Monday Medicine

For today's laugh I thought I'd post the picture of a local dentist. My son spotted it when we went to the movie theater next to it. He said, "Ice cream, cookies, malts, and smoothies...I want to go to that dentist!"

Of course, the treats go to a restaurant that is around the corner but from one side you can't really tell so it's rather amusing.

And to add an extra dose today here are some little dentist jokes I came across on http://www.dentalaffairs.com/includes/jokes.htm...

What does the dentist of the year get?...A little plaque

When a new dentist set up in a small town he quickly acquired a reputation of being the latest kind of "Painless" dentist. But a local lad quickly disputed this. "He's a fake ! " he told his mates. "He's not painless at all. When he stuck his finger in my mouth I bit him - and he yelled like anyone else."

Homeschool Talk: Easy Fun Art Projects

A couple of weeks ago the whole family went to the Free Family Festival at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. These are really neat! They have docents at different areas with different art activities for the kids to do. The theme was art from A to Z. So they had activities to go with artists with last names from A to Z. Now, there wasn't 26 activities, but it started with A and ended with Z.

I'm posting my kids' works of art with a little description because these activities were so much fun and could easily be done at home for a nice little art lesson.

One was a painting of a dentist office (I can't remember the artist.) The activity was to draw something dental related with white pencil on black paper. My son drew toothpaste on a toothbrush and my daughter drew someone flossing.

They also had self portrait lessons. The docent helped the kids draw the right shape face and told them how to get the eyes in the right spot, etc. They also had mirrors for them to use.

Since the theme was A to Z they had a really fun activity with letters. The child had to make pictures out of different letters of the alphabet. This one was really fun! And it would be so easy to do at home. Here is one of my daughter's. She made a lollipop out of a C and a drum out of an N. Sorry the picture is not horizontal. I have no idea why it turned out vertical once I uploaded it! Just turn your head a little and it will all make sense! :)

They also made Japanese style scrolls that were really nice, but I have no idea where we put those so I don't have any pictures of them. They drew a nature scene on a vertical strip of paper and then glued it to a more decorative and larger vertical strip of paper. (The decorative one could be some nice scrapbooking paper or thick wrapping paper.)

One particularly popular activity was a Piet Mondrain style picture. They had black lines cut to the size of the paper as well as red, yellow, and blue squares and rectangles. I thought this was a great idea. My kids vary a bit in age, but both of them really liked this activity.

Postcard Friendship Friday #21

Welcome to another Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie at http://www.cpaphilblog.com/ Stop by her site to join in or see other postcards.

This is a repost from a couple weeks ago. (I posted before I realized Marie was taking a break from PFF.)

This is Mission San Juan, fourth in my mission series that I've been posting for PFF. It was established in 1731 by Franciscan Friars.

Unfortunately, we could not go inside the church. Apparantly, they've had problems with vandalism inside it so it is now closed to the public. The grounds were beautiful though.

I snapped this pic while we were there...

Time to Wine Thursday

Well, this week hasn't been too bad. Last Friday my husband and I started a little yard project. So, we spent the weekend shoveling dirt and rock from the front yard and hauling it to the back. It was hard work and it was hot, but I'm not complaining about it because I'm glad we did it. The yard looks better now. I will post before and after pics as soon as we get the final few things done.

My one horrible experience came when I was out getting shrubs for the yard. I took my daughter with me to the Plant Shed. We got the shrubs we needed and picked out some flowers. We were admiring all of the bees and butterflies all over the zinnias. Well, apparantly, one of the bees took a liking to Claire's pink shirt and crawled in it. Of course, we didn't know this until she got in the car and sat back to buckle up!

I was backing the car up so I could drive it over to load up our stuff. She started screaming, "My back! My back!" I thought she burned herself on a hot part of the car seat or something, but she just kept yelling. Then she said "A bee bit me!" I threw the car in park and got her out. I took of her shirt. (Which she was NOT happy about!) and shook it out. She kept saying, "It flew away, put my shirt back on!" Well, it hurt really bad. The bees were really big...not your average little honey bees. She just kept crying. I felt so bad for her. She had never been stung by anything like that before.

I have a first aid kit in the van. My minivan has a little "trunk" area in the back that I can raise up and there are 3 shallow compartments. That's where I keep the first aid kit. Of course, we had just come from Lowe's and there were heavy stepping stones and large bags of mulch sitting on it so I couldn't open it! This entire time she's crying and people are looking at us like we're crazy! I started pulling bags of mulch out and heaving stepping stones off of the trunk lid. I finally got to the first aid kit and discovered that I didn't have anything in it for insect bites! I did have an antiseptic wipe that I gave her and that made it feel better.

The up side: she's not allergic to bee stings!

To join the Thursday Tirade visit Just Add Walter

Why haven't I done this before??

I just discovered something great... Photo collages from Walgreens! Ok, I didn't just discover them. I had heard about them for a while now. I had just never tried making one. Well my friend, Lisa posted a coupon code on her facebook page for a free 8x10 collage. (Thanks, Lisa!) So, I gave it a try and made a collage from our Disney cruise we took in February. I picked it up today. It's so cool! I thought "Why haven't I done this before?" I'm thinking forget scrapbooking...I'm just going to order photo collages for the kids! I still haven't finished their scrapbook pages from that Disney vacation. I just might order some 4x6 or 5x7 collages and stick them in there!

Anyway, here is my collage. I know it will come across kinda small on the blog, but it's an 8x10 in real life so all of the pictures are a good size.

You can also print a title on them. I didn't do it, but now I'm wondering if maybe I should have. Then, I could make one for each of our vacations and put them all in an album or something. I don't know, but I'm sure I'll have fun experimenting with future ones!

Wordless Wednesday: "Tweety"

To join in or see more Wordless Wednesday pictures visit

http://simplyheathersblog.blogspot.com/ or

http://www.serendipityissweet.com/

Carnival of Homeschooling

This week's carnival of homeschooling is up: http://www.homeschoolbytes.com/homeschool-curriculum/carnival-of-homeschooling-weve-got-style/

Monday Medicine

I just finished reading Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain so my medicine this Monday is straight from there. Each chapter began with a quote from Pudd'nhead's calendar. Here were my favorites...

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

One of the most striking differnces between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

Behold, the fool saith, 'Put not all thine eggs in the one basket'--which is but a manner of saying, 'Scatter your money and your attention'; but the wise man saith, 'Put all your eggs in the one basket and --WATCH THAT BASKET.'

Homeschool Talk: School Lunches

My homeschool topic this week is not about curriculum or science experiments. Its about food! On school days I spend the morning teaching school. Then when Claire is finished, its time for me to make lunch. My problem is this: I need more ideas for quick and easy lunches that are also somewhat healthy.
This year my kids have art, PE, and gymnastics all on Tuesdays so I am going to be faced with needing a really quick lunch for those days. I don't want to fall into the habit of picking something up at Sonic every Tuesday!

My kids are picky. They don't like lunchmeat so a quick sandwich is out. Nathan loves PB&J, but Claire is allergic to peanuts so that's not really a quick option for me because I have to prepare everything seperately, away from Claire's food.

So, for this post I wanted to share some of the things I've come up with as well as ask for ideas for others.

Here is a list of my old stand-bys:

1. Mini Pizzas
Made on English muffins or hamburger buns

2. Cheese Quesedillas
sometimes done in the microwave, sometimes on the mini George Foreman

3. Pasta
I sometimes make an extra amount for dinner so we can have it left over.
The kids love pasta!

If you have a quick and easy lunch idea for school days please leave a comment and tell me what it is!

8:00 AM

At 8:00 this morning I was just about to get out of bed. (Yes, I don't get up until 8:00. That the great thing about homeschooling!) Then, I heard the neighbor dog barking and an engine. I jumped out of bed and opened the bedroom door. My daughter met me yelling the dump truck is in the driveway!!

We were expecting the truck. (Just not at 8 am!) We are giving our yard a bit of a makeover. My husband had ordered some dirt and gravel. He's taking off tomorrow to work on it. I took before pictures so I will post before and after pics when we are done.

Anyway, I threw on some clothes and stuck a headband in my hair which was falling in my face. I caught the guy before he dumped it. Good thing. My van was in the garage. He told me you better get it out the dirt will spread when I dump it. So the very nice man moved his truck and let me pull my van out. Good that I did...I would have never gotten it out with all that dirt!

So, I had to sweep up and shovel a little of it so I could pull the van onto part of the driveway when he left. I had actually worked up a sweat at 8:30 in the morning! We also had to tarp it because there is a chance of rain this afternoon. Yet another reason I like homeschooling...I had 2 extra sets of hands to help me with the tarp!

What do you get when you combine 7 cu. yards of dirt, 1 cu. yard of gravel and 2 homeschooled kids?


Recess!

Claire was helping shovel the uncovered dirt under the tarp...with her little blue shovel!!

Wordless Wednesday: Cooling off!

To join in or see more Wordless Wednesday pictures visit Heather at

http://simplyheathersblog.blogspot.com/

Carnival of Homeschooling

Today I'm taking part in the carnival of homeschooling for the first time. This is a fun little way to view other homeschool blogs! If you'd like to check it out click on this link: http://jugglingpaynes.blogspot.com/2009/08/carnival-of-homeschooling-juggling.html

Monday Medicine

We've all heard that laughter is the best medicine. Well, since Mondays and I usually don't get along very well I decided that a dose of humor would be a good way to start the week. So, each Monday I'm going to post my "Monday Medicine".

Here's my medicine for this week. A little homeschool humor to celebrate the start of school!

And an old joke that's been around a while...

What do you call it when a homeschooling mother talks to herself?

A parent-teacher conference!

Homeschool Talk: Science Experiment

My resolution for this school year was to do more science experiments with Nathan (7th grade). I love science and I love doing experiments, but I've slacked off a little the last couple of years. So, this year I am making a real effort to do them. We did our first one this week. It was fun. Here are the directions if you want to try it out...

Sugar Cube Race:

Supplies: Sugar cubes, water, spoon/stir stick, clear glasses, stopwatch

Directions:
Fill a glass with 2/3 c. water. Drop a sugar cube in it and time how long it takes to dissolve. Then, have the child come up with ways to make it dissolve faster.
My son tried stirring and heating the water. Then, he combined the two and stirred a cube in heated water. We timed each one and recorded the time on a chart.

Now, when the experiment was finished I just couldn't bring myself to throw out perfectly good sugar water! That would be a waste. So, I gave the kids some more sugar cubes and lemon juice. They made their own homemade lemonade. That was a big hit and we didn't waste anything!

My son was learning about solutions and mixtures so the lemonade fit right in. We are also going to churn our own butter. I have a churn so we do that every once in a while anyway, but it fit into this chapter so nicely that I decided it was time to make butter again!

Here are the kids making their lemonade...

Postcard Friendship Friday #21

Welcome to another Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie at http://www.cpaphilblog.com/ Stop by her site to join in or see other postcards.

This is Mission San Juan, fourth in my mission series that I've been posting for PFF. It was established in 1731 by Franciscan Friars.

Unfortunately, we could not go inside the church. Apparantly, they've had problems with vandalism inside it so it is now closed to the public. The grounds were beautiful though.

I snapped this pic while we were there...

Time to Wine

This is my first time joining the Thursday Tirade. If you'd like to join in go to http://justaddwalter.blogspot.com/

Well, this week couldn't have been as bad as last week. Since I didn't join the Tirade last week, let me tell you about it here. Last Monday my husband's car broke down at work (40 mi. away) Long story short...

5 days in the shop=a $1400 repair

hubby's car in the shop = no car for me

no car for me = one unhappy little girl that couldn't go to gymnastics!

We ended up renting a car for one day which was a whole other mess to deal with. And to top it all off, my husband was in a training class all last week so he couldn't leave early or work from home like he normally would be able to do. He barely got to the rent a car place before it closed! Not a good week at all!

Ok, on to this week....

I can't get my spacing to work on this blog! Sorry if everything is smushed together!

My daughter has been extremely difficult this week. Throwing fits, slamming doors, whining, talking back, you name it! It's like she going through the terrible twos again! How old is she?? Almost 7!!!

My son, who is 11, hurt his shoulder somehow. A couple weeks ago he was playing a board game at the table with my husband. He reached across the table and his shoulder popped really loud. He complained about it off and on, but I didn't really think much about it. Well, this weekend, it got worse and he could hardly move it so I took him to the doctor. I thought he tell us it was a pulled muscle or something. Nope, he ordered an MRI! So, next Monday I have to take him for an MRI. He is actually quite excited about it. Why? Because he's a baseball player and that's the test all the major league baseball players always have to have when they get hurt! So, now he feels like part of that club or something! Of course, those players usually get hurt playing ball,

not Risk!

And the last thing I have to whine about today is my computer keyboard. I guess I need to get a new one. Yesterday the c, v, z, and x keys wouldn't work. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. It was really annoying! I had to creatively word some emails yesterday morining because I couldn't use any words that had those letters in them! As you can see, they are working fine this morning which makes me put off buying the new keyboard one

more day!

The good thing is I got a good night's sleep last night and got up early this morning. I have already gotten so much stuff done!

Wordless Wednesday

To join in or see more wordless Wednesday posts visit
http://simplyjoyfulphotos.blogspot.com/

Kids do the funniest things

This is kind of a continuation of yesterday's post. Claire has struck again!

She is studying the 5 senses in science. Today she had to fill in the blanks of a poem about summer. It went something like this...
Summer is______(a sound)
Summer is ______(a sight) etc. etc.

Well when she got to a smell she was stumped. I said, "Well what is something you can smell in summer?" She said, "Sweaty birds?" I said that we don't really smell the birds, but maybe she could think of something else sweaty that she could smell. She said, "Sweaty kids?" I said, "yea, that will work and its true! You guys can get smelly!"

Well, she sat quietly at her desk writing. Then she told me she was finished. I walked over to read her line and it said "Sweaty moms"!! Can you believe that? She was offended at my comment about sweaty kids so she changed it to moms! She cracks me up daily!

Kids say the funniest things

Claire is always saying something funny. Today during school I was standing behind her watching her do her work and she started making beeping/alarm sounds. I tried to ignore it so I wouldn't make her want to do it more, but finally she said, "You're affecting the system, back up!" So, now when I stand to close to her desk she starts beeping!

Last week we went to a local art museum. As we were driving up Claire starts yelling, "I saw a president! I saw a president!" I was helping my husband look for a parking space so I didn't pay much attention to her. Then she exclaims, "I saw a president! The one from the dollar bill! See, he's not dead!" There was an older gentleman with a head full of fluffy white hair wearing a dark sports coat. She thought he was George Washington!

Have your kids said anything funny lately?

Homeschool Talk: Literature Units

I love literature. I have a degree in English and I just love teaching it to my kids. My son is an avid reader so when he was in 3rd grade I started doing literature units with him. Then, I started a book club for him. Basically, we take a break from our English/Grammar workbook and read a book and do lessons on that book for 1-3 weeks. Sometimes I find lesson plans online, sometimes I make my own.

This year Claire is in the 1st grade so I decided literature units would be fun for her too. So, each month we are going to concentrate on a different fairy tale. I do literature once a week with her. So each Wednesday I'm reading her a different version of the same fairy tale and we will do an activity that goes along with it.

I'm sharing what we are doing on my blog because these units are so much fun! They are very easy to add to your curriculum or use if your child is already reading that book. I hope others will find my information helpful. I'd also like to hear your ideas for activities too.

In the "Homeschooling Corner" in my margin I have listed the literature selections for both kids for the month along with links to lesson plans and activities. I'll update this section each month.

This month Claire and I are reading The Little Red Hen. Below is our schedule for the month.

Week 1. The Little Red Hen by Byron Barton
Activity: Bake Bread


Week 2. The Little Red Hen by Jerry Pinkney
Activity: Make your own Little Red Hen Story Book


Week 3. Little Red Hen Gets Help by Kenneth Spengler
Activity: Stick puppets


Week 4. You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You:
The Little Red Hen and the Grain of Wheat
Activity: Field Trip to the Mrs. Baird's Bakery!
(We have a factory in Fort Worth)



I preread all of these books during the summer. I found most of them at the library. We have the You Read to Me, I'll Read to You book. (If you've never seen this its really cute. They have the text in two different colors. One color the child reads, one color the adult reads.) I tried to find different versions. For example, the animals that say "not I" are all different in each of these books. I made a chart for Claire so we can compare that. The patterns for the stick puppets and story book are in a Little Red Hen Unit book that I have. A link to it can be found in my "homeschool corner" section of my blog.



The activity for the first week was to bake bread. My husband has never baked bread from scratch so I told him we'd wait until the weekend to do it so he could be home to join in. So, that is what we are doing this afternoon. On Wednesday, I let Claire bake bread using frozen bread dough. I cut it into 3 strips and let her braid it. Here is how it turned out. It was a big hit at dinner!

At the end of the month I'll try to do another post that shows all of the finished activities that went along with this unit.

Postcard Friendship Friday #20

Welcome to another Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie at http://www.cpaphilblog.com/ Stop by her site to join in or see other postcards.







This is the 3rd of my mission postcards. This is Mission Concepcion. This one was my favorite. I think it was the prettiest of all of them. It was completed in 1755 and is one of the oldest un-restored stone churches in the U.S.

You can still see some of the frescos that are on the inside.

Here is one that, I believe, was in a side altar.

It's just beautiful! That's why this mission is my favorite!

Here are my kids in front of the main altar.

To learn more about the San Antonio Missions you can go here... http://www.nps.gov/saan/

Our first day back at school

Yesterday was our first day of school. Don't they look excited? Claire did REALLY well. And Nathan, well, he's an 11 yr. old boy...what can I say? He grumped and complained, but nothing out of the ordinary for him!

We even took a little field trip to the pool on our first day back! Not many kids can say that! The kids had pool passes from the summer reading club at the library and they were only good on Mon, Tue, and Thu. Well, its been raining for the past 2 weeks so we never went during our summer like I had planned. So, we went the first day of school!

All was well until my husband called me at 5:00 and said he car quit! He works an hour away!!! Luckily, I didn't have to go get him. He had it towed back to our mechanic here in town so I just had to pick him up there. Of course, with his car in the shop, he has mine. So, I'm stuck at home today and Claire had to miss gymnastics. And who knows how much $$$ that tow is going to cost! Mondays...why are they so unkind to me????

Take Me out to the Ballgame!

I've been so busy this year that I hadn't been to a Rangers game yet.
We went on Friday night. Wouldn't you know it? My first game this season and we had a 2 hour rain delay! The rain wasn't so bad. We had covered seats. (I knew rain was in the forecast so I made sure to get the covered ones!) What I hadn't anticipated was the wind! It must have blown in around 50 mph. Trash from all over the ballpark was blowing around everywhere. I snapped a couple of pictures that show some of it on the field. It was actually a lot worse than these pictures show.

Then, the rain started. It was still blowing so we had to get out of our seats for a while until the rain died down. It was blowing up under the covered area.

This is the field about half way through the rain delay...

Every Friday is Fireworks night. I was disappointed that we'd probably miss them. BUT...they shot them off when the rain let up, before they resumed the game. So, yea! We got to see the fireworks set to the Beatles music!

Then we left even though they were going to resume the game. (it was bottom of the 7th) It was already 11pm!! We all slept in on Saturday. It was lots of fun. We have tickets for 3 or 4 more upcoming games

so hopefully no rainouts in the future!