also, a rare occurrence!

Happy Birthday, Stone!

See that little speck on his tummy? It's a baby toad. The boys have been catching lots and lots. They're so cute! And the toads aren't bad, either! :)



Stone turned 7 today (wednesday, august 13) and had a really good birthday! The best part of it was that John happened to have the day off (most of it, anyway; he did leave around 6 for St. Cloud for an early Thursday start) so we all spent the day together.

I made biscuits and gravy for breakfast, outside on the grill while listening to U2 (that was nice). John and the boys went fishing right away and came back hungry and ready for grub. Stone did a little dirt bike riding and the boys played with the little girls who’d been here since Monday and were leaving today.

We zipped into town to take Stone shopping for his birthday at the local sporting goods store. He chose a very nice fishing pole, a minnow bucket and some lures. He was stoked and looking forward to dropping in a line asap.

We went to grab a cake at Hy-Vee. We weren’t able to find one complete with a wrestling scene, but he chose one that was suitable for him. Then, we headed over to a little local pizzeria to have pizza for lunch. We took the cake in and lit the candles and sang to him and did the whole works, even leaving a piece of cake for our very nice waitress.

Back to the bus we go to get the fishing gear and hit the lake. We drove down the road just a tad to a lake that’s not as green as the one we’re by in case the kids wanted to swim, too. John and the boys fished, I laid on the dock and read, pausing often to help Sage get his line unstuck, or untangled, or un-something! Saylor, Stone and Sage did do a little swimming while John and I sat on the dock and enjoyed each other’s company over a bowl of popcorn and an ice-cold coke.

A lovely day! And a brand new 7 year old!!! Wow…

Day 1: Minnesota

((This was written on Monday but published today...no internet at the campground, so grabbin' some wifi at the library...))

We made it safely to Minnesota. The drive was grueling, however. Or at least the first couple hours of it were. That’s what we get for staying out late the night before. We did have much fun together, though, so I think it was worth it?!? And to add to the excitement (and dread) of that first couple hours, Ruka (Stone’s kitten) locked the suburban, while it was running and we were all outside of it. Handy John was able to use a wire hanger and solve the problem, though. Lesson learned! Don’t leave the keys in the ignition while there’s a curious kitten on the prowl.

Day 1 here: The boys weren’t lacking in choices of what to do. They rode their bicycles, found frogs and itty bitty baby toads, rode the dirt bike, caught a handful of snakes (and I do mean handful, 4 in hand at one time is certainly a handful!) They fished first thing in the morning, but only caught a couple off the dock, so decided to occupy their time with other, above mentioned interests.

John rolled in here around 3:00, much to our delight! I had boneless pork ribs in the crockpot all day, but never made it to town to get BBQ sauce as intended, so instead made impromptu tostadas complete with shredded pork, rice, black beans and guacamole. Very good, indeed! We’ll do the BBQ thing tonight; the boys insist.

Stone turns 7 tomorrow! He’s requested a store bought wrestling cake so we’ll go look for one today. Also on the menu will be biscuits and gravy for breakfast and tacos for dinner.

Since it’s raining today, we’re planning a trip into town to find the library, grab some groceries, locate a few parks and the pool, make phone calls and check e-mail.

Oh, and the one bit of very bad news: I was taking a bag of garbage to the bin yesterday evening while Sage was watching Big Fish. Well, I guess this made Sage very angry so he threw the DVD case at our flat screen TV and broke it. We’re bummed, completely. He was upset, too. I heard him screaming so came quickly back to find him coming out of the bus and screaming that he “was mad so threw the case at the TV and broke it”. Bummer.

Together Again

John returned home to retrieve his family today. The man drove til late last night to get to the bus, then headed out to get here this afternoon to help me load things up and stuff.

So, we're off to Minnesota tomorrow morning, just the 5 of us (and the two dogs, the two birds and our kitty!)

But FIRST, me and my man are goin' dancin!!! There's a good band playing at the Firehouse so we're off to have a bit of fun!

Nighty night!

xxx
ooo

Crash

Nothing serious, at least no bodily injury. Last Wednesday at 4:20 a.m. our vehicle was snoozing quietly on the street in front of our house when along comes a drunk driver who couldn't keep his vehicle in the center of the street and so crashed into ours. Someone on the next block down called it in right away and he was caught. The police came to our house around 5 a.m. to inform me of the incident. Of course, the "other guy" was driving on a suspended license with no insurance. And now, we shell out a $500 deductible because of it all.

After many deep breaths and reminding myself it could have all been so much worse, I'm doing my best to move on and let it go. Of course, I haven't actually had to write out that check yet, either.

Ok, more deep breaths....

Swimming All theTime!

That's what we do these days. Swim, swim, swim. Sage (3) is so completely comfortable in the water. He's intent on practicing his back float/stroke when he's got his beginner's swim vest on. It was so fun on Saturday to watch him work on swimming backwards. I stood far enough back to let him explore on his own, without my meddling. And wouldn't ya know it! He laid back some, but tried to keep his head up a bit too much, so next time, he laid back more, allowing his head to lay fully back into the water, chin up, and AWAY he went.

Stone is an official swimmer, now, too. He prefers to stay where he can touch, but the things he does in the water amaze me. Very fancy dolphin looking dives, and arched-back back flips, and lots of time spent underwater--with his goggles on. The eye/nose goggles take a whole lot of fear out of it for him, he can go under freely without worrying so much about water up the nose. That's a good thing!

Saylor is, and has been for quite some time, a full-on swimmer. Deep water, diving boards, the whole bit. He's been working lately on the perfect dive. He's got it down, too. He loves to dive off the side or off the board if one is available. Like Stone, he digs the eye/nose goggles. He even dives with them firmly in place. Ouch--(to me), but I guess it works for him!

Interestingly enough, Saylor was the only one who took swimming lessons, and that was back when he was 3 and I didn't know better yet. ;) The boys have simply been given lots of time in the water and room to explore. What a wonderful way to master the things most important to you! Just DO it! And do it and do it some more, and voila, you've got it down. No frustration or fear of doing something 'not right'...just swimming (or riding bicycle, or skateboarding, or cooking, or reading...) for the pure joy of it and becoming quite skilled along the way.

So, tonight, we went swimming. On our way home, we all thought egg drop soup sounded excellent, so we swung by a chinese restaurant close to our home and grabbed some. A perfect after swim snack, we think! We plan to swim again tomorrow in a creek somewhere with friends. We'll spend Wednesday at Sheridan Lake with friends. Tis the season... Enjoy the water wherever you may be!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

That's what you title your post when you can't think of anything creative! ;)

We're good here. Busy as ever, spending every minute possible either outside, at the park, at the pool and/or with friends. I've begun a part-time position at our local food co-op as its coordinator. The boys get to hang out with some groovy cool baby-sitters while I'm there, so everyone seems happy with the situation.

Stone has a new kitten. Her name is Ruka. Saylor has new dog, his name is Scruff. (photos soon, promise!)

John's busy with his construction season in Minnesota. We had a nice 4th weekend, even squeezed in a date to go listen to some live music at the Heritage Festival.

Our house is still on the market. I'm still so undecided on which way I want this to go, so I simply don't really care how it goes. Not in an apathetic kind of way, just in a "whatever happens is going to be great" kinda way.

So little time to write about what we're up to, because we're just always up to something so time is short. I can either write here, or do things like keep my boys fed and in clean clothes! :) I know, it's a tough choice. I am doing my best to keep up with other blogs, though.

Life is good here! Hoping it's the same for you...