Grammy's Birthday Party

Grammy's birthday "party"

Grammy's birthday cake

Helping Grammy blow out the candles

While Grammy was here we celebrated her birthday which was actually 3 days before she arrived. We had her a cake ready for after dinner. It didn't last long but sure was good while it lasted!

The next day Grammy went to watch Brock and Hannah play soccer. That was her first time to see them play. They both had fun with Grammy there.

Making Tyropitakia: Cheese Pie Triangles

Concentrating on Mom's instructions...and hurrying before te phyllo dough sheets dried out!

The cheese mixture that went inside the phyllo dough sheets.

Getting ready to roll them into triangles.

Mom got really fast at rolling the triangles!

Ready for the oven.

Our contribution to the Greek foods feast.

We spent most of last Thursday afternoon making cheese triangles for our Unit Celebration that evening. The recipe wasn't the easiest I had ever seen but I thought we could handle it. I had never worked with phyllo dough sheets so it was definitely a learning experience.

We made half of the recipe without the parsley and half with it. As expected our kids liked the ones withOUT the parsley but I was glad they even tried it.

The kids (especially Hannah) had fun cooking and it was a fun way to end of study of Ancient Greece.

Out of Ancient Greece

The kids had their Unit 3 Celebration last Thursday evening for our homeschool co-op. After several weeks studying Ancient Greece, we're moving on to Rome now. They displayed all the crafts they had made for the past 8 or 9 weeks. They also chose one and told about it in front of the other kids and all the parents. (think...Sunday School room at church with 40 or so sets of eyes looking at you) Hannah was first and didn't know what to say or do. (She now knows that Mommy is a smart mommy when she says, "Hannah, let's practice before you are in front of people". She did have to learn it the hard way though.) All the others learned from her and did a great job. Brock said it just like we had practiced (notice the word PRACTICED) and didn't have a nervous breakdown doing it.

We also sampled Greek dishes that everyone brought. We made Cheese Triangles as our contribution. More on that at a later post...

The twins displayed their Bible Storybooks they have been making this year. We are not moving as quickly through the pages of history in the pre-school class so we've just finished learning about David and Goliath.

Everyone moved down the hall to our church's Children's Theatre for the oldest group of kids to perform a Greek play. They did an outstanding job and it was a real learning experience for the younger ones. It took me back to 8th grade English with Miss Redding...

Socially speaking it was an evening of coordinating outfits with friends for Hannah. Such fun memories!

We were back home a little after 9pm and all crawled in bed with visions of airplanes dancing in our heads...Grammy was coming the next day!

The Texas Quiz

Thank you for participating, your score is 50%!

Congratulations, you nudged above 33%. This shows you have interest in those thing immediately important to you, but are a little indifferent about periphery issues.

The new & improved Texas Trivia
Take More Quizzes

Okay, for all you Texans...see how much you really know about the Lone Star State! Take the test for yourself.

The Texas Quiz

It's hard to believe I've been away for 8 years now. As much as I enjoy all the new things to learn, see and do here in the East, there's still nothing like Texas History.

Thanks to my brother, Shawn, for sharing the quiz. (BTW, his score was the same as mine.)

Esther and the Feast of Purim

Queen Esther and Haman

You've gotta' love the beard! :)

A couple of weeks ago we read the book of Esther. At co-op H and B learned about the Feast of Purim. H is dressed as Queen Esther. B is dressed as Haman. They made "noise makers" so that they could make noise every time Haman's name was mentioned in the reading of the story. They also made hamantaschen with apricot preserves in the middle. It was a fun week of learning for all of us.

Happy Valentine's Day

We celebrated Valentine's Day a day late this year. We had a fun time at our co-op party eating lots of sweet treats and exchanging valentines. (Oh yeh, we actually learned some today too.)

The moms and kids prepared some yummy treats! (Those are our sugar cookies that Hannah put the ring of HOMEMADE icing around the edge.)

Most the moms and kids.

Corinne and Emma took in all the excitement of their first Valentine party.

Look at us, Aunt Heather! We like our heart outfits. Thanks for sending them for our birthday.

Hannah and Brock's class looking at all their valentines.

Still in the Ancient World

We're halfway through Unit 3 with our co-op and I realized that I never posted any photos from Unit 2. We didn't have a Unit Celebration due to the holidays. However, the kids made lots of fun crafts and projects during the unit. Here are some photos to show you what they did.

Hannah is dressed in her warrior costume and Greek sandals. (She wasn't a happy camper while taking these photos. She's typically smiling:)

An upclose look at Hannah's projects...Chinese flag, soldier for Trojan horse, Mayan mask (Mom placed upside down by mistake for photo), harp and tambourine, Greek sandal, kite, weaving, and tile (see the "H"?)

Brock wearing his warrior costume and Greek sandals

An upclose look at Brock's projects...weaving, Mayan mask (upside down again), Greek sandals, tambourine, tile (see the "B"?), kite, soldier for Trojan horse and Chinese flag

We're having a wonderful time this year in co-op using our Tapestry of Grace curriculum. Hannah and Brock are in the same class and they have two wonderful teachers. The kids are learning so much! I'll try to do better of posting photos with their projects each week.

Our Fish Story

It all started in December when Aunt Debbie emailed and told us to pick some books off her website for the kids Christmas gifts. Two books they chose were about dogs and cats. I (Mom) did not pay attention to the exact content of the books. What could be so bad about books about dogs and cats?

Fast forward to the middle of January when the books arrived. The box was opened. All the books were removed and the kids started reading. Well, the dog book was about how to care for your pet dog. The cat book was about how to care for your pet cat. Once reading both books cover to cover, Hannah started asking for a pet dog. (Cats are out of the question. Allergies!) Now this is coming from a girl who has been known to scream when a dog is within 50 feet of her. The answer was a simple and "don't argue with me" NO!

Well, a few evenings later Dad was putting everyone to bed. While talking to Hannah at her bedside about her basketball game the next day, a deal was made. If Hannah scored 4 goals at her game, we would go IMMEDIATELY after the game to get her a goldfish. (In all the other games, one goal was her record.)

Yep, you guessed it! Not only did she score 4 goals, but she did it in the first half! Her fourth goal went in as the buzzer sounded for half-time.

After the game off we went to find a goldfish. Seeing that we didn't want to make a huge investment in an aquarium setup, we compromised with a Beta Fish (aka Japanese Fighter Fish). So meet the newest addition to our family...Goalie!

Catching up...and the twins are 3 now

Okay, I'm wwwwaaaaayyyyyyy behind with the events of our family so I'll catch up with photos.

Hannah is having a great time playing Upwards basketball.

Emma's 3 year old breakfast...coffee cake!

Corinne's 3 year old breakfast...coffee cake!

Our knight guarding Freeland castle.

Emma making door hangers with her princess friends.

Corinne making door hangers with her princess (and one prince) friends.

Opening all our gifts.

Hannah and Genevieve watching the opening of gifts.

Princesses Corinne and Emma

Corinne's royal dining table

Emma's royal dining table

Emma preparing to blow out her candle. Big breath and BLOW!

Yummy, yummy cake!

Corinne with her cake.

Oh yeh, this is good!

So if you haven't figured it out by now, the twins had a Princess Party this year. They had a good time.

There's lots more news but I have to get the photos uploaded so I'll stop for now. Check back soon for our "fish story".

Another Trip to the Museum

January is flying by! Laura stopped by Friday while we were at co-op to see the kids. After a short visit, she went to Raleigh to "nanny" the daughter of some friends of ours. Yesterday she and Genevieve came over for the day. She came with Christmas gifts for all our kids. Lots of new books and toys to enjoy!

Today Laura and Genevieve met us at the NC Life and Science Museum. What a fun and busy day we had! Here are just a few photos from the day's activities.

Brock and Emma building blocks. Brock is knocking down his tower.

Laura, Genevieve and Emma with Hannah in background. Don't know the boy.

Corinne making bubbles.

This is a COOL exhibit! See the camera in the glass container on the left? You can zoom in on a caterpillar eating a leaf and you can HEAR it eating the leaf. If you look at the screen, Brock had a great view on it.

So now I know of at least 4 kids (no, 5, but Genevieve isn't here) who are sleeping soundly now. Tomorrow we'll get back to Solomon, Rehoboam, Jeroboam, Elijah and Elisha. Oh, we can't forget Ahab and Jezebel. But for today science was the topic and it was a fun one!

Hannah's Big Weekend

Hannah leaving for Alexa's sleepover birthday party.

Prayer before start of Upwards basketball game.

Taking a rest with Mrs. Coach Williams and Cierra. She has been friends with Cierra since we moved to NC. They played soccer together their first year also when they were 4 years old.

Taking the ball down the court for her team, the Lady Wildcats.

Good game!

Hannah had a good time at Alexa's birthday party last night. They stayed up well past midnight so she was dragging a little by this afternoon when it was time to play basketball. They played dress-up, had a fashion show, got their nails done, decorated pillow cases, ate and then ate some more, and had lots of fun together. I think there were six girls Hannah's age plus two or three "big" girls (Alexa's big sister and her friend) plus parents and grandparents. She's ready to go to another sleepover so I guess she didn't miss us too much!:)

The basketball game was fun today. Her team scored one goal. It will be interesting to see how much they learn the next 7 weeks. Every team member gets a "star" to put on her uniform after the game. There are different colored stars for different things like best defense, best offense, best attitude, etc. Hannah got the white star for Best Christ-like Attitude. We are very proud of Hannah!

Emma's Christmas Carol

Emma can be heard these days walking around the house singing...

"No waaaaaay in a manger no cwib fah-wa bed..."

We've tried to correct the words, but she just doesn't get it. And it's so cute we just don't try very hard to fix it right now:)

Brock cracks up our church!

Last Sunday, Brock and Hannah were in "big" church with us. During the sermon, our pastor was referring to Romans 7:18-19 that talks about how when we try to do the right things, we sometimes end up doing the wrong thing.

Our pastor said something like, " you know, it's like you beat up yourself for something you did and you were sorry for it? .... maybe you were angry and lost your temper, maybe you used profanity and said you would never do it again....maybe you took a drink of alcohol and said you would never do it again.... any of you ever done that?

Brock was sitting in my lap and just when our pastor made this point and asked that question, Brock was stretching and let out a big "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaah!" Needless to say, people surrounding us for several rows heard it and all starting laughing, some out loud and others you could see trying to hold it in. Leave it to Brock to have impeccable timing!