Reasor's field trip

On Monday we had a field trip with our home school group and we had a great turnout of 20 children and a bunch of mommies! We toured all of the departments of the grocery store and the kids were even taken into the freezers and the meat cutting dept. Kylan told me that this was an AWESOME field trip! Reasor's was so great they made name tags for all of the kids and had a group photo taken and then developed the photos for all of us and at the end of the tour they let the kids play on the cash registers and then fed them a cookie and capri sun snack! For more info about the store go to Reasor's website!

For some unknown reason Kylan has drawn all of over his dresser and thought it was ok with mom and dad. Well, needless to say it wasn't ok with us. I have been really upset with him about this. I am not going to buy him a new dresser just so he can ruin it too so instead I used some wall paper border creatively and it looks almost like a new dresser! He was so happy and PROMISED me he won't draw on it. I guess we shall see! Anyway, he has the cutest camo bunkbed with a slide coming off of his bed and I found 4 rolls (which is too much for his room) of this border at the Just Between Friends sale and knew the extra would come in handy and it did!

Deserts

Kylan's thorny lizard
Kenzie's lizard

We started a study on the deserts and since we joined the postcard exchange I asked for postcards of the desert and so far we have gotten one of a rattlesnake! The kids are really excited because we are making another lapbook and they really enjoy that! This time we are only making one book but they are each doing their own part of it. Kylan drew a thorny lizard which I think is a horny toad (that's what we called them when I lived in New Mexico) and Kenzie drew a lizard. I will show the finished lapbook sometime next week because it's still a work in progress! To make your own desert animals lapbook click here.

John 3:16 posters

For Bible class the kids made John 3:16 posters and I went online and printed out pictures of people from all around the world and then they glued them to the poster and wrote the country under the photo. Everyday they pray for a different country and we look pictures up of the country and the kids are really starting to understand just how blessed they are to live in the USA and have all of the freedom that we have as US citizens. Yes, they are both US citizens even though they were adopted from South Korea.

The paper mache globes

We have been painting the globes and boy does that newspaper soak up the paint! So far they are just blue and eventually we will add the land to them. School is going great this year and we are really enjoying our curriculum. For more info on our curriculum click here. Both kids have learned so much already and really look forward to school everyday!

We also started a postcard exchange at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/postcardkids/ so far we haven't received any postcards but we can't wait because some are coming from AZ, UT and Australia and we are hoping that we will eventually get other parts of the world!

Globe

Kylan's globe
Makenzie's globe

The kids are studying countries and cultures this year...I'm sure you know that by now. So, we are making globes out of paper mache. It's such a mess but the kids LOVE IT! The globes are pretty small and we are finally done with the paper and paste part of the project and we will now be moving on to the painting part. I will keep you updated on this project as we finish it. This is a great website for paper mache projects if you are interested in making your own project. http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/papermache/a/051500pm.htm

Makenzie's new friend

Haleigh and Makenzie at Korean culture camp
Haleigh with her foster mom and Makenzie in the background in pink with her foster mom

Makenzie made a new friend at Korea camp and they have been emailing each other back and forth. I only met her for just a minute and we met her parents also. The whole family seems really sweet and hopefully we will get to know them better through the years! Well, it turns out that Makenzie just happened to be in the back ground of a picture they had of Haleigh that was taken in Korea! We were just thrilled to see this picture. So, I know their friendship was meant to be because they were actually at Eastern in the same room at the same time! Attached is the picture of them as infants and now as 8 yr olds!

August birthdays

August has plenty of birthdays in our family! Kylan turned 7 on the 15th, as did our nephew Noah and that's also our bil Brian's birthday then Katelyn will turn 4 on the 20th. Chris and Gary had their 15th anniversary this month and Gigi turned 80 on the 7th (we didn't get to help her celelbrate her 80th this year but we heard all about it!) WHEW it's been crazy around here!!!

Check out the adorable cake that Connie made for Katelyn's big day and if you want to buy a cake from her check out her website at http://www.cscakes.com/default.htm Not only are her cakes too cute for words they also taste really YUMMY!

Lapbooks

We started school a couple of weeks ago and it's going really well! Thanks to all of you that have emailed me info about countries around the world and the pics are great!!!

Since the Olympics are going on and we have been watching them almost every night I decided that we should do a unit study on them. Well, I found a lapbook website and was so intrigued by it that we decided to jump in and get started on our Olympics lapbook. Check out the pics of how cute they turned out. If you want to make your own Olympic lapbook all instuctions and printables can be found at http://www.homeschoolshare.com/summer_olympics_2008_lapbook.php

Makenzie is tracking the medals that the USA wins and Kylan decided to track South Korea and he's also keeping track of China and the USA.

Korean culture camp

A couple of weeks ago the kids went to Korean culture camp. They really had a wonderful time and learned a lot about the country they were born in. Kylan learned how to count to 10 in Korean and Makenzie learned some awesome Tae Kwon Do moves and they both learned some songs. I think the best thing was that they had fun and I could see a huge difference in how they act around other children that similar to them. I know these are camps are really great for them and hope they will continue with the friendships that they have built up over the past couple of years at camp.

Mamma Mia

We normally have Bunco on the first Friday night of the month but August has special circumstances because 2 of the ladies in our group are having babies and they are both due on the EXACT same day! Anyway, we didn't want to search for others to replace them so our fearless leader Kathleen made the decision that we were going to dinner and a movie. The movie was called Momma Mia.

It's a story about a mother of the bride and her two long-time friends, a bride in search of her father, and three entertaining candidates for walking her down the aisle. The show probably qualifies as a "chick-flick" but I suspect anyone in the audience would at least enjoy the captivating music from the 70's group, ABBA.

Let me know if you see or have seen the movie and what you think. I give it 4 out of 5 stars because it was pretty good but not terrific. Not a movie for kids to see...at least I wouldn't let mine. The scenery was BEAUTIFUL and the costumes were really fun and some were funky! I changed my playlist to just a couple of the Momma Mia songs to get you into the mood. LOL!!! The Momma Mia song is really catchy and just sticks in your head and you can't get the song out of your head...I was singing it all day to myself. Dancing Queen is the same way. In a week or 2 I will go back to the other playlist until then either listen to the music or pause it....you can thank me later for all the random singing you will be doing around your house this week!!! LOL. Let me know if you has this sudden urge to jump up and start dancing like they do in the movie.