Weekly Wrap up!
Sunday after church we attended our local children’s museums 6th birthday party. The kids made “Chicken Squawkers,” homemade harmonicas, played various special games and ate chocolate cake. Even daddy showed up for the fun.
Naomi and Zion making their chickens Naomi being a cashier
Daddy giving Naomi a hand on the rock climbing wall
Monday we spent the day at the National Mall. My mom weaved us into DC with our oh-so-lovely GPS and we parked 1 block from the mall. After baby number 3 I gave up taking the Metro in (Scary to say as a teen my buddy and I would hop on the Metro and tour the museums on weekends). There’s never enough room for all our gear and we’re crammed in w/ commuters who stare at us like we’re animals (you know CHILDREN OUT during the day?!). We could spend a month “doing DC” everyday and still not scratch the surface of all it offers. I still try to spend a day at the Museums and/or National Zoo a few times a year. It is such a wonderful resource. This time most of our day was spent at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Right when we came in the door the boys saw the original C3PO suit and they were thrilled! I did not realize they now have a large collection of Thomas Edison’s original journals, light bulbs, drawings etc. A lot of the items from his laboratory are there. We also saw Abraham Lincolns famous top hat and Jacket he was wearing the night he was shot. They had a great hands on kids science lab called “Spark Lab.” SO MUCH, we could have just spent a week in that one building. As it was we only did two of the three levels.
Feel'n the love of "the hat!" C3PO! C3PO! C3PO! C3PO! C3PO! C3PO!
Edison's Journals Catching a train!
Next we went to go to my favorite Smithsonian Museum, the Museum of Natural History. At first I was excited because I was reading their signs for their new Monarch butterfly exhibit, since we studied Monarchs this fall. Then I started reading the fine print “Monarchs-Partners in Evolution.“ What!? By the time we got to the front door we were bombarded with Darwin and Evolution propaganda everywhere!
Really? They had to go and mess with our butterflies?! Leave the Monarchs out of this!
Nope, Sorry, Na-da! We're NOT "celebrating" ANYONE other than Jesus Christ!
To HIM be the GLORY...not this dead man.
***GAG-SNORT-BURP!*** In short we skipped the Museum of Natural History. I haven’t been under my rose colored glasses and not known they taught Darwinism. However, before I could pick our exhibits, enjoy what we wanted etc AND AT LEAST GET IN THE DOOR!
The National Gallery of Art was breathtaking. I had not allotted a large chunk of time for there b/c I didn’t know how long the three year old would last in the quite art gallery (since she was licking the carpet at the Homeschoolers Day at the National Portrait Gallery we attended last fall ;) She did wonderful and really enjoyed it. Of course I have no photos to show from there b/c cameras are not allowed. We saw a wonderful exhibit of Spanish Knight and horse Armor from the 15th and 16th century. We also enjoyed the Renoir and Monet galleries. That night we visited with my dad’s sister, which was special b/c it was his birthday and he died 16 years ago (unbelievable). She’s an artist so Jadin had a whole box of her supplies out breathless (I got a lot of Christmas ideas from that, wink). We spread out in her living room and settled in for the night.
"The BIG PENCIL!" (Are we the only one's that call the Washington Monument that?)
A little wild fun!
LETS DANCE!
Naomi putting on a show
Good Night!
The next morning we headed out to Mt. Vernon early. I had not been there since I was 9 (and my mom said it’s been since she was 9 too). WOW! I wish I was more articulate at this point or could just insert a movie of our day *here*. They have made so many improvements. When we first got there we watched a 20 minute movie that was a wonderful overview of his life. Next we walked the property, what we could of the 50 acres anyway. We took pictures on the bowling green and toured the house. We got to see the bed he died in and his study complete with his family bible. We enjoyed the stable, his carriage, gardens, etc. We went to a talk with “Martha Washington.” They have a new education center and museum. The education center was so complete that we thought we also toured the museum and found out later we had not....there was more! The education center had the forensic remaking of what George would have looked like in his younger days. It had his sword from the French and Indian war. We got to touch an actual cannon ball from the revolutionary war, how cool is that! They had his original dentures on display, now that is learning! We learned about his war horse Nelson and about so many other aspects of his life. Talk about bringing our study of George Washington alive! I also went to their teacher resource center, as an educator, I received a fat folder with worksheets, DVD and computer software etc. We had to skip several exhibits and additional films just based on time alone. We spent over 6 hours there. I can’t wait to go back and hit what we missed!
Mt. Vernon "back" Mt. Vernon "front"
The boys on the Potomac George Washington's Carriage
Of course during these two days immersed in American history the boys appetites were wetted for MORE George Washington and the Revolutionary War. Wednesday we spent the morning unpacking and cleaning, you know the regrouping once your back home. However, in the afternoon we spent a good four or five hours on their “Life of George Washington” lapbooks. I will post pictures of those on next wrap up, they look really great! I’ve never seen kids so excited about “writing George Washington Quotes!” The kids also jumped back in with their math, grammar etc. We're doing another lapbook on Grammar that I plan will take us most of our year. It will give them a great resource in their hands to refer too. Lately I've been spending alot of time on http://cindyrushton.com/ and have printed off a wonderful volume of free notebooking pages that we're woking in. Lapbooks and Notebooks will have to be another post!
Football is almost over. Zion played wonderful in his game Thursday (and did not cry 
! ) Jadin has two make up games this week and he's done. Friday morning we all woke up with runny noses, coughs etc. I was fevered and just didn't feel like moving. The kids piled in my bed and I read to them for two hours. Then we landed in the living room and watched Fiddler on the Roof for the afternoon. Boy, that is such an educational movie. It led to great discussions on Russia and the kids looked up Siberia in the atlas. We discussed Jewish customs, the law, arrangement marriages and how to write a screen play. Whew! That's what I call "Couch Schooling" for a sick day. Last evening was still Travis and I's much needed date night so we loaded up on our dayquil and ventured out dispite how we felt. We hit all the exciting places, IHOP (even though I couldn't taste my food), the dollar tree and wal-mart. We are so cool, tee-hee. I spent my shopping time buying more hand’s on supplies for the kids and he bought stuff to change the oil in the mini van. It was fun and nice to have no background noise and just be together. We also made the horrible mistake of trying to see a movie, we just got up and left 30 minutes into it. YUCK! And that's all I'll say about that. So where does all this leave us? Still sick 
this weekend. We've just canceled all our plans, football games, church etc and are staying home watching movies, drinking ginger ale and taking on/off naps. A whole 'lotta nothing outta fix us! ((AND Thank You Jesus we ARE healed!!!)
That's my LATE wrap up of our week. If you'd like to read more timely wrap up's CLICK HERE!
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