You Are My Wild

It is already the end of February, and so time for another instalment of 'You Are My Wild'.  Here is one portrait of everyone taken throughout the month, skiing down hills, waiting for a turn at skijoring or playing in the Museum of Natural History.  It's been a good month:-)  

(a couple of things I always want to remember - Kea's kindness and patience in slowing down in order to lead her brother down the ski hill over and over again, Tiegan's distinct sense of fashion despite the fact that *I* think those jeans are far too tight and I can't stand those sloppy shoes that she never ties up!, Ry's smile with that one huge adult tooth gaping through! and the joy that Jamie brings into my life every single day - what a smile!)

2013 Clyde River Mapping Project (Feb.).......

I've been looking up books to help us in our research for mapping, and there is definitely some fascinating material out there.  I personally have been reading Alan Morantz's "Where is Here?: Canada's Maps and the STories They Tell" which has been surprisingly fascinating to me!  And really raises many questions about how different cultures relate to the land around them and therefore how differently they would map them.  What is necessary information to some people, and important to show along a journey vs. what European measuring tools can record.  And also how irrelevant some of those early European tools were in landscapes where the sun never set or the blowing snow often obliterated any reference you would use for mapping.  I'm only partway into the book, and am looking forward to reading more.

We've been researching a bit about the hibernation of animals through winter to see where some of the critters we usually see in summer are at this time of year.  A lovely picture book that the kids enjoyed is Kate Messner's "Over and Under the Snow".  A few more that we enjoyed are: Melissa Stewart's "Under the Snow", Kathleen Kudlinksi's "Animal Tracks and Traces", and Henrietta Bancroft's "Animal's in Winter".  We learned that the black snake we'd seen sunning itself on the rocks this summer is now in a deep sleep burrowed in a hole (possibly entangled in a mass of other snakes - what a pleasant picture that paints!) with very slow heartbeats.  Along with the turtles, who we heard can breath out of their bums when they bury themselves in mud, but I've yet to find a written source sharing the same information.  I'll be curious to see when we start seeing some of these animals return this spring.

A couple of geography books that we're enjoying are Caroline Arnold's "The Geography Book: Activities for Exploring, Mapping, and Enjoying your World" and Briony Penn's "The Kids Book of Canadian Geography".  I'm looking forward to doing some of the activities listed in these books once we return from Florida.

And finally, I found a hidden gem at our local library in Harvey Weiss' book "Maps: Getting From Here to There"  *I'm* learning so much that I never did fully understand about maps in this kids' book, and hopefully by the time we're done the kids too will understand this fully inside and out:-)

 Somehow this very visual description of how they map mountain heights worked for my brain, and I now understand that more and more rings shown closer together indicated height.  At this point, Jamie rolls his eyes at me because it's so OBVIOUS, but this is never an area I've ever spent much time thinking about!

 The book shows you how to measure out curvy lines on a map by taking a flexible string, following the line and then in the end measuring the length of the string.

And it even goes through step by step methods for creating your own map - it's like this book was made specifically for this project:-)

Do let me know if you have come across any resources you think would be perfect for this project, I'm really excited to see what the year will unfold!

skijoring

I'd never heard of the term skijoring before, but when our neighbours up the road invited us up for the afternoon and asked us to bring our downhill skis in order to try some skijoring, we were excited to give it a go!

As far as I can tell, skijoring is like waterskiing, but you're pulled by a horse and through the bush rather than on water.  It takes a bit to get used to, but soon we were all behind a trotting horse and having a BLAST.  You couldn't help but have a silly grin on your face the entire time, what a completely addictive sport!

One of the reasons they wanted us up there was because they wanted to try three people behind a horse, and get a photo for a magazine article they were writing.  So Jamie 'suffered' through a few more rounds behind the horse, zipping into the deep snow in his element:-)

And then I had a chance for a round - a couple of times on the track, and then into the bushes for an exhilerating tour!  ALMOST makes one want to buy a horse, for the skijoring alone!!!!!!!

Ryland's 6th birthday party

We threw Ryland's birthday party this past weekend - and for the second year in a row he decided that he really wanted a Star Wars party!  Luckily it was for a whole new crowd this year, as he wanted to invite all his school friends, so we were able to use many of the same games as last year - and added more of a space theme to keep it fresh!!!!!  The basic premise was that we had just received word that everyone had left the Death Star for a special weekend of evil training, so we had to act quickly in order to destroy the death star without any casualties.  They were almost finished their training, so we just needed to refresh their space navigation and then we were good to go....

The Death Star pinata, hidden until the training was finished - 

Anja sent us new cookie cutters, so we had a plethora of cookies - Ry LOVES these all year long, so he was super excited to see them:-)

And new cupcake toppers - darth vader and yoda being the most popular:-)

A couple of the kids had back to back parties, so the first half hour was spent building lego and playing while we waited -

Then the star session began - Jamie told a couple of the stories behind different constellations and showed them how to find them amongst all the other constellations.  The kids had so much fun drawing the shapes around the stars, so we taped paper all over our walls and handed out pens.

He also showed them how to use these constellation stars for navigation - we gave them a stack of constellation cards in a star log book and a flashlight for the take-home.

Then they had to avoid the asteroids bouncing down the hallway - I think everyone took a few turns here, a HUGE hit!

As was the dart board, where they practiced using the force to aim missiles to the centre of the death star - 

There was also some practice using light sabers before they used 'real' lightsabers to break open the pinata -

And inside were these freezie holders - 

Which were enjoyed by all:-)

Finally, time to blow out SIX candles - my baby is getting so big!!!!  (we measure the kids against the wall every birthday and half birthday.  Ry is the same size that Kea was at 8 - literally, he's getting so big!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY my crazy boy:-)  xo

Valentine-making factory.......

It's been kind of chaotically busy around here, with a good dose of the stomach flu hitting us all one after another taking up a full week.  Good times...... however, we're back, we're all feeling well and I'm taking the opportunity to do a little catching up on all things that fell by the wayside!  I actually leave on our extended spring break adventures (I go a week earlier than everyone else!!!!) in a couple of days, so the next couple of days will be FULL of catching up, packing up and getting everyone ready for my absence!!!!!!!

Before I move on, though I wanted to share a few photos of the chaos that was our house during the week leading up to Valentine's day.  I've always enjoyed creating crafts with the kids, and making the occasional heart pancake, but now that the kids are in school this holiday has taken on a whole new meaning.  Tiegan *needed* to hand-make 30 cards, we spent many evenings 'torturing' Ry into writing all of his classmates names on tiny little dinosaur cards, and Kea decided she wanted to bake everyone sugar cookies starting at 7pm the evening before Valentine's - ugh.  Something tells me I'm going to dread this holiday for years to come!!!!

There were, of course, many sweet moments.  Like seeing that they'd all made super special cards for their siblings and had so much fun hiding them amongst their backpacks and clothes to find them.  And Tiegan made a card for the receptionist at the school, the principal, and they all decorated a special cookie for their bus driver.  So thoughtful - I gather Tiegan's card was the only one the receptionist received and every time I go into the office she's proudly showing it to me, telling me how much she loves it and how sweet Tiegan is.  Definitely does the heart good to see how thoughtful they all are - even if it can be a form of torture for me:-)

We're all about fashion around here.......

A friend of ours was participating in Ottawa's Fashion Week and so was able to get us some VIP passes to the Sunday night show.  We met beforehand for some Dim Sum at a great little restaurant in Chinatown, and between heaping plates of broccoli and eggplant, tried all sorts of fried delicacies:-) 

Then we headed down to the convention centre, where we got to enjoy 4 different designers and their crazy creations.  It really was a surreal experience - so much ego in one small space, the people watching was insane and although I didn't really see anything that *I* would wear (who would want a skirt that is pure lace in the back?   Ry couldn't get over the fact that the model was NOT wearing underwear!!!!) but there were lots of fun clothes!

Luckily Felix brought his DS, as the boys were only interested for so long - and I can't blame them, we were there from 7 until 10:30:-)

Tiegan and Nura got right into it, sitting on the floor and observing how many times they used the same shoes throughout a shoot.

Kea and Maya were in the front row the whole time, chatting up their neighbours all about the styles and their take on how skinny the models were....

We even had a chance to go backstage to watch our friend get ready - and to get a glimpse of the pure chaos behind the curtains!!!!  (understandably I wasn't allowed to take photos of the various models in underwear, or wolfing down salads in between shows......)

All in all, a fabulous adventure into a world we know so little about (can I just say I've never felt so under dressed - or should I say, over dressed in the wrong clothes!) and a fascinating glimpse into behind the scenes!!!!  And so fun to see our friend owning the catwalk during the UNICEF run!!!!!!