Painting with juices like William Penn. Some of the juices were enhanced with food coloring, and we used Hawaiian Punch Berry Blue for our brilliant blue:).

What else is there to do when it's 105 degrees outside?! School!

I was actually excited to start school with the kids this summer. It's so incredibly hot outside that we've been pretty much stuck in the house. We do go to the pool, but one can only take so much in this heat! We are going on vacation next month so starting early gives us the opportunity to get ahead and something to do. I've been feeling like a slug!


































Our first day was August 1st. On the first day of school I usually let the kids decorate their binders with photos, and whatever artwork they want to add. We didn't get very far with that this time because I store our photos on Aperture, and it kept locking up on me. Maybe one of these days I'll get the photos moved to a program that's faster and more user friendly. At least the pictures on my phone are easy to upload to Picnik or Picasa for now.
We did a fun art project from our Curriculum, Heart of Dakota "Bigger Hearts"- Indian sand paintings.



















Indian Sand Paintings

All you need is:
Salt
Sandwich bags
Food coloring
Paper plates, or poster board
Elmer's glue
Paint brushes

The sand is easy to make. You fill up some sandwich bags with salt, add food coloring, and let the kids squish it around to blend. I used gel food coloring because it's all we had on hand. The colors came out really bright! Next, I mixed Elmer's glue with a little water. The kids drew a design on a paper plate with a pencil



























































































Our current read-aloud is Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink. It's such a great book! Our biggest problem is not reading too far ahead of the schedule:D. My 4th graders could definitely read this book themselves for their assigned reading but it's a great read-aloud for any age. After each daily reading they narrate the chapter back to me. It's really helped with their comprehension.

















Enjoy the rest of your summer!


Blessings,
Amy

Location:There no place like home...

End of summer!!!

For us, summer is coming to an end. Well not the 100+ temps, but summer as in no school, is over. We are starting Monday. Next month is our big trip to Disneyworld and we are taking at least one week off from school so we're starting early. We also like to take an extra week off around Thanksgiving and another extra week sometime during the holidays. The kids aren't balking too much about starting back since it's been too hot outside to really do anything outside of the house anyway. It's so incredibly hot, ALL there is to do outside is swim. We can still go swimming anyway so we aren't missing out on anything.
This year for school I'm changing things up. We are switching back to the original curriculum we used the 1st year we home schooled. It's called Heart of Dakota. I love it because it's very balanced. We did Sonlight last year and I do love it but we kind of got tired of every single thing being history based. The core of our program will be be all about reading good books, but with a little more balance. The big kids are doing Bigger Hearts for His Glory. Nicholas will be starting to do some school this year too. He's had a couple years of preschool but at home we haven't done much so far. With him, I haven't had to do much because he's picked up on so much listening in on what his siblings are doing.  He comes to me and tells me what he wants to learn and he practices it on his own with very little help. I'm so proud of his progress. Lately he's learned to count over 100, most of his letters and letter sounds, and writing most of his letters and numbers. He loves it! This year he will be doing a mix of pre-K and K work, moving into K probably 1/2 way through the year. With him, I'm using Heart of Dakota Little Hands to Heaven (we've done some of this one already), and Little Hearts for His Glory .

Summer!

We decided our "vacation" this summer would be two days at Schlitterbahn. It's not very far away, but staying overnight feels more like a vacation, and gave us more time to play:). The first day we rode lots of tube rides. These are great except for trying to hold on to 3 kids' tubes so they don't get too far ahead. Nicholas(4) kept saying, "Don't hold on to me!". LOL. He wanted to take off by himself!
After a full day, we checked in to the hotel, cleaned up and went to one of our favorite restaurants, The Gristmill. We had to wait just over an hour, which wasn't bad for Matt & I, since it was lovely outside(after 7 pm), and there were picnic tables and a live band. For the kids, however, it may as well have been an eternity! The did pretty well overall considering they were starving and exhausted. That day was Matt's birthday. What a guy to spend his birthday at Schlitterbahn with the family.
The second day we invited my little sisters to come along and they were much more energetic than we were after the day before :P. They helped with the kids a lot, and waited with the twins in the dreaded Master Blaster line. Nicholas was kind of bummed that he couldn't ride the really big rides. The longest we waited with Nicholas was about an hour to ride The Wolf Pack. It was fun, but after waiting that long we made the decision to spend most of the day floating riding rides that didn't have long lines!
By the end of the second day, Matt and I were beat up. He had a backache, and I had a hurt foot, a heat rash, and blisters. I don't remember being sore & beat up after long days at amusement parks as a teen!! Getting old stinks. haha.
Yesterday was Matt's & my 3rd wedding anniversary. It was bittersweet since he was out of town working. We are planning a quick get-a-way in a couple weeks to celebrate. I had to tease Matt because pretty much every holiday we've been together he's been in the doghouse for not getting me flowers. The one time he did order me flowers(on one Valentine's Day), they arrived that night in a rainstorm, wilted and pitiful. Yesterday I sent him a text that said, "So I guess I'm not getting flowers today?", and his response was, "What?! They didn't come?". He placed the order online and the florist had gotten it late and had the delivery set for today, the day after our anniversary. I told him to just cancel the order. This was after he had had a horribly stressful day at work. I guess I can let that one slide. ;)

Oops my post I started a couple days ago :-)

We've been done with school for a few weeks, and although it is nice, I'm kind of bored! This is really unusual for me because since I had the twins in 2002, I don't really remember ever being bored. I could be organizing or folding laundry, but who wants to do that all the time? If it were just up to me, I'd spend most summer days at the pool or at the gym:). My boys are content with playing superheroes all day long most days.



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Pictures!

Here are some pics I've taken over the last few days. This is Baxter scoping out the deer( before he ran after them and scared them off).





One more!






Here are a few of Nicky at the park. Why so many pics of Nicky you ask?? He's a willing participant!:)


















I thought this was a cool effect!






I love my sweet boy!!! <3

My blog is cute!

Yay! My blog is cute! Not that I know what I'm doing exactly but I'm trying to figure it out:).

Our family had a relaxing Memorial weekend. We didn't go to the lake like I was hoping but that's ok. It was nice just being at home and not having to rush around everywhere. The only blip was me losing my debit card, having to cancel it, and order a new one(sorry Honey!! Love you!!).

Gonna try blogging from my iPhone

So I've been wanting to blog for a while but I never seem to know what to say. Maybe I'll be more likely to do it from my phone.
Today the big kids are at friends' houses so Matt & I have been listening to Nicholas talk non-stop most of the day. This is no exaggeration. The kid can talk for hours. He amazes us with his knowledge about super- heroes and other things. Lately he usually has a pencil or piece of chalk in his hand. It's funny how I couldn't get him to even attempt to write his name all school year, and then the last month or so he just started writing. We homeschool so I guess he's picking up more than I thought, mostly by watching his big brother and sister.
Nicholas is drawing on the back patio with chalk(still talking :) ). That kid is so darn cute! Matt & I are enjoying the cool breeze, deer grazing in front of us...ahhhh. Perfect night.













- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:The Gateway to the Hill Country( my back yard)

Getting Back Into Routine....

Christmas break is over so we started back into our school routine Monday. We didn't get started as early as 

I would have liked(or finish as early as I would have liked) but we got through what we needed to get done. Today my alarm didn't go off(or maybe I forgot to set it?:) ) so another late start. Oh well. Breakfast is an event in our house so we always make time to get in the kitchen and make a real breakfast. Today it was pancakes(no, not homemade) & eggs for the kiddos, and a egg wrap and coffee for myself. We usually have 

a ton of bfast dishes to do, but that's ok. I find that when the kids get to take their time in the morning, 

and eat a good meal, they are happier, and we are ALL in a better mood! For those of you that know Nicky, you know that he seldom wakes up when the rest of us do. He usually makes his appearance just before, or just after we are are eating:).Waking him up is never a good idea!! The twins have their birthday coming up this weekend. Although they've been reminding me about it, I haven't planned anything! It's not their fault that their bday is so close to Christmas, but I am wiped!