Have a holly jolly…snow day! Maisy thought the snow was the perfect birthday present. How cool is that? My mom comes in and we get snow! I’m not going to count the snow we had a few weeks ago that lasted a few hours. This is our first real snow this season, quite late too, but at least it’s here. So, after a breakfast of gingerbread eggnog French toast we geared up and headed over to the sledding hill.
Grandma was having a lot of fun (and wearing her newly knitted scarf and hat.) We sledded, snowboarded and ate snow.
Coming back up the hill is work.
Making snow angels.
We made monster snowballs (just like in the cartoons, start at the top of the hill and let it roll down.)
Here’s Joel with his, it was so big we eventually couldn’t roll it anymore.
Here’s Grace’s expression when she saw the […]
Original post by liese4
OK, so we had a pretty good school day. Grace was reading her phonics book, Bethany wasn’t crying about division, and Joel was doing math. Now I have teacher books for every course, but I hate that in higher math they don’t show how they got the answer. It’s not enough if I know what the answer should be, if Joel gets it wrong I have to determine how to do the problem and then work it through with him to figure out where he went wrong. So sometimes I have to work backwards and figure it out, like today. It said draw 2 supplementary angles, the measure of one angle is 58 degrees greater than the measure of the other angle. So I knew they added up to 180 degrees, but you have to say x(x+58) = 180, solve, then plug in the number. But still, it would be […]
Original post by liese4
What is blue, goes up and down and is dangerous?
A blue whale in an elevator with a gun.
Original post by liese4
We went to the park by us and helped a friend who missed our bridging ceremony to bridge to the next GS level.
R started off on the brownie side with Grace, crossed the bridge and got her junior vest from Bethany.
Hmmm….maybe we should use this park next year, decorate the bridge and have it on a Saturday so Dad’s can come. The only problem would be lighting the candles, I’m sure they’d never stay lit in the wind. While there I finished my furry yarn hat, here’s Bethany modeling it.
None of the girls liked it though, so later I gave it to a friend. It’s very 50’s. I think they’d sell like hotcakes at the headless chicken festival. We stayed until the weather got colder and then went home to get Joel. BTW, here is my hat made from the wool that I spun on my drop […]
Original post by liese4
AS Homeschooling Challenges I have an AS child. We teach at home. We have challenges, just like any other home with AS’ children or just like any home with a child, for that matter~!
We are happy with our set-up. We have fun. *(sometimes)*
When I had a trip planned to the Fire Station today, J. did not want to go. He seen the fire trucks “last time”, he says. He said he has “already been”. Why go again!!?? Did I “make” him go? NO! Is he being a bratty-turd? NO! Why make all parties involved miserable, that is starting to be my philosophy.
Original post by learningaswego
14 years ago, sniff, at 5:37 am after 2 days in labor and 3 hours of pushing…a 6 lb 10 oz baby boy was born to us in our apartment in Katy, TX.
Now my first born male child is 14. I don’t feel any older, but wow!
14 years is a long time, here are 14 things about Joel:
He picks things up quickly (like magic, flying, hockey, archery…)
He learned how to juggle clubs after watching a juggler and trying it once.
The Capt. that was with him on his first powered flight though the had flown before.
He was recently promoted in CAP.
He’s flown in a glider and a Cessna.
He can do math, but doesn’t like it.
He’s a bit obsessive about things (like he has 7 light sabers and probably 10 air soft guns.)
He can take the bus by himself to the mall.
He’s never been to ‘real’ school.
He was on the […]
Original post by liese4
I still have 2 days until Joel is really 14, but we had his party today. Can you tell that the theme was camo/army/gun?
I found a camo tablecloth, camo plates, cups, napkins and helmets over at US toy. I got dog tags, camo wristbands and grenades as favors (and those of you who left without them, I saved you some.) I was going to make a camo cake, but we bought a chocolate one instead. We put chips in the helmets and when the kids arrived they went outside for an air soft war. As you can see they were well prepared (some more than others) for a plastic bb onslaught.
Joel made 2 bunkers in the back and the teams hid out behind them trying to entice people out to get shot.
They had fun!
After a brief intermission for pizza and drinks it was time to open […]
Original post by liese4
Today after a grueling school session we made cookies for James’ office.
Hannah had her new pink checked apron on, Bethany had an apron my Dad just sent and Grace was careful not to get anything on her (she had no apron.)
We made chocolate chip-peanut cookies and sugar cookies with chocolate coffee icing. How can you resist taking a cookie from these guys?
Original post by liese4
Happy.
Not Happy.
Happier.
If looks could kill.
We’re still trying to kick Grace’s latest RAD episode. It started over the weekend when Hannah had a sniffle and we were all in the car together all day. Well, Grace’s lungs don’t just react to a cold, they overreact (thus Reactive Airway Disorder.) So she’s still blowing a 75-100 on her peak flow meter (should be around 150-200) and coughing and getting breathing treatments. Which, as you can see, do not make her happy. So if you bump into her this weekend she will be slightly goofier than usual, maybe irritable and cranky and much louder than normal (which is pretty loud anyway.) Blame the medicine and stay out of her way!
Yesterday we did school and had a good day. Joel was reading some short stories like ‘Tell-tale heart’ and ‘The lady-tiger’.
He’d rather be reading the new Artemis fowl book which I already finished. […]
Original post by liese4
Sometimes it’s really hard to teach 4 kids of varying levels and degrees of education. Like this morning. Bethany was doing grammar, Grace was supposed to be reading, Hannah was feeding the dog math blocks and Joel was doing math. Now bear in mind that I’m torn 4 ways while trying to teach this stuff and man! Anyway, Joel had this problem.
From sepchdmuseum
Now my answer book only shows the answer, it doesn’t show how to get the answer (you have to work for that one.) It also doesn’t show what the actual problem is in Joel’s book, so I wrote the top part on the white board for Joel to work out, but I left out the part that is circled - the answer. I thought they wanted him to find the answer to the problem, no (read directions next time) they wanted him to find out what ‘n’ […]
Original post by liese4
Some rules: Kid’s day falls on the Friday after the 4th of July (if Daddy is off) or on the Saturday after the 4th (unless the 4th falls on a Friday, because that would make kid’s day too close to the 4th of July!) The kids get to pick out what they want to do, but must all agree on it. This worked a lot better when Joel was 5 and Bethany couldn’t talk. So, ice skating was out, Casa Bonita was in and Wings over the Rockies was in.
First we stopped by the pilots shop to get the manual James needs for his test next Tuesday. He’s on flight 4 and he’s studying hard. He said the plane does have a feel and it’s more like driving a boat through the water than a car on land. At the shop we found clipboards for 50 cents, so all the […]
Original post by liese4
Well, I have to say except for Hannah sneaking off and trying to paint her own toenails, this was a great spa day. We started off by going to King Soopers and buying candy for our movie ‘Ever After’, with Drew Barrymore. I love that movie; I think it’s her best one yet. So, we went home and put on some music. I put up the girls hair and then we lathered in a mud mask and cucumbers.
We listened to the music while the mud dried and Hannah kept saying yes she wanted cucumbers and no she didn’t like them and yes……after 4 songs we went in the bathroom and scrubbed off our masks.
Then I put on the movie.
We did toenails first and then nails.
That way we could eat the candy while our toes dried.
We put lotion on our feet and scrubbed our heels and then […]
Original post by liese4
R, age 10.5 months:
var flashObject = new FlashObject(”http://www.youtube.com/v/w1-lv32yFGQ”,”fm_w1-lv32yFGQ”,”425″,”350″,”6″,”",”",”",”",”");
flashObject.write(”fo_targ_w1-lv32yFGQ1805194916″);
Original post by razorbackmama
Here is R, 10 months old.
var flashObject = new FlashObject(”http://www.youtube.com/v/ZlZVrnzHp58″,”fm_ZlZVrnzHp58″,”425″,”350″,”6″,”",”",”",”",”");
flashObject.write(”fo_targ_ZlZVrnzHp581392797675″);
Original post by razorbackmama
A couple days ago, I turned on a Bella Dancerella DVD for S. A while later, I walked into the room, and she wasn’t there. I heard some thumping upstairs, so I thought I’d go see what she was up to. I met her on the stairs. I asked, “What were you doing?” (I was not being accusatory; I was just curious what she’d been doing.)
“I was hiding under the blanket.” (Now that raised an eyebrow.)
“Why?”
“Because you were going to be angry with me.” (Now THIS is interesting.)
We went through a couple rounds of “Why would I be angry with you/what happened/what did you do?” followed by “Nothing,” until she slipped and said the word “cake.”
Hmmmmmm.
So I asked what she had done to the cake. Did she swipe some frosting? No. Did she break off a piece? No. Did she lick […]
Original post by razorbackmama
We went to City Park today to take dance pictures. I forgot it was Earth day, so the park had all kinds of tents and school kids milling about, but on this side of the park we were pretty much alone. Hannah won’t really be in dance until September, but she can put on a tutu and look cute, so I let her take pictures too.
At one point she started screaming ‘Who dat guy is!’ and when I turned around I saw this:
It’s a running toilet, get it? Don’t let your toilets run, earth day, save the water…..Hannah thought it was funnier later when she was safe in the car. ‘Know dat guy, dat toilet paperey guy, hah, hah!’
So, Bethany is in WD3A, this is her third recital.
It is a really hard song/choreography and at some points she is in the front and doesn’t have anyone […]
Original post by liese4
Friday we stuck around the house cleaning and putting up paper curtains. The cleaning was because we needed to, the paper curtains were to try and cut the sun in the house. The front room and the kid’s rooms get so much sun and get so hot in the summer. Now they have a paper curtain, blinds (and in the girls room curtains too.) It was so dark in there the next morning that Hannah slept until 9am! (Hmmm….this could be a good thing!)
Our friends the Carlson’s from TX were coming into town to pick up a goat and drop Tim’s dad off (not in that order), so they dropped in on us. They only brought 5 kids with them (children, not goats), they have 11 now. This is the newest, Seth. He had two moods here; take a guess as to what they were? (Hint he’s 11 days old.) […]
Original post by liese4
That’s what Hannah calls it anyway.
We didn’t take Maisy this time, so I got to sled a lot more.
The snow was really crunchy and made some great snowmen, even if they were small.
Bethany made a great snow angel and then Grace joined her.
Here’s upside-down snow angels.
Here’s Hannah talking about what the snow tastes like: sled, sissy and then Grace saying it tastes like her arm (my children must go around tasting things a lot.)
We were out there for two hours!
I think I have a slight sunburn, but it was fun.
We’re doing the star lab at the library later, I’ll post those pics under here when we get back.
Original post by liese4
Bethany was reading her science while I helped Grace this morning and all of a sudden she said, “Orgasm, well I know what that means!” I whirled around and said ‘What??!’
“It says here that an orgasm is a living thing, I already knew that.”
‘Oh, that’s organism, not orgasm.’
A few minutes later she says it again. ‘Ok, Bethany, you need to stop saying orgasm and say organism, or don’t say it at all. You don’t know what an orgasm is, I’ll tell you later. But, please, don’t go around telling people you know what an orgasm is, ok?’
I’m sure it will come up again, in public, with a large group of moms. “I know what an orgasm is!”
Sigh, and they will say, “See, this is why we don’t homeschool!!”
Original post by liese4
Easter 08
Original post by liese4
Glider flight
Original post by liese4
We have 3 salt crystal projects going on right now. Here are the day 2 sponges.
Here is Hannah’s, she didn’t put any food coloring on it.
Here is Grace’s, she added blue coloring.
Bethany added green food coloring (hmmm…thought I took a pic of that, I’ll have to post it later.) Joel used up the last bit of yellow food coloring, which I really wanted for today.
Today we boiled 1 C water and added ½ C salt to that, stirring until it was mostly dissolved. Then we poured in into a cup and placed a paperclip tied to a string tied to a stick over that.
We’ll check back on that in 4 days. The other project was to subtract 1 ingredient from the salt crystal sponge project and see if that item was really necessary. The element symbol is what we left out of that sponge. So, […]
Original post by liese4
We started a salt garden toady.
Each kid has their own sponge with this mixture on it: 2 T water, 2 T salt, 2 T bluing and 2 T ammonia. I think we used too much ammonia. This project doesn’t have a chemical reaction; it’s just evaporation of the water and bluing to make salt crystals. Here is the bluing page with directions and explanation.
We mixed it all together and poured it on the sponges, later I reseeded them with each item put on the sponge one by one.
Here it is tonight, hopefully tomorrow it will have more crystals on it.
Tomorrow we’re going to have 4 sponges (since there are 4 ingredients) and each sponge will be missing 1 ingredient. I wonder which one will be most likely to grow a crystal and which one least likely? Stay tuned to find out.
After lunch we ran over to a […]
Original post by liese4
I LOVE the library. I have always loved the library, but since I’ve been a HS’er they have been such an indispensable resource. Yesterday the girls went to class on marine biology. Normally I would have passed this up, but since Grace has been stuck on whales, we went.
The lady speaking was from CU and she did a great job. First she talked about how much of the earth is water vs. land (that’s why Hannah is standing up there, she’s water.)
Then she talked about land animals vs. water animals (Grace and Hannah are water animals.)
She started at the sandy beach and showed the kids sand from a beach with volcanic rock, sand from a beach with shells mixed in and so on.
Then she went over what lives in a tidal pool, the Pacific Ocean, beach animals and the open ocean.
Every time she picked something up […]
Original post by liese4
Today was not only Fat Tuesday, but also a birthday number four for our very dear Princess. We took today and celebrated both Mardi Gras and birthday together. So instead of birthday hats, we decorated masks and instead of party favors, there were beads galore.
All the boys were wonderful to her. They are always good to her, but today they all went out of their way to make her day extra special. Beautiful.. This little estrogen-american doesn’t know how good she’s got it yet.
We all love you so very much P.
Original post by amylicc
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