A New Springtime

Moving my Blog

 I am starting a new blog and hope you all come and visit me there.  It is called " Culture of Life" I am going to leave this up for a couple of weeks until I can figure out how to store this blog on a disk or flash drive. If anyone has suggestions or ideas please let me know. I am still learning how to use the new server for the new blog, too so I don't have everything in place yet.

Sports Photo Binders

 I have so many sports pictures from all of the kiddos and they were getting lost and ruined.  The paper frames they come with don't last or protect the pictures for too long and to put all of them in frames on the wall would get a bit costly . I didn't want to spend a lot of money on fancy albums so I decided to keep it simple and use three ring binders and page protectors.

 
I am going to put a basketball on the bottom, left corner of the book and the kids' names with stickers in the middle. These books will contain both soccer and basketball yearly photos.

 
These are two of the pages I did for one of the boys. I cut the stars and the arrows and journal cards out of  scrapbook, using a corner rounder finishes the edges and gives them a nicer look. I got the idea of the journal cards from Becky's Blog, she created an awesome scrapbook system called Project Life. I would like to get this product for my next journal.

 
I had two sheets of stickers which I used between the two boys books and a small star rubber stamp which helped to coordinate the pages.

 
The journal cards tell the names of the coaches and some comments about the kiddos.

 
Hannah actually helped with these two pages. She did all the corner rounding , glueing, and cutting out the butterflies.I helped her with the page layout but that was it. This is a great project to let the kids get in on.

 
The binders are also a great place to keep any awards or certificates from a particular year. I mounted them onto stiff cardstock and placed them in a page protector. Now they won't get torn or crumpled. From now on when they get their annual sports photos, in the binders they will go. 

Totally Hormonal

 

I feel like a car shifting gears. I can always tell when I am having a hormonal shift. I had two teeth pulled this week so at first I thought my moodiness was due to the stress from that. Although, I am sure that helped set some of the tone, I have been a complete ball of tension this week.

 

 Last night, was the hormonal culmination, the tears, the night sweats, the nightmares, and the tossing and turning. Oh, what fun! I am now 27 weeks and officially in the third trimester. I would think going through 7 complete pregnancies I would be used to this by now, (lol).

 

Please pray for me and my poor family who deals so graciously (or not )with these hormonal episodes. I know it is all forgotten and worth it in the end but for now it stinks.

Studying Caldecott Winners

 We have been studying illustrators who have won the Caldecott Award using this book from Evan Moor. Today we read  Owl Moon and studied the watercolor pictures by John Schoenherr.

 
 We have read this book before but it was interesting to look at the illustrations in more detail. Our guide book gave us an activity to do using watercolors and a straw.

 
I had picked up these cake-style watercolors at Michael's for $4.99. The kiddos always love an opportunity to put their paint brushes to work.

 
 After painting the background, a straw was used to spread black paint to form  a tree. Each kiddo had a unique painting in the end. They were complaining a bit about getting a little dizzy; I advised them to take it slower as they worked blowing through the straws.

 
Before finishing they drew an owl and cut out a paper moon which they glued on. The last thing they had to do was complete the sentence: The tree stood as still as___________. They each came up with a different answer. Statue, house, rock and stick were what they came up with. After this art lesson they had a writing exercise which was: If you were to go owling...you_________________. They had to come up with four answers to complete the sentence.

The kids enjoyed this creative time and I am always thrilled when a project is successful and inspires them.

 

 

Thriftin' Thursday

I got to go thriftin' this evening!! There is a GW right next door to the grocery store, what a perfect place.  I was so excited when I spotted this:

 
It doesn't look like much but it is a very functional nursing cover. I was going to make one but for $1.00 how could I pass it up. It has boning (a stiff insert used in collars or corsets) in the front which makes it stick out and gives you a window to see the baby. This one happens to be a Bebe au lait and costs about $29 to $34.  There are many tutorials on how to make these,  check out the one at Crafty Mama.

 
This cute lil' Peter Rabbit vase caught my eye, it was a mere $1.50. It looks so cute on the baby's shelves in the boys room. I will use it for to hold toiletries; the colors are perfect. I'm tryingto keep everything blue, green and brown.

 

 
Every thriftin' trip usually results in a good book find. My kiddos enjoy these Look and Find books.

 

I also picked up two hooded baby towels $1.50 for both. After washing them got  they smelled so fresh and felt so comfy.

It is a good feeling to find such great deals.

Back to School, 2011 Learning Notes

 Today, is our first day back to school since the holiday vacation. I have decided to keep learning notes in a regular spiral notebook so it will be a lot easier for the end of the year reports.

 
Devotions- read scriptures of the day, saint of the day and discuss

 Spelling

• Hannah-contractions
• Max-words with schwa sound, 2 syllable words, review /er/sound
• Abbey-vowel ai, ay, review long a silent e
• Raphael- words ending with -sion,-tion,-cian

English

• Raphael- combining sentences
• Max- adj, predicate & correcting sentences

Science

• Hannah- Why do leaves change color?, Label parts of a plant and a tree
• Abbey-unit review life cycles 
• Max &Raphael-unit review blood, cells, digestive and excretory systems

 

Math

• Hannah- subtraction, re-grouping
• Max- #38 rounding decimals #'s
• adding the ones and the tens, two digit addition

 Reading

• Hannah- All about Gators ( reading comprehension), conclusions
•  Five Senses( reading comprehension)
• Raphael-constanant digraphs -ch,sh,th,wh

 Extra-Curricula

• Raphael- building a butterfly house( he decided todo this on his own with the tools he got for Christmas)

 

Nature notes for today:

Raphael spotted a Downy Woodpecker on the suet feeder( to fast to get a picture)

There are many birds at the feeders including  Tufted Titmice and Chickadees.

Baby Elle is into Play-Doh right now. It is great for her while we are doing school.

The day went rather smooth, the kiddos where ready to get back to some structure and routine. I hope the new year is going well for you too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overwhelming Beauty

I am just overwhelmed by the beauty of these gorgeous Amaryllis flowers. We have a total of eight blossoms between the two flower stems.

It is such a treat to have these blooming this time of year. Hannah expressesd her delight in the soft red color.

 
I am so glad my children notice the wonders God gives us in nature. These are the types of things that make my heart swell up and feel so truly blessed. We have also been watching the winter birds at our feeders. I haven't gotten any good pictures yet because I've been whimping out when it comes to the cold weather. Maybe this week I will get brave enough but for now I will stay inside and soak up the sight of these grand beauties.