In art class on President's Day, Miss Meredith had the kids making George Washington's cherry tree and an Abe Lincoln hat. Hailey and Drew have a lot of fun in Drew's class because they get to do art together, side by side. The 30 minutes goes by so fast, I wish it lasted longer!!
Drew painting in his tree trunk...he did a fantastic job of staying in the lines!
Hailey painting her tree trunk.
Using a sponge to make leaves by "bunny hopping"
Hailey's cherry making thumb
Drew using his thumb to put cherries on his tree
Drew using oil pastels to decorate his Lincoln hat with shapes
Hailey making shapes on her Lincoln hat
The kids with their finished products (wearing their hats and trees behind/above them)
It started snowing in the middle of the night and I was afraid it would melt before the kids got a chance to see it. I went in and woke Hailey up so she could look out the window and see the snow falling. The kids always get so excited to see snow...she was really happy she got to see it. And lucky us, it was still there in the morning! (and stayed through the afternoon!)
The kids playing in the snow after art class.
The kids playing in the snow after art class.
Trying to throw a "snowball"
Hailey's drawing/painting class later that evening was painting straight lines on a canvas. It helps them to learn to go slow and take their time. It is a cool thing to hang on the wall!
Hailey's finished canvas!
The 19th of February was a busy day...It was one day after my brother, Matt's, 19th birthday. This was also the day that he joined "the club" with my brother and sister. This would be the CCA-car crashers anonymous. Now, he didn't beat Karen...I think her record was totalling her first car on day 3. He had his car since Saturday...so that's what...5 days. It wasn't totally his fault, he was going down my parents curvy mountain road and it was icy, so his little Eclipse played bumper cars with the guard rail. Thank God he was absolutely fine and his car was only minorly damaged. The 19th is also the day that my newest little nephew Caleb Anthony was born!!! Mommy Tricia did fabulous, but daddy Jason was busy doing a conference in Hawaii and missed the birth of his first son =( He got to come home the next day to meet his little man, though. Caleb is the cutest little baby ever, I wish I could be there to squish him!
To celebrate these events (ok, not really...they just happened to coincide), the kids and I went and had a tea party. We went to this cute quiet little tea room called The English Rose Tea Garden. The owner is a really sweet lady and it is usually pretty empty. We had a full afternoon tea with scones, soup, sandwiches and all. The kids love having their own tea cups and spoons and I don't think anything tops sugar cubes. We had a great time and can't wait to go back!
Drew stirring his tea.
Drew stirring his tea.
Hailey spreading clotted cream on her scone (mmm, we LOVE scones, you can never have too many!)
Our little table set up.
(Terrible picture of me...no, we didn't dress up) The 3 of us at tea.
Hailey trying her (delicious) butternut squash soup.
Drew and one of his looks...
Hailey snagging a sandwich
Our tea tower
Drew sipping his tea.
Hailey sipping her tea.
Drew sitting by the cozy fire.
After music class one day, since Drew did so fabulous and sat with his class the whole time, I decided to treat the kids. We stopped at this pet store that I have always seen on the way to class, the Animal Jungle. I thought we would stop for a half hour and check out the pets. This store turned out to be an indoor zoo!! It was so awesome that our trip turned into a field trip! Why I didn't go grab my camera, I'll never know. We walked in to see two huge koi ponds, one with a stingray in it. We walked up and down rows and rows of fish pointing out unique things and talking about anything I knew about them. They had a HUGE reptile room with tons of snakes, turtles, lizards, all kinds of stuff. They also have an awesome saltwater fish section. The fish were normal, but the sea anemones and other non-fish creatures were so cool! We saw some kind of orange thing in a clam shell, tons of anemones, and even chocolate chip starfish. The bird section was a lot of fun, they had a room full of macaws that were talking with the kids. Hailey was playing with a couple in the window and all the macaws kept saying, "hi, hi". The kids were thrilled! The "rodent" =) section was fun too. We looked at mice, hamsters, etc. One of the employees came over to chat with us and he pulled out a hamster that the kids could play with and hold. Hailey would have taken him home right there. Then he pulled out a hedgehog! These are actually pretty similar to porcupines. The kids were very careful to only pet him front to back...he was so cute. I love their little squished faces! Just when you think I would be done talking about this store...there is more! They have store pets in the different sections...the reptile section had a huge Monitor lizard that must have been 9 or 10 feet long. We saw some kind of cheetah/leopard cub looking cat, a hamster the size of a small cat, and a couple of large birds that were 13 and 27 years old. We will definitely be going back there!
After our pet store "field trip", I wanted to head over to the homeschooling bookstore. I walked in and was in awe and just a little overwhelmed. They had a play area up front for the kids, which was fabulous! I spent two hours looking around at all the different curriculums. It really helped to be able to see things up close and be able to flip through it. What a great resource! I wish I could take that place with me!
On Friday (the 20th) we had a field trip lined up for Rowena's Tea Room and Bakery. Rowena's has been around a long time and is owned by this really sweet lady. They have a big catalog business as well as their fabulous tea room. Today we were going to be touring the bakery and kitchen prep area. We walked into their front room and sampled all the pound cakes and jams they had out for tasting. They are so YUMMY! When it was time for our tour, we had to put these hair caps on...it took a LOT of convincing to get Drew to wear his. We went through the kitchen and the nicest lady showed us how they mixed together the jams ( in HUGE mixers) and put them in jars. She read the kids one of the Rowena's story books (which we, of course, bought =) Next we went to the cake baking room. There was a huge revolving oven (which Hailey kept saying how much I needed one of those!) and 2 large mixers from an old navy ship. (Hailey also loved how large the mixers were!) The kids were fascinated with the giant freezers and the warehouse. It was a wonderful tour. By chance, we met Rowena on the way back out to the front room and she signed our caps.
On Friday (the 20th) we had a field trip lined up for Rowena's Tea Room and Bakery. Rowena's has been around a long time and is owned by this really sweet lady. They have a big catalog business as well as their fabulous tea room. Today we were going to be touring the bakery and kitchen prep area. We walked into their front room and sampled all the pound cakes and jams they had out for tasting. They are so YUMMY! When it was time for our tour, we had to put these hair caps on...it took a LOT of convincing to get Drew to wear his. We went through the kitchen and the nicest lady showed us how they mixed together the jams ( in HUGE mixers) and put them in jars. She read the kids one of the Rowena's story books (which we, of course, bought =) Next we went to the cake baking room. There was a huge revolving oven (which Hailey kept saying how much I needed one of those!) and 2 large mixers from an old navy ship. (Hailey also loved how large the mixers were!) The kids were fascinated with the giant freezers and the warehouse. It was a wonderful tour. By chance, we met Rowena on the way back out to the front room and she signed our caps.
While we were waiting to be seated for tea, I got to chatting with a couple of other moms there, who both happened to be military and one of them even had a husband who was a doctor at the navy hospital. To top it off, her kids' doctor is Dave (our friends Dave and Jess, with the little munchkins, Genna and Annabelle). It was too cool, so we decided to all sit together. We spent two hours talking about all things military and homeschooling, while the kids chatted and played. That is something that I love about homeschooling! Our kids have no problem playing with other kids of any age...they don't look for the other 5 year olds or 2 year olds to play with, any age goes! We got a lot of compliments on how well the kids behaved...they sat for 2 hours and had no problems. We had delicious food and a beautiful afternoon!
The kids and their caps =)
The kids and their caps =)
Sitting at tea.
Tea with our new friends!
It turns out that Julie (in the pink-the drs. wife) is using a curriculum for her girls that I had considered last year. I really loved it, but it was a lot of money. I haven't been that thrilled with the one we are using this year, so I have been spending a lot of time researching and pondering change. Julie has invited us over to watch a day in the life, which will greatly help my decision. I am so thankful for meeting her...and we hit it off so instantaneously. (Oh, her hubby is also a USUHS grad =)
Over the weekend we went out with daddy and saw the Pink Panther 2 (no where near as good as the first one!) and had lunch at Chili's. I am absolutely embarrassed to even think about how much we have eaten out in the last few weeks! I wouldn't even want to add it up!
Ok, that brings us up to the night of the Academy Awards....
Here's a little bit of info on next year (well, everybody else's next year). We are now the only people left (in our program here) that don't have a clue where we are going next year! All the navy people found out this week (our friends are going to Japan). Heath got an email yesterday saying that they are several weeks from knowing where people are being placed and only 4 of 300 pediatricians in the AF are deployed (this is his paraphrasing, so I am not exactly sure the relevance-you know boys =) I am hoping several really only means a few and we will know before April starts! I would also assume that the deployment part was more of a notice showing how few peds people get deployed...but I guess it could mean they are thinking of sending more. Who knows. I am not really worried about it anymore, though.
For art class during Mardi Gras week, the kids made masks with paint, jewels, glitter and feathers. Here they are painting...
Meredith helping Drew sprinkle some glitter on his mask.
The kids are ready to party...yay Mardi Gras!
For daddy's birthday on the 23rd, we took him to the Melting Pot. The kids, not surprisingly, LOVED cooking and dipping their own food. Our waiter was wonderful (as they usually are there) and took the time to explain to the kids everything he was doing. The food was delicious and we had a great time just being together as a family.
Hailey dipping some bread into the cheese.
Drew cooling off his bread bite...
The kids could have just eaten bread all night.
Hailey and her extra shrimp.
Heath and the meat and dipping sauces...YUM!
Drew and mommy cooking.
And the highlight of our meal...the bananas foster flambe!
We split daddy's birthday into two nights...so this in between his bday dinner and party (it's just too hard and time consuming to rearrange pictures on this thing!)
The first of two science classes we signed up for was on the 5 senses. It was hosted in a library meeting room (a library that was across the street from the beach, no less. We had great views! =) There was a scientist there leading the group and she went through different activities to demonstrate each of the senses.
Here the kids are testing their hearing...and of course, they knew what these were when asked!
Such a cutie!
Here they are testing their sense of touch on a card that has the braille alphabet.
Hailey is testing her sniffer...maybe with a lemon?
Drew is probably smelling some coffee =)
Now we get back to Heath's birthday. The kids and I decided to give him a rockstar themed birthday party, complete with guitar shaped cake, musical themed decorations, and a stage in which to perform!
Heath is admiring his guitar cake.
A close up...
Heath with some of his decorations!
Heath's guitar/musical themed presents.
Hailey explaining the rockstar "stage" to daddy.
Drew serenading daddy.
The first crazy rock performance (and by crazy, I mean Drew =)
Hailey as lead singer of the band...
The guitarist. (Can't you just see this as his senior picture when he's older, or something? Minus the red-eye, of course =)
More of miss Hailey, the singer.
See, I told you...CRAZY
Mommy joins the band...
Guitar is the instrument of choice...
Hailey giving daddy his present from her (she came up with it all on her own)
Daddy hugs!
Hey cool, a new song book!
Looking through all the new songs they will get to play.
A pediatric study book? That you can laugh at?!
Drew's present to daddy...a guitar stand (he also came up with this idea himself)
Happy Birthday to you!
Eating cake!
Silly cake face
This past weekend we went to Red Lobster for lunch and while we were sitting there, our server happened to come over and mention all the chaos going on in the bar area and that a woman wasn't breathing...Heath, popped up to go see if he could help. (I tell ya, always working!) The paramedics showed up and took her away while still breathing for her. Who knows what was wrong...shellfish allergy? (We were at a seafood place). -Just a random story =)
We all know how accurate the weathermen are ;) Especially around here! It is usually pretty safe to say that if they predict we will get no snow out of a storm (not even a flake), we will wind up with more snow than we've ever had here..and vice versa. We had such an occurrence on Monday...of course the day that I had to get up early to drive to the hospital for an appointment. We woke up to a beautiful "blanket" of white and set off for our appt. I was hoping the snow would deter people from going to work (and school was cancelled) making rush hour, well...not. I did have this luck, but at the same time NOBODY here can drive in snow or ice AT ALL! I spent a bit of time ice skating in the car, which is ok. That wasn't the scary part...it was the people in front of me who would slam on their brakes and start swerving as soon as they felt they were on ice. So, after scaring the crap out of me and sending my adrenaline level soaring, they would crawl along afterwards at 5mph because they were too scared. UGH! So, yes...I drove 15 miles at 5 mph...no quite the whole way, it took us an hour to get there (normally 20 min). Anyway, we made it safely...met with daddy, spent 5 minutes at the appt and then left. What a waste. All that danger for 5 min, to hear everything is fine. I think I could have heard that in a phone call. We got some breakfast before heading to art class to make puffy snowmen. Our no snow day, turned into an all day snow day. It was snowing from some time in the middle of the night till I went to bed the next night. That's right...ALL day! The kids were happy. Oh yes, when I woke Drew up early that morning, I said "Drew, guess what? It's snowing outside!" He woke right up and said, "Really! Can I go and see the snow?" Ok, well it doesn't have the same effect written down, but it was in that really cute, excited, sing song voice. =)
With their snowmen on our snow day. (They are made puffy with shaving cream)
Playing in the snow a little.
Hailey in art class that evening...they are drawing pictures of what they see looking out a window.
Hailey working hard on her window picture.
Well, that's about it for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment