Thanksgiving Art Project

First of all, I have my camera back!  My new camera I should say.  They ended up replacing it since they couldn't repair it.  This is why I love Best Buy and their warranties!!

But back to the story at hand . . .

Tonight we had Art Class.  Thanks to our friend with a Silhouette, we made special place cards that we will use next week on Thanksgiving.

As you'll see, the kids had a blast!  [Please excuse the after bathtime look.]

Here are the kids with their self-portraits . . .

 Think Isaiah was trying to look like his indian.

Of course there's always a little bit of goofing off!

Here are the finished products!

L to R: Papaw, Gramma, Dad, Mom, Makenna, Madison, Isaiah, Pappy and Nana

Makenna made Papaw & Gramma. Isaiah made Dad & Mom. Madison made Pappy & Nana.
FYI: In case you are wondering . . . Nana's hair is RED. How dare you suggest is be any other color, especially PINK!! Please learn from my mistake.

Homeschool Update

This makes me laugh.

Some days are just like this.  I chose to see the irony in it.

(Found this hanging on the wall in a certain 10 year old's room.)

On a serious note, we're a quarter of the way through the year. YAY!  Finally settling into a rountine [only to uproot that routine and shift it all around with house showings and moving].  The Lord has been good.  Homeschooling is going much better than I thought it would go.  For that, I am truly grateful!

Teaser - Hartville, OH

Today, I took the kids to meet up with friends of ours in Ohio for a day full of fun, fall activities!

(I may or may not update this post with details.  HA!  Just warning y'all.)

A special thanks to my friend for lending me her camera to make this possible!  THANK YOU SO MUCH!

The Sleep-Deprived Indian

Our summer went by quickly.  I swore (well, not literally!) that after a VERY busy summer three years ago we wouldn't overbook ourselves like that ever again! Summers since haven't quite been that busy, but they have been busy.  Jumping right into homeschooling was not a big help.

Sleep deprivation has been a big issue for me this summer and on into the school year.  I'm learning to deal with it (since I don't have many opportunities to catch up on sleep), and thankfully the Lord has helped my to deal with my chidren in a normal way instead of the way I would normally act while sleep deprived.

Last week, Isaiah was working on a school paper.  The teacher told him to color the capital I and little i green, then to color the feathers his favorite color.  The indian's hair was to be brown as well as the face.  I thought that might look a little strange as he has a heavy hand to his coloring.  So I told him we would change things up a little and use yellow for the face (hey, we're limited to like six colors here).  I asked him what color we should color the tongue.  He replied, "Red."  I expected him to put the red crayon down after he colored the tongue and pick up his brown crayon to finish the hair.  But when I looked back down at his paper he was coloring the eyes red!  I stopped him thinking I would take this time to "educate" him on the parts of the eye.  I said, "Now wait, Isaiah.  Lets talk about eyes for a minute.  There is a colored part -- you and Mommy have blue, Daddy and the girls have brown.  But the rest of the eye is mostly white.  See?", as I pointed to my eye.  His reply. "No, its not.  It's red!"

I didn't even bother trying to explain to him why my eyes are red.  I just had to laugh and then take a picture of his drawing to remember this too cute moment with my son.

Meet . . . The Chipmunk

Madison found this baby chipmunk out in the yard Saturday.  Since we didn't want to leave it to die, we brought it in.

 This is what it looked like when we brought it in -- cold and shaking.

He just laid there in the rag. 

Daddy was warming him up in his hands while he and Madison rubbed his head.

Once he warmed up, he stood up and fumbled around. 

He stayed still while we fed him. 

We made it a home in a cardboard box and placed it on top of a heating pad to help keep it warm.  It slept for a long time.

When we went back to feed it that evening, it almost RAN out of the box!!  Ya, I'm not one for rodents and especially ones that are scampering around my livingroom!!!

After we fed it, we placed it in a plastic tote that we knew it couldn't climb out of!

This is currently its home. 

It likes to crawl in a little space and hide.

The Sunday update:  It's still alive. {sigh} It still sleeps alot.  The only cute thing about it is when we feed it now, it holds onto the dropper with it's claws.  Tomorrow is the first day Daddy goes back to work since we found this thing.  It has to be held (see 3rd picture up) when it's fed.  I WILL NOT hold the thing so someone else can feed it and I REFUSE to trust allow one of my children to hold it while I feed it.

We'll see what happens.  Daddy thinks this is a great homeschool project.  I think this is one more thing that is dependent on me for survival.

Tie-Dye Reveal

Here are SOME of the items we created along with a few words of advice for tie-dying . . .

Don't do over a dozen items at a time. (It's easy enough to put caps on bottle of dye and clean up work station. It's TOO much work rinsing and washing multiple items.)

Put children to work in the beginning as they tire of working quickly.  Also, socks you never could get white after child wore them outside in the mire and muck come in quite useful when your child wants to tie dye multiple things.

Get directions or watch how-to videos for difficult patterns like an earth (see upper left for attempt from a picture found online). Also difficult patterns are for older children and adults, not elementary children.  Found a couple how-to videos for Mickey (bottom right) -- turned out really well! 

Lastly, tie-dying takes lots of patience and lots of rubber bands!

Sneak Peek!

Today for Art Class we did . . . Tie-dye!

Will post pics with the fun-tabulous results soon!

(Although probably not soon enough for the kids.  They don't want to wait for their projects to cure!)

Trialing And Erroring

There seems to be doing A LOT of trialing and erroring going on these days -- and a little heavy on the erroring.  Guess you know I'm referring to homeschooling!

In my heart of hearts, I know we are going to make it.  We have peace about homeschooling this year, so I KNOW we'll make it through.  I'm just hoping my kids don't have to cry their weight in tears, or I don't eat a whole chocolate cake in one sitting before we get to that point!  I'm such a follow directions/list-type person.  I'm not very creative or a big problem solver especially after I had three kids and half my brain cells were fried!  I wish there was a book or a homeschool method that says, "Start at 8:00 with Arithmetic, then do Spelling and Language.  Break at 10:15." -- you get the drift.  But I know that is pretty much fantasy.  I'm still trying to figure out what subject I should be sitting in with each of the kids or what subject they can do independently and how to schedule that so I don't have to be two places at once.  And if I don't have everything (papers, teaching aids, etc.) laid out the night before, I'm DOOMED!

Today I sat the girls down and had a serious talk with them because they are both at the point of not wanting to do school ever again -- on Day 8.  I know, seriously?!?  I told them there were rules about going to school -- that it was required.  ("Remember the field trip we just took to Harrisburg?  The buildings Daddy showed you were our representatives and law makers work?"  Man, I love it when things come together nicely like that.)  I also told them that just like if we are speeding and the policeman/woman pulls us over that we will have to pay a fine for breaking the law -- that there are consequences for not schooling our children.  It wasn't pretty.  I told them the police would come take them away and put them in another family that would make them do school.  There were tears, but we turned it around and talked about having a bell in each of their rooms to ring when they needed me -- although I did tell them I'd cut off their hand if they rang it incessantly!  To which Makenna said she'd keep ringing the bell with her stub! HA!  They would to torture me to my death!

Along with the "bad", there has been good.  I don't think I've gotten as many hugs and had as many kids say "I love you, Mom" in a long time as I have in the last couple weeks.  I am praying that we turn things around -- find a routine that works for us and can coast a little more smoothly through the rest of the school year.  I'd really like to be able to do art class or "home ec" or go to the park in the afternoon.  We've spend most of our days just trying to get school done before dinner and keep our heads above water.

Today I found this comic while searching for some sanity.

(The chalkboard should read E=MC2 if you didn't get that.)

It gave me a ray of hope.  Which reminds me.  I think some told me that Einstein wasn't very good at spelling and that spelling is not directly linked to intelligence -- you can be smart and not be good at spelling.  Makenna struggles with spelling.  Not sure if it was her faulty phonics foundation or if she just doesn't have the knack for it.  Yesterday was her first Trial Spelling Test.  She only missed 1 out of 20 of  the ones she studied, but for some reason didn't study the other 10 vocabulary words (of which she missed 9).  Attached to her trial test was a post it note:  "I think I got an F.  I am hurible at spelling."  I just had to laugh.  She is so cute, and I love her to pieces.  I am so thankful for the relationship we are building with this extra time we have to spend together.

First Day Of 2011-2012 School Year

The first day of (home) school went well ~ PRAISE THE LORD!  I can't say as much for the other days, but we're off to a good start.  (Please excuse the poor quality in the photos.  I had to use my cell phone.)

Makenna in her (school) room 

Madison in her (school) room 

 Isaiah proudly showing off the YELLOW school bus he colored in class

We've tried to employ a few ideas that make school run more smoothly.  Nana helps supply our Snack Basket.  We keep this in the kitchen and the kids can pick out something and serve themselves a snack while other are still schooling or Momma is playing catch-up trying to get lessons together for the remainder of the school day!

We also have a Prize Box the kids can pick something out of when they do a good job on their school work and have a good attitude.  Papaw helped supply items for the Prize Box and Mommy bought a few things from Oriental Trading Company (bubbles, pencils, erasers) and added a few miniture Snickers, Swedish Fish and Smarties!

Here Goes Nothing!

UPDATE 8/10/11:  Today was AWESOME!!  Zaya was a bit quirky, but he did well once I set up a small desk for him and moved him away from the kitchen table. I'll elaborate more (hopefully) later.  Just wanted to say THANK YOU for all the prayers said on our behalf!!!!

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As much as this post title exudes confidence (HA!), I'm not so sure of the adventure we are about to embark on -- TOMORROW!!

Don't know if I would ever feel prepared enough, but we have prayed about and discussed our goals in homeschooling.  We want our children to receive a good education (from professional educators).  We don't want to just bide our time -- filling it with crafts and field trips (as this image I found online suggests).

We're not huge fans of "the flexibility of homeschooling".  We believe in structure and know it is part of character building.  Just praying I can stick with it and mold that character.

I'm also praying that I can remain sane (no, SERIOUSLY!!), and my kids don't end up warped.

Also found this saying (and adapted it to a photo I liked).  Think I may print it out and hang it prominently in the house somewhere.

I hope to have many good things to report and fun photos to post.  As much as Makenna griped about school work I tried to get her to review this summer, she's pretty excited about starting A Beka Book DVD program.  I think the others are too, but she's got that "so excited I can't sleep" excitement going on!  Hopefully that carries over til tomorrow!

Totally Unrealated

  The kids enjoying the first day of Spring with their free Ritas Ices.

 Makenna's first science project . . . without

 and with food coloring.

 This is one of the little "groupings" we found at the bottom of the cup.

 Last weekend, I went with a few highschool friends of mine to see our friend Kristin that I've previously mentioned. (Kristin is in the middle.)

 It was good to catch up (one friend I hadn't seen in 17 years!!).  Please continue to pray for Kristin.

 Then we met up with my family for lunch Sunday.  My youngest brother flew in from FL for the weekend.

 We left Steve at the end of the table all by himself.

As always, we had a great time!  (The girls are always being silly when they are around Aunt Mel!)

Our New Adventure

For a long list of reasons (that I won't bore you with), we pulled Makenna out of school. Didn't realize Isaiah had taken a picture of us, but here we are . . . teacher and student!


Makenna has struggled in spelling (again, for a myriad of reasons I won't bore you with). On average, she was missing about 16 of the 30 words on her list. We've found an online spelling game website, and it's proved to help her. She only missed 2 on her first test!


Makenna was very proud of the results. Daddy was very impressed with her hard work.

She even earned a dollar!

I think Isaiah has enjoyed having Makenna home. This picture is from breakfast the other day. They were making smiley faces with their orange segments and saying silly things that made them laugh.

Found this on my camera also . . . my little strong man! Rrrr!

Look at those big brown eyes! Can't believe my baby is almost 10!

Makenna is almost a completely different person . . . almost always happy and enjoying school.

We've even had some extra time to do some extra activities . . . sewing on a button . . .

. . . and a science project! (Still waiting on the results.)