Nov. 11, 2009 - This Week and Workboxes

This week I finally got Anastasia a set of workboxes.  She decided she wanted to do them too.  We only do workboxes 4 days a week since we have co-op on Mondays.

So what is in our workboxes this week:

In Box 1 for everyone is 2-3 activites for our current unit study which is life cycles.  We are doing another lapbook from Hands of a child.  Anastasia's is called  Animal Life Cycles for grades 4-8 and the other kids is called The Circle of Life it is for grades PreK-3.  I love being able to do unit studies with both to their own levels.  The goal is to finish this lapbook by next Friday before our break.

Box 2- 6 for the girls is Cubbie book, Letter T activities we are doing the letter T for two weeks to tie in Thankful, Thanksgiving, Turkey and Turtles, They are also doing tracing activities and some phonics activities.  Also computer time to play on starfall.com

Boxes for Joshua- Spelling, math, reading, God's World News, handwriting, puzzles, phonics worksheets, Think it thru activities and Awana

Boxes for Anastasia- Math, reading, typing, sewing (the girls patches for Awana ), God's World News, All about me activities and Awana.  She just recently finished her vocabulary and spelling book so I need to order new ones.

This is what we will be doing the next two weeks and then we will take a break for the arrival of our new little one! My c-section is scheduled for November 23rd. 

Nov. 9, 2009 - Preschool Activities Our Letter P page

We finished up our letter P page last week so I just wanted to post a picture of it. 

Front side

Back Side

This week and next we are working on the letter T.  I have again downloaded activities from http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/  I chose to do the letter T so we could incorporate our Thankful Tree, Thanksgiving and Turkeys.  You can see our activites when I post about our workboxes this week.  We will then be taking some time off to welcome our new baby home!

Nov. 8, 2009 - Awana and Operation Christmas Child

In our Awana club we have a monthly mission time and for the month of November our focus is on  Operation Christmas Child .  I have been blown away by the response from our clubbers and our church.  I was thinking we might put together two shoe boxes per club for a total of 6 boxes but we are going to have over 5 times that!!!!  Next Sunday I should have an exact count.

This week we started sorting the stuff and putting the boxes together.  The kids prayed over the stuff first and prayed for the boys and girls that would be receiving the boxes and then they were so excited to help pack them.

If you want to participate in OCC visit the link above it is an awesome organization and you can participate with a church or on your own.

Sparks getting ready to start sorting the stuffPacking boxes

T&T sorting toys 

Cutting out labels for the shoe boxes

Nov. 8, 2009 - ABC Photo Meme-- The letter N

N...N...What begins with N ???

Nesting, Nesting and more Nesting!!!

We got the pack-n-play all set up in our room with the snuggle nest.  Everything is freshly washed and smells so good!

With one of the gift cards from our shower I purchased this 3 drawer storage cart to put in our room for now to hold Jadon's things.  It will eventually go into Joshua's room which will become Joshua and Jadon's room.

Nov. 7, 2009 - Jadon's Baby Shower

Have I mentioned before how wonderful our church is??     They were so gracious in planning and hosting a baby shower for us.  It was a wonderful afternoon of food, fun and fellowship.  My friend Nikki did most of the planning  and organizing and it was beautiful.  We had great food, played silly games and Jay and I were overwhelmed with all the gifts and gift cards.  

Amber, Nikki and Becky making sure everything went smoothly (Thank you ladies!)

Sharron coordinated all the games.  When someone won and got a prize I also got a prize! 

The two grandma's trying to figure out what's in the diaper!  

In this game the one partner had to use only his/her mouth to hold the spoon and feed the baby food to the other partner.

Here are some pictures of some of the guests.  They are some of the most wonderful women I know!!!!

Mom, Tasha, Jadon and Me! 

The gifts......

We received blankets, handmade quilts, diapers, wipes, clothing of all types, a car seat and even a new big girl car seat for Alexa and numerous gift cards to Target.  WOW!

The girls loved helping me open the gifts!

Thank You Everyone!!!!!!!!

Nov. 4, 2009 - Our Thankful Tree

It's that time of year again where we put up our "Thankful Tree" and watch it blossom.  We usually put this up around the first of November and then each morning everyone fills out one leaf with something they are thankful for.  It is a great challenge for the kids because they are not allowed to repeat things they have already written.

To make the tree I just use brown construction paper and make a trunk and branches (as you can see I am no artist).  Then I have the leaves template saved on the computer so I print them out on different colored paper.  I printed a bunch out and cut them all out so they would be ready to go each morning.  The tree looks better and better the fuller it gets as we get closer to Thanksgiving.  On Thanksgiving we take them down and read over all our blessings!

Nov. 4, 2009 - Count Your Blessings, Name Them One By One

I wanted to share a blessing that happened this week.  I want to have record of it so when I sometimes forget how God blesses us even in the little ways I can be reminded.  Jay and I have been wanting to get bunkbeds for the girls since before we moved to this new house last March.  Cost and getting exactly what I want have been the two inhibitors.  I want wooden bunkbeds that have a twin on top, full on bottom with drawers underneath.  This way it will fit all three girls and eliminate other dressers in their room.  We have found several we like from Craigs list and Jay can even make them (which would be awesome).  The added expense comes in with the mattresses they add $150-$300 to the cost.  So we have been praying, saving and holding off.  Let me go back also, in the mean time we got rid of Savannah's toddler bed when we moved and the two girls have been sleeping on a blow up mattress or on the hide a bed in the playroom (they actually love sleeping there).

A few weeks ago a friend from church asked us if we wanted a twin mattress in good condition that they no longer needed.  Awesome score one!  Then just yesterday Jay was getting ready to leave for band practice and one of the guys he picks up told him to make sure the surburban was cleared out and all seats down because he and his mom had an early Christmas gift for us.  Well we had no idea what it could be.  I waited patiently impatiently and finally called Jay.  He told me they gave him a queen size mattress.  (Jay never mentioned to them about us needing a bed for the girls) I have to be honest here my first reaction was "a queen size mattress what are we going to do with this?  It would be a bed for the girls but God, you know we are wanting bunkbeds and need a full size mattress".  I immediately repented and started thanking God for this provision and said even though I don't understand I will be thankful and I truly was and thanked God through out the day.  Jay finally got home around 7:30pm and unloaded the bed (mattress, box springs and frame) as he brought it in I thought it looked rather small for being a queen and told Jay.  He said they said it was a queen.  So we set it up and I got out some queen size sheets and they were too big!  What???  I got some full size sheets and they fit perfectly.  Jay and I were so excited.  We now have the two mattresses we need for the bunk beds.  Now Jay can either make them or we will continue to save to get them.  The girls were excited to sleep on the bed!  Thank you Lord!!!  It is all in His perfect timing we just need to continue to pray and have faith and know that God provides everytime.

I hope this encourages you all to continue to wait on the Lord and His timing and to accept gifts from the Lord even when it might not be what we think we need or want.  It was an excellent reminder for me!

Oct. 31, 2009 - Halloween Fun

I love this book and once again Claudia shared it with us at our annual home school Pumpkin Parable Party.  Claudia provided great crafts for the kids to do, pumpkins to carve, yummy chilito eat and a great time to relax with friends.

On Saturday we started the morning with orange glazed cinnamon rolls with orange juice, orange plates and ornage cups.  They were yummy and this was the only picture I got.

In the late afternoon we went to the church for some fun activities and then came home and went trick or treating as well.  However this year I pooped out.  I couldn't handle all the walking.  I went ahead and put Tasha to bed she wasn't feeling that well so she didn't do any trick or treating.

My sister-in-law made this shirt last year when she was pregnant.  I think it is so cute!

Our little gymnast!

Lilo and Stitch

Christina and Stitch

Our goth girl.  This was a great costume for her because it is so not her personality and she had fun with it.

The trick or treaters

Happy Halloween!

Oct. 29, 2009 - Preschool Letter of the Week.....P

We skipped up to the letter P this week so we could tie it in with our pumpkin activities and I found some really cool activities. 

Here are the activites that the girls are working on this week and are in their workboxes:

These first activites are ones I downloaded, printed and laminated they are all from http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com.  Erica graciously shares all her creations on her blog.

Lacing uppercase and lower case P

Using sticker dots on the letter P.  Theyloved this!

Graphing pumpkins.  These pages are laminatedso they color in one box for every pumpkin on the page.  It goes to 10

Sorting small, medium, large, pumpkins

Spelling/matching letters,  Go to this site to see how to make the letters.  I have been saving milk caps but you can also get disks to use from a craft store. 

Color matching

Ok now this one I made myself before I realized that Erica had already done the letter P and had all that other stuff available.  I made the numbers 1-10 on pumpkins and cut out as cards and the girls have clothes pins or you could use paper clips and put the correct number on each card.  If anyone wants a copy let me know and I will gladly email you a copy. 

We always do one of these letter pages for our book.  This week they are coloring it and glueing on popcorn seeds and pumpkin seeds.

This is Alexa's color plate, doing the color orange this week.

They each get their cubbie books in one of their boxes

The picture is bad but this is a book I made for each of the kids.  On the first page they draw and color a picture of their pumpkin.  The second page is where they record their measurments of their pumpkin.  The third page they glue on some pumpkin seeds to make a pumpkin picture and on the last page is a fill in the blank for a pumpkin poem.  They have to fill in adjectives describing pumpkins.  Their poems turned out really cute!

So that is our letter of the week activities.  We will do the letter E next week.

Oct. 28, 2009 - This Week and Workboxes

After two weeks of slacking and just doing basics this has been a great week for getting things done and having fun with our workboxes!

What has been in our work boxes this week you ask??  We have been doing regular work plus throwing in fun Halloween activities.  Also I skipped the girls to the letter P for the week because after all pumpkin starts with P.  And boy are we having fun with it.  I was looking at this blog http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/  which is awesome by the way and I started to make my own letter P activities and then I noticed she had already done the letter P....so I have one of my own and then I downloaded her wonderful activities, printed, laminated and am so excited to do them with the girls.  ( I will post pictures of these in my Preschool Activity post next)

First off we made our annual Pumpkin Playdough.  This stuff always smells great!  Here are some of their creations:

Anastasia made the pumpkin

Here are two special activites from box 6 this week. Box 6 is the last box for both girls.  On Tuesday the kids found a baggie of popcorn, some candy corn, a glove, a spider ring and a piece of yarn...

They got to make spooky hands.  The candy corn is fingernails then they fill the rest of the glove with popcorn, tie it and put the ring on a finger.

Then today they found a baggie with 3 marshmallows, a pretzel and fruit by the foot and they made these cute creations.....

I thought these turned out great!  It was our first time making them and they are so cute!!!  If you want to try it do this.....Poke the 3 marshmallows onto the pretzel.  Open the fruit roll up but do not unwrap it.  Cut it in half horizonatally.  Then unwrap it as you wrap it around the marshmallows.  We didn't have black gel or frosting we only had red so we used that for the eyes.   It was a mummie day so we also had mummie dogs (hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls for lunch).  We made little pumpkins as you can see in front of the mummies.  They are made from melted peanut butter chips, a can of vanilla frosting and orange food gel.  Then we stuck a pretzel piece in for the stem. 

You will have to wait and see what we come up with for Thursday.....

Oct. 27, 2009 - Family Fun Night.....Pumpkin Carving Time

 For Family Fun Night we carved our pumpkins tonight.  We didn't make it to a pumpkin patch this year so we bought our pumpkins at WalMart.  We went out to the garden center and I said "look honey it's a pumpkin patch we could take pictures here!"

Anyways the pumpkins were in the living room and I sent the kids up to play for awhile they didn't know I was going to hide the pumpkins so when I called them to come down and get their pumpkins they were missing and there was this note instead...

Where Oh Where did the pumpkins go?? Go ask the witch, she might know.

Alexa found the next clue on the witch's hat.

Leave me alone to fly my broom...why don't you go look on the door in the craft room.

Savannah found that next clue.  I didn't get a picture.

No pumpkins here as you can see.  Now go look on top of a low tv.

The pumpkins could be anywhere so why don't you go look behind the rocking chair.

I didn't get a picture of that one either but the clue left there said:

To find your last clue you must go downstairs and look on the table covered by things that say "Boo".

Alexa found the last clue here and it said:

The time is getting late so don't delay go look inside the place where Natasha plays....

They were hiding in the pack in play!

As Jay started carving the pumpkins I read a short story to them....

Being a Christian is just like a pumpkin!

First, God picks you from the world and brings you in  "...but I have chosen you out of the world."  John 15:16

He then washes all the "dirt" off the outside that we received from being around all the other pumpkins.  "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17

Then, He carefully removes all the "yucky stuff" out from the inside, all those seeds of sin, doubt, hate, greed, and fear from inside us.  "For we know our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with...."Romans 6:6

Then He carves a new smiling face.  "My lips will shout for joy when I sing praiss to You- I whom You have redeemed." Psalm 71:23

Now He fills us with His light.  "...let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds..." Matthew 5:16

So you see, we Christians are really like this pumpkin!  We will never be the same with Jesus inside of us.  We can say like this pumpkin,  "Thy presence, my light!"

The kids had to weigh and measure their pumpkins before we started for an activity in school tomorrow. 

We didn't get to do the mummy wrapping game as everyone was getting tired.  Jay wondered why did each kid have to have their own pumpkin as he was still carving while they all went off upstairs to play!!!!   I should have gotten a picture of that but didn't.  I think I was too busy trying to clean up.

Oct. 27, 2009 - Muffin Tin Monday (Tuesday for us)

This weeks theme was Fall Harvest/Halloween.  Anastasia helped me get it all together this week and we had fun.  We are going to have a special lunch or treat each day the rest of the week.

Here is our picture:

I have two pumpkin tins so the kids shared (Each got three)  Starting at the left we had spider creatures, fingers (half string cheese with bell pepper for the nail) and a witch's broom (pretzel with cheese whiz to hold on triscuit crackers)  In the next one was a pumpkin shaped grilled cheese sandwhich and in the last one was ghoul's soup with an eyeball (tomato soup with half an olive on a small piece of string cheese).

The kids loved it!!!

Oct. 24, 2009 - Joshua's Party....Finally

We finally had Joshua's party today.  It had been put off a couple of times due to getting ready for Battle of the Bands and due to finances.  We were going to have to put it off again because of some unexpected bills and then we were completely and unexpectedly blessed by two friends in our church who gave us a very generous gift card to Peter Piper Pizza.  So we changed the location of the party to there from the park.   After all the changes, only two of Joshua's  friends were able to make it but he still had a great time.

Anastasia decorated the cake!

Joshua's buddies from Co-op

Boys! 

Joshua was very greatful and excited about his gifts.

I love this picture!

A new light saber from Daddy and Mommy since he "mastered" his training at Disneyland.

Happy Birthday my dear sweet Joshua!  It has been 6 wonderful years !

Oct. 19, 2009 - Back to Co-op....Finally

 My kids love our homeschool co-op!!!  We missed the first two weeks in September due to our vacation and they could not wait to start back and see all their friends.  We have several new families that have joined this year so we are up to 20 families and almost 50 kids!!!

(Ok not the best picture.  We were racing out the door, Jay took the pic and I didn't have time to check it so everyone is squinting into the sun!  But there they are ready to go  back packs and lunchboxes all set)

For the month of October I team taught in Joshua's class.  We did a unit study on art and artists.  The kids learned so much and were amazing in their own creativity.  Anastasia's class did a unit on traveling through history and studied some early American history.  Savannah's class did a unit on the human body.  Now our big girl Alexa gets to stay each week in her own class since she is three.  She did fabulous and loved it!!!  I think she had a different theme each week.  One week was polar bears.

They learned about Vincent van Gogh the first week and painted this still life of sunflowers.  The kids did an amazing job and they all need to be framed.

This is Joshua working on his for some reason I don't have a picture of it finished I will need to take one and post it.

The second week they learned about Henri Matisse and how he used pieces of cut paper to make a picture.

The third week they did a self portrait and sculpted with playdough.  I will have to get pictures of all of Joshua's art work. 

One week for snack we had a "pencil"

It is a piece of string cheese with a bugle and raisin for the writing part and then a circle piece of bologna held on by mustard for the eraser.  Check out this link for directions:    http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/chew-on-your-pencil-784817/

Savannah is using her lungs to make a painting picture

Cleaning with shaving cream is great fun!

Our big girl ready for co-op!

We had two "after co-op" classes offered this month...Worship dance and bird house making.  Savannah and Alexa participated in the dance and Joshua made a bird house with dad.

We have a week off now and will be ready to start back in November.  (Co-op is always the first three Mondays of a month and then sometimes a field trip is planned the 4th week). I will be teaching in Savannah's class next and we will be making a lap book on American Indians.

Oct. 18, 2009 - Awana

I am really enjoying our Awana club and watching God at work through it.  We have been in full swing for two and a half months now and things are going quite well.  I have served in Awana for many years but being a Commander is new to me this year and Awana is new to our church this year but the support is wonderfully overwhelming. 

I just wanted to share some pictures of our Crazy hair/hat night:

Cubbies

Sparks

Truth and Training

Oct. 17, 2009 - Battle of the Bands

Battle of the Bands was finally here!!  It has been a long anticipated, prayed and preped for event.  It was an an awesome night of praise, fellowship, food and fun.  Seven bands competed for two awards one was best hymnal transformation and the other was audience favorite.  Jay and several other men have put in long hours building the stage, setting lighting and planning this outreach event.  We had around 400 people attend.  The Wednesday before hand during church we all went out to the stage an Pastor Don dedicated it and we all prayed over it and God is continuing to answer our prayers from this event.  Everyone has had such positive comments and can't wait for the next one.

The stage

 Me and my honey.  I worked at a booth we set up for Awana selling soda, candy and chips to help fund our Awana store.

 Our booth

Air One even came out and set up a booth

The judges.  It was so awesome that one of the judges was Jay's highschool youth and choir pastor.  That was very exciting for Jay.

 Hot dog booth and bouncer

Two of my girls enjoying the music.  Anastasia helped at a booth that was having a rockband competition.

Announcing the winners.

Oct. 16, 2009 - Getting Ready for Battle of the Bands

Our church is getting ready to host it's first Battle of the Bands "A Hymnal Transformation"  It is going to be awesome.  This outreach event will be the biggest our church has ever done and it has kept Jay extremely busy.  They have built a stage and 7 bands have signed up to compete.  They need to take a hymnal, pick a song and transform it.  They can also perform up to 3 more songs and they will be judged on the hymn and then audience favorite.

It will be on Saturday and a lot of the stuff like lights and generators and what not were delivered on Friday so Jay wanted to stay the night at the church because he was going to be working late and just to make sure everything was okay.  A friend brought over a motor home and I thought it would be fun for us all to camp out!    So we grabbed a suitcase, our fire pit, marshmallows and graham crackers and microwave breakfasts (all the must haves LOL).  It was a lot of fun!  The kids had a blast and we got to spend some more time with Jay.  In the morning we had breakfast and I took the kids back home to shower and nap before the big night.

What a Fun Night!!!

Oct. 13, 2009 - Ocean lapbook Pictures

I finally got the kids Ocean lapbooks put together.  Here are some pictures.  I don't have any of Anastasia's yet.

These are pictures of Joshua's, his and Savannah's are the same except he has some reports in his.  Alexa's is just one folder and a few activities.

You can see in the upper left of the lap book I printed off a collage of pictures we had taken throught the unit of different activities that we did that would not fit in a lapbook.

This was a great unit and I was glad to have a PreK-2nd grade one and an upper elementary one.  It worked really well getting to teach them altogether but at their levels at the same time.  You can find these units at Hands of a Child.

Oct. 13, 2009 - Muffin Tin Monday (Tuesday for Us)

This week's Muffin Tin theme was Kebabs. Click here to join in the fun.  I want to get some of the cute little skewers but we just used toothpicks for today.  The kids got carrots, cheese and ham, pineapple and peaches, cantaloupe and pears, strawberries, and green peppers.  They loved it and even had 2nd and 3rds.  

Oct. 9, 2009 - Family Fun Night

We finally got a family fun night in.  It has been crazy around here with Jay getting ready for Battle of the Bands at our church.  This week we focused on making a prayer cube.  This came about because a few weeks ago Jay had been talking to the kids about how to pray and The Lord's Prayer.  We are trying to get them to expand their prayers and "talk" to God more.  This lesson focused in on this and was great.

This activity also came from Family Time Activities this book is "Running the Race".  We went through the scripture Matthew 6:9-13 and Ephesians 6:18.  Then they each got a copy of the prayer cube that I copied onto cardstock.  We went through each part of the prayer and labled our cubes: "Praise God", "God's Will", "Daily Needs", "Forgiveness", "Wisdom", and "Anything".  We put the cubes together then each of us had a chance to roll it and pray for the topic it landed on.  I think it is a great visual for the kids.

 After this we ended our evening with a fun stacking game (this idea came from my friend Kymberly, Thanks!).

Each person got a stack of oreo cookies to see how high they could stack them.  Then we got to eat some!!!  This was a lot of fun.