best of show

I'm still finishing up the month of May, with our day at the home school fair.  Right as we walked into the gym, we discovered that Gracie had won "best of show" for the table runner that Aunt Gail taught her how to make.  Her first purple ribbon!

 Luke loves putting things together and this year picked out a pirate mansion to work on.  Sticking to the same theme, he also entered a drawing of the pirate mansion that he put together.  Luke knew exactly what he wanted to enter, and was very happy with his two projects. 

 Dylan and Gracie have been very interested in learning how to use my camera.  After it rained one day, Dylan knew exactly the kind of picture he wanted to take.  He was able to capture the rain drops on a rose in our front yard.

 On another day, he followed this bird all around our neighborhood trying to get a good shot.

 Gracie was able to capture a close up shot of one of many butterflies that we chased during our December trip to Cayucos.

 Dylan entered his research report on the dropping of the atomic bomb and received a first place ribbon.

 He also entered his science project which tested the accuracy of the 'five second rule' when it comes to dropping food on the floor.  In our house, it is safer to drop food on our kitchen floor than it is in our living room.  An interesting side note: there was some kind of bacteria on the ham lunch meat that didn't get dropped on the floor at all!

Gracie did her table setting based on the Little House on the Prairie books that we have been reading.  For the two weeks before this, Gracie loved having so much time to play with Evee, as Sarah stayed with us while Matt got things settled for them in Tennessee.

 Abby won "best of show" for her creative table setting with a jungle theme.  We were so impressed with how much she made on her own, especially the utensils made out of sticks.  So cute!

 Grammy always comes and supports the kids!  This year she left little notes beside all of their projects. 

 Dylan got a first place ribbon for his art entry based on the speech he gave to our home school group, teaching them how to draw a horse.

This was some of the group that came to support the kids! Lori, Chris, and Emi came later in the day.  This picture makes me feel so blessed!

merry month of May

 I'm still trying to catch up from the month of May... This picture was taken by Gracie of me, Mom and my Grandma (Granny) on the day before Mother's Day.  We brought Grammy and Granny flowers that day and then took Grammy to lunch. It was a beautiful, sunny day and Grandma was in a great mood.  She talked about all of the fun trips that she took me and Lori on when we were kids.  She even talked about jumping in the swimming pool after Lori fell in when she was little, even though she didn't know how to swim herself!  We also remembered riding in the back of Grandpa's truck in the camper shell, back before we had to wear seat belts. We rolled around everywhere as we were coming down the mountain roads after fishing! It was a great day.

 For my 40th birthday, Bill took the day off work and we went to Disneyland.  The three older kids talked me into leaving Caleb at his grandma's so that I could go on all of the rides with them.  I didn't want to do it at first, but Caleb was thrilled to get to stay at Grandma's house by himself.  We also got to explore a little more of California Adventure that I had never seen before.  We found a room made to look like the library from Beauty and the Beast (my favorite movie of them all).  We took a quiz to found out which Disney character we were most like.  I was hoping for Belle of course and ended up getting Jane. I wasn't sure how I felt about that one!

 By the middle of May, none of us really wanted to do school anymore!  We were all working hard to finish all our assignments before Everlee and Sarah came to stay with us.  By the third week of May we were all done and it was time to have some fun outside.  What started out as an activity of filling of cups and bowls with water for Caleb, became hoses and umbrellas, then became a water slide.  It was the perfect way to start our summer!

 Delaney takes art lessons at a school right by our house.  We always enjoy going to her open houses and seeing her work displayed.  We all were so impressed with her growing abilities as an artist.  I thought this was her best work yet!

I remembered as a kid in elementary school that we made cards with holes in them so that we could see the solar eclipse.  Dylan made one this time and we waited and waited until the right time, and saw it happen through the shadow on our wall.  At one point the entire back side of the house was covered in crescent shaped shadows!  It was an awesome experience to remind us of the perfect power and plan that God has for us!

The Long Winter

We finished the book, The Long Winter, at the end of April and I am just getting around to sharing the pictures from our day of activities.  Since we had been discussing Mary's blindness, Wyatt dissected a cow's eye for us. It is amazing how God's plan for animals works!

The long winter feels like the longest book of the entire series because the Ingalls family suffers through one horrible blizzard after another.  There is a brief part at the beginning of the book where they discover a little bird in the hay and then set it free.  Due to my new found love of pinterest, I was anxious to try one of the ideas I had pinned.  We took empty toilet paper rolls, covered them in peanut butter, rolled them in bird seed, and ended up with  a bird feeder to put on the branch of a tree.  Since we don't have any big trees, we attached string to ours and hung them in various spots in the back yard.  Sadly, two days after we hung our bird feeders, we had a rain storm and ours turned to mush.  I was excited to hear Abby's story of seeing a bluejay having a snack on the bird feeder that she made at her house. So, all was not lost on this project!

 Laurie's idea was for each kid to make their own newspaper.  In the story, Mary encourages the family to wait until Christmas day to read the newspapers that they have received, in order to save if as a special thing for that day.  Laura doesn't want to wait, but is so thrilled when they finally do get to read them, that she admits that Mary was right.

Grammy in her normal spot with Caleb and Weston playing games.

 Abby and Winona working on their bird feeders

 Dylan taking the whole newspaper project very seriously

 Wade and Marilyn working on his newspaper

Kim Medina taught us all how to make our own sourdough starter.  I found this very interesting.  The funniest part was that she said several times not to put the lid on the jar because it wouldn't take long for the process to start, and she was right.  None of us realized that someone had put the lid on the jar, and you can see the result...

It's always nice to sit and enjoy the wonderful food that everyone brings to our times together.  Here we are all devouring the apple crisp that Laurie brought for us!