Nature Walk Day

Hannah writing in her nature journal

I was so excited to see the deer that I didn't take very good pictures

Hannah, me and Jacob

Cowskin Creek

Walking over Cowskin Creek

My guys reading about the wildlife

This may be a weed but it sure is pretty!

We took our nature walk at Swanson Park this week which is a park about 6 blocks or so from our house. We had a great time, got lost and enjoyed God's creation. If you know me, you know I always get lost and in fact I told the kids that we would so they were not shocked when I made the announcement. Everyone had a different opinion about which way was the right way back and of course we chose wrong. But do you know where that path led us? We saw deer twice not more than 20 feet from us! One was a mama and her baby! They graciously allowed us to shoot photos of them for as long as we liked.

Sometimes when we choose the wrong path, God blesses us anyway.....

Celebration of the end of Summer

Hannah and her root beer!

Kayla and Jackson

Zach and Jacob

Zach, Jacob and Chris

Brandi on her 40th!!!

Oldest daughter, Kayla

Last swim of the summer!

Surprise breakfast for Mom and Dad courtesy

the boys!


We had a fun-filled day with a surprise breakfast from the boys and a 40th birthday party for my friend Brandi. I can say she's 40 because so am I and somehow I think that gives me permission! We had a ball and the whole thing took place at an old school. My little brother (well he's 36) went to grade school there and they converted the 1908 school into apartments. Brandi's parents live there and they reserved the pool for the party. I think I enjoyed the tour through the school more than anything else! The high ceilings and original doors and woodwork were amazing. We even saw the auditorium that hasn't been fixed up yet and saw the stage were many school programs probably took place. Inside the apartment we saw the original coat room with the hooks for the coats still there. I could have spent hours exploring! This will probably be our last summer swim and it was a blast!

Football Fun!

Zachary's team

Jacob's team

As I said before, the boys are on two seperate football teams and play at the Y so we had four games on Saturday! J had one at 9 and 10:00 and Z had his at 11 and 12:00. Hot, sunburned and exhausted, we left the field about 1:00!!!

A Day at the Zoo

Our curriculum suggested we go to the zoo today and work on our map skills there, so we took them up on the offer! Each one took a turn looking at the map and leading us to a different location. We started at the flamingos...

Then we went to see the monkeys....

Then on to the bears....

And to the rainforest. And we still came home and got all our school done for the day! Then we had a great Family Fun Night! We watched "Homeward Bound" (The Incredible Journey) since we are reading that book right now. We will be watching Homeward Bound II on Sunday night. We had homemade french bread pizza for dinner and then ice cream with all the toppings, lemonade and popcorn with our movie since everyone earned all their rewards this week!

We have 4 football games tomorrow, yes count them 4!!! J has 2 and so does Z. We will be at the field from 8:45 to 1:00. Then hubby is taking K out car shopping for a vehicle that guzzles less gas. Then we have a date with friends tomorrow night at 6:30. Full day!

Zachary's lego creation

What a way to multitask!

The kids had fun in the sprinkler!

The joy of homeschooling!

We are just having way too much fun! I never had this much fun in school! Last night, the kids played in the sprinkler while they were swinging-who taught them to be such good multitaskers??

Then after dinner we made our continent cake for school. School never tasted so good! Hannah drew the continents and iced the cake with Africa and Asia. I did the one with North America and South America. Oh, you can't tell those are supposed to be continents??? Well, just pretend you can!!! I was actually surprised they turned out this well! Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a cake decorator! I use Wal-mart for that!

More School Fun!

Today has been pretty good, I must say! Everyone had good attitudes while doing chores and schoolwork, therefore we were done with school before lunch! It's amazing how much time can be wasted on attitude adjustments! We started a new incentive..maybe you could call it bribery, I'm not sure. Each day of the week they can earn something. On Monday they earn the movie for movie night on Friday. On Tuesday they earn popcorn for the movie. On Wednesday they earn lemonade (if not they have to drink water). On Thursday they earn ice cream for Friday and on Friday they earn the toppings. On Friday night we have Family Fun Night and if everyone has done their chores and schoolwork with good attitudes, well they get to have a blast! It's going well so far...

We finished our celery experiment today and luckily it turned out as it was supposed to. I can't tell you how many times we have done experiments that didn't! I hold my breath every time now! We also did a nature walk in our own backyard which is amazing! We collected leaves from all our tress and pressed them in a "nature notebook". Then we had books that we had checked out from the library on trees and tried to identify all of them. We got quite a few and we'll work more on it another day. It was fun!