Opt Outside

No Black Friday shopping for us--we opted to get outside and spend the day hiking.

The weather was a bit iffy, and had been raining so much during the week before, so I found an easy "hike" along a creek in San Jose that was mostly paved so we wouldn't have mud issues. The creek was pretty, especially at the beginning of the hike. The last mile or two were more urban and there are a lot of homeless encampments in the area, so it didn't have the same feel of being out in nature.

But a lot of the trail offered plenty of natural settings. We passed several ponds and saw a lot of birds (which was helpful for Bug's conservation merit badge he was working on for Scouts.) I didn't have my good camera with me, so no good pictures, but we saw several different types of ducks, egrets, and more.

The weather was good--cool, but not freezing. And beautiful clouds--which eventually started led to rain. That part wasn't so great. We weren't really prepared for rain and it came down steadily for the last 30 minutes or so of our hike. We had a plan to grab lunch at the end of the trail, which was just a block or so from shopping and restaurants, and then head back, but it was later than we'd expected and with the rain, we decided to cut the hike short. We'd already gone 4 miles or so, and knew that another 4 wasn't going to happen.

So, after a late lunch of Chinese food and 7-11 hot chocolate, Daddy-o got a Lyft back to our car while the kids and I wandered around a nearby neighborhood looking at the Christmas decorations and he picked us up there. It was a fun afternoon adventure.

And, this trail, despite being flat and between ridges, is officially part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, so I got 4 more miles of trail done. I think makes about 20 miles on the trail--not quite the number I'd been hoping for when I set out to hike the ridges this year, but it turns out that it's more difficult than I'd hoped to fit in these hikes, which often involve a couple hours of driving, out and back trails, and lots of up and down (which means slow going, and sometimes whiny Peanuts.) At this rate, it will take me 20+ years to finish the trail, but at least I have something to work towards :).

Thankful Gathering

This year, Thanksgiving was with Daddy-o's family, hosted by Jake and Kim. It's kind of amazing how many cousins we can amass in one house for these dinners! That right there is 4 families of offspring--pretty impressive :)

The guys--lot of beards in this group.

The pies--because of course that's the best part of the meal. Although there was a lot of other good food, too--I just didn't think to take a picture of the rest of the spread. But we had smoked turkey, siracha ham, and all the fixings for a Thanksgiving dinner, and then a cheesecake and 6 pies, haha.

These two pie serving brothers are also the master bakers. We don't suffer from a lack of good desserts, that's for sure.

The kids (and adults) had so much fun with the tablecloth before the meal. Between that, and pulling out almost every toy in all 3 kids' bedrooms, kept them busy for hours. They even got outside for a little while, despite the drizzle and cold temps.

All in all, it was a really nice day with family. So grateful that we get to spend these holidays together.

Our Thanksgiving week school also took on a festive spin. We did a virtual turkey nature study class and Bug blew us away with his turkey anatomy sketch (and impressed the teacher, too!) 

This was our first class from this instructor, but we have a 3 month membership and I'm excited about the classes she has available--lots of seasonal nature studies.

We also read the book Cranberry Thanksgiving, which was a new one for us and a cute story, and then made the cranberry bread recipe on the back. I'm not usually too hopeful for recipes that are included in a picture book like this, but this bread was AMAZING!

Cranberry Bread

2 c sifted flour

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 c butter

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp grated orange peel

3/4 c orange juice

3 c cranberries (fresh or frozen), chopped (one bag of fresh)

Sift dry ingredients into large bowl. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Add egg, orange peel, and juice all at once; stir just until moist. Fold in cranberries.

Spoon into a greased 9 x 5 x 3 in. loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 70 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean (or bake as muffins, about 25-30 minutes).

We also played a dice game to celebrate the leaves changing colors. I was trying to squeeze in a little holiday school fun, along with all the scout stuff that pretty much took over November.

This year, I'm grateful for so many things, but especially my family and the time that I get to spend with them. While it's not always fun and games, and there is plenty of frustration and tempers flairing, I'm so grateful for the years of homeschooling with both quantity and quality time together. I'm thankful for the moments I get to sneak away with one of my kids, and that I had the idea to make monthly dates with each of my family members a real goal--it's been fabulous! I'm thankful for those quiet times, though few and far between, when Daddy-o and I get to have an uninterrupted conversation. I'm thankful for the craziness that happens whenever we're all together (even though I end up having to cut it short because I just can't take any more noise, haha.) This family of mine is pretty great and I don't want to take for granted that we get these years all together because they are rapidly coming to a time of big changes and longer times apart. 

Fall School Fun

We've been so busy doing this fall that I'm having trouble recording everything. So this is a quick recap of some of our learning. 

I signed up for an online chalk pastel membership with Nana (You ARE an Artist) and it's been so fun! Bean even joined the boys for one of the lessons. We've been doing quick, 10-15 minute, lessons that tie in with US History, but she also has lessons for science, music, holiday, seasons, and more.

(Mr. Whiskers, from Cranberry Thanksgiving)

 For the most part, it has been a really great addition to our homeschool (Peanut is the only one who would disagree, and we're working on his perfectionist tendencies and Nana is actually the perfect one to do that with because she's all about encouraging the kids to just do their best and not worry about the smudges and mistakes. I seriously love her!)

Halloween brought candy school--graphing the different colors of M & Ms,

experimenting with the time to dissolve that candy layer in hot and cold water, and general categorizing of the candy. I've been wanting to also do some activities with our leftover pumpkins, but that hasn't happened yet.

We've had lots of cozy reading time--Peanut has now finished 4 Harry Potter books since spring. And Bug has been amazingly independent with his math this year, which I am loving (and I think he is, too.)

Morning activities while I fix breakfast. Usually, this little guy has to be dragged from bed when the food is ready, but every now and then, he comes stumbling out early and will either read or play with something I've pulled out until the food is ready. Tangrams have been a big hit. And he did some angle measuring to go along with the triangle unit he was doing for math.

We finally had a poetry tea time. I've been wanting to include this, possibly weekly, since we started back to school, but somehow, it just hasn't happened. Not to say we haven't read poetry, sometimes even while eating, but there is something just a little more magical about the china tea cups and an aesthetically pleasing spread of food and books. I've got to find a way to make this happen more often.

I love that these boys love poetry. It probably helps that we have a couple good anthologies aimed at kids, and the library has some beautiful, fun books, too (like The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog pictured above.)

Science class has been awesome. Peanut's class is the third of the day, and he waits, sometimes impatiently, for his friends to show up and the science fun to begin. This fall has been all about physics concepts, so we've played with motion and force, simple machines, and energy--it's been a lot of hands on craziness and they love it!

(This sound wave demonstration was one of my favorites.)

It's been interesting adding in this much younger group of kids this year. I've adapted the topics for them and figured out that they love a good craft, almost as much as they love to move and be loud. So we try to include some of these things each week. They've made magnetic puppets, origami frog hoppers, and paper plate rollers. They've dropped objects while standing on a table (and jumped off of said table), caught balls while riding on a skateboard, and built towers that they then got to destroy. It's been a fun semester.

We've been reading all the fall books. Along with our longer read alouds (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM, Racso and the Rats of NIHM, and The Wild Robot), we've pulled out so many excellent picture books to go with the season or our science and history topics.

Leaf Man inspired Bug to create his own leaf bird. He had the idea to then do a stop motion video with it, but hasn't brought that idea to life yet. But the creativity that is inspired by books is so fun. It influences how they play, their art, and their stories. After a good book, or movie, Peanut will usually grab a piece of paper and start brainstorming his own storyline and characters for something similar. No assignments necessary--he creates enough of his own!

We've done some Starbucks school as well--what subject isn't made better with some peppermint hot chocolate? I've been trying to take advantage of the one-on-one time that is built into each week because of art class and other activities that only one of them participates in at a time. It would be easy to write this time off as "lost" and use it to run errands or take care of things I want to do, and that does happen occasionally, but I try to instead use it as a special school time for the one who is still with me. Peanut and I work on math, handwriting, copywork, and play games. Bug and I will dive into the literature we're reading a little deeper, read for science, work on one of his special projects, or play a game. Whatever we do, it's nice to have the time together without interruptions.

Fall in Sycamore Grove

When some friends said they were going to try to take some family photos at Sycamore Grove and invited us along, I decided to go for it. Official pictures honestly stress me out--the whole process from finding a photographer, a location, and clothes for everyone, to actually doing the photo shoot and hoping for amazing photos that we're going to want to blow up to put on our wall is just too much pressure. So this felt like the easy solution--we only had two days to get ready, so no time for new outfits, and it was a low-cost (free) attempt, so if we didn't get anything we liked, it wouldn't be a big deal. Best of all, it was an absolutely beautiful day just before all the rain started, so we got to go for a nice walk with friends.

And I think I got some good pictures of the kids.

And some fun ones, too.

The kids were all really cooperative, which helped.

Super smiley :)

Then they started goofing around.

They were having fun with the whole thing,

probably because it wasn't just us. Having friends around had them on better behavior, and just made it fun.

Perfect trees for climbing.

These two--they seem to connect in a special way. I've watched it over and over, ever since they got to know each other. There may be a 3 year age difference, but that doesn't seem to matter.

Fall Hikes

The boys and I set out for a day at Mt. Diablo in search of wildlife for Bug's merit badge. I'd been wanting to get back up there for a long time, and thought the change of scenery might help us find some new animals or birds than the ones we'd already identified more locally.

I probably could have saved a lot of time and hassle on that front--we only found 3 or 4 new ones to add to the list, and spent over 2 hours in the car, with a chunk on windy roads that left Peanut carsick and miserable for the first hour we were there. Not the best.

But he did perk up and had fun climbing around the rocks in Rock City, a new part of the state park that we hadn't explored before.

It's not all smooth sailing, for sure, but when they are getting along, these two boys are so cute together. I love that even with the big age gap, they are at ages where they can have a lot of fun together right now.

The wind caves in the rock are so cool.

We were running out of time, but the boys really wanted to climb Sentinel Rock,

 so they hurried over and made it to the top by the time I got to the base.

This kid challenged himself several times on this hike, pushing physically a little more than he thought he could. It was awesome to watch.

And we got a chance to use our field guides--on scat and birds.

We didn't find a ton of new things, but it's always fun searching. 

Rock City was a huge hit and we will be back for more exploring with the rest of the family.

A few days later, Bean and I got out for a sunset hike at Del Valle. We didn't have long before the sun was going to be gone, so we didn't hike very far, but it was absolutely beautiful!

I've been really loving the focus on doing something one-on-one with each member of my family every month. Once a month doesn't sound like a lot, but it's made us plan a little better and be more intentional with some of our choices, like fitting in this hike on a busy Saturday when it would have been easy to just skip it and stay home. 

So glad I didn't miss the sunset, or the time with Bean.