Summer Astronomy

This summer we have been exploring the space beyond our atmosphere. It has been a blast!! As partners in our journey to outer space, our friends the O's have joined us. So in age order we have Kiah, Tessa, Kali, Lana, Logan, Toran and Laci. With Anique, Micah and Dan looking on from the wings. We started at the sun and have journeyed to Saturn. Over the next few Saturdays we will finish our study of the solar system. It will bring the official end of our summer and start of fall. My kids were just beginning to understand what that meant and I heared a chorus of "WAIT, WHAT, WE WON'T BE ABLE TO SEE THE O'S EVERY WEEK". Not fun for me either. We just love those guys! Of course right after the whine fest came the "what are we doing next summer with the O's? Oceans, insects, rocks, anatomy, botany, fish" you get the point. So what have we done/learned.

                       1) God is great and has made an amazing universe for us to explore.
                       2) If you can use food to make the point, it is sooooo much better.

Phases of the moon in Oreos

Making models of the Earth in rice crispy treats, gumdrops and mini chocolate chips

                         3) Volcanoes are really cool whether they are on Earth or Mars.

building of the volcanoes

ERUPTION

  4) Shooting off rockets in the driveway is a ton of fun.
  5) Shooting off soda bottle rockets with Dan's air compressor is even more fun. Sure wish we had taken pictures of the rocket blasts. Sorry, we will have to have a take two and post pictures later.

Beyond that we have learned that meteoroids and asteroids are pretty much the same thing they just differ in size. Comets are dirty snowballs streaking thru space (imagine that, even God has snowball fights). Jupiter has a mini solar system all its own and it has rings(I know right). Mars is home to the largest and tallest volcano in our solar system(bonus points if you know the name of it). The sun on Mercury looks white because Mercury has almost no atmosphere. Venus rotates in the opposite direction of all other planets. Isn't that amazing? God spun Venus backwards, that is just so amazing to me. It was almost as though He was adding His signature to His creation. Saturn is the only planet in our solar system that is less dense than water. That means that if you could find a body of water big enough to put Saturn in, it would float! No, I don't know how they know that, I'm sure math was involved. We have talked about Curiosity; the rover that is on Mars as I type.   We have even looked at some of the pictures it has sent back to Earth. Totally cool!!

I have to say I'm not really ready for all of this fun to end. Fall will be a major let down after all of this fun summer schooling. I am looking forward to the future adventures for the summer school gang!! Hope your summer was as far out as ours was.

Christmas Already

Is it to early to be thinking about Christmas? Well, I have already started the thinking about and planning process of this never ending holiday. My list has been started and I'm looking for sales. I've started cutting and sewing and soon we will draw names so that the kids can work on gifts all fall for their siblings.  Anyone who knows me, knows Christmas is my least favorite holiday. I love the spiritual side of Christmas and the hope and joy one can feel during this time of celebration. What I don't like is the santa, buying frenzy, it's never enough crazy part. I know that most people won't agree with my desire to tell my kids that late last night santa died in his sleep very peacefully and his funeral will be next week, but that is exactly how I feel. So instead of killing the old guy off we have decided to have him come on St. Nicholas day. This is the day that St. Nicholas visits good children in parts of Europe and now in parts of the United States as well. This year he will come on December 6th and I will be done with him for the rest of the month and we can get on with the study and celebration of Christ's birth. The real reason we celebrate CHRISTmas.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

Tessa's Birthday Trip

Tessa's birthday was so two months ago and I still have written nothing about it. So I have finally decided to put all else aside and get to the business of blogging about it. Tessa decided that for her birthday she wanted to go to the Worcester Art Museum in (get this) Worcester Mass. It is a museum started by a very wealthy family back in the day and of course they thought it would be a great idea to gather a bunch of artsy stuff and put it in a building that they paid for to show the community that they were something special. Isn't that how most art museums start? This one is pretty cool. They have three levels to cover different time periods, downstairs was the ancient to medieval time period. They had Romain mosaics that were very interesting, there were pictures of the mosaics being taken from Italy (I can't remember what part or Italy), as well as the story behind the removal and transport of the mosaics. They also had the explanation of the story being told with the mosaics, which was good because I sure didn't know the stories. There were Roman statues, busts and coins. There were Greek urns, metal plates and clay dishes. Jars and offering plates for the Greek gods. They had a room from an old monastery chapel called the "Chapter House" complete with stained glass windows. Tessa really liked the window and the fact that the only furniture in the room were long wooden benches that the monks would sit on and discuss the financial business of the town and church. There were many wood carvings of Christ and His apostles. The people in the 1500's were very fond of the Crucifixion and enjoyed portraying it in all of its horror. One of the coolest things we saw was a carving of the Jesse tree that was done in the mid 1500's. It shows the lineage of Christ and has many intricate details and carvings of each person. I guess that is what you did before Polaroid. There was also ancient oriental art, glass, jade, porcelain and china as well as many statues of Hindu gods and Buddhas galore.  They have several Japanese rice paper prints that are amazing. They carve a scene into wood (the negative), paint it with ink and press it onto the rice paper. They do this over and over to layer the colors, think silk screening. It was amazing. Apparently the very wealthy would have some of the panels of their rice paper walls done with these rice paper prints. Early wallpaper anyone.

The next floor up got a little boring for very little girls it was a lot of paintings of people, some of them looked very scary and angry, more crucifixion art and dead animals. I think the live ones moved to much. There was a full suit of armor that was pretty cool. On the third floor we discovered that we are not fans of modern art, if you can call it art. My personal opinion is, if I can do it, it should not hang in a museum. No kidding one of the pieces had tape on the floor around it telling people not to sit on it because it was art. It looked like a bale of hay done in paper decoupage. Yep, I could do that. Another one was three orange ovals on white canvas. Yep, I could do that. Water bottles hung from wire in the shape of a tree. They weren't even new water bottles. At my house that is called trash. But my all time favorite was the one titled black canvas. Yes you guessed it, it was a white canvas painted black. It wasn't even painted well because you could still see some white peeking out of the black. Give me the old stuff, that's all I have to say on that.

After walking the museum for a couple of hours we headed to the cafe and had an amazing lunch. Some where I have a picture of the sandwiches we ate and if I can find them I will post them. Of course no trip to the art museum would be complete without a trip to the gift shop where everyone found a trinket to remember the day by and then we headed back out into Worcester traffic and made our way back home for cake and ice cream. What kind of cake did Tessa want this year? Asparagus. That's my Tessa.

Next birthday trip will be planned by Kiah. I think New York will be at the top of the list and Dylan's candy bar will be a must see.

Yoga anyone?

The young women at church (girls ages 12 - 18) did yoga last night for their combined activity. The beehive's ( girls ages 12 -13) were in charge, so Kiah was asked to bring a "healthy snack" to share. Of course being us we began the whole "we don't believe in healthy snacks, only nom yummys" silliness. We all helped her decide on making brownies as her healthy snack. Yes, you read that right, brownies. These brownies weren't just any box mix or throw together typical brownies. Nope, these where good for you brownies. How can brownies be good for you, you ask? Well these brownies were made with whole wheat (that we ground ourselves), milled flax seed, pureed blueberries and spinach. Yep that's right spinach and a lot of it. The young women were amazed and mildly freaked out with the thought of spinach in their dessert food. But as Kiah put it, "I totally brought the best healthy snack". That's my Ki.

Birthday parties

Birthday parties, who needs 'em? I know kids love them but as a mom, I can really do without them. Now I would like to make it clear that I don't have a problem with a family celebrating the birthday of a family member. I even think it's fun to invite some family friends for cake and ice cream. The thing I really don't care for are the parties my kids get invited to year after year for the same kid. Do kids really need friend birthday parties every year? I say, no they don't. If you can afford it and want to have a party go ahead, but every year? Am I the only one who can't afford birthday presents for the same kids year in and year out? I have taken to making most of the gifts we give at parties. Something simple and inexpensive. I am also finding it very freeing to just say, I'm so sorry we just won't be able to make it this year. I for one know that my kids don't need any more crap to store in the middle of their floor. So from now on I am going to ask kids to please bring a donation to give to some other family or service that actually needs things. Because after all it's the party that IS the present, time with friends, crafts, games and cake. Maybe it's time we started giving our kids less, less crap and stuff, less material expectations, less want for material things and more time with family uninterrupted, more service to others, more looking outside themselves, even on their birthday. Please tell me I'm not the only parent who thinks this way. I can't possibly be. I would rather spend the day doing something fun that will build memories rather than using the money to buy more stuff that we don't have room for. Our kids don't go into public naked, they have shoes, they eat us out of house and home, they have books and toys a plenty. So why not spend time at an art gallery or an armory museum or an insect house, or going for a hike or to a clothing museum and a fabric store (it might surprise you to know that this one is a huge hit around here). All of my kids would love to go to the Boston public library and walk around the public gardens. So here is to a year of no gifts, instead we are using that money to make  a memory or help someone else. All those who wish to join us say, aye!

My yearly vacation

This past April I was able to attend the Masshope homeschool conference. I look forward to conference every year. It is a time when I can learn, be renewed, encouraged, strengthened and see thousands of other people who are as crazy as I am. It is also a time when I can see first hand the tender mercies of the Lord. I am always amazed at how He answers my prayer for my kids. I have been learning and studying about the
Charlotte Mason style of education the past few years. I have found that it works really well with my girls and especially with Kiah. This year I was able to attend many classes about this style of learning and all of its how too's. My favorite speaker was Sonya Shafer. She has used this method for many years and I was able to learn quite a bit from her. I was also able to ask her some specific questions I had. If you are interested in finding out more about what I'm talking about you can visit Mrs. Shafer's website at  http://www.simplycharlottemason.com/. I have watched many of her video's and have employ many of her methods into our homeschool. Both the girls and I love it. It has really helped to make learning enjoyable. I am grateful to a Heavenly Father who hears and answers prayer and is concerned with what some would call trivial matters. And since I'm talking about it, I also loved the five days of staying in a hotel and eating out and the long quite walk in the art museum. Of course in true homeschool mom fashion, I spend the whole time taking notes and pictures so I could show the girls when I got home. The phrase, they would love this, came out of my mouth a lot. I think the art museum in Worcester is at the top of our to do list. Becuase they really would love it. I also love spending time with my friend, who found an amazing mexician resturant that we ate at. I love guacamole and they make the best I have had in a very long time, maybe ever. They made this devine mix of guacamole with pepper honey and dark chocolate. Yes you read that right. Dark cholocate. It truly was the best guacamole I have ever eaten and the entree was good too.

Round one

Sickness has hit the house or more correctly the family. Usually these things begin with the younger ones and work there way up or Dan so kindly brings something home from some trip. This time it started with Anique and moved to Micah and now Toran has it. What is it you are wondering? It is a nasty cold like illness that hits hard and lasts a long time (or so I am told). We have quickly added vitamin c, echinacea and elderberry. Anique has been sick for four days and we started seeing an improvement on the morning of day three. She isn't what I would call well but she can function. Toran has been hit hard but I think it is because she won't take the vit. C as well as everyone else. I hope I can keep from getting it. Colds and asthma don't mix well and I just don't want the hassle. I am grateful that this weekend is general conference and we can stay home to watch it may help break the cycle of spreading this wonderful fun. I foresee Lysol and laundry in my future. It just isn't fun when sick comes to visit.