Thursday Tirade

Well, I've been so busy lately I haven't had time to post a tirade. Ok, so that's my first complaint...I'm so busy these days! Everything the kids are doing is in full swing. I'm also planning a birthday party, an All Saints Party, and a science fair. I think I've spread myself a little too thin! And I think I'm getting sick again. Again! I think its just allergies. I really just have a bad cough, but I wish it would go away. I'm too busy to be sick!

I have one big complaint from this last week...

My daughter's gymnastics team was suppose to perform at our church's fall carnival on Sunday. My daughter was sooooo excited! It was going to be her first performance. She spoke to my mother in law on the phone the day she found out about it. She was so excited that my in laws decided to fly up to see her. Well, its been raining (a lot!) and there was some rain this weekend so the gymnastics cancelled the performance. That's not even the worst part! The gymnastics place sent out emails, but several of us didn't get one so we showed up anyway. The girls were disappointed so my husband had the music people play the cotton eyed joe so the girls could do their dance. It was a different version though so they were all confused. Anyway, my in laws flew up for that! Very frustrating! I really like her gym and the instruction though. I just wish they were better at communication.


Ok, that's my rant for this week. How has your week been?

Wordless Wednesday: Butter Sculpture

To join in or see more Wordless Wednesday pictures visit Simply Heathers Blog or Sweet Serendipity

Monday Medicine: State Fair People Watching

The state fair is a great place to people watch. You find all kinds of people there!

Every year we see those people who have the courage to walk around the fair wearing interesting hats. I always wonder, "Do they wear them places other than the fair?"

And then there's the people who are brave enough to get their teeth whitened at the fair. Yes, you read that right-- teeth whitening at the fair! This was in one of the exhibit buildings. These people were just lying there with their mouths opened right in front of everyone! I don't know...whenever I need dental work done my first thought is to have it done at a dentist office, not the State Fair!

And then there are the, um, eccentrics...yes, let's call them eccentrics! This woman was walking around the fair pulling this cart full of random stuff talking into a tape recorder about the city council! Apparantly, she has some complaints about the city council as well as other political entities.

Never a dull moment at the fair!

The Great State Fair of Texas!

Friday we went to the State Fair. We've been going there every year for the last 8 or 9 years, I think.

The best thing about the fair is the food!

The new thing this year was fried butter. I really wanted to try it, but it was $4 for 3 little pieces. We would have had to buy 2 orders for us all to even taste it. I don't know, $8 for something that would probably lead to my death just didn't seem worth it!

Every year I get this really good fajita taco. The tortilla is flash fried and its filled with chicken and cheese and topped with pico de gallo and salsa. Mmmmm!

My son gets their quesadilla every year. And, even though its just a tortilla and cheese, he swears it the best!

The kids also have to have their annual funnel cake!

And don't forget the Texas Taters!

They have a thing for kids called Little Hands on the Farm. It's a play farm where the kids work and harvest and then sell their harvest all in about 10 minutes! They start at a silo and get some corn. Then, they water wooden peach trees and harvest a pretend peach, then they go to the hen house and feed corn to the pretend chickens and gather a pretend egg, etc, etc. At the end they take the stuff they harvested to the attendant and they pay them a pretend dollar. Then, they take the dollar into the little store and they can buy a treat with it. It really is a cute little activity. Both kids have always liked it although this was Nathan's first year not to do it because he's too big and cool now! :)

Oh yea, we also saw some real animals!

And they have a big sand pile for the kids to play in. My kids love this!

This year they had a mining demo. You could sift through a bag of dirt to find gems and "gold". Claire LOVED this!

Even Nathan got in on the fun...

One of Claire's favorite things was trying out the new cars in the car show! She doesn't get to sit in the driver seat very often so she got a real kick out of this.

I took so many pictures! I think my wordless Wednesday post this week will be the butter sculpture. Yes, every year there is a huge sculpture sculpted out of butter! It really is amazing!

Tomorrow I'm going to post about all the interesting people we saw there! Come back tomorrow if you need a laugh!

Homeschool Talk: Fairy Tales

I've mentioned before that Claire is studying fairy tales this year. Yes, studying! :) We are reading different versions and comparing them.

This month is Cinderella. There are LOTS of versions of Cinderella out there. Here are a few we are using:

Cinderella by Michele Marineau (a modern Cinderella)

Cinderella by Ruth Sanderson

Bigfoot Cinderrrrella by Tony Johnston and James Warhola (This one is really funny!)

Adelita by Tomie de Paola (A Mexican Cinderella Story)

and of course Walt Disney's Cinderella! (I have a modern Disney book as well as one from when I was a kids so we can compare the differences in the characters and the way they drew them.)

I have some Cinderella resources in the margin of my blog. These are free lessons and printables.

For each fairy tale I make a chart and Claire records the differences in the books. Here is the Cinderella one along with the Jack & the Beanstalk and Little Red Hen...

Now that we've started doing lapbooks we are also going to do a lapbook for each fairy tale. We are doing an Autumn on for Cinderella. (just because that's the one I started in the class I took) We will be doing one on wolves with Little Red Riding Hood and one on frogs for the Princess and the Frog.

Claire loves her "literature class" this year. These stories have been a great way to make learning fun!

Postcard Friendship Friday #26

Welcome to another Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie at Cpaphil Vintage Postcards . Stop by her site to join in or see other postcards.


This is a postcard of the Dallas County Administration building/Sixth Floor Museum, the former Texas School Book Depository. (The building Lee Harvey Oswald was in when he shot President Kennedy.) We visited it this last weekend. I posted about it yesterday. You can scroll down to see that post or go to http://aimeesland.blogspot.com/2009/10/our-trip-to-downtown-dallas.html

Our trip to downtown Dallas

Last weekend we took advantage of the Smithsonian's free museum day and went to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.

We have lived in this area for 11 years and we have never really walked around downtown Dallas. My son studied US Presidents last year and I told him we'd take him to the Sixth Floor Museum at the end of the year. The admission is rather pricey, if you ask me, so we kept putting it off. Well, on museum day we got 2 free admissions so we went. In case you don't know, the Sixth Floor Museum is a museum on the 6th floor of the old Texas Schoolbook depository building where Lee Harvey Oswald was when he shot Kennedy. It chronicles Kennedy's presidency and assassination.

No photography is allowed inside the museum, but here is a picture of the kids and I on the famous "grassy knoll" where a fourth shot was thought to have been fired.

Here is the corner of the schoolbook depository building where Oswald was when he shot Kennedy. The building has 7 stories. So it is the 2nd window from the top on the corner. (in the building on the left) This view is from the sidewalk right next to the spot where the fatal shot occurred. They have Xs marked on the street in the 2 places Kennedy was when he was hit.

To add a little adventure to our trip we decided to take the TRE. (That's the train that goes from Fort Worth to Dallas.) We'd never ridden on it before and thought the kids would get a kick out of it. Claire really did! Nathan liked it too, but he's 11 so he doesn't admit he likes anything!

I'm not really a "public transportation kind of gal" though. It was ok. A bit expensive and there were some mechanical difficulties that made us leave Dallas over 30 minutes late. Oh yea, the Union Station in Downtown was a little scary too!

Here is a picture of a guy being arrested there. Scary? Well, a little, but entertaining too! It gave us something to do while we were waiting for our train!

We've been really busy lately so it was nice just to take the family to downtown and have a relaxing afternoon. We all had a great time!