Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Serious Silliness 2

I had so much fun with this new meme I’ve added! 
 Here is the next little bit from my journal! 
(If you missed the first one and want to check it out, click here.)

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1. “Thanks dog.  But I don’t want your slobber.” 
-Elaina, age 3

2.  Nate asked me today, “How much does it cost to fly on an airplane?” 
 I told him it depended on where he was flying to. 
 Then he said, “Paradise.  I want to fly to Paradise.” 
 Join the club Nate! 
 -Nate, age 4

3.  Overheard after Elaina ran from the bathroom to her bedroom completely naked:
Nate: “Ewe sick!  I NEVER want to see another naked girl for the rest of my life!” 
Isaac:  “Don’t worry Nate.  When you get as old as Dad, you’ll be seeing lots of naked girls!”  Seriously….where do they get this stuff? 
 -Isaac, age 5,  Nate, age 5, Elaina, age 2

4.  Caught Elaina singing “I’ve got PEAS in my river”  (Peace like a River) 
-Elaina, age 3

5.  “Hey Dad, when you get as old as Grandma your neck will be squishy.” 
-Isaac, age 5

6.  After a crazy morning, I sat down to do school with Elaina,
 who calmly told me, “You’re like a damsel in distress Mom.” 
-Elaina, age 4

7.  Chocolate is too good to waste on squirels.”  
  -Nate, age 6

8.  “God still loves the villians.”
 –Elaina, age 4

9.  “Hey Dad,”  Isaac thoughtfully told his father one day. 
 “You know it’s okay if you eat me after I die.” 
 “What?!”  Saul asked him.  “Why would I want to eat you?” 
“Because Dad, you might get hungry!” 
 “Thanks Isaac, but your too tasty for me!” 
 -Isaac, age 6

10.  I overheard Elaina singing a song she made for me: 
 “I love my Mom. 
She is so crazy. 
She makes me brush her hair,
 and eat spaghetti!” 
 I asked her if she made that song up in her head. 
 “No Mom.  In my heart!” 
 sooo sweet!!! 
 -Elaina, age 3


See you next round!  What funny stories do you have to tell?

Monday, February 27, 2012

The Celery Experiment

Here’s a fun science experiment that every kid should do: 
The Celery Experiment! 
This project is a great way to teach kids about how plants absorb water through osmosis.

 
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All of these supplies came from our Primary Science Set,
 but you could easily do it with regular household items.

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What You Need:
Celery  
Water in a glass jar  
Blue Food Coloring
If you have a magnifying glass, grab one of those too. 
It’s fun to look at the celery through it.

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Goofy goggles are optional…

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First, we talked about the celery. 
What color it was, what it looked like, the different parts to the celery. 
 Then we looked at it through a magnifying glass. 
 I also cut the end off of the slice so that Elaina could see a cross section of it. 

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We talked about how the celery gets water when it grows in the ground. 
 For comparison we talked about how we get water differently than plants do. 
Then I had Elaina add the coloring to the jar. 
I had her use the eye dropper, just because it seemed fun! 
Then we made predictions about what would happen if we put the celery in the blue water. 
 Would it “drink” up the water?  Would it change color? 

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We placed one celery in a glass jar with blue coloring,
and one in a glass jar with plain water for comparison.

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Be sure to taste the celery…for quality control purposes!

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Watch as the celery changes colors! 
Which happens pretty fast if you use enough food coloring. 
 Ours changed in a couple of hours. 

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Now marvel at your scientific expertise!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Tot School–26.5 Months




My little sunshine has been sick again! 
This has been such a hard winter for all of us. 
She still insists on doing “cool” though, so we managed to get some learnin’ in anyway! 
 Here’s a peak at what she did:

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I set out some pink and purple foam beads for her to lace. 
She did very well with them this time around. 
 Once she started to chew on them though, we had to put them away!

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pink and purple

Here is her finished work!

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She spent some time playing with our foam blocks. 
Stacking remains her favorite activity.

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She wanted to do this farm puzzle, so we sat down together and practiced
 saying the animal names and making the animal noises too. 
 By far the cutest noise she makes is the pig!

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I set out this cute magnetic set called Silly Faces
She played with the pieces for awhile,
and then we practiced saying the names to the parts of our face.

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“Where’s your nose?”

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“Where are your ears?”

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“Can you show me your eyes?”

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“Will you stick out your tongue?”

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She did this cute princess puzzle she got for Christmas.

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I love this picture….she looks totally bored! 
We moved away from the table activities right after this!

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Here she is playing with our set of  Magtastik
She made some “music” with them.

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Here she is watching the Laurie Berkner Band: Party Day! again! 
This girl is infatuated with this DVD...



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She did a little coloring with her color wonder markers…

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And played lots with the Melissa and Doug Pizza Party  set…

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She did some stacking with this Giant Pegboard set too.

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Another fun thing we had out for the week was our basket of puppets. 
We discovered that Olivia does NOT like puppets…
She did okay with the little finger puppets, but the larger the puppets got,
the more timid she became, until our Little Old Lady puppet came out,
and she basically freaked out! 
 I had to put the basket back up on top of the closet…

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My sleepy little girl with her Baa and blankie.
I Love you Olivia!

Friday, February 24, 2012

New tab

I just wanted to let you know that I've added a new tab to our blog titled, "Our Miracle Story", right next to the About Me tab.  It is our entire adoption and miracle story in one place, easy to find! Please continue to share our story with anyone who can be encouraged by it. 

 


Thursday, February 23, 2012

Angry Birds

Isaac got this Angry Bird set for Christmas, and he plays with it nearly every day. 
We got out our Jenga pieces and made a few taller towers for the birdy game. 
They had so much fun!

Angry Birds

Monday, February 20, 2012

Character Building {Wisdom}



Character Building Title

We are on a new adventure!

Won’t you come along and join us? We are learning how to have strong character. We are using the book, A Child's Book of Character Building, book 1, along with a bunch of other activities to round out our experience.

 

Character Building Wisdom
WISDOM:  Thinking God’s way.
“If you want to know what God is asking you to do, ask Him.
For He is always ready to give a bountiful supply of wisdom to all who ask”
. – James 1:5


We talked this week about wisdom. This has been a very important lesson, one that we spent much time discussing throughout our days.  We talked about people who are wise and people who are unwise, and what kind of life each has.  We prayed for God to grow our wisdom, and remind us to lean on Him when we are unsure of what to do.  This was a great time to show the kids that we as adults have to lean on God for wisdom in our lives every day. 
I want so much for each of them to know this fundamental truth:
To lean on God, in and through all things.
The kids made a great sign entitled THINK.  We made this sign to help them make wise choices.  I have actually witnessed them using it often, and love that we have it hanging up in a place that they are able to use it!  This was a great project that they were all able to do together,  and tied in perfectly with our lesson for the week.
 
 
Elaina wrote the title…



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1.Is it right?
2. Is is good?
3.  Is it helpful?
4. Would my parents approve?
5.  Would God approve?
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And Nate and Isaac took turns writing out the rest.
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I think it turned out great!
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The kids worked through the coloring pages each day as we discussed and reviewed each lesson.
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We also spent time each day learning the new memory verse and song:
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(Click here for a FREE printable for the Bible verse and the song.)
We ended the week as usual with our Character Builders movie.  We also watched The Veggie Tales movie Jonah.
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The kids have come to really cherish this time we spend as a family in The Word!  Honestly, I’m not sure I would  be so diligent with developing this life habit for them, had we not homeschooled them.  Our family is clinging to the words in Deuteronomy 6:


 
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your strength. 
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
Impress them on your children.
Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road,
when you lie down and when you get up.
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

 

We are so blessed to have the gift of time to cultivate a deep love and knowledge of God in our kids! We get to start our mornings with a family Bible reading and discussion. Then on go the praise songs while we do chores. (Nothing like sweeping the kitchen floor to “Counting on God!”)  We have our bible lesson in the afternoon, and spend faithful time in prayer over our meals and at the end of each day.  We have the ability to talk about God in all of our day, read His holy word whenever we want, look upon the verses hanging up on the walls.  And I love when they ask me what I am studying in God’s word too because they truly are interested. We spend time each day in memorization, so we can guard our hearts against the enemy.



 
My prayer is that these life habits will impact their lives in big ways! Our kids each have such big hearts for God…

What a blessed life we have! 

Next:
Character Building Tenderhearted