Home Journal - Merry Christmas 2011

Blessings be yours this Christmas!!

Home Journal - Monogrammed Napkin Rings

I was looking for ideas on the internet one day because I was wanting to figure out how to use cloth napkins with my whole crew and not have to wash them after every meal and also not have to leave them on the table for the whole day since we use our dining room table for more than just meals. I fround a post at http://raisingolives.blogspot.com for names on napkin rings and it gave me this idea. I just used some scrapbooking rub-ons and monogrammed everyone a napkin ring and now we can get out our napkins for each meal and then put the napkin back on the ring and back in the drawer. When we need them for the next meal, we get them out and everybody has their same napkin instead of sharing their "cooties" with somebody else. Yeah! Of course, this will only work if everyone in your house has a different initial, but it works for us.

I feel cute and organized at the same time! It doesn't get much better than that for us mommies. Ha!



School Journal - Farm

The littles had a fun time down on the farm recently in school. I put together a simple sensory bin using dried corn as the base and the using the farm toob figures from Safari Ltd. I added a wooden spoon and a metal container and it was done! Bo really enjoyed this bin for some reason - maybe the corn was fun to play in for him. Betty wasn't too interested, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with farming and farm animals not sparkling and the only pink being on such a disgusting animal as a pig. (Her idea not mine. :))



She prefered the cutsie animals from her Leapster Farm toy.



 We did do many of the activities from 2 teaching mommies "On the Farm" Pack  . They both loved the cow printable - not in the right way, of course, but they loved coloring ol' Bessie. Masterpieces!



Family Journal - Happy Thanksgiving!!

Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples! Psalm 105:1



Family Journal - Hiking Trip for the Day

My parents have some lake property a couple hours from home, so my dad got the whole family except my sister-in-law (whom we missed very much) to travel out to the property and spend the day hiking around. It also happened to be his birthday! We had a fun time messing around in the woods. It was windy and cold though, but when we were under the protection of the trees it wasn't bad. The kids had a great time checking out the rock cliffs, throwing rocks in the lake and eating junk food for lunch.

Can you tell we had fun?!! Love you, Dad! Happy Birthday!

Home Journal - Hayride

We always enjoy getting together with our small group from church. Sometimes it gets a little loud, maybe a little bloody, but what can you expect when you get 6 families together with 16 kids! Anyway, we had a great time on our 2nd Annual Fall Hayride. We sat around the fire and had hot dogs and s'mores and then we hopped on the trailer for a little fun. It was so cute because the boys were trying to scare us and make howling sounds and all. It was classic! The girls even tried scaring the boys when they went on their own hayride. By that time, it was really dark and the girls were more scared by hiding in the trees themselves than the boys.

Bo got a scare himself, by falling into the fire. Praise the Lord only a brick that formed the pit scratched his hand. He touched a log to balance himself, but not the part that was on fire. Whew! From then on it was, "Fire, owie!"

Except for the times he was worried about the little dog scratching Betty and her friend. He would yell from 20 yards away, "Pareful, dog, scatch!" over and over. Such a caring brother... :)

 Of course, there was a gorgeous sunset that I had to capture, too.



School Journal - Eating Geography

"Oh no, my Africa broke. Oh well, I'll just bite a little more and turn it around, and it can be Australia." In Heart of Dakota Bigger Hearts for His Glory, the kids were asked to make the continents by biting off bits from a graham cracker to leave the continent shape behind. They were a little leary at first, but even E decided she could participate in a little geography activity. Of course, I didn't have enough graham crackers to go around, so we tried tortillas, but I didn't have tortillas. Then we did find a few flat tostada shells, but not enough to go around. Then we broke out the cheese. (Can you tell I needed to go shopping?) They finally completed their continents. 

Not exactly to scale, but at least they know their continents!

Home Journal - Pumpkin Tea Party

Okay,well...not really tea, but orange juice and there wasn't even a tea set involved. Betty and Bo had me fill up a pumpkin ice mold with orange juice (since orange juice is orange like a pumpkin) and they proceeded to slurp it up with their straws. They enjoyed a couple refills as well. They were happy in their own little silliness and I was happy that they were playing together NICELY and were not destroying things while I got some school done with the olders. :)



Field Trip Journal - Shepherd's Cross Pumpkin Patch

We had a practically perfect day at the pumpkin patch as Mary Poppins would say. We said so too, especially since we got to go with our awesome homeschool group and our sweet friends from out of town. We went on a circuit of activities at the farm - games first and pics with the pumpkins.

 Then it was on to the hay maze and finding the pumpkins under the hay.

 Next came the petting zoo with lots of pets from the younger crowd.

Then we watched a short video about a pumpkin and ended with a hay ride.

 Sweet parts.



The weather was gorgeous but the farmer mentioned the drought that has been going on so we're just praying for more rain for our neck of the woods.