Kitty Litter Cake!

Connor loves to bake, so when I saw a book in the library about gross cakes, I thought he'd enjoy it--as he likes all things gross, I mean he is a boy, you know!

Thumbing through the pages, his eyes perked up and he declared that he'd found the perfect birthday cake for his upcoming party.....Kitty Litter cake!!


He had worked all summer long with his dad in their mowing business to save up and buy a Wii in time for his gaming birthday party. As time came closer, he fell short of his goal so we made up the difference and suprised him with the game (along with the birthday $$'s he got from grandparents). He was quite thrilled!!

He invited some of this firends for pizza, gaming, jumping on the trampoline and....

KITTY LITTER Birthday Cake!!

They all had a grand time....and enjoyed the cake too! (whereas Barry, when he saw it in the fridge before the party--not knowing what it was--exclaimed it looked so gross there was no way he was going to eat that thing--it was totally disgusting. This from a man, who has eaten some pretty interesting things while on his mission and in the army in Afganhistan before.)

Happy Birthday Connor!!

Campfires and Starry Nights

Due to Barry's deployments and summer camps with the military he has grown to dislike anything about living outdoors--he's no longer enthralled with the idea, or practice of, camping. Yet, he knew that the kids would probably love it.

As for me, I fondly remember camping as a child and I wanted those memories for my children as well.

At the beginning of every summer we talk that this is the year we're going to take the kids camping. Through the years we've accumulated a few camping supplies, but we haven't actually gather them together, put them in the truck and go camping. It was late in the summer, (actually a few days before the season officially changed to autumn), but
we finally made good on that promise and went.

Connor could be a pyromaniac. The boy loves to play with fire. We didn't even have the truck unloaded or the tent up before he begged us to start the campfire. Once we gave him the go-ahead, he did a fairly good job. With just a few pointers from Dad, he soon had a fire ready for us to cook our hot dog lunch over and then we were off to play in the creek.......

The creek waters trickled in it's bed of rocks....it was disappointing and the kids grumbled a bit at first, but they soon recovered--ingenuity kicked in and they decided to build a dam. It still didn't garner a great amount of water but, they did have fun.

Cailin showing off the dam they built and Liam sporting a happy muddy bum!

Connor took over the fire duties once again. We prepared tin foil dinners. If you were lucky enough to get one with the potatoes fully cooked it was great....if not, well they were still good, just a bit crunchy. Delaney thoroughly enjoyed hers--she was particularly excited to be out doors, she had been talking of this trip for quite a while with her friends, so she could have had a crunchy tinfoil dinner and we would have never known.

I think the best part for me was the chance to relax and not deal with the normal routine of school, cooking, cleaning and appointments. Barry and I got to discussed and solved a few of our logistical problems of life.--amazing what a night of fresh air (or maybe it was the campfire smoke) can do to help clear my troubled mind.

Cailin became our 'water fetcher'. She cleverly devised a way to use her backpack to carry the empty milk jug to hold the water as she rode her bike back and forth from the water spigot to our camp site.


(Cailin is speaking) One thing before I start to write about the camping trip- I took the picture of Brianne. OK...my over all opinion is it was fun. Yes, I was the official water fetcher or whatever Mom called it. I liked to ride my bike up to the part of the creek where it would at least go to your ankles. It was a very dry creek. One part of the trail, aka, dirt road, I would ride had a hill that if you were walking up it you would notice it, but not really care. If you were driving, you wouldn't notice at all, but on a bike.....it made my legs feel like jello. Weird thing was, when I was going back to the camp site, I felt like I had more energy. Strange....

Now back to Mom--

Night time wasn't incident free, but it wasn't terrible. For sleeping arrangements, the older boys slept outside of the tent. Ryan shut himself away in the van, (Cheater), Connor roughed it out on a cot, under the stars. The rest of us were part of a lightly structured free for all in the tent floor. I have to give it to Brianne, that little warmth sponge would follow you anywhere in order to snuggle. I woke up thinking about my time in the military. The thought that if you wake up after sleeping on the ground, and feel like you've been thrown down a flight of steps, it must be a success. Over all, we'll go again (even Barry said he enjoyed the outing). Now I wish we had more time before cold weather comes....maybe we'll get lucky and have a warm November and we can go again this year.

From Cailin's blog....My favorite things to do are....

I like to read. No, LOVE to read. My favorite books are......

J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books.

Erin Hunter's Warrior cat books. My favorite book in that series..... Into the Wild, the first one

Julie Bowe's My Last Best Friend.

I also like to write. Right now, I'm writing one about a girl who finds a magical world.
I like to play my flute. My favorite song right now is "Spring Time Waltz."
That's all I will tell you now, or you'll be reading this for a week, and I'll be typing it for a month.

24,747 Pages

Last year, during the Christmas holiday (2-3 weeks), I challenged the kids to read 2,000 pages of literature. When they reached that goal in 3 days I upped the goal to 7,000.



They enjoyed this achievement so much that I suggested we do it again for the summer break. I gave them the goal of 30,000 pages, yet that seemed a bit to daunting for them; so the goal became 20,000 pages of literature read from June 1 to September 1. They read a grand total of 24,747 pages!



Ryan found a great new series--"The Temeraire Series" by Naomi Novik There are five books total in this series and he read each of them at least 3 times. I really liked them too. He read them aloud to us. The books are historical/fiction. They are based in Napolionic time period, but changed somewhat--considering dragons aren't real-- this is a no brainer.

Liam loved to read books too. He especially loves a certian book about animals that we've had since Ryan was a toddler. He also likes 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom' and 'I Went Walking"

Delaney fell in love with The Boxcar Children and continued her love of that zany kindergartener "Junie B. Jones" .

Connor loved to read JRR Toliken's books and found a great afinity for Percy Jackson and the Olympians books too.

Cailin found a new author she enjoyed reading --Julie Bowie. She still loves 'The Warrior Cats' series and Judy Moody books are becoming favorites too.

Yeah, I'd have to say that we're geeks, we're a family that loves to read--and read, and read, and read.......

Turning the Pages of a Really Great Book--Book Group is Back in Session

Our book group is back in session.....this months book is The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis.
I don't remember ever reading the Chronicles of Narnia before, but after reading this one I think I'll have to make time in our busy day for reading the others in the series.

All the kids enjoyed reading it. Delaney enjoyed it so much that she volunteered to give the child presentation. Her favorite part in the book was when the animals of Narnia tried to 'plant' Uncle Andrew head down in the ground.

For our activities we made apple biscut-tarts. The kids chopped up apples, nuts and raisins, then tossed in some cinnamon and sugar. This was then sandwiched between two whack-um biscuts. Mmmmm yummy.

Our next craft was to make ice candles. In the book Polly and Digory used candles to help them see in the attic, while they navigated the rafter beams, trying to go from house to house.

To make the ice candles we had the kids take a taper candle, put it in a paper cup, and then surround the candle with crushed ice.

We then poured hot wax on top of the ice and let them harden. Once they were all set
we peeled the paper cups from the candle.

And this is what it looks like.....an ice candle. Some of the others needed a bit of cosmetic work to make them into a full candle, but we had fun putting them together.

We've started next months book.....The Mysterious Benedict Society--hope it's a real pager turner too.

I'm So in Love.....Nine Months Old

Oh, how I love this little girl!

She's starting to sit without back support. I thought this was a huge accomplishment....or at least I thought so. I'm told by our early intervention specialist, Susan, that as wonderful as this is our goal needs to be getting her to bear weight on her feet. Yeah, she's not so fond of doing that. The other day two friends of mine were over for a visit and were helping her to stand and prop sit. She became so angry. This wasn't just a little upset and then calm down crying fit; this was monstrous flailing the body type fit. After I took her in my arms she continued to scream and arch her back for another few minutes.

What a temper!
Susan and I have found that with support high top shoes she will be more willing to stand and bear weight on her feet.

Let see, what else is she doing this month. She's babbling quite a bit. Mamamama is her favorite constant-vowel combination. Barry is eagerly awaiting till she starts to say Dadadada.

She's also mastered the rolling thing. When we place her down on the floor she starts to roll and roll and roll some more. She's now finding herself in unpleasant situations of becoming trapped by chairs, tables or piano stools.
She absolutely adores time with her siblings. We'll come home from Classical Conversations class time on Thursdays to find that she's been quite unhappy. Granny will tell me how grumpy she's been--that she hasn't eaten well or slept well, yet, once we get home her cheerful countenance comes back. She's our happy, joyful little girl again. I think she just misses Mommy.

I was hoping that she was weaning off from oxygen at night, yet the other night I check her saturations rates and she was at 82. What? Much to low, so back with the oxygen. For a while she was pulling 94's at night. Alas, it'll be a while till this changes. No worries though--I'm sure one day she'll outgrow this need.

I found Liam up on the counter playing with Brianne this way. They had a great time chattering and playing together.

Double Digits

Cailin is so excited that she no longer has one measly digit in her age....she's now a double digit girl.

This year she had her 'date with Mom and Dad' party. She wanted to go to Olive Garden for dinner, however, upon arrival there we found a waiting list much to long for us, so she choose to have some chinese food instead.

Trying her hand with some chop sticks.

A cake of chocolate bliss

Her siblings were so generous, Delaney found some books at the thrift store that she thought she would like. Connor gave her some great smelling body spray/perfume.

In the past Cailin has scorned me for spending money on items to decorate our home. She thought it was a waste of money--I should spend that good money on toys for her. A few weeks before her birthday she quietly imformed me "Mom, now I understand why you like to decorate--it's fun." Since then she was saving her hard earned money to buy a new bedding set for her room.

So, with birthday money from her grandparents in hand, after dinner we took her shopping and she found just what she was looking for. "It's perfect!" she squealed. It cost about $60.00 for her to get this one. She found cheaper ones. She debated between the options. I tried to teach her, from my foolish mistakes, that being 'penny wise, and pound foolish' isn't the best option. If this was the one she loved she should get it. Yes, the others were less money, but if she didn't love them, she'd come to regret her discision and save for what she really wanted.

She's trilled and we had fun putting it all together late that same night once we arrived home.

Happy Birthday Girl!

Back in the Swing of Things

We've begun another year of homeschooling.

We've joined Classical Conversations this year. Every Thursday we meet with other homeschoolers and embark on learning in the classical method.
Everyone is happy--except Connor, but I'm giving him time, I think he'll come to like it more too
It's quite a challenge keeping up with the work load but we're having a good time learning new things and making new friends.
Ryan's in the Challenge A program. His first few weeks were, well, challenging for him. After a few weeks into the program he told me that he enjoyed doing homework......what!?.....and he mentioned that he really enjoyed his new classmates. He's learning latin, (and liking it), Algebra2, rhetoric, research, writing, and geography, (by the end of the year, if he studies well, he'll be able to draw and label by memory the world with major cities, countries and geographical features. Quite and undertaking if you ask me).
Connor, Cailin and Delaney are in Foundations. Here they "train the brain to retain"--create pegs upon which to build knowledge by memorizing a great deal of grammar from many subjects--science, math, history, english, geography and latin. They all amaze me at how well they remember the the memory work for the week. The CC program has a 'Master Memory' Challenge. This is where they are to recite to the director at the end of the year every bit of memory work they have been learning at one time. I believe Connor will take on this quest. I know he can do it, that's for sure.
In the afternoon, Connor and Cailin move on to Essentials. While Delaney gets the opportunity to play with her new found friends, her siblings are studying hard learning english and writing skills--yet they're having fun because Mrs. Jacobs makes it quite fun indeed.
At the end of this class they spend time playing math games. Connor claims that these last 20-30 minutes are the only worth while thing he's done during the whole day. Whatever!


Here at home we are delving into the past; we're learning about ancient history this year.
Our first project was creating cave wall paintings. I'll post their stories later, suffice it to say they are into explosions right now.

We spent an afternoon at a local park getting together with some old friends and making some new ones. Here's Cailin with a new friend, Johnni.

We've met some new friends and I'm quite excited that some of these families have kids the same age as Ryan.

Apples

When we bought our home a few years ago I was so excited about having an apple tree. I had planted many fruit trees at our previous home, yet they didn't have the chance to mature enough to give me much fruit. I didn't have to wait for this tree to grow up! It's quite old and giving us bushel after bushel of yummy fruit. Last year the blossoms were hit by a spring snow storm.....no apples. This year we had a bumper crop!!

Most of the time we have to wait for the tree to drop the apples and then gather them from the ground.....but, sometimes we have the kids climb the tree and shake it to harvest the fruit.

Liam loves playing with his dump truck....it has many agricultural duties. This truck has helped plant the garden, gather veggies and fruit, and make one little boy very happy.

Helping Mommy spin the food mill to turn cooked apples into applesauce.

My father in law thinks that it's a Rambo tree.....all I know is that these apples make the best pies and applesauce around!

Basement Productions presents....."A Midsummer's Night Dream"

The Mattson Basement Productions presents........"A Midsummer's Night Dream--video game style".

How did it come about?.......Jared wanted to put together a fun play based on Shakespeare; so he and his mom talked and decided that "A Midsummer's Night Dream" with a mixed up love triangle (which is funny, but lovey dovey --yuck--they changed that love triangle into a game contest)

This play also had Puck, a mischievous elf and fairy's. What fun.

After a lesson on Shakespeare, who he was and what he did, the kids spent some time reading and listening to stories based on Shakespeare work. We borrowed a CD with 2 stories on it--A Mid Summer's..." and "The Taming of the Shrew" by Jim Weiss. He is an excellent story teller. We listened to these stories over and over again. After the kids better understood the story they had some fun tweaking and changing things a bit to suit their style.


The love triangle between Helena & Demetrius, Hermia & Ly sander, was changed to a video game contest with partners--who was who's video gaming partner? After all the fun Puck, a mischievous elf did with the 4 kids no one really knew.


Then there was the King and Queen of two different fairy lands, who soon were to be wed, who also had problems. It was all worked out and peace and happiness soon filled the land once again.

Narrator -Jess,

Queen Tatiana and her Fairy's

King ----and Puck

Nick Bottom with the adoring, (and under the influence a a magical spell) Queen Tatiana and her fairy's.

The feuding between Ly sander and Demetrius,

Hermia and Helena

and two really cute stage hand wanna be's.