Christmas is coming!

And I shall probably change the background of this blog many times before the big day!  Too many cute ones to commit to just one for the whole month.

Things I MUST do this week:
1.  Decorate
2.  Sit down and work on my gift list (This always scares the bajeebies out of me.  I usually think I'm waaaay further ahead than I really am.  : / )
3.   Organize the details of a cookie swap
4.  Oh, yeah, get back to teaching my kid.  (Better get off of here and figure out what all that might entail.)

27 days until Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're thankful...

We are headed to WV next week, so this week we went ahead and did our Thanksgiving lessons.  I rolled language arts/math into the Thanksgiving theme, but kept geography as is because, it just so happens, the country that was up for study was Great Britain.  How about that for coinkydink?  We didn't do as much for the country as we usually do since, well, it's not like we had a learn a new language (even though they sound better saying the same words than we do) and with other classes, etc. our time was limited.  We briefly discussed the royal family. I thought she'd be impressed with real Princes/Princess, etc. She wasn't. There wasn't much else to say:  born into the royal family, no real power, live in a fancy house, have lots of clothes and jewelry.  My apologies to the Queen.  Maybe the royal wedding next year will be more impressive.  I like the pomp and circumstance that surrounds it...and the dress.  Anyhoo, Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. Eat a slab of turkey for me (white meat only, unless you are vegetarian and then you can eat, well, I don't think I can be friends with a vegetarian. I call it PTDFS (post traumatic Daniel Fast syndrome).  Take your veggies, give me my coffee and we'll call it a day.
Our week in pictures:  

Crutches for her "broken leg" that she and Daddy created.  They are made up of hangers, curtain rods and bubble wrap.

Our Native American paper dolls.  They turned out cute!

Thanksgiving book.

Doesn't the scarecrow remind you of Bob Marley?  I can just hear him saying to the crows, "Shoo, Mon!"

This is a picture of the Pilgrims arriving at Plymouth Rock.  That is an Indian friend waiting to meet them and a HUGE turkey standing beside him. 

Text bubbles are:  Girl pilgrim, "Hi!", boy pilgrim, "That's a big turkey!", Indian, "Thank you!  This is my pet, Tya Turkey."  I tried Tom Turkey as a name, but it wouldn't fly.  That's a boy's name, you know.

Things Julianna would take if she was traveling to a new world.

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Technology Kid

As I start typing this post on one laptop, Julianna is "typing" on her sister's blog (Yes, she has an imaginary brother, John, and sister, Kate.  Whatever works.) on her Dad's laptop across the living room.  Got me thinking about how technologically advanced kids are nowadays.  Wonder what we were the great technological advances we had while growing up?  Cassette tapes?  What about those label makers that looked like guns that you had to dial the letter you wanted and then pull the trigger? Word processors and personal computers were available, but they were not nearly as much a part of our every day existence and you definitely couldn't carry one around with you.  How far technology has come in just the past *mumble, mumble* years since I was in high school.  Goodness, we get to laughing when we look at the old cell phones that we had just 10 years ago.  How did we hold those things to our ears without help?  We thought we were cooooool, too.  The speed at which technology evolves amazes me. 

Let's see, what can we talk about from last week?  We finished Asia and have now moved on to Europe.  The first country we studied was Russia. (I seem to only talk about Geography, but we are doing reading/math stuff every day too .  Lol).  We learned how to say hello (Dobrey Dyen), yes (dah), no (neyht) and grandmother (babushka) in Russian.  We prayed for the Moses family, a missionary family in Russia.  They are actually on deputation in the US at the moment, but she was kind enough to respond to our email (We email each family we are praying for, but most do not respond.  I don't think the UPCI website email works for the missionaries.) and asked us to pray for a couple specific requests they had.  I hope some of these families make it to CLC at some time.  I think Julianna would get a kick out of putting a real person with their picture and name.  We learned that in Russia, children go by three names:  their first name (girls all end with /a/), a nickname (variation of their first name) and then their patronymic name (which includes their father's first name), so Julianna's  would be Julianna, probably Julia for nickname and Julianna Mikelovna.   Adults add their last name.  We also looked at Faberge eggs online and talked about why they were created. (Wish I could find one of the original missing eggs at a yard sale. Can you imagine?  I wonder what they would be worth?)  We made our own version out of paper.  Of course, Julianna called it a Parmesan egg.  Lol.  Close enough. 

At Cedar Brook, the kids have geography class and they are doing Flat Stanley activities.  We have about 3 flat Stanley's already made.  Actually, none are Stanley.  Um, hello, Stanley is a BOY!  As if.  We have Flat Sadie, Twinkle Star and Jenna Helfer, complete with a "boot" on her foot. (Julianna's tribute to Jenna's bbroken toe.) We added Flat Rapunzel to the family this week.  She created her all by herself - complete with yarn hair.

We also made a candle holder covered with tissue paper.  We got the idea from the Highlights Magazine, High Five.  It turned out cute.  We put a battery operated tea light in it after it dried. 

 
 I might have to do more than one post per week.  I'm getting a little too gabby.  :)

Writer's Block

Okay, so I'm not exactly what you would consider a writer per se, but I still cannot think of anything interesting to blog about.  Blogs, as is their nature, tend to be so narcissistic and I feel goofy going on about our doings and we live such an exciting life here in Jefferson (NOT!), hence writer's block, but I digress.  Let's just talk about some of life's little discoveries that have been uncovered over the last couple weeks.

Discovery 1:  Magic Nuudles

I have a crafty kinda kid.  She loves to paint, draw, create things with pipe cleaners, wikisticks, etc. - she's never liked coloring books, though.  Not sure the psychoanalysis behind that, but I wish she did.  We went to Joann Fabrics this week to finish getting material for our costumes for the Harvest Party and we discovered these little gems:  magic nuudles (http://www.magicnuudles.com/).  They have probably been out for eons, but we are just being enlightened.  They look like packing peanuts in all different shades of color.  They are made from cornstarch and will stick to each other or other surfaces (windows, etc) with a little bit of water.  Too much water equals bad outcomes for the nuudle.  Julianna spent quite a while during the afternoon making her creations, which included Pastor Sean (which I'm sure is an original), flowers, rain cloud with raindrops and a couple of ninjas (Yes, you read that correctly.  I blame her father.)

 

Discovery 2:  Air Drying Clay Does Not Like Me

We studied Israel last week (Annoying side note:  There are far less resources for Israel than the other countries we have recently studied.  Not sure why. : / ) and for our craft project we did jewel inlaid pottery.  I got some of Crayola's air drying clay and this stuff has it out for me. Seriously.  This is the second time I've used it and both times have been unsuccessful. It molds nicely, looks lovely while drying and then it cracks or breaks apart.  I should go to Crayola's site and see what I'm doing wrong.  This is a picture of our work before it was no more. 

Discovery 3:  I LOVE the Holiday Season

Random information, but it's true.  I love everything thing about it:  food, lights, decorations, music, food,  parties, cards, traditions, food, presents, snow, Black Friday sales, lights synchronized with music...all of it.  I'm ready to start decorating now, but I will refrain until after Thanksgiving...I think.  I'm going to get my furniture rearranged for the placement of the tree...must be all feng shui, you now.  Kidding.  The local radio stations are going to start their 24/7 Christmas music on November 18th.  I love it!  Can't wait.

Discovery 4:  Coffee Gooooooooooood!

Not a discovery, but it never hurts to give it props.

Discovery 5:  I miss my camera

My camera had to go back to the manufacturer for repair.  I never realized how often I took pictures until it was gone.  Hopefully it will be back soon.  

Discovery 6:  Homemade Halloween Harvest Party costumes rock!

Julianna decided that she wanted to be Rapunzel for the harvest party at church. (That decision then switched to Cat in the Hat and then back to Rapunzel.)  I had an idea in my mind of how I wanted the costume to look.  I wanted to do a cardboard tower over her shoulders where she would look out the front window and her wig could hang out.  With some adjustments (which included a whole change in the way I made the wig) and lots of help from Dad, the finished product turned out really cute!  Our trunk theme stayed Cat and the Hat and my husband and I dressed up like Thing 1 and Thing 2...complete with blue wigs.  I'll spare you any pics of that.  I think next year I'm doing a Hillbilly Holler...taking it back to my roots, my friends.  lol  

Rapunzel

Looking like Christmas at Jessica's (http://diaryofahsmom.blogspot.com/) van.

Unfortunately, these two kids rubbed Tiffany (http://tlufkin.blogspot.com) the wrong way. 

Queen Raynie.  Love that girl. 

The evidence of a good time.  :)