sifting sand

I read somewhere that if you can keep the day pleasant till 10 am, the rest of the day will make itself.  So when Sadie dragged out the giant "miscellaneous" art bin at 9:45 this morning, saying "oht, oht! MAMA OHT!"  I couldn't think of any reasonable excuses for not setting her up with a project...something a little different compared to the markers and crayons that have been our staple project for the last several weeks.

Enter...colored sand.  Sadie has been big-time into colors lately, not just labeling them, but mixing them.  What better way to integrate the senses of sight, sound and touch, right? (and taste--this is my kid who puts everything in her mouth after all.  Happy to say though, after one try she abandoned that one)

 This girl was like a mini maestro conducting an orchestra of sand mixing and "dir dir diring" (that's Sadie speak for "stir." She really got into this project.

As you can see... it required intense focus, and precise scientific measuring (hence the measuring spoons).  After a while, all the sand got pretty mixed together and Sadie told me with a big smile that she was "plowd" (proud).  It's her new word.  It kind of melts my heart when she says it.  We used the now multicolored sand to make a sand table to practice doodling letters and shapes in.  Good times.  And you know... starting the morning off with a good focusing project really does make the rest of the day go better...even if the project involves a little vacuuming up afterwards.

Green at -40

Oh it has been so bitter cold here this last few weeks, and it just seems to keep getting colder.  Nome is now seeing record low temperatures.  All over town people's water is freezing, sewage traps are backing up, folks are keeping to the indoors--even the ravens seem to have lost some of their cold-weather bravado, and the poor chickens.  We have a heater in their coop now, but it is still pretty cold.  The worst is there just isn't a break in sight.  I have been taking some comfort in my little lemon tree though.

It has been growing like crazy this winter.  I started this thing several years ago from seed, and it really struggled for a couple of years.  It is finally coming into its own now.  I'm going to need to make it a bigger pot to live in soon.  And you can always count on an amaryllis to make a bold debut:

 

This one was gifted to my by a lovely lady (and fellow green thumb) in my pottery class.  

To keep busy, miss Sadie and I have been doing all kinds of indoor projects, but her favorite by far this week was painting with blue, green, and yellow:

She was quite proud of the "ta-too(s)" she gave herself.  And I was quite amazed at the washability of these wonderful tempura paints.

Maybe with all this green around we wont catch the winter blues.

water color

our autumn nature table

Lately I have been inspired by the Waldorf concept of having an ever changing collection of kid-selected, seasonal things grouped together on a table at child's eye level.  We have designated the corner table in the living room to be this table.  Right now we have the tundra terrarium, Sadie's beach rocks (now colored on by crayon) and the assortment of pumpkins Sadie has been picking out on our grocery shopping trips.

That middle pumpkin became a jack-o-lantern a little earlier than planned, since Cash chewed off the stem and part of the top.  Sadie and I had a fun time carving it--she liked digging the seeds out, squishing her hands in the center, feeding the guts from the pumpkin to the chickens, roasting the seeds... I was feeling really proud of our seasonal fun UNTIL I lit the pumpkin up.  Immediately she became terrified of it.  I suspect it will be disappearing from the nature table soon.

Sadie's first Ptarmigtan Hunt

Last night while I was teaching pottery class Loren decided to take Sadie on an impromptu Ptarmigan hunt. He texted me the following pictures from his iphone.

note: Smartwool socks as mittens... nice work dad ;)

 

poor Ptarmigan, I always feel bad for them when their plumage changes to white before the snow falls, they kind of seem like sitting... um, Ptarmigan?  I guess they had a sporting chance though,  if they were being hunted by a guy with a blind, deaf Labrador, a spastic 2 year-old Boxer and a one-year-old in an Ergo backpack.

But everyone had a good time (excepting the Ptarmigan, I guess) and Sadie was so tuckered out she slept like an Angel last night...for the first time in months.  

So yay for Sadie's first Ptarmigan hunt!

art rocks

 

It's starting to get cold here (a tiny bit of snow this morning even).  Sadie and I have been trying to make the most of the beach while we still can.  Yesterday we collected some nice, BIG, flat rocks in a bucket.  Today we decided to add our own embellishments.  Not sure if Sadie enjoyed scribbling on the rocks or eating the crayons more.  It was probably a toss.   

Speaking of rocks, Sadie also picked up a tiny one on the way to the library today.  I thought she had dropped it along the way, but as we were in the library browsing for books she managed to sneak that thing into her mouth and choke on it.  I had to perform the Heimlich maneuver right there amongst the library shelves.  It about scared the crap out of me.  I was beginning to think that Sadie had almost grown out of the putting everything in her mouth phase.  Sheesh.

That's one thing about 1-year-olds...they sure keep you guessing.