Family Pics, school in September

We asked my friend Kim Doman to take our family's pictures and I am happy with how they turned out. Here is a sampling.








As for the rest of life...

Robert caught a snake.
For History we talked about India and then made colored sand pictures. As you can tell, Robert still loves to wear his "cape" from the Celtic war we did.Ok, this picture made me really want to make sure Belly's hair is done every day.
Austin started preschool with Miss Connie again this year.
We visited my friend Lori at her work to teach the kids about Nursing. It is my goal to have them learn about a different occupation each month.It happened to be "Western Day" the day we were visiting.
For science this week we have been learning about whales. The use sound to communicate through hundreds of miles of water, and to locate food. So, our experiment this week dealt with sound through different mediums.Robert had a hard time hearing, they had a hard time keeping the string taught, but, they got the point.
The kids also made whales out of clay.

For our homeschool group I taught a class on Leonardo Davinci. He was an all around amazing person with inventions he thought of way before their time. He also felt like he needed to know people from the inside out to be able to draw them. So, for our project I had the kids draw some objects from the outside, then we opened them up, and they drew the inside.I started both Robert and Isabelle in piano this week. Robert wasn't super interested in piano when I signed him up, but his teacher has given him so much confidence, and he really has some talent. So, he is loving it now. I am just happy it is boosting his confidence.For English I have been having the kids memorize poems. Isabelle has memorized 3 so far and absolutely loves it. I had her perform for the Lords and Ladies group (homeschoolers) and she wanted to say them every time someone walked in the door. She also loves to act out her poems. Robert hates having to say them in front of a group (he is more like me this way.) I tried to upload a video of them saying their poems, but I think it was too big.

Isabelle memorized her last two poems in 1 day. As reward I bought her a fruit tart. We have been reading about Alice in Wonderland lately and she asked me what tarts were, so I got her one.I also wanted to try my hand at them. Here is my attempt. They are very yummy!

Begin of Homeschool year 2011-2012

So, I was really nervous to start school this year since I would be homeschooling both Robert and Isabelle. Now, mind you, I completely let Isabelle choose. She was doing just fine in public school, but she asked to be homeschooled this year.

Rob gave us some blessings before the school year started that really calmed my fears, and so far, I think this has been our best homeschool year ever. Robert is doing the best he ever has. He is much more focused than he ever has been before, can work independently, and seems to soak up the information better than ever before. Isabelle is just getting used to the routine, but she is so easy to work with, and happy about her work. She just memorized a poem (The Catepillar, by Christina G. Rosetti) after like only 3 days of working on it. She is also very proud of her spelling. :)

We are studying ocean life for science and the Middle Ages for history. Our first fun activity for homeschool was making Roman columns for history, and we ate them because they got torn down by invaders. We were lucky enough have the Ledesmas staying with us for the weekend that week. We love you guys!!

Our first field trip was to the tide pools at Haystack Rock in Oregon (think Goonies).

We got to see green sea anenomes, star fish, crabs, and aggregate sea anenome. So fun!
We then went to Seaside and played in the sand.
We saw Lewis and Clark.

The kids got these fun hats there.The next fun activity we did was a Celtic war reenactment for history. The Celts would put blue swirls all over their body, spike up their hair, and wear cloaks (since it was chilly there). They also liked to use axes.The girls would paint their nails, and were known for being great warriors as well. Talia totally wanted blue swirls on her as well. When I just put them on her tummy, she pointed at her arm and said arm, arm!


We invited Britain and Camry Ross to join us, and we are so glad they did. :) We had a lot of fun.Afterwards, Isabelle came in and continued drawing blue swirls on herself. She went a little crazy.

It took quite a bit of scrubbing to get all of that blue off of everyone!
So far, so good.

Idaho trip, end of summer

I love business trips, at least when we get to bring the whole family along! Rob had a trip to Idaho scheduled, so we brought the fam. The first day we were there, I looked up a hike to take the kids on. This one was highly recommended, so I took the kids.It basically looked like a big dusty dirt hill that went up at a 90 degree angle.

The kids and I had a bit of a tough time getting to the top, but the view was awesome. We could see the whole city. Also, I was able to get some great cowboy pics of Austin.

The kids were having a hard time handling the 100 degree weather, so I took them back to the pool to swim. I was able to teach Isabelle the dolphin kick and how to dive. It was really fun. :)

The next day we went swimming and then to this park.

When we got back to Washington, we took the scouts to the LDS Humanitarian aid Center in Clackamas to donate some of the balls and school supplies we collected. I am the wolves leader and Elizabeth Kullberg is leader of the bears.

Afterwards we took them to Krispy Kreme. It was a lot of fun. :)