Week 28

The letter of the week for Gabriel was R-r-Rock. 

Stone Soup is sure to draw all the kids in for a good read aloud.  Afterwards, we made our own picture of stone soup.  Yummy.

In this science experiment, we tried to grow a stalagmite rock on the green plate.  The baking soda that is mixed in the water was supposed to seep up into the yarn and then drip onto the plate.  It never worked. 

But the baking soda and vinegar volcano never fails to entertain.

And Gabe practiced his sorting skills using our rock collection.

Have a happy day!

School - Week 27

Gabe's week in school focused on the letter 'Z' and the unit study of the zebra. 

Leah did some coloring for Gabe in the top right picture.

We went to the zoo this week and the kids took a picture with the zebra there.

We read the book If I Ran the Zoo which is about a kid who makes up his own silly animals to put in the zoo.  So the boys all made up silly animals too.  These are Gabe's...

***********************************************************************************
We continued reading in 2 Kings about Elisha and the story about how Naaman was healed from leprosy.  Naaman was an important general and thought that he should have to do something impressive to be healed since he was so strong and impressive, but God, through Elisha, healed him by having him do something so simple that anyone would be capable of doing it.  Exactly like how we can be saved from eternal death by something simple, that anyone is capable of doing...putting our faith in Jesus Christ alone and his gift of salvation.  It's not something that only impressive and important people can do. 

It was neat how just a week or so before we read about this story for school, we read and discussed this story in our Bible study group.  The Bible is so relevant for both children and adults.


We're almost caught up in art.  This first lesson was to copy the picture of the statue on the page, using lines to shade to show depth.  Christopher's is on the left; Matthew's on the right.  And I don't know why Matthew's looks like the man's brains are exposed.

This lesson was about drawing people.  The boys usually draw stick figures, and this lesson added ovals and rectangles to the stick people to make them look a little more real.  Under these pages, the boys drew the scene of Jesus walking on water during the storm. 

Christopher's on the left; Matthew's on the right.

We also started some painting using acrylic paint.  The boys practiced mixing colors and then painted in the picture of a stag beetle, trying to copy the color of the real painting. 

We've also been trying to catch up in science.  We are working quickly through the chapter about plants in our science book.  One of the experiments we did was to grow plants from seeds we have around the kitchen...beans, spices, and herbs.

And we also had our last homeschool co-op meeting of the semester, and the last one that we'll be able to attend with our awesome group.  In the class I taught, we made Easter baskets out of milk jugs and I brought in some eggs to give out as well.

If you'd like to see what other MFW families' school week looked like, click here.  2 ladybugs and a lizard is guest hosting this week.

And I'll leave you with some other zoo pictures from this week...

I love that they are all able to walk around together, hanging out. They walked through the reptile house, following each other around like little ducklings...so cute!

The elephant was really neat to watch this zoo trip.  He kept sticking his trunk into a stream of water and then putting his trunk in his mouth to drink the water. 

I got bombed by a bird while we walked through the bird aviary...yuck!

Part of the group of friends we went to the zoo with.

And should you think that I dress my kids in the same clothes everyday, we actually went the zoo, took bluebonnet pictures, and went to our Bible study Easter egg hunt on the same day!

Have a great day!

On the Hunt

We meet with other military families for a Bible study every week on Thursday evenings.  It's neat that the guy who usually teaches now was the leader of a Bible study group we went to in Nebraska as well.  They ended up moving here last summer, started coming to our OCF Bible study, and he is such an awesome teacher that he now leads us every week. 

Anyways, we got together for a potluck and Easter egg hunt this week.

During our Bible study, we have all the kids go upstairs to play with two teenage babysitters supervising them and trying to keep them quiet.  That's a lot of kids! 

Bluebonnets

I suppose I had to do it eventually.  I just loved our bluebonnets picture from last year so much that I didn't want to take it down from my blog header! 

We haven't had very much rain this spring, so our Texas landscape sadly isn't as colorful as it was last year.  I'd say only about 5% of the bluebonnets from last year made an appearance again this year.  We still had some yellows and pinks and whites growing wild along the roadways, but not the take-your-breath-away canvas of color that we were blessed with last year.  And I was hoping for it since this is our last spring here.

But we found a patch of bluebonnets not far from our house, and stopped pulled over to capture some more memories.  We had just come from the zoo and Leah had crazy car seat hair where her ponytail had been rubbed against her carseat so many times on the way home that she looked like she had a very messy 'bump-it' under her hair.  I tried to smooth it down, but it didn't help, and then taking the ponytail completely out left her hair in a crazy sort of permanant mess.

And the bluebonnets were not quite as bright as they should have been, but the pictures I took were still sweet.

My new header picture

The boys ran back to the car as fast as they could once I got a few shots of all five kids.  I'm still hoping for a spring shower so maybe some more bluebonnets will come out and we can go back to get more pictures.

**********************************************************************************

And posts are coming less often (although I do start plenty of them!) because we are in the midst of scouring the internet for a potential home in Florida.  I think we've found one and things are moving quickly!