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.

Quinn - Why I love thee!!

Last but certainly not least...Quinn. The best "oops" that has ever happened in my life.


Quinn happens to be my early riser. I think he gets that from his Nana! At times, his early mornings can be quite annoying. It's hard to muster up a cheery attitude on only a few hours of sleep. (I happen to be a night owl.) But yesterday, as I was sitting on the couch with him, listening to him ramble on about scorpions, snakes and surviving in the desert, I realized I should look forwad to these mornings with him. I get an extra-special glimpse into his little mind when it's just the two of us snuggled on the couch at 7 am.



Quinn is very expressive with his eyes. It's adorable. Not sure where he picked it up. He now knows when he's doing it and sometimes exaggerates them even more. I love this picture in the tree. It shows a bit of those beautiful, expressive eyes.

When Quinn is happy......oh, the things that boy can do. He can light up a room. When Quinn is grumpy.....look out. He can bring the house down!

He's managing to stay "babyish" longer than the other boys and I'm not sure who to blame. It could be just his personality. It could be that he is truly my baby and I'm not ready to let it go. I'm just not sure. But one for thing for certain, I am not stressing over it. That's the upside of being the youngest. Your parents have relaxed a ton since that first child!

So what do I love about Quinn? I love how Quinn says "dorn" instead of door. I love how Quinn can't pronounce his "L's" and says 'Niam' instead of Liam. I love how he'll just pop up with some random trivia and amaze us all with his knowledge. I love that he can play by himself and pretend his toys are all sorts of things. I love how he draws these miniscule pictures and them cuts them out for presents. I love how he names all his toys. His baby duck will be "baby duck." His kitten will be "kitty," and so on and so on. I've learned to not mess with his naming system. I love his Lego creations. I love his hugs. I don't love that he hates kisses. I have to smother him with them after he's gone to sleep. I love that he likes to watch things like "Survivorman." I love the creative way he will describe things with his limited vocabulary. I love the little wart on his toe. I love the smell of his hair. I love seeing him with his baby cousin Sammy. Quinn just loves that little guy. I love Quinn's smile and his big brown eyes. I love love love this incredible boy.

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.

Woof Woof! Holy Dog Treats Batman!

I figured out how to give the boys the baking time they desire while avoiding more cellulite on my hips. DOG TREATS! And I tell you what, these dog treats are fantastic! We did the Pepsi challenge with our Schnoodle to verify how incredibly edible these little biscuits happen to be. We placed one of our treats on the ground next to a store bought treat and Vader went straight for ours. Mmmmmm. And if you needed further proof of their goodness, the boys tried them out as well. They gave them a thumbs up!!

Here's Simon and Quinn making the dough. The recipes is:
2 TBL of Oil
1 cup of H2O
1/2 cup of Peanut Butter
Combine these ingredients then add the following, 1 cup at a time.
1 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

Roll out, cut to desired shape (we used lots of cookie cutters) and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Being the cheapo that I am, I bought the cheapest PB I could find. I love my Schnoodle but I'm not serving him my organic, all-natural peanut butter.

Aren't these the cutest little things you've ever seen?

This is a triple batch.

Vader LOVES our treats!!

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!

Literature in the Kitchen - Tomie DePaola

No wonder I have put on 5 pounds! I've recently learned a little homeschooling trick that is not too friendly on my hips. I'll tell you my little secret but you have to promise me you'll use if for good and not evil. And you must promise to share anything you produce from implementing this little secret. OK, here it goes.........the kitchen makes learning FUN!!

I came across a Scholastic book that shows things you can do with the kids while reading Tomie DePaola books. We recently read "Watch out For Chicken Feet in Your Soup." What an adorable little book. The boys loved my bad Italian accent. Or maybe I imagined that they loved it.

In the book, the old Italian Grandma makes bread dolls for the little boys. I tried doing some research on the origin of these weird concoctions, but I didn't come up with much. They seem to be a popular bread in Europe, especially during the Easter holiday.


Here's Quinn with his unbaked and baked Bread Doll. Isn't it cute? I'm sure he named it before he ate it. He's very creative when he names things so I'm guessing it was something like "Baby Bread."

And here's Simon bo Bimon with his finished masterpiece.

Fall Time Fun with our Homeschooling Peeps

Circle S Farms...good times. The boys had a blast. This place had quite a corn maze and a very intimidating Hay Barn. Again, I am just thrilled that the boys are making friends with some other Homeschooled kids. This is really helping Liam and Simon. Liam actually came up to me the other day and admitted there were some advantages to homeschooling. Wow! This is big!! Quinn still just tags along everywhere we go and loves it.

There were a gazillion of these caterpillars at the farm and the kids had them crawling all over them. We later found out that from Grandma that the orange stripe on these critters has something to do with how harsh the Winter will be. Not knowing how long their stripes were last year, I can't dole out any Winter tips. We will all just have to wait and see.

Science in the Kitchen - The Egg, Part 1

Liam's current interest (which changes frequently) is cooking. Uncle Jeremy would be proud! If I tell the kids they can watch a video, 1/2 the time they will pick a Good Eats video. I might need to give credit to Alton Brown for schooling my children. Even Quinn is coming up and telling me how to pickle vegetables and how to get the seeds out of a vanilla bean. There's one thing I know for certain, these boys will know how to cook for themselves. I won't have a daughter-in-law coming to me and telling me their man can't take care of himself. Next thing they will all learn is LAUNDRY!
But I digress...
With this new found love of cooking, the homeschooling Mom took over (with Dad's creative insight as well!) and decided to take school into the kitchen. First up....The Egg!

Specifically....The Egg White! What better way to teach about proteins and amino acids in egg whites, than Meringue Cookies!! Mmmm...Mmmmm
Here's Liam giving those egg whites a good whipping.

And here are the fruits of his labor, or I should say the cookies of his labor. We may have let them cook a little too long but they were still tasty little numbers. They tasted a bit like a nice toasted marshmallow. The Egg, Part 1....success!

Homeschool Home Economics

It's Spring and we have seriously fallen off the Homeschool wagon. If I am honest, I can look back and realize this happens every year about this time. The enthusiasm I had in September is no longer there in April. So to feel better about my kiddos' education, I look back on pictures to make sure we are doing "stuff". And then I get very creative and take that "stuff" and call it school!!! So today is Homeschool Home-Ec day. My kids are cleaning, baking, whining, cleaning some more, whining some more, cleaning some more! It's great.

Here are Simon and Quinn washing the BWT (Big White Truck.) I was such a great Mom. I didn't supervise this adventure one bit. In fact I have yet to go out to the car and see what a great job they did. I'm sure it is spotless.

Home Economics would not be complete without some cooking. Here's Simon whipping up some dried banana chips. These turned out very yummy. I'm always amazed though, at how much time drying fruit takes....and then my boys gobble it up in no time. I have dreams of seeing all this home dried fruits in cute little mason jars all lined up in my pantry. But they never even make it to the pantry. At least I know they are enjoying some dried fruit without all that added junk. Maybe I need one of those mega-12 rack dehyrdrators instead of my measly 4 tray dehydrator. That would be a question for my Green and Crunchy contact, Sheri!!