Happy St. Patrick's Day

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by going to our Queen Creek Homeschool party.  I didn't get many pictures, I was too busy catching up with friends and chasing Tasha.  My friend Lisa and her husband were great hosts.  There were over 50 people there and this is why I wanted to share these pictures.  One of my friends posted them on face book and the caption underneath was something like "poor unsocialized homeschool kids, always by themselves, no one to play with".  And of course we all thought this was very funny because you can clearly see how many kids were there!!

These two pics should be put side by side to see the line up.  My kids are the ones in the green shirts.  Ohh never mind they are all in green shirts.  (hehehe)

We had a great time catching up with friends, eating lots of green food and making some crafts.  I didn't even get a picture of all my kiddos.  Too much socializing. 

Medieval Times Unit Study

We finished up our unit study on Knights and Castles.  It was a lot of fun. During this unit we took a break from lapbooks and the kids made a notebook instead.  They really liked this.  Each one of them used a white 3 ring notebook.  They created a cover then all their papers were put into sheet protectors in their notebooks.  I found various activities and worksheets from a couple of different sites such as homeschoolshare and dltkcrafts.  The kids made a picture time line, a dot to dot of a castle.  We did a study on the Armor of God.  They learned about a knight's armor and the parts of a castle.  They built a castle and we celebrated the end of our unit with a feast. 

Working on their armor of God pages.

After completing their pages we played this game.

Here are some books we used during the unit.  We really enjoyed The Magic Tree House Knights and Castles and our other favorite one was A Medieval Feast by Aliki

We were discussing what to have for our feast and Joshua wanted try rabbit.  He wanted to hunt for one so this was our compromise.   Jay and I joked that if we were a "real homeschool family"  We would have went hunting for one and built a pit in the back yard to roast it in. 

Jay took the kids to Lee Lee's market which is a field trip in itself.  It is a local Asian supermarket that sells everything (live fish, frog legs, duck, duck tongue, rabbit and much much more)  Well they walked in and immediately the kids in a not quiet voice said "yuck what is that smell".  Anyways, they managed to get over it and look around.  They found a rabbit and some frog legs.

Our Feast

Jay preparing the rabbit

We learned that they didn't have plates but used bread so we made our own bread plates.

Here is our feast....rabbit, lamb, carrots, potatoes, bread, fruit, vegetables

Everyone trying the rabbit.  (Yes, we did use some plates but we all had to eat with our hands.) 

 

 

 

I must say the rabbit was really good.  It is actually healthier for you than chicken and turkey. 

It was a great feast!

Family Fun Night

We finally had another "official" family fun night.  It has been Savannah who has been asking for one lately and for her it is only a family fun night if we make pizza, do an activity, play a game and of course have dessert.  Nothing else counts. 

So that is what we did.  We always make two pizzas so the kids worked together to make them and put the toppings on.

toppings included pineapple, pepperoni, olives and sausage

Even Tasha wanted to help 

Then our activity/lesson was from the Family Time Activities book "Playing for Keeps".  This lesson was on obeying and doing things right away.  That is always a lesson we need to practice around here!  The saying they had to memorize was "When we obey right away; then there's time left for play.  Of course the Scripture is Ephesians 6:1 "Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right."

The illustration was neat.  We used a large cup, lentil beans/or birdseed, and golfballs. 

The cup represented the amount of time we have each week.  It is the same for all of us.  The lentils represent things we do that we enjoy but take up a lot of time (playing with friends, bike riding, computers, wii, coloring.)  Those get poured in the cup  Then the balls represents the tasks we need to do for God and parents like chores and responsibilities we need to do each day or week. Put the balls in and they won't all fit. 

So we dumped it all back out and explained that if we obey God and our parents and do what they ask us to do first then the other stuff it all fits.

I think this was a great visual for the kids.  Now we will see if they can put it into practice. 

After this lesson we played Uno.  It was a lot of fun because the kids are getting old enough to start playing games like this.  Joshua and Anastasia could play on their own of course.  Savannah just needed a little help and Alexa partnered up with Jay.  So we played a couple of hands and ate our yummy cobbler dessert.

This picture was actually taken the next morning.  I couldn't get mad because there is nothing better than peach cobbler in the morning for breakfast! I took the picture and then snuck a couple of bites myself. 

Life Lesson Opportunity

We have been given the opportunity to earn some extra money as a family.  Our church recently had to let the cleaning lady go and they were looking for a replacement. After discussing it as a family we decided we would ask if we could do it.  It just requires one morning a week to go and clean the church.  Anastasia, Savannah and I will clean while Joshua and Alexa would be responsible for watching Natasha.  The kids will each get paid a portion of the money.  I was excited about this for many reasons but one main reason being that the kids now have an opportunity to earn and save money.  I don't believe in giving them allowance for basic chores (that is just part of being a family) and we don't have extra money to pay them right now for a weekly allowance.  This now will enable them to earn money and start learning about tithing and saving.

Well for these first two months we have all decided to save our money and pool it together to get a swing set for the back yard.  We found one at Costco and with daddy contributing part of the money the kids will be able to get it the end of April.  Our back yard should finally be getting done this month so the timing is great.  I am excited because they will all be working together to save and then we will go together to pick it out.

 I created a Savings box with a picture of the swing set on the front.  Each pay day I will cash the check and then pay each of the kids.  They will pull out their tithe and then put the rest in the box.  We will fill in the chart so they can see how much they are saving. 

So they all did well our first week of cleaning.  I am just greatful for all the life lessons they can learn from this (working for money, tithing, saving money, not getting paid if they don't help do the work, spending money, goals)

I will of course post about our swing set when we get it.

Our Schedule is Adjusting Yet Again...

Another season of change....that seems to be the only constant around here.  Natasha is now 20 months old and she is out growing her two naps a day.  She has always been a great sleeper by going to bed at 6:30pm, sleeping till 6:30ish then taking a morning nap from 9:00-11:00 and then another nap from 2:00ish till 3:30.  Well, now she is ready for only one nap and here is the delima: we usually get a good chunk of school work done while she naps in the morning but it is also really nice to have all three little girls take a nap at the same time.

So this week I have been keeping her up in the mornings and then she goes down for a nap with the girls at 1:30 and she will sleep till 4:00 so that is nice!  I love her dearly but she is a busy little monkey so I do look forward to her naps as well.

We have tried incorporating her in our morning school routine and it is quite the challenge but she is doing okay.  I am going to have to add in some time where each of the kids take a turn of about 15 minutes doing an activity with her.  They all will love this and that should help a lot. Because otherwise she is trying to perfect her life skills all on her own.  She is very good at emptying the dishwasher (whether it is dirty or clean), filling the dog's water dish and using lots of towels to wipe up her spills, cleaning out the pantry, and taking off her diaper when it needs to be changed...

Here she is saying the Pledge with us

and praying before we start our morning work

Don't let the cuteness fool you...... 

Jadon is 3 months old

I love this picture!! Look how big Jadon is getting. He is fitting right into our family making his own nitch. Everyone at church is so amazed that he can sleep right through the drum playing but then I remind them he is number 6 and it is never quiet at our house (except nap time and night time ). I just wish he was more consistent sleeping at night. Some nights he goes 4-5 hrs before waking up and other nights it is every two hours like clockwork. Mama needs more sleep!!!

Jadon has started smiling and cooing and responding to us it is sooo cute!

Tasha wanted in on the action too!