Sunday, September 30, 2007

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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Is it exercise or fun? It was hard to tell the difference!

The girls had so much fun exercising Sunshine!

Swimming with Sunshine
Swimming with Sunshine

They thought the best thing though was using Sunshine like a slide and sliding off her back and into the water!

Sliding off!

A job!

Woo hoo!  My first paying job in years!

A few weeks ago, we took pictures for a cousin's wedding.  (See other blog entry for pictures.)  This past weekend, I took pictures for her sister.  It was a lot of fun!

Here are some of the ones I took.

With SunshineWith my daughter's horse, Sunshine


Twirling!                  Twirling


PixieIs the pixie real or is it PhotoShop?


Splashing in the sun        Splashing in the pond

bored                     Bored


In the woods

The Ultimate Artist!


Sunset
     Only God can paint a picture like this!

Our newest critter!

My niece found him the other day.  His name is Malcolm.  When we're done studying him, he's going to be dinner for my niece!

We went out and bought him a nice 10 gallon tank.  (We needed one anyway for all the various critters that visit us, the girls broke the one we bought last year.)  We gave him some rocks that he either go under and hide or sit on top and get out of the water for awhile.  We also put in a dozen minnows yesterday.  In a matter of hours, there were only 9!  Musta been hungry!


Crawdad2
Crawdad1
Crawdad3
Crawdad5
Crawdad4


God's awesomeness through camouflage!

My SIL took this picture while on her recent anniversary (25 years!) getaway.

Isn't this amazing!?  It really shows God's awesomeness!

Camo Crab

Sunday, September 16, 2007

I have a plan! (Units we will be sharing this school year)

I sat down this weekend and made a plan for the units we will share this school year.

For those who really know me, you know I just 'wing it' from week to week, so having a plan is amazing.  If I stick to it, it will be a miracle!!!  But hey, even if I only get half of it done, I'll still be doing great!

For the most part, I took the girls' Zoology schedule from co-op and choose units to go along with it.  I didn't pick as many FIAR titles as I thought I would--we've already rowed many of the titles that would go along with the themes.  We'll be re-rowing a couple FIAR titles.  I mostly choose HSS units because we haven't done them before, with the exception of When Agnes Caws, Sophie's Masterpiece, and Crawdad Creek--all favorites around here!


9/21 Field Trip

9/22-9/26   HSS  Firekeeper's Son

9/28-10/3  sea life/octopus: HSS Nico's Octopus

10/5-10/10  sea life/jellyfish:  FIAR Night of the Moonjellies

10/12-10/17 sea life/general:  HSS Atlantic

10/19-10/24   worms:   read Diary of a Worm

10/26-10/31    metamorphosis:    read ???

11/2-11/7  spiders:  HSS Sophie's Masterpiece

11/9-11/14  crayfish:  HSS Crawdad Creek

11/16-11/21  HSS Goody O'Grumpity

11/23-11/28   fish:  HSS A Fish Out of Water

11/30-12/5  ???fish-maybe re-row FIAR's Higgins or just read a salmon book????

12/7-12/14   HSS Annika's Secret Wish / Orange For Frankie

12/15-12/27  --break--

12/28-1/2  snakes/ turtles:  HSS  Lake of the Big Snake / Turtle Bay

1/4-1/9  dinosaurs:  HSS Dino Unit

1/11-1/16 ????amphibians????

1/18-1/23   birds:  HSS When Agnes Caws

1/25-1/30  birds:   HSS Fly Homer Fly

2/1-2/6  birds:  HSS Grandmother's Pigeons

2/8-2/13    HSS Tea with A Dragon

2/15-2/20   Biomes:  HSS All the Places to Love / also start HSS The Year of Miss Agnes as read aloud (finish by 3/5)

2/22-2/27  aquatic:  HSS Song of the Waterboatman

2/29-3/5  arctic:  HSS Baby in a Basket / FIAR Very Last First Time

3/7-3/12  mountains:  ???HSS My Mountain Song???

3/14-3/19  HSS Rechenka's Eggs

3/20-3/23  --break--

3/24-3/26  HSS Alejandro's Gift

3/27-3/30  --convention--

3/31-4/2   grasslands:  HSS Gauchada / HSS On the Pampas

4/4-4/9  rainforest:  HSS The Great Kapok Tree

4/11-4/16  farm:  HSS Klara's New World

4/18-4/23  HSS Parrot Tico Tango

4/25-4/30  marsupials:  HSS Wombat Stew

5/2-5/7  endangered:  HSS The Lorax

*FREE* Digital Frog dissection CD!




Read about the program here

And here


Order it from here


Download the PDFs of the Teacher's book and Student Workbook here


Hope this helps someone's science this year (or in the future!  ).

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Finally getting around to posting pictures of our lapbook/notebook for our unit on the book Rocks in His Head.

Here is our combination lapbook/notebook that we did for the HSS unit, Rocks in His Head.  We used a three-prong pocket folder.  I liked this because I could use several pages and not be limited to a file folder.







We had a great time with this unit........thanks, Ami, for making all the great components for this  unit.  The girls enjoy looking through them.


PS.......I'm calling this lapbook/notebook combination a Lap-n-Note!

Friday, September 7, 2007

Wedding pictures!


We had a great time at the wedding and taking lots of pictures.  I thought I'd share a few of the photos.



Who Gives this Woman....
Who Gives this Woman
Happy Tears of the Bride
Happy Tears
Lighting the Unity Candle
Lighting the unity candle

Lifting the Veil
Lfiting the Veil

The Kiss
The Kiss

I now present Mr. and Mrs. B
I now present Mr. and Mrs. B

Bubbles!
Bubbles!

The Wedding Party
The Wedding Party

A Platinum Moment in Time
Platinum Moment in Time

Sunburst!
Sunburst

A Beautiful Bride!
A beautiful bride!
The Happy Couple
The Happy Couple

The Rings
The rings

Marriage is the clasping of hands, the blending of hearts, the union of two lives as one. Your marriage must stand, not by the authority of the state nor by the words of the minister, but by the strength of your love and the power of faith in each other and in God.


Heavenly Father, bless them as they begin this new journey.



.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Well, you just never know what you'll do in life!

I never dreamed we'd be asked to shoot a wedding.  Many years ago, my dh was asked to take pictures at his aunt's (2nd) wedding.  This past weekend we did her daughter's wedding.   We had a lot of fun.  We took over 2,500 photos!  

I tried to talk Aunt C  into using a "real" photographer and I still wish she had.  Most of our shots were trial and error.  We did get a few good ones.  I've spent the past few days going through every picture.  I found about 500 that I liked, a nice representation of the whole process, from rehearsal, to rehearsal dinner, to getting the hair and nails and makeup done, to getting dressed to the wedding itself, to the reception.

I sighed a lot going through the photos.....if I had certain shots to do over, I'd have done ___fill in the blank___.   Why didn't we see these problems when were shooting?!

Now, I've got 500 photos to go through again.......and try to get down to about 150 or so.  Then I get to play with them in a photo editing program.

I understand better why good photographers get paid big bucks now!  If you're feeling bored and want to waste time, check out the galleries on my friend's website.  She and her husband are an amazing team of photographers.......they capture so much!