I live with an American and have friends in the country, so I have had my share of second hand impressions in regards to modern Halloween, and not even once felt the urge to be part of it. The parents spend money on costumes that never get used again, then usually grumble about the weather or how the kids are not happy with the said costumes, and then follow them around in the neighborhood on a huge candy fest, which is as predictable as holes in socks. Needless to say, we had no plans on doing anything this year either.

Until, Mr.Blab showed clear signs of life:

- Kids! It’s Halloween – blank stares all around – you have all day to come up with some kind of costumes and you can do trick or treating later today for some sweets.

Squeals filled the air and for the rest of the day the girls were running around, scouting the area for bits and pieces, tape  and scissors were busy and projects were running hot in the make-shift secret laboratory they spread over numerous chairs on the grass under the sun.  Some things didnt work out, but plenty of little things were churned out – hats, wands, hair pieces, framed dress and most importantly baskets for lollies.

I present to you the best, most wonderful Halloween baskets I have ever seen, but what I love most about them is how unconcerned about the amount of candy they would hold their creators were while making them.

Halloween might not be that bad after all.

Oh, who am I kidding, we loved it and there are no dusty costumes in drawers anywhere. These ones ended up in our bonfire later on.

©Snaps & Blabs, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Free learning, India Post tags: banjar, halloween, mountains

The kids watch more TV than I would like them to. Its just such a wasted time, or at least that is what I think when I see them in front of the screen in the mornings.  My heart sings when they are laughing outside, or somewhere around the house, better yet,  if they do it while half covered in dirt/water/fruit left overs/whatever. Sings, baby.

The other day the girls are walking around, collecting tape, paper and strings, chatting something in the background and looking very determined. This is not a strange behavior, so I dont snoop on them, but wait to see what will come out of it. A bit later I go in the kitchen and am met with a lovely creative mess happening on the table. Stuff is brewing and could be smelled from far away. I cant stand it anymore and approach inquiring about the recipe. Excited, they fill me in on all the characters they are making.

Names, relationships, family trees…

I loved the little paper dolls, I swooned over them, because they are so full of life and always look unique with beautiful clothes, colors and patterns, expressive faces and outrageous hairstyles.

They were not the real plan though. They were just passengers.

The reason for the day’s creative cook off was paper planes. They made their own planes, decorated them and somehow put them up on the ceiling fan from the top bunk bed.

Wanna fly on Bling… or maybe Nature airline?

Passengers on board, the flights took over the sky.

Excited, the girls would save fallen passengers and try to figure out how to keep them safe in their seats. Then add on more decorations to the planes, as needed. This went on and on for most of the day.

At some point I asked where they got the idea for the planes.

They said, oh, from TV.

Well…fine. From where I am sitting, TV cant be all bad if it keeps the airspace busy. And ours was quite busy that day.

©Snaps & Blabs, 2010. | Permalink | Still a monologue | Add to del.icio.us
Free learning, Life with loved ones Post tags: creative, fun, play, tv

Miss Fab has been running morning school, but this time its not for Little B, but for her most favorite person in the world – her brother. She is determined to make him a genius, and this will be regardless of his actual ability, it seems.  She has been teaching him numbers and words, but the last two days the whiteboard has been out and he has learned how to draw cookies, yes cookies. This involves a circle and dots in it.

Miss Fab’s aid, Ms Little B, gets involved as well. She is like the extra cheerleader.

Today my just turned 2 year old learned how to write the number 9.

And forgive me if I am a bit bias, but he is doing a bloody good job of it.

I think he is surprised of his new found ability himself.

“Wow, did I just do that…with this?”

This is not just any school, mind you.

This is school like you have never seen before. Well, maybe there are establishments where you get this kind of excitement and approval when you do the work even remotely right:

But I bet you, you will be hard pressed to find
another educational institution with this kind of uniform:

So, lets repeat the day’s lesson:

The number 9
divided by (2 cheeks+1 bum)
equals 3 kids

Pass.

©Snaps & Blabs, 2010. | Permalink | Still a monologue | Add to del.icio.us
Free learning Post tags: Dodman, fun, kids

If you remember, Miss Fab went for the Baloo role at the beginning and didnt get it. That crushed her, but she was so enthusiastic and knew the lines for her and Baloo’s characters, that when the boy that had it started shirking, she actually got the role. I wish I could say, I knew it all along, but I will save you the lies. I didnt. I was mostly trying to help her deal with the loss and how we cant always get what we want (anybody else have Mick Jagger singing in their head?), just didnt want her hopes to get too high, and then she goes and actually wins the spot. I stand corrected and shamed in the corner.

Little B, the big fan of her sister that she is, insisted of having a bear costume as well, not unlike a regular crazed fan would dress when their idol performs. I didnt fight that request and whipped her one. I can try to explain how cute it all felt, but I am sure words will fail me.

She didnt take off the suit from the time I made it, till the day after the performance.

We took our seats at the theater.

We took our seats at the theater…

And there she was, my little, but not so much anymore, girl. She had so much confidence and looked so relaxed and in control that my heart fluttered with pride watching her. On the way home afterwords she said that she felt very nervous before going on stage, but as soon as she got on it, it all disappeared and she had fun. And I could see that from my seat in the darkness.

She wanted it, she worked for it, she got it and did it well. A lot of adults have trouble with that seemingly simple formula; most likely myself included.

Little B was busy watching the show, while the Dod  decided that going up and down the stairs was a much better option. And thats what he did. I have a suspicion that he decided at some point to just go on stage and gave it a try.

Thankfully for everyone concerned he is still way too small and lacking lateral thinking to figure out that there were stairs to the side.  He gave it a good go though and got close enough.

I dont know what I will do with those determined children.

I hope its a good thing, else I am in trouble.

©Snaps & Blabs, 2010. | Permalink | Still a monologue | Add to del.icio.us
Free learning, Life with loved ones Post tags: Miss Fab, performance

The insight of Sugata Mitra, on the other hand – inspiring.

©Snaps & Blabs, 2010. | Permalink | Still a monologue | Add to del.icio.us
Free learning Post tags: learning

We love taking walks in the neighbourhood. Sometimes we go for quick lunch at a favorite cafe, others we enjoy a drink of some kind and then there are the more practical walks that take us to the library or the local shops.

If we decide to go grab a drink, we would pick some cat tails on the way from our special area and swing them around until they brake. The Dod gets his own handed to him, riding on my back, and then he is expected to try to tickle the bouncing girls around me.

I love this wall.
The color, the texture, all of it.

Little B skips ahead often, as she is my non-stop child; my perpetuo mobile; the child that climbs just about any vertical object she faces; and yet, all this activity and training has not made her less likely to be a party of injury events around here. Quite the opposite, she can get a scrape just by breathing, I am sure of it. But, as I have always said, you are not a child unless you have bruised legs and a band-aid somewhere on your body. She is definitely a child.

She skips, and skips, and skips until the street, which we cross together and then she is off again, unless she finds something interesting and then she is behind calling for us to wait.

Miss Fab, my dogologist child (I dont think I have made you privy to her new obsession with dogs), is usually closer, exploring and chatting and melting with love for her brother. We usually have to guess how many dogs we will see on our outing and we know we will see at least two; for we have the chao-chao we love to stop by and say hi to.

He is quiet and we could have missed him, had he not stuck his black nose under the fence that one time, back when, before he was our dog. It even took our resident professional dogologist a bit of time to figure out the breed, there is so little of him showing.

Last time he made these sad noises, behind the beautiful white fence, and we decided that he is lonely all day, while the owners work. We bought his story until a noisy little fella jumped about around him, as though to prove his existence or worth as a friend, for they are two, behind the fence. Nosy and Noisy. Our dogs.

Spring does make our walks more colorful and there is so much to see and touch and pick.

Flowers are dissected and examined, and paper bark trees are relieved of a bit of their coats in the name of exploration too. We love seed pods, cause there seem to be an unlimited variety of ways plants have figured out to spread their genes into the world – seeds with wings, spiky seeds, millions tiny ones, pods, singing choir looking pods et cetera, et cetera.

No matter how many times we do our walk, it never gets boring and we always find something new and interesting.

Still, its nice when we arrive at our current favorite watering place. Its even better if our preferred inside sitting spot is free – it has enough chairs, the chairs are puffy and comfortable and there is enough table in front to cause trouble and spill stuff.

And as much as I want to tell you we leisurely enjoy our warm drinks, barely upright in the big puffy chairs and feet sprawled on the table in front, I cant. Because this one may look mellow and all classy, well-mannered young gentleman in his cardigan, but its all a lie.

At first the apple juice may sit there, amongst the pencils, undisturbed.

Miss Fab may be able to play some word games, while letting her yo-yo rest and waiting for the cinos.

Which come wonderfully frothy with sprinkling of brown chocolate goodness.

My drink of choice is a long black.

No sugar, no milk.

For those of you that wonder what in the world that is, its like a long espresso; watery strong espresso.

I love to drink it while catching up on the newspapers.

But this one unleashes, shakes off the drowsy feeling he may have developed riding on my back and sets off.

He wants everything; to try it all, himself. So armed with my unused teaspoon he walks around and dips it in everything, drips stuff all over that big ole table, mixes things that should not be mixed.

Miss Fab attempts to restrain him, gently, by offering her babycino as a sacrifice to the common good. And this works for about half a second, and then he is off again.

This day was a bit extra crazy, as he was sleepy too, so life just had to bend over for him or else he was going to make it. We, ourselves armed with napkins, kept wiping behind him, but the end of the road for him was when he started pouring to and fro various cups and spilled a lake on that table, which didnt look as nice anymore. That marked the end of his freedom and he was swiftly strapped to my back, tightly, where he spent the rest of the time – blinking and resting his tired head on my shoulders.

We did manage to catch up on the news and election developments and that coffee made its way to the depths of my being.

On the way back we take a different route, just to be wild, or at least not to repeat ourselves. And here I will present to you our jumping game. Yours truly came up with it one day, when we were Dod-free, and you may be tempted to just call it long jumping, its not, so dont utter it.

Its our extra-special-fun-bike-lane-wild-game.

See – wild!

Its risky too, cause you never know when the extreme bikers may wizz by and put your life in danger.

Starting position:

Trembling knees, mental preparation, deep breathing…

Whooosh!

Every jumper is marked and we try to beat each other. I am way out of the kiddies league. I fly, baby! Fly like the wind; jump straight back home. Not surprisingly, Little B manages to outjump Miss Fab from time to time. And Mr.Blab? Last time he joined us on a walk, he used the excuse that he is sick and never embarrassed himself with an actual result. But I am pretty sure we all know where he will fit, I just wonder if he will make it past the white line…

Then the girls decided to be archeologists.

And dug the sides of the path.

So we can come back home with a pile of rocks.

A pile of rocks that is still in front of the back door and we trip on them to this day.

©Snaps & Blabs, 2010. | Permalink | Still a monologue | Add to del.icio.us
Free learning, Life with loved ones Post tags: fun, outside, travel

The form of a limericks goes like that according to Wikipedia:

The standard form of a limerick is a stanza of five lines, with the first, second and fifth usually rhyming with one another and having three feet of three syllables each; and the shorter third and fourth lines also rhyming with each other, but having only two feet of three syllables.

The limericks were popularised by Edward Lear and his wonderfully named book:

I love the character armed with nonsense; it lovingly reminds me of myself sometimes.

Today on the way to writing class we had some fun and made a bunch of poems, poems in motion, literally. And here for your hopeful  enjoyment are a few of them.

1
I love my little old bed
its soft, cosy and red
its small and dashing
almost too flashing
I cant believe they covered it in lead!

2
I have a very old cat
It needs a much bigger mat
For she is so lazy
my cat called Maisey
and so extraordinarily fat.

3
I wanted to make a cake
but I didnt know how to bake
Out fell the flour
I made it a tower
and the milk made a perfect lake.

4
Once I went to the mall
and I saw this one guy fall.
A man called Ted
came up and said:
“Why do they make malls so tall?”

5
Oups! I was eaten by a bear
Why me? This is not fair!
Its warm and cozy
But not so rosy
I am never doing  another dare!

6
Once I tried to climb the  wall
but instead I took a big, big fall.
My knee is bruised,
my jaw is fused,
please, give emergency a call.

We have our favorites, but I will be curious if you have one too?

Comments in limericks get extra points. The points you can spend at that thingy over there, behind the blue stuff…a bit further…there, somewhere…oh, forget it!

©Snaps & Blabs, 2010. | Permalink | Still a monologue | Add to del.icio.us
Free learning, Life with loved ones Post tags: creative, fun, Miss Fab

Weeds.

What are weeds? And are they misunderstood? I am guessing that those out there that spend numerous hours and money fighting with unwanted pesky garden guests will be reaching with their shaking, bloodied fingers through the monitor for my throat, but calm down, breathe, give this blogger a chance.  I will get to my point eventually, as laboriously as it may end up being.

We skip the violence and move on the pleasant things.Flowers. Imagine a front yard beautifully scattered with emerging flowers. Some more fragrant than others. The new breed of white, small and gentle ones are filling the air with the most mind-swaying aroma. Every time you walk there, it feels like nature’s scent market. That is what our yard feels like at the moment.

The other day the Dod walks up to me with a flower in his hand and hands it up to me. The smile on my face must have had an impact on him too, because he ran back out with Mr.Blab saying more…more…

Next, he comes back and greets me with a small, but wide-toothed smile and hands bulging with freshly-scented, white blossoms. My heart can only take so much, but this I soaked up to its fullest. I took one of the best bouquets I have gotten from the clutch of the two of my favorite hands and buried my nose in the moment.

My new gift now has a prized position on my desk and its perfume lingers all around the place.

Freesias.

Some of the most wonderful flowers I have had the pleasure of seeing and smelling. I was not sure what they were, but one of you (thanks, Mina) mentioned the name and now I am well informed of our gracious little visitors.

Get this though. They are weeds here. Lets just say that when I read that, Mr.Blab and I basically laughed. In our world, a flower that plants itself, grows and exists without an ounce of our effort, and to top it all off smells divine and looks more than pleasing is nothing short of the perfect plant. THE perfect plant.

That was part of how my visual and smelling senses were tickled that day.

Later on I took care of the taste buds.

I am new to baking, but its growing on me. This could be good or bad, or maybe good and bad, but I guess only time will tell. For now I am giving in every once in a while. Remember my burned up first attempt at chocolate tarts? I just had to go back and improve.

So for movie night, again, I made a second batch. I made more dough than I needed so I quickly made up a savory filling for the extras. I had some old cream cheese and spinach leaves that were calling, no, begging to be freed of their fridge misery. The filling ended up like that: a layer of garlicy cream cheese with spinach and that was topped with caramelized onions and capsicums. I am not completely sold on the combination, but they were very pleasant and quickly disappeared.

The piece de resistance were the chocolate tarts, though.

The idea for these had stuck in my head from the Master Chef series. Last time I used some recipe I had found on the net, but this time I went and got the information from the source and the result was a success.

For the dough:

For the filling:

To serve we have been using strawberries and whipped cream, but the possibilities are endless. I am thinking it wont be half bad with some crushed nuts on top either.

The result left everybody happy.

The girls were inspired as well and decided to surprise us with their own rendition of a desert for movie night. Sweets buzz up any child and ours are no exception, but their minds were not only fired up by the potential sugar intake. Their creativity was impressed by the ideas of Heston Blumenthal, whos show we adore – Heston’s Feasts. We watched him put chicken in an orange jelly, instead of orange flavour into a chicken, amongst other things.

We got chocolate stuffed strawberries from our budding chefs. Thanks, Heston!

And our move watching plates were now complete.

With chocolate melting in my mouth and belly, and the fine summer scent of the best darn weeds melting in my senses, I can safely say that this day is welcomed to visit me again any time.

This, pies and flowers kind of day.

©Snaps & Blabs, 2010. | Permalink | Still a monologue | Add to del.icio.us
Food pleasures, Free learning, Life with loved ones Post tags: create, kids, recipe, tart

Awhile ago I was sweeping the back from all the leaves that come down on us in autumn, which is one of the negative part of having so many trees around. Flippidy-Flop and an ALIEN bounces from the pile I am sweeping and I jump about like a scared cow, or at least as I assume one such creature would, and pause. And wait for the attack, which inevitably follows in such cases. Nothing. I approach the strange creature, slowly and carefully.  What in the world is that, I am thinking to myself and try to hold my shaking hands still.  It just stays there, stalking me, staring at me with its, what?, painted on eyes. It looked cute in a weird squishy, butt with a thorn kind of way. I poked it with a stick and it did nothing, just looked at me with those pretend I am not a caterpillar eyes.

I knew the girls would love to see this, so I covered it with a nearby clear plastic tray and went on with my business, although now somewhat freaked out and looking around for other creatures that may want to jump at me. Definitely not one of my proudest moments.

The kids loved it. Mr.Blab poked it, with his finger! , and they decided we should keep it for a bit and we piled up a selection of leaves and branches in there and covered it up.

Then a few days later the little bugger decided to change the game and turned pupa on us. It had made a little tent like area from the leaves, which were now stuck to the pavement on the edges and in the tent was the little wrapped up package.

We had no plans to keep it for long, but now we had no choice, we didnt want to leave it unprotected, so we left the cover on and checked up on it from time to time.

Nothing seemed to happen.

For awhile.

Then one day our check up revealed the sad ending to this short story.

Sorry, fella.

If it helps, you were one wonderfully beautiful moth and now I have a new appreciation for your kind.

Moths Rock!

©Snaps & Blabs, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Free learning, Stories Post tags: moth, story

This is pretty much a false first picture for this post, because today was mostly cloudy and rainy kind of day. But I will take a blame for lacking visual authenticity because I loved the birds. And birds always seem to make a day feel better, unless they are stalking you for your picnic food or pooping on your head.

We go to a wonderful park after writing class on Thursdays. It is hidden amongst the bushy  greens of the city and you would not think you are in one, unless you jump real high and look around while spinning. But since none of us can or want to do that, its a great escape in mellow land until the schoolians (school kids) are released and start to run and scream around the place like freedom hungry beasts. If you sensed some negative feelings towards them, it aint so. I fully understand and commiserate with them and their situation. They need to release a lot of bunched up energy, and I since personally have no need for it, I prefer not to be around to witness it.

So while the school doors are tight shut, we enjoy a world to ourselves. The park is free, the tennis courts too. The kids, ranging from almost 2 to early teens, go and take it all in, while the grown ups sip on warm drinks and nibble and provide lunches. Although the little ones usually have no time to eat, instead wait till the car ride home to inhale the food.

When the bikes and scooters are not needed anymore, they get delivered to us for safe keeping and the riders disappear in the distance somewhere.

The rains today cause a bit of change of plans so we ended up seeing more of the kids than usual.

The little, little ones, made the most out of the puddles. Mixing them with a found plastic spoon, stomping in them til the wet creeps up half way up their pants, are only a few of the joys of the gifts left behind a sprinkling of rain.

I love Thursdays.

It is refreshing to see kids of such a wide age range not only managing to stand, but enjoy each other. Its far from strange to have teen boys being silly with a one year old, not because of obligation, but because they find the fun in it and feel free to do so without any risk of embarrassment. The big kids watch out for the little wandering souls, while the later in turn adore the company and skills they can gain from the experienced, all-knowing children. There are no cliques, no ‘besties’, no segregation and special groups. A bunch of kids that play free and I have never heard them argue or cause conflicts of any kind. Refreshing is definitely one way to describe it. A bit like mandarins shared on the veranda:

At the end of the day, Dodman requested I switch on one of the lamps and hence gave me inspiration for some snaps. I wonder if he knew it will make for some pleasant imagery…

I am going to be moving this blog to its own domain. I hope it will happen soon, but who knows when I will get around to doing it. I am also doing a slight redesign, which is going quite slow too. This will be especially important if this trip comes true.

I will try to let you know if any big works/changes are coming up, but since I am a bit of an impulsive person, I wanted to warn you not to be surprised if you come around and you are greeted by a gobbledygook looking page. Just smile, wish me luck and come back later.

©Snaps & Blabs, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Free learning, Life with loved ones Post tags: homeschool, play