• Sep. 10, 2008 - Back to the Nature Journals

It is about time we got back to our Nature Journals. Our leaves do not last long here in Alaska so we have a short window of fall leaves to do whatever we need to do to our leaves.

We gathered leaves of all types and brought them in for crayon rubbings. Here are some blessings peeling crayons.

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Rubbings, blessing #1 really enjoyed this and said he could spend a lot of time doing so, he did!

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Blessing #2 wanted a little closer look at her leaves.

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Finally, they cut out their leaves and glued them into their nature journals. I read about leaves and trees from the Handbook of Nature Study.

Then, we cleaned up all that mess from cutting and pasting and crayon paper, etc.

The Great Outdoors

 We went for a leaf collecting walk that ended up taking us to the mailbox as while we were outside we saw the mail lady heading toward our mailbox. Oh, yeah, football is involved in almost everything we do at this time of year.

Almost to the mailbox, these two never hold hands, I thought that was precious.

After the walk, I sat down on the swing to rest and sort through the mail, the blessings were not as worn out as Mom so they continued on with physical education and played monkey in the middle on the trampoline. Note the football, again.

We then went inside to make crayon rubbings of our leaves and do a little leaf studying inside, but you will have to pop over to Alaska Nature to read more about that.

May the Lord find us faithful.

• Sep. 9, 2008 - Vitamins C and fungus

Rose Hips (I may be out picking rose hips to dry soon) My children were at a friend's home today and they helped pick some of the last raspberries and strawberries of the season. We have a few in the fridge. Yumm-O tomorrow!!

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Here are some mushrooms, I did not take time to look up this specific kind tonight. We had a good mushroom showing this year due to all the July rain that poured and poured down upon us.

August2008126.jpg picture by kaysmarmey

94 days to go

94 days isn't much time left. It is also nice to see the baby is closer to home than to zero! There is much to do but it is so nice to know that baby's birth is getting closer every day. I go to the DR tomorrow for my monthly check in and it is the glucose test day as well. While I am talking pregnancy talk, sleep was painful last night. Both hips hurt so no matter which side I tried to sleep on it was no use. I had a friend inform me this morning that there is a name for that and that it doesn't go away until the baby comes. Goody, something to look forward to!! I actually hope that is was just the effects of a lot of house cleaning yesterday which meant being on my feet most of the day. I would love to sleep good tonight. I must go read up on how we are going to build the igloo this week......

May the Lord find us faithful.

This week

This weeks Hideaways in History building project was the Great Wall of China. (You will notice a little better quality workmanship this week due to  Dad being the project builder.)

This week's build was a little bigger than previous weeks.

We had some sunny days so the wall was moved outside to be painted. I normally do not spend this much of my time painting a project but part of this will be taken down and folded flat to be used again when we build a castle later on, so it received a little extra mom attention.

The finished product.

 

Notice the yellow leaves, fall is upon here in Alaska!!

We are all enjoying our preview journey through history. We are reviewing things that blessing #1 has studied last year and that has helped. We all enjoy Story of the World, which I did not think I would like at all. I was wrong.

 

 May the Lord find us faithful.

Labor Day, Girl's Day

Labor Day weekend is not a family weekend for us as it is for many families. The beginning of September brings moose hunting season and waterfowl hunting season. This year with Labor Day being on the first made it a very special day for the men in our family as it was "opening" day. The men spent the morning waterfowl hunting and the afternoon and evening getting ready for moose hunting. The girls spent the day at home so we made desserts.

Blessing #2 received this cookbook as a present from a dear friend and we finally made something from the book. She decided on a teddy graham cake. She gathered the ingredients and we went to work.

 

 

She was happy to put her first item ever into the oven.

The finished product

Blessing #3 made a cookie pizza , look at that hair flying.

Her finished product:

May the Lord find us faithful.

Catching up

I am still trying to tweak our schedule and get all the school work accomplished daily. Some things, like laundry are going well, and some things...well, let's just say, we are working on those things slowly. I do have a  few pictures to share today.

First, here is blessing #3 sitting outside of her cave "preserving" some of the "catch". She is writing either halibut, silver salmon or jumbo prawns on the package. We made the cave for week one of Winter Promise Hideaways in History. She and her sister added some pictures (aka cave drawings) to the cave of things from their daily life.

 

Next is a picture of how and where we do school work. We use the family room because we enjoy the comfy couch and chairs for reading and we really enjoy the warmth of the wood stove in the colder months, also there is a lot of sunshine through those windows in the winter when our sunlight hours are at a minimum. I call this our tv tray homeschool!! I sit in the chair with the red throw and the large water sitting on the table.

Week two of Hideaways in History found us in Ancient Egypt and building a pyramid. (Which I think weird since they buried their dead Pharoah's in those things but we built one anyway, minus the dead Pharoah.) Big Brother helped with this one and he is showing blessing #3 how to use his flashlight so she could have some light in her pyramid.

These are all the pictures I have uploaded at this time. So that is all for now. Hope you have a good weekend.

May the Lord find us faithful.

• Sep. 1, 2008 - Nagoonberries and a flower

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Here we have a nagoon berry, looks just like a raspberry but grows low to the ground.

Information on the Nagoon Berry (common name)

Latin Name: Rubus stellatus

Family: Rosaceae

Grows best in peaty soil or tundra

And is a perennial plant

These plants grow all around our yard and the blessings enjoy picking them and popping them right in their mouths. They grow so low to the ground that it wouldn't be a lot of fun to pick them in any large quantity, but we enjoy munching on them during the summer.

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Clover

It's all coming back to me

I still am not "there" when it comes to keeping home but things are getting better around here. Slowly, it is all coming back to me and the daily necessities are being taken care of. Laundry is back where it should be, in fact, my morning load today was pretty small due to the laundry being up to date. Keeping up with the daily "stuff" helps when one is home. I had to stay home due to a sick child. Blessing #2 began with stomach complaints on Tuesday afternoon and spent that day and the next two on the couch. Friday morning I took her to the doctor, she has a urinary tract infection. We began anitbiotics yesterday and I can already tell a difference. She isn't back to normal yet but she is doing better than yesterday. I think this is only the second time in her life she has required an anitbiotic ( I am very thankful for that fact as I dislike giving antibiotics to my blessings).

I haven't been around the blog this past week as we had some computer problems which are now fixed and I should be back in business. I know there are pictures to be downloaded from the camera....but a little girl is requesting my presence for a movie. I must go.

May the Lord find us faithful.

My Governor?

Who would have thought that when the blessings and I went to see Sarah Palin's Inaugruation that yesterday morning I would wake up to find out that our Governor is John McCain's VP running mate. We had heard rumors and that her name was mentioned as a running mate but I never thought she would be the chosen one. I am not a "news" or "political" person at all, but I will be watching closely this election season. (I actually turned on Fox News yesterday!) We really like our governor as she is not bowing to corporate oil and big business.

May the Lord find us faithful.