Mexican Fiesta!

There was candy...

Friends..... Mexican Food......

Dancing to mexican music with maracas......

Homemade decorations.....

And the breaking of the pinatas!!!!

We had a great time celebrating the end of our visit to Mexico (in our school anyway!) We made tissue paper flowers, made a pinata, made clay suns, ate a mexican lunch of burritos with homemade refried beans, salsa and spanish rice, had balloons, cupcakes, mexican wedding cookies and of course tons of candy from breaking the pinata!! Our friends Shannon and Rylie came over since they are in the same curriculum we are and we celebrated together. The kids had a great time dancing to LOUD mexican music! I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what we were doing! It was a great time and again, I'm having a blast homeschooling! (Hopefully the kids are too!!)

Scottish Festival

We had a lot of fun at the Scottish Festival this weekend. I felt it went along with our countries and cultures studies this year even though we aren't studying Scotland.
I found the sheepherding to be very interesting! These dogs are amazing as they respond to different cues given to them by their owner and can keep the whole herd together and exactly where they want them! The bagpipes were great!

Scottish dancers

A fencing club from Derby, Kansas was there performing

This is Hannah doing the haybail tossing.

Here's Jacob giving it a try.

Zachary's turn!

Zachary is doing the stone tossing.

Now Hannah is doing the Caber toss.

The three-legged race

The potato sack races

All in all, we learned a lot, had a great time and ate and drank some great food! I'm thankful to our friends Danni and David for taking us with them and showing us around. They go every year because Danni is of Scottish background and she goes to try and seek out her clan. It was great getting the "insiders scoop" on everything!

Wordless Wednesday (Goodbye Summer!)

Books and grapes..

First day of the book club!

Hannah talking about her book

Jacob telling about his book

Zachary at book club


The grape harvest!

The grapevines in our backyard

Today we started going to a book club that the leader of our homeschool support group started. The kids did great standing in front of everyone reading what they had written about their books and showing the pictures they had drawn. They are not afraid of public speaking!!

On another note, when we moved to our new house we discovered grapevines that the previous owners had planted. They are beautiful and have given us a great harvest but I have no clue what to do with them! I'm thinking about making jelly or jam or maybe even just grape juice but since I have never done any of those things, it should be an adventure! More on that to come.....

No new water leaks to report, which is always good news! We got our carpet dried out and the smell I believe is out of our house. We didn't have to tear up carpet or take out sheetrock, thank goodness! We were told by the new owners of our previous house that they had 6 inches of water in the basement. They lost quite a bit and have to tear out carpet and sheetrock and of course insurance won't help them. I feel terrible for them. At least the rain is finally over and we have a new dishwasher and hopefully all the problems are over, for awhile anyway!

Time to pick the apples

We picked some beautiful apples today at Steffens Orchard and had a ball in the meantime!

The owner told us to eat as much as we wanted while we picked and boy did we!

Hannah doesn't eat apples but she helped us pick some

I think Dad had fun too!

I'm so glad we took advantage of the beautiful day! We ended up getting about 80 pounds of apples which we split with a friend. Tomorrow we plan to peel, core and slice as much as possible and put in our freezer for winter baking. I'm sure we will eat as we go!

Family Reunion

We had a great time at our family "reunion" this weekend. I say reunion because we hardly ever get to see everybody! This is my cousin Gwen and her two grandkids with my Uncle Lee in the background. My cousin Kim's daughter

Gwen, David and Uncle Lee

What would a family get together be without a little football? My boys....

My Uncle Lee with his wife Loretta and my cousin Kim

Two sisters, Kim and Dorena

My Aunt Joan, cousin Dorena and Justin

Justin, Laurie and her husband and Ashley

My brother Chris and his son Ben

My daughter Kayla and her boyfriend Dakota

Uncle Lee, cousin Pam and her husband, Loretta and Aunt Joan

Lee, Pam and husband, Loretta, Joan, Justin, my mom and Ashley

Mom, Justin, Ashley, Laurie and Katrina

My Dad and brother with Ben

It was finally a beautiful day today, though a little chilly and windy. We had a great time seeing everyone! It was a nice break from our wet, stinky basement!