Flicker

We were treated to the song of a Northern Flicker this morning. He was very close to our back door and VERY loud. Blase insisted I take a picture, but I wish I had my video camera out and quiet children. My camera doesn't take very good pictures at a distance, so this is the best I could do. We have seen them eating in the yard quite a bit lately. I actually got fairly close to one a couple weeks ago. Today is the first time we remember hearing one of them "sing" to us. It is a beautiful song.

Gnomes

Our Gnomes the little boys use for school. I have caught the boys making up conversations between the different gnomes. I love the baskets! So far they have enjoyed our Gnomes and Gnumbers adventures. I wish there were more stories on the website, but what is there is great.

Planets

We are studying astronomy this year in school. This is the first time I am using the Apologia's program (Exploring Creation with Astronomy) by Jeannie Fulbright. I am IN LOVE with this book so far. Its simple, informative and most of all appealing to the boys. We are also doing some of the accompanying notebook and a lapbook I bought from Knowledge Box. The boys are putting both the notebooking pages and the lapbook activities into a 3 ring binder.

Here is the balloon planets we did yesterday. The boys can name all the planets in order faster than I can write them down. They were pretty proud of themselves. The big green balloon is Jupiter is not big enough, but we did the best we could. All the little ones are the sizes they are suppose to be. Do you like our rings around Saturn?? Can you name all the planets? We came up with our own version of a mnemonic sentence.

My Very Early Morning Just Seems Unusually Nice and Peaceful

Letter A Week

Last week was Letter A Week. Here is a few pictures from Cormac and Rex's school work from last week. We had a great time and so far the boys are begging to do school. I am using a lot of ideas from the Serendipity website ( http://ebeth.typepad.com/serendipity/ ). I am finding their ideas both easy and refreshing for all of us.

Rex's Letter A color page. He likes to use every color he can.
Cormac's Saints who start with A. You can't see it, but he did write his own letter A at the top and did a great job. He decided that St. Aloysius is his favorite Letter A saint.

This is Cormac's review page of 1-5. He colored the gemstones himself. We are using some ideas from the Gnomes and Gnumbers posts on the Serendipity website. I like their idea of teaching the Roman numerals at the same time as the regular numbers. One of these days I will have to post pictures of our gnomes.

This is Cormac's sponge apples he painted. I did help him paint his name, but other than that he did it by himself. I had trays of painted mixed and the boys would decide what color their apples would be. Cormac painted his own stems on the apples.

This Rex's drawing of Paul Cezanne's Apples. He did this 100% by himself. Not bad for a 3 year old. I am impressed with his love for drawing and color. I cannot wait to see him advance as he develops more hand and eye coordination. I might even learn a thing or two from him.

We are using the fairies ABC ideas from the Seredipity website as the main schooling for Cormac and Rex. Stephen does sit in on some of the sessions as well. I am enjoying all the ideas they have suggested and we attempt at least one idea from every subject.

This is Rex's coloring page of the Apple Blossom Fairy.

We ended the week with a Letter A Teatime. It was a great time for all of us. Blase and Stephen helped make the food and everyone helped eat!

The boys sitting at the table. Notice the tea cups, THANK YOU Mrs. Fameree! The boys were actually very excited about using real tea cups. We had apple pie and apple juice.

We read some of these books and look through the others. We used the apple pie recipe in the back of How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. The crust tasted very good.

Here is the apple pie. Blase cut out a bunch of letter A's that we used to form the top crust. Stephen cut out 5 airplane shapes and said they were army airplanes (one for each boy).

We made this felt "Wee Saint" of St. Anne. She made a wonderful addition to our table.

NEXT TIME....Letter B, bananas, birds and St. Bernadette

Distractions

The boys and I say morning prayers everyday (except Saturday if Darren lets me sleep in). It is the same every morning and I normally do not let anything distract us from our prayers........unless one of these comes into the yard.

It isn't everyday you see a spike buck in your yard. He walked around like he owned the place. He had two beautiful does with him as well. The boys were super excited and I had to take a picture, so prayers were put on hold while we admired God's creatures.

Here is a doe with "Spike". They are eating acorns. Darren talks about sitting on the roof during bow season as the deer enjoy coming close to the house to eat the acorns.

Blase's First Holy Communion

Receiving Our Lord for the first time.
Darren and Blase receiving Brown Scapulars.

Blase with Fr. Litzner

The whole family after Mass.

Blase with his cake...it was YUMMY!

First Day of School

August 31st was our first day of school. We usually start in July, but I am slow this year. So far things seem to be going good. The boys need a bit of encouragement to stay focused and I need an extra couple of hours a day. I hope to post a couple pictures a week of what we are working on. Oh wait - there's where the couple of extra hours a day comes into play.

More fun on Aug 12

After we visited Mount Rushmore we drove through the Black Hills, Custer State Park and onto visit the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs. Here those pictures...

the beautiful Black Hills
Pigtail Bridges (yes I took it while I was driving)

more trees

One of the tunnels we drove through. There is one tunnel that frames Mt. Rushmore just perfect, but we were going the opposite way to take a picture of it.

Blase and Stephen in the Black Hills

buffalo in Custer State Park

This one was close enough to spit on. It just stood there and didn't move.

Some of the Mammoth Site bones

more bones

listening to our tour guide

in the museum part of the tour

Mt. Rushmore Aug. 12

While we were in South Dakota in August we visited Mt. Rushmore. Here are some pictures...

The whole gang of us that went. L to R Brech, me, Juliana (green shirt), Stephen, Christina (black shirt), Kaylene, Mauri, Rebecca, Blase and Andrew (red shirt). the boys and I

Kaylene, Blase and Stephen by the teepee.

They walked down and around the park a bit.

Stephen and Blase with Washington and Lincoln.

A well deserved rest in the shade!!

Mark Park

These are some pictures from the Mark Park without any children. It had rained, so the ground is messy looking. I hear they have done more work to the front and planted some trees. How exciting!! I can't wait to see!

This is a picture of the sod farm with the Mark Park in the background.
Here is the swimming dam with the water fountain. There is also a fishing dam. I was told they dug a stream between the two dams and put a bridge across. That sounds impressive!

This is a picture of "Blase's Place". St. Blase is my little brother who died 25 years ago from SIDS. He was just a couple of months old. Mom came up with the idea of calling the little kids area Blase's Place to match the rhyme of Mark Park.

Here is the rest of the park. It has little swings, big swings, the pirate ship, teeter-totters, monkey bars off the slide play area. I am not sure what else they plan on adding later on. The grass is wonderful to walk in so the kids can play barefooted. There is blue chips around the play area, swings, teeter totter and ship. It looks like water around the pirate ship. The guys put in a "plank" to walk so you can jump from the pirate ship into the "water".

Close up of the slide/play area.

Playing in the Park

We had a great time playing at the Mark Park back in August. Here are a few pictures the kids playing on August 11 and 13. They enjoyed the weather and the time with their aunts and uncles. They can't wait to go back again.

Rex, my brother Loman and Cormac playing in the park
Brech was TOO TIRED to play in the park.

Our friend Christina, Blase and my brother Andrew trying to take on water.

my brother Loman and Cormac

The boys playing in the little kids area.

My sister Kaylene and Rex playing in the sand

Rex on the Pirate Ship

Stephen and his sand and rock creation.