Our First Family Snow Trip

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~John Ruskin

We took our first family trip to the snow on Sunday. It has been the one thing Ess wanted to do in and around Canberra and one motivator for her leaving Adelaide. It has been hard leaving the familiar places and friends we had grown to love, yet we have made some lovely new friends here in Canberra. We were fortunate to meet up with some of them at Mt Selwyn, simply by chance. All the girls had fabulous fun together.

The icy snowballs weren't quite the same as the soft bubbles in the bath our bub is used to, yet she approached them for exploration in the same manner.

And here he is:

Our very first snowman!

It was a long and lovely day, reminding me of our many beach trips and leaving me longing for another. The similarities were many - packing extra clothes, extra food, building, getting wet, fun and laughter.

So lovely to have a day out together not thinking about the fact that we are waiting for the Master of the Court to hand down his finding. Yes the case was heard a fortnight ago and he is taking his time in writing everything up properly. It's hard times!

Cooking with Division

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. ~Chili Davis

Today we spent the whole day decorating a special birthday cake for my Generous Gentleman. We worked at it from 9am until 2.30pm when my Ess was adamant she would soon be having a rest, yet at the same time so willingly helping with packing and tidying up.

Seeing as we are exploring division in our mathematical thinking at the moment I decided that baking and decorating a cake with multiples of evenly divided lollies using an old-fashioned recipe handed down to me via Mum from my Gran would be motivating and inspirational. This was just such a fabulous decision as Ess took on the whole project with ease and I took on the role of facilitator/supervisor. I just love that role and have been longing for my family to reach the stage where I could assume that.

First task was to make icing. The recipe required Ess to measure ¼lb butter providing a fabulous mathematical thinking opportunity. Having just completed a unit on measurement whereby Ess had learnt all about grams and kilograms, there could be no better opportunity to extend that learning into incorporating the old imperial system used by her grandparents (and myself in my childhood), just after a visit from Granny. Armed with the information I provided her that one pound of butter (1lb) is equal to 16 ounces (oz) she quickly counted out her favourite pip squeak pencils to discover she needed to weigh out 4oz butter.

Then came the fun part: creaming the butter with a pound of icing sugar, and some stiffly beaten egg whites to make the icing.

Each carriage of the train required a different coloured icing to yet again Ess was required to measure and divide her icing before she coloured it. One whole bowl of icing needed to become four even bowls of icing. This she did entirely independently.

After watching her mother ice most of the carriages, with a whinge or two of frustration thrown in here and there, (I just find the placing of the icing onto the cake the most horrible part of cake decorating!) Ess quickly took over the role and finished icing a carriage by herself while I attended my baby.

Upon assembly of the cake my older pair of girls each assumed mathematical roles. Little Eee counted out the paddle pop sticks and laid them as train tracks. She also sorted the smarties into colours, while Ess counted out and multiplied and divided her sweets until she had an appropriate number per carriage. "Hmmm, one pack of mint slice biscuits divided between four carriages. Do I need to open the second pack? Will there be enough bikkies for each of us to have a bikky now?

Little Eee is randomly decorating the engine with her smarties here. :)

The jellybeans loaded up on each carriage were great to use as counters as we explored division a little further with our Singapore Maths workbooks, concretely representing the pictorial division problems contained therein. Receiving a jellybean per each correct maths problem proved great motivation as well. I was amused when Ess decided she had completed enough maths problems because she now had enough jelly beans. It just happened to be before one of the more complex division word problems...conveniently.

Happy Birthday my dear beloved!

Oh the joys of home education.

We are able to spend our whole day delighting in how much you mean to us, by creating something special for you, and still have such a meaningful day of education.

Lots of thought was also put into planning and preparation of cakes for upcoming birthdays as well. ;)

For Eleanor Violet

Look at us, said the violets blooming at her feet, all last winter we slept in the seeming death but at the right time God awakened us, and here we are to comfort you. ~Edward Payson Rod

On the day we expected my new niece to be born a couple of seemingly insignificant things happened.

Until I knew the name of my precious new niece I did not make any connection with the fact that:

~ for the first time I noticed this lone violet blooming out my new back door, in a wintry dirt patch surrounded by mysterious bulb shoots, waiting to welcome Spring.

~ for the first time my little Eee picked me a bunch of the violet shade of pansies and violas blooming in our front yard.

They must have been for you,

our precious, dear, Eleanor Violet.

Happy Birthday Eleanor Violet

26 July 2011

With love,

All of us

xoxoxoxoxo

Little Pear, Chocolate and Brioche Cakes

It is, in my view, the duty of an apple to be crisp and crunchable, but a pear should have such a texture as leads to silent consumption. ~Edward Bunyard

Googling the ingredients you have in the cupboard can provide you with some wonderful new possibilities I have discovered lately. Do you do that ever? Just google your available ingredients. The other day I knew I wanted to make some soup with some cauliflower and spinach. Not able to find the recipe I thought I owned in my recipe book, and thinking that it had become lost in our move, I decide to simply google those ingredients. I found this lovely nutritious soup which I proceeded to make and enjoy with my husband during this week. It didn't go down so well with my girls (except my baby), but then soup rarely does.

These little cakes however have gone down very well. Although poor little Ess has been unwell this week and found them a bit too rich for her delicate tummy :( Yet again I googled an ingredient - stale brioche. I thought it should be able to make some sort of sweet custardy type dessert like bread and butter pudding. Not that I am a fan of that in any way - but my husband loves it and so, it would seem, does little Eee.

Ess was very enthusiastic to make the little cakes, feeling a little better and always keen to bake something sweet. Thus I declare these a great project to do with children: very easy to prepare and needing very little supervision.

Simply slice the brioche.

Slice the pears - ensuring you leave the stem on and being mindful of the shape you'd like to use as you stack your cakes, vertically.

Slice the dark chocolate.

Prepare one yourself by stacking ingredients in the little pans.

Leave the room and allow your little one free rein in arranging these ingredients.

Upon your return you'll need to mix the custard mixture (the entire recipe can be found here).

Add some to each little cake, allow time to soak in, then bake.

My life is rather busy with my three little cherubs so I was delighted to be able to present these for dessert. Usually I would have just baked or poached the pears but with Ess keen to help, it allowed me time to feed and change my baby, and Ess the opportunity to be creative in the kitchen independently. A skill which I highly value and nurture at every opportunity.

Home Education in Canberra

We have had our challenges in Canberra since moving here in January but one thing has not presented us with any difficulty - our home education. In fact we've had some lovely experiences due to our connections with some lovely networks of home educating families. We have become members of both HENCAST (Home Education Network of Canberra and the Southern Tablelands) and CHEC (Christian Home Education Canberra). I am so thrilled with our choice to home educate which is continually reinforced by numerous experiences - socially, educationally, statistically.

This week we had our home visit from the Non Govt Education Department here in the ACT which followed the provisional registration I gained upon our arrival in this state. All went really well and it should result in two full years of registration which is wonderful. I was really encouraged to hear comments about how the report I wrote was very comprehensive, with much attention paid to detail and all criteria addressed thoroughly. I was also delighted to see the joy in Ess' persona as she shared the work she has completed over the last six months.

I was very pleasantly surprised to hear about what the Government is looking for in these visits. They are not hunting for families who have a relaxed, natural and flexible approach to learning. They are more concerned about families who are very pedantic and perhaps lean towards controlling their children, always telling them what to do, not allowing free play and thus not developing and instilling a sense of independence in their learning. This was definitely a breath of fresh air for me as it was totally opposite to what I, and many others I believe, expect of the Government. Somehow we expect to be told we are not doing enough work. This was certainly contrary to my experience. I heard the comment "you have been doing a lot!".

This year, due to our circumstances, my approach to learning has been very natural. In the suitcases we flew over here with, we had our Singapore Maths books to work through. Yet all other components of learning simply came from the groups we were involved with, literature borrowed from the library and excursions we participated in. I simply didn't pack workbooks and teacher's guides etc. when we anticipated moving straight into a new home. And of course we didn't have internet access so all learning resources and inspirational ideas I gain from blog reading etc. didn't happen.

I am very much looking forward to being more settled, to snuggling up and reading literature relating to our Five in a Row studies, to having paints out for the children to enjoy, to being able to enjoy watching related YouTube videos, to being able to research new places with Google Maps etc. etc.

In the meantime Canberra has welcomed us with excursions, activities, parks and playgrounds, friendships and bright sunny days albeit very cool, very very cool.

I'll be able to share some things more specifically with you nowadays.

A Small Planting; A Little Blossom

"Bloom where you are planted."

~The Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

The camelia I see blooming from my bedroom window inspires me each morning

to see the beauty amidst the twigs and sticks of a wintry phase in our lives.

Since last I wrote, dear friends, we are more settled. After seven moves this year, we are finally a little settled in a home - albeit temporarily.

For a little over a month now we have been living with our own things, our personal belongings, our familiar furniture. It does feel like home here. We have been blessed to have been released from the contract we were in, in order to commence a longer term lease than the six weeks we had when last I wrote. We are now leasing a property for six months with the option to extend as we look around to purchase another home - one which is fully legal, with no 'controlled activity' leading to unapproved structures being undertaken by the builder/owner.

Our current home is filled with natural light in a lovely central location which we enjoy very much. It is smaller than our last home but has lots of under-house storage which we are using to keep all the things we probably won't need for six months.

I love hanging out my washing each morning on a lovely big hills hoist to the sound of magpies carolling and watching the sulphur-crested cockatoos and crimson rosellas fly from tree to tree foraging and feeding. I love the way the sun fills this house and greets us each day no matter how cold it is outside and it has been quite freezing at -6deg the other night.

We are starting to bake again, although the oven in my small kitchen is very very basic. We enjoyed my Zucchini and Sultana Muffins the other day.

I have managed to find my lovely crochet blanket but just haven't found the time to sit down and do it. I have actually forgotten the pattern so will need to take time to learn that again. It is hard to believe this as I didn't need to think twice about it all the time I was crocheting this while I was pregnant. My mind has been filled with so much since our move I simply cannot remember that which was so much part of my life previously.

During May we house-sat for some new friends while they holidayed interstate. We are very grateful for this provision. It was fun to explore the northern parts of town and come to realise how much we appreciate being where we are now which is very close to my Generous Gentleman's work.

We moved to this city for his work which he continues to enjoy. This is yet another blessing I am grateful for each day. There are many days when the girls and I pine for the settled creative life we had in Adelaide yet because his work is good, I am happy and they notice this.

We still have not had our deposit for "the dodgy house" refunded and this has led us to having to go to court. The hearing is on 29 July which is only a day after my 40th birthday - great birthday present hey!! I do hope it truly will be. Our solicitor is very confident and doesn't understand how the other side thinks they have a case. So hopefully the judge sees things the same way. We have followed God's promptings in this as well as listened to our solicitor's advice so we are anxiously and nervously confident.

One thing is sure - God will continue to provide for us.

A Life on Hold

In the past I have wondered how I would blog if ever a tragedy happened in our lives. Could I share? Would I share? I write to discover the beauty in everything, every circumstance, every aspect of our lives. So I have decided finally to share.

At the moment I am struggling to see the rainbow in each day, indeed it is only through my three beautiful daughters that the sun shines adding colour to the rain that is pouring down in our lives at the moment.

In January we changed our location of residence from Adelaide to come to Canberra for my Generous Gentleman's work. We are still not in residence in Canberra. We found a house quite quickly here but during the course of the contract to purchase the house we have found numerous issues with it. Yes there is very shonky building existing in Canberra. One problem, an unapproved structure, gave us cause to rescind the contract - which is a blessing. Yet it means we are currently without a home and waiting to have our deposit refunded…hopefully.

So the life I share with my precious family is now very different.

I have not baked since last year. My cooking is very basic as my recipe books are stored along with my kitchen appliances. We use what is supplied for us wherever we are staying.

I have not seen our personal belongings since January apart from what we brought in our suitcases.

There has been no sewing, no crochet, no craft of any type really.

We have moved almost every month in order to find a place to live which costs less. We are currently spending way too much to rent a fully furnished home on a short term lease as we are not free of our contract yet to enter into another contract to rent or to buy. We have very poor mobile internet access which contributes to the fact that I really am not blogging as I used to. My apologies that I have not been able to read your blogs and comment as I'd like to.

Most of our free time is spent assessing when we are going to have to move again and how we are going to find a place to move to.

Yet the important things remain:

We are together. We are dealing with this as a family. We are seeing God move in many ways during this time. I do know and feel that peace that passes all understanding.

We have a place to rest our heads each night (even though at excessive cost) and have not been ravaged by flood, tsunami or earthquake.

The people we have met have been absolutely lovely and very supportive in our situation. We have made lovely friends in our work and home education networks. On many occasion, God has provided just the right person at just the right time.

So that's a little about what life has been like for us. Living without a home certainly brings home to us the important things in life. Have you ever lived without a home? I'd love to hear your experiences. Or if you know of a place we could call home for a little while in or around Canberra, we'd love to know about it. Perhaps we could house-sit for you!

There are some exciting possibilities we have explored and I'd love to share more about them - perhaps one day I will. For now however we are still waiting to be out of the legal bind we have become innocent victims within.