I want to be like You

Happy Valentines Day!

2012-02-14T10:43:00.001-05:00

We enjoyed a breakfast of heart cinnamon rolls, strawberry smoothies, and little notes of love!

And here are some shots of red from our day! The pink heart picture (5th one) isn't from today, but it's cute so it's there!

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13:13

I'm praying that these are the characteristics that are evident in my life, not just today but everyday!

Mistakes....

2012-02-13T14:56:00.000-05:00

I can admit when I've made a mistake!
It all started before Christmas. I was looking at one of my posts and I had a feeling of unrest come over me. It was a picture of one of my kids and I thought oh my, is someone using my pictures? Are they out there, floating around, being used for something unsavory? Well after my initial thoughts I put it out of my mind. (Thinking like most of you probably do that I was just crazy!) Then as I was working on Brie's birthday post I had the same thoughts come over me again. I felt like I should make things private..I really wasn't sure it was the right thing to do, but I decided to *try* it. When I decided to make it private I didn't want it to be an inconvenience to anyone who was reading. I've been thinking about it since it's gone private, I really don't know if I made the right decision or not. I've decided to make it public again. I may change a few things along the way, I may end up having 2 blogs...one private and one not. I really am not sure at this point. Sorry if it's caused you any inconvenience and thanks for joining me in all my craziness!
(The shoes have nothing to do with this post, it just feels wrong to not have a picture!!!)

Gabriela

2012-01-31T12:04:00.000-05:00

Gabriela~ I can't believe you're 10 years old. You are such a blessing to us. We hope your day was special! We love you deeply!

G~ Generous...you have the most generous heart I know. Always thinking of others and getting others gifts!

A~Artistic... you have so much creativity, you are very artsy.

B~ Beautiful...Almost every time we take you somewhere, we hear how beautiful you are. I think your blue eyes and blond hair are strikingly beautiful!

R~ Responsible...I can ask you to do a job, and you get it done!! (normally!)

I~ Intelligent... You have the God given ability to do anything you put your mind to doing!!

E~ Extraordinary...The way you create, the way you pitch in to help, the way you love others...extraordinary!

L~ Lovable... You are very good at showing your love!

A~ Amazing... I believe that God has something special planned for your life, and I believe you are an amazing girl!

Email

2012-01-26T09:17:00.001-05:00

Sorry, I just found out that my email address isn't showing up in my "contact me" tab. I tried to fix it, but couldn't! If you want to continue reading here, my email address is heyerlys@hotmail.com In order for me to put you on the list, I HAVE TO HAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. So if you want to be included, be sure to send me an email to the above address including YOUR email! Have a wonderful day!

Blogging

2012-01-22T21:06:00.000-05:00

I've been having some strange feelings lately. I'm not sure if I'm turning into a crazy person, or if God is putting these feelings in me....but I'm going to do what I feel God leading me to do. I really enjoy blogging, for me it's a digital scrapbook of sorts. I don't share everything that happens here, but I try to share some of our lives. After talking with God and my hubby I've decided to make this blog private. If you read my blog, thank you so much...if you want to continue reading I would love that! In the header above I have a contact me tab. If you click on that tab you can see my email address, just send me an email with your name and your email address. Thank you!

Random Happenings

2012-01-20T14:52:00.001-05:00

The weeks are just flying by here, how about for you?
This past weekend we had a birthday party for this little guy! He just turned one. Isn't he cute! He makes me want another little one, but unless the Lord plans for that to happen...it won't be!! So I just have to live vicariously through my sister, and enjoy her littlest one! I hope she doesn't mind!!!

He had an adorable sock monkey party, my sister did an excellent job with it! I took several pictures of him enjoying his cake, because like I said I have to live vicariously and I'm trying to fully learn my camera and it's settings!

Here I am living vicariously again!!!! We painted our house (walls) almost a year ago, I still haven't decorated most of the rooms. I normally have to get something on the walls, because it drives me CRAZY to have them blank. I think I've been pretty patient, trying to take it slowly and really make it how I want it! So in turn, most of my rooms have NOTHING on the walls! I'm always checking out things that I like to get ideas! I think my sisters shelves are super cute!
The real reason I'm including this picture is because I chopped my hair off. I'd been contemplating it for a while now... It's been cut over a week now, I'm still not sure I like it! I like parts of it, but I wish it were a little longer around my ears, but it's hair and it will grow! C'est la vie, right!

I did mention that this was random, right?!?!?!?!
One of the things I love about homeschooling... If you're having a rough time with math, mom can make you a peach smoothie and put it in a special glass. Doesn't everything seem better with a goblet??? Maybe that is just my philosophy!!!
By the way my sister in law has the best smoothie recipe ever...some water, some milk, frozen fruit, and a little bit of sugar, that's it! I use a little less than 1/4 cup for a whole blender, and a quart bag or so of fruit! So easy, and we love it!

What a great way to end a school day...poetry tea. I didn't read poetry, a novel instead. The kids painted and had hot cocoa, while I read. It was very relaxing, we need to do it more often! (We have really enjoyed our poetry teas this year,especially when we've read poetry!) We wrote on paper with a white crayon then painted over it, simple but wonderful effect.

Clowns and Pirates

2012-01-11T07:46:00.000-05:00

Do you have a fear? I'm sure you do, doesn't everyone??? I'm going to share my greatest fear!!! (OK, maybe not my greatest!)

I am scared of clowns, like REALLY scared. I don't know when it happened or how it happened...but it happened! When I was a little girl I had a couple of clown dolls, that I loved. It makes no sense, I can't figure out when my adoration turned into fear. If I see a clown in public I just freeze, and look for the quickest way to escape.
My kids of course know that I'm afraid of clowns, even little Reuben makes an effort to protect me. If he sees a clown he will tell me to look away, isn't he sweet!
Brie decided to have a little fun, and made up the boys. Reuben was a clown and Titus a pirate! Thankfully he doesn't look like a clown! I would hate to be scared of this little sweetheart!!

The eyes weren't enough, she decided to add a beard...

(They both just started with the eyes, then got beards later!)

Titus and his best pirate face! (Can you hear the arr?) He has to practice for later in life when he becomes a pirate!!

After such a "scary" day, this was the perfect ending!

Snow

2012-01-05T14:31:00.001-05:00

I hope you're all enjoying the new year! We finally got some snow to enjoy, it's especially nice on a beautiful day like today!

Break

2011-12-31T12:10:00.001-05:00

We finished up our last school day before Christmas break, and it's been nice to have some time off. I just wish that we were healthy! Maybe our next week will be better!

Brie's last spelling test of the year!

Our Christmas present, I can honestly say we all are really enjoying it!

We went outside and played Frisbee with some glow sticks after all of the festivities! I liked this shot looking back into the house!

I know this isn't the best picture,but it was too hilarious not to put on here!

Our birthday cake for Jesus!

These are some of Brie's creations. She is such a creative girl.

Like I said we've been sick so I opened up her window to let some nice fresh air in!

Cars... We have cars all over most of the day! How about you!

Reuben and Titus driving the cars on the Life game!

Zeke playing football on the iPad.

Reuben waiting for his turn! I just love his little face, it says it all doesn't it!

Satisfaction!

More cars! (or vehicles!)

Titus keeping a close watch on his stuff!

Christmas with Marks side! Aren't they cute! (I just wish I could've taken a better shot)(having more camera issues!)

Christmas fun

2011-12-22T12:29:00.000-05:00

Our unit this week has been Christmas. We've been doing some fun crafts and reading some great books. The first thing we did was to make an edible nativity! I got the idea from here. I thought it was a great idea, another way to keep the focus on Jesus!

Reuben putting his "baby Jesus" on the "hay"

Brie thinking it didn't really look like Mary!

It seem like every time I took a picture of her she was snacking on something!

Reuben eating Mary!

I have no idea why he's pretending to sleep? (but he's cute!!)

I just realized this is the only shot i uploaded of Titus. (he had more, i guess thats what happens when you upload too many pictures!)

Our next craft was to make Christmas trees. You take sugar cones, flip them upside down, frost them and then decorate. This was really easy, and made a yummy dessert after dinner!

Christmas

2011-12-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

Christmas
It's approaching very quickly
I can't wait
a day to celebrate the birth of my Lord and Savior Jesus.

Life

2011-12-16T20:38:00.000-05:00

I don't often share "random" shots of our week. I'm trying to use my camera more and really learn how to use it. Some shots are great, some not so much.
( I'm still finding it hard in low light to get a good shot, oh well, more practice I guess!)

Brie working on spelling...

Reuben and his really short eyelashes!! Can you believe those suckers.

Reuben being cool!

Titus practicing some cutting skills, Zeke encouraging him!

Zeke with a football, because with out that ball life just isn't the same! You can see in the picture that it is in motion, trust me it is always in motion. He has end zones in different areas of the house, and is constantly running plays!

A puppet show put on by Brie and Zeke. Acting out Luke 2!

And this pretty girl is staying with us till Christmas when she will go to her real home! We are all absolutely loving her! As you can see in the pictures below we are holding her, and it's amazing how much she's calmed in just a day. She sat on my hand for a good 5 minutes today with out trying to fly away. (her wings are clipped so she can't fly!) (otherwise we would be in serious trouble!!!) =)

Pioneer

2011-12-08T15:25:00.000-05:00

We finished our pioneer study this last week. We had a couple of things we didn't get done, but I'm sure we will study this time period again sometime! We covered a lot of material in 10 weeks, had many good discussions about slavery, what it would have been like to live as a pioneer, and live thru the civil war.
People we read about:
                        Robert E. Lee
                        Abraham Lincoln
                        Ulysses S. Grant (whose real name was Hyrim Ulysses, did you know that?!?!?)
                        Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
                        Frederick Douglass
                        Harriet Tubman
                        John Brown
                        Jefferson Davis
Topics we read about:
                                  Slavery
                                  Underground Railroad
                                  Civil War
                                  Stagecoaches/frontier women
We also read a couple of pioneer themed books,and of course Little House on the Prairie!

In Little House on the Prairie they made molasses candy for Christmas. Brie has been waiting for snow so we could try it too. Brie was elated when it snowed so we could finally try the candy!. So after looking around a little bit I found a recipe that looked great! It's from the Little House cookbook, so I assumed it was pretty accurate!

Here is what it looks like. I didn't take any pictures of it off of the snow.

The first step is to take some pans outside and gather some clean snow. I trusted Brie and Zeke to do this step. I gave them some spoons and told them to just take the top off. I didn't see any dirt in it. Plus a little dirt never hurt anybody, right! =)

While they were outside getting the snow, I measured out my molasses and brown sugar and brought it up to boiling. (I made a half recipe, and it was plenty for us!) It needed to come to 145 degrees. I don't have a candy thermometer so I just used my digital meat thermometer. It worked fine! After it's up to the correct temperature, you want to put it into a pitcher. (the blog where I got the recipe recommends using a creamer, so that is what I did.)
It is a very sticky candy, and if you don't like molasses this won't be your favorite!
*Make sure to caution your kids that it is very very hot.
The next step is to pour it onto the snow carefully.

We had some leftover snow, so we decided to make some snow ice cream! We used this recipe. It was pretty good. We decided that it was a pretty awesome day. Before we started school we ate ice cream and molasses candy! You know it's going to be a wonderful day if you get to start it out with candy and ice cream!!

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

My list today...
1. Looking out my window that's filled with little hand prints! Thankful those little prints are there!
2. Taking a 15 minute break from school yesterday to observe 3 squirrels playing and eating! We all took turns with the binoculars!
3. Fresh Fruit
4. My Keurig machine!
5. Having a local library!

Go Visit Danielle for more information!

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-22T09:02:00.000-05:00

My list today....

1. The Happy Hollister's book series, love them!
2. Clean Sheets, especially line dried!
3.That Papa came for dinner!
4. Hair appointment tonight!
5. Poetry Tea's

Go Visit Danielle for more information!

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-21T13:36:00.000-05:00

My list today...
1. Eyesight...so thankful I can see everything God created!
2. We are able to have 3 meals a day, and snacks!
3. A good nights sleep!
4. Laughing!
5. My Husbands Job!

Go visit Danielle for more information!

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-20T12:02:00.000-05:00

Today's list...
1. A quiet day!
2. Having some Christmas shopping done!
3. Cupcakes
4. We have an automobile that gets us where we need to go!
5. Blankets to cuddle under!!

Go visit Danielle for more information!

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-19T12:14:00.000-05:00

My list for today...

1. A shopping trip with my mom, sister and sister-in-law.
2. A day off from caring for my kids! (I know it's a little selfish, but we all deserve a break sometime, right!)
3. The beautiful glow of a candle
4. Even when we feel alone, God is right there with us, we can always trust HIM
5. Watching Little House on the Prairie with my kids!

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-18T14:13:00.001-05:00

My list for today...
1. I'm thankful to hear Reuben praying at meal time...so sweet.
2. A sunny day.
3. Sweet cuddles from my little ones.
4. A camera to record milestones and memories.
5. Having wonderful In-Laws!

Go see Danielle for more details!

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-17T12:58:00.000-05:00

Today's list...
1. I'm thankful that my kid's enjoy watching old silent movies! (Buster Keaton is one of their favorite!)
2. Learning about the armor of God with the kids, piece by piece!
3. Sharing Civil War letters with my kids that are from my Great Great Great Grandfather and his wife!
4. Made up games!
5. Cheesecake!

Go visit Danielle for more information!

Pictures

2011-11-16T11:07:00.000-05:00

We try to do Christmas cards every year, and I knew the time was coming to start thinking about it. I actually had thought about it much earlier in the year, but it just never worked out. My kids did really well even though it was VERY windy and in the 40's they never complained! None of these made the card,so I thought I would share them with you! I really don't like myself in the first one, but I love Titus in the cowboy hat (it's my Dad's!) so I had to share it! Doesn't he look cute!
Have a great day!
(Thanks for taking them,Mom!)

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-16T08:32:00.000-05:00

Things I'm thankful for today...

1. That I have a load of laundry going already this morning!
2. That we got to visit with one of Mark's Aunt and Uncle and Cousin. (I've only met this cousin once before, so it was great to visit with her again!) (even though our kid's were crazy!) =)
3. Finding another really good brownie recipe! (just what I need!!!)
4. Learning new things along with my kids!
5. Music

Go visit Danielle for more information and to start your list!

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-15T11:53:00.000-05:00

Today I'm thankful for...
1. House Cleaning Day! (I really like a clean house, not that it stays that way for long!)
2. My Husband making an effort to spend time with each kid when he comes home from work!
3. The JOY I feel when I read God's word!
4. Learning about different time periods...I love history!
5. Trying new recipes!

Go visit Danielle to learn more.

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-14T11:54:00.000-05:00

Today's list...
1. Cinnamon Roll Cake, and Coffee with my Mom.
2. My Mom being one of my best friends
3. Getting thru the main part of school without complaint.
4. I always know what the weather is going to be like, thanks to my little weather man!
5. A warm house on a drizzly fall day!

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-13T13:12:00.000-05:00

Today's list...
1. Being able to freely worship today!
2. My Church Family
3. Fun times with my family
4. Hugs
5. Water

Go visit Danielle for more information.

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-12T12:13:00.000-05:00

My list for today...
1. Having at least 1 family picture turn out OK (even though we took around 75!)
2. Pizza Night!
3. Filling a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child (Samaritan's Purse)
4. Sunshiny day
5. Boys playing with trucks

Go visit Danielle for more information.

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

Today's List...
1. An Unexpected, but Special Gift
2. A Healthy Family
3. Freedom to Worship
4. Chocolate
5. Watching Birds

Thankful Hearts

2011-11-10T15:17:00.000-05:00

My Thankful list for today...

1.Flavored Coffee.
2. Fashion advice from my daughter!
3. Homeschooling my kids
4. Having a Savior who is always with me.
5. Lego's, and the hours of entertainment they can provide for my kids.

Go see Danielle to learn more.

List of Thanks

2011-11-09T21:41:00.003-05:00

Danielle has been doing a great little thankful activity on her blog. I love focusing on my blessings, so I thought I would join in. Since I'm a little late in joining in I'm only going to share 1 thing each from the first 10 days.

1.Jesus
2. Husband
3. Kids
4. Movies
5. Books
6. Internet
7.Food
8. Bike Rides
9. Sunsets
10. Sleep

Go visit Danielle's blog for all the details and to join in!

Weaving

2011-11-07T13:46:00.001-05:00

Our next pioneer craft I got from this site. Brie loved this, Zeke not as much! He still tried. Brie turned her weaving into LIV girl skirts! She made 3-4. Because it interested her I got out my crocheting and she learned to do a chain. I'm going to work with her on finger knitting as well. I'm not going to go into detail on how we did this, just click the link above! (it has great directions!)

Zeke's kept getting pulled to tight...

Football Party

2011-11-06T21:53:00.000-05:00

All the way back in October we had a birthday party for my hubby and his brother. They have birthdays just a few days apart. They both love football, especially Notre Dame. (for some crazy reason!!!) After looking around on Pinterest I decided a football party would be easy to pull off!
We had an easy menu of brats, hot dogs, and BBQ pork sandwiches. I found this neat "snackadium" on Pinterest. I knew I had to make it, it looked so cool! I made mine a little different, but with the same idea! I borrowed these cute little white trays from my sil, thanks Megan! If you look at the original you can see they had a large guacamole "field" and end zones that are cheese and salsa. Only a few of those attending will eat guacamole so I didn't want a whole field of it! I didn't want the poor avocados to feel bad, so my field and end zones were all the same size...I think it still turned out cool!
The original had bacon wrapped hot dogs around the field, since we were already eating hot dogs I didn't want more hot dogs around the field. It also wasn't a super healthy meal so I put carrots and celery around the field, to give us a little serving of veggies. I used carrots and celery for players too. We bought some brown cardstock and used that to help hold the chips,or fans, in! The fans were potato chips,tortilla chips,Doritos, and crunchy Cheetos. We used Slim Jim's for the goal posts. Multiple times the fans got a little rowdy resulting in tearing down the goal posts!! =)
The only thing I forgot was to put sour cream yard lines on the field. This was really easy and would be awesome at any football themed party, or for the Superbowl.

I wanted the feel of a real football game, which makes me think of hot dogs and beer! We don't drink, so instead we had IBC root beer!
Strawberry footballs, and apples with caramel were our fruit!

Brie looked at a picture of the Notre Dame Leprechaun and then drew it by hand! I was impressed, I thought she did a great job!

I forgot to take a picture of the dessert table! We had football brownies, football sugar cookies, gold football helmet sugar cookies,and football Oreo truffles! My mil made the boy's favorite dessert~ lemon lush. (among other things) (thanks Jeanne!) It was a footballtastic night!

Halloween

2011-10-31T22:34:00.000-04:00

I decided to have a fun day of school today! We don't normally do much of anything for Halloween. I've never been totally against it, nor have I been totally for it! A couple of weeks ago we talked a little bit about Poe and I decided that it might be fun to read some of his works for Halloween.That started my plan in motion!
We did our math, then we read some fun Halloween stories, did some fun Halloween worksheets, listened to a fun Halloween song and read some Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was a little difficult for us to understand. We read "The Raven" and we read part of "The House of Usher". It was still a good experience for us! I don't think any of us will claim Poe as a favorite anytime soon!

I remember listening to this song in elementary school, for many years. I still spell Halloween just as the song says. Does anyone else remember it?

Lastly...for the first time we took our kids trick-or-treating. Like I said above I'm somewhat indifferent to Halloween. ( Not my favorite holiday!) I 'm glad that my kids were able to go and have a lot of fun! In case you can't tell Brie and Titus are pirates, Zeke is a mummy, and Reuben is a scarecrow! I know they aren't the best costumes, but they were all homemade. We did have to buy the gauze for the mummy! (The hat hurt Reubens head, thus the sock hat under it, I know it doesn't look the best!!) (funny though!)

More Pioneer

2011-10-27T07:18:00.000-04:00

This post is a little picture heavy, sorry!
We decided to try our hand at washing clothes just like the pioneers did. My kids really enjoyed this! Brie asked if we could do shirts the next day! Laundry is my nemesis, so maybe I should let the kids start to wash it the old fashioned way!
We used an old wash board, a water bath canner to wash in and 2 five gallon buckets to rinse with. In our house we use castile soap to wash with, I decided that was close enough to what they would have used. I know it's not exact, but sometimes you have to use what you have!
We only washed socks. I thought that would be easiest! They all thought the socks seemed whiter when they were done, compared to when they're washed by a machine.

*NOTE*
I didn't do it true to the way the pioneers did. The pioneers would have done it by heating water over a fire. Once the water was hot they would've added cold to make it OK to touch. (I got hot water out of the tap and then added cold so it was warm to touch.) The 2 rinse buckets were cold.

Brie hard at work! She did mention it was set up wrong for her to use as she's a lefty!! (oops!)

The boys had fun rinsing the socks out! (a chance to play in the water always = fun!)

Reuben wanted included in all the picture taking!

Grabbing for the rinsed out sock!

Titus rinsing his sock out!

Titus giving it a go!

Rubbing soap over the board first, the way the pioneers did!

Really working hard to try to get those socks white!

Zeke working with a smile!

Pioneer

2011-10-26T17:15:00.000-04:00

My parents, brothers family, and my family all own chickens together. In October they have a craft show they go to, since the chickens are part ours we are lucky enough to take care of them while they are gone! This year it worked perfectly to accompany our pioneer study! The kids were able to gather eggs and help feed them, they loved it! I'm sure we didn't do it exactly like the pioneers did, but it was a good learning experiencing anyway!

Chickens on the move...

Brie taking her turn to gather the eggs!

Zeke feeding them!

Abraham Lincoln

2011-10-25T16:28:00.000-04:00

We are currently in the middle of a 9 week study including Abe, Slavery, Civil War, and Pioneers! It's been a fun study so far, difficult to decide what really needs included. I think each of these topics could easily have 9 weeks on their own. We are doing what we can and trying to cover the main topics.

We've read many books about Abraham Lincoln. If you've never heard of the "If you grew up with" series of books I would urge you to check them out. They give a lot of information that is current for the time period.
We learned in that book ("If You Grew Up With Abraham Lincoln") that until Abe's father remarried Sarah Bush Johnston he slept on a mattress of corn husks. I saved my corn husks this year from doing corn so we could see what they were like to sleep on.

To be real and honest let me share how this went down. =) We did our corn in early August. If you've ever done corn or any produce you know how it can attract fruit flies, your corn may have worms in it, so you really don't want to leave the husks in your house. We from time to time have mice in our garage, thankfully we've not had them in our house. (I hope that day doesn't come!!!) So we try to be careful what we put in the garage. We don't want to encourage those little mice to make beds and stay! So I asked my hubby if I should put the husks in the garage to dry out, he said no, because it might bring mice in. So I put them out on the deck in a paper bag. I knew that wasn't the best option, but I didn't know what to do with them.
So fast forward to October when we are studying Abe...I knew the corn husks would be a little less than perfect condition. So we dumped them out by our burn pit and then put paper bags down before we laid on them. Gross, yes. The kids didn't seem to mind it at all. In fact they all said it was a very comfortable bed, they wouldn't have minded sleeping on it!

The husks before we put bags down.

Brie trying it out!

Zeke's turn.

Titus trying it out!

I will be sharing some more things soon!

Geography

2011-10-17T14:51:00.001-04:00

We were able to study geography for a few weeks a bit ago. We could easily study it more, and probably will. We worked on learning what all the basics are. They know most all of the state capitals, a lot of the countries, all the continents and oceans. We learned about hemispheres, longitude, and latitude. We read some great books, (some of us read the atlas for fun!!!) and did some fun projects.
The first project they started working on was making their own country. They had to name it, draw its shape, make a flag,and give detail about it. The kids are finishing this up and will be doing a presentation on it. (I'm hoping to be able to share this when it happens!)

You can see below one of the next projects. I thought this was a neat idea. I got it from this blog. You start with your home. Then your street, then state all the way out to our planet! (I scribbled out our address and town. I don't like putting that information out there for everyone to see!) (and yes, I know it's a poor scribble out job!)

This is them happily working on it!

This was another project I thought looked like fun. I found this on Pinterest. It didn't have a link, just a picture so I can't give credit where it is due. Super easy, take a paper plate and have the kids draw the 7 continents. They can label it and of course color it. It can be as accurate as they want to make it!

Apple Picking!

2011-09-24T20:18:00.000-04:00

While we were on vacation some of us went to this delightful little orchard, it was a beautiful place. The apples we got here were all for applesauce. In the past I've gone to a local produce stand to get my apples for applesauce. The price at the orchard was so good, it seemed stupid not to go pick!

This was the "interesting" thing...we picked off of the ground! (Did I hear some of you saying eww gross!?!?! ) It really wasn't too bad. We were able to choose good ones that were firm and had little or no soft spots. They sell them off the ground for $4 a bushel! This saved us at least $25! I felt it was worth it, and look forward to going again.

They have some for sale already picked for a little bit more than we paid.

School Room

2011-09-24T11:00:00.000-04:00

I love to check out school rooms! It's always interesting to me to see how they display things, how they organize things, really just what they have going on in their room. My room is feeling a little more complete so I decided to share some pictures! I'm going to say that it's not done 100%, and I won't be shocked if it gets changed around a bit. I'd love to add a really nice world map,an area to hang the kid's art projects, and a work station for the little boys.

This is the view when you walk into the room... When we built our house, I HAD to have a formal dining room. I'm really happy now that I did, it makes an excellent school room! I hope some day to get a light something like this, we'll see!

We have two bookshelves in the room. They hold all sorts of stuff! This one holds math manipulative's, activities for Reuben and Titus, toys for them to play with, books to read, and some of my supplies. (pens, scissors,dry erase markers)

This shelf holds our core curriculum books ~ math, spelling, grammar, art, science, and bible. It also has some toys and activities for the little boys!

We have a total of 5 gutter shelves in this room! Whoever came up with this idea was a genius! They take up a small amount of space and hold a fair amount of books! I first saw this on my sisters blog.

This room is pretty small, in past years we worked at a small round table. My brain is non stop thinking of ways to improve spaces, it's a sickness, really! =) In my thinking I decided a counter top would take up much less space than the table...I was right! I LOVE the counter! It's turned out to be a wonderful thing! Getting it on the wall was a bit of a brainstorm, but with the advice of my dad, brother and Mark we (they) figured it out!

This is the "paper" holder up close! My awesome brother made this for me! I'm super excited with how it turned out. The idea for this came from this cute little blog! I loved it as soon as I saw it. I had a few changes because of the size of the space I wanted to put it, but I think it turned out great! Thanks Shawn!

Now onto a few of my favorite things in the room... I love having pictures in my room, it's great to be working on something and look up and see my favorite people and places! I probably have too many pretty things in this room, but we spend A LOT of time in this room. I wanted it to be pretty and functional!
The candy is something they get when they've done something great, or have done something without complaining!
The last picture... a verse to encourage, some pretty stuff, and a flashcard significant to our family!!

I hope you've enjoyed taking a peek into our school room! Thanks for stopping in!

Vacation Pictures

2011-09-20T14:23:00.000-04:00

We had our family vacation (my side) last week, here are some of my favorite pictures.

Flight

2011-09-19T19:46:00.000-04:00

I guess I'm like many who've gone before me, flight fascinates me. I could watch something fly for hours! We've been studying flight for a few weeks. I'm still hoping to accomplish a few more activities before our unit is done, we'll see how it goes!
We started by reading a book about the Wright brothers. It was a very interesting book! They were fascinating men. I think we all learned a lot from the book! We talked about experiments and how inventors have a lot of work to do before actually making a product. We did some wind resistance experiments on bikes, but due to the fact it wasn't windy we didn't really see any results. =)
We read Amelia Earhart's biography, and mapped out her route. We didn't find a lot of information on her, but we enjoyed reading what we found! As quick as we were done reading Brie had a lot of questions about women's rights. She had a hard time believing that women were not always a part of the work force. It is interesting how different things are now, kind of like it's opposite from how it used to be. When you live in a world where you see women in any job, you just assume it's always been that way.
We also read "The glorious flight", a story about Louis Bleriot. He was the first person to fly across the English channel. He made 11 planes before he had one that worked and flew the way he wanted it too. So we made 7 different airplanes (11 proved too many!!), named them, and then made estimations as to which would fly the best. I think Zeke was the closest.

Here are our planes...

I thought this one was pretty!

Zeke getting ready to test one.

Reuben and Titus getting in on the fun!

Brie trying one out!

One plane actually flying in the air!

Brie trying to get higher!

Close up, just because she's so pretty!

My cute little brown-eyed boy!

State study part 2

2011-08-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

We finished up our state study with a visit to Indy. We made a side stop in Wabash. Our state song is "On the Banks of the Wabash,Far Away." We wanted to check out the river that inspired our state song. (Here are the lyrics, interesting song!) Mark and I both wanted to stay in Wabash, what a beautiful little town! We read the lyrics of the song, and then walked down a nice little path to the river. It was a beautiful way to start our morning!

We quickly got back on the road and went to The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum. (I love cars!) It was a lot of fun to see them up close! I think it would be a lot more fun to drive them though! We each picked our favorite car, but of course I didn't take a picture of the favorites! Titus was a little upset that he couldn't get inside all of them! I hope someday we can actually go to a race. We are not race fans, but to hear the sounds would be really impressive, I'm sure.

We finished out our study by stopping in at Johnny Appleseed park in Fort Wayne. We read several stories about Johnny before we got there. It seemed like a nice little park. We didn't spend much time there though, we were all tired, it was HOT, and Titus had hives. It was a quick little stop, we checked out his grave marker and went home! It was a long day, but we had a good time, and learned a few things too.

State Study

2011-08-21T20:15:00.001-04:00

The beginning of July started with a study of our state. (yes, I'm a little behind on posting!) We learned when we became a state, state facts, about our flag, some famous people, and how our state got it's nickname! We "tried" to learn about our towns history as well. We had 3 field trips, our first one was to our towns historical society. They had some good things to check out there. We were able to see pictures of the Indian chief who our town is named after, and pictures of the 2 families that started our town.
I'm going to share some information and pictures from our second field trip. We went to Gene Stratton Porter historical site. I've always loved the gardens here and I've wanted to go in the house for a long time. (I went once when I was a little girl, but didn't remember anything about it!) Before we went we did a little bit of research on Mrs. Porter, learning some basic information about her.
The woman that conducted our tour was REALLY good. She shared a lot of information. I was really impressed with Mrs. Porters life. She sounded like the kind of person I would love to sit down with over a cup of coffee.
A couple of things that really stuck out to me: Her photography skills, they were really impressive. She once took a camera up a tree to capture a baby blue jay. (The camera would've weighed over 40 pounds.) She climbed the tree with it and then sat there all day waiting til she got the shot she wanted.
The other thing was the way she built her house. She wouldn't have had an architect, it would've just been her planning it. It's a beautiful house. One of my favorite things were these huge bins in a cupboard that held her main baking supplies. It made me want to redo my kitchen, it was so neat!
I would recommend going on the tour and taking a peek into the life of Gene Stratton Porter.

Wouldn't you love to sit here with a cup of coffee and admire the view!

Can you see what's hidden in the fireplace? (she had multiple hidden pictures in it)

Her actual chair...

My beautiful mom and 4 of her beautiful grandkids! Thanks so much mom for going with us!

4 cute monkeys!

Logan

2011-08-18T10:31:00.000-04:00

The first time I met you I think you were 7...I was 19. I immediately fell in love with you. I was dating your wonderful uncle at the time! I remember thinking I hope I have a beautiful little blond girl just like you! (The Lord blessed me with that beautiful little blond girl!!!!)
Logan, I can't believe you're 19. You've grown into a beautiful young lady, we are very proud of you! I can still remember going off by ourselves and playing, shopping trips, staying up late talking. (times I'll always cherish!) I love who you are, your sarcasm and sense of humor. You are an amazing girl, I hope your second year of college goes as well as your first! Happy Birthday Logan!

The pictures are from a little party we had for her! (Brie made everyone place cards!)

Breakfast Picnic

2011-07-27T10:18:00.001-04:00

This was such a fun,easy idea. Have you ever had a picnic at breakfast?
We decided yesterday that we should have a breakfast picnic and then play in the park. (anything to avoid the afternoon heat!) I made these powdered donuts, English muffins, and cooked up the sausage last night. So this morning I just got drinks, jam, strawberries, warmed the sausage up, toasted the English muffins, and packed the picnic basket!

It was really simple and fun, and I hope we do it again. We packed everything back up, and then got to the fun stuff...playing on the playground!

We saw 5-6 ultralights taking off and flying around! The kids loved that, sorry I couldn't get a better shot...they didn't get close enough!

The rest of the pictures are of the kids playing!

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17

Have you done any fun, simple activities this summer?

LIFE on the lawn

2011-07-15T14:28:00.000-04:00

2011-07-08T11:35:00.000-04:00

But the Lord is faithful,
and he will strengthen you
and protect you from the evil one.
2 Thessalonians 3:3

Snaper

2011-06-20T21:20:00.000-04:00

We found this guy heading down the driveway! I know he's not the largest snapping turtle, but we are so use to seeing box and painted turtles that it seemed pretty big to us! We couldn't get him to snap at a stick for us, but he kept lifting his back legs up and once he charged at us!

How stinking cute is Reuben! He was there for size comparison, he looked at the turtle and then got this great big grin! I was glad Mark captured it!

Strawberries

2011-06-20T20:45:00.000-04:00

In past years I've kept a notebook containing my canning/freezing information. I thought it might be easier to keep record of it here on my blog.

All of this came from the strawberries in my patch and from my mom's patch. I made one regular batch of strawberry jam, and I made 2 batches of strawberry/rhubarb jam. I've frozen 10 bags of whole strawberries to use for smoothies or whatever else looks good in the winter!
I'm going to share my recipe for the strawberry/rhubarb jam. I found this recipe at Food.com, but I changed it up a bit.
On my first batch I used 3 cups strawberries, 2 cups rhubarb like it calls for and I used dutch jell instead of liquid pectin. I added a little more than 4 cups of sugar, which was plenty for us. (I can't imagine using 7 cups, like the recipe calls for.) The tart from the rhubarb wasn't quite as strong as I would've liked, so on my second batch I used 3 cups rhubarb and just shy of 4 cups of sugar. I haven't tried it yet so I don't know if it's any different than the first batch.
This recipe was super simple. It tells you to flip your jar over after you get the ring on for about
5 minutes.
(This recipe made 1pint and 6-7 half pints)

**All of my jars sealed, but I'm still storing this in the freezer for extra protection. My sil told me that one time she made grape juice, as it was coming out of the straino machine it was hot enough it was sealing the jars. They put the rings on and thought it was fine, it ended up fermenting and turning into wine! In my house this jam is like gold so I'm not willing to risk any of it going bad so that is why it's going into the freezer! If you enjoy strawberry/rhubarb together this jam is a must!

More Survival

2011-06-16T14:55:00.000-04:00

We finished our unit on survival this last week. We still have to work on fire making, and we want to try out our self defense moves we read about. I have to figure out how to put the punching bag up before we try them.
We got this bow and arrow set and have had a blast using it! I'm hoping to bring it back out for our next unit too. We went and shot at targets one day, both kids hit the target once. They were a little disappointed they didn't hit it more, but they got some good practice in.

We also practiced a fire drill. I was going to set the alarm off, but both kids begged me not too! So I was the alarm...they all pretended to be asleep in their beds. I "sounded" the alarm and timed them to see how long it took them to get out, a little over a minute. They had to unlock the window, push the screen out and hop out the window. They did great! Brie went to the boys room to help out so we discussed what the plan should be if she couldn't get to their room. We also talked about what to do if the fire broke out during the day, best way to get out etc. Thanks to my niece for pointing out that we needed a meeting place. We agreed on a place and talked about what to do if hubby and I aren't in that spot. It was good to have some plans in order, but I know if we ever have a fire it won't necessarily be like we practiced.

We also read about how to prevent drowning. We went swimming and worked on some of the things we read about. Brie is getting really close to being able to swim, I'm hoping with a little more work this summer she will get it. Zeke has improved greatly since last year! He's got a while til he's swimming, but he got in the pool willingly so that was good!
I think in a couple more years we will do this unit again so that the 2 smaller boys can join in too! It was a lot of fun! I will be sharing soon about the math we did during this study too!

Backyard fun!

2011-06-06T14:03:00.000-04:00

I bet you wished you lived at my house, don't you!

(and yes, Zeke put a frog on his face!!!)

Fire...or not!

2011-06-06T07:13:00.001-04:00

We have learned from our study that you need 5 basic things to survive in the wild.
-fire
-shelter
-signaling
-food and water
- first aid knowledge

One thing we learned... don't call us to start a fire for you! LOL!
We tried the old Cherokee method of rubbing a stick back and forth. I'm sure we didn't try long enough, but we did try. Brie really did well at sticking with it. After all her effort it still didn't work. Zeke wasn't as willing to be patient with it! (To our credit it had just rained) I have several other methods we are going to try. I want to try the magnifying glass method, the chocolate soda can method, and the flint/knife method.

This was our notched board. The kids took a rock and dug these sections out to create the notches.

Brie collecting some dried grass to use for tinder.

Trying the old fashioned Indian way!

Still trying! (and yes the chairs need painted! It's on my to do list!)

Weekend Fun Part: 4

2011-06-05T20:58:00.000-04:00

Here is the rest of the pictures from the botanical gardens!

I just love Brie and Titus in this picture!

Weekend Fun-part 3

2011-06-05T20:27:00.000-04:00

We had planned a trip to our "local" botanical garden this spring when we were studying plants, but we weren't able to go. We were closer this weekend in location so we decided to go and check it out. We all really enjoyed it! I think the only bad thing was the temperature!
These pictures are just of the butterfly exhibit they have going on. ( pictures of the rest of the garden will be in the next post) I was hoping that we could get at least one to land on us, but we had no luck! They were still beautiful to watch!

Weekend Fun Part: 2

2011-06-05T20:01:00.009-04:00

We were able to work on our fire making skills this weekend. I'm happy to report that they built a very good fire Friday night and Saturday morning! (using matches)

Reuben found this big guy on Saturday morning! He was moving the chairs around and picked this chair up and saw the spider. Then he laughed and laughed and tried to pick it up! I don't mind crawly stuff normally, but this guy was another story. I made Mark come deal with him! I don't know what kind of spider it is, I just know I didn't like it!

Weekend Fun Part: 1

2011-06-05T19:14:00.013-04:00

This weekend we went camping, and after getting the camper set up we went out to do some hiking! Here are some of the pictures of the beauty we saw, Enjoy!

Ezekiel

2011-05-22T06:53:00.001-04:00

Happy Birthday Zeke! I can't believe that you are 7!!! You are a sweet sensitive little boy. You are a mischievous little stinker too, You are a very bright boy and you will be able to achieve anything you set your mind to! We pray that you're blessed with many more birthdays. We love you!

Reuben or Ruby?

2011-05-19T21:31:00.001-04:00

OK... I did it. I'm not sure I was ready for it, but sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet!

Reuben is most likely our last little one. It's been a difficult adjustment for me. I've always wanted as many kids as possible, and I know a lot of people think having 4 is a lot. It is a lot, but every time I see someone pregnant or a new baby or even just one younger than Reuben it melts a little bit of my heart. I'm beyond grateful for what the Lord has blessed me with, and I KNOW that our decision to be done is really what the Lord is telling us is best for us at this time. Because Reuben is the probably the last one I haven't wanted to cut his hair. I have really felt like if I cut it then he's not a baby anymore. (I know it's crazy!) Well I've know it was time for quite a while, so take a look at the next few pictures...with the long hair. Neither picture truly do the length justice!

Here I've cut the back off and started in on the sides.

I didn't want to buzz him, but I had too!

And here...is my "big boy", not a baby anymore! At least my dad will be happy! And Shannon he won't be hangin 10 anytime soon!

Survival

2011-05-18T16:41:00.000-04:00

We have completed day 3 of our first unit for school, and we are really enjoying ourselves! I'm almost confident if we were stranded in the great outdoors we would die! LOL! It's really a lot harder than you would think! (or maybe we're just really pathetic!) We are using 2 books for reference. The first one is "Outdoor Survival Handbook for Kids" written by Willy Whitfeather. The next one we've been using is "Improve Your Survival Skills" and it's an Usborne Superskills book. I would recommend both of them, they have a lot of useful information!

Mr. Whitefeather is an honorary Chief of the Black Creek Cherokee of Florida. I don't know as much about Native Americans as I would like to, but I believe that they found "God" or a spirit in all living things. (as you read this book that is pretty clear.) After reading the first page he talks about relying on yourself. Brie right away said that's not right! I had pre-read the book and had already pulled several verses from the bible that talked about relying on God. It was helpful to talk about the fact that God gave us a brain to use, and that we can think for ourselves and use our skills to help us. I was quick to point out though, that we need to rely on God and seek him for wisdom and help.

The first activity the kids worked on was a lean-to. We read about a few different shelters to build, but the kids thought this one seemed easiest. They did have a difficult time finding a tree with a fork in it. I'm planning on making them try to build a different shelter too. They need to be prepared to be be in a forest and not have a forked tree available, right?

This is where they are getting most all of their wood from.

They decided this forked tree looked like the best option. (they had already started working on the lean-to in this picture.)

Still working on trying to cover it all up.

They were done with it here! (now you all know why we wouldn't survive!) (we need lots more practice!) We were on our way out when I happened to spot a little traveler trying out the lean-to!

Here is a close up of him! Eastern Box Turtle! (sorry my camera focused on the ground in front of him, instead of on him!!)

I'll be sharing soon about our attempt at starting a fire!

First day of school

2011-05-16T11:10:00.000-04:00

Yes, you read that right, and no I haven't lost my mind!!! We normally start school in July, but we had some things come up and had to change our plans. I love that we can be flexible with our schedule and do what works for us! Our first unit is survival skills, I am so excited about it. I think we will all really enjoy it! I hope to share much of what we learn here. So stay tuned!

Brie is in 4th grade and Zeke is in 2nd grade! (Aren't they the best looking 2nd and 4th graders you've ever seen! )

Here is a shot of all 4 of them! Titus will do some preschool activities this year, and Reuben will do some learning activities too!

Reuben

2011-05-04T21:35:00.012-04:00

Happy Birthday Reuben James! You are such a joy to have around. You are my busiest child by far. You keep us on our toes, and are into everything! We pray that someday you give your heart to Jesus. Love you, Love you, Love you Baby.

Easter Party

2011-04-22T20:27:00.001-04:00

Easter is my very favorite holiday. It is such a humbling thing for me to think about. I love being able to focus on what Jesus did for me. What God did for me (for everyone) by sending his one and only son to suffer. Something I don't deserve,and can never be good enough for. Something he didn't have to do, but because he loves me he did. What an amazing God I serve!

I decided to have an Easter party! It was lots of fun! Here you can see our simple spread! Sandwiches, Chex mix, fruit and dip, hard boiled eggs (dyed of course!) and donuts for dessert!

Zeke asked if our glasses were plastic...I laughed and showed him that they make "music", proving they're not plastic! They both tried to make music, but it didn't work for them.

Before Mark came home from work I decided to take some pictures of the kids in all their finery! If you're wondering what's up with Zeke in these photos, while I was getting dressed Zeke and Brie were playing wheelbarrow... he fell and hurt his rib. Don't you just love Reuben's expression!

Reuben had his first ear infection this week. Titus was looking in Zeke's ear saying I think you have an ear infection! Too funny!

Here he is trying to get a closer look, to confirm his diagnosis!

And here are all 4 of them looking towards the camera! I am so amazingly blessed! Look at those gorgeous faces! I look at their faces and it takes me back to what my savior did for me. Something so amazing, something I can never repay, something I don't deserve,but something he did anyway. I LOVE YOU LORD JESUS! Happy Easter everyone!

Lego Quest

2011-04-22T10:22:00.000-04:00

(Click the picture to enter your own creation!)

Zeke and Titus worked together this week! They both want to be police officers so they can arrest people! (watch out bad guys!)

Brie is going to be a fashion designer, not a fashion model!

Capillary action

2011-04-18T15:12:00.000-04:00

This was a fun experiment! I saw this idea several places, but I think this blog gave me the most information. In her post she links up to this site, which explains why/how this works. (Zeke had a hard time understanding it, but next time hopefully it will sink in!) You start with white carnations. I bought 5 of them, you could use more or less. I bought mine from our local flower shop, and almost had a heart attack. (I guess I'm really cheap!) I paid $10. I thought you could get roses for $1, so for a carnation it seemed like a lot! I never buy flowers, so I'm probably just really out of touch! My point is if you have a grocery store that has flowers it may be cheaper, of course like I said I never buy flowers so maybe it wouldn't be! Fill up your vases with water, and add your food coloring. The more you use the better it will turn out. (20-30 drops) On the Steve Spangler site I linked to up above he suggests cutting the ends off under water, it helps to prevent air bubbles getting in the tube. (you also want to make sure you cut at an angle!) Once you're done trimming and have your color in your vase you can put the carnation in. There is a process called split end, just like it sounds take the end of a stem and slice it up 5-6 inches. You put one end in one color and the other end in another color. We chose yellow and blue. Can you see the 2 colors? After I took the pictures, I was moving it around and the split broke. I just put it all into the blue. In case your wondering, it ended up being a green and blue flower! It was really cool to see it change again! Brie also put a red one into the blue to see if she could get a purple one. It did change, but wasn't really purple!

We had 2 reds, the split, green and orange.

This is a couple days later. It really changed color! They were beautiful, I forgot to take pictures of the other ones before they left my house. They were just as vibrant as this red one!

Titus Jack

2011-04-14T12:41:00.000-04:00

I can't believe that you are 4. You are a very sweet natured boy, kind, loving and very silly. You love trucks,diggers,dozers,any kind of vehicle. You are just sure that you'll drive a truck someday! We love you so very much Titus, and pray that the Lord continues to bless you. Happy Birthday Titus Jack!

Plants

2011-04-11T07:27:00.001-04:00

We are on our last topical study for the school year. I can't believe we are almost done with our school year.

We started this study by reading what a plant is. Talking a little about the parts, how they take in water and explaining photosynthesis. My hubby had this great idea...I was having a hard time coming up with ideas, so he suggested doing an experiment on the the "sower" passage found in Luke 8. Here is how I prepared.

I took a toy bin that wasn't being used and set to work. I used 4 types of "soil."

I took sand from the sandbox representing the seed that fell on the path...

I used some lava rocks representing the seed that fell on rocky ground...

I used some weedy soil representing the seed that fell among the thorn...

I used our soil out of the garden here to represent the seed that fell among the good soil...

Next we went outside with a few seed packets and the bible. We read Luke 8: 1-15. We talked (a lot) about what the different soils represent. The sand (or path) grows nothing, birds steal the seeds away. Think about those who hear the word, but the devil snatches away. The rocks may grow something, but it won't have strong roots and dries up. So think about someone who says sure I believe in God, but they have no real faith. The weedy soil grows well at first, but thorns and weeds choke them. Think about someone who is a believer, but makes no time for God. Things of the world become more important. Finally, the good soil grows good, strong plants that mature and multiply. Think about someone who is a Christian and is committed to God and his way. They grow strong in the Word and produce fruit in others.

So after talking we took our seeds and planted them. I'm not sure anything will come up, because we planted these pretty early and they've been outside. I'm afraid with it being 30's overnight nothing will happen! We did this 2 weeks ago and I just asked both kids (separately) they could tell all about the soil representations. So even if nothing grows they hopefully won't forget the parable!

Lego Quest

2011-04-08T16:44:00.004-04:00

(click the picture for more information) This weeks theme was "wearable." Zeke made sunglasses. Brie made a crown.

More ocean

2011-04-07T18:42:00.000-04:00

After a 5 week study we finished oceans, and we learned a lot. Here are a few more pictures from some of our experiments/projects.

This experiment came from Bill Nye's ocean book. Did you know that a squid can squirt it's ink in the shape of it's body. That helps it to escape from prey. So we colored a picture of a squid and then the kids tried to get the "ink" to take the shape of the squids body. They couldn't do it, but it was a great reminder that God makes everything...and he created everything to work the way it does!

The following experiments are from our Awesome Ocean book...

Fill a tall glass almost to the top with water. Insert a drinking straw about 1" into the water and slowly blow a bubble. Both kids declared it's pretty easy. Now push the straw farther into the glass so that the end is just 1" from the bottom and slowly blow a bubble. The kids said it was much harder to do, because of the pressure.

We learned that every minute in the day (in most places) air presses against our bodies with nearly 15 pounds of force. It's equally distributed throughout our bodies so we don't notice it, unless the air pressure changes. (think about being in a plane and how your ears get blocked) In the ocean, changes in pressure are more noticeable, because water is much denser than air. As you can see in our experiment we filled a bowl with water, put a plastic bag up over our hand and wrists. (secure with a rubber band) Dunk your hand into the bowl of water and there is enough pressure to make you feel like your hand has been shrink-wrapped.

(and if you're noticing that the water looks white, I had a little accident! I was pouring coffee creamer into my coffee, and poured it into the wrong thing! Please tell me other people do things like this.) =)

Another pressure experiment...using a pushpin poke 4 holes in a water bottle. (vertically, and about 1" apart) Fill it up and set it down in the sink. Then observe how the water is coming out of the holes. The hole closest to the bottom makes the straightest stream...why? Because it's under the greatest amount of pressure.

One of our last days of our ocean unit was beautiful, so we went outside and painted some ocean scenery. We briefly talked about horizon lines thanks to this post! (if you are looking for art ideas, visit her blog, she has some great ideas)

The finished project..Brie's is on the top, Zeke's is on the bottom.

I think we all enjoyed our ocean studies. We could have easily made it a longer study! Imagine the fun we could have had if we actually lived near an ocean!

Lego Quest

2011-03-23T13:15:00.000-04:00

I found about this through this blog. I thought it looked like a lot of fun! This weeks theme is natural disaster. If you're homeschooled/unschooled you have until Monday 28th to enter. (click the Lego quest picture for more information)

Brie and her volcano!

Zeke and his tornado!

Behind

2011-03-22T14:21:00.000-04:00

We are nearing the end of our school year, and as I was checking to see if we were on track, I realized we had a problem. Brie was behind on math. Oops! So that means for the next 5 weeks we are drilling like crazy, and pounding her facts. She has already made huge improvements! She knew her multiplication facts pretty well to 3, so we started by working on the 4's.

We started drilling the Maria Miller way. You can watch a video here. (If you have any math concepts that need improved I would recommend going to YouTube, and searching Math Mammoth.) She is the creator of Math Mammoth. She also has math worksheets, which are free. We use these quite a bit. She has premade for grade level and some concepts or you can generate one with the things that need worked on.

Here is our drill work...
This is our skip counting outline. (sorry for the blurry picture!)

Then we went over the facts, again and again and again!

Something else we've been using is Timez attack. Brie hasn't had much experience with the number keypad, so her first time was horribly frustrating! I think by the third time she did this, she had all of them mastered.
( We right now are only trying the free trial. I'm still considering trying a paid membership, but haven't made any decisions yet. )

Ocean....

2011-03-19T15:59:00.001-04:00

We have been studying oceans for a few weeks, and we've done a lot of experiments. More than we've ever done! I enjoy experimenting, and I think the kids do too! If you like experiments and are going to study the ocean I would highly recommend the book "Awesome Ocean Science!" by Cindy A. Littlefield.
Here are some of the experiments we did. The first one here was seeing what happens to salt water when it's dropped into fresh water. Because of the density it sinks!

We also put a piece of a carrot in the fresh water, and added salt til the carrot started to rise!

This one was about estuaries.

Brie is preparing the "fresh" water.

Zeke is adding food coloring! (He added a lot!)

As you can see Zeke's river "flooded" the ocean! *He was supposed to gently squeeze it in*

We did it again, so we could see how the river water floated on top of the ocean!

I think my favorite experiment so far has been about the Coriolis Effect. If you want to try it fill a bowl almost to the top with water and sprinkle on a pinch of cornmeal. Now blow easily and steadily across the water surface and watch the way the cornmeal is carried by the currents. The same thing happens when wind blows across the surface of our spinning planet. (and yes I'm easily entertained!)
Zeke made a Lego 3D shark, and Brie made a crab. Not something we normally do, but fun!

Brie and Zeke both wrote poems about the ocean. They are also memorizing "At the seaside" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I went to the ocean

and it had lots of motion.

I dipped my feet in and it was cold,

but I felt so very bold.

by: Gabriela

I went to the beach and saw cool seashells.

I got wet from the waves, and it was really cold.

We went back to the house and I saw a ship sailing,

and then we all had some hot cocoa.

By: Ezekiel

This is the first poems either one has written. I thought they did good! Zeke was very adamant about his not rhyming!! After they typed them up, they made these creations! We sprayed adhesive onto the paper and sprinkled some sand on it for the beach!

I'm glad they both remember going to the Pacific Ocean last year. When I read their poems I could tell they were both recounting their experience last year! I wish we could repeat it! We still have 2 weeks of our ocean study left, so we may share more experiments along the way!

2011-02-18T09:06:00.000-05:00

I know this isn't the best video, but I hope you get the idea.

Rag Roll!

2011-02-17T12:05:00.001-05:00

I have a beautiful little girl who sometimes wants her hair curly. (she has very straight hair!) (can anyone relate?) I have tried hot rollers, curling irons, braids. Nothing really worked. I saw this idea on a blog somewhere quite a while ago,and decided to try it. It is really easy, and it really makes your hair curly!

It takes me 10-15 minutes to do her hair. (she has fine hair, if you have thick hair it may take longer.)

I used an old t-shirt that had holes, and cut it into 4-6 inch sized strips.
We always start with clean hair, it can be dry/ damp/ or wet. (I haven't noticed that one works better than another)
I take a section of hair, I suppose it would be about the size of one strand of hair for a braid. (does that make sense?) (you could do different size strands)
I smooth it out and then twist it. I take the t-shirt strip slide it down to the end of the hair, I wrap the bottom around the strip and I roll it under all the way up to the top and tie the strip in a knot.

rolling it

Tying it

what it looks like.

All done! (I will try to take a video later and put it on here!)

(Where ever I saw this likened the rags to an extra pillow!!)

2011-02-15T16:41:00.008-05:00

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:

all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

( pictures are from early January)

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

(Feb,"blizzard")

Psalms 8:3-9

MOM...I"M BORED!

2011-02-09T09:06:00.012-05:00

Do your kids ever say that to you???

I was starting on supper one night and I was about ready to loose my patience, when this beautiful glorious idea struck me!!
I got 3 pint jars out and put 1 spoon of food coloring in each jar. Red in one, blue in one, and yellow in one. I then got out 6 half pints and filled them a little less than half full. (each kid got 2) We have lots of syringes from medicines, so I got 3 of those out, 1 for each pint. The kids then created all kinds of fun colors! (Art class!!)
Titus learned what it takes to make certain colors and Brie and Zeke learned some new ones too! This occupied my kids for a good hour, and they begged to do it after supper. I put lids on the pints and they have done it again and again. Since we don't have city water this was an almost free activity, and they have really enjoyed it! The mess wasn't too bad, either!!

Books

2011-02-04T07:23:00.000-05:00

My next 2 reads...

The giver...was not at all what I thought it would be. I've seen this book highly recommended, so decided to read it. It's a good book, don't get me wrong, but odd. I'm not trying to say you shouldn't read odd books, I just wasn't expecting it to be like it was!
It is about a boy named Jonas, he lives in a "perfect" world. (It's almost like a bubble world, no pain, no real feelings, etc.) When he turns 12 he receives his assignment, and it turns out to be something he doesn't expect or understand at first.

I thought this was a pretty good book, an easy read. It was easy to get into. It's about an Amish boy who is shunned or dismissed. (at 19) He has a child who is being raised by his grandparents (who are Amish!) He doesn't know about the child, and that's all I'm going to say! I don't want to spoil it, in case any of you read it.

Reading!

2011-01-31T07:30:00.000-05:00

I enjoy reading, but I do not take the time to do it often. It's always been a challenge for me, if the book isn't really good. My beautiful sister is taking part in 52 Books in 52 Weeks. It convicted me in my reading habits. I'm not sure I will be able to accomplish 52, but I'm going to read as much as I can! If I only read 10 books then it's 10 more than I would have read!

In case you're wondering...I read aloud to my kids everyday. I'm talking about "just for me" reading time!

The first book I read is one I started probably a year and a half ago. I enjoyed it, but with life I just didn't make it a priority to finish. I'm very glad I finished it. It's a soldiers retelling of his experiences in World War II. (he's a local man, that my parents know) I've always felt strongly about our military. I don't love war, but I do think sometimes it is needed. This book was very humbling to me. What soldiers went through...WOW. He describes things that I can't imagine, I can't imagine coming home and living a "normal" life after what he saw.
I believe that without military fighting for our freedom, we wouldn't have the country we have. We may not have the freedoms that we have. I think most Americans take for granted our freedoms, but after a book like this it's hard to do. If you know a veteran, thank them for the comforts they gave up for us, the life they lived for our chance at freedom, the service they gave. I know you're no longer living, but thank you Hobert for your compelling story and your service.

Spanish book list

2011-01-27T08:13:00.000-05:00

Before I get to my book list, couple of thoughts!

~I know I've been posting a lot about homeschooling. Those of you who don't homeschool, I'm sorry.

~ I firmly believe that schooling is a choice. Homeschooling IS NOT right for everyone. You have to decide what works for you. Homeschooling is right for our family. Will it always be, I don't know, only God does.

~I am in no way trying to tell anyone what to do, or say homeschooling is the only way, or that I'm better than someone because I homeschool. I'm simply sharing what we do, and how we do it. Some days are beautiful, some days are not. I believe that is life!

Now on to my book list!

We read only bits and pieces of this book. We also watched a Ponce DE Leon movie from Netflix.

We really enjoyed this book. I personally didn't know anything about Balboa, so it was nice to learn about him.

This book was a hard read for my 1st and 3rd grader. A lot of facts, so we only read parts of it.

Great book. It's about a boy who traveled along with Christopher Columbus.

This book led us to watch some bull fighters!

Wonderful read, we all enjoyed it! It's about a girl who gets a special gift and her family gives her some ideas how to use it. Lot's of great recipes in it too!

After this book we worked on Salsa dancing. Hearing Salsa made me think about dancing so we had to look into it! Brie and Zeke learned a few salsa steps and danced and danced, too cute!

I will be honest right now I don't remember this book!

This book is an alphabet book. It's in Spanish and English! I read the English part, and when Daddy got home from work he read the Spanish part!

I thought this was a cute book. A bug (i think) is asked by several creatures for her hand in marriage. She falls in love with a mouse and agrees to marry him. I won't tell you anymore, I recommend you read it and find out what happens!

This book had lots of good stories in it.

We also colored the Mexican flag and some maps. I hope you enjoyed looking into our Spanish Unit! (We have separate math, bible, spelling, and Grammar.)

Gabriela

2011-01-27T07:26:00.003-05:00

My beautiful angel... I can't believe you're 9 years old today! Thank you sweet girl for being who you are. You are such a generous girl who thinks of others before herself. We love you Brie, may the Lord continue to bless and guide you!
Happy Birthday!

More on Unit Studies

2011-01-26T07:27:00.000-05:00

I'm going to start by saying that it was a lot bigger job than I thought it was going to be. I spent a lot of time, I mean a lot of time formulating a plan. Starting was easy, we each picked some topics that we wanted to learn more about. We have to have 180 days of school, so we had 8 topics that we studied for 4 weeks, we then had 4 character studies.

I'm going to give you just one of our topics and try to show you how I went about it.

~Spanish Language~

- defined language.

-found locations that have Spanish as their native language

- found as many books about Spanish culture as I could

-looked up Spanish explorers

This is the first unit we studied. On our first day of school we read the definition of language. We looked at languages, and listened to some different languages being spoken on the Internet. Talked about people we knew that spoke different languages, and named as many different languages as we could. We then went to a map (I had already labeled it) and looked at the different Continent's and the countries within those continents that spoke Spanish. We have this Spanish Curriculum, and we started to watch the first disc.

The books we read will be coming in a later post.

Unit Studies

2011-01-25T07:18:00.000-05:00

I've been interested in unit studies for as long as I can remember! They have always seemed like a lot of fun, you could do so many things with them. I've used "unit study" curriculum where you study one subject for a week, but I always wanted it to be more. After some reading and some thought we decided we would try unit studies this year. My sil mentioned a lady named Valerie Bendt, she is a homeschooler and author. She specializes in unit studies.

She has a lot of good information. While I was reading her book (I've only read the one pictured here, she has several others) it all seemed so clear to me. It was what I had been wanting to do for a long time. It didn't give a lot of examples of her plans, more just some of her experiences, advice on books/schedules. She talks about how they would read a book; Heidi. They would then study the Switzerland area. They would read an autobiography about Johanna Spyri, the author. They would read about someone or something from the time the book was written. Sometimes they would create plays and do costumes and video them.

I will be sharing soon on how I planned our unit studies.

Busy,Busy,Busy!

2011-01-24T07:26:00.000-05:00

I've had so many things I've wanted to share here. I enjoy blogging, but I have this little problem....

I know he looks really cute, and don't get me wrong he is, but he gives the word busy a whole new take!

I started a post about unit studies, he shut down my computer! I restarted it and sat down to keep working on it, had to get up to clean up a mess, he published it, but it wasn't done, so I deleted it. (because I didn't know how to remove it without deleting it!)

The mess I had to clean up...some people have mice, I have a boy named Reuben!

(I know it's hard to see the hole.)

I could tell that he was in my lazy Susan. I should have gotten up right away, but I didn't. After a few minutes he had bitten a hole in the bag of sugar and had some on the rug. I cleaned it up, shook my rug out and put the bags high up on the counter. I still had a bag of brown sugar under the lazy Susan, well after I sat back down it wasn't 5 more minutes and he had the brown sugar bitten into, all over himself and the rug! (I had forgotten it was down there)

(sorry it's a bad picture!)

He also really likes light switches. He drags any chair he can get a hold of to the nearest light switch. I'm considering bolting the furniture to the floor! =)
He sure is keeping me on my toes! I'm hoping that I will be able to get back to some regular postings soon!

Hershey Kiss part 3

2010-12-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

On day 3 we talked about the jar sizes and the capacities they could hold. We also did some problems with 108 in them.

The next day I put together some word problems. You could make these as difficult or easy as you need them. They all pertained to kisses!

I hope you enjoyed our kiss fun!

Hershey Kiss part 2

2010-12-23T07:34:00.001-05:00

So we started by making an estimate. They both thought they were right on!
Zeke thought 45, Brie thought 51!

We talked about the best(easiest) way to count them. Brie decided it was best to put them in groups of 10. As you can see Zeke was shocked when he got up to 40 and he still had a good sized pile left!

Brie counting out her stash. She had to keep her colors organized!!!

Come back tomorrow to see more!

Hershey Kiss!

2010-12-22T11:29:00.000-05:00

Come back tomorrow to find out what we are going to be doing with these for school!

Lapbooks

2010-11-15T06:20:00.000-05:00

As a homeschooler I have heard of lapbooks but we've never ventured into them. We are doing unit studies this year and I though it might be fun to try them. I did a search for them and found so much information, I think that you could easily find a lapbook for every subject! I had one problem...most of the information didn't really explain "how" to make one. So I had to do another search to figure that one out!! I found this really helpful video...

Stay tuned for more of our lapbook adventures!

I"ve got the JOY, JOY, JOY, JOY down in my heart..

2010-10-11T14:35:00.005-04:00

Let me tell you it is a wonderful thing that I have the JOY!! If I didn't I'm not sure what I would do. I know I haven't been on in a while, but I just had to share some of my JOY of late!

We just put in bamboo flooring, totally loving it! I still don't have everything put back together yet, but it is getting closer! Any of you who have done a project like that know what I'm talking about.

We start our morning out with breakfast and then cleaning and chores! M, F we do 30 minutes, T, W, TH- 20 min. It works well for me and it helps me stay on top of our housework. Then we get right to school.

Last week I told the kids to go start working in the laundry room. They needed to clean up their shoes and some other misc. items. Well they came running to me, saying the floor is all wet. What??? I go check and yeah it's wet. We dried it up and I was praying it was just a fluke. We had our service guy out today, not looking real great for a fluke!! I also learned that you are NOT supposed to soak clothes in your washer. Did you all know that already? I didn't!! =) Of course had I not soaked clothes overnight we wouldn't know that we have a slow leak!

The night before Brie had taken a bath in our tub. I told her she needed to put the toys away. While walking through our bedroom one area was wet. I asked her if she spilled water all over the floor with the toys. She said, no. I assume it has to be why the floor is wet, I check all the rest of the floors expecting to find a trail...nothing. I tried to dry the water out of my room the best I could. Later when Mark got home I walked through the room again and I said what is going on, this is still really wet. Well you know how the washer leaked...it went under the baseboard trim into our bedroom. So now the bedroom is torn up trying to make sure we get no mold or other damage. Are you all jealous of me yet, don't be, just wait it's going to get better!

This morning Zeke was using our bathroom. He came out and got busy with his chores. After 15 minutes or so he went to put his cleaning rag away in the dirty laundry and this is what played out: Z- You do not want to go into your bathroom, it's flooded. Me- WHAT? Z- Repeats it again. I run into the bathroom, all I can say is WOW. He was not exaggerating. I walked on to the floor and it was a good 2-3 inches deep, all over the floor. Not just around the toilet, ALL OVER! In case you're wondering yes I was able to laugh about it.

I'm feeling confident that God is trying to tell us something. I think it has to deal with water, what do you think? Maybe we're supposed to put in a pool! Anyone good at interpretation?

Edit~ I guess I didn't make this known...Zeke clogged the toilet, flushed it and it was running. Because it was running and it was clogged the water had no where to go, but all over my floor! (Because someone asked...no it seemed to be very clean water!) =)

Giveaway

2010-07-13T12:27:00.004-04:00

Hello...I just wanted to pop in to tell you to go visit Danielle! She is doing a great giveaway. If you like to be creative you must go check it out and enter to win!! It ends July 23, so hurry!

My latest happenings...

2010-06-28T09:53:00.008-04:00

It has been a long time since I've posted, and I've missed it,I've missed reading others blogs too. Unfortunately this is just a quick update, I will still be missing for a while. I don't think I've ever been this busy, I'm ready for a break!

I still have Oregon pictures I haven't shared, maybe this fall!!

I've been madly working on school curriculum. We are doing unit studies this year, very excited about it. I can't wait to start, which is just a few weeks away for us!

I started cleaning out my trees, BIG, HUGE job! It will be worth it when it's done. (Having my second run of poison ivy, because of it,so it better be worth it! )
*Before*

*After, with tons of work still left to do!* (but I hope you get the idea!)

We are having a new driveway put in. It has been so much fun to watch. I'm very thankful to my cousin Josh, my Uncles Steve,Dan,Jerry,and my Mom and Dad. They are working so hard! It looks sooo different, I can't wait to see it finished!

*Before (we had cut a few trees down, in preparation) (Thanks Dad and Shawn for cutting them down)

Starting to take the trees out!

Ahhhh, the tree's are disappearing...

Here are some pictures I took of hubby's side of the family! They did a great job!

I'm looking forward to things calming down and being able to post regularly!

More Pictures

2010-06-02T06:46:00.005-04:00

Psalm 95:5

The sea is his, for he made it,

and his hands formed the dry land.

A few more pictures from the Oregon Coast. (and yes I still have more after these!)

*I think he got yelled at for eating the sand, poor baby!*

*see, all happy now*

Oregon

2010-05-24T07:45:00.005-04:00

We just spent 10 glorious days in Oregon. (I think it's my favorite state.) If you've never been there, you really should go! I have a lot more pictures to share, when I find the time!

I have to brag...my kids did AWESOME. I won't lie I was soooo nervous about traveling with 4 kids. I had no idea how they would do. We talked and talked and talked about what was expected, but I was still scared. As we were waiting at our gate, I became more nervous. The stares from people who were boarding the same plane were enough to make anyone squirm. We had a few older couples who would smile, but overall it was not friendly. Our flight left @ 7:05 am. We left our hotel room @ 4:45 am, Mark,Reuben and myself woke up @ 3:45 am! So while we were waiting Reuben was exhausted, and understandably a little cranky! The older 3 were just excited. Our first flight was really short and everyone did great! We had 2 ladies who sat in front of us and laughed and laughed @ Titus's questions and comments! We then had an 1.5 wait til we boarded our next plane. I felt a little like a public service commercial!!! I had them hop on one foot, do jumping jacks, walk backwards, etc. Yes I got some really weird looks, and some understanding smiles! It was an exciting adventure...I'm praising the Lord for blessing us with such a great trip!
While traveling this is the most exciting thing that happened...When we arrived @ Portland Mark got me a luggage cart and then left to go get our rental van. So after I got the bags I gathered up all 4 kids and started heading outside, well everywhere you go you feel like a 3 ring circus. We walk up to one of those large revolving doors and I laugh. I told the kids this is going to be interesting! We watch the door go around once then I tell them that we are going to have to just get in and go. Well right then a lady comes in, so I said lets wait for this lady to get through. We watch it go around and as it was getting closer I said OK we need to just go. So I have this huge luggage cart clear full, all the kids have backpacks, and Brie was pushing Reuben in the stroller! Can you just see us??? Well Zeke and I were in front so he went and I followed and I told Brie and Titus to hurry and come through! Well Brie started and then stopped and the door comes around and smacks into the stroller! I'm saying come, just come through,hurry. 2 men come up and yell, because the door hit the stroller. They then hold the door and Brie comes through, And Titus just keeps standing outside of the door looking at us! The man tells him there is room for him to come, I tell him to hurry and get in the door. He does come finally, and I thank the men repeatedly. We get outside and all take a deep breath and wait for Mark to come! I'm thankful that was really our only mishap. It was traumatic enough that when we arrived back @ Portland to come home Brie and Zeke both spoke up right away...can we go in the other door, please. We don't want to go in the revolving door!!!!

This is about the best picture I got of Mt. Hood! This was taken from Mark's grandpa's filbert orchard. (I need a zoom lens! )

Zeke

2010-05-23T15:09:00.003-04:00

Well my first born son turned 6 yesterday. (5/22) We traveled home on his birthday, but I think he still had a good day!

Zeke you're a fun,wild, and goofy boy. I'm so glad that you love "boy" stuff! I'm anxious to see what God has planned for you. You have the ability to do anything you desire! We love you buddy.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

2010-05-19T23:36:00.006-04:00

The light has been active since Head Keeper Fayette Crosby walked up the 114 steps, to light the wicks on the evening of August 20, 1873. At that time the oil burning fixed white light was displayed from sunset to sunrise. Today, the fully automated first order Fresnel lens runs on commercial power and flashes its unique pattern of 2 seconds on, 2 seconds off, 2 seconds on, 14 seconds off, 24 hours a day. The oil burning wicks have been replaced with a 1000 watt globe.

This is Oregon's tallest lighthouse. It is 114 steps to the top.

Stairs looking down.

This is the view out one of the windows.

This is the light bulb. (100 watt) It has 2 bulbs, one is replacement only. The light can be seen for about a 20 mile distance.

Zeke checking out the lens

Brie checking out the lens.

This is the reflection from the glass in the top. I thought it was pretty.

This is the top.

This is the lighthouse...I know duh!!

This is the first lighthouse I ever went in. ( I have a dream/desire to tour the world and visit every lighthouse. I'm not sure if it will ever happen, but it's good to dream,right!) It has been almost 7 years since I first went in this lighthouse.

2010-05-19T16:04:00.001-04:00

a few pictures from this morning!

Ocean...

2010-05-18T22:57:00.002-04:00

Matthew 8:23-27
Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!"
He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"

John 3:8
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Schreiners Iris Gardens

2010-05-16T23:08:00.010-04:00

Enjoy...

What we have been up to...

2010-05-16T14:18:00.009-04:00

Psalm 46:10
"Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."

A beautiful forest

Posing for a picture in the beautiful forest

and again

Doing a little trail blazing...

Brie laughing with the trees

Hiding under the rocks

What could they be looking at?

Ahhhh...a waterfall

Shannon the next few are for you. Look at that edge!

As you can see, no fence. It was a pretty narrow walkway!

A stream that feeds the fall

bottom of the fall

enjoying the mist

Taking a "shower"!!

Reuben feeling the water, and yes I know he looks as tho he's going to fall out, he didn't!

*edit*

This is Silver Falls State Park. We only made it around to 2 of the falls, I believe there are 10 in total.

Reuben pictures

2010-05-14T13:38:00.004-04:00

I'm a little behind, big surprise huh? Here are some recent pictures of Reuben...

Here he is hanging out in his Cozy Coupe while it was still "under construction."

Enjoying his birthday cake!

*I hope to have some AWESOME pictures coming soon!*

Reuben James

2010-05-07T11:23:00.002-04:00

I'm in total and complete shock...MY BABY IS ONE TODAY. Where did the year go? Reuben you are such a blessing. You've been a great addition to our family. You are very easy going, and happy! We can't wait to see what your personality is going to continue to develop into. We love you buddy, Happy Birthday!

I promise to post pictures later this weekend or early next week. It has been one of those kind of days! =)

Well.....

2010-04-25T14:17:00.004-04:00

I've been thinking and praying for a while and I've come to a decision. I believe this is what the Lord is leading me to do, but as I'm not as spiritual as I'd like to be I could be wrong! I'm still going to follow through, and if I'm wrong I know He will show me! Are you all curious???

I have decided to take a blogging break. I hope to keep posting at some point, but I may not. I may be done forever...I don't know!! =) Like I said I think the Lord will lead me to what he wants me to do!
If you read my blog, I appreciate it. Thanks!

Because I LOVE pictures I will leave you with some from our hike last week.

This was just to prove that Reuben was there!!

Titus

2010-04-20T08:58:00.000-04:00

Titus Jack... oh my I can't imagine life with out you. You bring so much JOY to our family. I can not believe you are 3 already. You love to laugh and have fun. You're a wonderful little boy, I can't wait to see what God has in store for your life. We love you buddy!

For the kid's birthday they get to choose a restaurant to eat at with just hubby and I. TJ choose Dairy Queen. This picture was right after we left from eating. The whole meal he said of this is so yummy!! Titus is obsessed with vehicles. He nonstop is playing trucks and talking about trucks. He loves stuff that hitches up. Driving down the road he spots campers,fork lifts, bob cats, semi's, cranes, backhoes, you get the idea!

On the way to Dairy Queen, we passed a camper place and I said we should see if we could go through some campers, Titus would love that. The one place was closed, but right across from our subdivision there is a camper place. We stopped and went into a few campers with him. He had to go potty so it got cut short, but I think he really enjoyed it!

Titus inside a 5th wheel!!!