I-pad Giveway!

If you are interested in potentially winning an I-pad AND helping to support an adoptive family, please go visit this blog site.

http://ang-tdp.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-pad-giveaway-to-help-us-bring-anya.html

This is the Haddick Family and they are adopting Anya.  She is the cutie pictured in my sidebar!  We've been praying for this sweet little girl - and now for her whole family.  They are very excited to be bringing her home hopefully soon.

Please feel free to share this on FB or on your own blogs!

Thanks,
Leslie

Valentine's Day!

I organized my pictures tonight and realized how seriously behind I am in my blogging.  I'll try to do some catching up this week.  This is out of order chronologically, but since it is "dated", I'm going to go ahead and post it.

We enjoy celebrating holidays.  It doesn't have to be a big thing, but just something that makes the day fun or special.  Sometimes it is just doing the little things each year that build memories and traditions within your family.  I'm thankful that Rebecca has a real heart for building these memories and is a great help to me now in pulling things off!

We started with breakfast having waffles and heart-shaped (kind of) strawberries.  Not super themed, but still yummy.  Lunch was sandwiches - but cut into a fun heart shape.  (Thanks Rebecca!)

Handmade Valentines from their Nana!  They loved these - thank you!

Yes, Christopher was there and he also received a card - just didn't want to be in the photo.  You'll see that theme happening again in pictures later in the day.  ;-)

Thanks for my pretty card!

We had other small treats during the day.  I wondered then if any of them were gluten-free, but didn't check.  More to think about on another day.  For now, I'm just going to let her enjoy them!

Afternoon treat.  For those wondering, I have sugar-free hot chocolate for Joshua.  And no, he did not eat a lot of sugary treats through out the day.  His numbers weren't up for that.

 For dinner, we had our traditional pizza - heart-shaped with I love you written on it in pepperonis.  Daniel helped me make it this year.

We had a lot of mushrooms from our shopping trip, so I decided to make stuffed mushrooms to go with dinner.  They were so good!  I know I'll be making these again!

Rebecca the wonderful made treat boxes for each one of us!  She filled it with sweet tarts.  She is so thoughtful and loves to bless others.  I'm not sure her siblings realize what a blessing she is to them!

She also made our dessert for tonight.  She received a cupcake book for a Christmas gift and we have enjoyed her creations.  (More on this in another post.  If you are interested in her making something for you, she is interested in doing this as a side business!)  Aren't they cute?!  Tasted yummy too!

I'm blessed to have a wonderful family.  Thank you God for the many ways that you have blessed me and loved me.

With love
Leslie

Answer

Thanks to those that guessed - and also wrote notes.  :-)  Sorry to be so long in responding!  It's been a crazy busy week -end.

The total spent for all of that yummy food ...

$32

I thought it was a pretty good deal and am excited about all of the delicious things we are eating.  I made zucchini chocolate chip muffins today and they were a huge hit!  Can't really go wrong with a muffin when you add chocolate to it.

More later when I catch up on sleep and other goings on around here.  Hope you are having a great week!

Blessings
Leslie

Produce Shopping

I went again to the Farmer's Market with friends again this morning.  We went early and took notes on what was available and the prices too.  So many good things to choose from.  Here is what we got.

Corn - 9 ears
Grapes - 3 pounds
Zucchini - 7
Garlic - 5
Bananas - 23
Tomatoes (Roma) - about 25
Asparagus - 2 bundles
Oranges - 16
Apples - 13
Sweet potatoes - 22
Red potatoes - 57

So, here is your part.  How much do you think I paid for this?  Make your guesses and I'll post the answer soon.

Blessings
Leslie

Beyond Co-op: Thomas Edison #2

We had a impromptu field trip with our Beyond Co-op group.  This lesson just looked like too much fun to do at home, so I thought it would be fun to add a meeting for our group.  These lessons were all from Chapter 7 and we covered them all in one morning in a very hands-on way.  (This wasn't technically our second meeting, but since this one comes first in the manual, I'm posting it first.)

I contacted a local historic site and asked about the availability of using their one-room schoolhouse.  They were very open to doing a brief history of this one-room schoolhouse and the use of these schools in general. 

She then left us in the school to do our own lessons.  How neat is that!  For those that are local, this is the Hughes Academy in Hillsborough.

We started with a lesson on penmanship.  We talked about the importance of penmanship and why it was valued so highly in the time of Thomas Edison.  Each child was given a page with some quotes by Edison.  They copied the quotes using their best handwriting.

Next we had a lesson on paying attention.  Thomas Edison struggled in school because it was hard for him to stay focused on the lessons the teacher was talking on.  It really reminds me of one of my own children.  He is incredibly smart and at times incredibly distracted.  I know that he can do great things and am just trying to encourage and teach him as best I can with God's help!

For the first exercise, I split them into 2 groups and gave them a list of activities to do.  The instructions at the top of the page included "read through all of the items and then start".  There were 12 listed activities.

 Some of the activities included standing in a line from oldest to youngest, doing 5 push-ups, singing the alphabet song, name the capitol of your state and more. 

Soon after they started, I got tickled and realized that they had not followed the instructions.  I had wondered if this would "work" and was somewhat surprised that it did. 

You see the last item on the list said "Only do the first two items on the list".  It prompted good discussion on paying attention. 

We then had one more activity on listening/paying attention.  For this activity, the children worked in pairs.  The partners sat back to back so that they could not see the other person.  One had a piece of blank paper and they were to draw the picture (of various shapes) that their partner described to them.  One of the other moms and I demonstrated this for them.

Then they tried it. 

Most of them did really well with this and seemed to enjoy it. 

It proved to be a real challenge for one of my boys with auditory processing disorder.  I knew it would be hard for him, but thought he would be able to do it.  I tried to help him work through to be successful.  Its hard watching your kids struggle - though at times I think its good for them too.  I want him to learn that he can do some things that he doesn't think he can do. 

 
Now, school was out so each child took a turn ringing the bell.

A picture in front of the school at the end of our lessons.

Our last lesson was on "how far is 1/2 mile"?  This was how far Thomas Edison had to walk to go to school.  We took a walk to demonstrate.  It was a beautiful day and the walk was easy and pleasant.  We walked to the courthouse and took a photo in front of one of the monuments.

And one of the moms too!  We so rarely are in front of the camera. 

What a fun morning!  We missed the families that weren't able to come to our impromptu outing.  I'm thankful that this worked for some of us though as it's always fun to join friends!

One of my sweet friends let me know that today (Fri) was Thomas Edison's birthday.  We've put off one of the lessons in our manual and it just couldn't be put off any longer.  It was making a cake - one that Thomas Edison enjoyed for his birthday.  We omitted the sugar frosting and it was still really yummy.

We are having a great time with this study and have more fun hands-on projects in store!  Hope you are having a great week too!

Blessings
Leslie

Beyond Co-op: Thomas Edison #1

Well, this is only about 3 weeks old, but the information isn't old for anyone who might want to glean from the ideas!  We are doing 2 books this semester with our co-op from Beyond Five in a Row volume 1.  We are starting with Thomas Edison.  We are using the same format that has worked for us in the past.  We meet every other week and cover about 4 chapters in a 2 week time period.  The lessons from our first co-op came from some in the first 4 chapters.  We learned about the Scientific Method.  (Sorry it's sideways)

Ms Julie first explained each step in the process.

I loved the visuals she used to help explain each step and why it was important in the process.  (Example, as you are working on constructing a hypothesis, you need to gather a lot of information and funnel it into one solid idea.)

Next they tried an experiment to see how sound was conducted through a spoon and a string.  Two strings were tied to a spoon.  They took the ends of the strings and wrapped them a few times around their finger and then put these fingers in their ears.  Next they hit the spoon against something to see what happens.  (Try it out for yourself as it is pretty neat and can be done with a wide span of ages!)  After trying it the prescribed way, they then tested out the experiment by changing one of the variables - using one string instead of two, varying what object they used to hit the spoon, etc.  Then they discussed their findings.  

Now it was time to see how well they understood the steps of the scientific method.  The group was split into two teams - boys v. girls.  They had each step on a piece of paper and had to put them in the correct order.  Both teams got them right!  Love seeing that they really are getting it!

Of course, we love our snack time!  Some foods from the story like biscuits, ham and eggs as well as some other goodies!

Unfortunately, I didn't get as many pictures of the next part because I was inside helping to clean.  The kids were each given an egg carton and some eggs.  They were to test a hypothesis about how much weight the eggs could hold.  They could choose to use 4 eggs - or fewer.  They chose the placement of the eggs in the carton.  They also chose what went onto the eggs - like 27 pounds of books or even the weight of your body!

After having fun experimenting, it was time to come in and write up what they learned.  They each wrote down their hypothesis, what they did and then what they learned.  After writing it, they each took turns sharing what they learned.  It was a great to hear all of the details and the different ways that they approached the experiment - and led by a very enthusiastic and encouraging mom!!!  (Great job Julie!)

We learned that eggs are amazingly strong.  My 70 pound son was able to stand on 2 without breaking them! This was such a fun morning.  The material was repeated in interesting and different ways to  help cement the learning.  Thanks for a fun day!

Blessings
Leslie

Krispy Kreme Challenge

For those who weren't reading here last year, this is a race that Christopher ran in.  It's a crazy race!  Here is the general format.

Run 2 miles
Eat 1 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts
Run another 2 miles

Sound like fun?  It didn't to me!  LOL  Last year, the weather was cold and we didn't go out to watch.  This year, some of us wanted to go.  I was so disappointed to wake up to it pouring down rain.  I knew it was supposed to rain - but it was raining hard!  We had decided the night before to try to go - no matter what the weather  The three little boys and one sweet friend decided to go along for the fun.

As we were sitting in the van, in the rain, I really pondered the sanity of what we were doing.  Not that it compares to the sanity of what 7500 other people were doing that morning (the racers).

By the time we arrived, the rain had tapered off considerably.  It was still raining though and it was really cold!  We were able to park pretty close to the doughnut distribution site.  We then walked to find Christopher and Roger.  Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that Roger decided to run the race this year?

We found them pretty quickly.  Christopher was already eating doughnuts.  It didn't take too long before the enjoyment of eating them wore off.

Roger started after putting on gloves so his hands wouldn't get sticky.  (That really seemed the least of the problems with eating the doughnuts to me!)

We chatted with them and watched them eat.

One of the tricks to getting down so many was to smash them all together.

So close when you get down to the last few.  Those are the hardest ones to eat though!

Not sure what type of encouragement Christopher might have been getting from his little brother here.

 What was fun was seeing some of the costumes that people were wearing for the race!  It was hilarious.

Can you see the "girl scout" in the middle?  With facial hair?  This guy cracked us up!

It was quite a mess after most of the runners left.  It was cleaned up pretty quickly though a short time later.

It really was a fun morning.  As most of the runners got their doughnuts, we saw that there were still MANY more boxes.  We went over and asked if we could have some doughnuts.  Christopher had offered to pay $1 for each box his brothers brought home for him.  They told us we could take as many as we wanted.  And we did.

We piled 50 boxes in our van.  (40 of those were going to my house!)  It was crazy.  We then decided to make another stop on the way home at the Farmers Market to check out the bulk produce.  Instead of just looking, we made some purchases.  (I'm hoping to start up a produce co-op soon and wanted to get a feel for what this would look like.)  Great prices and we have enjoyed the food!  Here's what the van looked like after that stop.

This is my share of the fruits and veggies - total cost $16.

So we arrive home and have all those doughnuts.  Isaiah asked if it would be alright if he went around the neighborhood and sold the doughnuts.  I told him it would be fine, but he needed to be able to tell people why he was selling them.  He decided to sell them to raise money for Reece's Rainbow.  Joshua also wanted to sell them and he wanted to raise money for JDRF.  (Yes, we saw the irony in selling these sugar-laden treats to raise money for a group fighting for a cure for diabetes.)  They sold $84 worth of doughnuts at $3 per box.  They were very excited.  I'm really proud of them!

Soon after we arrived home, the runners came home too.  At the end of the race, they were still able to smile.

Roger hasn't touched any of the many boxes of doughnuts we have at home.  Christopher on the other hand has been enjoying them immensely.  All in all, it was a really fun morning.  I look forward to attending (and definitely not running) again next year.

Blessings
Leslie