Piano pieces

Andrew's cake

Andrew entered the cake decorating contest for Blue and Gold Banquet tonight.  The theme was heroes. So what do you do with a Christopher Columbus ship cake that decides to fall apart in the making? You turn it into the hill that Nephi retrieved ore for building a ship.

Where I do school

Each week the kids check in with their advisory teacher.  One of the questions for this week's check in was to take a picture walk of where they do most of their schooling.  The kids really got into this question so we decided to put it on the blog.  Here's their combined walk.

We do school EVERYWHERE!!!

This is our kitchen where we go over the calendar, work on grammar and recite poetry over breakfast. Each meal (when we think about it) we go over the food pyramid.  Throughout the day, we check out our history timeline and find things on the map.

This is our dining room where we store all our supplies.  We do group science and history at this table.  Even Alex and Calvin will sit at the table and color the same pictures we do while mommy reads.  These are our science lapbooks.  I (Andrew) am holding my crab minibook.  I (Izzy) am trying to show you my labeled crustacean.

 

We both spend 30 mins. at the piano almost daily.

We sit on the couch every morning and listen to a chapter from a chapter book.  We just finished the Railway Children and now we're reading Little House in the Big Woods.  This is also where you'll find me (Andrew) reading library books or any book I can get my hands on.  (Izzy)  There are a lot of fun books in the library box.

Or I'll (Andrew) read downstairs on the rocker.   Or do my copywork, maybe some math.

When it gets too noisy out there, I'll do my schoolwork in my room.  My bed is a comfy place to work.

Or I'll do my work on mommy's bed.  Sometimes I go to ask her a question and end up staying there.

 We both do a lot of cooking too.  Izzy's specialty is waffles, eggs and toast, and yummy desserts.  Mine is toast.  I did make some really good chocolate chocolate chip cookies the other day.  Oh, they were so good.  We also like to help make bread because then we get to snitch some dough. 

 This is where we do math and write to our teacher.  Right now we're doing Aleks math (3 month free trial).  I (Izzy) am really excited about the QuickTables.  It's the same as doing math facts but I get to earn fun games. 

 I also like to hide away in my room to do my copywork and read.

I want to be a beekeeper

Here's one of the field trips from this past fall.  A lady in our local homeschool group has her own beehive.  Pretty cool huh.  She posted that she was going in to replace the slides so she could extract honey and asked if anyone wanted a tour.  How could we pass up the chance.

First thing, Andrew and Izzy got suited up.  Gotta make sure there aren't any openings for the bees to sneak in.

 Styling suits.

 Catherine showed the kids what the slides look like with the beeswax on it.  This one has had the honey extracted and as much of the beeswax intact so the bees don't have to spend time building.  They just have to do some repairing and spend more of their time producing honey. 

 And here are the drawers that the bees have made their home in.  They're very calm before being disturbed.

 Here's Andrew and Izzy getting a closer look.

 She's showing them a full slide covered in bees.

 Now it's Alex's turn to be suited up.  Calvin didn't want a turn but I was o.k. with that.

 Don't you love the hat.

 Catherine was so good at making sure the kids got a close look at everything.  Here Catherine is trying to find the queen to show Alex.

 Alex holding a slide.

Very fun field trip and now very interested in having my own beehive.

Itching for a road trip--Remembering Seattle

Lately I've been itching for a road trip.  I LOVE the snow, but this road trip idea wouldn't be as much fun in the cold.  So we'll just have to wait.  For now, I'm finally blogging our Seattle trip from last June I think it was.  Glen had a few days of shadowing while the kids and I got to tag along to see friends and my sister and nephew.  I miss my family.  Doesn't this look like so much fun and make you itch for a road trip too?

We spent the night at Glen's parents in Wilbur (they ended up running the motel all last summer) and then stopped at Dry Falls on the way to the freeway.  Geologists claim this was a giant waterfall during the last ice age.

 Then we stopped by Soap Lake.  The minerals in this water are supposed to have healing properties.  So far I haven't had any luck healing my dry hands, but it's always worth a try.  Plus, water is always fun for kids to dip in their feet. 

We stopped at an overlook.  I think this is the Colombia River out in the middle of nowhere.  Across the river is a petrified forrest.

 This was our first snow for the year.  We were amazed at how huge this mass was in June.  Gotta love the mountains.

 That's a waterfall in the background.

 Our Seattle trip had a side trip to Bremerton.  We brought our friend Nataly with us.  This was her find. Look how little that crab is.  The legs were so tiny and perfect.

 That's Glen and Henry.  Love the view.

 Off to the right of where Glen is standing, there was a long pier that we explored down to the water.  There were a few fishermen and lots of fun things to see over the edge.  We saw tons of these jellyfish just swimming around.  Amazing.  We also saw barnacles and tubeworms on the side of the edge.  The tubeworms were a favorite.  We tried to find a stick to so we could see it retract and I can't remember if we were successful or not.  But it was really cool to see all these fun creatures.  We've been talking about marine animals the past 2 years for science and we've finally this week gotten to barnacles but that's another post.

 Another day of our trip included a trip into Seattle to check out the Seattle Aquarium (amazing!!!) with my cute nephew and wonderful sister.  This is my nephew, Harper.  Isn't he a doll?!

 Alex and Harper were so cute together that day.

 There were lots of really cool things at the aquarium including tubeworms that we could pet and see retract and lots of other water creatures to touch like starfish, sea cucumbers, sand dollars and some sea plants.  Not sure where all those pictures went, but it was a really fun day.

 So fun to be with family.

 Where did Harper and Alex go?  We found them hiding in here.

 Then we had to say our goodbyes and our family went on a cruise out into the water to see Seattle from a different viewpoint.  The kids enjoyed being on a boat, but the excitement didn't last long.

 The Space Needle

 There's Seattle.

 After our Seattle trip, we traveled through Mt. Rainier National Park on our way home.  Absolutely gorgeous!

 Check out the proof of beavers in the area.=)

Looking forward to visit Seattle again this summer.  Anyone have room for a family of 7?=)

Izzy's drama performance

Last semester Izzy was involved in CYT (Christian Youth Theater) and to conclude their class, they performed a medley titled "Any Dream Will Do."  Izzy LOVED this class and is signed up again this semester.  She's the cute girl, 2nd from the end in the red dress and white shawl.  She said she was nervous during their practice, but the night of the performance, she was nothing but excited.  She did such an AWESOME job!!!

I'll take care of you

Some old pictures I found trying to catch up this blog.  They were too cute not to share.