Sewing for Gaelyn

Maret wanted to get creative, and I joined in for the fun.  We raided the closets for outgrown clothes.  Here was a dress for summer that's already getting short and it isn't the right season to be wearing it.  Gaelyn gave us permission to attack it.

So, we cut off the flounce.  Sewed up the bottom of the now-top.

Then, we made lined-pants out of white receiving blankets, attached the flounce from the dress to make ruffles at the bottom of the pant legs and ended up with this

It cost us $0.50 for the elastic for the waist, and the rest was all recycled.

But the Smile is Original.

Another Birthday at Our House

Winter is the season for these Johnsons to be celebrating birthdays.  Out of the eleven of us, 8 of us celebrate birthdays (and our Anny) between the last days of Nov and the first half of March.

And so Today is Gaelyn's turn!!

Funny to see Gaelyn holding her hands out like this at our meal's Blessing.  I think she's seen the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" a bit much!

Here the girls are singing "Our God is an Awesome God"

Opening gifts.  She's wearing a shirt I bought her earlier this week at Sally Ann and I think it suits her so well.  She wanted to wear it for her Birthday outfit.

When Rauchelle was here over the weekend she got the children into loving bandanas even more, so Gaelyn was thrilled to get her own.

I'll share more about this outfit later.  Just say that Maret sewed it.

I took six of the children to the school playground because.....that's what they love to do.  Here, Gaelyn is Frozen, waiting for somebody to come and Unfreeze her.

Laars is pointing out the moon in the sky.

Anders is frozen in space.

Doesn't she look like a Happy Birthday Girl?!

Toveli pushing Laars.  Love the rosy cheeks.

Sweet Maret

Happy Birthday Gaeyney-Pooh!!

Sweeping Strokes

Danaka's "Window"

Gaelyn's "Sea Animals"

Danaka's "Art of Science"

Mitchell's "Ancient Scripts" (Viking Ruens, Hebrew, & Hieroglyphs)

Anders' "Animal Letters"

Gaelyn's "Animal Letters"

Maret's "Run Away Spunky" book

Spunky the cat in a rain storm

the proud author and painter, Maret

(DPP) Nature Journalling

Gaelyn observing her environment.

Twinkle Twinkle (DPP)

Everette and I were invited for an impromptu chorus of Twinkle Twinkle.  Note that Anders is The Star which is a princess gown that Aunty Joanne sewed and he's holding it upside down.  Seems to work for an instant Star!

I was surprised by the (attempted) harmonizing going on here.

Lapbooks

I heard about making Lapbooks years ago from other homeschoolers, but we just never did them at all.   I guess I just didn't see what all the excitement was about, and the children and I were busy scrapbooking our life.

But I now have a new appreciation for Lapbooks, and I see a spark that has ignited an excitement in several of the children, particularly Maret who has been busy working on all things Horsey.

Inside this refolded folder she has several small reports on pedigrees, common horse names for the USA and the UK, the top 10 Race-horses, etc.

And the exciting thing is that she is self-motivated to do the research, do tidy printing, and work tirelessly on something that ends in a project she can hold and proudly share with others.




Gaelyn, needing more help from mom, has also accomplished a few Lapbooks.  Hers are actually more of a coming together of work she's already done.  I just put it into a Lapbook form so she can show it off in a more pleasing presentation.

Here's her book on Parts of a Flower, and includes some info on the need for sunshine and water and nutrients that she narrated to Mom. There's also a cross-word she did, and some flower pedals she drew for a little math practise, and several different types of flowers she coloured along with a diagram of a flower that she labeled the parts.
The rose below was partially covered over (on purpose) when I was printing it off so she had to try and draw in the other part of the rose as to what it would look like.

This was a flip-up book Gaelyn did to help her with the Days of the Week.  So sweet what she drew to help her remember the names of the days.  Hard to see for some of them, but let me explain.
Monday is a moon and stars.  Good connection between Monday and Moon-day.
Tuesday is a pointing finger.  As in "I am choosing some candies.  Choosing sounds like Tues....day!"
Wednesday has a picture of swirling wind.  Wed  ~~ wind.  Sounds close to me!!
Thursday gets a 3, because it starts with the same beginning sound, Th
Friday has challah, because we often celebrate the beginning of Sabbath with the traditional braided egg-bread, challah.
Saturday is a day of rest, right, and we sit on chairs.  Sat.....on a chair.
Sunday, no brainer.  You got it!  It's a Sun.

Gaelyn had (close to) tonnes of loose papers that she was doing copywork on from Draw Write NOW! books, and I lumped the farm and other animals all together in an accordion type thing.....



and now she can flip through her writing and see it like a book (that's actually taller than her when it's all pulled out).  She has some simple drawings she can look at, too.

I've unloaded of most of our scrapbooking paraphernalia, which was hard for me but I did it, and so now the Lapbooking is helping me feed the creative side of me.  And its giving a real boost to the children as they see their hard work being displayed, as if it is treasured.

These are humble beginnings, but I know the children will get more and more creative, and more skills to keep them tidy and well displayed.  Mitchell and I worked on the Months of the Year, and are now collecting information for one on Ancient Egypt.  Gaelyn will be doing one on the Provinces and Territories of Canada, and Toveli will hopefully do something about plants (the bug hasn't hit her yet).  Danaka is actually doing one on some Maths Formulas to help her remember them, and likely something on the Elizabethan period.

If you are interested in checking out Lapbooks, there's loads and loads of stuff online, some free and some not.

Go for it.  We are having a blast.

Our Princesses

Add caption

If Gaelyn was wearing blue I'd think she was Little Bo Peep!

Challah

Yesterday we had 3 of our favourite women come to visit us.........Grandma S., Aunty Joanne (from Cape Breton), and big sister Layne.  As a special treat Gaelyn and Mommy made challah.  The previous day we had read about Saskatchewan and growing wheat, and we read the book "From Wheat to Bread" and thought it would be a treat to share bread with our visitors.  Aunty Joanne loved to share challah with us when we prepared it for Shabbat in Cape Breton. 

So what?  if it wasn't Shabbat yesteday!!!!

But then Rauchelle called to say she would be visiting with us for the weekend. 

And viola!!!  Today it IS Shabbat, .......
and we have challah on the brain.  And thoughts of a twisted challah Rauchelle has been wanting to try since we made it in February while she was away in Manitoba.  But now..... there is Today.  Today we do the surprise challah for Rauchelle.

What's the surprise? 

Chocolates tucked into it. 

I know!  I know!!  I'm always tooting the 'healthy eating' horn.  But, I live it up sometimes too. 

And I LOVE Chocolate!

So here Toveli and I snuck in Reese's Pieces and Peanut Butter Cups. 

And what did Rauchelle think of all of it????

She thinks its Delicious.

Gaelyn means "Merry & Lively"

I could just as easily put Gaelyn's name to the quote from below, for it describes her well.





"Lovely little six-year-old Lacey was visiting our ministry outpost the other day, going from office to office, swinging on the doorframe, and asking with a smile,

"Would you like to hear my song?"

Her face kissed by the sun with charming freckles,
                   
                          two front teeth       missing,

and eyes dancing with merriment,

who could refuse her?

She didn't really care if she was an interruption.

                         I doubt the thought crossed her mind.

She sang her newly made-up song

              about puppies and kitties,

fully expecting to be delighted in,

then skipped down the hall to grace the occupant of the next office.

She was like a ray of summer sun,

or better,

a garden fairy,

                         f.l.i.t.t.i.n.g            from            office        to            office.

She was a little girl in her glory,

unashamed

in her desire to delight,

and be    delighted in."


~John & Stasi Eldredge in "Captivating"

I think Gaelyn's name was well chosen.  She is Merry & Lively

An All Around Energetic Life

"As you raise your energetic vibration by being raw, you have to up-level all the areas of your life to keep up. Otherwise that is what causes people to sabotage themselves and bring their energy back down. This really made sense to me and I am totally ready to make the changes in my kitchen, home, and life to keep up with my higher vibrational energy."
~ Megan Mauger, member of the Raw Food Rehab

To the Fort

In celebration of Banff National Parks 125th Birthday, some Canada Parks were offering free admittance today, so our family headed over to the participating Fort Langley Historical Site

where we spent 4 delightful hours and got ourselves some sore legs and very wet children.  Enjoy the pics.

An HBC (Hudson Bay Company) flag

A fun puppet show the children loved about Biodiversity and a spider coming to appreciate its own unique characteristics.

Children always love the animals.

Inside a soldiers' tent.

Inside a Cooper's barrel.

Inside a picture!

This hung on the wall beside a bed.  They would keep their candles in this metal box to keep the rats away.  After all, the candles were made (attractively for rats) with animal fats!

The fellow in the middle was a great story-teller, imagining he was the captain of some voyageurs traveling by canoe from Fort St James to Fort Langley with a portage at Hell's Gate. The guys on either side were 'acting out' what life for them might have been like being voyageurs.  Here they carry 100 lb packs of pelts on their backs, using straps around their foreheads.  Their bellies would be wrapped time and time again with fabric (up to 40 feet long) to help support their abdominal muscles to prevent ruptured hernia's and spilled guts!

Up on the fort wall, on a corner with a view of approaching Indians.

I think Gold Panning was a big hit for the family.

But Laars preferred to float 'boats' of bark in the overflow of the sluice box.

Anders enjoyed all the different furs.  This one was a grey wolf.  

 

This other fur was from a Timberwolf, much bigger.

The children almost always enjoy a coloring opportunity.  Here Maret and Tov are coloring eagle heads to make hats.

Another successful unschooled day.  Anders asked, "Can we come here tomorrow?"