Activities at Home

August 2015 Pictures

September 18, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the last few pictures I wanted to share from August. I’m getting close to caught up!

We’ve had rain a couple of times. We’re still desperately dry, but since the weather is cool the little bit of rain we’ve gotten has been able to soak in and make the grass grow a bit. The ducks were delighted this particular morning to have water to play in!

I started peppers the first week or so of August. I planted the seeds in potting soil in this ice cream container, and put it, with a tight lid on, above the hot water heater. The peppers came up incredibly fast—I think this picture was taken after only a week!

I liked this picture of Mr. Imagination peeking into Esther’s room (just before she moved back out to the sleepout).

Mr. Handyman and Mr. Inventor have been tilling the garden. The ducks love the freshly tilled soil—they must be finding worms.

Mr. Handyman brought this skink in to show us. I believe this is about lifesize on my computer screen.

A goose nest. I hear that there are now two geese sitting on it simultaneously. We’ll see if anything hatches!

Gayle frequently brings home a load of compost from work for the garden. This time, he took Little Miss out to supervise the unloading from her Bumbo. Mr. Handyman was helping unload, and Mr. Sweetie is watching.

Eight Months

September 14, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Little Miss is now eight months old, and I decided to post eight month pictures of the other children. People keep asking if she looks like the others—you judge! The first five are scanned copies of prints from photo albums—we didn’t have a digital camera then.

Esther tried to help with dishes in the rental house we lived in until she was about 10 months old.

Mr. Handyman

Mr. Inventor still loves babies—real ones now!

Mr. Intellectual

When Mr. Diligence was little, we made our living by raising, butchering, and selling chickens. We also butchered chickens for other people. We would spend two days a week in the butcher shed. One day, Mr. Intellectual (almost 3) was taking care of Mr. Diligence (around 8 months) while we butchered. They got hungry; it was usually 1:00-2:00 by the time we went in for lunch. When I went in the house to clean up and finish lunch, I found a brown trail leading from the door to the pantry. You can guess what my first thought was—yuck! Then, I found this baby, covered with the brown stuff, and then I saw the container beside him and smelled what he had. Peanut butter! Mr. Intellectual had gotten the peanut butter container off the shelf we kept it on, and the two of them had a feast. Funny, Mr. Diligence still loves peanut butter more than almost any other food! Oh, and I spent a good while cleaning up instead of finishing making lunch!

Mr. Sweetie was our first baby to experience a New Zealand winter. He discovered the woodbox built into the wall of the living room one day, and had a wonderful little playhouse!

When Mr. Imagination was about eight months old, he got to taste chocolate for the first time, when I made a birthday cake for Mr. Handyman. He apparently approved of the flavor!

And here is 8-month-old Little Miss!

Homemade Generator

September 12, 2015 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Mr. Inventor has all kinds of ideas. One of the recent ones he tried was making his own generator. He wanted one he could crank and generate some power. He tried a few different things, and then the man who runs the local dump gave him a tip. He suggested that Mr. Inventor take the motor off an old top-loader washer. There was one at the dump that day, so the motor came here. Mr. Inventor hooked some wires up to it and gave it a spin by hand—and Mr. Diligence got shocked! The next step was to hook an electric drill to the shaft, and they were able to generate enough power to light a bulb. That isn’t a very economical way to run a generator, however, using electric to turn it! Now, they have hooked it up to a bicycle. The first time they ran it, they blew a lightbulb. They soon figured out how to make electricity arc, and then used that to start a fire so they could burn some brush! This picture and video are of the demonstration we were given of how he could light a bulb with the drill-operated generator. I loved Mr. Imagination’s delight, so got a video of that, too.

Art Projects

September 10, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I do not teach art to my children. As I said in my guest post on Esther’s blog, the year I decided to teach art we had a grand total of three lessons. However, my boys are very creative and some have made some pretty impressive items. This train model is the latest project. Mr. Diligence had the idea, and did the painting. He and Mr. Intellectual made the models. Mr. Inventor drilled holes.

The garden—raised beds. He filled them with glue, then added bits of macrocarpa needles.

A man made out of copper wire, in a tree.

Another man, at the gate.

The train station.

The train.

The fences and telegraph wires were made of copper wire threaded through holes drilled in the posts. The posts were glued into holes drilled in the board.

Here are some more projects Mr. Diligence showed me when we talked about their creations. He made this man by gluing rocks together.

He built this house a couple of years ago.

He carved this boat.

Mr. Diligence also made this windmill.

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence worked together to build this truck. They use it to store treasures.

Little Miss, late August Pictures

September 7, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We seem to keep taking pictures of Little Miss! She is a very happy little girl most of the time. As you can see below, she loves her bath.

Now that she can crawl, she likes to go in the bathroom and check out the bathtub. Mr. Imagination was playing with a balloon-powered boat.

She found the toys in the boys’ room one day.

She wasn’t sure about getting water dripped on her head.

Which brother will she choose? Mr. Diligence, Mr. Handyman, and Mr. Inventor were all trying to get her to come, and this time she chose Mr. Handyman.

Mr. Handyman took her for a walk.

One day in Family Worship, we were reading one of the last chapters of Job, where God is asking Job if he knows as much as God. To illustrate, Gayle asked Little Miss a series of questions, none of which, of course, she was able to answer!

I love those little bare feet!

Mr. Inventor holding Mr. Imagination and Little Miss.

July Pictures

August 15, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

When the seed catalog arrived, the boys had fun poring over it and making out their wish lists. I let them order what they wanted, so we’ll be trying a couple of interesting things this year. This is Mr. Handyman and Mr. Intellectual.

We have sausages every Sunday evening, and Mr. Imagination loves to put them in the baking dish for me.

One chilly day, Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination were soaking up the sun on top of the barbeque between the house and garage. Mr. Sweetie hid from me.

Mr. Inventor’s newest trailer—a local man helped him weld it with his MIG welder—now my boy is saving for a welder like that!

A beautiful morning on the way to church, with the Kaikoura range covered with snow.

Afternoon music at church—two ladies playing while other people sing.

We stopped on the way to church to watch some dolphins jumping. Then, we saw this kingfisher, and then noticed a whale (probably humpback) just offshore! We couldn’t get a picture of it, but sure were thrilled to see it!

This intense chess game between Mr. Intellectual and my sister-in-law lasted three hours! Finally, Mr. Intellectual won.

Winter chicks! We had two hens decide this winter that they wanted to set, and the first one hatched out five babies that lived. The other is still setting, but she won’t have more than a couple, if they hatch at all. She kicked most of her eggs out, because the boy who set her forgot she needed a nest and just put the eggs on the bare floor. Oops.

A friend of our boys spent a couple of nights here, and they had great fun. Here they were Indian wrestling. The point was to flip their opponent over.

They also did a lot of arm wrestling.

Mr. Imagination and Mr. Inventor were sick one Sunday morning, so I kept them home. They enjoyed building their own lunch.

Little Miss Seven Months

August 14, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Will someone please tell me where the last month has disappeared to? This little girl is already seven months old! These pictures have been taken over the course of the entire month—warning, there are a lot of them. My sister-in-law from America has been here with us for a month, and we took a trip, so I have an incredible number of photos to share here. She left yesterday, so maybe now I’ll have time to post again. To start out, here is our little charmer. This first picture shows her reaction to a strip of green pepper a month ago: She hated it! After a couple of tries, she wouldn’t even touch it anymore.

Checking out a sleeping bag.

Peekaboo!

I finally found the doll that one of my sisters-in-law made many years ago when Esther was a baby! She made matching dresses for the doll and Esther. This baby has been wearing the dress, but I couldn’t find the doll until I cleaned the boys’ room a few weeks ago.

My two daughters.

On the road: she has discovered the joys of carrot sticks…

…and shells. This was at Farewell Spit.

Enjoying the sun and grass at Cape Farewell.

Vehicle problems meant that most of us spent several hours one day at a beach. One way we entertained ourselves was by taking photos!

Little thief! She stole her big sister’s apple!

With Mommy at Split Apple Rock.

Back home again—she’s now crawling, which means that she can clean out the cupboards! Watch out, world. How do you like that innocent expression?

She’s also pulling up to anything she can get her hands on—usually so she can taste it!

Mommy’s plate and spoon are good, too.

Yesterday morning, the children put the tray on her Bumbo so she could eat a banana. She sure made a mess, but loved the new flavor.

A Lesson in Elimination

July 31, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Over a year ago, my children made this movie. Esther never got the bloopers put together until a few weeks ago, so I never posted it here. Now I finally have her permission, since the bloopers are ready, so enjoy! This movie was taken at the last house we lived in, by the way. Here is the real movie:

These are the bloopers:

Glue Stick Jack

July 29, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I have some very creative children. Mr. Diligence, last Saturday, was looking at an empty glue stick. After investigating it, he figured out how it worked, and thought it might be able to lift something up. He took it outside and got busy with tools and wood, and after several hours of trial and error he had come up with a jack! He was able to lift things by screwing the cap. He lifted a heavy stack of books and a few other things, but when he tried to lift the couch it broke. He rebuilt it, however, using a different glue stick he found!

Pottery Wheels

July 27, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We recently read the book A Single Shard aloud recently. It is a fascinating story of a village of potters in 12th century Korea. As soon as we finished it, Mr. Inventor wanted to know how to make a pottery wheel. I let him go on YouTube to find some ideas, and then he went out to the junk pile and found this wheel. He found bearings and bolted them together and added them to the wheel. He’s still experimenting; when he saw these pictures, he said, “First attempt, worst attempt!” Apparently, he has something better now. The second and third pictures are closer to what he has now; they’ve hooked a washing machine motor to the wooden disk, but are using a smaller wooden disk. I told him I need more pictures!

Here’s a brief video of the wheel in action: