Winter Wrap Up

So.....blogging about our Homeschooling adventures has been playing second fiddle to the rest of our activities. Unfortunately for my children, homeschooling itself, has NOT. They are still getting edumicated daily and grumbling about consistently. But here is a Winter Wrap Up of our very busy lives. First and foremost, the above picture took up most of our January. We spent every weekend getting ready to put the house on the market. Why is it that we always wait and do those projects, that you've been meaning to do for years, right before you get ready to sell? Hmmmm....
This Winter we watched Liam crossover from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts will be a great experience for him. He's so excited about his first week long camp out this Summer. This will be his first time away from us without being with other relatives. My biggest fear is the education he'll get from the other campers!! After all...I still remember my camping experience when I was his age.

We also welcomed a new cousin (my great-nephew) into the world. This is Malachi John Petersen. He's perfect! We spent 5 days in Michigan with the Hansen family and had a blast. We went sledding, hiking, Mommy had a day out with sister, watched movies, laughed, played games...tons of fun. I somehow, even snuck in a nap that visit. That is an amazing feat considering how many people live there. Remember, my sister has 9 kids still living at home. Add my brood to the bunch and that's a whole lotta kids.

Quinn lost his first tooth this Winter, much to our amazement. The other boys all waited till they were 7 before they lost a tooth. Quinn, our little early bird, lost his at the age of 5.

Both Simon and Quinn took art classes this Winter at the Delaware Arts Castle. Quinn even had his picture in the Delaware Gazette during one of his art classes. Simon is so into watercolors these days that he is actually watching an instructional video about it right now!!

Whole Foods has been a great distraction this Winter. We've been taking a class there on the first Tuesday of each month. They do a great job. Each class has a different theme and the best part is......IT'S FREE!! This actually works out very well for WF because I always go shopping after the class and spend plenty of money. Maybe the class isn't free after all. In February the boys learned all about Chinese New Year and made yummy dumplings. Mmmmm

For Christmas, Simon received some Kitchen Science kits from his Grandpa and Karen. We've made hard candy, suckers and gum. Before you make gum, give me a call. I would love to help you avoid a few mistakes that just about ruined my Pyrex bowls.

In February, Liam turned 11. We've decided to upgrade all the boys' bikes for their birthdays this year. Liam is quite the stud on his new mountain bike. This is Liam with his Grandma and James.

One very warm (42 degrees) Winter day, we went sledding with some awesome Homeschooling peeps. We had Highbanks all to ourselves until the highschoolers started showing up. Darn schoolies! Just kidding.

This Christmas, my Dad welcomed help from these little hands, as he taught us all how to make Italian cookies. This is definitely an all day affair. We made two batches and used up 2-5 lb bags of flour and I don't even want to think about how much Crisco. I'll just block that part from my mind. Those of you that know me, and my blond hair and pale skin, can you believe I am part Italian? That gray hair you see on my Dad used to be jet black. Not a one of his 4 kids took on those genes. We are all pale and quite lacking in black hair. My Mom had high hopes for me when I came out all nice and olive colored. Turns out I was just jaundice.

We are quite blessed to have some tremendous chefs in the family. This is Liam learning how to make chocolate something-or-other from his Aunt Jen. My brother-in-law met Jen in culinary school (in France, by the way,...ooh, la, la!) so they are our resident cooking experts.

To wrap up our fabulous Winter, we took the boys skiing and snowboarding. And yes, Mom even went snow boarding. Quinn did a great job on skis while Liam and Simon both snowboarded. It was a great day at a not so great ski resort. You can't expect fantastic skiing in Ohio so I shouldn't complain.

Pizza!!! French Fries!!

Every Winter the boys look forward to the Pine Wood Derby race with the Cub Scouts. This was Liam's last year to race but we have many more to look forward to with Simon and Quinn. Here's Simon with his trophy and car.

So that was our Winter in a nutshell. We did many other things that kept the days busy but I can't even remember them all. The boys continue to attend Homeschool gym, have fun play dates with other homeschoolers, play with the neighbors, bake things Mommy shouldn't eat, create fun art work at home, play Play-doh, create Lego designs, and so on and so on and on. Now that it is Spring, let's hope I don't wait another 3 months to log our adventures.

Look out Martha, here comes Jen!!

Martha Stewart has nothing on me! Adorable Quinn and I made some adorable play dough and put it in these adorable little buckets and passed them out to all the adorable little children in the neighborhood.


Isn't this just ADORABLE??!!!

Help! We need a name for our game.

The kids made up this game that we've been playing for about a year now. We've tweaked it here and there and I think we have a winner. It's fun, it's simple, all it needs is paper and markers.....but it needs a name.

So here's the low down. We have two versions of this game.

Version 1:
Every player has a piece of paper and a marker or pen. It is preferable for each player to have a different color so everyone can admire each other's artistic style.
When the game begins, everyone starts drawing whatever they desire on their paper. After about 20 seconds, someone yells "GO!" and then each player passes their paper to the player on their left.
Everyone starts drawing again on their newly acquired picture, adding or enhancing to the last person's drawing.
You keep doing this for as many rounds as you want. By the end of it, you will have some very interesting drawings.

We had to come up with a few house rules after we played a few times.
Rule #1: No scribbling or crossing out pictures. This rule was created for Simon.
Rule#2: You can't just draw farting speech bubbles out of every creatures' behind drawn on the page. I bet you can guess for whom we made this rule.

Version #2: (pictured above)
In this version, you again start with a piece of paper and a drawing utensil for every player. This time you pick a "drawing comentator", aka DC, to facilitate the game. Using his/her imagination, the DC will begin to tell the other players what to draw, giving only one detail at a time. The DC will also draw so that a comparison can be made at the end of the round.
For instance, in this round, Roy told us all to first draw a barn. Then he told us to draw party lights on the barn. Then dancing goats, DJ chickens, a cow as a bouncer, and so on and so on. By the end, we all had very different drawings and they were hilarious!

So we've got the game but we need a name. Can you help us out? We're thinking of contacting GameWright and seeing if we can get this thing in production. Wishfull thinking, I know. This game may already exist on the market and we are again, a day late and a dollar short. But we're having fun.

Letterboxing

On Monday we played homeschool hookie and went Letterboxing instead. We love Letterboxing. If you are unfamiliar with this hobby, visit http://www.letterboxing.org/. There are different versions of this; Letterboxing, Geo-Caching, Atlas Quest, and they are all tons of fun. The idea is to hunt down a hidden box. Inside that box will be a specially carved stamp and a notepad. The boys and I have our own little scrapbook that we carry around with us as we hunt. We collect these stamps in our scrapbook as well as leave our special "mark" behind in their notepad. For awhile we didn't have a unique stamp. We simply stamped a smiley face and signed our trail name, which is 'threeboys2004.' But thanks to Quinn's boyish, immature, 5 year old mind, we now have the coolest stamp ever!! Check it out!

The Arts Castle - 2D

Simon and Liam took a 7 week art class at the Delaware Arts Castle this Fall. Simon seems to love these classes but Liam....not so much. I get this impression because he likes to comment "Mom, why do you sign me up for things without asking first?" My response is always "Liam, did they ask you if you wanted to go to art class in public school?? I don't think so!" Keep in mind that by the time I pick him up from class, he seems to be enjoying himself and the projects.


This session was all about two dimensional drawings. Here is Simon's glue picture (they drew the creature with glue and then filled in with pastels.) Not sure what this little guy is. I think Simon mentioned something about a hamster.


Here is Liam's creation. This one I know. A dog!!

My favorite part about Art class was the one-on-one time I got with Quinn! It was worth every penny. Sometimes we would go shopping or out to lunch. And then if I'm honest, we would sometimes go home so that Mom could take a nap all snuggled with Quinn watching a video on the couch.