Posted by Cindy on April 29, 2008
On Thursday of last week I reminded the kids that Daddy’s birthday was coming up. Within hours, Caleb had designed and built these two gifts. I heard lots of hammering at the barn and the next thing I knew, Mahayla had hooked the wagon to the lawn tractor in an effort to help Caleb hide the (enormous) gifts under the porch.
I’m not sure why they worked so hard at hiding them, though. In their excitement, they ended up giving him his gifts the next day (four days before his birthday.) 
The first thing Caleb said when Steve sat down on the bench was, “Oh, please don’t sit there. You really need to move down some. I’d hate for you to break it!” And, so, we are now the proud owners of a barn bench with designated seats and a tool box shelf. (I think we need a new box of nails, too.) Oh, and Steve will smell very good after shaving thanks to the aftershave Mahayla bought!
When Steve said, “Now what am I supposed to do on my real birthday?”, Mahayla answered, “Oh, don’t worry. We’re going to give you so many homemade cards it’ll keep you busy all day!” Such sweet kids.
Posted by Cindy on April 28, 2008
Weather was the last stop of our Earth Science unit. As has become our end of unit habit, the kids had to develop a presentation to show something they learned.
Mahayla chose to write a letter from the viewpoint of a drop of water going through the water cycle. It was very cute! She also drew a nice picture of the water cycle to go along with an experiment that demonstrated evaporation and condensation.
Caleb did an experiment that demonstrated evaporation and condensation, too, but in a different way. Both experiments worked very well! He also created a “rain alarm”. Marbles are placed in a film canister. The canister is propped on a small slope with sugar cubes. When it rains, the sugar cubes melt allowing the canister to roll. The noise from the rolling canister is supposed to alert you when it starts raining. And he wanted to be sure we noted the cumulus clouds in the sky!
Posted by Cindy on April 27, 2008
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned here before that my husband accepted the youth minister position at church earlier in the year. Because I’m his help-meet we work with children from about kindergarten through high school. Honestly, it’s been a tough adjustment for me – even playing a huge role in me deciding to give up my co-op ministry next year. 
On the other hand, we have a SUPER group of kids at church! I’ll probably be sharing more often some of the fun things the youth groups are doing.
One of the best events so far had absolutely nothing to do with us! LOL Two of our good friends, Josh and Barbara were willing to take the reigns and plan father/son and mother/daughter events. Since both events happened at the same time, I could only take pictures of the girl’s day. 
You won’t see any pictures of the boy’s event, but rest assured, they had as much fun as us!
Father / Son Hiking Trip
A small trip in the van to Blue Licks State Park started the boy’s afternoon. After a wonderful devotion about the revolutionary war sacrifices made at the park and the sacrifice of our Saviour, the boys and men hiked the trails at the park. To their surprise, canoes were waiting at the end of one of the trails and they got to canoe back to the starting point! That made for some very excited and happy boys!
Mother / Daughter Iron Chef Competition
The gals stayed around church for skits, devotions, games and cooking. All the activities were designed to bring moms and daughters closer together, learn a little bit about each other and laugh a lot! The main event was a cooking competition. Each mom/daughter team was asked to bring ingredients for a no-bake dish, which we had to prepare at church. Judging cards in hand, we judged everyone’s recipes for creativity, originality, taste and appearance. (I think I would enjoy very much being a Food Network Challenge judge!)
Josh and Barbara, thank you for a wonderful afternoon! Lord, thank you for pretty weather!
Posted by Cindy on
Thanks to our area minor league baseball team, we had FREE tickets to one of their games this weekend! The Lexington Legends host a reading challenge each year that allows kids to read for two free tickets to a game. Both of our older children earned two tickets, so off we went…….
This weekend was also the kick-off for Caleb’s baseball season. After a parade of the teams through town and a short field dedication, each team batted through their line-up once. We love baseball season!
Posted by Cindy on April 25, 2008
I know many of you homeschool year ’round and as much as I think the idea is wonderful, I enjoy my nice, long summer break too much. (Not to mention canning and freezing season makes doing school almost impossible in the summer.) Anywho – we have only TWO WEEKS left! Can you just feel my excitement?? I’m literally jumping up and down in my computer chair right now!
I’ll be doing some posts soon about wrapping up the school year, thinking ahead to next year and some of our summer plans. But for now, I’m just basking in the wonderfulness of the words – ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT!
I can’t decide if homeschooling is harder with a baby or a toddler. I’m leaning toward toddler. I don’t think I can count the number of papers he has either run off with or scribbled upon. I’m also not sure how many pencils have no erasers due to him biting them off. I think he still has pen and marker on his tummy from somehow finding those tools and trying to turn himself into living art (more than once). Needless to say, the baby chasers (older children and myself) are all ready for a break from school.
We’re finishing off the year with a Renaissance Artist unit. In history, we last studied the Middle Ages and next year takes us into early American history, so a bit of Renaissance history with a slant towards art will be just the thing to make the history connection and end the year with some really fun projects. Lord willing, I’ll keep you posted on the artists we choose to study and the projects we do.
