Monthly Archives: February 2013

Science has been one of our favorite subjects this year. We started off with Human Anatomy and loved it, but after 14 weeks of that we decided we wanted to take a break and learn about other things. So, I’ve just been doing unit studies of various things he is interested in, or things I knew he would be learning around his grade level according to state standards.

Last year for his birthday, he received a Young Scientist Club kit from Gramma and Papa. These kits are AWESOME! Each kit contains three separate units and experiments to go along with them. So, the past few weeks we have been studying the states of matter, weather stations, and volcanoes. Can you guess what his favorite was? 😉

First, we had to build our volcano from paper mache. I haven’t used paper mache since the fourth grade, and as we were doing the project I realized why. Messy. Sticky. Takes forever to dry.

Jackson wasn’t too thrilled with it (it is kind of hard to keep the newspaper from ripping apart when soaked in the mixture), so you can guess who had to build it. It took 3 days to fully dry.

So after waiting and waiting, then painting, we were finally ready. Now, this is what is great about the kit: part of the assignment was for Jackson to figure out the best combination of ingredients to produce the best explosion. He had to play “chemist” and experiment with 4 different recipes.

The first three recipes didn’t produce results you would expect from an explosion. He had to chart his findings and keep moving forward!

Then, finally…

The winning combination!

Now that he knew the best formula, he moved on to the main event!

The suspense is palpable…

Success!

He had a lot of fun with this kit. So much fun, that we went ahead and ordered the next one to finish out our school year. I already have a unit on Rocks that we will be studying for the next two weeks, and then Set 3 will come with units on Minerals, Crystals (he gets to make his own rock candy!), and Fossils.

I highly recommend the Young Scientist Club kits. They come ready to go with almost everything you need to complete your experiments (minus simple items you have readily available at home) and teach the lesson. I just found out that they even have science kits for preschoolers, which I’m going to order for the girls to do next year! The kits can be used again and again (you may have to replace some of the items if they aren’t meant to be used more than once). Even if you aren’t homeschooling, these kits are great to have around for hot summer days when you are trapped inside! Hours of entertainment!

We can’t wait for our next one!

Step 1: Shove it in your trapper. Preferably, lightning fast. Don’t worry about choking or even enjoying it…just get.it.in.there.
Step 2: Go for the clean up, using the tongue God gave you alllllllllllll over them fingers.
Step 3: Still some tidbits remaining? Not enough frosting on just one finger? What the hay…just shove them all in.
Step 4: The thumb! Make sure you get the thumb in there, and get to the very bottom of the fingers. You never know where frosting might be hiding!

Right? I love kids. They do what we wish we could. I’d do the same thing if it was socially acceptable in my 30’s. Maybe one day I won’t care.

My sweetie pie also surprised me with a sweet photo. We were leaned in, ready to take a photo together, and she turns her head and kisses my cheek. Maybe all these years of a camera in her face are paying off…I have a model, lol!

And in this one, Brooklyn and I didn’t get the memo that it was a funny face picture. Oops.

Jackson, looking grown up and…big. Gosh, he is almost 7.

London, practicing her model skills. You know, cause crazy faces are so the rage right now.

And Brooklyn. Looking sweet. Don’t let that fool you…she is fierce. She’s like a ninja. All peaceful, sweet, and calm and then BAM! A 30 minute tantrum over not being able to play with the broom. Ah, my sweet Little. You can almost sense her plotting her next move in this photo…

Those dimples and curls…I can hardly stand it.

Happy Sunday!

The house is almost done!

It’s almost a kind of torture at this point. It looks like a house. Everything is built; we have a driveway and a walkways, and locks on our doors.

We have cabinets and countertops! The only thing missing is the appliances (and the drawers?)! I cannot believe how much cabinet space I have. 23 of them. Plus a walk-in pantry.

View from the guest bath down the hallway. Schoolroom is at the end of the hallway.

Bedrooms are finished and awaiting their tenants!

View from back door in great room

Walls are painted and trim is installed…all we need is carpet!

Breakfast nook

Light fixtures are installed, including the can lights and the bathroom lights. The bathrooms are still missing their mirrors, which I’m super excited to see. One of my upgrades I chose was to have my mirrors framed out so I didn’t have to get all Pinterest-y right away. 😉

So, to say that we are excited is a bit of an understatement. We are sooooo close! The air conditioning/heating has been installed, so all we are waiting on at this point is:
-touch up paint
-bathroom mirrors
-carpet
-shower in the master bathroom
-landscaping in the front yard

Maybe another week or two and it will be done! Finished! Woo-hoo!!! Of course, we still have to actually sign on the dotted line after the house is finished, and that process can take a few weeks, so we are looking at a mid-late March move in. We have been so blessed these past few weeks; we went ahead and listed our current home on the rental market and had renters within 2 days! Crazy-town! Also, these particular renters have their own washer and dryer, so I can take mine and not have to get new ones right away (even though I was kind of excited to get new fancy washers, lol!).

Its getting so hard to make the drive all the way back to our old house. We are in major packing mode and this point, which I love, because I adore purging my stuff. I am not a pack rat, so I’m am really enjoying the process of donating/trashing things we no longer need and organizing them more appropriately. I love to pack! Unpacking? Not so much.

The next pictures I post of our building project will be of our FINISHED house!!! Hooray!!!

I know, I know.

I’ve been horrible about taking pictures, and even worse about blogging the ones I have.

But, as I’m going through my years of photos putting together our digital books, I’m realizing what a valuable resource my blog has been to look back on. Everything is documented here for me. So even if no one reads it, its my memory book.

So, time to catch up.

First, how about this little lady?

She is FOUR!

I really can’t believe it. She had grown up so much over the past year. I forget how big the jump between 3 and 4 is developmentally. Her personality is edible. Like, she is the best person I know. She is just so compassionate; maybe I’m awed over it because I lack it, so to see it so clearly in such a wee lass is astounding to me. She doesn’t have to work to be kind; she just IS kind. She is sweet and sincere and everything good. She has a flair for drama which rounds out her perfection and gets her feelings hurt easily, which I’m trying to teach her to protect. She is my “easiest” child, but the one I fear the most for. She is so quick to do whatever it takes to make peace, to please others. Teaching her to strive to please only God will be a tough one.

She loves My Little Pony. She pretty much got everything you could ask for in that department.

I think she had a great time!

Best friends. Seriously. They’ve hit this period where all they do is just play with one another. They don’t even ask me to join in. Hours and hours will be spent together by their dollhouse, pony castle, or drawing. In fact, come to think of it, I haven’t seen them in a bit…

As for the house, we have bathroom cabinets!

And kitchen cabinets!

It is alllllllmost done! All that is left is painting the outside of the house, installing countertops, laying carpet (the tile is finished), and then all the lights/sinks/fixtures. We should be able to move in by mid-late March! One month! So, needless to say, I’m very busy around here packing up and getting ready to move out. Goodwill is my friend right now.

School is going really well! I’ll need to write a whole different post on that, but its been great. Jackson, at 6, has almost completed memorizing his times tables (he only has the 8’s left). Crazy. I can’t believe how quickly he breezes through math; he says its his least favorite subject, but he does so well with it. London is ready to start reading, and has been practicing writing letters.

So, that’s what we’ve been up to. Packing, learning, packing, cleaning. Then more packing. 🙂