November was a difficult month with lots of travel. The beginning of the month my husband was gone with two business trips of about 5 days each, then we had Thanksgiving with some family about an hour away from home, then we left for California at the end of the month! Definitely crazy, and I wouldn't want to do it again, but at least some fun memories were had.
The Fall was surely apparent this month! We had a lot of fun being outdoors and enjoying the radiant colors of the leaves changing. We've joined a meet-up group that meets weekly for nature walks around the Seattle area, and we've enjoyed trying new parks even if it is getting pretty cold this time of year. Here are some pictures of our time at Discovery Park:
We've also enjoyed hanging around our closer parks. We love Twin Ponds park with its arboretum, community garden, playground, and of course its twin ponds!
Another park we tried with our meet-up group was Coal Creek Trail in Bellevue. We were hoping to see some old mining equipment, but were disappointed. We did find a mine shaft, and the trail was lovely. It was a bit of a drive though so I probably won't go there again.
Buddy with the mine shaft
We also renewed our Museum of Flight membership. They opened their new Space exhibit this month, and it looks really neat. We went on opening day so we didn't brave the 1+ hour lines to go inside the space shuttle training facility, but now that we are members, we can go again!
We do stay home on occasion too! We've had lots of leaves to rake, bread to bake, homeless packets to make, and Christmas goodies to prepare.
Playing the backyard
Making bread
Making Homeless Packets
Cinnamon Ornaments
A Christmas gift for the Grandparents of a lot of the art the boys have made this year.
Another meet-up nature walk was at Carkeek to see the salmon spawning. Sadly, we only saw dead fish, and it was so cold that we went home early. However, we tried again a week later when Daddy could go with us, and we were able to actually watch the salmon jump upstream. It was so amazing.
Our first trip wasn't as exciting
Here is one of the salmon we saw on our second visit
We also did a few things in our home preschool to celebrate Thanksgiving. We read Eric Metaxas's book on Squanto, played with paper Pilgrims and Indians, decorated our hearth, and put up a Thanksgiving tree.
We had a lovely Thanksgiving with Phil's family down near Puyallup. We then spent few days at home before heading down to California for a wedding on December 1st - but as that is in December, it will have to wait until another post!
As I've been learning more about Charlotte Mason and her methods, I've been thinking especially about what she means by "Education is a Discipline." As I was reading her thoughts on discipline from her Homeschooling series, I was particularly struck by the following quotation. Discipline is not Punishment ––What is discipline? Look at the word; there is no hint of punishment in it. A disciple is a follower, and discipline is the state of the follower; the learner, imitator. Mothers and fathers do not well to forget that their children are, by the very order of Nature, their disciples... How Disciples are Lured ––He who would draw disciples does not trust to force; but to these three things–– to the attraction of his doctrine, to the persuasion of his presentation, to the enthusiasm of his disciples ; so the parent has teachings of the perfect life which he knows how to present continually with winning force until the children are quickened with such zeal for virtue...
Making styrofoam shrink art was one of those fun childhood memories I have from being a kid. My mom would clean off the meat or veggie trays from the grocery store, give it to us kids to draw on, then we would watch in awe as our creations shrunk before our very eyes in the oven. I really wanted to do the same thing with my kids so I (silly-me) tried to find a tutorial of the sort on the Internet. I did this mostly because I didn't know the temperature the oven needed to be or how long it should be in there. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't find one! The closest thing I found was this website , but there were no pictures or anything. I decided to wing it - it couldn't be that hard, right? And, yes, this craft is super easy. First, I gave the boys a clean tray and a bunch of markers for them to draw with. I had to convince them to color a lot since they were only making small markings. We put their creations on an aluminum-covered bak...
Another major thing we did while my parents were here last week was a major room change in our house. It feels like a brand new home! We have a play room, the boys are now sharing a room, and Phil and I have moved into Button's old room (which was really the library/office/nursery/catch-all room). I am so excited!!! I finally feel settled into this home since there is finally a place (or at least a room) for everything. The boys seem to really love sharing a room, and they are actually going to sleep better than they were when they were separate. It's fantastic. By far, I'm most excited about our play room. This room comes right off the kitchen, and it used to be our master bedroom. Now, we have our books and toys in it which keeps our living room so. much. cleaner. This room will eventually become our homeschool room with some minor improvements in a couple of years. In the meantime, we are enjoying the extra space to play ...
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