Interesting Verse

I thought this was a wonderful verse. And very apropos for my parenting of small children.



My words would be something along the line of, "NO, I do not WANT that polly pocket, I WANT you to get your naked self into the bathtub!"

See ya around...

Forts and Surries...

I LOVE not turning on the T.V. I LOVE telling my children, "NO, you cannot play on the computer." I LOVE when they are bored to offer them nothing but a quiet place to sit and think of something to do.

It produces this kind of stuff...here is their HOUSE/CASTLE...



And here is their carriage (I think it is more of a surrey, on account of the fringe on top, of course)



I think I'm going to ignore my children more often...

la la la la la la la-de-da-dah...when I take you out in my surrey...when I take you out in my surrey with the friiiiiinnnnnnge.on.top.

See ya around...

So What's New with Tapestry of Grace???

Well I'm so glad that you asked. In the 21 weeks since I GOT Tapestry of Grace...we've taken off about 6 weeks due to summer and fun and vacation...which leaves us at 15 weeks of actual school. Several of the weeks were SO full of information we took several weeks to complete ONE week of information. So here we are at the end of week 9 and we are taking NOT QUITE twice as long to do a week as is scheduled...And you know what...I DON'T CARE! We are having a blast. Learning stuff at our own pace...and even the little girls are getting in on the act.

I was having a hard time pulling everything together for a final unit review so I dug out my board this week. Week 10 is the end of the unit, but it doesn't look like it's going to take two weeks to do so I need to get it together.

Here is the board for weeks 8 and 9...


I've been checking stuff off like a wild thing. There is nothing quite so lovely as REMEMBERING to review stuff with your kids. You'll just have to trust me...I am the QUEEN of forgetting to review things because those things slip MY mind.

Anyway, by the end of this week we will have reviewed or RE-learned (if necessary) all the stuff on this list and next week should just be a piece of cake...As I've said, there isn't a ton of stuff there...And then on to a new and wonderful section of history.

There are still a few struggles that I'm having with Tapestry. Honestly there is so much potential that I have a really hard time scaling it down. We had one week (week 7) that took us 4 weeks to get all the way through because I decided we'd read EVERYTHING in both the Upper and Lower Grammar. Because I read MOST of the upper grammar stuff into the MP3 players...I knew that JUST the upper grammar readings that I had recorded were almost 4 hours, and that didn't count the individual readings and picture books that we were reading.

Weeks 8 and 9 have been much better as far as scaling back, but because we dropped a few readings, I'm finding I'm having to do more general lecture than I did, because when you read IT ALL, all the words and objectives are there somewhere. Oh well, the general lecture doesn't take NEAR the amount of time ALL the reading did, and Beanie is happier with a little less...she was getting a little overwhelmed, understandably.

So I'm still a fan. A little wiser perhaps than I was...but I still love it. We are ALL learning so much.

As for other stuff, I want the girls to WANT to learn to cook so we are having a dessert Friday until the end of the year. I kind of decided it on the fly, so this week wasn't particularly healthy or homemade; we had boxed cupcakes with canned white frosting that we colored with food coloring. But we sure had fun making them...scratch that, we had fun snitching them at every step. We were lucky to have any cupcakes to eat...



Until the inevitable happened...(um, yes that IS fingerprints in the frosting...they are SHAMELESS!!!)



TOTALLY shameless...


See ya around...

Wasp Identity SOLVED...

So I hadn't even LOOKED UP that wasp that we found last week. Some homeschool mom I am. But I've been inventorying all my books for the last couple of weeks and came across my National Audubon Society Field Guide Stash (they are AWESOME for any of you interested in that sort of thing). So I started looking through the wasp section and sure enough...there it was orangey golden legs, golden body with the lower half of the abdomen a shiny black...Great Golden Digger Wasp.

Here is a MUCH better shot than I got of it...

Found here


Found here

From 09.2008.Pics

And here is the one that I took...I wish that I'd taken some while it was in the jar so you could see the markings...but now you can compare side by side, maybe I'll get a chance to crop and enlarge this a little later, but for now...

From 09.2008.Pics

The weird thing is that these are usually farther north than Texas...many of them on the upper east coast. I know I'd never seen one and I'm one who would look. We've had a cicada killer wasp every single summer EXCEPT this summer. Sadly our new planters must have destroyed the nest and they haven't come back...those are fun to watch.

Found this picture of a cicada killer wasp here

From 09.2008.Pics

Now that I know what it is, I'm sad that I was so quick to get rid of it...sounds like they are the northern version of the cicada killer in their habits...but this one was MUCH smaller than the cicada killers we've had in the past...one year we had one that was EASILY over 2 inches long...the Great Golden Digger was maybe an inch...still big, but the big cicada killer looked like it could carry off the children.

So there you go, your nature study moment...

See you around...

Soccer Joy...

Well, I set about taking pictures of just mine this week. Because Bubba is coach, we usually get there a few minutes before the team shows up, which makes it a little easier. Once those other kids get there, ya just can't keep the little biters out of the shot.

LOOK at how much fun she is having. This is Bear's face the ENTIRE time that she is on the field. She LOVES this game. She is constantly egging her sisters to play with her...and I believe that the cones are becoming a permanent fixture in our back yard. And if Bubba plays, well, then they are all in 7th heaven...



Bear especially...



I managed to get these at the game. You'll notice that she's not exactly smiley when made to sit out. Sadly, there ARE other girls on the team and they all deserve a shot at GOAL-SCORING-FAME...so she'll just have to learn to sit there...and make her momma laugh from afar...



See ya around...

Boxes, Baskets, Beauties and Bug Bottoms...

Yep, got 'em yesterday...so far all I've succeeded in doing is making a mess...But ah, the plans I have...



The weather has been so lovely we've had the windows open for days...I LOVE this time of year. The late night soccer games and glo stick fun and star gazing...and the all day open windows that mean that lessons can come in and go out at will. Spring and Autumn are my very favorite. Theirs, too... (Well, and Christmas/Birthdays of course.)



And here are the best pictures of the wasp through the microscope...Boy, oh BOY! It is hard to get a good shot of a couple day dead wasp under a microscope. There must be a trick to it...but I don't know it yet. Still, check out that stinger! Notice that there are no barbs on it, as there would be on a honey bee...so yep, this guy could sting over and over and over and...well you get it.





See ya around...

Sehen Sie den Hut auf meinem Kopf? Es ist eine GLOCKE.

Which means, per my babblefish translation..."Do you see the hat on my head? It is a BELL."

Chicken-the-bird has found her bell...she thinks it makes a fine hat...she even sleeps with it that way. Bubba and I think it makes her look a little German. If only she could speak, we would teach her the title of this post...but sadly, all she can do is whistle. I need to come up with a German song to teach her. Oh, my cousins residing it GERMANY??? Any suggestions?



On to other news...the littler girls are having a pretty good time with their preschool and kindergarten crafts...we'll have to make a few more of these because they are a hit...the one on the left is ROSE and the other is GEORGE. OH, the adventures that Rose and George have had. I must say that they've held up admirably over the last 5 days. Rose is a touched squished and you have to MAKE her close her mouth and George is good as new after the arm gluing incident. I found the craft (actually this and a ton more) at DLTK ... this is just one of the crafts on the "B" page. Fun FUN!!



We also had some excitement. As we were gardening we found this...


Here is a still shot...



It is a wasp of some sort. We captured it. Actually it was easier than it would seem to catch a wasp...but because it was on the ground and pretty intent on that hole, we just upended a jar over it. After the...uh...euthanization...every kid on the block got to see it under the microscope...I'll have to get a picture and show you it's eyes and it's stinger...amazing.

And finally, the progress on my two rooms isn't NEARLY as much as I'd like...but there has been some.

Here is the schoolroom...the books in the smaller shelf on the left have all been inventoried...the stuff on the right, and floor are still waiting to be inventoried. I did get most of the stuff out of my kitchen. The pink tabs are simply row and column references so I can put it into my inventory spread sheet.

My cousin, Oddy, (Mr Dinosaur's wife see October 2007 on my other blog) is an organization guru along the lines of those people on Clean Sweep...oh how I wish she didn't live so far away. She just sent me pictures of a project in my uncle's house...and it made me a little jealous that they have that brain residing so close. Miss you, Odd.



And here is the playroom. The baskets STILL are not in. Actually, to be truthful, the inventory on line said that they were in for ONE day, but I couldn't GO that day, so I missed out. About that time I said, "FINE, FORGET IT" and went and picked up cardboard banker's boxes. They aren't permanent but at the very least we are making a touch of headway. I need to do most of it when the kids aren't looking though, because you would not believe how important odd little MacDonald's toys really ARE to the 5yo...especially if she can't remember getting them at MacDonald's. There is much more drama in the sorting than I expected.



We also have a TON of soccer pictures but you know how soccer is, a BUNCH of kids in one shot. And I don't have permission from all those kid's parents to post them. I'd rather be safe than sorry with other people's children. But, just so you know, Bubba, Beanie and Bear are having a BLAST...how's that for alliteration. Bubba is coaching, Beanie is "helping" and Bear is playing. AND Bear scored the first 5 goals of the season in our game on Saturday. She just loves it. You should see her grin as she runs in the masses...it makes me so happy.

(There I think I fixed the formatting...picasa has the ability to link to your album, which it already sort of does, all you have to do is click the picture...but the added link shows up at the bottom, skewing the formatting of everything else. Turn off the link and you can do more with the formatting. I learn sumpin' new everyday. HAZAAR!!)

See ya around...