me like chocolate donuts

pollinators

We are wrapping up our lessons on pollination.  We have visited multiple nurseries and garden centers.  We have planted, studied and now eaten our way through the lessons.  We pollinated some chocolate donuts with powdered sugar donuts.  Fortunately, no new donuts came of the experiment, but it was a fun way to learn the process.

ancient sand drawings

We are studying the ancient times in Story of the World and we recently began studying the Americas, including Native Americans in South, Central and North America.  I think history is becoming my favorite part of our studies b/c there is so much I don't remember or never learned about our past.  This past studies I had never even heard of the Nazca lines in South America.  The girls had fun drawing pictures with a white crayon on white paper.  The Nazca people drew massive illustrations on the ground that no one knew existed until a plane flew overhead in the 20th century and saw a monkey carved into the landscape.  We made sand paintings like the North American Indians by dying salt.  The girls drew simple illustrations and then used gluesticks to adhere the colored salt to their drawings.  LE created a pumpkin and Boo, a bunny.

Farmer Boy Dinner

Last week, we finished reading the third book in the Little House on the Prairie series, Farmer Boy.  Ben and I both observed how much the book dealt with the food the family ate.  Each chapter included some thing they grew, harvested, preserved or ate.  Stark contrast to the life of Laura and her family, Almanzo (Laura's husband) grew up on a farm with plenty of resources.
For dinner, we had sausage, sweet potatoes, cooked carrots and apple turnovers.  We eat dinner at 5, when the sun was still shining brightly, so we got ready for bed, brushed our teeth and got tucked in by candlelight to experience pioneer farm life.

Apple Turnovers
pie crust (recipe in cook book, but after multiple attempts I dug a pie crust out of the freezer stash, Mama Ingalls, I am not)
2 large Granny Smith apples
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon or nutmeg
2 tsp butter
6 tsp powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Peel, core and dice the apples.  Mix them in a 2 qt bowl with brown sugar and spice.  Set aside to chill.
Roll the dough ball to a rectangle and cut three 5 inch squares.  Using a fork so the the juice stays in the bowl, place about 3 T. of apples in the center of each pastry.  Wet the sides of the pastry and fold over to enclose the pastry into a triangle.  I pulled our pastry edges up to the center.
Cook turnovers on a buttered baking sheet to golden brown about 20-25 minutes.  Recipe from the Little House on the Prairie cookbook.

preschool has begun

 It has become more evident each week that R2 is in need of some educational stimulating, i.e. he wants to do school with his big sisters.  I have been collecting things via pinterest for months, and we have been trying to implement something for him to do with us each day.  He created this beautiful hat for me and I am now in need of a new colander.

Pioneer Party for an 8 year old

Hi,  I'm Landry. This is my 8th birthday which went better then I thought! But we had postpone it to the next week because my brothers were sick. On Saturday, Mimi taught pioneer life and Paw Paw taught Indian life.
My cake was awesome! I got the waterfall piece.  A LOT of people came.  It was so cool! I got a new pioneer dress.  Things went out perfectly.  Pawpaw put up his tipi too.




Special thanks to Mom, Mimi and Paw Paw for making my party.

ROC race

Ben and I completed our first 5K in over a decade.  Although I cannot say we ran the whole thing, we did run a good portion in 100 degree heat.  Thank God for the water obstacles, even though I am scared to death what was in them.  We were in the 16th wave, a new one beginning every half hour, with hundreds of people in a wave.
We had a great time, but probably not one we will repeat.  It was really expensive, but we did get the turquoise t-shirt.

Bible journals

 The girls have been promoted to the next level in Keepers and the work is going to be a little more intense this year in order to earn a badge.  Three of the badges we are going to begin work on include reading the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible), learning the books of the Bible in order and journaling (for six months).  We created Bible journals out of composition books (fifty cents), cardstock and stamps.
We also got new Bibles.  I ordered the New International Readers Study Bibles.  We spent the day familiarizing ourselves with all of the features of our new Bibles.  Now each day, we are going to read one chapter and then journal something we learned from our daily reading.  The girls have no problem with reading their Bibles each day, it is part of their daily buzz (our six morning B's - Breakfast, Brush your teeth, Brush your hair, make your Bed, dress your Body, and read your Bible).  Hopefully, this will create a new habit of learning to think about what they have read each day, ponder on it, journal it and have a new habit that could last a lifetime.  So from this one I am going to try to learn from my daughter's.

wordless Wednesday - UP!

I did it!

 Goal met and passed!  I have now lost 26 pounds, weighing less than I did on my wedding day.  My original goal was twenty-five pounds, but I have discovered I have more fat that I now need to focus on.  When I started with Michelle I was 26.7% body fat and now I am down to 22%.  My next goal is 19%, big goal since I have only lost 4% in 8 months.  She has changed my training schedule to have me lifting less with longer sets.
I have kicked up my running schedule and I am now running a mile at least 3x a week.  This week I hit a 9 1/2 minute run, which is a lot for my little legs.  I have to run at a 6.4 on the treadmill to hit it.  Today, Ben and I are "running" our first 5K in ten years.  We are doing the ROC (Ridiculous Obstacle Course), think Wipeout on tv.  Hopefully I will be able to take some pictures.

Wordless Wednesday - the helper

special bond

The first one to remember...

1st day of school 2013- 2014

Today was our first day of school for the new year.  We started the day off with homemade biscuits and chocolate milk and some early morning art at the kitchen table.
We got everything on our list finished including math, speed drill, 15 minutes of reading, Bible, reading aloud by Mama, our new subject Logic, a couple of art projects, piano, History; the story of Alexander the Great, English, Phonics for Boo and Vocabulary and Spelling for LE.  We also added a cleaning block to our day, each day of the week there will be one deep cleaning project; today was their bathroom.  Tuesday will be cleaning their room (which is usually picked up, but will include dusting and vacuuming). Wednesday is the living room, Thursday is the classroom, and Friday is laundry.  Hopefully making these chores part of lesson plans, they will actually get done even if occasionally.