Old Pics

These are three pics (of pics) that we came across at my mom's. We were freakin' adorable!!

Have a great day.

Summer Reading

Every summer, my kids participate in the summer reading program. If your local library has a program, please participate. It is one of those things that will make a world of difference come budget time. There are 2 seperate programs. One is for elementary and the other for middle/high school. I have kids in both. They read so many pages/books/minutes/hours, whatever you decide, and then they get prizes. Their checkout receipts are entered for a drawing, there are performances and movies, and crafts!

This was the last craft day. I enjoyed the poster and matching the characters. I'm weird, I know. It's also a great list of books. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of my favorites!

This is Ms. Suzanne with my kids. She is wonderful, and we love her. She takes the time to actually listen to what the parents and the kids want and then does her best to implement it. To go along with a Frommer's giveaway, she organized a Harry Potter tea party for the England guide. That was fun!

There were these little beauties. You decorate them and then make them a pin or a magnet. The magnet is better. These were too heavy for the pins. After they were decorated, Ms. Suzanne had glow in the dark paint to coat them with. The first thing we did when we got home was run to the big girl's closet and shut the door. They really glowed.

Then there were masks. Can you tell the big girl takes her art very seriously?

The boy, not so much. His mask was just plain fun.

And the baby hiding behind her mask. Crazy thing. She gets crazy from her father.

The big girl won a prize! There were only a handful of kids in the upper grade program this year. This was the prize for the last week. Gotta love prizes!!

We are reading fools. Most of us will read anything we can get our hands on. Please utilize your local library. It's about more than just books. They have foreign language programs, computer access, internet capabilities, and most of them have friendly, knowledgable people that can help you with just about any information you need. If they don't have it, they know where to find it. The kids also participate in a book club that meets once a month and a Pokemon Club that meets twice a month. They also have Lego clubs, chess clubs, movie days, cooking classes, homesteading classes, farming classes, and so much more. Most of the programs are free. You would be amazed at how much your local library has to offer. Our library staff knows us by name and we get priority service because of it. That never hurts, either. 

Have a great day.

Family Pics, 2012

I love the fact that I have the following pics, but I am not happy about the reason. At. All. They were taken at my mother's funeral. It was good to see my family. Some I had never met. Some had never met my children. But we were able to come together to mourn and grieve the loss of a mother, wife, sister, aunt, cousin, and friend. We were also together to celebrate her and her life.

 This is Big Sis. Isn't she beautiful? I love her like no other. She is my friend and my soul. She is an amazing woman and I don't think she knows it. Now it's in print for everyone to see.

 These are four of the reasons my sister is amazing. These are my gorgeous nieces. I love and miss them dearly. How can you not smile when you see them? They just make my heart sing.

 My mother had three brothers, one of which died a few years ago, and two sisters. These are my aunts and uncles. While I was growing up, we saw them as often as we could. We went for Thanksgiving and Christmas and, when we were lucky, a week or two in the summer. And football and basketball season we saw them ALOT. They are huge Arkansas Razorback fans. And loud!! I love it!! Those visits are some of my best memories.  

These are my cousins. Sweet summers. Laughing and running. All of us listening to Van Halen in GP's room, cranked as loud as it would go. That was the first time I had ever heard rock music. It was like the heavens opened up and David Lee Roth started singing. Magical moment for a kid who was forced to listen to Country and Western. I don't mean that stuff we hear today. Think ooooolllllddddd C&W. Dancing in my cousin C's room. That woman was quite the dancer, let me tell you what. R is the tall one in the ball cap. He is my cousin D's son. I had not met him before this day. That stinks. The other man is my cousin, G. And Big Sis. :)

My heart yearns...

Have a great day.

Bees Knees, Part II (And Now I Know What That Means!)

I posted (months ago) about taking a bee field trip. I have the pics to prove it. And now I can post them. I figured instead of a "year in review" post, which I can't remember anyway, I would get the pics going. Be prepared. It may be a whirlwind. Let's get started, shall we?

The pic above is us going into the zoo. I will not even go into the difficulty involved in this pic. The big entrance sign was supposed to be behind us. At least most of us are smiling. The boy is quick. You have to watch him when he's in charge of the camera.

This cute sign is in front of a secondary hive the zoo has. I thought it was cute. And somebody should clean off the lens on my phone. If you look over the top, right side of the sign, you can see the secondary hive.

 

This is the secondary hive, and the back of hubby's head. The bees flew in and out looking for flowers. Interestingly enough, bees won't sting unless you are trying to harm the hive or standing in their flight path to and from the hive.  Kinda cool. There was a queen in this hive. The facilitator challenged the kids to find her. The boy did. He is tenacious.

Honey bees are not just important, they are vital to our crop survival. They are the number 1 pollinator. Roughly 30 % of our food supply needs to be pollinated. Bee population has shrunk 40 % over the past 20 years. Colony Collapse Disorder has become a major issue for bees. Only the queen and the honey will remain after a collapse. All the other bees will fly away and start a new colony. Other bees won't take honey from a collapsed colony. Possible causes for hive collapse are pesticides, malnutrition, mites, viruses, and intensive agriculture. Pesticides are poisons that don't discriminate. They just kill. Some genetically modified crops are not conducive to healthy bees. Somebody help me up on my soapbox and we can talk about GMO crops and the dangers involved in that. Please inform yourself about those dangers.

One bee will make 1 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. I say her because the female does all the work. When a queen becomes a queen, she kills all the other possible queen bees. She flies high into the air while the drones, who are all male, chase her down to mate. Once they've mated, the drones genitals are ripped off and he dies. Just thought I'd throw that cautionary fact out there. Drones are fat, male bees that have one purpose, and one purpose only. They make baby bees. After mating, the queen can no longer fly because her abdomen is too big. The worker bees, all female, take care of the queen, feed the babies, build the honey combs, clean the hive, and do whatever else needs to be done to keep the hive running.

The bees knees refers to the pollen sacks they have on their legs. That's where they store all the pollen until they can get back to the hive. It's one of the most important parts of the bee. There's your fun fact for the day.

That's the boy in the yellow shirt. I guess he wanted to look like a bee. Strange one, he is. I love him soo much!! This is the beekeeper with the hive. He was asked where the worst place to get stung was. His answer was anywhere boney. It's like getting a tattoo. The closer to the bone the needle gets, the more ouchy it is. He was very good with the kids and loved his job. Love that!

This is part of the hive that the beekeeper showed us from the hive above. This is where the bees are taking care of the babies. What you don't see is the honey. All that glorious honey made me want to play bear. Interestingly enough, the bears aren't after honey. They are after the grubs, or baby bees. It's the protein they want.

We got to walk through the zoo to get to the bee hive from the education center. On the way, we got to stop at the butterfly gardens. We liked the giant butterfly bench. And the boy had the camera. You would think I would learn.

In the education center, they had huge displays of all sorts of bugs and yucky things. You should see the size of this beautiful butterfly. It was bigger than my hand! I like the "eyes".

Before you could get close to the hive, you had to suit up. I really have too much hair for the hats. Mine doesn't really cover me, but I got it on. The big girl decided she was close enough and chose not to suit up. Crazy girl. Aren't we cute? Just say yes.


It was a great field trip. It got us wanting our own mini hive. And when would we have time? Please be careful when you see honey bees. They are very vital to our crops, which means our food supply. Don't kill them unless you have to. Walk the other way to avoid them if that's what it takes. And eat more bee spit, um, honey!

Have a great day.

Shhhhh...

I'm still here. It's the holidays and I need some quiet time. Give me a bit and I'll be back.

Catchin' Up

We are still here! I promise. Just some stuff to convince you:

• We've been sick. Oh, yuck. How does the body produce so much snot? That is just disgusting. And debilitating. Apparently, when you're sick, that's what your body does with all it's energy. It makes more snot. Thanks, I've had my quota for the day. It's hubby's fault and he is in so much trouble. We're finally getting over it. I cancelled school for the week. Which stunk because we were off for the whole week of Thanksgiving. We schooled Monday, part of Tuesday, then forget it. At least I have the beginnings of lesson plans for next week.
• Still not sure we'll make the Christmas parade this year. It's this weekend and the kids are still recovering. We have one more rehearsal and we'll see how they do. I'm sure they'll be amazing, but it's a long walk when you're dancing you're tushy off. We are resting, practicing a little, and just trying to take it easy. The theme this year is a Seussical Christmas. The boy was going to be the Grinch, but I couldn't find a costume. Instead, he's the Once-ler from The Lorax. Simple, easy and he can wear the clothes for every day wear. Sweet! The big girl is going to be the Cat in the Hat. She is something. Now to find someone to do her makeup...
• The good thing about being sick and not schooling is that I've had time to catch up on some reading. Loving that. We finished a book on CD to listen to Life of Pi. The movie is coming out and I wanted to read the book with the kids first. Yeah, well. We got through the first 5 chapters before I pulled the CD out of the player. A little inappropriate for my younger 2. "Hey, Mama. What's a sexual deviant?" is not a question I want to answer for my 8 year old, but thanks for playing the game. Maybe in 20 years. The book we finished, The Navigator, was really good. There are supposed to be more books, but we'll find out. We just read George's Marvelous Medicine as our after dinner book. I can honestly say that Roald Dahl is our favorite author. We're back to Mark of Athena. Hopefully, we'll get it finished. If not, I requested it under all the kids, so we have more time.
• I am already researching curriculum for next year. I need to go through my cabinet of doom and see what I have and what I need. I only have pieces and parts of some things. Others, I think I'm going a different way. Oh, how I love curriculum.
• We had a great Thanksgiving. We had our big meal Wednesday, then went to the mouse's house on Thursday. It wasn't bad. Some parts of some parks were a little crowded, but those parts are always crowded. We didn't stay too long since hubby had to work the next day. And besides, we had pie left! The big girl made 2 apple pies, the boy made a pumpkin, and the baby made chocolate pie. Scrumptious! One of the apple pies didn't make the night. Everyone had some, even me. My nephew had a huge piece. It realy was very good and I don't eat apple pie.

That's all I've got. We're still here, I promise. I think it's nap time, though. Wish we still had pie.

Have a great day.

•         

Daybook or 7 Quick Takes, Whichever Comes First

So much stuff in my head. I'm making my list and checking it twice. Really, I'm just crossing stuff off and hoping I'm hitting the high points.

Outisde my window...the sun is starting to come up. Daylight savings always messes me up. Makes me wish I lived in Arizona or Hawaii, where they don't participate in this nonsense. I think we should always fall back. I don't care if it's noon and pitch black. I get 2 "extra" hours a year and that means more than you can imagine. I do like the sun coming up a little earlier, but the setting earlier, not so much. It should be a beautiful day, and we have a cold front coming in tomorrow evening. I like the cooler weather. I see soup in our near future.

I am listening to...the morning news. I'll be glad when the election is over. Social media is full of political posts and insults. Just makes me want to scream "shut up". Pretty soon, I'll be listening to the kids as they get up and get ready for their day. It's going to be a busy one, let me tell you what. That brings us to why...

From the schoolroom...eek! It's going to be a day. Our plans got shifted a little last week and we got behind. The big girl has a quiz and a test she has to take from last week. First she needs to finish her review for the test. The boy had a math review that he did pretty good on, but there are some corrections. The baby just keeps moving on. It must be nice to be a third grader. I hear grumbling every now and then about how easy her work is. Well, get over it. We are taking a week off for Thanksgiving and 2 for Christmas/New Years, so we need to get this stuff done. Our winter break is almost here. And if we don't get it all done, I have a big eraser I can use on the lesson plan book. I have a new lapbook we're going to do for Christmas. Pretty excited about that!

From the farm...I love our chickens, but I wish they knew how to clean their own coop. That is the one chore I really dislike. I feel much better when it's done, but it's yucky. They just keep laying eggs and laying eggs. The weather is getting cooler, but we don't have to put heat in the coop yet. We pulled sweet potatoes yesterday. It's really too cool for them right now. Something has been eating the tops and it was time. They're so little. We're going to plant potatoes. Our other potatoes are doing well. Carrots and beets are growing strong. We lost another strawberry plant, but we still have 2 or three that are doing well. Our peas are beautiful! Excited about those! And those darn bell peppers are just going and going and going. They are smaller in size, but they're still growing.

From the kitchen...we are busy planning our Thanksgiving meal. I've ordered some things from co-op for our meal. I am waiting for cranberries to go buy 1, get 1 free. I have plans for those little babies. I'm going to make cranberry sauce and a cranberry compote. The turkey will be brined again this year. I'm thiking an orange glazed turkey, but we'll see. I've ordered mushrooms to make cream of mushroom soup. For the first time ever, I'm going to make a sweet potato casserole. Hubby is getting a little tired of sweet potatoes, so I'm trying something new. And we have to have brussel sprouts, because that's the law in our home. I know Big Sis is going "blech!" right now. She's funny! The big girl wants to make an apple pie. We're sending her to my FIL's. If she's going to learn, she might as well learn from the best. Hubby got a recipe from him so we can swap some of the ingredients. Pretty excited about the meal.

Around the house...we are working on some projects. Hubby has been cleaning around the sheds trying to get rid of piles. Our room is stil clean even if my desk is a mess. We are about to hit a super busy time with rehearsals for the Christmas parade starting up soon. The parade is the beginning of December so it's all over in about 4-5 weeks. The boy won't be dancing this year. He has a birthday party for the first rehearsal and he really needs to be there. If you miss one rehearsal, you can't participate. I'm not sure what that means for the day of the parade since hubby and I both walk while the kids dance and ride the float. Maybe he can ride the float. We'll see what happens. Is it break time yet?

We are reading...I have to rerequest a couple of books. I had to turn them in before I got the chance to read them. That stinks! One of them I really wanted to read, but didn't even open it. We had to turn in our after dinner book. We got 10 chapters in, darnit! It was a one week loan because it's a new book. I requested it under all of our library cards so hopefully we'll get to finish it. I am about to read "Guilty Wives". I say that, but then there's that whole time thing. When is that going to happen? I'll get to it, I'll get to it.

I didn't make 7, but I made a few. Good thing I'm stopping, though. It's time for breakfast. Then we school, school, school. I think I may take a reading break. Or a nap.

Have a great day.