Shortcake being quiet

So that's why she was so happily occupied. The tissue box does it every time.

Marvin Pride

My parents were up in Warroad visiting family not too long ago. While they were there they went on a tour of Marvin Windows. Here is a picture of the boys wearing their T-shirts to show their Marvin Pride.

















My dad's hometown is Warroad. He and a whole lot of other folks I'm related to have spent some amount of time employed by Marvin's. This next photo is a shot of my dear Grandpa (my dad's dad) at work making screens somewhere in the mid-60s. I always thought of my grandpa as a farmer and never realized until this last year that he also worked there. Some days I just can't wait to get to heaven.

Wake up hair

I love naptime wake up hair!

Expedition Earth: Arctic

Here we come Arctic! Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

We studied snowy owls. Owl Babies is the cutest little movie ever! Watch it here on You Tube. We stitched our own owl babies - oh they turned out cute! I got our free pattern at Juicy Bits.

We checked out our first online library book: Actic Fox

Studied our fun facts from the curriculum.

Tried our hands at soap whittling. It took some probing but once they started, they got the feel for it. I think we ended up with some sort of a fish and a polar bear.

Here is my Pinterest board for the Actic. I wish we could have made time for the Polar Bear art project posted there!

Expedition Earth: Antarctica

Here we come Antarctica! Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

We took a little liberty and did the Poles in the middle of the year rather than the regularly scheduled end of the year. I had thought that it would be fun to study the snowy places while we had snow. Little did I know that this would be such a "brown" Minnesota winter. So we made what we could of the little snow we had.

First up are the igloos we made:

Agent E says his was an igloo church.

Agent H's igloo.

The General's igloo in process . . again, and again, and again. Did I mention we were working with sugar cubes? He may have actually eaten more than he built with.

We read a lot about Shackelton. We watched a clip on YouTube about his story. I found this amazing study on him with great printables and we did a few pieces of it to add to our file folder on the Poles.

We read Mr. Popper's Penguins again - dah! (I'm such an 80's child)

We made snow cones with our Snoopy Snow Cone maker!!

Here is our lovely penguin foot painting art (which turned into a wrestle hug):

There are lots of other neat links over on my Pinterest board for Antarctica if you want to check them out.

Showing honor

Sometimes I wonder if what we're trying to teach our boys about respect and thoughtfulness will ever sink in . . . I wonder more about one particular child. Last night he showed me a glimps into his heart.

We have a circle shaped kitchen table with 4 wooden chairs - all filled by the older members of the family. The General (3 yr) is now big enough not to want a stool all the time and he wants to sit at a big person chair. I usually bring in a folding chair and he and I take turns who sits on it. Now last night this particular child (mentioned above) offered to switch chairs with me. The last time he did this I just thought he liked the novelty of sitting on the folding chair. Last night I asked him "Do you like sitting on the folding chair?" to which he said "No Mom, I like the wood chair too, I just don't like YOU having to sit on the folding chair." I nearly cried. I felt . . . honored.

Lord, thank you for reminding me that you are at work our children. Please help us not to grow weary in training them. You know there are so many times when I feel like I'm failing.