Snapshot Sunday

How it began.

Snapshots into other lives -

Steph
Sherry
SunnyMama
ArizonaSunshine
HeartRockin'Mama
Darcel (Welcome, welcome Darcel!)
West Coast
AttachedMama
Amber
Rinnyboo
Ramblings

If I've missed you, let me know in the comments and I'll add you in!

Astronomy and constellation resources for kids.

I made up this post for a friend who had kids getting interested in constellations and somehow it got saved instead of published. I'm so sorry, girl! Here it is.

Hannah got interested in constellations by pulling an intriguing looking book off of the kids' book shelf. It was a thin black book that I'd picked up at a thrift store because it looked like an interesting book to have laying around. The previous owner had copied the pictures of constellations throughout the book and cut them down into small squares, so when Hannah picked up the book the constellation pictures fell out. When she went to pick them up, there were lions and heroes and swans and bulls and princesses laying there - a whole lot of pictures that just *had* to have stories behind them. She asked for the stories and the rest is history.

We learned about all the constellations and a bit about planets, the moon, and the sun. For example, this little fact about the moon blew my mind - "Before life began on Earth, the Moon was as close as 14,000 miles away and filled a whopping one-quarter of the night sky. ... The Moon is slowly escaping from its orbit around Earth. In fact, it moves away from us about 1 inch (2.54 cm) every year." (From Marc McCutcheon's book listed below.)

Here are the resources we've used and loved. Some the kid loved, some the mother loved. I didn't list anything that we didn't find useful or intriguing.

I hope these help! And I can't wait until it's warm enough to hold our star party...

Books -
Star Gazing, Comet Tracking and Sky Mapping by Melvin Berger
40 Nights to Knowing the Sky by Fred Schaaf
The Stars by H.A. Rey (author of Curious George books)
Zoo in the Sky and Once Upon a Starry Night by Jacqueline Mitton
Stargazer by Ben Morgan
The Space Book by Marc McCutcheon
I'm looking for two other books that were recommended:
The Kids Book of the Night Sky by Ann Love
A Child's Introduction to the Night Sky by Michael Driscoll

Web resources -
Stellarium
Sky View Cafe
WikiSky
Kids Astronomy
Star Child (NASA's website)
The stories behind the constellations
Ian Ridpath's Star Tales

Podcasts -
Astronomy.com
Slacker Astronomy
Astronomy Cast
365 Days of Astronomy

And breathe...

On Monday we were able to get confirmation on our move. We'll be moving within a mile of my husband's job and (hopefully) selling this house. This is a good move for so many reasons and a sad move for several other reasons.

What this has meant on the home front though, since the best time to sell houses is spring, is that we have to get this house cleaned out fast. Very fast. Add to that a massive sewing project that needs to be completed and you have a recipe for ... well, it's been hectic around here.

Some frustration, some fun, some boredom, some ingenuity, some forgiveness, some patience, some long bouts of giggling, some reading, some just hanging in there.

Playing with magical creatures.


Gathering eggs, playing with kittens, throwing toys for the puppy.

Red Fish and My Little Pony.

Trying on mommy's boots -

and even making it a few feet.

Pirate movies. (we have pirates living here now, dontchaknow)

Lots of bath play (too windy outside for pools).

Embroidery while mother sews.




A trip to the big city for needed supplies, with a stop in to see a cousin.

Other cousins visit us here.


Making art ('tis what we're calling any messes that involve any type of arty supplies these days).

Collecting flowers, squealing over new birds.

Eating rhubarb.

Breakfast this morning, and we start all over.


I may need to do dishes today.

Snapshot Sunday

How it began.

Kim's here.

Sunnymama's here.

Arizona Sunshine's here.

Heart Rockin' Mama's here.

West Coast Girl is here.

Kyre's here.

I Candy's here.

Dumb and Relatives

Mother: We can go to the store, but first we need to feed the animals.
Hannah: (with great frustration) I want to go to the store first. Animals are DUMB!
M: Really?
H: (backtracking quickly) Well, I'm not saying their hair is dumb or their bodies are dumb, but they can't use their voices to talk, so they're definitely dumb.

Times like this are when you're glad you taught your kid different meanings for one word. You get to laugh inside.

Ainsley has a mini-obsession with her AuntRia. Seriously lurves her. We've been getting some great stuff out of this. When trying to explain the word 'trust' to Hannah, I hear Ains pipe up from her car seat "I TRUST AUNTRIA!" Or when discussing the best way to fix Hannah's hair, we'll hear Ains yell from the hallway "AUNTRIA'S HAIR PITTTTTY! DO AUNTRIA'S HAIR!" Or if a tractor is driving up the farm road, Ains will bounce at the window yelling "AUNTRIA'S COMING, AUNTRIA'S COMING!!!" AuntRia, she heard you say you were coming to visit. Will you come visit already? Thank you.

Raspberry filled donuts, courtesy of Father. At 6:30 in the morning.

Taping up, labeling, and moving the last of the (seemingly never-ending) boxes of books. All are in Library Thing now! My id there is ReadingNiamh if you want to scope out my library.

Digging and hoeing in the little garden. Mother does chores. It's so nice to have the kids to occasionally be able to be outside with me while I chore now. Can't wait until summer when we're only inside to escape the heat.

Rediscovering a forgotten toolbox.



Having a tea party. (Do you have Jones Soda where you are? Fantastic stuff.)


Oatmeal and bacon.

Card games.

Drinking flowers. (Better than eating out of toilets.)


Hello Kitty.

Sweeping and laundry for Mother, kittens for the littles.






Dandelions, rolypolys, digging, exploring.

Dancing, spinning, tutu-flipping.

And it's barely noon. This is what happens when the day starts at 6:30 with raspberry filled donuts. Beautiful.

An OLM inspired post. These are good every so often to recognize the OLM in your own daily life.

Ainsley eating out of a toilet.

Ainsley came back from a grocery store trip with this unique candy -



It's a little plastic toilet full of pink sugar. That you get out with a toilet plunger shaped lollipop.

You can't make this stuff up. But I wish you could.

Snapshot Sunday

How it began.

Steph's up. Love the shots of red in most of the pictures.

Sunnymama is up. Coat hangers must be in the air today.

Sherry's joining us today! Yay!

Heart Rockin' Mama's in. Tadpoles - she's got tadpoles.

Rinnyboo is up.

West Coast Girl joins us again.

Kyre's not up today, but look at this cake she made!

May Day

I couldn't get these up last night because Father came home and introduced his daughters to The Three Stooges on Hulu and there went the computer for the rest of the night. Lots and lots of hysterical giggling from the computer desk, though.

We made baskets and tissue flowers for May Day. We do not have anywhere near enough live flowers for baskets. Blurgh.

The tissue flowers required tissue squares being layered and then folded accordion style. It was one of those "Oh, you're getting so big" moments when Hannah watched the video and made the flower all by herself.

Ainsley also wanted to do it by herself, which meant the squares of tissue paper got rolled into a tube, crumpled, put on the chenille stem and stuffed in her basket. They were recognizable and darling.

Grayson chewed on stuff.

Then we gathered our baskets and visited neighbors. It's pretty hard in the country to be sneaky about hanging baskets and running. You have to drive half a mile up their driveway. They have to play along a lot. And they did. It was a lot of fun to sneak with the girls. One older lady (about 83 years old) heard the girls giggling around the corner and snuck up on them. She told them that if they got caught, she got to kiss them. They now want every day of May to be May Day.

Puppet theatre.

In all of my decluttering/packing I came across a stash of puppets.

I collect puppets wherever I can find them - yard sales, thrift stores, dollar stores - because they are so expensive. The wolf and owl you'll see featured below are thrift store finds - they're actually golf club covers.

I've had a few puppets out, but the girls have showed no interest in them. This infusion of new blood, puppets they didn't remember seeing before, was all they needed to get going. Especially my little story-teller. I'll walk you through it.

H: "Open curtain! A dog is walking down the street when he sees a wolf come towards him." (I love Ainsley's face in this picture.)

"The dog says GO AWAY, THIS IS DOG TOWN!"

"WOLF TOWN!"

"DOG TOWN!"

"WOLF TOWN!"

"WOLF TOWN!"

Oh, dear. This is getting out of hand. We may need an outsider to help out here.

A: "OOOOWWWWLLLL TOWN!!!!"

H: "Close curtain."

Treasure hunt.

Matt hid candy around the property and then made a treasure map for the girls to follow. They were thrilled - especially Ainsley who constantly carries around a rolled-up 'teasure map' (a bamboo place mat).

It's not often me *not* taking the pictures, so I thought I'd throw this one in. Because.

And they're off.

Around the bunkhouse.

After a long, dangerous trek around trees, through a garden, and past a frisky puppy, we got to Ainsley's candy.

Then off again, past many more obstacles.

Then Hannah's candy. In a tree!

Pretty straightforward from there to Mother's candy. The man knows me.

Vacation ideas?

Quick call for ideas - husband wants to go to the coast for a vacation. He's thinking Oregon or California, maybe the Newport area? They have a nice aquarium there.

Any ideas? Any 'must-sees' in that area? Or anywhere along the northern part of California/southern part of Oregon's coastline? Anyone between Southern Idaho and the coast want us to visit on the way through?

Right This Minute.

Grayson nursing on my lap, the girls walk by to go outside.

"Where you going girls?



A: "Hunting. My cat eat WABBITS!" (The stuffed cat on a leash is hidden behind her skirt.)

H: "YEAH! We're taking this" (shows me her bow) "and we're going to hunt deer and moose and elk and everything with antlers and we're going to eat them because they taste so good. We're going to share them too, with people who don't have food. They'll like to eat them. But we have to go now, Mother, before they all run away."

OK. Have fun.