100 Days Smarter!!

Wahoo!  We have had 100 days of school!  This is quite an achievement for Peter and for me...a day worth celebrating!  As a happy coincidence Laura and her kids had 100 day on the same day.  So we collaborated and planned a day together.  We started out at my house...we made 100 day trail mix and crowns.  :)

 King Peter

 And King Justin

 Here are all of the handsome boys: Justin, Jaxon, Peter, Cooper

 Then we went to Laura's house and made a list of 100 animals and a paper chain out of 100 rings with each ring representing a day of school.

 Yummy pizza for lunch....

...then ended the day with a trip to the zoo.  Such a fun and exciting day! Praise the Lord for determination, ability, and creativity of 100 days of school....and dear friends to help us celebrate!

Bunk it UP!

Well, a day has come in the life of our family that I never thought I would allow.  Yes.  It's true.  The boys have gotten bunk beds.  I was very against the idea at first....for years actually....but after some very hard and fast rules and the desire to make a smaller room bigger for playtime, we settled on some beds that we found at Ikea.  So three trips, yes three, and about 2.5 hours of labor we had the beds assembled for the boyos locos.  

Arriving at Ikea! 

 The bed came in one very long and daunting box.  But I love a good project...

 Jane was ALL up in our business.  I guess she likes a good project too.  She busied herself with scooting around, touching all the screws that we had tightened and trying to pulling out the boards.  Silly girl.

 Poor Justin started to run a fever during the process so he slept through most of the assembly.  Peter came and checked on the progress every so often but he preferred to stay outside and swing.

 Daddy hard at work...

Ta-da!  The boys were so proud of the finished product.  As I write this, it has been a week since we put them together.  We have rearranged the furniture in the room and added reading lights for the boys.  They love it and Peter hasn't fallen out yet.  :)

Family time

The Osterbergs and Davis family came up over the weekend for a visit from Houston.  The weekend was full of flower planting, baby snuggling and meals together. 

 My little Jane just loves to stick out that tongue!

 Baby Bryce getting his bottle.  Such sweet cheeks!

 Justin was chasing Jane around the living room.  He was reluctant to stop for a picture, but I got him anyway.  :)

 Brent playing his grandfather's mandolin.  I love the smile on his face here...classic Brent.

 Pa, Nana and all the precious littles.

 Now I know where she learned to dig in the dirt!

 Sporting the spring neon!  :)

We got to see Uncle Randy, Faith and Jaxon too.  Jane loved Faith's pretty necklace.

I got to spend some more time with my little nephew.  Such priceless moments!

My unsinkable lesson

Titanic Week! 

This past week in school we did a mini unit on the Titanic.  The week started with a trip to the library to check out books on the "ship of dreams". We had a great time reading the books and looking at all the pictures.

This lesson was great because there was a little bit of each subject involved.  We counted the number of life boats and decks, we read the books, we talked about the passage from England to New York, and we talked about icebergs.  Math, English, Geography, and Science!  Then we talked about what it would be like to be on the Titanic and what we would have done.  We talked about praying and trusting the Lord, and doing everything we could to help others.

The second day we had tea time, much like they did on the Titanic.  We made scones and had hot tea.  I even dressed up for them to make it more realistic.  They really got a kick out of that!  (I have had that dress for years, left over from my own days of childhood dress-up!)  We role played as we dined.  Justin pretended to be Captain Smith.  So we asked him if he had received any iceberg warnings....Peter was a rich man from England so I asked him if he had brought his car on board the ship.  I even invited them to my promenade.  :)  Such fun.

For craft day we made ships and icebergs out of clay and painted them to make a shadow box.

Here is Peter's masterpiece. We even had glow in the dark starts....but no moon, to stay as accurate as possible.

And here is proud Justin.  Lol, his iceberg cracks me up.  :)

The week ended with a trip to the science museum to see the Titanic Artifact exhibit.  The exhibit was excellent and so moving, they did a wonderful job putting it together.  I think it helped Peter to understand the history more to have visuals.

The week was such a success.  The biggest lesson to be taught/learned is the contrast between the pride of man and the sovereignty of God.  This "unsinkable" ship is on the bottom of the ocean.  Man was so proud of his creation and was so caught up in boasting about his accomplishments.  But God is God and He is more powerful.  This world is passing away, but the Word of the Lord will endure forever.  May He alone be the one that receives man's praise and adoration. 

Stock Show -yeeeha!

Ok so, oops.  I thought I had blogged about the Stock Show...but a recent perusal of my latest entries proved me wrong.  Sorry about that!  We took the kids to the stock show and dressed them (and me) appropriately.  :)

 Little cowboy!

 Peter loved the barrel racing.  He looked on with anticipation as they rounded the barrels and tried to beat the clock.

 Showing Jane the horses...

 Then we went to the petting zoo.  My kids aren't really fans of petting zoos but we wanted to give it a try anyway.  We lasted a total of 5 minutes before leaving with two crying kids. Oh well, maybe next time.

 ....but Brent had fun.

 Peter giving a valiant effort.

 Justin also gave it a shot.  Notice I stayed safely behind the camera.  :)

 Now we're talking!  Everyone knows the best part of the stock show is the food.

 Giddy up!

 Mmmmm....funnel cakes, cotton candy and lemonade

All in all it was fun.  We hit the show on a week day and they told us that there are more animals during the weekend.  So we will try different timing next year so we can see more.  It was still a fun day to enjoy the family and enjoy the creativity of our Creator.  :)