Chocolate and more...but really who needs more than chocolate week!

It's interesting to me that I feel so cooped up because it's winter and feel like we've been so board. I tell everyone, in fact, how cooped up and board we are. Then I look back at the past few weeks so I can blog and I realize that I need to stop saying that. We are still having tons of fun and doing interesting things despite the winter blues. I am so grateful that when I start complaining and get into the "woe is me" mood, praying daily for summer to miraculously arrive that instead the Lord shows me how blessed I truly am and how much I have to be thankful for, regardless of the season.

So a few weeks ago we finished up our study of Japan w/ an afternoon of origami. The kids really loved it. I was surprised at how good at it they were. I'm not very good at things like that. I tried for hours to make an origami crane last year and ended up shredding my paper in frustration in the end. This year things went much better. We made origami dog faces, butterfly fliers, noise makers and dinosaur heads that chomped!

On a recent visit to my mom and dad's house they took the boys out ice fishing. They had so so so much fun. They didn't end up catching a fish of their own but one of my dad's friends had caught one and they enjoyed catching him and re-catching him in the shallow live well that had been dug for him. They came back very happy and very very stinky.

We had a very important job to do the past few weeks. Some friends of ours went on vacation and we were commissioned to take care of their three guinea pigs (Papa, Rocky and Rex) for two weeks. They picked the right kids for the jobs. I was very impressed with their diligence to care for the little critters. They made sure they were well fed and happy at all times. They loved to pet and play with them. We were sad to see them go but I won't miss cleaning up shavings all over the house or cleaning their cage (thanks again Seven for helping me w/ that...not a fun job lol). Nor do I plan to get our own anytime soon for those very reasons. If, however, you need some critter sitters, we would be happy to oblige anytime. I like the idea of just "borrowing" pets for short periods of time so the novelty doesn't wear off.

We had a wonderful field trip last week to our local fire station (thanks to Stacy who organized it!). It was so much fun, so informative and sparked a lot of great conversation for the kids and I about fire safety. Isabella , Jason and I had just watched the movie Fireproof (really awesome movie I highly recommend it) and the main character was a fire fighter and saved a few lives in the movie. It was really really neat to go to the fire station a few days later and meet real fire fighters, real people who save lives. I admire these people so much that they choose to risk their lives everyday to help others. The kids learned a lot and they loved seeing the fire fighters slide down the pole for them. Ian sleeps with his new fire hat next to his bed every night now. He has decided to set aside his aspirations to be a mountain climber and be a fireman instead, but he plans to mountain climb on the weekends lol.

The kids made a really neat Lincoln log structure with Jason the other night. They were excited that I took pictures to blog it. We have begun to judge things on if they are blog worthy or not haha. This was definitely a blog worthy construction.

So, this past week was chocolate week. I wanted to do something fun for Valentines day but also educational, of course. I also love to take a theme and spread it through the whole curriculum. Chocolate, being as wonderful as it is, was a perfect choice! We had chocolate math lessons all week. Isabella and Hannah did fractions and multiplication with Hershey bars and Isaac, Nova and Ian did counting, graphing, adding and subtracting with m&m's. We also all graphed with Hershey hugs and kisses and as most of you know we did our chocolate survey. Mika joined in wherever she thought she would get the most chocolate.

We also read a book throughout the week called "The Chocolate Touch" and we studied the history of chocolate, where it is grown and the chocolate making process. At the end of the week we made our own chocolate (with a make your own chocolate kit). I am salivating just thinking about it! I have not had sugar in a month and a half so I was trying really hard to be good all during chocolate week. I told myself at the beginning of the week that if I would allow myself the homemade chocolate only. It was so worth the wait. It was so rich and chocolatey...mmmm...I could go on for days. Anyway, not everyone shared my confection affection. Bella and Isaac didn't like it at all (which was fine with me, because I got to eat their pieces). During the process of making the chocolate we tasted and touched all of the components. We first tasted cocoa butter, then the cocoa powder, we even got to eat pieces of real cocoa beans that came w/ the kit (see crinkled disgusted faces below haha). It was really fun. All of those things were very bitter but still had a distinct chocolaty smell and flavor. I actually liked the cocoa bean despite it's bitterness, the kids did not. In the end our chocolate would probably have been classified as "semi-sweet" so the kids weren't very impressed (except Ian who shares my love for anything chocolate) but they really enjoyed the experience for sure.

Here is our kit
This is the cocoa bean

Bella and Nova's opinion of the cocoa bean

Cocoa Butter melting

After we added the cocoa powder and sugar to the cocoa butter

Our finished product!!

Certainly the climax of the week was tallying up our survey. Thank you all soooo much for participating. We had over 130 votes! The kids had so much fun collecting the data all week long. We had all made predictions in the beginning of the week and everyone was rooting for a particular kind of chocolate. The results surprised us all! In the beginning of the week Milk Chocolate had a strong lead but Dark Chocolate caught up and eventually passed it and was voted the favorite! The end results were as follows

Dark Chocolate --60 votes

Milk Chocolate--53 votes

White Chocolate--14 votes

I don't like Chocolate--2 votes

We also had 1 vote for allergic and 1 vote for chili pepper chocolate

None of us had predicted that Dark Chocolate would win. They thought it would be milk chocolate or white chocolate (their favorites). But dark chocolate (my favorite) was surprisingly the winner. I guess we like the idea of chocolate being good for us and the darker it is the better it is for your health!

In the middle of our chocolate week my sister came up for a visit with Valentines and chocolates for the kiddos! We just love it when they come visit. It was on the one really warm day (how sad that I am considering 50 degrees really warm) so we got outside to play. Madilynn was the most adorable pink marshmallow in her little snowpants and coat. I could just eat her up!

On Friday our friend Julie hosted a Valentines Day party and it was so much fun! The kids brough Valentines for all their friends and at the party they decorated bags to hold their Valentines. They also made soap and had a pinata. It was a great time. I loved Valentines parties when I was in school and was so happy we got to have a homeschool one!

Our church had a Valentine Marriage Banquet on Saturday. It was so awesome. It has nothing to do w/ the kids but I'll tell you about it anyway. I made a board of everyone's wedding pictures and their wedding dates. We had couples who had been married anywhere from 6 months to 50 years! It was so neat to make the board and look at everyone's pictures. It was my greatest scrapbook accomplishment ever, 7 feet by 3 feet! We decorated the sanctuary all pretty with individual tables complete w/ sparkling mineral water, candles and chocolates and we had a lovely breakfast buffet and romantic candle lit lunch for two catered for us in the resteraunt next to our church. Our pastor Don and his wife Amira gave some great messages about marriage. We were encouraged to understand our differences as men and women and be grateful for them and to keep our hearts pure and focused on the Lord in our marriages. We also played a super funny game and had a funny skit. It was such a great way to spend Valentines Day, not just doing something because it was Valentines Day but truly focusing on our love and our marriage from God's perspective. It made me so grateful to God for my wonderful husband! It was really a great day.

Amira gave a great message about keeping our hearts pure

Pastor Don expounded on keeping God at the center of our marriage

So this week is school vacation and I have packed it so full w/ things to do I will need a vacation from vacation by the end of it...as usual. Blogging was on the beginning of the list and now that it's done...it's on to my taxes...

Snow, sleds, skates, slime, sushi, yay!

It's snowing today. Actually, it was snowing, now it's icing...sigh

Despite the cold, wretched winter, we have been having lots of fun. We studied magnets recently. Isaac got a neat kit of magnets for his birthday (from me planning ahead for a magnet unit) and we had lots of fun experimenting with it. This is the magnet man that the kids made. I think he's cute.We've also been having lots of fun with Isabella's new puppet theater! Angela gave it to her for Christmas. Its a great set up. It's really heavy duty, folds nicely in the corner when not in use and it fits perfectly on the coffee table in the living room when it is in use! We only have a few puppets right now. We just got some more that need to be fixed up a little bit. A woman gave them to me from freecycle. They are like the old puppets on Mr. Rogers (sort of creepy but really cool too). The kids have been very creative and very silly with their puppet shows. I am planning to put a puppet show on for them soon too.


During the really cold snap we couldn't get outside much. It was tough to stay inside so much so one day we decided to make snow inside! It was really more like snowslime. I have also heard it referred to as clean mud. It's made from shredded toilet paper, water, borax and shredded ivory soap. It gets really fluffy the more you play with it. After playing with it for a little while we used it to make snow pictures on black card stock. It took a few days for them to dry but they hardened into great 3-D snow pictures when they did. I think I liked playing with it even more than the kids. It took me all day to throw it away, I kept going back and playing with it some more lol. Clean up was easy too. I had made it all in a box lined with a trash bag. When we were done I took the bag out and threw it away!

The kids have been asking to go ice skating for a long time now and they finally got their chance at my friend Amy's last week. She has a skating rink right out her back door and skates in all sizes. Isaac wore some hockey skates and did really well. Bella borrowed some figure skates and did pretty good also. Ian did a great job scooting around in his boots too. They are very excited that as long as it's cold they can skate at Amy's every time we visit!

Another fun indoor activity has been playing market. We've been studying Japan and the book we read last week, A Pair of Red Clogs, had a market in it. Using the new play money that they got for Christmas they set up a great market in the living room. They sold shoes, flowers and food. Ian thought it was a little lame since no one was dealing arms but he decided his old gun was sufficient and he bought some shoes and food lol.

This week for art we did food sculpture. The Japanese present their food in beautiful ways, sushi itself is almost like an art. We started our food sculpting by making sushi. We had some friends who came over and joined us and Seven got us an easy to make sushi kit and some yummy things to put inside. The kids did really well and almost everyone gave it a try. Isaac loves sushi and so do I so he and I ate whatever the others didn't want.After our sushi creations we made sculptures out of fruit and tooth picks. We had some very creative artists and they enjoyed eating their artwork too!

On Friday it was finally above freezing and I decided to take the kids sledding! We had a blast. Even I had a good time. It was actually a beautiful day. Properly bundled and being so active, we weren't cold at all. I couldn't believe it when we got home and I realized we had been sledding and playing for 3 1/2 hours! It was so good to get so much fresh air and exercise. I am looking forward to some more above freezing days....

This weekend we got to have Christmas again!!! I think I like having Christmas in January. We didn't get a chance to see Jason's dad and step mom over the holidays so they came up this weekend instead. It was so great! We had a wonderful relaxing afternoon and we were all astonished by the amount of presents they brought and very grateful too!!! The boys were super excited about their huge boat and submarine and Isabella got a new bracelet that she hasn't taken off since Sunday. They also brought their dog Daisy (the only dog I really like) and their new puppy Brady, he's only 8 weeks old...so cute. It was a great visit. We hope they'll come back up soon.

We had one other very exciting excursion this week. We visited the Elf Parlor. That is Seven and Mike's coffee shop (Nova and Mika's mom and dad). It is almost ready to open and we got to have a sneak peak at some of the delightful drinks they will be making especially for kids (and odd adults like me who don't drink coffee). Seven made me a creamy maple drink w/ cinnamon...so yummy. The kids had a round of vanilla flavored warm frothy milks and then they had pinacolattes. That had pineapple juice, coconut extract and milk. The drinks were all fabulous and the atmosphere is awesome too! They have a special table just for kids. Isabella wants to have her birthday party there. Everyone will have to go check it out when it opens. There are lots of unique things in the shop but my favorite is definitely the moss covered cash register. He has personality. I think he needs a name. I promise to let you all know as soon as they are open for business so you can flock there in masses and buy lots and lots of coffee and other yummy drinks!

When you go, see if you can find this happy little guy in the floor somewhere. Seven showed it to me, I snapped the picture, now it will be a scavenger hunt for you!