It looks like Michigan out there today!

This morning we woke to find a few inches of snow blanketing the ground.  My friend Candace, who also came from the Midwest, called me all excited.  "It looks like Michigan out there!"  She said her kids were outside playing at 7:00am...before she was even out of bed! Zach, Drew, and Baylee went out, too, (not quite that early) and Baylee made her first snowman all by herself.

By the way, if you look closely you'll notice a faint yellow tinge all around Baylee's mouth.  We had gone grocery shopping earlier in the day and the store had a display of flowers set up.  Baylee "stopped to smell the roses" so to speak, and ended up with her nose and mouth covered in bright yellow pollen.  I washed her face with soap and water, but it was stained.  Even hours later you can still see traces of it. 

And here's a picture of Zach being his usual animal-loving self.  That kid can make any animal trust him. 

In other news, Drew made his first basket in his basketball game this past Saturday!  Mike usually takes him to his games, so I don't have any pictures.  I'm going to try to remember to have him bring the camera next time.

And last, I took a job working just a few hours a week at the company Mike manages.  I clean one 2-story office building.  It's kind of nice because I don't have set hours; I only have to get it done sometime over the weekend.  The embarrassing part, though, is that it's made me realize how out of shape I am.  I've done it twice now and holy. cow.  My muscles are sore.  I did it yesterday and this morning I woke up shuffling like a 90 year old woman.  Mike told me people are always surprised by how physically demanding the job is, though, and some people even quit after their first day, so I guess I feel a little better.  At least it's not just me.  Anyway, that'll provide a little bit of fun pocket money.

Sue

Donkey Tales!

I'm such a proud mom!  Tonight Baylee had the full dress rehearsal for the musical she's in called Donkey Tales.  They'll be performing it for real tomorrow afternoon, tomorrow evening, and Sunday evening.  This is every bit as exciting for me as any play I was ever in myself! 

I showed up pretty early to pick Baylee up from the rehearsal, hoping I'd catch at least some of it and maybe get a few good pictures.  I was in luck, though, as I was there to see the whole thing performed one last time.  It was so good!  And I'm not just saying that because I'm a mom. LOL  The directors did an excellent job making sure all the kids spoke up and knew their lines perfectly, the choreography was adorable, the set was wonderful, and the accompaniment music came from a live group made up of a banjo, a fiddle, a guitar, and a string bass.  There were other moms and dads in there taking pictures and video, so I went ahead and did it, too.  Here's a four minute montage showing a few pictures and parts of three different songs:

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And since I shared the boys' writing...

I thought I'd share some of Baylee's words.  Every time she has a history lesson we end with dictation.  She tells me what she learned that day and I write it in her history notebook.  I'd like to share some of them, because I think they're so cute.

Lesson 4

I learned that history is a story about true people a long time ago.  You should find things and be a historian.  It was a fun lesson.  Oh, and my favorite color is purple.

Lesson 5

It was fun, really, about the nomads.  I like the lady ones.  I heard that nomads, the men, are disgusting.  They get wild horses, snakes, lizards, and fish [to eat].  But fish is okay.  Lots of people eat fish.  The lady nomads are nice.  They get apples and grapes.  Nomads go from place to place to get food, not because they want to, because they have to.

Lesson 14

I learned about ziggurats.  Ziggurats kind of look like pyramids, but they're not.  Ziggarats are square and pyramids are pointy.  Ziggurats are for the priests to worship the sky gods.  Sky gods are gods in the sky.  There's no such thing,  really.  With ziggurats you have to get to the top.  You might be sweating!

Lesson 15

I learned that there's people called Jews.  They started with Abraham.  He had a wife.  It's a joyful story.  They got a boy named Isaac.

Lesson 23

I learned about Moses the baby.  He got to float down the Nile River because a pharoah wanted to kill all the boy babies.  And when the pharoah's daughter found him, she said, "I will take care of the baby."  And she let Moses' mom help.  True story.

Lesson 25

I learned about David and Goliath.  David is the good guy and Goliath is the bad guy.  The people of Israel  said, "I'm not going to fight Goliath.  He's too big and he's too strong."  But David didn't do that, because he knew that God was with him.  And guess what he used as his fighter.  Okay, he had a slingshot, right?  He tied a stone in it and David won with God's help and Goliath was dead.  Bonk.  Right in the head.  His skull probably cracked.

Lesson 27...today's dictation

Fist I learned about how Nebuchadnezzar was scared of Persia.  And Persia was scared of Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar.  And then Nebuchadnezzar had an idea.  He could marry the king of Persia's daughter, Amytis.  He thought then he would be the son-in-law of the king of Persia, so Persia won't attack Babylon and Babylon won't attack Persia.  But Amytis missed the mountains and gardens, so Nebuchadnezzar decided to bring Persia to Babylon.  So he made gardens and mountains with lots of rock and dirt and plants.  It was called The Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

A couple paragraphs from this week's writing.

Zach's assignment was to tell me about one day in the life of a breaker boy.  He chose to do it first person.
 
I'm a breaker boy and my life is hard.  [Actually, he had "my life sucks" but I made him change it.]  I woke up in the loft of my small crowded house.  My brothers and sisters were already downstairs eating breakfast.  I quickly ate breakfast, packed my lunch pail, and headed down the dark, gloomy street to the breaker.  A breaker is the place where coal is crushed after it's mined.  It's my job to pick out all the debris that goes through the chute with the coal.  I had a rough time at the breaker today, because two older boys rubbed soot from the coal on my back and didn't get in any trouble.  There was an unusual amount of debris in the coal so I could not leave until nine.  When I got home I skipped supper and went right to bed.  I was exhausted.  My life as a breaker boy is tough, but I do it to make money for my family.

And Drew had to tell me anything he wanted on the topic of "mystery."

This paragraph is going to be about solving a mystery.  In order to solve a mystery you have to look for clues.  In order to know if you found a clue there will be fingerprints, footprints, and suspicious objects.  There could also be suspects in your mystery, but there will only be suspects if you're looking for a person.  And that's how you solve a mystery.

Tagged

I was tagged by Crossview!

"The game is called scattergories. Use the first letter of your name and find words with that letter. The number of letters in your name determines how many people you can tag."

Okay, I'm going to go with Sue instead of Suzanne, since it's less work.  LOL  Here's my answers:

What is your name?  Sue
4 letter word: sane
Vehicle: Saab
City: Seattle
Boys name:  Sam
Girls name:  Seirra
Movie: Silence of the Lambs
Occupation: Sanitation Engineer
Something you wear: socks
Celebrity: Sonny
Food: sandwich
Something found in a kitchen: sink
Something found in a bathroom: suds
Reason for being late: somebody hid my purse
Cartoon character: Superman
Something you shout: Shut up!
Animal: snake
Body part: stomach
Word to describe you: smart

I tag Lindsey, Letitia, and Jodi!  (Jodi and Lin, you can just answer in my comments if you want.)

Oh Dear.

Today Drew had to write down why Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are all considered one region called Scandinavia.  He started out okay, but then went off into some things that were definitely not in the lesson!   

In Norway, Sweden, and Denmark they all speak different languages, but their languages are similar.  Also, they all have the same cold climate and eat a lot of fish because they are surrounded by water.  (And Swedish people love Danishes.  I mean seriously.  Who doesn't like Danishes?)  And in Sweden that's where everybody plays golf.  I think golf was invented there.  Now at Denmark they make a lot of dimes, nickels, and pennies.  I learned that myself looking at coins and seeing they were printed in Denmark, because I'm a coin collector.  But I can't think of anything interesting about Norway.


I have no idea where he got that they play a lot of golf in Sweden.  Unless he meant Scotland?  And it took me a minute, but I finally figured out that he thought coins were minted in Denmark, when they're really minted in Denver!  LOL

So...do I do the lesson over?  Nah.

Sue

January Happenings

The tree is down and hauled away and the decorations are in the attic for another year.  Whew!  I'm always so glad to set our house back to rights again after Christmas.

January is shaping up to be a pretty busy month.  Our family joined a really cool Bible study which meets every Thursday evening.  What makes it such a neat group is that we can bring our kids and the house it's at has all sorts of things for them to do in the basement.  There's a pool table, foosball, an arcade game, and a pinball machine.  Our kids love it!  There's other children there, too, so they're making new friends.  I also love this group because it starts out each week with a dinner.  We all rotate bringing a main dish, salad, and dessert.  It's nice to eat together and chat.  But mostly I'm glad we joined because it's giving Mike and me a chance to meet people in the church and get to know them.  I need that badly.  Talking about God and working through issues of His Word becomes very personal at times, and it's just...I've missed that.

The kids spent much of their Christmas vacation playing outside with their new scooters and skateboards.  Even Baylee got a Dora the Explorer "beginner scooter," and she's loving it.  When all the kids in the neighborhood are out wheeling around it kind of looks like a little gang. lol

The kids are becoming more involved in extra curricular activities.  Baylee is in a musical through our church called Donkey Tales.  She's the littlest kid in the group so she didn't get a speaking part, but she's pretty darn excited about it anyway.  The kids in the Children's Choir have been practicing for months, and the performances are in only a couple more weeks.  They'll be doing the show three times over the course of a weekend.  I'll try to get some pictures.

Drew is also in something new.  He joined a basketball league through church and he gets to play real games with other teams every Saturday through March.  I'll be sure to get some pictures of that, too.

And last, today we started school again.  Amazingly, it went well!  Oh, and we have a new little school mascot.  Baylee was given a hummingbird feeder as a present at that white elephant gift exchange, so we hung it right outside our schoolroom window in the little rhododendron tree. To be honest, I'm shocked to see that hummingbirds are actually coming to it!  I guess I really didn't expect it to work or something.  Actually, I don't know if several hummingbirds have discovered it or just this little guy:

I know it isn't a great picture, but I had to take it through a window or he'd fly away.  Anyway, It's been fun watching him/them! 

Sue