'Rona-Cation: Special Drink Challenge

This was a silly one y'all, but reportedly one of their favorites... I challenged the kids to make a most excellent special drink out of the ingredients provided, and to my surprise they took over 30 minutes mixing and tasting and tweaking their concoctions to perfection!

The prize? A cherry! Well, and getting to drink the drink, of course.

Challenge ingredients: unsweetened lemon juice, unsweetened dark cherry juice, sparkling apple juice, frozen limeade concentrate, ginger brew, frozen blueberries, and sliced oranges, Meyer lemons and limes.

Henry's (winning) drink: 1 part dark cherry juice, 1 part lemon juice, probably 6 parts sparkling apple juice, and a splash of ginger brew.

Audrey's drink: equal parts ginger brew and sparkling apple juice with squeezed lime and orange wedges and floating blueberries for garnish. 

See our previous challenge activity here.

'Rona-Cation: Lego Challenge

Much like probably everyone else in our area right now, we are spending a lot more time at home because of the Coronavirus scare. Our school district has already extended the school closure from spring break all the way through April 6th, and there are some fairly educated opinions that we'll go even longer before setting foot in a classroom again.

For us, that means Mama working from home and a little kid re-learning of how to occupy your time without parking in front of a screen for 8 hours a day.

We've recently started watching Lego Masters, and from that show came the inspiration to have daily Lego challenges as part of that un-device-ing process. Two things have come from these challenges- first, Henry has overcome the reluctance he's always had to reusing Legos from previous creations, and many a build has been deconstructed to become something else in the past few days (which I love). Second, both kiddos have become so inspired that they're now building things outside of the little challenges I come up with (which I also love).

I'll do a 'qualifying' challenge after lunch, something they can work on together, and if it goes well and there's no fighting, they qualify to skip "nap" time and move on to the second, more complicated challenge. That one I'll usually think up so each person works on a piece of it independently, but it's a cohesive idea that is presented together when they're done. If they pull it off without fighting again, they win an hour on their devices (to be used when I start making dinner).

We're on day 3 of this rhythm and they're still enthusiastic about it, so I'm feeling a lot of winning over here right now. Here's what we've done so far:

Qualifying round: a St. Paddy's Day scene. They chose a rainbow coming out of a cloud and going into a pot of gold.

Round 2: a Dreamer and a Dream. Henry did the dreamer in a bedroom, Audrey did the dream.

The dreamer

The dream- Audrey walking on clouds with a neighborhood below

Yesterday's qualifying round: Animals Around Our House. Audrey's bee (Hen opted out)

Animals Around Our House: Rory

This morning's mini-challenge: Amazing Vehicle. Audrey's flying......... thing

Henry's re-worked flying thing on a pre-built trailer

Today, after lunch, I had them work on a video game scene where one person made the computer (Hen) and the other person made a snapshot of a video game (Audrey):

Clearly they qualified, and they are now diligently working on a good guy vs. bad guy scene. It's been kinda fun thinking these challenges up, if I'm being honest. I'm super glad they're still in to it all.

Stay tuned for other challenges we've been doing to fill these home-bound days!

My Girl

She may have that 'Ugh, mom!" attitude whenever my camera comes out, but I still manage to get a few shots when she can't protest, ha!

This girl of mine, she really is amazing, y'all. She's almost a green belt in Tae Kwon-Do and she has gone from knowing nothing about the violin to playing Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' all of her own volition. She will be mighty when she finally realizes how powerful she is when she sets her mind to something and accepts the help and guidance of the people that went before her.

Her music teacher may be one of the ones that helps her to that realization. She is wonderful.

But my girl is a force to be reckoned with all on her own, and although that adds up to many a morning, afternoon, and/or evening of power struggles and testing, I'm not left feeling (completely) defeated at the end of the day because I know she's on the cusp of turning all that energy towards changing the world.

Like I said, my girl is amazing.

Weekending

This weekend, we...

...kicked off that weekend feeling a little early with a late Thursday night Tae Kwon-Do practice, wherein Audrey beat out all her fellows at a plank challenge and a balance challenge, then learned she'll be grading for her green belt in less than two weeks... talk about a happy girl!
...made cheesecake, blueberry coffee cake, oatmeal beer bread, and sugar cookies, because carbs.
...hosted Grammy, Gramps, and Aunt KK, who greeted us right after school let out on Friday and stayed through a movie, a tied Saturday morning soccer game, and some weekend shoe shopping for a girl who seemed to outgrow 90% of her shoes over night.
...kept windows open every day!
...spent a lot of time outside planting seeds, pulling weeds, playing with Sukaboo, and discovering large quantities of frog eggs.
...had to replace not one, not two, but three chirping smoke alarm batteries, all within a couple hours of each other, all after bed time (of course), and all with pirated 9-volts because our battery stash is sorely lacking, apparently.

This weekend flew by with that beginning-of-spring mania and energy that everything seems to be feeling right now. Buds are blooming, grass is greening, pets are shedding and we're all struggling to sit still through the responsible parts of our days... but oh when the weekend comes back again...!

Happy beginning-of-March Monday!

Garden Chores

This weekend, I am happy to report I cleaned up aaaaaaaaaall the garden weeds and summer plant relics, I got my perennials in the ground, I planted peas and onions and nasturtiums, and I even got Henry out with me for a sec to plant his baby cabbage.

In another week or two, I anticipate planting strawberries, greens, beets, carrots, herbs... oh let's be honest, I'll probably have my whole garden going before the end of spring break. I'll need something out there ASAP in those fresh beds to compete with the weeds I'm sure will grow back over night!

I took three wheelbarrows full of pulled weeds to the compost, I used the string trimmer to cut down all the weeds in the pathways, I trimmed up my Texas sages and forsythia, and with some help from the hubs we trimmed some of those oak tree branches back that were starting to shade out my beds.

After all that work, Suka was exhausted.

This Moment

Pausing to share a moment in this space- a simple, extraordinary moment that I want to savor... a morning walk and a deep conversation I can only imagine between a Sissy and her Bubba.

Big Garden Plans

Never mind that the skeletons of my summer plants still cling to their trellises and nary a bed has been mulched this whole winter... I'm thinking of spring and all that new green that will be growing out there soon!

No, I'm not talking about the weeds.

I just received my Baker Creek Heirloom Seed order and I can't wait to be back out in my space... first to do a little clean-up, and then to plant all my tiny little hopes and dreams!

This year, along with whatever is still stashed in my seed box from last year (like squash, melons, and radishes), we'll be planting:

1500 Year Old Cave Beans

Beurre De Rocquencourt Yellow Beans

Calima Green Beans

Dragon Tongue Bush Beans

Purple Dove Bush Beans

Bull's Blood Beets

Golden Beets

Chantenay Red Core Carrots

New Kuroda Carrots

Pusa Asita Black Carrots

Buhl Sweet Corn

Dar Cucumbers

Lemon Cuke Cucumbers

Mixed Aurora Orach

Carouby De Maussane Snow Peas

Sugar Snap Peas

Cactus Aztec Zinnias

Envy Zinnias

Scabiosa Zinnias

Parker's Variety Yarrow

Mammoth Grey Striped Sunflowers

Henry Wilde Sunflowers

Tall Trailing Nasturtiums

Colossus Red/Gold Bicolor Marigolds

Sweet Mace aka Mexican Mint Marigolds

Parsley

Basil

Purple Kale

"Gourmet" Mixed Lettuce

Then of course there will be live plants once the nurseries stock up, and added to that list we'll have:

Onions

Tomatoes

Peppers (sweet & hot)

Oregano

Strawberries

And to top everything off, Henry brought home a little cabbage seedling from school this week (random, I know), so we'll be giving it a corner somewhere with the hopes that it'll become some excellent sauerkraut!

I refuse to think about how bad the bugs will be this year- this winter being so ridiculously mild- and instead I'm choosing to focus on the tomatoes and pickles and maybe even a second year of sweet corn....................................... I become such an insufferable optimist when spring is in the air!