Our church Praise Dance Team made its debut appearance last night.  We were at a World Impact Gathering for missionaries and Church plants.  I was soooooo proud of all of them.  This is a picture of their final pose. They will perform for the first time at our church on Easter Sunday.

Happy Birthday!!  Our eldest daughter has hit double digits!!  She chose China as her theme this year and we had a great time celebrating together.

I saw this fun little activity on another blog, and so I thought I would give it a whirl...

Find your new name...

1. Witness Protection Name (mother's and father's middle names):   Sue Wayne

2. NASCAR Name (first name of your mother's dad and father's dad):   Lloyd Alfred

3. Star Wars Name (first three letters of your last name, two of your first):  Gra-je

4. Detective Name (favorite color, favorite animal):  Pink Butterfly

5. Soap Opera Name (middle name, city where you were born):  Joy Mansfield

6. Superhero Name (2nd favorite color, favorite drink, add "the" to the beginning):  The Green Dr. Pepper

7. Fly Girl/Guy Name (1st two letters of your first name, last two of your last):  Jent

8. Gangsta Name (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie):  Cookie Dough Chocolate Chip

9. Rock Star Name (first pet's name, childhood street name):  Ginger Warren

This was pretty funny...I think I'll have the kids try it!

Now this is what I love about Southern California!  It was 68 degrees at our house so we bundled up, drove 2 hours and got to play in the snow!!!  What a blast!!! 

Happy New Year!!!

Welcome to 2009!!!  We had a great New Year's Eve...we went to a family bowling night and our youngest 3 got to bowl for the first time..."glow in the dark bowling" none the less!!  (That's where they got all the party gear they are sporting in the picture!)  Then we came home to play games and eat snacks until midnight when our neighborhood lit up with fireworks like the noon day sun was shining!  The next morning I commented to my eldest that our dog didn't even whine during all the gunshots and fireworks...and he said, "I guess he's just gotten used to it."  So Titan (our dog)  and all the rest of us had a great night! This morning we watched the Rose Bowl parade and part of the game.  What a relaxing fun time!  We missed Daddy (He's on a youth group trip) and Papa and Gramma who couldn't be with us this year...but all in all we started the year off in a great fashion!

The fudge is on the counter cooling, the peanut butter squares are in the fridge chilling, and the nuts and bolts (Chex Mix) are baking in the oven. I just love the smells of Christmas!  This was our 2nd big baking day...so I'll post some pix from our first baking day a few weeks ago when we made  peanut butter squares (yes, we devoured them all...that's why we're making more), chocolate snickerdoodles, mint cremes, peppermint candy canes and chocolate chip cookies.  It's so fun to have everyone baking at the same time...we made goodies...and good memories.

Merry Christmas!!

Aren't they precious angels!!??  Actually, this is the last picture I took at the end of all our nice, smiley, posed shots. I shouted, "OK, be silly!!" and this is what they all did spontaneously.  I guess they really have become Third Culture Kids.  It made me laugh so much that I put it first...but I have also included the "Aren't they so precious!!" pictures as well, because...well...they are precious...

Merry Christmas!!!!

     Last Friday we had a blast hosting a Christmas party for the adults in our church.  What an amazing fun time!  First we went caroling around our neighborhood.  We sounded pretty good by the last house!! Then the kids went to their party at the church (Thank you volunteers!)  while the adults headed to our home.  Everyone brought a snack to share...and the food was yummy. 

    We divided into 2 teams and gave each a bag of wrapping paper, tape and bows with which they had to create an angel (Team #1) and a Christmas tree (Team #2).  Here are the results! (Pretty great don't you think?!)

Our tree enjoyed her costume so much that she wore it home...walking 4 blocks!

The other contest was "Building a Gingerbread House."  Here are the final products....along with a few action shots!

How sweet is fellowship in the family of God...especially when we are celebrating the most amazing gift of all time...our Messiah!

During December we have had some special events at our Power House, our church.  Two Sundays ago, we held our 3rd Annual Bethlehem Breakfast...except this year it was a brunch, and instead of the traditional pancakes and sausage, we served pancakes and fried chicken.  (The chicken was donated by another church!)  Everyone enjoyed the menu change! 

After breakfast we had an interactive play.  One person is randomly selected from each table to play a role in the Christmas story.  Each table is given a bag full of props to create the costume for their character.  When they hear their character named during the narration, they come forward to act out their part. This year one of our children drew the star...so he got to be a sheep.  It is such a fun way to remember the true reason for celebrating!

 Getting decorated to be a sheep.

 Mary and Joseph and their donkey.

All the characters at the manger: a star, an angel, inn keeper, camel, donkey, 4 shepherds, 3 sheep, Mary, Joseph and 3 wisemen...Don't they look great?!

After the play we toook each individual or family's picture at the manger.  While that was occurring we had crafts at each table.  We had a wonderful time.

This past Sunday (Christmas Sunday) we were so blessed because 2 very diverse groups (a motorcycle club and a church) donated enough toys to bless each child and youth from Power House with 2 gifts. The kids were very excited to receive the gifts.  Another individual also provided money so each family could receive a special book about Christmas and a cross ornament.  We cooked 400 hotdogs donated by the motorcycle club, and some of their members served the lunch.  It was a great day.  It is amazing what can be accomplished when the family of God pulls together to accomplish His purposes.  We are so thankful for the volunteers and donations that God has provided!

Some of the motorcycles parked outside the building where we meet for church.

Serving lunch.

      I enjoy this season of the year so much.  I love the wonder and the anticipation as we get ready to celebrate Jesus' birthday. 

     We got our tree on Monday and decorated the house that day too.  There is nothing like the smell of a freshly cut tree, even if it is so hot that we turned on the air conditioner in the car on the way home from the tree farm!   

     Each morning during Advent we light our Advent wreath and have special devotions.  Then we add one more circle to our Jesse Tree. We also take a link off our chain to count down the days until our Savior's birth.  The children have chosen their favorite recipes, and so Monday afternoon we shall commence baking.  The children have also drawn names amongst each other so they are now each on a quest for the perfect gift for the sibling whose name they drew from the hat. 

      One last note concerning advent...this is one of my favorite websites.  It's an advent calendar with all kinds of ideas for different celebrations, including advent wreaths, a Jesse tree, carols, crafts, Christmas around the world and vocabulary. It tells you suggestions for each day of Advent in each category.   No matter how you want to celebrate Advent, this site has it all coordinated! 

Since discovering his writings in high school, C.S. Lewis has been my favorite author. I read and re-read Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce.  As a family we've read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Prince Caspian together.  This year, since we are studying the middle ages in History, the children (with just a little encouragement from mom) decided to dress up in medieval costumes.  Imagine my delight when many people saw them and said, "Oh they are dressed as the  children from Chronicles of Narnia!!"  Not necessarily our original intention (except for our youngest dd who has wanted to be Lucy for 3 years!), but I present to you the Pevensie children...Edmund, Susan, Lucy and Peter~ straight from Narnia!  (If I would have thought about it, I would have had Lucy carry our stuffed Lion!)

Lights on.....

Lights off...

A few weeks ago I was at the center where our Church meets, and one of our new friends met me on the stairs as I was coming down from my classroom.  She and her boyfriend had been attending our church for about 6 weeks.  "I have a favor to ask,"  she said. "Will you be my maid of honor?!?!"  I about fell off the second story.  She (V) and her boyfriend (K) had decided to follow Christ and in their discussion about baptism with my hubby, they decided that after 7 years of living together they not only needed to get baptized, but also get married!!   So 10 days later our church plant had its first wedding!!! Our family was soooo privileged to be a part of the wonderful celebration. They asked the girls to be the flower girls, and when God provided rings, they asked our youngest to be the  ringbearer.  Our oldest served as photographer and captured these moments.  And of course my dear hubby married them. Everyone in the church helped out by providing food, wedding clothes, flowers, invitations, rings, decorations, music and photography.   They even got a honeymoon night in a hotel by the ocean.  For a couple that doesn't have a home that is an amazing treat!!  Isn't God good?!?! We had such a blast and we are still talking about it!  Weddings always bring tears to my eyes...but this one seemed extra special.  Please keep them in your prayers as they seek to grow closer to their Savior each day, and as they work to find employment and housing.

 The Flower Girls

The Ring Bearer

 The Bridal Party is ready and....

here comes the bride....

The ceremony was beautiful...

The New Mr. and Mrs.!!!!!

One in Christ

Several people have asked me about our chore and behavior charts, so for fun, I thought I would blog about our "system."  We've used this on and off for the last few years...with some tweaks here and there.  With 4 kiddos and homeschooling and ministry we needed an efficient way to keep our day running, so this is what we developed.  We call it R4Rs which stands for Rewards for Responsibilities.  So when I want to remind them to do chores or be on task I just say..."Are your R4Rs finished?"  If they want to play, or watch a video, or call a friend, I first check, "Are your R4Rs finished?" 

We keep our charts in the hallway. These are the boys'.  The girls' are on the other side.

As you can see, they aren't fancy...but they keep us on track.  I made them out of posterboard and velcro.  We keep the extra pieces in baggies on the wall.

Here is a close up of one of the charts.  (DD was very emphatic that I explain that she did not earn Xs on obedience and attitude, but that I put them there just as a demonstration.)

Each child's chart is tailored to their specific tasks and responsibilities.  For example, dd's chart has "Care for Pinky" (our turtle) while "Feed and water Titan" is on eldest son's chart because he takes care of the dog.

Also, when we started, our youngest couldn't read, so his chart has drawings beside the words so he could do his independently.

The first section is for behavior, and the 2 categories are attitude and obedience...most everything falls into those categories.  We change what pleasant rewards and unpleasant consequences are distributed, but currently if they get 5 xs or less in a week, they receive a reward. 

After behavior on the chart, comes our daily routine and they have to have certain things done by certain times during the day.  Some responsibilities need to happen everyday (brushing teeth) so I wrote those in marker.  Some chores rotate (sweeping, mopping, cleaning bathroom, taking out trash, dusting blinds, etc.) so those are on green posterboard and I can add them to the chart anywhere in the day.  (I usually put them in the afternoon.)

One thing that is different now is that instead of just clearing their place they also each wash their own dishes after every meal.  With no dishwasher, things tend to pile up quickly. So we only keep one set of dishes for every person in the drainer, and they have to wash them in order to eat again. :)

Also, each room (boys' and girls') has a laundry day. When it's their day, I put "Do Laundry" up on the chart. That reminds them to bring me their laundry outside to the washer. I wash and dry, then take it back to their rooms where they sort, fold and put away.

The last row is for smiley's. When they have finished all their responsibilities for the day and have not had Xs for behavior and attitude, they get a smiley. Seven smileys in a week brings celebration and reward because they were responsible.  Yippeee!!!

Our system doesn't always work...sometimes we are gone, and they don't have time to finish...life just happens, and our house looks like a tornado blew through.  But in general this works for us pretty well.

We visited a pumpkin patch today.  We had fun looking at the amazing sizes and colors of pumpkins.  This wasn't a U-Pick field, but rather the workers had gathered them all in one place...quite an amazing site. 

There are eight children hidden in the picture below...can you find them?

Just kidding...we really only have four in there!

 We had a great time wandering around all the pumpkins and the farm displays, but the pumpkins were pretty pricey...so we stopped at a local grocery store to buy our pumpkins on the way home!   Happy Harvest!

The start of our new school year is right around the corner here at Harmony Academy and we are so excited to begin.  This year we will also be part of Sky Mountain Charter School. This is a new step for us, but we are excited about the possibilities it will open up for us, while still allowing us to maintain autonomy in our schooling at home. 

Drumroll, please, our new curriculum is as follows.

All the children will be studying...

History - Winter Promise ~ Quest for the Middle Ages

Art-Great Big Book of Art/Medieval Art

Music - Guitar/Piano Lessons

PE- Gymnastics

DS ~ 5 yo, Kindergarten

LA - Five in a Row, Saxon Phonics K-1, Queen Language Lessons, Reason for HW

Math - Horizons K

Science - Noeo-Physics I and Ring of Fire Earth Science

DD ~ 7 yo, 3rd grade

LA - LLATL yellow, unit studies, Spell Well C, Reason for Handwriting, Analogies

Math - Horizons 3

Science - Noeo - Physics, Ring of Fire Earth Science

DD ~ 9 yo, 4th grade

LA - WP LA 4, LLATL purple, Spell Well D, Reason for Handwriting, Analogies, Red Hot Roots

CA History and State Unit Study

Math - TT 5

Science - Noeo Physics I and Ring of Fire Earth Science

Language - Signing Times

DS ~ 12 yo, 7th grade

Math -Teaching Textbooks Pre Algebra

LA - WP LA7, Classical Roots, Apologia  Jump-In, Analogies. Apples Spelling

Science - Real Science 4 Kids - Chemistry, Physics, Biology

(That's not a picture of our schoolroom at the top of the post.  :) I took it in the old schoolhouse at Law's RR museum that we visited this summer.)

Besides our travels, we had a few other highlights this summer.

Our youngest daughter turned 7!

Our oldest child turned 12!

The birthday girl also lost her 1st tooth, and a week later promptly lost her 2nd one.

The kids had a great time at a sports camp sponsored by WI.

We also took a trip to the Kidspace Museum.  They had lots of fun things to do...all based on nature,inects and bugs.  They had huge climbing equipment shaped like leaves and raindrops so you felt like a bug crawling up them...and tunnels underground as well. 

There was a great nature room where the kids could examine all kinds of different specimens.

One of the most interesting things was the active beehive behind glass.  The kids could search for the queen bee and watch the workers do their thing. There was  a huge clear pipe to the hole in the roof so we could watch the bees enter and leave.

Yep, it's been a great summer!

The kids and I had a chance to take a trip to spend a week camping with Papa and Gramma.  We came from the West and they came from the East, and we met at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. 

What a great relaxing week.  We stayed in their pop-up camper, which slept all seven us quite comfortably. We had a great screen tent for shade where we ate and played games. 

The campground was beautiful with plenty of room for playing outdoors...

...and a great pool!

The canyon itself was spectacular. What a creative God we have!  The rock formations are called "hoo-doos." They come in all shapes and sizes.  We even saw one that looked just like the Acropolis!

We hiked along the rim to look over...

...and we hiked into the canyons to look up.

We even found a cute little town to have  a picnic lunch and some ice cream.

The kids enjoyed doing the activities to become junior rangers.  They took their oaths to protect nature and eat their vegetables very seriously.

We happened to visit Bryce during their yearly Astronomy Festival so besides getting to visit the canyon and the museum at the visitors center....

...we also got to look through solar telescopes to see the sun during the day, and multiple giant telescopes to see the stars and planets at night.

The Park Rangers  host the Astronomy Festival at Bryce because it is one of the darkest places in the US.  Most places have so much light pollution that it is difficult to view stars.   (Being from LA...we could totally understand this concept.) 

One huge treat was hearing some great speakers, among them Story Musgrave, the astronaut who repaired the Hubble telescope.

We enjoyed this week so much, especially the fun time with Grandparents who live far away.  These precious memories will be treasured!

In the first week of June we headed north for a week of family rest and relaxation.  We stayed in Mammoth Lakes, where there was still snow on the ground!  We went fishing (caught 5 fish!), went hiking, visited Yosemite and ate s'mores.  We saw deer, birds, fish and a bear!  (Plus chipmunks too numerous to count.) We had an amazing, wonderful time!

The kids on a hike in Mammoth...

We stopped at hotel on the way and had lots of fun in the pool.

Our trip to Yosemite was great because at this time of year the waterfalls are still flowing strongly from snowmelt.  This is our first glimpse of Bridal Veil Falls.

Lower Yosemite Falls

Fishing and Hanging Out at the Lakes...

We took a short (if you ask the rangers) or long ( if you ask the kids) hike to Rainbow Falls.  The trail led through the Ansel Adams Wilderness area.  It was well worth the hike!! (You can see how the falls got their name!)

We hiked down a very slippery and treacherous path to the bottom of the falls.  The thundering of the water and the mist spraying our faces took our breath away.

On our trip back home we stopped at Law's Railroad Museum.  It was chock full of interesting things to see.  The museum is set up as a town with artifacts spread throughout the buildings.  We really felt like we stepped back in time. We were so glad we took the time to visit there. 

We had a fantastic time!!

Now that our computer is fixed and our pictures and data have been recovered from the crash, we'd like to share a few things from our last month of school.  We had our last cultural exploration from our Winter Promise Quest for the Ancient Worlds.  We combined our Greek and Roman Day for a little comparing and contrasting fun.

First...the Greeks...

then the Romans....

and the chosen artifacts for the museum are....

A Seed Mosaic

An Olympic Torch

A Roman Standard

We also finished some lapbooks before the end of school.  The children all contributed to the Greek lapbook,

 dd (6) completed a butterfly lapbook,

and ds (5) finished one on transportation.