First Snow Day for the Kids......

Last Wednesday the kids woke up to a winter wonderland outside their window, and the happy happy news that all school buses had been cancelled!  I was supposed to work at the school, but decided what a perfect day to play hookey with the kids:-)  We LOVE snow days......

Cam and Keane joined us outside, and the kids spent most of the day playing out there - there was rolling around in the snow, fort building, snowman building, sledding, snowboarding, cross country skiing and so much snow eating.  Every once in a while they would come inside for hot chocolate, a bite to eat and to dry out their gear, and then they were right back outside!

(this following photo was after I asked Cam if he'd give me a smile for a photo!!!  Serves me right for asking:-).......)

A full full day, topped off with some starlit sledding right after dinner!  Everyone slept well after this day - looking forward to a full winter:-)

A Very Different Day in November:-)

And after just a week or so, the property is looking so different from when I wandered around taking photos the other day:-)  We've had our first real snowstorm of the season, and it truly is a winter wonderland out there now.....

Those poor chickens are no longer meeting at the fence wall, chatting about where the good bugs are.  They're not so sure what to make of it all, they just huddle under their chicken coop and hope it will all pass!  I'm going to have to start growing sprouts to lay on the ground for them:-)

And we're going to love this pile of wood this winter - already our house is starting to get chilly and we have a fire going pretty much every day.  Perfect for sitting next to with a hot cup of tea and some of my knitting projects........

A chilly day in November......

Last week I wandered around our property a bit and took a bunch of photos......this is what it looks like on mid-November day:-)  Of course, I'll have to go out again soon, as the landscape has changed dramatically with the addition of snow.  Brrrrrrr, it's been much colder and we're getting ready to pull out our skis!  The poor chickens are not a huge fan of the snow, and we've pulled out the heat lamp to keep them toasty warm overnight:-)

(These guys are sooooooo social, and come running up to the fence anytime we're out to see what we're up to - well, and to see if we have food for them!!!!  We would love to let them free-range now that the garden is put away, BUT every time we do let them go they go directly to our neighbours yard.  The neighbours who have spent years and years building up a huge fence between our yard and theirs, and so the chickens feel the need to taunt them a bit by slipping right underneath it.  Oy!)

LOVING all the textures and designs found on and around the trees......Nov. is such a neat time of year!

And one of our never-ending piles of wood, this one near the front of the property.  We've been salvaging as much of it as possible for firewood, moving a bunch of it to the front of the property to create a bit of a berm (in theory we will cover it with soil and let it breakdown - for now it just looks like a messy pile of wood!) and then burning never-ending bonfires to get rid of the rest.  Hopefully by next spring we'll have completely tackled this pile - we'll see!

Ahhhhhh, Nov. - a quiet month for us, the quiet inhale before the busyness of December!  The kids have been battling various colds, though nothing really serious as of yet, we're getting used to the colder weather and pulling out all of our sweaters, and Kea is running back and forth to town for never-ending choir rehearsals, concerts and a bit of dance as well.  Can't wait until she gets her drivers license:-)  Though the choir sounds SOOOOOOOOOO beautiful in the church - I'm becoming very cultured through her!!!!

Magic Tree House - Ancient Egypt part two.......

We had the second meeting of Ryland's Magic Tree House club, which continued with the Ancient Egypt theme (it takes up to 70 days to mummify a chicken, oy!  Though luckily it gets drier and drier over time so it's MUCH less wet and stinky now!)  I had fun with the food this time around, making an Egyptian bean stew, veggies and hummus, mummified juice boxes and, of course, mummified hot dogs:-)  Very fun.

We pulled out King Cluck to see how our mummified pharaoh is doing, much to the grossed out fascination of the kids!  Cam was the only one brave enough to touch it - feeling VERY leathery.....we put it back in the bag with more salts and baking soda (natron)

We found our Playmobile pyramid so pulled that out -and the kids spent a big chunk of time playing with that.

And we pulled out our hieroglyphic stamp set and papyrus paper so they could make name plates for themselves, and explore Egyptian writing.  Ry and I read that where we have 26 letters in our alphabet, the Egyptians had over 800 pictures - CRAZY!

And then at this point, the boys became obsessed with hockey so a rousing game of (Egyptian?!) hockey was played.  Ry had his heart set on playing some of the Egyptian games we'd read about, so we did a variation on tug-of-war with hooked arms, and a version of leap frog before the kids had to go home.

Once they were gone, Ry and Tiegan worked on some of the other projects we'd planned - hearing stories about Egyptian gods/goddesses and colouring pictures of them,

and making amulets that we'll be able to bury with the pharaoh when we wrap him up.

I have to say, I'm definitely passing on my love of and fascination with history onto my kids - they can't get enough of these projects.  As for their friends, well, hockey seems to be much more appealing at this point:-)  But Ry is happy to have the club going, so we'll see how it morphs over time......one more Egypt meeting to go, and then I think we'll start researching Ancient Greece.  Perhaps do a mini Olympics?  Do a play?  So many options......