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Sunday, October 23, 2011

Homeschool-Japan, Australia

For our homeschool unit on Japan we made "carp kites", like a festival they have in Japan. I was so proud of myself for being organized enough to do this. I normally HATE projects like these. But, it was really fun and the kids loved it!
I also made a Japanese meal. I made terriaki beef, sesame broccoli, rice, and clear soup. We didn't use spoons because they just drink their soup in Japan.

For our unit on Australia and the aborigines there, we made home made boomerangs out of paint sticks.Then, we made a "moth mix" since the aborigines eat all sorts of strange things like moths and lizards etc. (We did replace the moths with nuts though...)


For science we have been learning about coral, so we went to the IMAX movie at Omsi about coral reefs. The Great Barrier Reef that they talked about is right by Australia- so that was really cool to have learned about Australia at the same time too.


football, 1/2 marathon, lost tooth, talent show


So, a lot has happened since I posted last. Rob got tickets for us to see the BYU vs. OSU football game in Corvallis. We had to go since Rob was an alum of both schools. The weather was nice and BYU won! It was all good.
We stayed with our friends the Clements that night. I can't believe we didn't get a picture of them. They made us a wonderful dinner and were so hospitable, thanks guys! We had a great time. :)
We went to church in our old Philomath ward. We love the people there.

We got to visit with our friends the McFarlanes after church. When we grow up we want to be like these guys.This is the welcome my kids got there. They are so good with kids.
Jeremy blew bubbles and picked apples with the boys.This is my fun friend Angie that I used to go running with. She has one of the most tender, compassionate, and forgiving hearts of anyone I know.
Lately Austin has really gotten into being "fancy". He loves to wear button up shirts, ties, vests, dressy pants, belt buckles, corduroy jackets, etc. He complains that people aren't fancy like when in older times people used to wear gold and jewels. Anyways, I took him to a Knuckleheads sale the other day and he picked out this whole "fancy" outfit. I think he is a cutie.
Our kids have been attending a craft workshop for kids put on by this awesome woman in our ward.
I ran a half marathon for the first time in my life. I honestly never thought I would, or could do anything like this, so it is a big deal for me. I was running alone, and nervous about it. I started talking to a woman and her daughter right at the beginning. After the first lap around the track, her daughter wasn't feeling good and cut out, and she asked if we could run together. It was such a blessing to me. She was a seasoned runner and had run in like 20 marathons. I asked her advice, we talked about our beliefs in God, our families, it was amazing. She really helped me to do much better than I ever could have on my own and made it a joy.

The first ten miles were actually pretty fun. The 11th mile I was starting to get tired, and I thought I was almost done because we were coming back onto the raceway from the cross country trail. When I found out I had to run 2 more miles I was not happy. It was really difficult for me to finish, but Vicki stayed by me the whole time and I was determined to run the whole time. But we did it! Yay!During my run, they had a free kid's run that our kids participated in. I really think Isabelle gave it her all, because she had a hard time walking today, poor girl!
They gave all the kids little medals afterwards too.Later that night was our ward talent show. They tried to make it like American Idol. Rob was the MC, or Ryan Seacrest. We had Simon, Paula, and Randy Jackson along too. They all did a good job and were super funny!
Isabelle lost her first tooth there. She has been feeling bad that every kid her age, and younger have been losing teeth, so she was super excited to finally have a loose tooth. Unfortunately, she actually lost it, lost it at the talent show! We couldn't find it anywhere, luckily the tooth fairy still came. Phew!
Here are a couple other fun Knuckleheads finds ...Talia update- this girl is wild and crazy. The older kids love her, but are afraid of her too! She likes to hit them with sticks and chase them around the house. She get really jealous if another kids is on my lap, or someone else (like Rob) is holding my hand. I love her to bits and she makes me laugh, but she can be a handful too.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Bears, Seattle, School

Robert earned his "Bear" in cub scouts recently. We are so proud of him!I found this on the fridge the other day. I thought it was cute.For history we studied the Arabian peninsula and 1001 Arabian Nights. We made a hanging "Valley of the Snakes" from the Sinbad story, and put treasure underneath.Rob had a business trip to Seattle that we were able to join him for. We went to this "park" in the middle of downtown.We saw some other cool sights as well.Talia was making friends.
We wanted this to be a field trip to see some sea lions, since we studied them in science. This is all we saw of one.This was near a dam, it also had a place we could see the salmon go through the dam, that was pretty cool.

Back at home, we made home made stamps since we learned that the Chinese were the first to do block printing for books.We did and experiment to learn the purpose of blubber by putting vaseline on one hand and just gloves on the other, then put them in cold water and see which hand can stand the cold longer.
We also made a walrus and seals out of clay.
We got our pumpkins yesterday.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

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!