Butterscotch's Day Out

How cool is this? The kids took Butterscotch out for a walk in the yard during one of the beautiful days we had.

Boston LOVED Butterscotch, and they got along famously.

I am not sure if Butterscotch really understood what was going on at first, but then he seemed to really enjoy his fun in the sun.



Sometimes you buy things and you think, am I really actually buying this? Have I gone completely crazy? That's how I felt about buying Butterscotch's "outfit." But this made made it all worth it.



And just in case you were wondering about the much talked about cat (see earlier posts), he is still getting plenty of lovin'.

When I went to wake Declan up the other day, this is what I found. Ella and I crept around to get the camera and got this shot before either of them woke up. Is that a picture of love or what?

It almost makes up for the bunny incident. Oh, what the heck, it makes up for the bunny incident.

Felting! Feeling!

It seems almost everything we do around here lately becomes a potential Visual Presentation for 4-H. They have to be done by February, and I think my Ella-girl may have finally decided on a topic: wool. The Wild World of Wool, actually.

But, yes, you may remember I thought it was going to be soap......

Anyway.....

Ella made this felted piece the other day. She is planning to turn it into a purse. My camera didn't quite capture the smaller sparkly threads that are running through it.
We are going to be trying out different ways to do this over the next few weeks because it was so freakin' fun! Ella got a little tired of rolling the big felt back and forth, but she really went to town on little beads and made a baby for her gnome from Edelweiss. I can't, unfortunately, link you directly to the store.

The store is owned by some Waldorf former homeschoolers. They don't own a computer, or a tv. Each year, they buy a live Christmas tree and put real candles on it. It all sounds sort of idyllic and cozy sometimes to me when the giggles of SpongeBob are getting to me.

However, the children, once they got a bit older, decided to attend Sturgis Charter School, and the mom has told me that she'll forever wonder why they decided to do that. She is sad that as they get bogged down in homework and everything else and she sees less and less of them, both in the physical sense and in the sense of seeing the real kid behind all the pressure and scheduling.

It is sad to me to think that the struggle for some *ideal way of being* led the family to leave home schooling. I hope that on our homeschooling/unschooling journey, I can stay mindful of what my children need and not get too focused on a methodology.

Ella got this set of test tubes for Christmas. Each test tube had a mini-experiment in them, with almost everything you need for the project.

They are actually baby liter bottles, and they are heated and expand into big bottles, which makes them cool to begin with.

She started messing around with them, and discovered that most of the experiments revolved around the polymer sodium polyacrylate. It is the stuff in disposable diapers!! She has made crystals (they feel rubbery), and instant snow. There is all kinds of stuff about this on the internet (of course!). You can see an video of how to make instant snow here.
These are the "crystals". They are not really crystals at all, but this freaky material mixed with colored water and absorbing it so that each little piece gets puffed up. Okay, that is my explanation, but I also had to ask Ella what this stuff was called ~ again! ~ while I was posting this. My Aunt Carol said she got the present from Young Explorers. Pretty cool. She always give us fun stuff, including one year she found something with Declan's name on it! Very unusual ~ at least here in America.
This is Ella's instant snow. It does not need to stay cold, but it is better preserved in the fridge. So there it is the refrigerator.

We'll see how long I can stand it. Although the sodium polyacrylate has the word sodium in it (salt right?), sprinkling it with salt defeats whatever chemical reaction has occurred. It is all pretty darn cool.