I miss blogging

I can't believe I haven't posted anything since November.

There are reasons, of course, but nothing big and terrible.  It's just a combination of busyness, a terribly old and slow computer, a frustrating focusing issue with my camera (that I just can't seem to send in and get fixed already! If only it was free! Ha!), and blogger-block.

But good news!  One of the issues has been resolved.  I have a brand-new computer (thanks to my wonderful job) and I am now able to handle sitting at the computer for longer than my job requires of me.

As for the other issues... hopefully in time.  Meanwhile, here are a few photos from the last 3 months.

Our annual Princess Pack Christmas Tea and homemade ornament exchange.

Baking Christmas cookies with Grandma.


Christmas Eve at Grandpa and Grandma's.


The blanket we crocheted together for a friend's baby girl.  And we finished!!!


We haven't had very much snow this year, but we had enough one weekend to make a snowman.


And to make up for the lack of snow, we made lots of paper snowflakes to hang in our windows.


And we also made baskets! Which was quite challenging!  I'm thankful we have a good friend that gave us instruction and help. Without her, I'm almost certain we never would have finished that project!  Honestly, we probably wouldn't have even begun.


I guess I only take pictures around here when we make stuff!  :)

I wouldn't call this an exciting post, but it's good to spend some time remembering these last few months.  God is good and His love endures all things and all of my shortcomings.  Amen!

Owl Pellet Lab

This year our big curriculum decision was to participate in a co-op and go through the Prairie Primer together. The Prairie Primer walks you through all 9 of the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. 

Our co-op only consists of 5 girls and each of them are in a different grade - 3rd grade through 7th. But it doesn't matter a bit to these girls! They love learning and playing together and the 3 moms in this group - well, we like each other too. ;)

For our first co-op last week we made butter (which is as easy as putting heavy whipping cream in a jar and shaking it until a lump of butter forms) and we talked about owls and dissected owl pellets.  

Do you know what an owl pellet is?  Here's the definition:

A pellet, in ornithology, is the mass of undigested parts of a bird's food that some bird species occasionally regurgitate. The contents of a bird's pellet depend on its diet, but can include the exoskeletons of insects, indigestible plant matter, bones, fur, feathers, bills, claws, and teeth. 

Not very 'girly' to dissect owl pellets, is it?  And they were quite disgusted in the beginning.

Actually, a couple of them were disgusted the entire time, but eventually we heard things like, "This is really gross, but it's cool too!" One of the girls had  bird remains in her owl pellet, evidenced by the feather and the beak that she found. But most of the pellets had rodent bones, which we expected.

Not surprisingly though, our M wasn't the least bit disgusted with this lab. She was fascinated from beginning to end.

  

Here's a simple lab report we used to walk them through the lab. 

And another helpful resource: an owl pellet bone chart
I'm not sure where our owl pellets were purchased, but here's one website that sells them:  Owl Brand Discovery Kits

Don't be scared to try it!  It was easy and I think the girls learned a lot and had fun too! 

Enjoying Summer

It's hard to believe it's been 2 years since I took pictures similar to these. Time flies and they grow too fast!!



We are enjoying our long summer days. It's hard to remember exactly what we've filled the last few busy weeks with... but they are flying by!



The other day we were SO hot and they were wishing for a pool (again). I reminded them that just outside we have a hose. And that hose can get you wet. Almost like a pool.... well, sort of. Ok, not really. But it can cool you down!

We got the suits on, brought out the hose, and we had ourselves a good time soaking up the sun and cooling off in the fresh cool water. Not too bad.

I hope you're enjoying the summer sun and the extra time to be with your sweet ones!

Lots of love,
Christine

Last Day of School 2011

Forgive the poor quality of my photos. Not having auto-focus working on my camera makes it difficult to get crisp photos on indoor shots when it's cloudy. Plus I took zero time to run these through photoshop. That's the end of my disclaimer. :)



The last day of school has come and gone. And we are glad for both.

I decided we would play a game for every subject. But even before breakfast the girls decided on their own to play chess.



And for breakfast we made cinnamon muffins. Great way to start a special day!


For spelling we played Scrabble. But we didn't keep score and we quit when we were tired of it. (They loved the liberty of that!)


For math we played a fun card game practicing place value. I found it here. It was easy for both of them, but I counted it anyway because it's the last day of school!!

For geography we played a huge game of memory with state capitals. We made the cards ourselves. We marked the state cards with red stars and the capitals with blue stars. It's a great way to learn those capitals!


And for writing we played Fortunately, Unfortunately. I don't know where we learned this game. I'll have to ask the girls, but it's a lot of fun and it kills time in the car, at the doctor's office or on your last day of school! :)

Basically one person starts with a simple one sentence plot and you take turns adding 'Fortunately...this happened.' And the next person adds, 'Unfortunately... this happened.' It can get very silly!

I'll leave you with our Fortunately, Unfortunately story from our last day of school! Happy summer everyone!

There was a guy named Bob.
Fortunately, he had a big house.
Unfortunately, his house was painted pink.
F, he had a lot of money, so he got a guy to paint his house.
U, the guy didn't know what color to paint the house, so he painted it green.
F, Bob liked green.
U, he couldn't pay for his house anymore, so he had to move.
F, he won a game show.
U, he only won a big fish.
F, it was a big fish so he could sell it for a lot of money.
U, he got too attached to it and named it Steve.
F, Steve could sing so they started a traveling band.
U, Steve got a cold.
F, when he gets a cold he sneezes and it sounds like a trumpet.
U, Bob doesn't like the trumpet.
F, he got used to it.
U, Steve sneezed when he was doing a headstand and got stuck in the rim of his bowl.
F, he couldn't eat, so after 3 days, he slipped out.
U, Bob's grandma showed up and overfed Steve, so now his bowl is too small.
F, Bob bought Steve a bigger bowl.
U, the bowl prevented them from taking their show on the road.
F, Bob's grandma invited them to stay at her house until they could buy their own.
U, she lived in a tiny little shack that only had 3 rooms.
F, Steve's bowl just fit in the kitchen.
U, Bob's grandma overfed them both.
F, Steve's bowl was big enough for him.
U, Bob's pants were not.
F, Bob's grandma had extra skirts.
U, they were all pink and purple.
F, he was able to sell them and get some pants.
U, Bob's grandma did not like his new pants, so she sent him away.
F, he won another game show, won a $100,000 and bought a mansion and a deluxe fish bowl for Steve.

THE END

Lapbooking

Princess Pack has enriched our lives in countless ways. Friendships are the most valuable gift. Some of our closest friends were made because of this precious group. We have learned many things together over the last 6 and a half years!

This week at Princess Pack one of the moms and her daughter brought lapbooking to our group. It is something I've heard much about, but have never taken the extra time to do. And we've discovered that we've been missing out!

The girls put together lapbooks about (you might have guessed) Princess Pack! It was a full evening -- lots of cutting and pasting. My girls (as well as most) were unable to finish at the meeting, which meant we spent much of the day today with scissors, glue, and paper spread all over our table. What a fun mess! They now have a great memory keeper of all they've experienced this year at PP!

Here are a couple resources if you want to learn more about lapbooking:

• homeschoolshare.com has GREAT free printables of everything you might need to make a lapbook (I've added this site to my "Links for Learning". They have more than lapbooking resources.)
  
• I found this flickr photo pool of lapbooks. A wonderful place to get inspiration.

We will definitely be re-visiting this activity again. I love watching them create. They find so much joy and peace in the process. And it was a wonderful warm-up to making their academic fair projects -- which is in two weeks! A display board is much larger than a lapbook and they've already invested 3+ hours into these and they're still not done. It takes time to be creative!

Well, happy weekend, friends! May He fill you with His peace and love as you take time to slow down, spend time with those you love, and maybe even find time to be creative.

Gingerbread Houses

Unexpected blessings are the best! My friend Melissa was given a box full of candy and graham crackers from her sister-in-law, who is a teacher. She had made gingerbread houses with her class and gave Melissa all the leftovers. And let me tell you--there were a lot of leftovers! Melissa, being the sweetheart that she is, shared it with her small group friends -- we each went home from Mel's carry a bag full of goodies.

The girls and I have never made gingerbread houses. I'm sure it's because I can't bring myself to buy so much candy. (My friend Adrienne had a wonderful idea to use leftover Halloween candy!) We were very excited to make this part of our week before Christmas.

Construction begins.




Roof supports in.


Attic full of extra storage.


C's waterfront property with a bridge just outside the front door:


M's finished house with lampost, small pond, and sparkling blue creek:

We had so much fun! Thank you, Mel, for sharing with us! And thank you, God, for friends who share and friends who inspire! The gifts just never end!

Merry Christmas to each of you! May you find peace and joy this weekend as you celebrate the birth of our sweet Savior!

Snow Ice Cream

I realize this post will cause some of you to cringe. Sorry for that. I know one of them would be my mother-in-love. Sorry, Mom. :)

It was snowing again. Our girls said, "Hannah's family makes snow ice cream. Can we?" Why not? There can't be anything too terrible in snow. Maybe a little dirt, but I don't recall ever getting sick from getting a little dirt in my mouth.

Thanks to Allrecipes.com, we quickly found a recipe and set some bowls out to collect crystals from heaven.

After dinner we mixed together the ingredients in one of our big bowls:
-lots of snow (especially if it is fluffy like ours was) the recipe calls for a gallon
-1 cup white sugar
-1 tbsp vanilla extract
-2 cups of milk (or as much as you need for ice cream consistency)


Mix it up, dish it out, and enjoy! It's really quite tasty!

Dem Bones Dem Bones, Dem RUBBER Bones!

The rubber bones results are in... vinegar will make a chicken bone bendable!

And it IS gross.

In case you're wondering why, I'll tell you.

Vinegar is considered a mild acid and is strong enough to eat away the calcium in a bone, thus leaving the bone soft and bendable. The instructions said that it would take 2 to 3 days to make the bone soft enough to bend. After 3 days we checked on the bones and found that they were soft in spots, but not bendable. As gross as it was, we decided to give it more time.

In the end, we left the bones in the vinegar for 9 days. I think we left them in so long because we weren't anxious to handle them again, but also because we really wanted to see it work.

Well, it worked. No wonder our mothers told us to drink our milk!

Here's to strong bones! Cheers!

Nice 'do!

If you've been around this blog enough, or if you know me on the other side of this screen, you might remember that M and C donated their hair to Locks of Love two years ago. It has been their goal to do it again and M is feeling very ready. She is not a fussy girl and maintaining long hair is not her thing. And it seems like it might be long enough to donate, so we'll probably be seeing some big changes on her soon.

C on the other hand, likes to have braids and ponytails. I am not very good at styling hair, however. I'm not creative or patient enough to spend a lot of time on it. (I guess I'm more like M.) If you need proof, just look at my hair. It takes 3 minutes. Well, maybe 4.

Well! I found this great blog this week and had to share. If you have a girl you might find it inspiring. Or not, but that's ok too. The video tutorials are the most helpful I think! Happy hairstylin'!

And Happy Mother's Day to all of you beautiful and inspiring women! I hope you know how special and important you are -- today, tomorrow, and always! xo

writing in braille

Last week we learned about Louis Braille. His story is an amazing one. It's also another example of how God can take a tragedy and use it for something really good.

So after learning about Louis, they made their own messages in braille. I pulled out my embossing stylus and a plastic template that has several different sizes of circles. They used our sliding glass door as a light box and began writing their name and their friends names, followed by silly messages. They had a blast and I couldn't stop smiling at their happy hands busy at work.

A Flurry of Photos

I missed posting all of last week. We've been busy preparing for Christmas. I can't believe it's almost here! Instead of trying to catch up on last week, here are some pictures of a few things we've been doing! Merry Christmas everyone!!