Where to begin...

This has been a very, very busy week! We crammed a lot into two weeks and this is a wrap up of it all!

First of all Madison had a History project due. Since we are studying American History and all of the great settlers of this great country, her project was to build a shoebox ship. I did not have the forethought to take pictures of each step...probably because daddy and I were fussing too much over our difference of opinion on how the ores should be situated. LOL! It was so funny when Madison finally spoke up and said "I really hate to say this but, I meant for this to be a fun project for us to do!" (Mind you it was not her idea for us to do it as a family) You can imagine what went through our adult minds when the mind of a 6 year old said that to us and about us. So I proceeded to say, "o.k. then, we will do this your and daddy's way and I wont change a thing." Then she said, "well mom it's not just you not making it fun, it's both of you." LOL! This may sound like too much coming from your child, but she wasn't being disrespectful in the least, she was actually being very cautious as she spoke these truthful words of wisdom.

So then as Phillip and I got on one accord, she took notice shortly afterwards and said, "see everything's better when we work together" LOL again! Here are some pictures of our finished product.

 We changed the sails at the last moment from plain white to blue (her favorite color) to make the ship pop! So basically we started with a shoebox, glued on some popsicle sticks all around to give it a wooden look. We made slits for the ores on either side of the ship and slid in some scraps of cardboard. We then cut out some square pieces of construction paper and taped them to the smaller popsicle sticks for the masts. Daddy drew and colored a Canadian Maple Leaf on a small piece of poster board as this was the country that she wanted her ship to represent. Daddy also drew the unicorn head for the front of the ship because she wanted it to resemble the Viking Ships from the days of old. We also attached a "tail" made of poster board. There are more intricate steps involved, but you get the idea. Once we all got focused on the task at hand...it truly was a fun family task for us to do.

We also attended a church picnic for the department that Phillip oversees at our church. The girls spent time "mining for gold." I think they got the idea from a t.v. show that we'd been watching on the discovery channel.

Because I never learned to swim as a child and still cant as an adult...I wanted to make sure that the girls had the opportunity to learn, no matter what. And I did. But this meant that we had to have a couple of days of schooling at the swim center! They did pretty good with that although they tried to trick me into letting them watch the other while they were swimming versus doing work while the other was in the pool. Mommy didn't fall for that though!

Chelsea doing work while Madison is in the pool

 

Madison doing work while Chelsea is in the pool

Another project that we did was build a little city. Well, I don't know if it is actually "building" as much as "creating" maybe?? Anyway, I got the idea from them, and we just went with it. It was a good learning experience though. They had to determine which type of buildings and businesses they normally see in a city and plan our city accordingly. Our city by the way was call Richville.

Gluing on the roads

City planning

Final product

And last but not least...halloween! After literally hours of scouring the Party City catalog, Madison decided on being Izzy the girl pirate from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. And Chelsea decided on Batgirl!

We are now official members of the Salt Dough Map Club!

Our Salt Dough Map of the World, minus Antartica and Greenland!

I think we had a Montessori school-day this week. The girls woke up and were super interested in doing maps. My youngest brought home an unfinished map of the seven continents from co-op and was intent on finishing it. Well once Madison saw that, she couldn't finish her math work fast enough so that she could do some map work. So I printed one off of Google and gave it to her and they colored and compared and talked about maps for at least an hour.

I then showed them some geographical maps of the world and we talked about them and the seven continents. We talked about some specific characteristics of each continent. They were really interested in peninsulas and pointed out all of the ones they recognized. That's when it hit me and I yielded to the forces that "be" or in this case "were"! :)

I figured it was a great day to do our first salt dough map and why not be adventurous and do it of the world. Yeah sure, I doubted myself some but I figured it couldn't be that hard and creatively speaking, what better time to do such a project than when you actually feel inspired to do it versus attempting it simply because it's on your lesson plan for the day? So we dove in. We went to the dollar store and picked up a poster. We busted up a box from the garage and proceeded to use all of the salt we had on hand and half of the flour! :) It was quite the adventure for us!

Oh did I leave out the fact that we left out Antartica and Greenland? :) I totally forgot to draw them in! So I guess it's sort of a salt dough map of the world...

Thanks to this awesome squidoo lense our venture was made super easy! Enjoy our pics below!!!!

My surprisingly good free-hand drawings

of the world, minus Antartica and Greenland!

Thanks for reading...come back!

Steph.

Weddings and Funerals and Family...oh my!

Why is it that weddings and funerals make us think about how much better of a daughter, or sister, or brother or grandchild or cousin or friend we could've been?

This past weekend I attended my brother's wedding. It was beautiful. The bride chose wonderful colors. I don't know the official names for the colors but certain female members of the party were in something like a pastel orange sherbert, others in a very light mint green and the men donned ivory I suppose it was. It was an off shade of white. The ceremony felt very "light" and not due to lack of decor or wedding party but the planner was obviously going for the "understated" and it worked beautifully. Oh, yeah, no, I wasn't in the wedding. Just in case you were wondering. This was not a biological brother but a brother just the same.

While sitting there in my seat on the groom's side of the church I started to think about all of the weddings that I'd been to for this side of my family. I'd witnessed my dad's, my uncle's, my aunt's, my cousin's, and my oldest brother's. Mixed in with those wonderful "you may salute your bride" thoughts were memories of sleepovers over the years, summers and Christmases gone by and/or missed. I thought about how I made excuses not to make this family dinner or that one. How a long day at work kept me from my dad's 40th birthday dinner.

Next across my mind were the family members who were not at this particular occasion because they truly couldn't be. Thoughts of his mom flashed through my mind and the fact that she was killed  in car accident shortly after she and my dad married, while my "adopted" brother was only about 5 or 6 and our little sister was just a toddler. I considered that my Grandmother would have definitely been there if she was still here. She hadn't missed a wedding or a graduation of any of her grandchildren until this one. I remembered how less than a year ago, she and my grandfather passed within a year of each other.

I'm a sap anyhow but my sap factor goes way up at weddings. These tears though were a culmination of every invasive thought that entered my mind welcomed and unwelcome. I held them back but they literally knocked and banged at the doors of my eyes threatening to break the levees and flood my face with with both wonderful and regretful emotions.

But I didn't. I didn't cry, instead, I held it together. I took in the fact that I hadn't made every occasion but I was at this one. And I decided to BE there. Not in the past, reliving and regretting decisions of my youth or  of self-centeredness. Then that's when it happened...my day was made when he and his new wife walked down the aisle hand in hand and as they approached where I was seated in the church, he reached out and hugged me and thanked me for being there. At that point, my tears were mocking me and teasing me as the rim of my lids began to moisten, I refused them and smiled and whispered a most joyous and sincere "I love you so much" into his ear. That moment...that one, I will never forget. Nope, I will add it to my repertoire, my arsenal of meaningful family moments so that when regret and disappointment  try to nag at me, I will remember to forgive myself and live in the present.

What's the lesson for me? What was my take away? What did I learn from this experience that I hope to teach my children.

I hope to teach them how important it is to remember.   Remember your family. Remember to forgive and forget. Remember to support and to be appreciative of each other and of family in general.