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

And here is the 2nd half of January

Other than some posts on co-ops that I will do separately, this will about wrap up January.  :D  And the big post on college decisions!

Here is a peek into the second half of our January.  We met for book club and discussed The Amateur Cracksman.  It is a story about a "gentleman thief".

 And look at the spread we enjoyed after our talk!!!

 Rebecca is still talking about the yummy sandwiches!  It was a delightful evening with friends.

 We also enjoyed having Christopher and some of his friends over on MLK, Jr Day.  They came for lunch and it was great having them here!  Such a fabulous group of friends!

 Our whole family really loves spending time with them and are thankful that they are close enough - and willing - to come over.

 It was a gorgeous day and we spent time playing outside after eating.

It always warms my mama's heart to see people enjoying Eliana.

Look at the delight on her face!  (She often prays for these two friends too!)

This is a fun game that Christopher got for Christmas - Poleish.  The object is to knock the bottle off of the pole with a frisbee.  

You play in pairs.  Each takes turns trying to knock off the pole while the other team tries to catch the bottle and the frisbee.  Its a lot of fun.

And Ultimate.  Fun for all ages.  Two teams and each tries to get the frisbee to their side/driveway.

And then the weather changed.  Just like that.  We hardly EVER get any snow, but finally we did.  And we enjoyed it greatly!!!

 It wasn't much (the first time), but it was enough to sled and play on.

 Eliana just loved sledding.  And yes, she is holding a fly swatter.  Not one that is used for anything other than her toy.  LOL

 Not quite enough snow left for snowboarding.

 Fun Daddy!

 A race sounds like fun, right?

Love seeing the teens having a great time out in the snow!

 This was a fun day for everyone!

Sadly, it melted to quickly.  Little did we know that there was more coming!

 We enjoyed a trip to Defy Gravity.  This is a fabulous indoor trampoline site nearby.  My whole family loves it!    There are trampolines to jump on.

A foam pit to jump into.

An area to play dodge ball is also fun.

 And its great exercise too.

 Just thought I'd share a funny photo.  If any of you remember some of my cooking posts from last year, here is another one of boys in the kitchen.  I had the crockpot on and cooking dinner.  One of the boys decided to make something on the burner in front of the crockpot.  Yes, the big burner.  I was in another room and then smelled an awful smell - burning plastic!

I asked what the smell was and was told that a noodle had hit the burner.  I assured them that this was not a food smell and went into the kitchen.  To my surprise, one of the boys was cooking on this burner and did not notice the melted knob or smell and another was standing beside him cooking on a different burner.  LOL

So, I'm in the market for a new crockpot and hope to make a decision on one soon.  I really miss mine!

We also started back with our co-op.  Last semester was Shakespeare and this semester is Robin Hood!  We had planned to do 2 books this semester (similar to our Beyond FIAR co-op days), but we have missed 2 of our co-ops due to snow/ice so we instead are going to spend the entire semester going leisurely through this book instead.  I think its a great idea and am looking forward to enjoying this book and the many fabulous topics in it!

We started out talking about the history of the time period in which this story takes place and also the legends surrounding Robin Hood.  (And watched a great video about this.)  We also learned about Maid Marion who is not in the original story at all!

We also learned about different types of measurements that were used in the middle ages.  The students learned terms that were used for measurements in that time period as well as what the "standards" were for each measurement.  

We found that there could be great variance depending on who was being measured.  

 Going outside for some larger measurements.

 And having some fun seeing how far they could pull a "load" the same distance that was measured for horses (I think).  They had a blast doing this!

 They took turns piling on and also pulling.  Lots of laughs here.

 We also watched a neat video on outlaws of this time period.  This is a part of a series if you want to see more.  And as has become custom, we ended the day with an amazing spread for lunch.  YUM!  Always a treat to come to this co-op and I always learn something fun and new.

This year is off to a great start.  Some of our plans have gone awry and there have been surprises too.  In the midst of it all, I am reminded that none of this surprises God and He is in control.  He is good.

Blessings to you!

Leslie