I ♥ Faces: Bubbles

Oh my goodness, I love taking pictures of bubbles!! They are so much fun! ☺

Quite a few times this summer, I have given the kids each their own bottle and let them blow them all over the yard while I tried to catch a few good shots.

I was able to get quite a few that made it look as if the whole kid was in the bubble. Those were fun, but I love the look on Lexie's face in this one. I wish I had gotten a reflection of the trees as I did in some of the other shots. :(

A lot of them turned out blurry. Between the bubbles drifting with the wind, me chasing the bubbles, and the kids trying to get behind a bubble, it was hard work getting a clear shot!!

Just a hint: try not to let the bubbles actually pop on your lens!!!!!!

To join in the fun, head on over to I ♥ Faces.

Byzantine Empire for Kids

Interior of the Hagia Sophia, Built 533-537 CE

Last week, we sped through the division and fall of the Roman Empire. We also learned about the Byzantine Empire for a couple of days.

Here are some links to images of Byzantine art that I found:
Images from the Hagia Sophia.
More images from the Hagia Sophia.
Istanbul, near the Great Palace.
A Gallery of Byzantine Images.

And here is a cool website all about mosaic art. It amazes me what can be done with tiles!!

Our hands-on project for this week was, of course, making our own mosaics. We used a salt-dough recipe from Learning Through History magazine. I should have followed it. We used whatever "stuff" we had available - beads, miscellaneous fake princess jewels, and mosaic pieces. While the outcome was pretty, nothing actually looked like a picture. I think we should have used the lentils/beans as was suggested and the end result would have looked more like an actual mosaic.

And we also used our old stand-by: Sticky Mosaics. They were much easier to clean up than the goopy dough we used for our homemade ones. I should have taken a picture of the aftermath of our mosaic project. There were beads everywhere And Kate accidentally dumped her mosaic - SPLAT on the floor.


We didn't do a read-aloud this week, because I wasn't quite prepared to dive completely into school yet. I am easing into it.

Ellie read (to herself):

Kate read (some to herself and some out loud to me):


I used Learning Through History Magazine (The Byzantine Empire) for projects and ideas.

We listened to the sections on the Fall of Rome and the Byzantine Empire on the Story of the World, Volume 2 CDs. I also read aloud from Mystery of History, Volume 2.

And what week of history would be complete without a Dover coloring book to keep the little ones busy while I read??

Week One Done!!

Wow, we actually made it through our first week back to school.

(We've actually made it through two weeks by now, but I decided to give myself a week delay to post what we've done - then I don't feel pressured to sit and post when I don't have time!)

We got all of our work done, but definitely not in the most efficient manner. I know that if we're going to keep this up in the long run, we're going to have to have some sort of schedule - even if it's just a loose routine. ANYTHING would be helpful at this point in time.

Right now, I 'm trying to figure out :
1.How much time I need to set aside for each subject for each kid
2. Which things they can do independently and which I need to help them with
3. Which subjects I can teach all at once and which I need to do individually
4. How do I keep the younger 2 busy and happy while we're working??

Hopefully, I will have a schedule set up within the next week or so.

Of course, when Andy comes back from Iraq in a few weeks, it will be thrown aside for a while.

It seems as if we're always in a transition of sorts. Preparing to move. Unpacking and acclimating to a new house. Preparing for a deployment or separation of some sorts. Rejoicing in being back together again. Welcoming a new baby into the family. (NO, I'm NOT pregnant!)

It seems like there is never just a "normal" time for us.

I suppose that there isn't for anyone though, is there? That is homeschooling - fitting school in with the ups and downs of real life.

Science in Our Backyard

We went for a nature "hike" if you could call it - in our own yard. The younger girls were making a list of living and non-living things. They were also fighting over the nice magnifying glass. I guess maybe we need a couple of those....We have a lot of trees in our yard - both coniferous and deciduous. I am very aware of this in the fall when all of the leaves need to be raked. :)We also have a couple of trees that have died and need to be chopped down:


We have many plants that I can't identify. Shame on me!
Whatever these are, they are EVERYWHERE!!


The kids were being goofy as usual:


Grass that has grown, because I don't weedeat:


We have many bracket fungi on the trees in the backyard. I always call them "conks". My mom used to pick these off of trees when I was a kid and she would draw pictures on the white part with a woodburner. I have no such talent, but I remember searching for them as a kid and learning to be very careful not to bruise the white part - they are very delicate.
We couldn't decide what these were either. Ellie insisted they were a berry, but I thought they were a flower. Maybe we need a field guide to Alaskan wildlife...
And some more fungi. I just like that word. Fungi. These were very tough-skinned.

One thing I did learn: the kids haven't been throwing away their popsicle sticks. They are absolutely everywhere!! It looks like an afternoon of yard clean-up is in store. :)

Am I Insane?

I think that I probably am.

Yes, my husband is currently deployed.

Yes, I have 5 children and can barely control them at times. :)

Yes, I am behind on everything that I wanted to get done this week.

Yes, I am sleep-deprived and behind on my Wii Active.

Yes, I allowed my daughter to invite THREE more kids over for a sleepover.

I am crazy.

I really was feeling bad for Ellie though. She doesn't have a whole lot of friends that she hangs out with. She met a girl at camp and another at a sleepover and they all hit it off really well.

Those two girls are public schooled and school starts Monday. Dance and other classes start next week for us too. We will all be super busy in the coming months - especially with Andy coming home soon. I knew that she probably wouldn't get another chance to have a sleepover anytime in the near future.

So, I let her invite 3 girls over - on a "school" night. We'll catch up on schoolwork this weekend.

She has had a friend spend the night plenty of times, but has never had a "slumber party" before and was so excited!!

I was afraid, very afraid....especially with no other adult help.

I wasn't digging the 1:8 adult to child ratio.

They have been having a great time though. They are all very well-mannered (thankfully!) and seem to all be getting along wonderfully.

Pizza, soda, ice cream, Wii games, movies, playing outside, and hanging out in Ellie's bedroom. Honestly, I have barely seen them.

You should have seen the looks I got when I marched all 8 of the kids into Blockbuster and Papa Murphy's. It was priceless. :)

Honestly, the hardest part of the night was that Kate (who is 7) felt totally left out.

I tried to let Ellie have this time alone with her friends, since it's her big night and she rarely has anyone over. I was hoping that Kate would have a "sleepover" with Lexie, and that worked for a while, but she eventually decided that it wasn't as much fun as Ellie was having.

She was pouting the rest of the evening. I'm glad that she finally fell asleep.....

Field Trip to Creamer's Field Migratory Bird Refuge

We took a nice mile-long nature hike at Creamer's Field yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it went.

The trail we took was almost entirely made up of a raised wooden pathway. It was very well kept and easy to walk on. No muddy feet! I think that the trail normally goes over some marshy areas and I'm sure is a mudhole in the spring when the snow is melting. We have had so little rain this summer though and everything was very dry.

Nick did pretty well with the hiking. He is getting so much easier to handle as he gets older. He was walking with his right arm glued to his side (and sometimes had his hand in his pocket). He seems fine until he raises his arm and then he always screams "My arm still hurts!". Poor guy. I'm hoping that it will heal quickly. It sure hasn't slowed him down much!
Fireweed:
I'm not sure what is with Nick's pose. What a goofball!
Here is what I believe used to be a pond. It is now an area of dying lily pads.:
We saw many cranes. The Crane Festival is coming up in a couple of weeks.:
And I managed to get them to pose for a picture in the woods.:
Nick was a bit too short to look at the birds which were hanging out in the field. He refused to let anyone pick him up because of his arm though.:

He thought the old tractors which they had parked out front were very cool. He is definitely a boy! Anything with wheels is neat to him. :)

Field Trip: Georgeson Botanical Gardens

We had a busy day today. Oil change. Trip to the Botanical Gardens. A nature hike at Creamer's Field. Sign-ups for dance class. Respite care and shopping. A trip the library. I'm exhausted to say the least! Here are some pictures from the botanical gardens. It was a nice cool overcast day. No rain, but no heat either. :)

Thank God for Good Neighbors

I just have to say that I am very thankful for the lady that lives across the street from me.

She has:
put the chains back on my kids' bikes
filled the air in my tires
climbed on my roof and cleaned my gutters out with her bare hands (remember the plants growing in them??)
had her boyfriend climb on my roof and put the rain cover cap thing back on the furnace pipe

She is much more mechanically inclined than I am, that is for sure. There are so many things that I have not had to do since being married. Anything that requires a tool falls to Andy to take care of. I am realizing how much he does to keep the house in working order :) I love you Honey!!

I don't know most of my neighbors, but I am thankful that I know her!

Here is Lexie and her daughter playing in our driveway this afternoon:

A bucket of sidewalk chalk and their bikes and they were happy as clams!

They were busy making roads for their bikes (complete with stop signs of course):

And here is Kate's art creation:

Field Trip to the Fair

Even though we just started school last week, I decided that we had to take part of the day off and head to the State Fair.

I always enjoyed the fair as a kid. I shudder to think of the amount of money I spent going on the "Zipper" ride alone. They didn't have the "Zipper" at this fair, so I wasn't tempted. I don't think my body could take it anymore anyway.

I was never one for the silly games though. I mean, really, what do I want with a life-sized purple stuffed gorilla anyway? We steered clear of them today, but the kids gawked at all of the toys hanging from the booths.

We made sure that we ate some cotton candy (yes I remembered the baby wipes!). We had to get some kettle corn too. I think the bag was almost as big as Lexie!


We went through the agricultural and livestock exhibits. The kids got a kick out of the rabbits and goats. They came to realize that having animals can be stinky...


And it wouldn't be an Alaskan fair without giant cabbage, right?


They went on a couple of rides, but they were "little" ones. Ones that didn't involve flips or heights or any kind.

First of all, they are EXPENSIVE!! I probably never noticed before, because I was the one begging my mom for money. Really, who can afford $3-5 a ride, per kid??

Second, is it just me, or do those rides look RICKETY and unsafe? Are they the same exact rides from when I was a child? Have they not been replaced? Or did I just never care before I became a mom? No child of mine rode this:
Instead, they stuck to the close-to-the-ground and I'm sure much less exciting rides:
And poor Lexie, bless her heart. We chose a very tame (and lame) little viking ship ride. This was a mini version of ones that I have seen before. It was really small (with only 4 seats). Ellie and Kate were forced on there with her so that she wouldn't be alone. And look at her in the picture. I really think that had she been on there for about 10 more seconds, she would have tossed her cookies on Kate, who was facing her. That would have been precious.
All in all, it was a decent day. We spent way too much money on way too little entertainment. Will we be returning later this week? Definitely not. I think maybe we'll save our money up for a nice trip to Disney World, where the rides are much better maintained and not run by carnies. :)

One good thing about the fair, was that Ellie realized that she could enter her artwork in to compete for ribbons. She thought that sounded pretty exciting. Maybe we'll have to look into that when we move.