Here are a few pics from our fire station tour. I didn't put all of them because most had our friends' kids too  and I wouldn't put their pics up without permission.


Here is a door that was in a fire. It separated the living room from a bedroom. The fire was on the living room side.



And here is the side of the door that was on the bedroom side.

Having the door shut saved the life of the man that was in the bedroom.
My kids next to a firefighter all gussied up in his fire duds. If you call a Policeman "officer", What do you call a firefighter (if he's not the captain or the chief?)

This pic was difficult to take because of the reflective stripes!


Here is Faith listening
And, finally back into the van as Jr. firefighters.
We are planning some more field trips. We are not an official Co-op or even homeschool support group, just 3 moms who want to do fun stuff with our kids and each other!

DID I MENTION WE ARE REDOING OUR SCHOOL ROOM?
I'll be including some before and after pics! Tonight, Pat went out and bought 3 TV's with built in DVD players and you bet I had labels made before the remotes were even out of the plastic! We are talking about getting a magnetic white board where I can hang my pocket chart calendar and write out our schedule. I LOVE pocket charts! I think it's one of those die hard things of former classroom teachers who homeschool their own kids! Gotta have the blue pocket charts!

UPDATE ON THE ROOMIES!
Okay, this was Isaiah tonight before bed! He is slightly less than thrilled to share a room with baby brother because he says the baby wakes him up. The great thing was that the tears only lasted 5 minutes, did not increase, and baby brother did not seem at all bothered!

"The hen sits"

Faith: I can't read that.
 me: yes, you can. You've read every word before.
 Fatih tries again, gets stuck on sits.
me: ( covering the last s) try this.
Faith: sit. I uncover the last s
Faith: The hen ... sits.
me: Great job

Faith frowns. "The hen can't sit. It can't lay any more eggs. God has already given it all the eggs it needs."

me: Well, maybe she isn't trying to lay eggs. Maybe she's been chasing her chicks around all day and just needs a rest like people moms.

 Faith looks at me like I'm quite the cluck myself and she's obviously not buying that but at least being courteous. Yesterday, she had trouble with the /e/ sound in "eggs" because we don't SAY '/e/ggs'. We say '/a/ggs" (with a long a sound). We skipped the eggs and used the elephant picture as our standard for the day. The things mom's need to say to get over those learning bumps.

Well, I can choose to work on DVD covers for K5, or to commit some old tapes to itunes so that they can be repacked up and sent to the floor of my closet! ahhh...sigh... maybe I'll just go get a soda from the pantry and get started on the tapes as they are cluttering up our office!

I am excitedly awaiting my dvd's that I ordered. Blank ones that I can burn my self made movies onto!! They are already sitting ready to burn!! I just have to sit and wait!!

So, here are my weekly categories in addition to a tag which I will do first and then tag someone with it! Looking forward to seeing the results!

I will do the tag first and then those of you who want to read on, can...
If you had to choose 5 foods on which to survive the remaining years of your life, what would they be? Answer as if because you can only choose 5, there would be no consequences of bad choices!!!  No weight gain and cost is not a factor--what if they were free?? Oh and there is no limit on drinks-- you can have whatever you want at the time to wash it down...so just mention the solid foods!
 Mine are:
1)Little Smokies appetizer sausages
2)Mrs. Field's Peanut butter dream bars
3)grilled zuchinni and yellow squash
4)sample platters of "chick food" tea sandwiches, etc...
5)popcorn chicken from KFC

Quips From My Quiver
  " I am pretending that I am Laura (Ingalls Wilder) when I was 7 and Isaiah is Almanzo when he was 2!"--Faith.
Also from Faith: "What would happen if we didn't have tongues?"
 Isaiah is also catching the "tending" bug--he constantly pretends that he is going to a friends house and comes up to me and says " hugs and kisses before I go!" OOOOhhhhh..... I hope he does that when he's 12!! He is my Mr. Snuggly! Elijah was actually snuggly tonight, but that's only because he's miserable with teething!

Homeschool Happens
    Been watching the orientation broadcasts for K5 and I am jumping at the bit! I am sooo excited to start. Pat wants them to have traditional summer breaks in the early grades, so I am holding back!! We haven't even purchased the Reading/Language arts/Heritage Studies stuff yet and I am not ready logistically either, but I am still excited!

Personal Bible Reading: 
  Last night, Pat was already asleep, so I didn't do my "next" psalm--I just read one that one completely out of sequence and this is what it was:
PSALM 143:8
    Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in You."
 I just love this one. I have it circled, but it wasn't last night that I circled it--just proof that God brings me back to this constantly!!


My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
    Taken from May 14th -The Habit of Enjoying the Disagreeable-
(2 Cor. 4:10)
Oh, yikes! This one hits it where it hurts, but ohhh sooo true and it was such a new way of looking at why He saves us.
"We have to form habits to express what God's grace has done in us. It is not a question of being saved from Hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the Son of God in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting His life." 
( um ugh... where is my rock that I may climb under it??)

Sorry, no pics tonight! Maybe next week!

I mainly made this entry for those on my Homesat email list, but all can  enjoy!
Here are the boxes! I had a huge one, but could not fit it all in,but it seems to work with two smaller boxes and they are easier to manage anyway + they will fit better on my new homeschool shelves that Pat built for me! One is labeled for Blockfeeds 1-17 (A blockfeed is a weeks's worth of classes that I record off the satellite dish and then
commit to DVD.)


Here is one of my manipulative envelopes for math. I actually have about 6-7 as they are labeled very specifically ( ie farm animals, rulers, etc...)

  Okay, here is the plan~Every week has 5 folders one for each day and every worksheet we use for every class that day is in the folder which is labeled by lesson #. I color code the classes ( RED=reading/phonics, BLUE=math, and YELLOW=Bible).   Instead of having to look for all the Reading pages, for  example, I just clip them all together with a paper clip that has a red sticker. The same for each worksheet for the other classes.
  I even do this for the worksheets that are singular, so that I do not need to pull out the page to see which class it's for. If I am preparing the night before and need a Bible page, I just grab the yellow paper clip and the worksheet it's attached to.  Actually, Pat will be grabbing the yellow ones, since he's going to be doing Bible. I take the paper clip OFF the worksheet and attach it to the folder and put the worksheet in the folder it belongs to  for the next day's lesson. (Each class has some special character folders we use each day where the child finds the work--the "Hopper "folder, etc..)
Each night the parent fills the child's folder. These folders are for parent organization!


I also put a corresponding color sticker on the DVD cases! As you can see, only one has a Good Label-that's because I haven't done the labels for math and Bible yet.


Now, next year and beyond, these colors will always represent the same classes and we will be adding Green for Heritage studies. Perhaps first grade +, I will not be tearing out individual worksheets, but just letting Faith work out of the workbook itself.

I am trying this out-- I think it's going to work! yeah! It did! Now how do I  resize them first?? on my computer or will photobucket do it for me?

I am so excited!

Faith just needs some more structure and this will add to structure without pressure!
We'll tape the Kindergarten4 classes (more of a pre-K) and can watch them together and relax! The student books are pretty easy--line tracing/nursery rhymes, things like that! The nice thing is that starting this Fall, will give us a bit more time to relax and enjoy school without pressure

Also, we can watch them as I nurse and Isaiah plays in the same room. He might even really like them--neat puppets and energetic teachers...

I had been wary of doing "TV school" before, but since seeing the video samples on line--really, I'm THAT kind of teacher, but without the time benefit of pulling all that stuff together!!!

This can give me an opportunity to use my creative juices elsewhere like fieldtrips, etc...