Term 2, Lockdown and Winter Solstice.

Covid lockdown saw us enjoying the restfulness of the city and some of the littler things, such as quiet displays for Autumn.

As Irving was a little confused about our "home school" also turning into "home office" signs were placed on doors, so that he could work out if Dad and Willow (DD20) were free for a chat.  Eventually he worked out their daily flow, and the signs became unnecessary.

Lockdown cooking with Irving- potato scones.

And some German biscuits known as railway tracks.

Me having some fun with decorating my coffee.  :)

Robin Hood with the boys.  Reading together is still one of my favourite family activities.

Working my way gradually through modern history.

Learning about Saints with Irving.

And Arden's rabbit.

Arden has moved onto doing more complex geometry this year, and Irving loves joining in.

Irving working on woven stars.

Arden's star.

Me working with Arden and Irving.

Arden's floral pattern.

The underlying structure for the above design.

Irving having some fun.

Looking at various polyhedrons and the 12 division of the circle.

24 division of a circle.

Preparations for a spiral.

Making progress on perspective.

 Hexa-flexagon's thanks to Vi Hart.

And borromean rings also thanks to Vi Hart.  (Irving made heaps of these, and then later moved onto paper chains.)

Arden finally finished knitting his socks, and since I was required to knit at his pace for this project;so did I.  He was not a fan of knitting the whole way through (we kept having chats about he never needed to knit again if he dislike it, but this skill would enable him to fix his knitted clothes for the rest of his life) and finally after doing the whole thing quite slowly but very competently, he declared knitting was ok and knit a strawberry!

Arden's knitted and wet felted strawberry.

Socks finished for Irving.

Irving's knitting for bilby.

Arden and I started pattern grading these slippers for him- though progress has been a little slow.

Arden working on a bag for his harmonica- he did both machine and hand sewing for this projects.

And he was very pleased when I finally finished this blanket for him.  :)

Hard waste find being re-newed.

Working on string games.

Arden (and I) have been learning Latin using the Lingua Latina series.  (We've also picked up "The Gruffalo" in Latin and Harry Potter- though we're a way off reading them yet!  :D)

Celebrating winter solstice with a fire, sunrise and damper baked in the ashes.

Our Kodaly music teacher suggested this book- so with the help of Willow, who studied at WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) Irving, Arden and I are working through this.  Both boys have been self-teaching piano with the help of youtube, and this is give some extra structure to their progress.

Finally just because in lockdown all these little moments in nature were so appreciated.  Walking past the bird sanctuary at Alfred Cove at sunset.

Winter Break!

Well unsurprisingly the last 5weeks have flown by!  We had a few jobs to do around here, in particular getting the carpet cleaned in all the bedrooms created a little chaos, but it's nice to have our home feeling refreshed after a thorough clean!  Everyone around here has jobs to do, and in some ways the little ones (Arden and Irving) are easier to direct to tasks, as Damien and I have more realistic expectations of where and how they can help, than we did with the older two, and they are accustomed to the idea that everyone has to help out to make our home feel loved and be liveable.  So we pulled all the furniture out of all the bedrooms, got the carpet cleaned and moved everybody into different rooms!  Was a bit of a job, but satisfying at the end when everything looked and felt so nice!

We headed off the Spare Parts Puppet Theatre's performance of "The Arrival", this time at UWA.  We had seen this before, but we love Shaun Tan's books and figured it would be worth seeing again.  It was the first time for Irving to see it, and he was entranced!  We had a little walk through UWA's gardens (I do love it there!)

We have an enormous old suitcase filled with lego, and I thought that it was time we started sorting it (we made quite a bit of progress but still have to finish).  The amount of blocks has been making it hard for everyone to rebuild models, so I started putting things into coloured boxes.  We managed to get one of our oldest sets rebuilt...The Knight Bus!

And whilst on the Harry Potter theme, Gabriel decided that he is interested in reading Harry Potter in Latin, and the first book arrived in the post recently!
"Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis".

We managed to get down to Elizabeth Quay for some iceskating again this year, we had been all intending to go, but we left booking a little late.  Personally I preferred the ice-skating being in the cultural centre, where we could sit and watch the skaters more easily, but the rink is a better size at the Quay.  Also we missed the very early sessions, when we could get up whilst it was still cold and feel like we were somewhere wintery!

Otherwise over the break, I've managed to get a little sewing in (working on my first pair of trousers-linen ones for Gabriel), taking in a skirt, learning about pattern drafting, adding embellishments to some pants that I had that are starting to look a bit sad!  So I've been pleased to clear out my pile a bit...still some stuff left there and a few days left, so hopefully more will get done!  Plus Gabriel's trousers aren't quite finished!  I ran out of thread, just as I got to the hems and sewing the belt loops!  :/  Gabriel and I had hoped to get through the pair he'll make during the break, but instead we're only just starting them.  On a positive not I feel like I know the process of making them well enough that it should go fairly smoothly.

Irving and Arden and I have also done a few walks, bike rides, bit of scootering and skateboarding and catching up with friends.  We'd been a bit slack with getting Arden riding a bike, he had a balance bike when small, but we hadn't got around to him pedalling, so we finally got that sorted, and spent some time alone the river.  Plus of course given the time of year that it is, we got wellies out and went splashing through puddles!

Checking out the water draining.

Puddles at the Park.

Stopping off for a drink!  (Plus had to take wellies off to be comfy!)

Umbrellas in preparation for rain, and heading out for a walk with Willow!

Relaxing in the various seasonal weather!