Party Time!!

We had Becky's traditional birthday pumpkin pie tonight.

It was very yummy!!

I can't believe my baby girl is 20 years old.....

I couldn't resist adding these two great photos.
I could stare into those eyes all day!

Fuzzy and warm

I got some quick sewing done today. This warm and fuzzy fleece sewed up in about an hour--I had cut it out a few days ago.
It is my favorite fleece top for my littlest kids. It is McCall's Pattern #M4642. I am afraid that it is out of print, but I see that it is still available some places on the web.

I especially like the zipper in the front, it is very easy to put in. Last year I made a pair of fleece pants from this same pattern, but I didn't like the results. The waistband was much too bulky because of the folded fleece. I prefer cordoroy for little pants, and will use some dark pink baby cordoroy to make pants to match this top.
Kimmy just loves zippers too!

Happy Birthday, Becky!!!

I can't believe you are no longer a teen--the 20's are here and nothing can stop you now. We love you!!!

Don't worry if the birthday cake falls out of the refrigerator...

if your lucky, it only becomes lopsided,
but it still serves its purpose,
wonderfully!

Our Newest 16 Year Old!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DANNY!
WE LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!
DRIVE CAREFULLY!!

Tot School

I have been enjoying the "Tot School" that is headed up weekly over at the 1+1+1=1 blog. Since we do a lot of Tot School around here, I thought I would join the fun and contribute to this great site occasionally.

This week we are concentrating on Halloween, especially the spiders of Halloween. Today we made these cute handprint spiders from the DLTK site.

We used these spiders to accompany the recitation of the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet.

We have been memorizing a nursery rhyme every week, so since Halloween is on its way, I wanted to learn about spiders along with our rhymes. (Soon we will move on to Itsy Bitsy Spider.)

After making our spiders, the littles took turns acting out the poem. Luke performed the part of Little Mr. Muffet and did it perfectly.

He even was so "scared" of the spider, he let the bowl and spoon fly across the room. On his fourth performance, the spoon hit the wall opposite him, that is when I decided to change subjects from nursery rhymes to numbers.

We haven't really touch on number recognition yet, so this is our beginning. Both kids can count from 1 to 10, but they don't recognize the written digits, or what they stand for. Today I just made simple cards with the number 1-3 on them. We then match the correct number of gears to the correct digit. I used similar colors for each number to help them do this. After demonstating a few times, they both could do this flawlessly. Tomorrow I will try mixing the numbers up and see how they can do.

Make sure you visit other Tot School posts this week.

Brotherly Love

Even though Matt is only living 20 minutes away, we all love having him home for the weekend.

What we do...

when the autumn leaves are "past peak". This pictures for you Grandma H--see, it's Mom--in a picture!
Those are some deep leaves.
Kimmy is sinking...
This is Amy's wave from beneath the leaves.
This is Luke imitating Amy's wave!

When they say past peak---they really mean it!

Last week--peak
This week--past peak

Last week--peakThis week--past peak

The Mighty Hunter

Dale headed out into the woods this morning in back of Grandma and Grandpa's house for his very first deer hunting experience. Bow season began this morning at sunrise, and about 15 minutes past sunrise Dale got his first deer, a six-point buck.
Hopefully, Dale realizes this is not normal for a first time bow hunter, but maybe this is just the beginning for this "mighty hunter"!

Spooky Stylin'

For as long as I can remember, Grandpa H has decorated the inside of his his lampshades with spooky creatures for a scary Halloween.

This year we decided to join in the fun here at our house.

If I had a smidgen of artistic talent I would free hand patterns of bats and spiders as my father has always done. Because I don't possess the needed talent, I looked through the DLTK site for suitable images to use as patterns.

Tape the spiders and bats to the inside of your lampshades. I just love the spooky results of this quick and easy craft.

An Easy Lung Capacity Experiment

We cracked open our favorite science book today: The Usborne Book of Science Experiments-Volume 3. During the week we have been studying about birds, but on Fridays, we have been learning about our bodies. Today we learned about how our lungs work.
We performed a very simple experiment to test how much air our lungs can hold.
We needed:
a plastic tub, big enough to hold quite a bit of water
a 3 liter soda bottle
flexible plastic tubing

Put about 3 inches of water in the tub. Fill the 3 liter bottle completely with water. Turn the 3 liter bottle unside down into the water in the basin. Carefully insert the plastic tubing into the neck of the soda bottle. (I found this easier to do before we submerged the bottle into the tub.)
Then, take a very deep breath and blow into the tubing. The air from your lungs forces the water out of the bottle.
We marked on the outside of the soda bottle each person's results. Above you can see how much air Mark had in his lungs. Mark's was able to blow about 2 liters of air into the bottle. Gracie blew about a 1 1/2 liters and Daddy blew the bottle right out of the water. He is the champion when it comes to lung capacity, but that didn't surprise us, since his lungs must be at least twice as big as everyone elses in the house.

A Slow Wednesday

Today has seemed to be dragging on and on. It is probably because there will be no one over the age of eight home until about 8 o'clock tonight. That is kind of unusual around here, but with a prediction of rain, cold temps, and no naps, I wasn't taking the little kids out to this afternoon's soccer game.

I did make this candy corn puzzle set last night for the littlest learners around here. I saw the idea in a preschool Mailbox magazine.
I made four identical candy corn shapes and then colored them each a solid color. I laminated them for durability. Cut all four candy corn into three very identical pieces. You want them to fit together just as well with mixed up pieces as with solid pieces. It is funny the difference between kids. Luke loved to mix up the colors. He thought he was very funny. Kimberly, on the other hand, wanted them to match. I showed her how to mix the colors and she got very angry, and then "fixed" them.
We got out the colored rice this morning for some pouring and scooping practice. They have seemed to have lost some of these skills, because I had to sweep up a whole lot of rice from the floor today.
Grace and Mark made these very cute Halloween magnets. Becky was at Michael's craft store recently and picked up a kit for the kids. The kit has 40 magnets in it. So, if you happen to receive a surprise gift from one of the kids, act surprised and pretend to have never seen them before. Thanks.....