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The Zoo

Just a few pics from our recent trip to the zoo. Obviously, you can tell which animals we are our favorites. :)

Various School Activities

Just to chronicle, these are a few random photos from some of our school-day experiences. We have a lot of fun, I just don't always remember to actually take pictures, but here are some of our 1st grade memories so far:

Outdoor Math. The weather has been so tremendous that we have wanted to spend as much time as possible outside before it gets cold for good! So we decided to have math with sticks and stones and acorns!

Science Experiment: What would you look like without bones? Well, according to this floppy clay version, you wouldn't be able to do much! And you would have a flat head!

And now, you get to see the clay version with bones! We inserted toothpicks to simulate how our bones help us stand and move. Much better!

Still working on bones, this time we focused on the cranium. What would happen to your brain if you had no skull? And what about if you had no cerebral fluid in between your skull and your brain?

We placed the "brain" (egg) into its "skull" (Pyrex dish), and ran around the room. Well, our brain did stay in our head, but it broke all over the place! What was missing?

Cerebral fluid! Next, we added "cerebral fluid" (water) around our "brain" inside our "skull." Then ran around the room again. Yay! Our "brain" is safe and sound!

Exercise! Just threw this in because I thought it was so stinkin' cute to watch Brenner doing lunges! :)

Reading time! Aile had just finished her turn to read a page....

Another experiment: Why did God give us 5 fingers? Why not just 3? Or 4? Well, we decided to find out. With her newly constructed 3 fingers and a thumb, Aile made her bed, put away her laundry, and brushed her hair and teeth. Now we understand a little bit better just how smart our God is! This was challenging! Aile says that making her bed was the easiest of the tasks--it used mostly gross motor skills. Brushing her teeth was the most challenging--you need more fine motor skills for that!

Fractured

Well, it has happened. Three kids and seven years into our parenting, and the youngest one has inaugurated us into the realm of ER visits and broken bones. Somehow, Caelum was playing at a friend's house out on the driveway with a large bouncy ball. We think he was trying to jump onto it, and didn't make it. His left leg twisted under him, creating a spiral displaced fracture of the tibia.

Here is our journey through our ER visit:

Waiting...got him all propped up and semi-comfy while we waited for the doctor and X-ray team.

Waiting with entertainment...the kind nurse brought some toys, but he couldn't play with them, so she brought him movies instead.

The Break. The picture says more than I even need to say. It's a doozy.

Not happy about the IV. But it was very needed as they had to give him morphine for the pain--which by the way made watching Finding Nemo quite a psychedelic experience, I'm sure. When the pain started coming back in the middle of the night, he kept saying he wanted to go to the aquarium! They also used the IV to give him three other drugs to knock him out while they manipulated and casted the leg.

And here he is, all knocked out and casted.

The Cast. Toe to thigh. No walking. No pressure at all in fact. No getting it wet, especially with leaky diapers or blowouts. For the next 6 weeks. When he actually wakes up enough to realize all of this, he is not going to be a fan of this plan...neither is his mother.

As far as accidents and ER visits go, it definitely could've been much worse, so for that I feel blessed. Praise the Lord we have gone 7 years without this stuff, and praise Him that this wasn't terrible. I will remind myself of that while I lug my 34-pound toddler with a 5-pound cast around for the next 6 weeks. I will also visit my chiropractor more often.

The Heart of a Child

The other day we were driving in the car, and Aile was talking to me about how she wanted to give her heart to Jesus so He would help her be more like Him. She said all she wanted for Christmas this year is Jesus in her heart. I told her that was very sweet, and that I had great news: she didn't have to wait until Christmas! Jesus would come into her heart any time she asked Him to! So right there, she prayed about it. It was a touching prayer, and I was silent for a few minutes after, just thinking about what it meant. The kids were silent too.

Then, about 5 minutes later, Caelum breaks the silence with this prayer: "Dear Jesus, the open door. Amen."

I asked Caelum what the open door was that he was praying about. He clasped his hands together excitedly and grinned at me. "The open door to my heart!" he exclaimed.

Awesome!

The Wisdom of a Child

The other day I was having an especially frustrating day, and had lost my temper a couple of times with the kids. I said something about them ignoring me and I felt like they weren't even hearing what I saying unless I yelled.

Aile replied, very calmly: "Mommy, when I grow up, I am going to raise my children to be very respectful. That way I will never have to yell at them."

Thanks for the advice, oh wise sage.

Brenner's Milestone

Yay! Brenner can now officially write his own name!! If I can figure out how to get the saved image from the iPad to the computer, I'll post his first successes here! :)

Go Brenner! He worked long and hard on this, and I am proud of him! :)

Uncle Ryan's Science Class

So, after dinner tonight as I'm cleaning up the kitchen, my kids come clamoring into the house, surrounding my brother, who is carrying something in a baseball cap. They enter the kitchen, and suddenly the hat jumps. Then the frog jumps out of the hat. For a few comical minutes, Ryan and the kids chase the frog around the kitchen trying to catch him. (Admittedly, the kids were doing more directing than actually trying to help catch the frog.) Then I learn the real intent of bringing the frog into the house.

"Mommy! Uncle Ryan said the frog can swim really well! Can we put him in the bathtub? PLEASE!" I wavered for a moment, but I eventually threw caution to the wind and allowed the frog to be bathed. (Even after he urinated on Ryan's hand twice while the kids were running the bath water.)

So are few pictures to show that the frog did survive, and sure enough, he swam like a champ. In a further experiment, Caelum proved that frogs don't even drown when continually being heavily splashed by an eager 2-year-old.

The kids loved him a lot, and named him Mr. Xanopus. They were very sad to let him go back out into the woods.

1st Grade Begins...

Here are a couple pictures from Aile's first official in-class day of 1st grade (August 25, 2010). Once a week, we join some friends for some joint school time, and here Hannah, Aile, and Anaya are learning the Pledge of Allegiance and working on one of their assignments.

Edible Cells

In Anatomy & Physiology, we have been studying the cell, and it's various parts and functions. So for a fun project, we made an edible cell out Jell-O. The Jell-O was the cytoplasm, then we had Jelly Belly mitochondria, Skittles lysosomes, Smarties golgi bodies, fruit roll-up endoplasmic reticulum, cake sprinkles ribosomes, Twizzlers Pull-Aparts centrioles, and a bubble gum nucleus. We invited some friends over to join us in the project who hadn't been reading the same text, so it gave Aile a chance to teach them about the parts of the cell and test what she had learned. All the kids had fun, and it turned out to be a neat project, worth repeating! (Also, as a bonus to us parents, all those different candies in the Jell-O turned out to be not quite as yummy as the kids had hoped, so they really didn't eat all of it!) :)

Re-creating Adam and Eve

As part of our Bible class, we have been studying the days of creation. The other day we studied about how God created Adam, and them made him fall asleep, took a rib, and formed Eve. So we used some clay and Aile made her own version of Adam and Eve. :)

Entertaining Birds?

All three kids are playing nicely together (yes, I'm serious), when out of the blue, Brenner asks: "Mommy, when can we go to the bird feeder?"

I'm a bit perplexed. Did I hear correctly? "What bird feeder?"

"You know, the BIRD FEEDER!"

"The bird feeder in the backyard?"

"No! The BIRD FEEDER!"

"Where is it?"

"It's at the BIRD FEEDER!"

By this time, I think both of us were getting a little frustrated. I had absolutely no clue what he could possibly be talking about. And he was desperate for me to understand, but could only give that one description. After we went round and round a few more times trying to figure this out, he finally pointed to a building on his car mat where he had been playing--"Here! You know, Mommy, the BIRD FEEDER! When can we go here?!" He pointed again.

I actually kept a straight face, and answered calmly. "Well, Brenner, I'm not sure when we would go there. That's the MOVIE THEATER."

"And to top it all off, he flings his arms out and says, "That what I SAID!"

Little Men on the Moon

We were driving home one evening, and the full moon was already out and quite bright. It looked pretty cool. Brenner noticed it first, which was not surprising. He has had an obsession with the moon ever since I showed him a video of the first astronauts to walk on the moon and we learned about being an astronaut, gravity, etc. Anyway, so Brenner noticed the moon, and commented, "Look! It's a full moon today!"

"Oh, that's very neat!" I replied.

Brenner, for about the 20th time in the last couple weeks: "When can we go to the moon, Mommy?"

"Well..." I hedge. I am trying to come up with a 2oth answer, since the previous 19 apparently did not suffice. But Caelum chimes in and answers for me, in all his 2-year-old logic: "You can just drop us off, Mommy! Can you drop us off at the moon, please, Mommy?"

"That's a very far to go, Caelum. We can't drive there."

"But, I think I can walk on the moon!" He shouts emphatically.

"Maybe someday..." I reply.

Heavenly Swimmers

So the discussion in the van today was about how the animals in Heaven will be tame and we can walk right up to them and pet them. Aile pointed out that even the crocodiles will be nice.

Brenner, in his excitement, exclaimed: "Oh wow! Mommy, don't let me forget to take my swimming suit to Heaven because I JUST HAVE to swim with the nice crocodiles!"

Caelum's Mishaps of the Day

So this morning, after loading the kids into the van all ready to go, for the second time this week, we were met with the typical clicks of a dead battery in our van. So out we went to play in the yard instead.

On the scene comes Caelum: he backs up against the tree and starts counting-- "One...two...three...four...five...six.......GO!"

He runs. He dives onto the swing on his tummy.

And he slides right over and ungracefully face-plants into the dirt. The crying...and the blood...commences.

After 30 minutes of consoling and blood-mopping and unsuccessfully trying to inspect his mouth for missing or loose teeth, Caelum starts to talk. Here are his delirious ramblings: "My mouth is hurt! My back hurts! I want my shoes on! I don't like race cars anymore! I need to learn my memory verse!"

For some unknown reason, I actually tried to engage him in a conversation about these things.

Me: Why don't you like race cars anymore?
C: Because I don't know! But I want my shirt clean! (It was very wet with blood and slobber.)

Me: Okay, I'll get you a clean shirt. Let's go to your room.
C (Not getting up.): But do you know my memory verse? That would be FUN!

At this point we commenced going over his memory over and over about 5 times: "We will obey the voice of the Lord." Until Caelum says he wants to do it himself. His version: "We obey the Lord! And then there's the sun and the moon!"

LATER in the day:

Caelum is crying again, in his room. I enter and ask what happened.

C: My microphone!

Okay, so I am searching for a microphone that has been snatched away by a thoughtless sibling or that has fallen to an unreachable place.

C: I'm bleeding again!

Sure enough. Blood all around the mouth for the second time in one day. Search for the missing microphone stops abrubtly. Again, I ask what happened.

Caelum stands with hands on hips and answers as if I should have known all along: Well! I was singing and dancing on my bed! And now I'm bleeding again!

Okay. I think it's nap time.

RE-VAMP!!!

Well, it has been almost a year since I logged in to this blog. Life gets like that, you know. Craziness overwhelms the senses, survival instincts kick in, and all else goes by the wayside! :)

No matter, here I am, alive and well. And although it would be nice to have the record of the past year of our lives on here, I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things and beginning anew with capturing the little important things in life right here for my own recollection and for the amusement or curiosity of whoever else would like to read it!

From this point, I will not tune in to the OCD component of my brain that makes me feel like I can't post something if I am behind and need to "catch up" first! Also, I will probably use this page for mostly homeschool purposes--to keep my resources in one place and to record the projects and such that we do. Occasionally I will have to entertain myself by adding strange, quirky, and hilarious things my children do. :)

Here's to blogging! And on we go....