A nice day.

We are enjoying having N♡-'s sister (L♡♡) visit with us this summer from Spain.  It is hard to believe that it has already been two weeks since we picked her up at the airport.  Since we have been living at the pool with swim and dive team, I have not been able to take her as many places.  I am also a LOT slower this last month and the heat is getting to me.  Of course with 100 degree days, I think the heat is getting to everyone!  So today I made an effort to get L♡♡ to DC to see the White House and the Jefferson Memorial.  We got very lucky with parking-yeah!! yeah!!! yeah!!! My rule is you take 20 minutes of driving around for free or metered parking and after that you go home or pay.

Constitution Hall.  

We got to park here- this is barely a block from the White House.  See what I mean about getting a great parking spot!!

Elizabeth, Christopher, Rolo, Keener and L♡♡.  Thankfully it wasn't crowded.  Notice there is NOONE else in the photo- not a normal thing.

The White House.  

The  1st lady's vegetable garden is off to the left, but not visible in this picture.

Christopher and Elizabeth

Is it just me or are there a TON of fences in DC!

Of Course no matter where you go, all it takes is 

a simple flower to inspire a child. 

It just proves God knows best.

The National Christmas Tree without all the gaudy decorations. 

Crazy Picture of kids at backside of Jefferson Memorial.  

In Front of Memorial

A Memorial can be fun.

and a little "arty" too.

And to make the day even better for me.  They KNEW who Jefferson was, remembered seeing his home last year and that he sent Lewis and Clark off on their expedition.  Ahhh, a little reward for their teacher!

Cherry Pie!

       Last Thursday we went strawberry picking and cherry picking at my favorite "pick your own" farm, Homestead Farm.  I just love their farm. They have the sweetest golden retrievers.  They have such a family friendly set-up and are so nice.  And the produce has always been divine.  I went with my neighbor and her girls (seen here before) and I can not believe how beautiful the weather was.  It was in the low 80's and overcast with no humidity and a slight breeze,  Ahhhhh  what a wonderful day!  

     I didn't get to making the cherry pie before  my "fun Thursday."  So I finally made one today.   Keener and Elizabeth pitted all the cherries, Elizabeth measured and mixed the cherries with sugar and flour, while I made the pie crust and assembled the pie and made dinner.   There is nothing like a fresh pie to make you feel better. Yum! Yum! Yum!  

      I generally use the pie recipes in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (As my taped, but still falling apart copy can surely attest to!! )  The nice thing about their fruit pie page is that is only calls for the fruit and some flour and sugar to make the filling.  I prefer pies this way because they depend on the fruit for flavor and not a lot of spices or other fillings.  I find that simplicity is best where pie is concerned.  Go make yourself some fresh pie and enjoy that it is summer with a lots of fresh produce to eat.
*****I decided to update this page and add the recipe:

Simple simple Cherry Pie recipe.

• For filling; Mix 4 cups pitted cherries, 1 cup sugar, & 1/4 cup flour. Pour into favorite uncooked pie shell- in this case I made one with lard (below) so it would be flakey. Cover with top pie shell and decorate if you want. Cook @375 for 30 minutes covered with foil, then 30 more to brown the pie top and voila' yummy pie.  (I of course forgot to cover it for the 1st thirty minutes; so in my case I covered it for the 2nd half of cooking. It still turns out the same.
• For Double Pie crust - (I use an electric mixer) Mix 2 cups flour & 1/2 tsp salt, add 2/3 cup lard, beat until it looks like peas, add 6 TBS COLD water. Mix 30 seconds or so until mixed. Divide in 2. Roll out one for the bottom crust, put into pie pan. Roll out second crust and cover pie.

  

What a day!

       So now that I have had a few days to recover, I should let you know that Thursday was NOT a good day for me.  Early in the morning, I started having contractions and was generally not feeling well.  It just goes to show what happens when you start  thinking "Wow! my contractions have stopped for almost 3 weeks, maybe I'll get a break for the last trimester......" 
 "Wrong!!
I barely was able to make it through the morning, but luckily I had a movie backup for one of my sick days.  We watched Around the World in 80 days.  During the movie I called Honey to say that he might need to come home early because I was not feeling well and was having pretty bad contractions.  We finished the movie and used it for our daily geography and history discussion.  Then we did our daily scripture readings and were all set to start reading Greek Myths and Aesop's Fables. 

•  We are using D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths which I simply love.  It has useful illustrations that are detailed and pertinent to the myth.  Each myth leads into the next, so there is a cohesive flow to the book.  The kids really love hearing the myths.  We have already read through Usborne's Greek myths book which was a good introduction, but not even close to the quality of D'Aulaire's. 

     I started to realize that I was not going to be able to read.  I was not able to talk during the contractions, NOT a good sign.   My Bradley Childbirth class (all those years ago...) told us that one of the signs to go to the hospital was when you could not speak through a contraction.   Uh Oh!  I told the kids that school was over and to put things away while I called Honey and told him to come home ASAP.  Then I got on the phone with the doctor, and various friends to make arrangements for the kids.   Then the real fun began!
      I got to ride with a very nervous Honey in rush hour traffic while having contractions.  Scary does not even begin to describe the ride.  
     We get to the hospital and darn it all, but NONE of the contractions are showing up on their monitor.  WHAT?!!!  Here I am having regular contractions and not a bleepity bleep one has the decency to show up on the machine!  After 5 hours in the hospital, a lot of prayers, a lot of patience, and a lot of tests, it turns out that I have an infection.  The infection is irritating the uterus causing me to have "non-productive" contractions.  Great!!!! (said with LOTS of sarcasm.)  I could have saved my uterus the time and told it that I was already non-productive.  It wasn't really necessary to prove it to me!
       So now that I have had a few doses of antibiotics, a few war wounds from being a pincushion, and a few days to rest,  I am feeling a lot better.  I am happy to have left the hospital with my baby still growing inside me,  that was the best part of the whole day!!

Olympics, Family style.

We have been studying ancient Greece (using SOTW) and I decided to let the kids have their own "Olympics" and Greek Feast. The kids planned the contests and made the medals.  The hardest for them was planning the obstacle course, but they persevered and planned a fun path through the backyard.  It included swinging, jumping jacks, trampoline bouncing, jumping over obstacles and running up the  ramp, across the bridge and down.   I am very proud of their planning.  They learned to negotiate what events would be included.  Christopher only wanted events that he could win (Don't we all).  He REALLY protested against the Limbo contest, but he lost that negotiation.  Keener had such a huge advantage, but couldn't figure out how to do it.  Very funny.

I discussed the food feast menu with them, but Elizabeth and I made most of it.  As usual there was too much food, but it was so yummy.  Most of the ideas came from this web site http://greekfood.about.com/od/discovergreekfood/u/classic_traditional.htm.

Here is the menu:
3 different types of olives-green, brine (kalamata), gaeta (olive link here) ,
dried figs, apricots, dates and golden raisins;
almonds
hummus and pita
Tyropita-3 cheese stuffed flakey pastry
Spanakopita- spinach and cheese stuffed flakey pastry
Camomile Tea
Tzatziki (Yogurt Cucumber Garlic dip)-SUPER EASY to make!!!
Froutosalata-Fruit Salad with honey dressing- yummy!
We also had two different types of fresh bread-thanks to the store bakery!

They had so much fun practicing the past couple of days and  then participating today.  It was such a great way to start off a week.  We had perfect weather and everyone had fun.

So here are the results:

Crabwalk
1st     Christopher
2nd    Elizabeth
3rd     I---- (Our neighbor)

4th     Rolo     

5th     Keener

Bear crawl

1st     Christopher

2nd    Elizabeth

3rd     Rolo

4th     I---- (Our neighbor)     

5th     Keener

Hopping

1st     Christopher

2nd    I---- (Our neighbor)

3rd     Rolo

4th     Keener    

5th     Elizabeth

Frisbee Toss

1st      I---- (Our neighbor)

2nd   Rolo

3rd     Elizabeth

4th     Christopher     

5th     Keener

Wheelbarrow Race (Teams)

1st      I---- (Our neighbor)/Christopher

2nd   Rolo/Elizabeth

3rd     Keener

Long Jump

1st     Christopher

2nd    Elizabeth

3rd     Rolo 

4th     I---- (Our neighbor)     

5th     Keener

Limbo

1st     Elizabeth

2nd     I---- (Our neighbor)

3rd     Rolo

4th     Keener

5th     Christopher

 

Obstacle Course (Time)

1st     Elizabeth (1 min 12.2 seconds)

2nd     Christopher(1 min 18.7 seconds) 

3rd     I---- (Our neighbor) (1 min 47.4 seconds)

4th     Rolo (1 min 49.9 seconds)

5th     Keener (2 min 35.0 seconds)  

     Keener was adorable doing the obstacle course. The other children helped her.  It was so wonderful to see them cheering her on and helping her not get sidetracked.  She did however tend to stop to fix her socks.  If she wasn't looking like a European tourist with her socks up to her knees, she just wasn't happy!  Made me laugh just to see her stopping to do that.  

Awards Ceremony Picture 

Playday in the park

Today was a GORGEOUS spring day.  I just love the spring weather.   I took the kids to Clemyjontry Park to play on the fully handicapped accessible playground.  I went with my friend Mary (@ Passionate Perseverance) and her daughter Courtney. Courtney was a little sleepy today, but the vitamin D was good for her anyway.  (She has a Vitamin D Deficiency).  Mary and I traded seeds for our gardens.  We are going to be doing square foot gardens this year.  I'll let you know how that works.  I have been very busy planning the garden and getting things ready to plant.  This is my first year using the square foot gardening method.  My sister has used it with a lot of success.  I am looking forward to learning a little more about gardening.  Hopefully I will have LOTS of pictures to share.  I have a lot of experience with flowers and bushes, but not so much with edible plants.  Unless you count the pumpkins I get for free every year by throwing all the pumpkin guts into the garden in the fall after carving them for Halloween.  I would say that pumpkins are SUPER easy to grow, as long as you don't care how many you get!
                   At the park my kids ran, and climbed on EVERYTHING.  You would think that they would be tired, but they came home and played on the new trampoline for hours.  We did manage to sneak in  a little homeschooling via religion class.  The only important class of the week!   I use a Catholic teacher planner from Creative Communications.  It lists the Saints of the day and Holy Days as well as contains the readings for next Sunday.   It also has a word of the week that is contained within the gospel reading. We spend the week pre-reading the scriptures that will be read on Sunday.  It has helped the children to listen and gain a better understanding of what is going on in Mass.  It also has helped them listen with more interest to the homily. I have been very pleased with the information contained in this planner.   It has helped me to stay on track this year.  Something I always need help with!
 

Homeschool Hurdles

I have been having trouble staying on target with school lately because I am so tired.   In the meantime, I gave the children their assessments for the homeschool program we will be using next year (St. Thomas Aquinas Academy). With Honey being gone last year, Elizabeth having a big learning disability, Rolo starting school "officially"next year and a new baby on the way, I knew I needed a little bit of help planning for next year.  I am a little behind in some subjects and have been desperately trying to catch up.  In my defense, most of the backup comes from Elizabeth from where her public school failed her.  And yes that is as nice as I can be.  She was over 2 years behind in handwriting, spelling, grammar,  and math, when we withdrew her from the public school.  I hate to think of what might have happened, if Honey and I had never intervened. It has been very difficult to play catch-up when I don't know where all the holes in her knowledge are located.  I am hopeful that St. Thomas Aquinas Academy can help me position Elizabeth with better resources to fit her specific needs.  Since I had to test the children individually over several days; we needed a "light" school project to fill in the week, in order to not loose all that learning time.  I happened to see an ad for the Planet Earth* documentary series on Animal Planet.  That seemed perfect, and thanks to TIVO-the best $5/month I ever spend on TV- we have been able to watch all 11 shows over the course of the last 3 weeks.  We watch a 1 hour episode, then write about and discuss the show.  It is nice to have one item that can cover science, geography, handwriting, writing, spelling and grammar all in one shebang!  I know that all the year can not be made up of movies, but it certainly has helped me get over this bump without leaving the kids behind.   I am even noticing a big advancement in Christopher's writing.  He is starting to understand how to pull related information together to form one thought.  Getting him to focus just a little bit is a big achievement.  He is so much like his mama; rush ahead, learn the hard way, retreat, retry.  It is hard to teach him a little bit of focus, when I lack that skill myself!


* Personally I think the series, "Earth, the Biography" is better narrated and more interesting.  Planet Earth is still worth seeing, but should really be titled "Earth Animals" or "Planet Earth-Animals".  It is more devoted to animals and the environments in which they live, than to the earth itself.  Also, there were many times when a map would have been a very useful addition.

Secret Desire

What is it about boys and stitches? Do they think I have a secret desire to live in the ER? Do they think that I might miss the ER if I don't get my annual visit? I honestly don't know how many times I've been to the ER for the boys for stitches.

So what happened this time? Well, Rolo was walking on the couch taking off the cushions to make his fort, when he slipped and hit his chin against the coffee table. I took one look, saw fatty tissue (my sign to go in for stitches) and sent the rest of the kids to my neighbors while I went to the ER. I am actually so used to this, that I stop to think about what I might need for the ER (Books, Ipod, blankie).

I was hopeful that this time they might use the glue rather than the actual stitches. The glue is 10 times easier to deal with as a parent. There is no need to go back to the doctor and have it removed, no need to numb the injured area, no need to strap the kid in a body board (All I can say is that those boards DO NOT work on my kids! Junior Houdini's....). The glue just peels away like a layer of skin after a week or so. I have never had an injury that qualified just for glue, but I am always hopeful. This time Rolo's injury was glue eligible. Yeah!!!!! I was so happy. Rolo was very calm while they fixed his chin up. Here's the photo with the glue. Doesn't look that bad............ now.

One of the books that I took with me was this one. The Human Body.

I brought it because Rolo loves puzzles and since you never know how long the ER visits will be, you need to be prepared. The doctors and nurses loved it. They thought it was so great. They kept asking Rolo if he thought he'd be a doctor. It was funny because he kept giving them a very decisive "No." I said I think he'll probably be an engineer like Daddy and Granfer. But of course he can be whatever he wants to be. Isn't that the fun of watching your kids grow up? Seeing who they become.

Satisfying Homeschool

I had a very satisfying homeschooling moment. I have been trying to teach the kids a little bit about art and art history. I have been using the Usborne Book of Art. I read 2 pages at a time, when we get a chance. I am basically trying to introduce the kids to art, but not push anything on them. So today we were speaking to N♡- about Bilbao Spain where she lives. She showed us (on Google Maps) her home and school and the Guggenheim Museum. She showed us some pictures from the Guggenheim. One picture she showed us in particular was of the very large Spider scupture.

This picture is from wikimedia commons.

I kept thinking that I had seen it before but couldn't place where until Christopher chimes in with "That's in our art book on page 21-22."

And boy was he right! Right page, right sculpture. I was pretty amazed, but utterly satisfied that I had taught my little boy and he had learned more than I did! Along that same art theme: We got a package today from Honey that contained some Lapis Lazuli. There was a picture that we had studied with a beautiful blue color. The paint had been made from this stone which coincidentally comes from afghanistan. Since it is only $5 for a few small rocks, Honey sent them to us to help the children "see" and "touch" the rock that made the pretty blue color. It was very satisfying to see . Thanks Honey, you are helping the kids with their Art lessons by sending the rocks to me.

Boys will be boys

          The boys had one of their homeschooling friends S-- come over to play yesterday.  They spent the entire 3 hours outside playing.  They built a fort, created slingshots, fought with swords, played baseball and lacrosse and many other adventures.  It brings me great joy to watch the boys enjoying the outside.  Here is a picture of them about to wrestle (boys will be boys after all!!).

  This is the boys standing in their fort.  They used the bushes and some sticks to build the walls and some extra shingles as their floor.  Very nice.  

New attempt

Here's my first attempt at inserting a YouTube video. These are from Tim Hawkins and I could watch his acts for hours. I hope you enjoy two of my favorites

Chik-Fil-A

A Homeschool Family

Volcano Olympus Mons

          Yesterday the kids and I started their Volcano experiment for science by creating the volcanos out of salt dough.  They then let them dry overnight.  This evening the kids got to make the volcanos erupt.  They used a mix of vinegar, baking soda, dish soap, and water.  Everyone chose a different color of dye for their volcano.  Of course Keener was feeling left out (since she did not make a volcano), so I got her a measuring cup and let her mix the ingredients and cause a big foaming mess.  Thank goodness I did it outside.  They all had a great time and really enjoyed the experiment. In case you are wondering about the blog title; Olympus Mons  is the biggest known Volcano in our Solar system.  It is on Mars.  Here are some photos from the event.

    

Elizabeth's eruption                      Christopher's volcano
  

Rolo working!                                                Keener working.