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Monday, April 27, 2009

happy april

My goodness how time flies!! When I sat down to blog I couldn't believe I had to go all the way back to before Easter! It feels like that was soooo long ago. Really it was only a few weeks. I think the very nice warm weather has made the very cold unpleasant weather (which really only ended a week ago) seem like a distant memory...

We had a nice Easter. The last school day before Easter we made some pretty wind socks and had a small egg hunt with the Resurrection Egg set that tell the story of Jesus death and resurrection through symbols that are in the plastic eggs. The kids really enjoyed it.



The night before Easter we colored eggs. I really like coloring eggs. I like it so much that I hate to waste the dye and had to think of other things to dye before I could through it away. I dyed lots of past and some rice too. We'll use it for crafts later. It's pretty :)



Easter morning the kids looked adorable in their Sunday best (thanks to my mom!) They were very proud to go to church to hear their Daddy give the Easter message. Our pastor was on vacation and he asked Jason to fill in for him. It was a great message. You can listen to it by clicking here and scrolling down to the Easter Sunday Message 4-12-09. After church we had a delightfully relaxing family afternoon.
Ian's birthday was a few days after Easter. I can't believe my baby is 4!! I was still in slacker mode and trying to work out all of the details for getting the new van (and replacing the washer, and getting Jason's truck fixed...it was a crazy week) so Ian's birthday really snuck up on me. Since it fell during our school vacation week we didn't have school so we went up to visit Seven, Nova and Mika and they threw Ian a little party. I was so grateful!! They made him a special yellow cake that Nova decorated with Easter Eggs. It was very exciting.

We decided to take Ian to the driving range for his birthday (because he has been asking since October to go again). He loved it. He really has great form when it comes to swinging the club. His little pose at the end as he watches his ball is really priceless. He has great follow through :)



When we got home we had a special birthday dinner and another birthday cake. He couldn't decide what he wanted and asked me to surprise him. I chose the Hungry Caterpillar. It's one of Ian's favorite books, plus he's always hungry (and truthfully it was really easy for the slacker mom to accomplish quickly).
The weekend after Ian's birthday we took Madilynn home for the weekend. It was such a great time! I loved having that little munchkin around for 2 whole days! She reminded me how far removed I am from toddler days. She kept us all on our toes and running non-stop. She is a little bundle of energy!
One chilly evening last week the boys helped me make a new batch of laundry detergent. I have experimented with a few recipes. I think I like this one best so far...unfortunately I forgot how much of each ingredient I put in. It's simple to make though, washing soda, borax, ivory soap and water. It makes a lot for very cheap and works very well, even in cold water. If you are interested in trying it there are many laundry detergent recipes at this website called Tipnut

The next next week we heard that Ben and Jerry's was giving away free ice cream cones. It's free cone day on April 21st every year to celebrate their anniversary. I haven't eaten sugar in a long long time but I decided that if Ben and Jerry's is giving away free cones, that is a reason to eat sugar. Earlier that day I had read that the average 6 year old laughs 300 times a day and the average adult only laughs 15-100 times a day. I also read that laughing keeps you healthy. I decided that I was going to look for more reasons to laugh in a day and going to Ben and Jerry's w/ my three adorable kids gave me lots of reasons to laugh. Ian's chocolate Go-tee was particularly amusing to me.





Weather has been nice so we have had some fun adventures at the parks lately. We found ourselves at a local park last Wednesday and it was loaded with litter. The kids don't like that so we picked it up. This not uncommon but since it was earth day on Wednesday, I took pictures of them picking up trash and decided it was blog worthy.


During our April vacation I did manage to tame the slacker beast within a little and I planned and printed everything I needed for school from now until our last day in June. We were going to study Australia but I changed my mind at the last minute and we are doing the 50 states. We had 50 days of school left and 10 weeks. Since there are 10 regions and 50 states I thought it would fit nicely. I like it when things fit nicely. Each week we will focus on a region. Talk about each state in the region, find it and color it on our maps and read a story set in one of the states in that region. This first week was really cool. We read a story called Letting Swift River Go by Jane Yolen. It was about a little girl who lived in one of the towns that was flooded out so the Quabbin Reservoir could be created and Boston could have water to drink. The thing that made it extra cool was that my parents live in a house that was in one of those towns!! It was moved to Monson from Enfield MA which no longer exists. The personal connection to the history was really neat for the kids. I got to show my kids some evidence that my parents house was taken apart and put back together it must have been a LOT of work, its no small house as you can see below. We will be taking a trip to visit the Quabbin soon. I haven't been in years so I am looking forward to it too. We are also going to eat cuisine from each state that we focus on. Since we were focusing on MA this week we had Boston baked beans and Boston Brown Bread. Both were delicious. I was surprised at how healthy the brown bread actually is and how easy to make. The kids really liked eating round bread that was cooked in a can. We ate it with cream cheese and it was delicious. If you click on the names it will bring you to the recipes we used.

This week we are working on the mid Atlantic region and reading a book called Aunt Flossie's Hat and Crab Cakes Later by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard. We are focusing on Maryland and of course we had crab cakes for lunch today. Not great ones because crab is expensive so I bought the cheap stuff in the can but yummy none the less. I really wanted to make them soft shell crab because that is one of my favorites but generally gourmet seafood just isn't in the TLC lunch budget.
Lots of field trips coming up in the next week. I'll have lots to blog about soon. I'll be sure to post more frequently to avoid these marathon blogs.


















3 comments:

Don Farley II said...

I don't think there's a better Christ-centered school for young children on this planet than TLC! If I were 7 instead of 47, I'd sign up in a heartbeat! That was another great blog, Missy - you obviously got over your "slacker" blues to crank out your latest Samsonite (and I don't mean luggage :) ) effort. Studying the 50 states in 50 days is a funtastic idea! I enjoyed it when I did it as a young schoolboy. Knowing you, Missy, you're probably using the state quarters you've collected to teach about the states. It's interesting to find out why they picked the designs they did for each state's quarter. Some are easy to figure out and others take a little research. As for the 10 regions, I would have thought that Alaska and Hawaii would each have been in classes by themselves. If you have any field trips to those states, I volunteer to go as a chaperone! :)
Keep up the great work, Missy! You sure have a group of blessed, happy, bright, talented, hard-working, and loved students there. I love you all too, and pray for God's love and blessings to continue to be poured out on you!

In Jesus' love,
your brother in Him,
- Don F.

Unknown said...

I think I say this everytime but this might be my favorite blog. It must have something to do with what GREAT pictures you got this time! Those pictures of the kids with their ice cream faces are priceless. I am so proud to be the aunty of those 4 adorable kids and quite jealous you got two whole days with all of them!!! miss and love you always..see you soon :)

-kimmie

Anonymous said...

I love the pictures of Ian at the driving range... and the ice cream pictures... too cute! Looks like the kids are having a great time learning! I miss you all!
Mallory