Mom, The Dinosaur Has Babies

My Little man LOVES dinosaurs!! He is fascinated with them. A friend from my home school group gave him two buckets of dinosaurs to play with and he will play with them for hours. Then I bought a dinosaur unit study (about 30 dinosaur books) from another fellow homeschooler and again he will sit for hours and listen to them.
So, for Christmas we bought him this little dinosaur that walks and roars. The other day I came home from soccer practice and there were potatoes on the living room floor. I said to my husband," Why are there potatoes on the floor?" My Little Man then looks up at me with his big blue eyes and replies,"Mom, they are dinosaur eggs." He had went into the pantry and pulled out about four potatoes and was pretending his dinosaur was going to have babies. Of course his father and I thought this was so clever of our little two year old.
After watching and playing with him for a few minutes I said,"Well, I have to finish making dinner," His face got very serious and said,"DON'T COOK THEM!"

Boo Boo

My baby boy got a boo boo the other day. It was the first one on his face. He has been lucky. Only a couple of scraped knees up until this point.
Him and his brother were chasing each other around with (how ironic) an ice pack. Next thing you know, he slipped and bumped his head on the sub woofer and got a boo boo above his eye. It was bleeding pretty bad and we were trying to decide if he needed a stitch. After applying ice and pressure it stopped bleeding and it looked like he would survive.
The picture captures the drama . I said," Show mommy your boo boo, so I can take a picture." He said, "Ughhhh." lol

The First Tee Golf Program

My children started taking golf lessons on the Air Force base and are enjoying it. They are taking lessons through First Tee and I am so happy with this program. They are learning so much about the sport and are really having a blast. The program instills character values through the game of golf. The Nine Core Values are Integrity, Responsibility, Honesty, Sportsmanship, Perseverance, Respect, Confidence, Courtesy and Judgement.
The great thing about the program are the coaches. They have a little character development lesson at the end of each golf lesson. More importantly, they model these values through their actions. They are always positive and the children come home with big smiles and confidence. I have seen big results from this positive environment:)
My children love it so much they wanted to get their own clubs. With their Christmas money, they were able to buy themselves a set.
Silly guy has been outside everyday practicing. I love his enthusiasim.
Sweet girl loves the sport too. She has found time to putt around. She is a busy young lady right now.
If you would like to check out the First Tee program and see if it is offered in your area click here.

Winter Break

Our winter break is coming to an end. We enjoyed most of our time getting ready for and celebrating Christmas. We also enjoyed some family time since my husband took a few days leave.
I took some time to get caught up on record keeping; averaging grades, assessing progress, and reviewing curriculum to checkout what we have coming up and start making my library list.
I also set up a scrap booking station in the corner of my bedroom. I realized I hadn't scrap booked in about two years. The main reason being everything was neatly in containers in my closet. So, I pulled everything out and it is available when ever I have a free moment. It looks pretty messy but believe it or not I know just where everything is. When I pulled out my sticker album, I was very surprised and excited.

Not only did I pull everything out, I couldn't wait to get started. I ordered pictures(from 2007) and got busy right away. I forgot how much I enjoyed this hobby. Here are a couple of the pages I worked on. My goal right now is to finish Little Man's baby album.

I even found time to make a curtain for the bathroom. I made this out of an old shower curtain we were no longer using.

We took the kids to Putt Putt golf on one of my husband's off days. They had a good time!!

Little man decided he had enough of golf and was enjoying the Reggae music. He was drumming away on this garden light. Notice the booty shaking-he he...It was adorable.

Christmas Mosaic Placemats

We made Christmas mosaic place mats today. It was a fun project and a great way to reuse Christmas cards.

All you need....

black sheet of paper, Christmas card, solid color paper, glue and colorful wrapping paper

1. First, lay the card in the center of the paper and trace around it.
2. Then remove the card and tear the solid paper into little pieces.
3. Glue them around the traced card.
4. Glue the card down.
5. Next, tear colorful wrapping paper into pieces and glue down in a mosaic pattern leaving about 1/2 inch frame around the edge.
6. Last, laminate the masterpiece to be used as a place mat.
   

Easy Stir Fry

This is a great recipe for those busy nights( which we have had a lot of those lately). I usually put my rice in the rice cooker before leaving for soccer practice, so it is ready when we get home. I sometimes will cook the chicken ahead of time too.
Easy Stir Fry
Ingredients:

• 1 lb. chicken or stir fry beef cut into strips
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• small onion chopped
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 3 cups of stir fry vegetables or also good w/ broccoli
• about 2 tbsp soy sauce(to taste if 2 tbsp is too much)
• 1/4 cup water
• cashews(optional)
• salt and pepper to taste
• rice

1. Start by cooking your rice.
2. While rice is cooking, heat olive oil in a saucepan and add garlic, onion. Cook until onion is translucent. Set aside reserving juices in the pan.
3. Add your chicken or beef to the garlic/onion juices and cook until no longer pink.
4. Once the chicken or beef is cooked add vegetables, water, garlic, and onion.
5. Bring water to a boil, lower to med heat and cover. Cook until vegetables are tender(about 4 minutes).
6. Add cream of mushroom soup, soy sauce, salt and pepper(to taste). Cook until heated through.
7. Before serving add cashews. Serve on top of rice.

Gingerbread houses

Today we made gingerbread houses. The kids enjoyed getting creative with this project. We only had enough gingerbread to make one house. So Sweet girl and Silly guy shared one. Little man made his own out of graham crackers.

He had so much fun squeezing the icing out of the bag. He loves

to get creative and messy. This project provided both opportunities.

Of course the benefit of licking his fingers was fun too.

Sweet girl and Silly guy's gingerbread house had icicles , Christmas lights and a garden. Very pretty!

Here they are getting ready to dig in. I told them they could have some

but they only could eat a few bites. "It is too sweet!!!"they said.

Moments

I feel so blessed to share so many precious "moments" with my children. Homeschooling gives us the opportunity everyday.
We have so many moments to love, discuss, laugh, play, discover, learn, teach, cry, cuddle, support, be excited, grow, frustration, etc. I could go on....and on.... I enjoy them all(even the frustrating moments).
After having a wonderful day with many "moments", I said to my children,"I am so glad we have this time together. I am so happy we decided to home school!" My Silly guy then replied to me," Mom, I love this time together too. Plus, if we went to public school we wouldn't be able to read the bible and learn about God." It was a great "moment" for me(tears).

Salt Dough Ornaments

We made salt dough ornaments for our Christmas tree. The kids always love to play with dough and these creations will be enjoyed for many years to come.

Sweet girls snow man

The recipe is: 2 cups of flour 1 cup of salt and mix in water until dough is formed. If the dough is sticky add a little more flour. We also applied varnish to preserve them.

Silly guy's Christmas tree

It is as easy as that. Your children will enjoy creating beautiful ornaments for your Christmas tree.
I personally think homemade ornaments are best!! The ornaments from the store are beautiful as well, but when they are made from your children's creativity and heart....well what could be better than that!

Little man made this ornament. The kids are calling it the doughnut. I think it is kind of in the shape of a heart. It has his precious little fingerprints embedded in the clay:)

I decided to trace Little mans hand and make it into an ornament. Precious! I only wish I had did this for my older children when they were small.

The Secret is Out...The Truth Behind Christmas Photos 2009

Any parent can understand..... Goal: take Christmas pictures of the kids.....seems simple enough, right. Well, it actually means a lot of pictures(125 to be exact) with only a few that actually turn out. Most of the time one of the kids are not looking at the camera, making silly faces, etc. It can be frustrating. At the same time, some of the not so perfect pictures turn out cute. I wanted to share how things actually went. Little Man just wanted to bop hats w/ his big brother.
Sweet girl and Silly guy have always been so close. They kept cracking up
everytime I would take a picture.

Tongue sticking out and everything.

HO HO HO!

Yeah, I don't know what that face was about. I think I kept telling her

to smile and this is what I got, lol.

This one is actually cute, but me being a bit of a perfectionist, noticed he has
cookie crumbs in the corners of his mouth.

Christmas Photos 2009

Merry Christmas from our family to yours:)

A Blog of Her Own...

My Sweet girl started a blog of her own. She is dedicating it to her passion...animals. She has many opinions and is so passionate about animals and animal rights. I gave her the idea to start a blog and journal about the information she finds. She wants to highlight dog breeds and share with readers information about the different breeds.
I think it is a great way for her to get more computer savy and she has been writing ALOT. Shhh don't tell her that!
Her blog is called A Part of the Pack. Go check it out!

Santa's Little Helpers

Today we took Christmas pictures of our pooches. They were so funny!! They were posing and everything. I think they may even be easier to photograph than the kiddos, lol. Our Roxy girl.

Sweet girl told me,"Mom, just take the picture and she will pose when the flash go off."
Our little Wally.
He is such a sweet dog. He waited so paitiently while we tried to
get his little elf hat on.
This picture was too funny. It looks like Wally is thinking...
"What did they do to YOU?" he, he

Our pup's have blessed our home in so many ways. It is amazing what they can teach us.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Let's Say Thanks!!

I thoughtI would pass this on.. it's a great way to say thank you to our troops for serving our great country. You choose which card you would like to send and personalize it.

Projects

We started having "Project Friday". Here are some of the projects the kids worked on....

Sweet girl had an assignment in Science to make a poster- The Benefits from the Sun's Energy. She also finished up a paper on Galileo's imprisonment. In History, she wrote a paper about the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb. She is currently studying Anthropology and Archaeology. She is really enjoying this study and is learning many new things.


Silly guy is studying Ecology in Science. His assignment this week was to take pictures of pollution or things that cause pollution. We took a walk and it made him sad. In history, he is learning about the desert. He researched and made a poster about Solar Energy. In Language Arts, he read Luke 2:1-19 and Matthew 2:1-11. We discussed the passages and then he wrote about the meaning. I was surprised at how much he wrote and his interpretation-Go Silly guy!! Here are the pictures he took on our walk.