Seminary Graduation!! Connor's last and Cailin still has some to go....

A couple of family temple trips....

While heading north to Maryland for our LDS home school conference, we stopped in at the DC temple.  This was Delaney's first time attending the temple and Connor's last one as a youth. (his next trip would be to receive his own endowments!!)

What a beautiful thing to see your children and husband walk and serve faithfully in the temple of the Lord!

Ryan, Barry and I went to the temple a few weeks before our home school conference trip.  We spent a lovely day with him.  He went to the family history center next door while we spent time in the temple.

Touching the door of the Temple

While, the rest of the Hale and Brame clans are in the temple working wonderful acts of service Liam, Brianne, Janet and I spent some time walking around the temple grounds and playing with a few interactive games at the visitor's center.

  Liam fondly remembers when long ago, his older brothers and sister got to touch the golden temple doors  For a few years now, he's been wanting to have a photo of him doing this same thing.  Today he finally got his wish!  President Monson once said that "When you touch the temple doors, the temple touches you."  Today Liam felt the  joy of being on the temple grounds and feeling of the special spirit that is there.

Mormon Prom 2016

Oh my, how wonderfully handsome and beautiful these two are!!

Here we are with Connor, Garrett Vance, Jada Foley, Cailin, Jericca Morgan, Mikayla Morgan.

"This was held in Roanoke, VA.....May 2016....we had fun!  That's all I can remember.....considering it happened almost a year ago!"  --Cailin Hale  1/21/17

Welcome to Young Womens Delaney!

Your first day of Young Women's was our New Beginnings night! ...a festive night for sure!  Here you are with all the Beehives--those who are in now and will be coming in during the year.

Mercy Turner, Trinity Wall, Grace Walker, Janet Brame, Delaney Hale, Viktoria Zander, Camille Vance, (in front) Alexis Turner.

Well, she is learning to say her words.

As of lately, we're encouraging Brianne to use her words instead of yelling.  At my request for help in doing this --because everything I've tried hasn't worked--we are following the wonderful advice of Bri's speech therapist. We have begun to insist that Brianne use more sign language.  Her first new phrase --"I want______".  I  want cheese.  I want you to sit down.  I want drink.  I want more.  You get the idea.  She's not been quick at getting this new form of communication, probably because screaming is easier and so effective, but we keep reminding her and insist on her using her words.

Yesterday, while we we're at the Mattson's for history group, (and Cailin was with us), the kids were all joined together for snack time after the group activities and I heard Brianne let loose screaming.  I went over to her and quietly reminder her to say & sign..... "we use our words say "I want______","  to which the kids later tell me she said  "I. want. NININ (Cailin) STOP!!"    Well it's a start.  the first two words were clear, calm and well said....followed by yelling.  We're getting there.

Winter School Days..... poetry and astronomy

For the past few months we've been working on an astronomy unit and discovering poetry with a winter theme....perfect for our cold winter days.

For the poetry, we read Snow by Evening by Melville Cane.  Before reading the poem we used the words and tried to create a poem of our own.  I think Liam did a really good job.  His poem  

"quietly tree blossoming with millions of falling petals"

Delaney decided to add a few more words in her stack of single words and came up with a delightful poem too.

"Gray white sky bitter wind

 suddenly flew snow within 

quietly drifted all day long. 

 Petals of gray

 millions to see

 and all night I quietly watched it all fall."

Astronomy studies.....we spent time learning about the moon, stars, the inner planets and outer planets, asteroids sun, and many astronomers from the Renaissance time period.

Making asteroid imprints on the surface of  the "m"  aka flour in a pan.

For FHE, we played a game where Dad was the moon and we were the water tides being pulled to and fro.

A yummy day making the phases of the moon with oreo cookies!

Pictures of our own suns created by our hand prints and the moon using our thumb prints.

Eating Astronaut food-- Freeze dried beef stroganoff .

They each had to give a personal report on a planet of their choice.  I had them make paper mache replicas of their planet.  Liam's report was on Mars and Delaney researched on Jupiter.

Making edible satellites 

The red sands of Mars.  We disintegrated steel wool pads until they turned to rust in play sand.  It's ir on on the surface that makes Mars so red

A delicious cake planet.