Coming Home

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Friends,

It’s been an eventful week. Last night we had a concert at our house,  with over 3o people. It was so much fun, you should try it. I will try to do a post about it next week.

Today my 9 year old had his birthday party.

Tomorrow we will  be exploring Tent Rocks with our guest.

This pictures was taken by my husband’s friend at the airport somewhere out East. I love how he captured him. My husband texted me this picture from the airport. What a lovely surprise.

Have a fun filled weekend! In this part of the world it is finally sunny and warm. Feels like spring.

-Sofija

Coming Home

Family Sport: Indoor Rock Climbing

Hi there,

Back in the fall I started a new series on family sports. The idea behind is to find sports that families can do together and that suits several age groups. Rather than one family member doing a sport, and everybody else sitting in on a bench watching, I like to see the whole family being active together.

When my nephew was here visiting I took him and my kids (except the baby) to an indoor rock climbing gym. A one time visit is a bit pricey (it was $11.95 per person between noon and 3pm); if we went regularly I would buy a family pass. We brought our own tennis shoes and only rented harnesses.

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Here is the group I took (sans my 8 year old who was hiding behind my back as usual).IMG_5519

Below is my 6 year old Ella with a full body harness. I recommend this harness for her age and younger as it makes them feel safe. IMG_5521

The gym had a variety of of equipment. There were rings and ropes hanging from the wall. Lots of bouldering walls, which are great for little ones. I wish I hadn’t paid for my 4 year old since she was too scared to climb on a rope and happy to just boulder. They also have exercise bikes there which we didn’t try.IMG_5532

Below is Esther. She climbed so fast it was hard keeping up with her trying to keep the rope tight while belaying.IMG_5536

My nephew did a great job evading my camera. Here he really couldn’t run away…Isn’t he cute? I love his plaid shirt.IMG_5542

Teenagers 14 years and older can be trained to belay, which really helps when you have bunch of kids. My oldest (below on the right) and I took turns belaying. It took us about 15 min to be trained in belaying, so factor that in the first time you come.IMG_5551

After fussing and complaining for a couple of hours my 8 year old finally started climbing and enjoying himself. He was allowed to climb without a rope up to a certain point. IMG_5563

This is a great sport for the winter time. My kids always ask to go. If you have never been give it a try. There are a lot of employees there ready to help.

The gym offers youth classes and classes for home-schoolers.

Have a great weekend, I’ll see you back here next week with an interview of the Hollands.

-Sofija

Family Sport: Indoor Rock Climbing

Snow in the Desert

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I woke up to this scenery this morning. I can never get enough of snow in the desert. Probably because it usually lasts only half a morning. Just enough to look pretty, not long enough to disrupt your life.

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We live on the edge of a canyon, and we tend to get a lot of the snow from the mountains east of us.

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Below are my kids going down to the creek. Can you spot them? When it snows during the night, my kids are up and out first thing in the morning. It’s like a fire drill; I never see them get dressed that fast any other time. They know the snow won’t last.

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How is it where you live? Any snow? Are you sick of it?

Stay warm with hot chocolate!

-Sofija

Snow in the Desert

The Hollands are Here

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Friends,

It’s been fun around here. Non stop visitors. The first two weeks of February my husband’s parents and our nephew were here. Last Sunday the Hollands, who we know from living in an intentional community in Chicago, arrived. Along with them came another family who stayed with us for two nights. On Sunday there were 6 adults, 12 kids, and one dog here for dinner. Crazy fun!

The Hollands will be here for two weeks. I will post more about their interesting, nomadic life later. They home-school their two children on the road, and they are part of the same virtual school K12 as our two oldest are. What is even better is that we have two kids in the same grade level doing the same math. Craig Holland seems to like Math a whole lot more than I do and has been teaching my daughter Esther alongside with his son (which she seems to make her quite happy). So I while I visit with friends I get a break from Geometry and Probability…life is good.

On top is a picture of Esther and Graciana doing water color painting.

Have a great day,

Sofija

 

 

 

 

The Hollands are Here

Happy Valentine’s Day

How is your week going? Any big plans for Valentine’s Day? I have to confess, it is not a big deal to me. I could happily live without it. But it is a BIG deal to my girls. They have been crafting, gluing, coloring their Valentine’s for days now. Not to mention the labor that went into the boxes to put the Valentine’s cards in. This is serious businesses, as these boxes are judged in contests at various parties.My girls had a big party with their American Heritage Troop on Monday, and today we are going roller skating with our home-school group. This, I hope, will conclude our Valentine’s festivities. Well, maybe we can squeeze in a romantic dinner with my husband somewhere.  Since that is what it is supposed to be about, right?

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Happy Valentine’s Day

Donuts

Introducing:

The yummiest donuts on earth….

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They are so yummy that even my 8 year old made a rare appearance at the table…

My father in law bought these twice while he was here. If you care to know, these old world donuts can be bought fresh daily at Duke City Donuts. And no, this is not a sponsored post.

Have a lovely day,

Sofija

 

 

 

Donuts

My 100th Post

Friends,

this is my 100th post, can you believe it? It’s been a fun ride.

I started blogging last May. My most popular post was the one I did on Halloween Costumes. Most of my readers come from the US. Internationally I get the most visitors from Germany, which I really appreciate. Reading a blog in a second language takes some effort. Vielen Dank!! I get a fair amount from the UK. What surprised me is how many international hits I get, including Croatia, Australia, South Korea, Russia, and Pakistan (hello Pakistan!).

Thank you to all my faithful readers who keep coming back. I love you!

Have a lovely day,

Sofija

My 100th Post

Family and Oranges

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PicMonkey Collage

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Friends,

how was your week? Ours has been lovely. My husband’s parents and my nephew are here visiting. Our week has been full with snuggles, baking together, cooking together, and yummy, juice oranges. My mother in-law always remembers to bring or send oranges from their tree in California. Living in New Mexico we don’t always get the best produce. The oranges we have been buying here are rather dry and tasteless. So needles to say we have been feasting on orange loveliness. She also brought lemons, and yesterday she and my 11 year old baked lemon bars. I mean mouth watering lemon bars.

Now I’m looking forward to the weekend. Plans are to got to Santa Fe to a favorite New Mexican restaurant. We love to eat, can you tell???

Have a lovely weekend, see you back here next week.

-Sofija

Family and Oranges

Cousins

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Doing our school with our cousin this week. Finn on the left reading the Diary of Anne Frank (in English to my dismay, I would be beside myself if he read it in German). Cousin Aydan on the right working on his laptop. Oh I remember the days when they were little, running all over the house and excessively talking in high pitched voices….

-Sofija

 

Cousins

Essential Furniture for our Home-schooling

Hi,

Today I wanted to share the several pieces of furniture that are essential to our home-schooling. The first one is a desk with a computer for my high-schooler. He pretty much spends all day on it, because he is part of an online schoool. The computer is on loan from the school and too ugly for words. We are I Mac people so you never see the adults in the house using it.

IMG_5384The second one is this black round table. It is a Pottery Barn table purchased on Craigslist. I really like it because it is so versatile. I can pull it out for extra seating for dinner guests. Since they are no legs you can fit a lot of people around it. It is sturdy and holds up to kids climbing on top of it. This is what it looks like when I have cleaned all the clutter off to take a picture.

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This is what it usually looks like. There is always someone sitting at this table, coloring, doing school work, crafts, etc. It drives me crazy that it never looks like the above picture. But then again, I’m glad that it invites creativity, and a lot of it.IMG_5393Next is my school closet from Ikea. It kind of functions as a locker. Every child has one or two cubbies. I have maxed out our book schelves, so I really need something for the school stuff we use daily. I like that this closet stays shut, thus hiding the mess.

IMG_5376This is my 11 year old daughter’s cubby, neat and organized. She takes after her dad.

IMG_5378Here is my 14 year old son’s cubby. I’m not sure what happened here, he is usually pretty neat.  I am responsible for top sections where we keep craft supplies. It needs attention badly…

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On the bottom I keep pre-school type of learning toys for the little people, so my two youngest can do their  “school”. IMG_5381Here is the dining room table we don’t use as much, because frankly most of the time it is too sticky.

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We have a little table that is perfect for the under 5 age. It was a hand me down, originally purchased at ToysRUs and has survived all of my children and their friends. Here is my mom when she visited with Luci.

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Lastly, would you like to know where most of our school gets done? Right here on the couch. This is where I sit and do one and one sessions with the kids.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAEsther spends a lot of her time on our main computer. It is here that I write all my posts if you care to know.

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This is pretty much it. It looks like a lot of furniture, but with six kids all of it gets used all the time.

How about you, do you have furniture that invite learning and creativity? What is your favorite? I’d love to hear.

Have a wonderful day!

-Sofija

 

 

Essential Furniture for our Home-schooling