Christmas Gift Idea

I want to always go first!

Walk Like the Animals Class

Yesterday we had our second Christian Friday School of the year. So far in Walk Like the Animals we've talked about crabs and elephants.

Did you know a crab's teeth are in its stomach? Or that elephants walk on their toes? It's all true and we have lots more fun ahead of us with giraffes and honeybees and who-knows-what all else.

Some things I've learned about the children in my class so far; they prefer to have a craft over a game, they know an awful lot about animals already and, on average, it takes two of them to weigh about as much as an elephant poops in one day (80 pounds). Yup. Important stuff to know.

Judging by the look on Tahny's face yesterday, she may have preferred to remain blissfully ignorant of that last bit of information. :)

Eight Years Ago Today Our Hearts Became One

Yes, I'll Marry You

Pam Ayres

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear,
And here's the reason why;
So I can push you out of bed
When the baby starts to cry,
And if we hear a knocking
And it's creepy and it's late,
I hand you the torch you see,
And you investigate.

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear,
You may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-drier goes
It's you that has to mend it,
You have to face the neighbour
Should our labrador attack him,
And if a drunkard fondles me
It's you that has to whack him.

Yes, I'll marry you,
You're virile and you're lean,
My house is like a pigsty
You can help to keep it clean.
That sexy little dinner
Which you served by candlelight,
As I do chipolatas,
You can cook it every night!

It's you who has to work the drill
and put up curtain track,
And when I've got PMT it's you who gets the flak,
I do see great advantages,
But none of them for you,
And so before you see the light,
I do, I do, I do!

Happy Anniversary Micah!

Autumn Treasures Week in Review

This week, we spent some time exploring the outdoors and learning about the changes that occur in the Fall using Download N Go's Autumn Treasures. We are blessed to live in a part of the country where we fully experience the changing seasons. Real Autumn isn't here quite yet, but some trees are starting to change their clothes.The daily objectives for Autumn Treasures were:
Day 1: What Is Autumn?
Day 2: Science Secrets of Autumn
Day 3: People and Places of Autumn
Day 4: Time for Tips and Treasures of Autumn
Day 5: Goodies and Gadgets of AutumnWe had a nice nature walk and found the last of the summer colors around the yard before the leaves change. Notice the bee on the sunflower?We enjoyed tasty foods harvested locally, including a pumpkin and caramel apple pies. The apple pie is shown here, in progress.Our cut-out cookies really had to be shaped like pumpkins for this time of year. We frosted them with orange and gave them a thorough coating of leaf sprinkles.And just for the fun of it, we had some Butterfinger brownies. Sadly, most of our kitchen treasures went to the Harvest Festival in town for a Friday School fundraiser. Not so sad, really, we were happy to do it and kept some for our family to enjoy! :)

And since you will rarely see a picture of me on this blog. Here I am after baking all those treats. Micah loved my 'do rag. Now that my hair is too short for a quick pony tail, I had to do something to keep it out of the food. Am I right? Rightrightrightright.One thing the littles asked for, but I somehow haven't gotten to yet is popcorn. Maybe tonight.

We painted a fun fall picture on the computer too. Malachi took the photo himself.After discussing migration, we saw a flock of geese fly overhead and I tried a bit of review with the boys. At first, Xav said they were flying into the geese airport, but he pronounced it GEEKS! Later, after some clarification from mom and dad, he told Grandma Wendy the geese were going to the beach. I guess that's close enough for a three year old.

We also really enjoyed reading, among others, Leaf Man and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf, both by Lois Ehlert.

Autumn Treasures is normally priced at $7.95. During the Autumn Equinox Special, it's 20% off through September 24!

Download N Go is a unit study/lapbooking series created by Amanda Bennett and The Old Schoolhouse for grades K-4 and is intended to take one week to complete, though with all the resources available it would be easy to expand that. They are bright and colorful and loaded with information. DNG studies have five daily objectives with components for a smart little lapbook, clickable links to videos and websites, vocabulary, history, geography and more.

I spent a little time looking through the entire study before working on this with the boys. You could use this time to decide how many pages you will print, what household objects you will need for the week and what library books to reserve.

Check out this Download N Go blog hop for more Autumn Treasures reviews.

There's no giveaway this time, but I'd love it if you'd leave a comment telling me your favorite thing about autumn.

*** I received a copy of Autumn Treasures at no charge in exchange for my honest review. ***

Car Meets Deer

Sometimes I don't care much for wild life.

A PR

A PR is a Personal Record. I had to ask someone. ;)

Labor Day 5K in Cambridge.This very happy man shaved FOUR MINUTES off this run from last year! Official time was 24:11!Snack trays.After race fun.
Micah had the boys race to a base and come back. The first time, they tried to bring it back with them!

Tea Wallet

I made some of these adorable tea wallets! I might make some more sometime. Instructions were found here.

Early Birthday Party

Some of you know my birthday was last Tuesday. Fewer of you know I have a step-daughter. The bigger has an older half-sister. I loved her when she was a baby and a toddler and a preschooler. Then for various reasons she was not a part of our lives. The bigger found her again a few years ago and I saw her briefly shortly after that.

Well, I was so excited to hear she was visiting Dave last weekend. I invited them over and used homemade pizza and decadent birthday cake to lure them away from the sights and delights of Vermont to visit with me.

I face a bit of a conundrum where Big Sis is concerned. I have not been with their father since she and the bigger were much, much smaller. So, the $2M question? Is she still my step-daughter? I don't know if divorce, time, and distance can nullify that kind of relationship, but I never stopped loving my first (and only) little girl. I hope her mom is OK with that.

Anyhoo, here are some pictures. I know she is looking forward to seeing them too.
I don't think anyone was quite prepared for the cold snap! Brrr!Cass is so funny.All "my" kids.And the absolutely delish pizza Micah made. Regular and Buffalo Chicken. That's all that was left after dinner and by the end of the night, they were gone too!

Pizza Party Winner

The winner, using Random.org, was number 10. Congrats Jenny! I hope your family enjoys this unit as much as we did!

Jenny, check your email from your blogger profile. That's where I sent info.

Old McDonald at the Fair

We went to the fair last Friday with Christian Friday School, our co-op. We had a great time. The worst of the heat was over, though I admit it was still pretty warm.The littles actually rode a couple of rides. That was pretty much unheard of before we did the Roller Coasters unit. They enjoyed a train ride and the dizzy dragons. Mal actually wanted to go on this crazy bullet train loop thing! Thankfully, he was too short! *breathes sigh of relief* That buys me a couple years before I need to worry about that ride again!We saw a ton of animals and learned all kinds of things. For instance, rabbit babies are called kittens. Who knew?

Just a few of the animals we saw:

Scottish Highland Cattle, momma with twins (only one visible in this photo). Isn't she beautiful? They're from a farm called Shat Acres. Yes, sir. They are.See you at my place on Thanksgiving, Tom.My rabbit and tiger photos are missing. Interesting and confusing. I wonder what else isn't in the camera. Tricky technological gizmoes.

I also sampled a "delicious" frappe from McD's. OK, I am sorry if I offend anyone, but that stuff is disgusting! So bitter. So gross. So coffee-like. P-tooie.

I thought it was pretty clever to put this display right next to the First Aid trailer. Mm-hmmm, yep, I did.
Thanks CFS! We had a great time!

Pizza Party unit review

Download N Go's Pizza Party has been my favorite unit so far! I think it tied with Roller Coasters for the boys. We really loved trying different pizzas. The littles are two of the pickiest kids on the planet though, so I heard a lot of "just cheese" this week.
Along with pizza as a whole and in part, this unit touches on Italy and her cities, famous Italians, vocabulary, nutrition, science experiments, music and more! Malachi seems to have a bit of a crush on Rosemary Clooney now and we'll just leave it at that.  (Picture her in her lovely younger days.) 

Our daily objectives for Pizza Party were:
Day 1: Pizza—What Is It?
Day 2: The Story of Pizza
Day 3: Types of Pizza
Day 4: The Science of Pizza
Day 5: Let’s Have a Pizza Party

We made sticker pizzas. They were much more adventurous with sticker toppings than adding toppings to a real pizza. :)We read some fun books. The littles especially liked Pete's a Pizza and The Magic Boot.

We played with our new pizza game (I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of them with this toy. They LOVE it!), Melissa and Doug's Pizza Party.

We had some crispy, thin crust pizza.We made "chocolate pizza" at Xav's request. I pulled this idea from my childhood. We slathered chocolate frosting "sauce" on graham cracker "crust" and topped with sprinkles and a variety of chips.YUMMY!

We'll be having Daddy's homemade pizza tonight. I'll be posting about that later!

National Cheese Pizza Day is *tomorrow* September 5. Don't forget to celebrate with Download N Go's $5 Pizza Party celebration! Pizza Party is on sale Saturday and Sunday for $5 (regularly $7.95).

Download N Go is a unit study/lapbooking series created by Amanda Bennett and The Old Schoolhouse for grades K-4 and is intended to take one week to complete, though with all the resources available it would be easy to expand that. They are bright and colorful and loaded with information. DNG studies have five daily objectives with components for a smart little lapbook, clickable links to videos and websites, vocabulary, history, geography and more.

Check out this Download N Go blog hop for more Pizza Party reviews and giveaways!

Giveaway is CLOSED.  Thanks for participating!

Now for my GIVEAWAY! I have one copy of Pizza Party to share with a lucky family. To enter to win:

1) REQUIRED first entry, go to this Download N Go page and tell me which title you would love to study.

2) Tell me a pizza story. It could be as simple as your favorite topping or a pizza memory.

3 and 4) Blog about this giveaway or share it on Facebook, linking directly back to this page.

Leave me a comment for each entry for a total of four (4) possible entries. Good luck!

ETA: Entries need to be in by midnight Friday, September 10.
I will select the winner using random.org on Saturday, the 11th.

*** I received a copy of Pizza Party at no charge in exchange for my honest review. ***