REDWALL FEAST DAY -

Nolan was Martin. Arielle was Cornflower Fieldmouse. Zander was Squire something or other - a cat. I was Mrs. Fieldmouse...We were going to make Stacia a squirrel but decided not to upset the apple cart..so to speak. I have no idea who these characters are but had fun dressing up anyway!

Here I apply whiskers to Arielle.

Arielle and I

All ready to go to the feast...

There were two new CA's (Chaplain Assistants) at the Feast. I was introduced as the Sr. Protestant's wife. I said, "I don't normally look like a bar maid....I look like a Chaplain's wife on Sunday. "

Dressing up for this really reminded me of the fun New Year's Eve party we threw in 2000....everyone came as a historical character....I wonder how I can find a way to dress up more often. LOL

History Quilt - or a timeline I can live with {vbg}

Arielle made a square with a WW1 nurse on it today. We had quite the experience searching for a picture of a nurse for her to see what they wore....evidently many nurses these days wear fish net stockings. Who would have guessed?

Nolan made a square with a soldier and a gun.

Zander made... well....he tells us it's a man hunting gorillas for the soldiers to eat. He seems to have a gorilla theme going. ::snort:: His square is the purple one with the yellow splotches on it....I'm going to need another set of squares. I ordered enough for Arielle and Nolan to do a square each week, but Zander likes to do it on some weeks and I don't want to tell him no. Oy vey - if I add another set of blocks it will be really long...or I'll have to untie it all and make it a few blocks wider too.....You know I need a new comforter for my bed...maybe I'll do a square each week too and quilt it. LOL

FRIDAY -

OK some of you may be wondering why you're getting so many pictures of every little detail of our life....and why so many "daily blah" posts...well....Mike really likes to read the blog first thing in the a.m. when he gets to work...and so I try to update. It's cool for him to be able to see and know what we are up to and the children enjoy knowing that he knows what we are doing.

So - though it is nearing mid-night I will give a quick update.

Some weeks are good and some aren't. This was probably a good week...but underlying it all was the fact that Zander is having a bad week. I really can't figure it out. I think that a part of it is that he wants Nolan and Arielle to interact with - which is an ANSWER TO PRAYER for him to WANT to interact with us...but we've started school. I'm going to try to include him more next week. Stacia can't really play yet. He gets frustrated waiting for them...he acts up to get our attention...I'm not sure really and need more time praying about this.

He had a colossal meltdown tonight when it was time to leave the Redwall Feast. I shared on SHS that I was fresh out of duct tape and had no choice but to bundle him up and put him in the van. I stood beside the van, took a deep breath, looked at the lights and finally decided, "Yes, I will get in with the children and go home after all". ::snort:: They had played Play Station the whole time we were there and he was really having fun.....so we need to work on this leave taking thing some more.

Stacia still has a strange rash...I'm going between wondering if it is Roseola or an allergic reaction. It is getting better.

Today began speech. Tell me - am I being petty to be bugged that our therapist ALWAYS starts late? This is a pattern from last year. Our appt. was directly after her lunch and she was always at least 5 minutes late. I chose 8:30 a.m. this time. She was THERE. She was sitting and talking to the receptionist up front. I signed in, we said hello. It was 8:27....it was 8:38 before she called Nolan back. I know, I know....some think I'm anal about time....I may be....but really I am rushing to get somewhere at a time SHE set and then she makes me wait each week. It seems rude to me. It also seems like inefficient. I'm not sure what to do. Would it be petty to track it a month and then talk to her? Would it just make things hard for Nolan? What do you all think? She didn't have exercises or worksheets for us. I'm not worried about the worksheets but would like the exercises. I still have books that AK bought me when our therapist recommended them. I'm going to see if I can find anything there to use. He is needing to work on "r" that is in the back of his throat and low muscle tone in his tongue and jaw.....We've continued all the ones that our therapist in AK gave us....

We didn't get a lot of book work done today. We did work on our hands on projects. I think I'll plan from now on to have Fridays free for this.

I had to buy turnips and beets to make the dish for tonight. I'd never bought these items OFF A SHELF! It was a hoot. I decided to ask the produce guy at HEB if what I had was a turnip. It wasn't. It was UGLY - a rutabaga. He directed me to the turnips, he must have seen my list because he told me the beets were right next to them. ::gasp:: OK - it's late but this memory is really cracking me up. When I began making the dish, I realized that it had NO spices at all....so I called Melody and asked if I could add spices. She agreed. I mashed the potatoes and turnips together with cream cheese, garlic and Italian spices. I sauteed onions. Mixed them with the thinly sliced beets.....all in all it turned out well. "Deeper than ever tater & turnip beet root pie". OH - I added carrots and used twice the cheese it called for. I think most thought it was too strange to try...so I have an extra pie left that I will give to Adrienne's family. I thought of their vegetarian daughter. I have 1/2 a pie we'll eat. Once you get past the bright red beets, it tastes good. LOL

Basically, I was running from 7:30 this a.m. until 10:45, when I set down to check emails and update this.

I discovered I LOVE dressing up. I just love it. I need more opportunities to wear fun clothes like tonight. Strictly speaking, I was told at the rental shop, that what I picked was a bar maid's costume.

The very high point of my day was a comment from my 15 yo son. I was told years ago (when he was 4) that he would bless my heart beyond belief because I'd had to fight so many battles for him....long story. I was all dressed and ready to leave tonight (the 3 older boys stayed home)...he came up to me and said, "Mom, you're really great, you know that?" KNOCK ME OVER!!!! I said, "Why - what did I do?" - ok I'm not above fishing for compliments when Mike isn't here to keep me supplied!!! He was simply impressed that I'd not sat down all day...oh THAT. LOL You know - isn't it funny that I'd immediately think I must have DONE something if someone thinks I'm great. Hmmm...

Oh, the big rumor today is that the Air Force is extending all assignments to be 4 year assignments...which means we'll be here longer than expected. They are also going to begin seperating folks in January. That won't affect us directly, but of course it will affect many of our friends. The 4 year thing affects us. We would have gotten a bigger house if we knew we'd be here 4 years. LOL The boys are not happy at the prospect of staying here.....still praying about this for them too. They simply don't have the friends and youth group support they had in AK.

I NEED ANSWERS!

WHERE do you all store lapbook things? HOW do you store it?

WHAT would the perfect day timer calendar look like to you? I keep mine on the computer but it's crashed...I have a BIG calendar on the wall in the library and I do a week at a time on it...but I'm considering a notebook type planner instead of a calendar on the fridge this year....I saw a cool calendar and it said "whole family activities" or something...but it tracked 5....I decided I may need to consider what would make a perfect planner and make my own pages. ::snort:: SURE from the one who can't figure out how to get her computer to turn ON. LOL

Meet the Masters -

We finally got this worked into our schedule. I think we are going to really LIKE this program. It combines art history, appreciation AND technique in one easy to use program. I had heard it was expensive...but honestly $79 for a year is NOT bad at all when you consider that art classes were costing us $30 a month PER CHILD. To come clean, it was a REALLY good deal for me because the state of AK paid for it. ::snort::

The program consists of three steps: a biographical overview of the master artist's life, a study of his/her technique and then a project where the kids practice the technique - all at their level. Each lesson has a 20 minute (or so) computer slide show...cool.

In the future I think we'll do the slide show/biographical study earlier in the week and save the technique and project for Fridays. I'll also probably be jumping back and forth between the 5-7 and 8-9 projects.

Today we previewed the artists we will be studying (Van Gogh, Homer, Monet, Picasso, Cassatt, Mondrian) and made a portfolio. I thought they turned out rather nice and I was pleased with the children's creativity - in other words I liked theirs better than the samples. ::snort::

I think we could make a lap book of artists and art vocabulary....but maybe that would be to much hands on. We seem to be doing a lot of cutting, pasting and such this year. Of course, it's on Nolan's IEP (my personal IEP for the children)...."improve Nolan's fine motor skills, with the goal of holding a pencil". We are accomplishing that goal with things like "peeling potatoes, sweeping the floor (dustpan is hard), coloring, clay, cutting and pasting....".

Here are some photos (strange that 1/2 the photos from the camera didn't load to the computer):

Making our artist portfolios

Zander wanted to do this with us - he decided his job was punching stars (??) which I incorporated into his and my portfolios and sharpening colored pencils. Nolan worked hard on his....he had to do the border twice and chose to write out all the names though I offered him the option of gluing names on like Zander did. He made a fringe border on his - doesn't show up real well.

Arielle's on the left and mine on the right (yep - decided to do my own even before reading comments ::snort::)

Now on to create "deeper than ever beet root pie" ::snort::