Baby Knitting - Blue Pebble Vest

I've made this sweater vest a couple of times, now, and it never gets old. Not for me anyway.

 Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers. Buttons from this etsy shop.

Love for the little boy who will one day wear it and anticipation of his arrival: all me.

Our Week Away

I had hoped to make this more photos than words, as photos are much more interesting than anything I have to say, but photos will have to wait. I haven't been able to download them all yet, and the ones I have got are not very good/interesting. That does not reflect our week accurately at all!
We spent the first phase of our trip in Akron visiting the Wilsons. Let me just say that they are totally worth the 7+hour trip it takes to get there. (Many are surprised at how long it takes us, but combine children who view every rest area & toilet as a field trip with a driver who follows the speed limit uber-faithfully, and it take some time). We always have fun with them, we are always encouraged by them, and we always learn from them. Fun came in the form of the several hikes we took and playing in the yard, encouragement came in our chats and the opportunity to worship with them at church, and the learning pretty much happens all the time. Two things that stand out for me are how to mediate sibling disputes by teaching them to appeal appropriately to the authority (ie, mom and dad), and the need for the kids to absorb some of their book collection into their bedrooms. The day after we got home, we picked up 2 bookshelves from yard sales. Thanks, wonderful Wilson family! :)

Phase 2 of the Gayner Family Getaway moved us about halfway back east and landing in the Deep Creek area. We stayed in a cabin at Herrington Manor State Park, and it was a perfect fit for what we wanted. Normally, we're campers, but the 6-month-pregnant lady was looking for a little more comfort (weak, I know), and this cabin was excellent. It actually had more than enough beds for all of us, electricity, a proper kitchen and bathroom - no traipsing to the shower block in the middle of the night! That alone is worth it. Also, when you stay in one of the Herrington Manor/Swallow Falls sites, you get an hour's free canoeing, which just happened to be the highlight of the trip for everyone. We hiked, we boated, we played at the beach, we sunburned, we campfired and we s'mored.
In short, we vacationed, and it was just wonderful.

taking stock

• I took the kids strawberry picking last week. We filled two 5 quart buckets of strawberries so fast that the kids started picking berries for some of the other berry pickers in the field. That was fun.
• I made this cake at the weekend with some of the berries, though I substituted sour cream for the yogurt. So. Good. You must try it.
• We have a robin's nest in our yard again. Last week it had 5 eggs in it. Now there are none. I suspect the black snake in the shed had something to do with it.
• Toby's company picnic was last weekend. Our children ate about a dozen snow cones between them and almost as much cotton candy. They bounced on the bouncy castle until there was no air left, rode ponies until the ponies gave up and ate until there was no more food. We were the very last people there - standard Gayner procedure.
• The buttons I'd ordered for some baby sweaters have finally arrived - the very first thing I bought from etsy! Expect to see more finished projects next week...
• I found this tutorial for making friendship bracelets. I made three looms for the two big girls and myself. Now we're bracelet-making fools! It's so addictive - the girls have plans for all the people they'll make them for and have a go a making necklaces, as well, while I have plans on making sturdier looms out of plastic material and making up sets to give as gifts.
• Today finishes up pretty much all of our school work for the year. Yay! We can now close the book on grades 4, 3 and K. I'll be sharing my grand plans for summer school (fun summer school) in a couple weeks.
• Tomorrow morning we head west for a week. First a few days of catching up with some of our very favorite people, then cabin-camping at Deep Creek. I'm giddy.

Have a great week!

Make your own...laundry detergent?

I've been making my laundry detergent off and on for a couple years now. I like how cheap it is, how well it cleans our clothes (and believe me, we put it through its paces!) and how little we need to throw away. Those big plastic jugs take up some room!
For a long time, I've been using SouleMama's detergent recipe and been very content. It's simple, inexpensive, the ingredients are easy to find and does what it's supposed to. I wanted to have a go at a liquid detergent, however - I generally prefer how it dissolves in the machine. So, off to handy dandy Pinterest to see if some clever soul out there has figured out how to do it. I was not disappointed.

This is the first recipe I found and liked - after all, I had half the ingredients already. It looked pretty straight forward. I also stumbled upon this recipe, which included oxyclean. I've never used oxyclean before, but it sounded pretty good, though the detergent was a powder. So, when it came time to make my detergent one quiet Saturday morning, I decided to try for the best of both worlds and make the liquid with the addition of oxyclean. Now if you're a chemical person (which I am not, but my husband is), you can probably guess what happened. I melted the soap - fine. Added the powders - no problem. Brought the mixture to a boil - and that's when it happened. Evidently, one of the things oxyclean does is fizz. A lot. As the mixture began to boil over, I lifted the pot, hoping that the absence of heat would allow it to stop bubbling all over the place. No such luck. This stuff went everywhere - all over the stove, into the oven, over the counter. In trying to get it to the sink to try to control the mess, it made it's way to the floor and splattered all over several cabinets. It took longer to clean up the mess than to make the stuff to begin with (isn't that always the way?).
Once my chemistry lab/kitchen was cleaned up and under control, I was able to contain and use the detergent, and you know what? I like it. It was worth the mess and fuss to reuse the plastic containers with something that works well without costing loads. I definitely plan on using it again when we run out.
One suggestion, though: Follow the ingredients carefully and don't get clever trying to mix and match recipes on your first try. Not unless you like cleaning splatters on your kitchen cabinets for the week to come. That's not really my idea of a party, but hey - whatever floats your boat, right?

Baby Knitting - Pine Forest Blanket

For the non-knitters among you, Elizabeth Zimmerman was a marvellous and gifted knitter-teacher, with several knitting books to her credit and (I believe) this particular stitch - the Gull Lace Stitch. In homage to the late and great lady, there are many patterns out there that boast of her stitch creation, from sweaters, cardigans and hats to this: baby blankets.

 It's a great start on lace work, a skill I am only just beginning to look into. It's not a long process, as the yarn is worsted weight, meaning it is not like knitting with thread and you have a hope of finishing it in a sensible amount of time. Of course, when you knit with Malabrigo in a beautiful colorway like Sunset, each moment working with it is joy. Honestly.

Wildlife

Every spring and summer, I am reminded why we originally decided to title this blog "Wildlife and Home". For a typical suburban area (with almost half a dozen kids in the yard, no less), we have a surprising amount of critters in our yard. I consider it God's kindness to allow us an up-close and personal look at His creation.
In previous years, we've had monstrous wolf spiders and mice in the shed, a box turtle that inexplicably made it's way through the fence for a week before disappearing again, frogs in the flower pots (and the house), robins' and wrens' nests, and fearless little hummingbirds. This year, we've discovered something new:

 This would be our newest shed tenant, a black snake. Photos aren't great, but my point is made: a snake lives in our shed! I can confidently say he/she lives there because he/she's been evicted twice, and twice has he/she made his/her return. I don't mind this new tenant - it's pretty harmless unless you're smaller that it and Toby's convinced it'll keep the mice down. Last year, he was convinced the mice kept the spiders down. Perhaps each year we'll have a progressively larger visitor that eats last year's visitors. That would make next year either a bird of prey or a mongoose. I'd rather not think about that.

Clearly, we still have spider issues...

I'd love to have some name recommendations for "our" snake - referring to "it" or "shim" is getting tiresome. We have taken to calling the spider "Shelob", for what it's worth...:)

Baby Knitting - In Threes

 More Malabrigo Yarn – Applewood this time.

I really like the flexibility of a short-sleeved babycardigan – great for layering as well as showing off those gorgeous baby arms! Good in spring and winter…I’m loving this pattern! I had planned to make another one for my babe, but I’m not sure about how it would be on a boy. Thankfully, the pattern sizes up enough to make one for a bigger girl. J

I hope she gets good use out of it!

Mommy Daughter Tea

The ladies at our church take their table decorating for events seriously - very seriously. For the first time, I decided to wade into the fray and decorate a table of my own for the Mother & Daughter Tea. It was lovely, with food made my many generous women, beautiful music and an amazing dance by one of my favorite families ever. The Gayner girls were so grateful to be there.

 I was grateful that they gave me a reason to be there, and the chance to be their Mom. Love these girls.

Baby Knitting - Stroller Blanket

There are several new babies being born/due to be born in our church (plus my own!), so there’s been a lot of baby knitting going on around here.

I found this pattern for a simple, small stroller blanket, so named because it’s just the right size to fit on a baby in a stroller without being so long that it hangs down the sides and gets wrapped up in the wheels. That’s pretty annoying, I can tell you.

I love Malabrigo Yarn. It’s soft, sturdy, beautiful and a joy to work with. The color is Pigeon.
This project was just right to get me back into my knitting mojo, and makes a great gift - I hope the new mama agrees!

This one-room schoolhouse

It seems that spring is the time not only for birds to nest and bees to get busy, but for the planning and purchasing of homeschool curriculum. If you're a homeschooler, more than likely you've been to or are planning on attending a curriculum fair or convention (or two, or more), making plans for next year and maybe even some purchases. Some of us find this part fun (that would be me), some, not so much.
Jamie over at Simple Homeschool has sent an invitation: share your plans for next year's homeschool. It still surprises me how helpful it can be to hear what others are doing and why, and so without further ado:

The Gayner Family Homeschool 2012-2013

I'm guessing that many homeschooling families have some things that change each year - some areas you have yet to find something you are truly happy with and are willing to commit to for the long haul. For us, those areas include Bible and History. There was even a time when Toby considered writing his own curriculum that tied the two together, but we would both agree that now is not the best time for that endeavor. :) So, after trying out TruthQuest History, followed by Mystery of History, we are giving Veritas Press a shot.

Because of the grades of our students, we'll be following the Explorers to 1815 stream next year. I'm really looking forward to this, as we fairly strongly identify with the classical method, I'm a big believer in the benefit of memorization, and I have yet to hear a bad word about it. I'm also seriously digging the tailored lesson plans, which will be a big help next year when I'm homeschooling 3 children, plus 2 preschoolers and a newborn.

Veritas Press is also providing us with Bible, Literature for 4th and 5th grades and Spelling (though they call it Linguistics). Noah is using their first grade curriculum, including their Geography (which looks so cute). We had a good going over of all the materials when we went to their annual Open House in Lancaster, which was so helpful - being able to see the books (I actually do seem to look with my hands, as well as my eyes :), figure out what we really needed and ask questions. Well worth the drive, it was.

Math is one of those areas which are, thankfully, steady. We found what we like early on and have been happy to stick with it.

Math U See has been great for our family because it's affordable, plain (are my kids the only ones that get distracted by bright colors and pretty pictures?!), follows a systematic pattern of teaching, and allows my kinestetic learners to physically see the concepts worked out, making an abstract idea into a concrete, observable thing. The lessons initially being taught on the DVD is a big help, too, as both student and teacher are learning the same ideas and tricks in the same way. It then doesn't matter if math isn't really your thing (it sure isn't mine!) - you can come at it again from a fresh perspective.

Grammar is another area where we are sticking with the known.

Last year we discovered Easy Grammar. Without loads of teacher involvement, it still seems to do a great job of getting the tools of good grammar in kids' heads. It's a worktext, which turns some off, but it's not loads of pages per day, very understandable, and requires the memorization of a preposition list before beginning. Loving the memorization, folks.

For Noah, we're going back to something we did when Abi and Anna were in first and second grade (which feels like it was two weeks ago) - First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind.

All the other things we tried (and there have been a few) have been a distant second in comparison to the foundation that the girls received through this book. I know some of the reviews have indicated it's "boring" and "repetitive", but I know for me and my kids, it's just what we needed. I'm not interested in a bunch of bells and whistles - in fact, I tend to run from such things - I want my kids to learn well. This has done that job. So has this:

The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading is just about the best thing since sliced bread. It costs less than $30, and without complication or needless gumph gives kids a solid foundation in phonetics and reading. It's totally idiot-proof, too, which speaks to me. Abi and Anna are both excellent readers, having gone through this book, and Noah is well on his way. One suggestion: as it's a paperback, take your copy to your local printing/copy store and have them cut the binding off and spiral bind it (not comb binding!). There'll be no looking back for you after that!
We haven't made a decision yet on language, though Rosetta Stone Spanish is being considered. As for science, we've finally decided to join our church's homeschool co-op, which has a science course available, so I can (to some extent) offload that particular job. I'm thinking I'll just do what they tell me...
I think that about covers it. I'm looking forward to hearing about everyone else's plans for next year, so won't you share with the class in the comments, or join the conversation over at Simple Homeschool? We'd all be so grateful. :)