Prefontaine!

Mr Prefontaine!

He was so little

Snuggle love, he is such a sweet boy!

About a month and a bit ago we went to get Amanda's mom a puppy just like Takoda! We went to pick her up her puppy and came home with 2! One for us and one for her!

We have had Prefontaine, her puppy all along as Amanda and her Cesar like tendencies has been training him. Well the day is approaching when he will be on his journey home to his Mama Shona! I can not believe how much we have all fallen in love with his little self. He is such a sweet guy and very very very much like Takoda. He is a snuggle bug and loves everyone equally ( although Jake likes to believe he loves him more).

He will be leaving tomorrow or the next day and he will be missed. he is such a sweet boy and we are so happy he is going home to PEI with Shona! Even though it will be a wee bit sad here for a few days!

Mexico 8 more days until we leave!

We leave in 8 days, the kids have never been so I am super excited to share our little piece of happiness with them! It will be a great adventure. Tatyanah wants to travel so much so this will be unbelievable to her! Jakob loves food so I am sure he will gain 10 lbs.

We are so excited to take them to the little fishing village and search for sea glass with them. Also all the kayaking and swimming. I am sure we will never get them out of the ocean. Taking them on 'the bull' will be a ton of fun too. I am looking forward to exploring a little more!

I can not believe it is almost here!

GIVEAWAY!!! Journals!

The Crafty Crow is having a giveaway for a chance to win a cool ecosystem notebook.

These are the best little notebooks! I love the colors and it is always awesome to win something fun!

Let me know what you think!

Manda's knitting!

Amanda is brilliant! AShe tries anything and it comes easy to her! She decided to knit me a scarf and I am so excited to wear it. But somehow things went a little weird. I do not know how she does it but she has picked up so many stitches and her beautiful little scarf is becoming a very creative unique scarf! I love it but she still wants to redo it! It is so cute. it has a wonderful hole for fresh air and it is huge at one end, adding the ability to grab it and wrap it around me, but she insists she needs to restart!

So here is it! I love it!

Around the World in 80 days!

As a family we are reading Around the World in 80 Days. We have read 4 chapters and all of us love it. We are creating a family book and I am hoping to bind it together when it is all done! It is exciting as we are taking turns reading it out loud!

So far we have created pictures of Philas Fogg and Passepartout.

Taty and I are creating a title page and we are going to include a map of London and talk about London tomorrow!

We will post pictures as we go along and keep you updated on our adventures!

My pets are driving me MAD!!!

Sometimes I think pets are over rated! This early morning is one of those days!

The puppies were so tired last night and went to bed at 9:30pm. A quiet night. Charlie even wanted in her kennel. They woke a bit about 3 am but I put my hand near them and they carried on sleeping.

Amanda had to teach class for 6 am, so she left about 5:45am. The puppies did not wake up for her to take them out then...noooooo...they waited until she left to wake me up. At 6 am they were whining like crazy. I took them to the door, put them on Taty's bed, as I always do, to put on my coat. One of them peed on her bed. Poor kid is sound alseep and I wake her up with a " Oh my god Taty, get out of bed, the puppies peed your bed". She was getting up as a I rushed out the door, they both peed again FOREVER and pooped. I had no poopy bags, they were upstairs I was busy rushing.

I came back in and had to help Taty get her bed cleaned. She was no help, she was still half asleep. I told her to go to my bed and salted her bed ( it sucks up the pee). Charlie and Fontaine were crying as no one would wake up to snuggle them or kennel them. So of course I go to them and put them in my bed whilst I pee.

Well they decided to play WWF and I was so tired. I took Fontaine to jake's bed, told him to keep him. And came to bed with Charlie and Taty. Neither would settle. Taty was shaking her leg and Charlie was eating my hand!

I finally got Charlie to calm down and sleep and Taty kept her leg a going. I demanded her curtly to STOP! She stopped for 2 mins and got up to go to the couch! Peace!

Hahahahahahahaha NOT

Takoda decided he wanted to snuggle me, not Charlie. Charlie wanted to love Takoda. Takoda growled and I told him to go sleep with Jake. He shut up and went back to sleeping and Charlie went back to sleep.

Sounds good finally? No there is more pets in this house!

Lola, our always starving cat, decided to share all her issue face to face with me at that moment. She talks early in the morning. I pet her, talked to her. And after 5 mins, shoved her off the bed. settled Charlie again. And it was quiet.

Wait!

Lola decided to play with something loud and all over the bedroom floor. Enough was enough. I threw a pillow at her, she ran like mad down the hall. Then I had to settle Takoda and Charlie. I think they were figuring it out.

Then after about 10 mins, I was finally falling back to sleep and Gia ( our other cat) who HATES Takoda, decides to jump up on the bed and come for a snuggle. Well she jumped right onto Takoda. Both pets stopped breathing for a few seconds and the bed was wide awake. I gave up.

I was getting up!

Guess what?? All the fricken pets slept for another hour....peacefully!!

Unschooling

Why is it that every single year I always start out the year as a schooler? I fall back to what I 'think' I should be doing, set up a whole years worth of work only to bang my head into the wall wall and probably through it to realize we are unschoolers?

I love letting the kids learn what they are interested in. Jake has never read a full book for pleasure in his life, he decided he wanted to, he read a book. He was so happy and shared it with everyone...not much celebration as he scored 50% on a science test and needed to retake the test. What the heck is wrong with me?

Jakob read a book!!!

That's not to say the child has never read before but he reads articles and studies Non fiction. We are all a family of readers and I was so sad that we did not celebrate his coming into the reading nook with us.

Jake is grade 10, he has excellent marks so far but I see how his brain is becoming mush. He is trying to only answer the questions on the page not learn the information. He does not learn anything. He is getting through. What's the point? But he is highschool age. Oh dear oh dear.

Well we are unschoolers, I think I need to really evaluate what is important to me and go from there. There has to be a balance..not 100% either way. I know for sure that I want the kids to learn and actually learn things, not simply answer questions for a test and forget the information.

Where to go from here? What to do? I am pretty sure I know what to do, why do I allow fear of the education system that fails so many kids to rule me?

I must go read about unschooling and start being honest with myself.

And my children will lead me......

Tatyanah's room

Tatyanah's room!

We wanted to create a space for Tatyanah and it turned out amazing! We all love it...now to keep Jake out if it!

Family Pumpkins!

Family of Pumpkin Carvers

We had so much fun carving pumpkins! Tim usually does the most amazing job and this time he started to create some cool things but it was taking so long that he decided to start all over and got impatient. I liked his guy in the end too! Tatyanah had some help drawing from Tim and made a Jack Skeligton. Jake made a guy with a knife through him. Kassia made the best smile ever and Amanda made a haunted house! I love them all.

Hard at work!

Proudly displaying their pumpkins!