I am lucky enough to have met some fun people out here with some great skills. I am learning so much (just like always) about parenting, living, and the journey of life from each of them. As an added bonus, one of our new friends also has a degree in teaching art.
Neils asked me to teach him to knit, so I obliged. We have had just a couple of knitting sessions, but I have to say I am quite pleased with how quickly he caught on, and delighted to share something I enjoy so much with one of my boys.
Yes, I’m about to brag, so if that troubles you, DON’T READ ON!
NOT going to post any spoilers, as Conan has not finished yet, (so please don’t anyone else post them, either!); just wanted to say HOORAY I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! First book I’ve actually finished in a LONG time. Stayed up until 5am or something to finish it, but I couldn’t put it down! I’m surviving on less than 3 hours’ sleep, but I think I’ll manage… I see napping in the Heiselt family future today…
Question though: How do all the rest of the moms & dads out there find time for reading? I feel like laundry and all other activity went by the wayside as I committed to reading this book. There’s got to be a better way than getting no sleep in favor of reading, isn’t there?
Some of my birthday gifts from yesterday needed my attention right away, so this morning I braved the *gasp* FRONT yard with all three boys and several containers of plants needing a new place to set down their roots. (This actually does make me really nervous as we live right on a state road where lots of large diesel trucks drive by with their heavy cargo). Sadly, I didn’t think to take "before" photos, so you just get to see the "afters" but for those of you who have seen our yard, you’ll see this is a VAST improvement.
So, I’ve been really loathe to bring up reading and homework with Neils this summer. My original goal was to do a worksheet a day all summer and get him ahead enough that his work would be easy in the fall. Very familiar at the least. I want him to be a great reader because I know he can be and I know it will make life so SO much easier for him if he is. Unfortunately, Neils HATES to read if I have anything to do with it. I’m probably too pushy, even though I try so hard not to be. At school he does great, he doesn’t hate reading in general, we LOVE to read together, and we still do that. I just can’t be his reading coach. Conan has decided to become his reading tutor, and so far, SO GREAT. Neils read his first WHOLE book aloud to us last night while I was making dinner. He was SO ready to just quit by the last page, but he did it, and Conan asked him, "Neils, have you ever read a whole book like this before?" Neils thought about it and he said, "no I haven’t! This is the first time EVER!" and after that he was so pleased and proud.
Conan, you’re such a great Dad.
Since we’ve got a fair amount of wood scraps from our current flooring project, Neils has been asking to build a birdhouse out of them. Conan, being the AWESOME Daddy he is, made it a priority, and here are the fantastic results:
So, when presented with naked floors on our newly purchased sanctuary (aka home) we were in love with the idea of adding the ever-popular option of hard wood. Though we LOVE trees and the wood they produce, and would love to be surrounded by the beautifully grained patterns of cherry or hickory wood, the fact that it took those trees 25 years and more to get that beautiful just so we could chop them down and gut them just took the joy right out of it for me. Especially considering that we could get a similar look from a lovely invasive grass called bamboo. It takes just 5 years to produce a suitable cutable plant… and it’s perennial. No need to clear more land to plant more trees to chop down then move on to the next parcel… you get the idea. To be honest, it was Conan’s inspiration that got me considering bamboo at all. I LOVE the look of hardwood, but seeing how beautiful bamboo can be http://www.duro-design.com/ I was won over by the green benefits afterall.
With nearly 600 square feet to lay, we’ve got our work cut out for us.
We have in our yard a number of beautiful trees, and remembered that we had been toting around a nice sturdy rope from swingsets of bygone days, and decided to do something about that.
Well, it’s finally finished! Truthfully, it’s been finished for a couple of weeks, I just couldn’t get the photos, and I really wanted to show those… but the driveway is DONE. We hired a small business op run by several retired gentlemen who like to drive big trucks and push dirt around. They were REALLY kind to the kids and let them sit on the bobcat and even "drive" the bulldozer! Neils and Burke thought that was the coolest thing EVER!!