Snowstorm Harper is a family affair

 This poor son of mine was living in Hawaii 2 weeks ago... 

 Welcome home, Matt!!

 Mark knows how to dress for the weather

 Putting chains on the little tractor

 Luke helping shovel us out

 It's alot of work.

Grace and Carson have the perfect view.

 This sums it up... snowstorm Harper

 Poor Pat snowblowed at 3am, 7 am and now it's noon... probably we will need one more round of clean up... it's still snowing.

Little did I know that I was being spied on while I measured and took pictures of the snow depth.

13 inches in the backyard..

21 inches in the front yard drift

Matt is melting.... 

The Great Egg Drop Plop

Science rules....even on Christmas vacation!!

Kimberly Learning to Walk---Day 4

 Kimberly getting some exercise with Gracie out in the beautiful fall leaves on a beautiful autumn day. 

 The pumpkin pose...

Best buddies~~

Day 4 of Kimberly learning to walk...I don't like how her legs. (both) are turning in...Her recovering leg is her left leg.

A Great Big Whoops!

Grace was injured playing soccer on June 18th.

Today, June 29th she was diagnosed with a broken scaphoid bone.  

It is a bone at the base of the thumb into the wrist.

I guess she will be enjoying a permanent "thumbs up" for the next up to 12 weeks!

OOPS!!!

She left of thick layer of dirt everywhere she went at urgent care.........

Patriotic Wreath

 Gracie made this absolutely adorable patriotic wreath.

It is made on a 12 inch wire frame.  You need 60 clothespins... Walmart has a package of 100 for less than 2 dollars.  Paint 20 of the clothespins red, 20 white and 20 blue. We just stuck the smallest star stickers I could find on the blue clothespins. 

 Grace braided  red, white and blue yarn to make a hanger for the wreath. 

The star behind this wreath is from Walmart...I think it looks great behind Grace's hard work. 

A New Fire Place

 The kids made me a new fire place in the backyard yesterday....

It was mostly Mark and Grace, but Mark tries his best to avoid photos.

We are looking forward to a campfire and some s'mores!

Autumn's colors

Giant Miraculous Medal Craft

 Catholic Icing provided this great craft--perfect for my 10 year old Gracie.

We love our Blessed Mother, and what a perfect way to tell her so by making this giant Miraculous Medal.

 Catholic Icing provides complete directions and a pdf printable needed for this project.

It is also simple.  All you need is a dull pencil and the ability to trace.

 The Miraculous Medal as it looked after being traced onto heavy duty aluminum foil.

 Grace then colored Our Blessed Mother with sharpie markers.

 The front

The back...it is now hanging in the living room...and Grace is very proud of her hard work--and so am I.

Play Ball!! 2012

The 2012 baseball and softball season is in full swing.  It doesn't matter if the temperature was 20 degrees last night....the games go on!!  (and the fans freeze!)

Mark-12, is in his last year of little league, the majors.  Next year he moves up to play Babe Ruth ball.

It's amazing to see how far he has come over the last few years.

 Grace-10

This is Grace's first year playing on the major league softball team...she tried out and made the majors.

She will have 2 more years at this level.

Today, she got her first ever major league hit and drove in an RBI. 

 We do have a little work to do on Grace's swing, but she did get a hit!

Mark went 2-4 today with an RBI and a stolen base.  His defense on third  base was great.

Here's to a great season...may the snow stop soon and may the fans thaw out!

The Courage of Sarah Noble Lapbook

It's been a while since I made a lapbook with any of the kids...so I headed over to Homeschool Share and browsed for hours (because there is so much to see on the site..and all for free).

I chose to have Grace make a The Courage of Sarah Noble lapbook. I knew this book would be easy for her to read. She reads on a fourth grade level, but I wanted her to be able to read the book on her own and also be able to complete the lapbook with little help from me.

All the needed printables are free over at Homeschool Share.

We learned about Newberry Honor books, the original 13 colonies, colonial cooking, new vocabulary words, Native Americans and much more.
It is a very complete unit study neatly rolled up into a lapbook.
And best of all, Grace has declared The Courage of Sarah Noble her favorite book of all time.
She also told me that she looked forward to growing up and making this lapbook with her own daughter.

To finish our unit, Grace made us all johnny cake for lunch...the same meal Sarah made for her father.

They came out wonderfully yummy, made entirely by Grace.

Kimmy gives them the thumbs up!!