Disneyland here we come!

Today is the Tiggerific Blog hop so I just had to talk about something Disney!  We are headed back to Disneyland next month.  I'm so excited!  Last time we went was 2006.  My daughter was 3 and it was her reward for getting potty trained.  We went to Walt Disney World in 2009, but we've always wanted to go back to Disneyland.  The first time we were there was the first time for any of us to go to a Disney theme park.  We were only able to stay 2 days though because my husband had business in Northern California that week.  Anyway, we had a magical time and wanted to go back.  This time instead of staying off property we are staying at the Paradise Pier hotel and we'll have 3 full days in the parks.  I already have our schedules made and everything is booked...now we are just waiting for the day to get here!

Has anyone stayed at the Paradise Pier before?  If you've been to Disneyland lately, do you have any tips or info that might be helpful?

From our 2006 trip...

To join in the blog hop click the picture in my sidebar.

Postcard Friendship Friday #78

My daughter is collecting postcards from all the states. 

(if you want to help her out see the link in my sidebar.)

Anyway, someone sent her this one from Connecticut. 

We got a big kick out of it since we had just taken a trip to Missouri to

visit the Mark Twain House there! 

Now, she has a postcard of both of the Mark Twain Houses. :)

The one in Missouri was his childhood home and this one is his home that he and his wife lived in with their family.  It was built in 1873.  Its a 19 room Victorian Gothic.  This is also where he wrote seven famous books including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

If you want to see the postcard of his Missouri home click this link:

http://aimeesland.blogspot.com/2011/06/postcard-friendship-friday-74.html

Postcard Friendship Friday is hosted by Beth at the best hearts are crunchy.

http://thebestheartsarecrunchy.blogspot.com/ 

I'm so excited!

I just booked our trip to see my favorite mouse!

We are going back to Disneyland next month.  We went in 2006 and loved it.  We went to Disney World in 2009, but I really wanted to go back to Disneyland so I'm sneaking an extra vacation in this year.  Well, its not really sneaking...my husband has definately noticed! :) 

What's your favorite vacation spot??

Homeschooling and Socilization

I'm sure you've heard the old argument about how homeschoolers aren't properly socialized.  Believe it or not, I usually hear that comment from someone at least once each school year!  I laugh.  Most homeschoolers laugh at this.  This is a picture from my son's youth group's pool party.  They look pretty social don't they?

We had 19 kids in the pool ranging in age from 12 to 18.  Everyone got along.  Everyone had fun.  It makes me happy to see this.  There were no upper classmen picking on lower classmen.  No bully harrassing a shy kid.  Nope.  Just good clean fun. 

I think that some people think homeschoolers just stay inside all day and study.  That is definately not the case!  My kids have lots of activities with non homeschoolers as well as other homeschoolers.  And I can tell you from many years of experience with little league baseball that my kid has WAY more social skills than most of the others!  I sometimes think people confuse social skills with talking.  Kids in regular school may get a chance to talk to more people each day, but how much is really proper socialization?  (For the record, I'm not saying that kids in regular schools cannot be properly socialized.  I just don't think it's really the school that's controlling that.  I think its more the parents.)

Here's an example of what I think is proper social skills.  I watched this exchange this weekend during the youth party....

The doorbell rang and my son, being the host of the party went to answer it.  It was a girl he'd never met before.  She said hello and introduced herself.  He introduced himself and welcomed her and invited her in.  Pretty good socialization if you ask me!


If you homeschool, do you ever hear the old socialization comment?  I usually just laugh it off, but I do like to do a post like this every once in awhile just so I can vent. :)


The Magical Mouse Schoolhouse hosts Tiggerific Tuesday.  Bounce on over if you want to join in!

http://www.magicalmouseschoolhouse.com/

L.E.N.S. Photo Challenge

The L.E.N.S. photo challenge is hosted each week by Home is where you start from. 

This week's theme is "summer delight"

To join in visit:  http://www.homeiswhereyoustartfrom.com/2011/08/l-e-n-s-photo-challenge-summer-delight/

Postcard Friendship Friday #77

Its summer in Texas.  We have had 40 straight days of 100+ degree heat.  That streak was broken yesterday, just 2 days short of breaking the record from 1980.  Now, it hit 101 at my house yesterday, but not at the airport so we missed the record.  Seems like an odd record to want to set, I know, but we have another week of 100+ temps coming so if we already have to be this miserable, I figure we should get the credit for it!  Anyway, here is a postcard of Cancun...I would love to be there right now!!  Look how cool that water looks!

Postcard Friendship Friday is hosted by Beth at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

http://thebestheartsarecrunchy.blogspot.com/

50 States Lessons

This year Claire is in the 3rd grade.  At our house that mean she gets to study the 50 states.  I made up my own curriculum when Nathan was in 3rd grade.  Basically, I made up a fill in the blank sheet for each state.  She fills in the name of the state, which number it was to enter the union, its captial, state bird, flower, etc.  Claire likes flags so I printed out a sheet of state flags and she glues the appropriate one at the bottom of the page.  The second page she does is a map of the state.  She writes something she learned about that state on it and she cuts out and glues on little icons of things that state produces.  (I made these up in word back when Nathan was that age)  We get the information from a book on the 50 states that we have.  I'm sure you could find this info in lots of books and websites.  We have a fandex too that works well.

The other thing we do that makes this class a favorite is that we make a food for each state.  It could be a cultural food, an historic food, or just a dish using foods that are produced there.

We study the states in the order that they came into the union.  She has a blank map and she colors them as we study them so she can see how our nation grew.  We just studied our 3rd one today.

Here is a little summary of what we've done so far.

1. Delaware:  Delaware produces a lot of chicken and poultry so we made Garlic Chicken Fried Chicken.  Here is the link to the recipe we used:  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/garlic-chicken-fried-chicken/detail.aspx  You could also do a crab recipe, but my kids don't care for it so I only make them eat it when we study Maryland. :)

I don't usually use a recipe when I'm making dinner like that so its a challenge to me to find a recipe and follow it!

2.  Pennsylvania:  This usually ends up being one of our favorite states to study because we make Pennsylvania Dutch recipes.  We made Corn Fritters and Funnel Cakes...



 Corn Fritters 

(you are suppose to pan fry them in a little oil and they'll turn out flat. 

I deep fried them so they are puffy.  They were really good though!)

Funnel Cake

3.  New Jersey:  New Jersey produces a lot of fruit and vegetables, one of which is cranberries so we made cranberry oatmeal cookies.  Here is a link to that recipe:  http://www.state.nj.us/jerseyfresh/recipes/njcrancookie.htm

4.  Georgia:  We will study this state on Thursday and make Peach Tea.  Now, you could probably find hundreds of kid-friendly peanut and peanutbutter recipes online to do for this state, but my daughter has a peanut allergy so we stick with the peaches!

Here is that recipe:  1 can peach nectar

                                1/2 c. sugar

                                1 qt. brewed iced tea

                                1/8 c. lemon juice

                           Stir all together and serve.

I'll try to do a post every couple of weeks on the states we are covering.  Claire is also collecting postcards for each state so if you'd like to help her out with that just see the link in my sidebar.

Our First week of School

We started school this week.  We school from August to the end of April.  One reason is that its usually too hot in August to go out and do anyting.  This year that is especially true.  We are at 33 straight days of temps over 100 here.  Yesterday was 109.  The day before 110.  HOT!  We also like having the month of May off because everyone else is still in school and it makes a great time to do things and take trips! :)

Claire on the First day of school...

She's done so well all week.  I just hope she keeps it up for the whole year!

Nathan on the first day of HIGH SCHOOL!!  I still cannot believe he is in 9th grade!

 

On the 2nd day of school Nathan had a new student join his class...

 

She loves to jump up on his desk and hang out with him while he's doing school!

Wordful Wednesday: Cat

Ok.  I have this cat.  She showed up on our doorstep when she was just a little kitten and we took her in.  She was precious.  She's still a beautiful cat, BUT...

She is the most troublesome, temperamental cat I've ever seen!

For starters, she meows a lot...really loud!  She insists on being an indoor/outdoor cat.  I can't seem to make her choose one.  We have a kitty door.  She brings in lizards, birds, snakes and whatever else she catches in the backyard. 

She makes a lot of noise at night so we put her in the laundry room to sleep.  Its her room...she has her own space under the stairs...a plush little set up for a cat.  However, she likes to let herself out and roam the house making noise.  Did I forget to mention that she has learned how to open our doors??  That's right.  We have door handles, not knobs, and she has learned how to jump up and open them.  She does this every night now.  A couple nights ago she let herself out much earlier than usual and woke us up at 1:30 in the morning.  (On our first day of school, I might add!)  My husband got up and put her in the garage.  I had to get up again at 4 am to put her in the crate in the garage because she would stop making noised with the locked door!

It's too hot here to leave her in the garage all night so the next night I put her in the crate in the schoolroom.  She made a huge mess with the litter box.  I cleaned the crate and got it ready for her again last night only she actually stayed in her room until about 5 am so I never put her in it.  However, she found her way to her clean crate and decided to use the clean litter box I had in it even though she has her regular litter box.  So, I had to clean her crate again today!!!

So, guess what we made for her....

That's right.  The cat has a box of shame!  Now, we really don't torture our cat...we just put her in here for a picture, but the kids get a kick out of her having a "time out" in the box of shame when she does something bad. :)  It's our way of laughing when we are totally frustrated with her!!

Wordful Wednesday is hosted by http://www.sevenclowncircus.com/ and http://www.parentingbydummies.com/