Wordless Wednesday: Oldest and Youngest

Week In Review

One of my best buddies turned 40 - Happy Birthday, Nan! Here's hoping we're taking a girl's trip soon to celebrate!

Friday, last: a fun field trip for the big kids and Hubby to Spirit of America, which fit beautifully into our American History studies. Then off to our science co-op where the girls shared their "Weekly Wolf" newsletter with the group, including articles on dingoes, wild African dog packs, and a few jokes.

The weekend was full of Tae Kwon Do, the children's choirs singing, the regular busy-ness of Sunday morning...

This week we studied ursidae (bears) for zoology, read The Great Turkey Walk for history, worked on states and capitals, continued to learn the second declension masculine for Latin ("learning" might be stretching it a bit; this is coming slowly), carried on in math, writing, and spelling.

The Patriot's big accomplishment was hanging out in the high chair like a big boy:

Tae Kwon Do

Everyone's loving TKD. Crockett's too young, but he's always there so the director gave him a uniform too. He couldn't have been happier! He's always asking when we're going to "hi-ya" class.

Six Months Old

Afternoon Pursuits

Lots going on around here in the early afternoons when lessons are finished...

Elbow, Toddzilla, and even Crockett

are doing lots of running around with guns - Star Wars fashion:

Bobo has taken a new interest in robotics.

She's designing away; she's got a few different models so far.

(Plus, she gets to wear her cool workshop "googles")

The Patriot is just cheering everyone on from the sidelines.

He Didn't Get This From Me

Seriously, I can barely manage my big rig with two hands; I don't often sacrifice one for the phone!

Fancy in Fur

Modeling a few of the pelts from Friday's science field trip:

Another Week's Gone By With Barely A Word

It's hard to get to our little spot in cyberspace lately. More snippets of our days this week:

• The biggest three children started Tae Kwon Do this week and love it. They're all about front yard practicing, which means now many of the neighbor children are in on the fun.
• I took the girls to Max and Erma's for sundaes on Tuesday evening as a treat for memorizing all forty-four presidents. They each got to pick out a book at Borders as well: Bobo went for The Lightning Thief (in the Percy Jackson series) and Elbow picked Swiss Family Robinson in a junior classic edition.
• Our current history reading is Mocassin Trail. Toddzilla's right in on the action for this one. Bobo's book is By the Great Horn Spoon and for Elbow I chose Westward Home: Joshua's Oregon Trail Diary.
• My oldest has always been prone to poetry (and has a flair for the dramatic!) - here's something she wrote yesterday:
  

Have a great weekend!

Pastor Arrested?

Our science group kicked off the year yesterday, much to the consternation of some inquisitive neighbors. Since part of our chapter focused on careers dealing with animals, we had a visit from a K9 cop (who also happens to be the father of one of the girls in the group).

My boys, of course, spent the a great deal of time in the squad car (including the dog's kennel).

Here the children watch in awe as the dog finds an item they had "scented up" and hid.

We hit the raspberry patch afterwards with another family from the group. The boys - after eating their fill of berries - played in a hole next to the field while the girls managed to pick five pounds of raspberries.

So Many Things...

...going on around here that there's been no time to post. Here's a few:

• Toddzilla actually likes to put pen to paper, finally. He's all about making a Star Wars book.
• We're Lutherans. Many of you have mentioned you thought we were Catholics, until you read that my husband is a pastor. Our denomination, the ELCA, has recently made some decisions that lead the church away from the authority of Scripture and the tradition of the church. This is more than disappointing to a great many, including myself. I haven't been able to say much here because it's all so disheartening.
• On a completely different - and more positive - note, I just got all the Core 4 Sonlight US History books from one of my friends. We had a great time with Core 3 this summer and look forward to moving right along.
• We're experimenting with iMovie. The girls had to do a report on zoo keepers for their science group on Friday. We went and interviewed one yesterday, recorded it, and now we're making it into a movie with music and scrolling credits and all! I would even post it here, but it's nine minutes long and I'm not sure you're that interested. Here they are in their "reporter outfits."
• The Patriot is sitting up and acting like a full-on little boy. Arrgghhh, it goes so fast.
• I'm up to three runs since that baby's birth, two of which were this week. So at least there's improvement.