What's in a Snowflake?

I have been making paper snowflakes my entire life, from the time I was old enough to use a scissors, I have enjoyed this craft. But today, as me and the children sat around making paper snowflakes, it was sweet Mickey who taught us a brand new technique! It is like a 3-D asian/origami looking effect that is so so gorgeous. I will get some pictures up as soon as possible (the software that links my digital camera to my computer doesn't work.) to show this great effect!

You see, we are deeply devoted to the idea of NOT having post-Christmas depression, and we have planned on replacing all Christmas decorations with Winter Themed ones, rather than just look at the bare heinous blank spots where merriment reigned for so many weeks. We are making Light blue, dark blue, and white papersnowflakes, as well as hanging blue and white lights and silver snowflakes (from a store) as well as anything snowman. A little sub-theme of our house is birds, as well, and my grandmother sent us some adorable bird-in-the-snowy-trees type of stuff to put around the house as well. So Hallmark! So NOT cutting edge! And yet we crave it, even Steve does.

What can we learn from sitting around making paper snowflakes? How did you guess that for us, it was more than meaningless busiwork, more than "small motor skills"?


KINDNESS:

In the way we related to each other, from please pass the blue, to "yours is so cute!", kindness was all around the table today

SHARING:

2 scissors, four people. One roll of tape.

IMAGINATION:

"Oh my gosh, Greta's looks like a Chinese dragon! Mama's has a face! Casey's looks like real ice crystals! Mickey invented a whole new art form! People are gonna want to buy these!"

EMPATHY:

Casey's snowflakes falling apart, Mickey helping him tape it...remembering how hard it was to cut when we were three, feeling sorry for the ones that did not turn out how we thought they would, and the one that got jelly on it.

RESPECT:

Genuine praise and appreciation for everyone's skills, everyone's ideas, everyone's own human desire to have a turn to speak and to be genuinely heard.

OPEN MINDEDNESS:

Trying new techniques, trying new skills, really wondering what would happen if you cut straight through, really wondering if Casey would get hurt from taping his hair all up, not laughing at anyone's ideas, letting Mama try a rectangle one, and trying to tell her that it looked cool.

LAUGHTER:

Most of all, almost 2 hours of communication and a really smooth pleasant time was had. Especially Casey's headgear he made. Especially Charlie shadily eating the little scraps, playing it off like he was eating his gerber snackypuff thingys.

Welcome

Welcome everyone to the new blog of our family! I plan to discuss homeschooling as it applies to us and the world, and to directly chronicle exactly what it is that we are doing as a family of six with our days. For anyone who is joining this blog from the old ClairwoodCottageSchool, thank you for the coolest internet experience of my life and thank you for making the switch!

A little bit about us:

We are a family of six. Daddy is Steve, and he works at a car dealership in the Parts Department. Mama is me, Joy, and I have been a stay at home mom since Greta was born, with a few stints here and there at ways to make money without leaving my children with an alternate caregiver--such as babysitting in my home, and part time night jobs. I have fantasies of making/selling stuff through the internet as well as somehow turning my loves and passions for Illustrating, Playing Music, and maternity services outside of the vicious hospital such as Doula, Postpartum Doula, Lactation Consultant and eventually, Midwife.

For now, we do exceedingly well on frugal living, penny pinching, and dollar stretching one very modest salary without the use of credit cards. Someways we save money (well we never save any money-- although I do have some plans for that to change really soon--but we sure make do without even a modicum of suffering!) are to have no car payements, shop wisely for food, write menus and follow grocery sales each week, shop thrift stores for most of our clothes and alot of our games and toys, enjoy free/low cost entertainment such as parks, playscapes and walking instead of Chuck E Cheese, Malls, Movies or Amusement parks.

I have saved our family thousands of dollars by breastfeeding all four of our children well into toddlerhood, and for using cloth diapers for much of our diapering years as well. Ask any parent you know how much they spend per week on diapers and formulas and then add to that the medical bills and emotional benefits of nursing and yes this is a great tangible and intangible way we have added value to our family. I cut all of our hair whenever I can. I cut and color my own hair. I make clothes and want to do more of that. I make alot of our home decor. I make some of our toys.

We often use natural approaches to health and healing, whcih can also become quite costly if you start counting herbs and tinctures and chiropractors and naturopaths--but we cant afford any of that so I am referring to more like garlic and steam baths and massage and intuition coming before trips to the MD for a bottle of amoxicillin everytime we get a sniffle. That being said, we are not extremists who do not recieve conventional care---we have a fabulous doctor who is our family doctor and she supports every decision we make WITH her---a priceless gem of a woman. We do not vaccinate our children anymore since we have learned about the rare but astonishing dangers associated with these routine shots. Being homeschoolers, it is easier for us to do this, but many familes who use schools still are making this choice. Although three of our children were born in a hospital, we very much consider ourselves Homebirthers, and support and surround ourselves in the belief systems that surround the ideas of birth being an inherently natural process and not any kind of medical event or health crisis of any kind, unless mismanaged care (Prenatal SCARE many wise souls like to call it) comes into play, which it always does when birth is brought into the Male Money Dominated realm of the Hospital. Another Link. Yet another link.

We have been vegetarians since Thanksgiving 2000, and want to continue to raise our children this way, despite the fact that one Midwife-recommended Juicy Steak after the August 2003 homebirth of our son Casey has led Daddy and I on a secret nighttime path of carnivorous sneaking---its hard to give up something you did for 25 years, especially when the reasons you did it for (health, opposition to factory farming practices, trying to leave a smaller footprint on the Earth, non-violence as a lifestyle) are easy to ignore when you do so many other Green things, and it is so yummy, and you dont read Peta anymore, and you live by 6 zillion restaurants, and you scrimped and saved all month, and your close family friend wants to cook for you....Steve and I are still coming to grips with all of it. I obviously did more than my share of research as to the valid health-i-ness of a vegetarian lifestyle and found it more than satisfactory or else I would never have attempted to raise our kids this way. I had a completely vegetarian pregnancy which produced an ELEVEN pound baby, and all the children are vigorous and well eating this way. I would say my number one thing I have to proclaim as the best, most fantastic and perfect food is salmon. I crave it, I need it, I love it. As a woman who has been nursing continually since 1997, yeah my Omega-3's and 6's are probably quite depleted, and so gimme a plate of salmon with some greens and some homemade lemonade, and I am the happiest Vegetarian in the world.

The Children

Greta is 9 1/2 and would be/is in 4th grade.

Mickey is a 6 1/2 year old 1st grader.

Casey is 3 and would be/is a preschooler,

and Charlie is almost 14 months old and we count him as a crawling babydoll precious angel cutey rugrat.

Today is the first day that Daddy has gone back to work after a full week home with us. We are sort of easing back into school type activities---Greta and I worked on Cosmeo a bit this morning looking at dinosaurs in detail. Casey cut paper and helped me tidy up and arrange all of Charlie's cool toys from birthday and Christmas. Mickey has played his video game, used the food chopper, and is now watching Greta play her videogame while he sketches and charts different variables in the games.. We all added page 1 to our KidsCookbook which was our recipe for LEMONADE made from lemon juice sugar and water.