Our Week

Most of my posting for our adventures has moved to facebook.

Journey With Us If You Will

Monday (Labor Day)... We talked about what labor day was and it's origins sparked by my oldest asking why labor day was a holiday. We did other stuff too, but I forget what right now.

Tuesday-I had a photo shoot in the morning so they did stuff with dad, then we went to the park and on a "hike" when the playing part of the park was just a bit to warm for them to be enjoying themselves. Then we had Dungeons and Dragons night with friends, where the girls come in here and there and play with their characters (usually someone they make up for that one combat scene and the DM, who is my BIL, is really patient with them, it's great) or to roll either mine or daddy's dice (usually mine).

 

Wednesday-We started a Percy Jackson Unit Study. This is something that my oldest wanted to do. We read the first chapter of the first book (which she has read three times and I have read once) and started some activities. She did a Vocab puzzle, got 3 words into a 2nd puzzle and said "I'm bored" so she moved on to writing in her journal, then she started making a family tree. Then at 6 we had auditions for a play. My oldest (Marti) bought a Cinderella play (this actually http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Now-Im-Reading-Plays/Nora-Gaydos/e/9781584769729/?itm=1&USRI=cinderella+play) and yesterday she planned a gathering of her friends and they did the play, or auditioned, or practiced it. I had to take the car to the shop so daddy (the theatre buff) stayed with them. We need new brakes, fun!

Thursday- We have a friend over (who was at the meeting last night). It was funny, I remember doing this as a kid. Last night we picked up the girls' friend, Ashley, to go to the meeting with us. After the meeting, we went to drop her off and I was standing there talking to her mom (another homeschooler) and I hear Ashley say "did you ask your mom?" So, Marti turns around and asks "Mom can Ashley spend the night". I remember doing this to my mom so many times. It was great though because my answer was, of course, "YES!" and better yet, it was "yes" on a "school night"! Love it!

Oh, I babbled there, sorry. Today I expect that the girls will all play together and we might do some more Percy Jackson stuff.

Tomorrow-Grocery Shopping! We are a bit low on food right now so in the last week we have learned to be very creative with food. They really enjoyed helping us make 6 pizzas the other night so we wouldn't have to cook for a day or two :)

Oh My Gods!

Most of my posting for our adventures has moved to facebook.
Journey With Us If You Will

Today I was thinking, as we prepare to go see Percy Jackson (for a third time in the theatre) at the local theatre that is running it this week for $1 per ticket as a "Kids Summer Movies" promotion...

Sometime back a few years ago, I was on a local homeschool list and I had posted about the free movies that one of our local theaters offers every spring and fall. Someone replied to me that it did not pertain to homeschooling. Being unschoolers, I didn't agree, of course. 

I did end up leaving that group because a few weeks later one of the members posted about an anti-gay gathering (I think they were talking pickets signs and such, it's been awhile) at the public library when a gay author was coming to speak, or do a book signing or something. When I mentioned the fact that that had as little to do with homeschooling as my posting about the movies I was flamed off the group.Oy! But whatever.

Back to the topic at hand though. I was thinking this morning that the Percy Jackson "Empire" has been nothing BUT a learning experience for our family. We went to see it the first time with much excitement. It looked really good, and it was. Marti and Lilly both loved it, especially Lilly. A few weeks later my grandma gave me some money for cleaning her house. After refusing the money she told me "oh, just take the kids to a movie or something" so we took them to see Percy Jackson again.

Not too long after that we decided to pick up a copy of the book because Rog and I wanted to read it. My brother in law actually picked it up first and then he had to get the rest of the series as well. After he read it my oldest, Marti picked it up and devoured it. She proceeded to read the next book, and the next one and the next one and the next one. She had the entire series read within a week or two. After she finished it, she read it again and then again.

Percy Jackson has inspired so many conversations. She has even passed some of her knowledge on to me and her dad, her sister and even her friends. We have watched Hercules quite a few times as well and as we watch it she pipes up with flaws in the movie or little trivia facts here and there. Things like;

"Hera was actually jealous of Hercules so she sent snakes from, what my book says, Snakes-R-Us"

and

"Pegasus wasn't actually born from the clouds. He actually sprouted fully grown from Medusa's head after Perseus sliced it off"

and

"Phil doesn't know that Achilles mom dipped him in the river Styx so he would become invincible, except his heel, which is where she was holding on to him"

Rog actually asked her about this one. He asked why Achilles' mom didn't just dip him in completely and Marti told him that if your whole body goes into the river then you die.

And in true unschooling spirit, after she seemed to get a little bored with the Percy Jackson series (or at least needing a break from it) I picked up some other Greek Mythology books at the library. She is reading a book called Oh. My. Gods. and we also got three of the four books in the Mythlopedia series called What A Beast, She's All That and Oh My Gods! And, of course, it has shaped her religious beliefs some as well. She now believes in the Gods. We've tried teaching our girls about all religions, not just one so it's amazing to see her make her own decisions about things.

So, needless to say, in our little world, yes, movies and learning completely go together.

New Facebook page

I try to keep this blog up. I really do. I made a facebook fan page hoping that I will update that more than I update this. For those of you who would like to follow us, visit Journey With Us If You Will

Some cute kid quotes (from my girls)...

Just in random order

___________________

Lilly: "Lets go Christmas shopping mom". "Honey, we have to wait til Daddy gets his check next week". "Not to get prestents mom!" "What are we going to get then Lilly?" "KEYS!"

Lilly: "Must… have… biscuit!"

Marti: "I'm going to the computer."

Lilly: "You're not going to the future."

Marti: "So what's that got to do with the price of milk in China?"

Marti: "Would you inside them out?"

Mom: “What do you want to watch?”

Lilly: “Something with one of these letters. A, B, C, D, E...[ and the rest of the letters of the alphabet]”

Fred (during gaming): "And a voice speaks to you..."

Lilly: "What's eight plus eight?"

Lilly: "Guess what I'm naming my character!"

Angelica (a friend): "What're you naming your character?"

Lilly: "I don't know."

Lilly dancing

It was really cute just now.

Rog put on a song by Red Hot Chili Peppers and told Lilly she might like the song.

"What's it called," Lilly asked.
"Californication," Rog answerd.
"No way!" was Lilly's reply.

About 30 seconds into the song she started swaying back and forth to the music, moving mainly her shoulders. Then a few more seconds later she was using her entire upper body to dance. By one minute into the song she was on her feet and moving.

Often I think she doesn't even hear the words. She just gets up and invites the music to take over her body.

:)

Update

Well, it's only been about a month since I updated :)

We haven't done a whole lot, aside from living our everyday lives. I got sick with a sinus infection that had me on the couch for 4 day and kind of out of it for another 5 or 6. The antibiotics didn't really seem to work the magic they were supposed to (though they probably helped) and my body fought off the rest over time. Could have saved the doctor bill I guess. Oh well.

We have been spending a lot of time at the YMCA. We go to "open swim" about once a week and then the girls each have a swimming class that they attend.

Lilly's dance class ended the last week of April and she had a recital on May 2nd that went awfully for her because some other girl kept taking her spot and she didn't know what to do. I wasn't a very happy camper and neither was she so I doubt we will be going back there for dance classes again.

The four of us went and saw Monsters Vs Aliens which was good and we have some money saved up to go see some other movies this summer and to do some other things like going to South Haven and a trip to Michigan Adventure. Thank goodness we paid off all that debt or we would never be able to do all this.

From our daily lives:

Thanks for the airplanes, Aunt Cheryl. Lilly had a blast putting hers together and flying it with Daddy


Lilly made musical instruments out of glasses and cried when we had to dump the water out. This was all her idea, by the way, I just helped her get the glasses. She even filled up the water level to where she wanted it, tested it and would either drink some or put some more in depending on what sound she wanted.


The girls got to visit a friend who had baby chicks too.




They had fun playing in the Styrofoam that came with something that we bought. Can't remember for the life of me what it was that we bought though, lol!


And just recently Lil had a blast pouring baby powder all over the bathroom and then making snow angels in it. Rog had actually "caught" her doing it and gave an exasperated "Oh, Lil", but because he is generally a gruff sort of person when it comes to that sort of thing she thought she was in trouble and hid under the blanket. I tried to talk her out by asking her things like "Did you have fun?" and "Did you put powder all over the bathroom?". I finally brought her out with a passion when I asked her if she made it pretty. She came out immediately and dragged me to the bathroom to show me her beautiful angel. It was such a great experience.


And just the other day the girls got their hair cut.

Before:




After:




C-ya next time!

Easter around here

Short little update.

Things have been going well. I can't complain really. We paid off some massive debt ($6,300) with our tax return this year and now we have a bit of money to spare. That has felt nice. It's kindda opposite of what everyone around us is feeling, which is weird. We were able to save to buy an Acer laptop, which has been nice so that there aren't so many "who gets the computer" related fights around here. We have also set money aside for Christmas (for the first time EVER!), for going to Michigan Adventure this coming summer and just have money in general savings. It feels pretty good. We are still paying on a couple low balance credit cards, plus my New York Institute of Photography schooling and student loans will be coming due fairly shortly, but all in all, I think we are doing well.

For March, I made notes on the calendar about some of the things that we did and wrote them in a little book for a summary.

Lilly has been going to the Drop In Center (a child care center for low income families) quite a lot this year. She gets 6 days per month and she loves being there to play witht he other kids. She only has until November (when she turns 6) to keep going so we are sending her as often as we can.

Marti started a story telling class at the Civic during the last weeks of February and went on through March. She had a story telling performance where her class performed "The Pied Piper" just over a week ago. She had a blast and will be taking Singing for Actors in the summer at the civic.

Which reminds me. We got a membership to the YMCA here in town and we have been going swimming 2-3 times a week which is a lot of fun. The girls will hopefully each be starting a swimming class here very shortly.

They also have a gymnastics class available this summer through the city that each of them want to take. So, lots of fun things coming up.

In March our family friend, Nicole, took the girls to Bounceland, which is an indoor place where they have a bunch of inflatable things that kids can climb on. It's an exhausting place for adults, but the kids adore it!

We also are seeing the Spring Matinees at the local theatre. We missed the first one or two weeks and we are missing this weeks as well, but we have seen Madagascar 2, Igor, Kung Fu Panda, and Horton Hears A Who. This week we are missing Tale of Desperaux, which the girls did want to see so we will defintely have to rent it.

The week that we were going to see Igor, Marti didn't want to go. We discovered (through talking with her) that it was because she felt like we were taking away her video game time, which she has been very protective of lately. So that led to us giving each of the girls a choice day where they can decide to do whatever they like. This past week it got forgetten about, but I will have to work to correct that so that Marti doesn't feel the need to protect her video game time so tightly.

We also got to visit with Marti's best friend on the 16th of March. Marti, Lilly and Gwen have started a nature club which Gwen's backyard is perfect for and now the girls want to move closer to Gwen :)

And the whole reason I started this post...

I <3 unschooling.

Yesterday we did the Easter basket thing around here. I bought probably $10-15 (I would guess closer to $15) worth of candy for Easter so they would have plenty of candy for awhile. So, you can see a change in my way of thinking right there. This holiday was an excuse to buy candy (not that I needed one, but I went out of my way to buy "plenty of candy"). I also bought other little (non candy) things for their Easter basket. Lilly found hers first. I bought heart shaped stones that look very similar to the heart that the main characters where in the Barbie movie, Diamond Castle. The girls were super excited about it and then Marti went looking for hers and several times we heard groans because she would open an egg and find chocolate. How funny is that??? LOL!

Finally, all the eggs were opened and the biggest hit of all were the heart shaped stones, the eggs that I had bought that has various stones in them, the magnifying glasses I had bought them to go along with their nature club and the flashlights that were bought for the same purpose. They kept shinning their flashlight on the stones and looking at them through the magnifying glass. :)

Oh, and the Kiwi story. When I was writing the above story I remembered another story. The girls were recently at the store spending their allowences. Lilly had picked out what she had wanted and still had a little left over. Usually when that happens we go for candy so we were walking down the candy aisle at the store when I remembered that she had recently said that she wanted more kiwi. I recently had bought a kiwi and she had loved it. So, I asked if she wanted Kiwi instead and the answer was a resounding "Yes!". Don't get me wrong, I didn't ask her to distract her from the candy at all. Also, I would have bought it for her, but she loved the idea of being able to buy it herself. When we got over to the produce selection she decided on two Kiwi and a package of strawberries (that were on sale). I love my fruit and veggie girl! :)

So, that's our life over the last 6 weeks or so...

Next time I will try not to stay away too long.

What Marti was saying...

We were driving down the road and Marti was noticing all the "empty space" around us, like parking lots and yards that belonged to businesses. She thought that it was an awful waste of space. She said that they should at least plant more trees or something.

I couldn't stop the tears. It was a proud moment. :)

Sorting Money & Other Adventures

I thought maybe I just write this down real quick because I hardly ever seem to be able to keep this blog up and by the time I get to it, I forget what I need to write.

The other day we went to a local chinese buffet for dinner. At the end, the girls both wanted dessert, which they very rarely finish. That particular night (I think it was Monday) Lilly had like 5 bites of her ice cream. She pushes it away, looks up at me and says (while holding her belly), "Mom, I need some *real* food. I want a salad." Gotta love hearing that.

Marti the other day said something that brought tears to my eyes. I will have to ask Rog what it was because I can't remember at the moment.

We have been playing lots of SUPER Mastermind lately, which the girls have been having a ton of fun with. They are both addicted to that game. We modify the rules a bit because Lilly is quite young, but she is awfully good at it. Here is a picture of her getting the code on the second try.
And finally what I sat down to write about was actually that Lilly was sorting play money today. Usually she strews it everywhere, walks around and hands it to people so they can buy things, etc. Today she put the ones in the first "slot", the fives in the second, the tens in the third and the twenties in the fourth "slot". She said she was sorting it like they do at Wal-Mart. :)

She then proceeded to sort the coins, though she needed a bit of help knowing which spot to put them. She had them arranged in order of size, which actually makes complete sense. While sorting ones she even notieced that George Washington was on the $1 bill. They had talked about George Washington at the Drop In Center on Tuesday so I thought that was kindda cool. After she was finished sorting, she handed out the money. :)

Oh, and I just found this and thought it was cool. These were the families that Lilly made up with the dolls at the museum. I thought it was pretty cool that *all* of the families were interracial. She didn't do it on purpose. It was just kindda random, but still really cool.

Science Experiment & explaination

This was our craft project/science experiment for the day on Thursday.





We got the recipie out of this book...
Better Homes and Gardens Make Believe (Fun-to-Do Project Books)
We liked it so much we ordered it from Paperback Swap

By the way, Paperback Swap is an awesome, awesome book swapping site for those who LOVE to read. You should check it out!

1 package of Kool-Aid
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Cold Water
Vanilla Ice Cream
1 Liter of carbonated lemon lime beverage

Mix the Kool-Aid, Water, and Sugar in a pitcher. Then mix in the lemon lime beverage
Put the ice cream in your cups and pour the mixture over the ice cream.

P.S. I used my own words. I know the measurements are right but I don't have the book's instructions right here in front of me.

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So, you probably want to know what's up with all the watermarks, huh? These pics aren't even that good, right? Well, you're right, but I came across some interesting information recently. I can seem to recall the link at the moment, but because we live in a disturbing world, there are people out there who steal pictures (and not just professional pictures) and put them on other sites. Recently I ran across a website who had her daughter's picture stolen and put up as an Orkut profile. So, really, it is for the safety of my girls that I watermark them. I hope everyone understands.