So we are gleefully making junk piles and stuffing clothing into leaf bags (all in the name of charity, of course) and shaking our heads at the amount of excess that has built up in our lives when the boys and I start reading Little House on the Prairie. Do you realize that a family of five packed up enough to live on in a WAGON and headed off into the wilds, totally unconcerned about whether or not Amazon Prime would work out there?!? The comparison to modern North American life is so jarring here as to be unsettling. There is no way we need this much STUFF! I'm told I need to read Jen Hatmaker's book, Seven, but I'm afraid to. I'll see if I'm feeling braver next week.
Anyway, enough rambling, I know most of you who read this blog are really just here to see pics of the kids and what we are up to in our crazy home school, so I won't keep you in suspense any longer. A few highlights from the past couple of weeks . . .
Remember how a couple of posts ago I mentioned that we were starting weekly acts of thankfulness/kindness? So we did in fact, make cards for families whose Christmas light displays gave us much joy. And we made cards for our neighbors (because we have really great neighbors), and then our church announced that it was collecting money for the Sanctity of Life Ministry, to help them buy a new ultra sound machine. As you will recall, our baby girl is adopted, so these types of ministries are very near and dear to our hearts. We are all aware of how easily she could have been another abortion statistic, and we are so very grateful to people who present girls facing unplanned pregnancies with options.
When the boys and I were talking about the baby bottle campaign (to fill baby bottles with coins, etc. then turn them back in at the church) they both ran for their wallets. Without a word of prompting from me, they completely emptied their change purses, then scoured the house for more coins. Upon being a little sad that it wasn't completely full, Jake commented that he wished they could put paper dollars in there. I told him that he could if he wished . . . and they both emptied all of their carefully saved dollars out of their wallets, rolled them up and tucked them into that bottle. I was so proud of them. They were so excited to be contributing to this cause and commented that this was a great way to show how thankful we are for their baby sister. Heart melting.
But really, who wouldn't be thankful for this adorable little blessing?!?
So one afternoon we headed down town to meet some friends at a children's play museum. Leia was entertaining us all with her fish lips (which she had never done before and has never done since, so thanks Holly for capturing it on film!) and the rest of the kids had the run of the place and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
They spent a long time playing store . . .
And Jake took up bull riding . . .
We finished up with a fun lunch at a Latin restaurant where the boys had a blast practicing their Spanish on the ever-so-patient server and Leia ate her body weight in plantains and beans. We are so blessed to have such fun friends to hang out with!
One of the cooler art projects we've done lately. I love That Artist Woman's blog (www.thatartistwoman.org) and we pull a lot of our ideas off of there. This one was a brief lesson in color theory (color wheels, and we added in a bit of discussion on primary, secondary and complementary) that winds up being a very cool gecko picture. The instructions are on her blog, but the finished product was a color-changing gecko (you spin the wheel behind the cutout) that the boys were pretty excited about.
Here it is -- fun for a rainy day for those of you whose children have other teachers :-)
We are just wrapping up a study of Thomas Jefferson, so we decided that a field trip to Monticello was in order. What a cool place! This picture has the boys in front of the same side of the house that is pictured on the U.S. nickel! It was more than a little disconcerting to see the evidence of such a massive amount of slaves who were kept there (by the same man who penned the "all men are created equal" line -- mind boggling, really) but other than that it was a great day. The inside of the house was amazingly well kept, and the boys came off sounding like rock stars on the all-adult tour, which earned me a "good job, home school" from my hubby (he usually reserves those comments for when the boys do something completely idiotic).
Here in the Discovery Room Jake is testing out a polygraph copying machine, just like the one on display in Jefferson's office. Writing neatly with those things is a bit of a challenge!
Chase doing a rubbing of the self-penned epitaph on Jefferson's tombstone. Interesting that he chose to be remembered for the Declaration of Independence, the Religious Freedom Act for Virginia and the University of Virginia, but not for his presidency.
Figured I should include this picture from the restaurant we ate lunch at just to prove that she was there. Documentation is everything, I hear.
We're really enjoying our Spanish curriculum, La Clase Divertida, which includes a lot of Mexican culture projects in Level One. Here the boys were working on (faux) Fried Ice Cream. They were huge fans. Maybe one day I'll get ambitious and make them the real thing. Or not.
Leia entertaining herself in the school room one day. She was having such a good time that we didn't have the heart to stop her.
The other fun Spanish project they did lately was a family tree, with Spanish labels (abuela, tio, etc.). I was surprised by how into this they were -- as soon as Chase finished this he asked if we could hang it up :-)
All right, I should go and find another closet to gut, but thanks for stopping by, and until next time . . .
Crystal
