Misc pics from last week

Ok, trying to get caught up on blogging!

Here are some misc pics from last week,

in no particular order.

 We've been doing a lot of patterning with blocks lately.

 And a lot of drawing!

Here's a solar system!

 God made me wonderful!

 Emilie made a girl spider (lol).

 And they danced around outside on the porch

when the weather was nice.  :)

 Emilie finished sewing her first bag!

(With a lot of help from momma).

 And we hit the playgrounds when it was nice outside..

 And got to hear this one-man-band

play silly tunes at Rio!

It was a good week.

Dr. Luther and the eggs

Before I went to the retreat, we went to a farm not too far from our house.

Dr. Luther is an amazing farmer!  He's a retired government worker

who farms over 100 acres of land by himself.

He has polio, so he gets around all those acres on a little golf-cart type car.

And he took us ALL around his farm in that golf cart!

It was sooo fun... our personal tour of a real farm!

We saw the cows grazing in the fields (and one was giving birth!!!)..

the baby lambs...the cows...the pigs...the horses...

And then we to the hen house where he loaned us 2 dozen eggs

to incubate in our borrowed incubator at home.

 I couldn't help but think of that verse when I saw all the animals..

"The cattle on a thousand hills are mine."

The whole earth, and everything in it,

belongs to the Lord.

 These hens are the "dalmations" of chickens.

Aren't they pretty?

 Although the henhouse itself was NOT so pretty.

Nor did it smell nice.  :/

 So he marked all the different breeds and gave them to us...

(Did you know there were 6,000 types of chickens in existence??)

About 2,000 live in the US.

 And here they are!

Incubating at 99-100 degrees.

I have to turn them every 2-4 hours while awake.

In 21 days, they will hatch, if all goes well!!

We'll keep them for 2-4 weeks and then 

return the chicks to Dr. Luther's farm.

Out of this 2 dozen, only 12 will likely hatch, per Dr. Luther.

My friend only got 8 to hatch.

I think I will be happy with 5.  :)

 

The girls are SOOO excited!

They can't wait to hold and play with the chicks!

And neither can I.  :)

Retreat

I am so behind on blogging!

Last weekend was incredible.

I went away to a homeschooling retreat in Baltimore

(first time ever away from the kids overnight.)

And I was so blessed by the amazing women there!

I don't have many pics, but the theme was:

Celebrate the Journey.

I can't summarize everything.

A lot of is is super personal.

But God was bringing so much conviction, wisdom, insight,

and encouragement to me through the speakers!

I think I cried through every session.

(And I wasn't alone.)

I came home truly refreshed... blessed...and with

an even clearer vision of why homeschooling is 

the right choice for our family.

 

I also roomed with an awesome girl, Shane, who 

started homeschooling last year.

I am learning so much from her!

She rocks my world.  :)

I am just so blessed!

Love this homeschooling journey we are on!

Beautiful Day

Oh, it was SUCH a gorgeous day!

It was a rare, 75 degree, sunny, breezy day

right-before-the-horrible-pollen-hits-you kind of day.

An open-all-the-windows kind of day.

So we finished up our God made us wonderful unit

and played for hours outside.

 Loved seeing her smile today!!

 Such a happy girl, she is!

 Such a goofy one, she is!

 I just love this pic.

I think I can see the little girl I used to be

in Eliz here.

 We had a pizza picnic at a park for dinner with

our neighbors.  We are going to miss Sophia and

her family!  They are moving to Delaware.  :(

Oh, how it did this momma good to be outside!!

It.was.perfect.  :)

Treasured Tales of Childhood

Call me crazy, but vintage children's books make me unbelieveably happy.

I am happier to have found 3 childhood books of mine in my mom's basement 

than if I had won the million dollar jackpot.  Honestly!  

So you can imagine how giddy I was this week...when I came home with these..

 This lovely book is a collection of classic kindergarten stories -

The 3 little pigs, The little red hen, Peter Cottontail, etc etc...

 The girls LOVED the 3 little pigs!

Of course we acted out the story afterwards,

and I was the big bad wolf blowing down

their straw and stick houses!

{What a great story to highlight Matthew 7:24-27:

²⁴ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶ But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”}  ... How did I never see this connection before?

 And of course, Peter Cottontail.

The gorgeous illustrations might not translate in my pictures,

but I remember looking at these same pages

as a child and loving the wholesomeness

of HOME...

 And the 3 little kittens who lost their mittens...

Emilie absolutely loved this one (and all of them)...

 The Story of the White Rat.

You can't find illustrations like these anymore!!

To see this picture again after 30 years

brought back a flood of childhood memories I had forgotten.

 And the "happily ever after", of the white rat

and her husband rat, savoring stew in their

tiny house in the mountainside.

Again, a picture of domestic loveliness

that left a lasting impression on my 6 year old heart.

I think Emilie is equally taken with this book!

She asked to read it over and over today.

 And HOW did I not know I had a d'Aulaire book in my possession as a child?!

The d'aulaire books are famous for bringing history to LIFE

in wonderfully engaging stories for children.

I'm working on collecting ALL of them, but 

they are a little expensive and hard to find used since

almost every homeschooling family in the USA wants a set too.  :)

The kids LOVED hearing about our first President!

And last but not least...

this classic.  :)

Emilie loves Alice in Wonderland!

This sweet 1951 copy is broken in half

but I still brought it home anyways.

The kids loved the pictures.

It was just awesome to pass down something

precious from my childhood to my girls...

hoping they will build memories of reading stories with me,

which they will, in turn, share one day with their own children.
And so a tradition will be born.

Happy birthday to my wonderful huzz!

I didn't get a chance to write about Jee's birthday!

He didn't want a party this year,

so we did something we haven't done in ages. 

We dropped the kids off at grandma's (thank you mom!!) house,

and trekked up to UMCP to watch the final game of the season against UVA.

 Never mind that he was dressed in all orange and blue

among a sea of red and black (including me, ha!)...

We enjoyed cheering in the midst of dead silence when UVA scored (haha)...

And thankfully, we did not get heckled.  :)

 It was a crazy good game!

They tied and went into overtime and UVA won.  :)

I think he really enjoyed his birthday.

Happy 36th honey!  Love you!

MFW: U is for Us! God made us Wonderful!

We've started a new lesson on letter U, God made US wonderful!

We had already read a lot about the human body

in previous weeks, so we had more fun with crafts today.

 Eliz's nose is too funny!  ;-)

Their pics SO capture their personalities... haha...

 We did a lot of tracing/pre-writing, but I didn't take pics.

After awhile, I start to bore myself with the same old, same old!

 But so much of learning at this age is reinforcing skills.

If they don't practice forming letters, they forget!

(As I quickly realized with Emilie).

Above, the bead stairs on the abacus.

 A scooping activity for Eliz.

 I didn't capture all her combinations of cylinders, 

but Em had fun stacking them in various ways.

 Scooter time!

 Ok the moss might like kinda funky in this pic,

but this was a really neat idea I saw on a lady's blog.

It's a bowl diorama of Good Friday.

These are the clay stone, clay cross, and clay tomb we made awhile back.

There's a tomb behind the cross which you might not be able to see well.

So on good Friday, when Jesus is crucified, all the greenery

will be wilted by then.

Come Resurrection Sunday morning, we'll put flowers and 

change it up - to show new life.

They loved making it with me today!

And on another happy note - 

they loved their LEAP co-op yesterday.

It really is such a blessing!

They blasted off as astronauts to the MOON in their class.

Eliz destroyed her moon in the pic, 

but these projects were super cute.

Cupcake for my cupcake?

 I went to a baby shower this afternoon (such fun!!)

and brought home some delish cupcakes for the girls...

Did she eat it?

NOPE!!

{SIGH}

Wondering when my 3 year old will start eating like a 3 year old!

(And sleeping like one).  

 But oh, they were soooo amazingly good!

 And the rest of the food was so awesome!

All to celebrate this awesome girl!

So happy for you, Mags!

Can't wait to meet... (Madison?)... soon!

VERTICAL file folders!!!

Ok I have to admit, Martha Stewart's products are genius!

As soon as I saw these on Pinterest I had

to run out in the rain and get some from Staples.

Vertical file folders that fit into magazine holders!

Where have these been all my life?!

I have been struggling to find a system that works

for all their weekly papers and this.is.exactly.what.i.needed!

I don't have much room on my shelves

and I didn't like using horizontal file folders and file boxes

that I had to open and close, etc.

So the easy-access, open sides have made 

weekly planning SO much better around here!

I can just turn the files around when I want to hide them

and flip them forward when I want access.

I finally feel organized. 

Thank you Martha!