Giving Thanks and Service

For thanksgiving this year we spent a few hours (along with others from the ward) by helping a local church deliver meals to members of their congregation that are shut-ins. It was a wonderful opportunity to give thanks to our Heavenly Father by giving service to others. I hope our ward continues to do this every year....and who knows, as the kids get older we may be able to help with other aspects of their community Thanksgiving meal.
Liam definitely didn't want to wait in the car while his "sissy's" got to get out and help deliver the meal.

In the afternoon we packed up the van and took the long and treacherous drive....3-5 miles down the road, to Granny and Papa's house to join other family members in eating our Thanksgiving meal. Here are Delaney and Liam with cousins, Daniel and Ragan.

The favorite place for the grand kids to eat is in Granny's bedroom watching cable TV. Since, we don't have this at home, it's a treat for them....and why not, it's a holiday. Enjoy the mind rotting shows, I'll just have a bunch of classics for you to read when we get home to counter-balance the jello brain you'll come home with afterwords. (all of this is said tongue-in-cheek, of course ;)

In all seriousness, we have been richly blessed--so much more than we deserve. It's been a wonderful time to contemplate and ponder all that the Lord has given us, for our bounteous blessings and yes, even our trials and hardships. Through all the good and bad, we have come closer to our Savior and feel his love in our life daily.
For this we truly give thanks.

We Have a Date!

Our new little girl will be arriving on the 14th of December, unless of course, she has made other plans. Because I'm diabetic and on insulin this time around and our little treasure has Down Syndrome, the doctors want to be in control of all they can with this delivery. I was hoping for my body to naturally go into labor this time, but alas, it's not to be. The upside, we'll definately be home for Christmas. I can't wait to hold her in my arms.....only 3 1/2 weeks to go!

MOM FINALLY FINISHED IT!!--from Cailin's blog

About two years ago Mom and me started a quilt. For a while we worked on it, but then Mom stopped helping. Of corse, I had to stop to, I didn't know how to make a quilt. So, now Mom just relized, "I need to finish Cailin's quilt!" Today, Mom and me worked hard to finish it, and something amazing happened-we did.
Success!!!

Cailin's Quilt

It's finally finished....and it only took me 2 + years.
Delaney's hoping that it won't take me quite as long to finish hers. We'll see, but, I'm not holding my breath. (So, that makes it 3 quilts down, 3 more to go.)

Sweet Dreams

The other night, after Liam had woke up a few times, we decided to just bring him into bed with us. All to soon, morning came and the alarm clock rang. Barry says that as he was getting out of bed he heard Liam talking in his sleep saying......"cockolite, coclolite." (chocolate) We may not have had sweet dreams once he came to bed with us, but, he sure did.

I can't think of a catchy title for this entry....but we had a really great day!

I wish all school days could be as wonderful as this day was. Ryan is studying the Kingdom Monera for science; Connor and Cailin are learning about biodiversity and the biomes of the world. So we took a few hours of the day and headed off to a local pond to gather samples for Ryan's lab experiments and observe the biodiversity of a pond.

Of course, we had a picnic lunch--I'm always hungry and food eaten outside is always fun. The pond happened to be in the area Barry was patrolling for the day so he joined us for his lunch break.
After lunch it was time to get to work. Ryan's lab experiments required pond water....from the bottom of the pond. Here the kids are gather 4 samples of water using our makeshift ladle. he will feed the 4 samples with different "food", let it culture and observe the bacteria growth in a few days. I wonder what we'll get?
Connor received a child's microscope for his birthday. It came with tools to gather different samples with. Here they are busy gathering algae and other items to look at under the scope. Someday, we'll get a more advanced microscope, but this one seems to do the job for Ryan's work right now. Connor's also having fun looking at different things (salt, sugar, hay, pond water, etc) under the scope and drawing the structure of the items.

Now we take some time to sit, listen, look and observe all that's going on around us. The kids are keeping lab journals for their observations (so very Charlotte Mason :) It was nice to sit and relax for a while.

Liam even got into the fun of journaling...."I color too Mommy."

What a cute kid!

Sometime during our outing at the park an older couple came to chat with us. It turns out that they had just moved to the area from a nearby county so that the lady could go to RU for a doctorate in education. She loved to chat with the kids and see us homeschooling. She told us that she was doing her thesis on homeschooling and other schooling philosophies and how she was quite against homeschooling when she started, but has since changed her mind and loves it. It was nice to hear and helped give me further encouragement to go on.

A game of balance beam 'follow the leader'.

It's History Presentations Time Again

My kids are quite tired of my constantly clicking away with the camera at most of our homeschool activities or field trips. I hear "oh, you're going to blog about this too Mom?"

I'm just hoping that one day when they read these entries as our family history, they'll be glad I did; especially since I don't keep up with their scrapbooks anymore. (as Cailin reads this her comment is "history presentations time...Mom are you serious, it's so boring)

For history, the Industrial Revolution....how it came about and what went on was what we have recently studied in greater depth. Delaney really wanted to give a presentation but, I just didn't get around to helping her in time. Instead, she helped Cailin count beans for her presentations visual aid. This became a great math lesson on counting to 100--using groups of 10.

All the kids researched a different invention. Connor chose to find out how tanks came about. We learned that the begining of this massive army tool first started in the the late 1700's with the invention of the caterpillar tracks. During the Crimean War, in 1853, it further expanded. During the two world wars (and others) it grew even more to become what we have now.
Guess how many beans are in this jar? We had numbers from 153 all the way to 1107. The actual amount was 1093--this is how many patents that Thomas Edison had for all his inventions.

Cailin enjoyed learning about Edison and shared info on some of his greatest inventions. All the kids found it humorous to learn that his school teachers thought he was dumb, not bright, and unable to learn. His mom knew otherwise so she brought him home to homeschool.

Ryan shared what he learned about another principle of the constitution. "The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things." Sadly, a concept our governement seems to have forgotten lately.

Another book group activity happen recently too. We read "King of the Wind" the begining of the arabian horses. We made Naan, mmmmmm indian flat bread. Talked about many good luck and bad luck superstitions in our culture. A few horese related superstitions were mentioned in the book that the characters contributed all that was good or bad going on in their life ( a wheat ear or white patch of hair on the leg).

Cooking seems to be a favorite activity the kids enjoy. Who can resist making and eating food you've made yourself. (okay, so I'm a bit tired of this....I'm just glad cereal or pancakes for dinner is okay every now and then.)

Let the Candy Fest Begin....

Ahhhh, Halloween....the time of year for pure, undiluted, sugar filled, dress-up fun. For my kids, this holiday is entirely a quest to get the most candy possible. Oh, don't get me wrong, they love to plan their costumes weeks before, and they have a great time doing so; yet, the desire for candy overrides all.
The sugar fest often begins the Wednesday before Halloween at our ward Halloween party. The ward gathers together for a hot dog and chili dinner. I enjoying seeing all the costumes and the kids love spending time with their friends. After the dinner, the kids enjoyed some songs (well most did, poor Liam got scared with the parachute game so I took him to spend time with Daddy, which of course he loved, he's going through an intense "I want my Daddy" phase. As a side note, I love to hear him chant "My daddy home, my daddy home" all through the house for about an hour or so after Barry comes home from work.) Anyway.....back to the candy fest--the kids had sang some songs and played games in one room and in another they decorated a sugar cookie.....Mmmmm, the first sugar morsel to enter the mouth.

The youth were asked to help the primary kids with the decorating. Ryan helped hand out sprinkles and spread frosting for those in need.

After that, all the kids went from trunk to trunk to gather the first round of delicious, scrumptious candy.....Ryan and Barry handed out our goodies while I helped Liam go around and gather goodies. The kids also got to show off their pumpkin carving creations with candles aglow.

Ahhh, after a few more days of waiting the big candy haul-in day came. For the past 10-12 years we've meet at the Turpin's home along with many friends for dinner and fellowship. Then all the parents with little kids pack up the crew and we're off to walk around the neighborhood as the kids have fun trick or treating. Ryan joined us with this year's walk and pushed Liam around in his stroller, (which for some odd reason he didn't want to get out of--poor Ryan, he had to push him through yards full of thickly strewn leaves--but when I want him to stay in it for a family walk, he wants to get out, go figure.)

We all had fun, I enjoyed time with my friends and the kids had a great time gathering goodies and being with their friends. Afterwards a few more minutes were spent at the Turpin's while Ryan played Guitar Hero, and then we were off for home. Now, the real nit and gritty part of candy gathering comes.....the trading and counting...."what do you want to trade with me for____" I think the kids spend about 30-45 minutes just counting and trading with each other and all their stuff. I was proud of them too, I had them share some with Ryan, and they were very generous.

Well, the day is done, and I'm going to bed once I pry that ooey, gooey sucker from Liam.....better yet, I'll just wait till he's done. Another candy quest is done for the year. Now, they can look forward to sugar plums dancing in their heads.

The costumes decoded--

Cailin--Queen Amadalia from Star Wars

Delaney--a princess

Liam--a pumpkin--yes, the same one that they all wore sometime or another as a toddler.

Connor--Luke Skywalker, from the Return of the Jedi era.

Ryan--a punk kid-teenager, funny he's that all the time :) luv you!!

Carving Up Fun

This year we visited the pumpkin patch called Kroger. They had a great sale on pumpkins--all pumpkins were $3.00 each. With nothing really planned for FHE, and Barry gone at work that night, I decided an impromtu trip to the store would make a great way to spend the evening. The kids looked over all the pumpkins carefully trying to find the perfect pumpkin. After they found what they wanted we found a dozen doughnuts on clearence sale for $2. Yumm, a perfect FHE dessert along with some hot cocoa. Great, now back home we go.

The next evening we dug into the goop, slime and seeds and guts of the pumpkins to create the perfect jack-o-lantern. Of course, Ryan, who doesn't like this sort of thing found something else to do. But the other had fun.

We haven't carved pumpkins for the past few years, so I believe this was probably the first time Delaney would remember doing this. She liked cleaning it out on her own, but had trouble with the carving part. She told me how to make the eyes, nose and mouth, then she put me to work with the carving.

Liam was intrigued with all the goop in the center of the gord, he did his best and was given lots of help.

Lucky for us, we had no cutting accidents....well maybe a few jack-o-launter eyes, nose, or mouths didn't turn out quite right, but at least we didn't have any self inflicted injurys.

Connor worked very hard to create a scowely, grumpy looking guy.

They all did a great job and we had a great time.