digging in.

the day started early, as usual. kodiak woke us all up with his love for the mornings. i wish we could all wake up so hopeful and renewed as a new baby. they are in complete love with being alive. so refreshing. we had a quick breakfast and headed out to art class. the kids are really enjoying this new class. i have been so amazed at journey's attention span and asher's effort with drawing. good, good stuff they are exploring here. we trekked home and decided to plant some seeds because the outdoors were calling us. as soon as we stepped outside, we noticed the wind was rustling the dried leaves in our neighbors backyard. a big gust sent something swirling over the back of our fence. i am not kidding you...it was an abandoned planting pot of the plastic variety. how is that for a message from the universe? asher told me he wanted to use the pot that "the universe gave us" to plant his seeds. we thought it was a really cool gift. we planted some calendula and basil and some wild flowers. we are also going to try to grow a cotton plant after we visited a cotton field and harvested a couple of pods to bring home.

we aren't anticipating any low drops in temperature, but we are using the hot house that papa built us just because. :) he intended it to be our chicken coop but then we found out that our neighborhood doesn't allow backyard chickens. so many rules... but we like our hot house and i am hoping to start some tomato plants in there this weekend. any other ideas on what we should grow in there? i am really wanting to have a community garden planting party in my backyard for part of my 30th birthday celebration in April, so i am wanting to get some things started to transplant by then.

of course, the watering of the plants led to other things... this is a picture of asher's creation. a lake, a river, a delta, the ocean and a swamp. after talking a little bit about deltas, he wanted to go do some "research" on prehistoric animals that lived in deltas. googling videos on this eventually led us to some clips of "River Monster's Unhooked" which just so happens to be his favorite show ever, right now. in fact, since checking out a River Monster's Unhooked DVD from the library last week, this show has been a part of our daily rhythm. ;)

Journey loves to get muddy. She even likes to do it while wearing pearls.

We got washed up and took Asher to gymnastics, where he is having a blast and learning more about what his body is capable of doing. He is a total natural at the core strength type stuff. I love watching his skills increase and his confidence slowly creep forward in regards to accomplishing new tricks that he has put some effort into practicing. Before he started practice, I asked him if he wanted some water to drink. He said "no. i just swallow my spit. that is how i am able to survive long periods of time without water." cool. there were a couple of thoughts today that made me smile. on the way to gymnastics, journey saw a herd of cows moving in the same direction as they grazed. journey: "look! cows that are migrating!" asher: "uh, journ. those cows can't be migrating because, uh, there's a fence there." good thoughts at breakfast... asher: "mama, guess what? the earth is more than just where we live and it is more than just another planet. guess what else it is?" me: "what else?" asher (in passionate tone): "it is a big ball of LIFE". and then, while driving to gymnastics... asher: "mama, guess what?" me: "what my love"? asher: "the earth is always changing" me: "yes, it is!" asher: "and so is the ocean. and sometimes, they change at the same time." me: "mmmhmmm" then he went on to explain to me how islands are formed ( "like Hawaii") from volcanoes that erupt under the sea. asher: "do you know where i learned that from?" me: "nope, i'm not sure. where?" asher: "from ms. frizzle. she knows EVERYTHING!" journey: "but YOU don't know everything, mama". me: "nope! you got that right!" :) asher: "well a lot of people know a lot about a lot of different things, so those people probably actually helped make the film with ms. frizzle in it". ha! up next...we just might try our hand at film making. ;)