February - an whirlwind overview

Here is a quick look at a month worth of happenings and fun.  Enjoy the view.  :)

An event that our FIAR group enjoys is something we call the Expo.  Its a combination music, singing, art show.  We started with a performance portion.  Rebecca began the show with a vocal performance from the play Les Miserables.  :)

Isaiah added in a Lego stop motion movie.

What a lot of talent we have in our group.  Here are all of the performers.

Then we move into a room where displays are set up of many things from art - painting, drawing, sculpting, Lego creations, sewing, jewelry, animation and so much more!  Its such a treat to see these creations!  And I think the kids really enjoy showing off what they have made.

Daniel shared some of his FIAR inspired Lego creations.

Eliana brought her Corduroy bear.  She is so proud of this bear and often shows it to me.  :)

A photo of the artists, but not a great overall shot of all the things we had to see.  (There were more tables!)

This has been a fun tradition for our family - the Krispy Kreme run!  Christopher has run in it for 4 years.  Roger for several and Joshua joined this year (but did not eat all of the doughnuts!).

 You run 2.5 miles.  Eat 1 dozen doughnuts.  Then run 2.5 miles back.  Its a fun race (note the costumes in the photo below).

 We enjoy meeting them at the halfway/doughnut eating point.

 We bring encouragement, water, laughter and a camera.  :)

 Daniel earned the Alpha award in Awana this year!  He did a lot of memorizing.  Great job Daniel!

 Just a sweet picture of my littlest princess and one of her favorite pals who goes just about everywhere with her.

 A look at what Eliana's hair will NOT look like next year while Rebecca is in college.  Isn't this amazing?!

 Remember in my last post how I mentioned that we had some great snows this year?  Here are some pictures (over several days) of some of our outside fun.

 Light powdery snow and still a cute snowman.

 This girl loves to sled.  Can you tell?!

 When the roads weren't great, we moved to the hilly back yard for more sledding fun.  Thought some of you that live in places that get significant snow would find this one funny.

 Making a fort to get ready for a snowball fight.  Making the most of our snow days!

 Valentines Day.  I went with simple but still wanted to try to make the day fun.  For lunch, I just arranged the food into heart shapes.  :)  The heart shaped bacon was a big hit even though it didn't look all that great.

 And look what Rebecca did.  Is this adorable?  She is really amazing with styling hair.

 This is what she did to her own!  Beautiful!

 The boys and I worked on a pastel art project.

 Daniel helped me make our traditional pizza dinner.

 The heart shaped one says "I love you" in pepperonis.  :)

 Treats and valentines after dinner.

 Wanted to show some of our fun decorations on the window behind my sweeties.

 One of our field trips for the month was to the science museum.

The younger children went to a program on life cycles.

 They really liked the "show and tell" portion of the program.

 Afterwards, we explored the museum on our own.  This photo of my girl relaxing with her friend just made me laugh.

 We met up with the older kids after their program and spend some time in one of the labs.

 The man working there was great about showing them how to work so many things like circuits, computer programs and even a robot.

 Hands-on learning is always fun!

 We spent time playing outside and having lunch with friends.

 It was a great day.  Love seeing these beautiful young ladies having fun together.  :)

 We also visited with our dear friends one week-end.  This was taken while we were there we went roller skating.

 A couple of mine found this much easier to do that others of mine.  I won't name names.  :)

We enjoyed ice cream afterwards.  Everyone found this easy.  :)

 For our book club we read Code Name Verity.  If you read it, stick through it as its a different style of writing.  I can't really explain more because it would spoil the book.  Its a story about two friends, British women, during World War II.  A spy, capture and more.  There is some language if you are considering this for a younger reader.

 Rebecca made ALL of the foods for our enjoyment.  What a feast of yumminess!!!

We decided to spend the entire spring semester studying Robin Hood.  Its a longer book with a lot of interesting topics to explore.  We ended up missing one of our meeting times this month due to snow and were glad to be able to get together again.

We learned about ballads, minstrels and friars.  I love having these music lessons that I just would not be able to do on my own.  :)

And the lunch spread was amazing.  Homemade pasties too!  All delicious and well appreciated.

Just closing with a few random things.  Joshua hurt his foot/ankle and was resting.  Eliana decided that she could help to make it all better.  She got a band-aid, put it on his leg and declared, "All better".  

My very talented daughter knitted herself this cute cap!

The same creative daughter made treats for her brother.  Homemade caramels.  (A friend's recipe and they are fabulous.)  Can you see what else she did though to make it special?  Added different Disney quotes to each piece.  Isn't this sweet and fun?!

A sweet month.  Full of time with people I love.

Blessed and thankful,
Leslie

FIAR Vol 4: Snowflake Bentley

Well, I've debated on what to do with my blog.  Do I just skip over all that has happened in the many  months that I didn't blog?  Or try to do a quick catch up?  I've had friends mention that they enjoyed my posts about our co-op times so I thought I would try write about those.  So, a quick catch-up it is!

This is a delightful book, a true story, about a man named "Snowflake Bentley".  He is the first man to photograph a snowflake.  It was fun learning about him and especially this year when we had several good snows!  

At our co-op we learned more about snow and how various factors affect the types of snowflake crystals that are formed.  

 A look at snowfall over the previous 7 days and we made the map!  (I know its no big deal for some of you, but we don't get much of the pretty white stuff here.)

 They also learned about symmetry using various shapes.

 Then some hands-on time figuring this all out.

 Some snow saved was fun to examine with a magnifying glass.

 The snow was put on frozen paper so that it would not melt so quickly.

 Snack time was  make your own snowflakes from tortillas.  They folded and cut them.

 And decorated with powdered sugar.  Yum.

 Lastly, they each made their own crystal snowflake.  Here are directions if you want to try it yourself.

 During the week, we tried another art project making snowflakes that his older brothers had done.  We used florist foam and Daniel drew in the design of a snowflake.

 You have 4 sides to work with if one doesn't turn out the way that you like too.

 When finished, press the block into white paint and then onto darker paper.  Its looks pretty.

 We made a sensory tub of "snow"using corn starch and baby oil.  Daniel made a snowman and went the extra mile in making him look really great!

 We finished off our study with the delicious meal from the FIAR cookbook.  Don't you love our beautifully decorated table too?

As always, this was a fun book.  One you could enjoy any time of the year too!

Blessings

Leslie