Floor Show

Amie and Demi are playing on a beginner's hockey team. The first several games, we had fits of random, spontaneous falling. Meg and Josie began keeping count for each team. Completely for scientific statistical reasons, of course...

Amie is on the frequent falling mileage roster...I have many pics like this

here's a player on the ground, not Amie

just to be equal opportunity- here is a kid on the other team.

But, we come back once again, to classic Amie-pose...

Homeschool = fall school some days

will she have a complex from mommy laughing behind the camera the whole game??

Party for the Princess

The decorations were hung...

pretty princesses for our pretty princess girl...

family and friends gathered to celebrate

our Amie's eight year

pink cake on the outside for our girlie-girl..

white chocolate-chip layers inside, for our complicated skate-board-loving, American doll crushing, tough hockey-playing, loves princesses/cheetahs and wolves -baby girl.

~Amen~

7 Quick Takes Friday, Feb. 19

7 Quick Takes Friday is hosted over at Conversion Diary.

~1~
Started walking again daily, in the mornings. I had decided that I didn't deserve to, if I wasn't ready to start school bright and early. Then I decided I was fat.
Walking it is.

~2~
Sky told me to go ahead and order the camera bag I was drooling over.
I had just talked myself out of it, after all, it wasn't a need...but then Sky thought I should, so I did it!

~3~
Did the usual round of lessons this week; Violin and Orchestra for Meg, Fencing for Josie, Irish Dance for Meg, Hockey for Demi & Amie, Art for Demi, Amie & Josie. Tennis for Josie.
Whew!

~4~
filled my bird feeder again. I love birds! I had neglected the bird feeders for many, many months. It's nice to see the birds visiting again!

~5~
We did a trial version of Aleks math to supplement our Math-U-See program. I am glad we did the trial, because after a few hours of using it, Demi and Amie were unhappy with it. Decision made to stick with Flashkids workbooks for supplemental work. I liked the testing, the pie graph and that Aleks is tied to State Standards, so I am going to keep it for Josie and Meg. (p.s.-if you look into Aleks, there is a 30 day free trial, google for the code)

~6~
I am seriously considering going to this blogging conference. I don't like to do things without Sky, though..so this is a hard decision to make. It's far enough away I will have to fly, so it will be too expensive for two of us to go, specially since he would just be hanging out...

~7~
Had a really productive homeschool day today. After the bulk of our work was done, we headed over to Rubio's for lunch and then to the skateboard park for p.e. We came home and then did social studies, lituature reading and reading. A good day!

Here there be dragons

I protect my children from dragons; -the real, the imaginary, the conceptional and the ones found only on the inside. That's my job, you see- I am Mom.

Wednesday, Amie met a dragon while walking down the street to visit with neighbors. I, mighty Mom, stood on the front porch and watched her walk along the sidewalk- vigilantly watching for any strangers-in-cars-dragons. I watched as Amie greeted a neighbor boy, and I watched as she bent down to pet his small dog.

This quote from a book has always stayed with me, "You know how it is when you're doing something you think is important and you miss the thing that's really important. And so it was that we missed it..."

And so, I missed it this time. The dragon, disguised as a Chihuahua, jumped up and bit Amie in the face. I'm thinking at least twice. No bark, no growl, no warning.

She has 5 stitches, mostly on the upper lip. She's recovered very well. The only lingering reminder, beside her face, is her fear of walking in front of this neighbor's house. Amazingly, she is not afraid of dogs.

Mom has recovered too, except for the lingering guilt for watching Amie look the dragon in the face..and failing to see the dragon. The what ifs...what if I had walked with her? What if I had taken them to Disneyland that day like I had intended? What if I had instructed her not to pet small dogs, or any dogs, unless I am right there?
What if the Dr. didn't do a good job with the stitches?

Mom-guilt is a powerful thing.

The photo above is of Amie writing about her ordeal in her diary, veery phonetically.

My baby's all grown up and stalking with a bow n' arrow

I cannot believe my "baby" is 7 years old now! It just doesn't seem possible. You know, I have to stop myself from looking for clothes for her in the toddler's section, it just seems like that is where she belongs..viewed from my mom-colored glasses.

She received several gifts that vie for favorite gift designation..but I think her plastic bow and arrow set might be the top gift right now. I watch her stalking doves outside the window, it's just so stinking cute...(and the arrows are plastic with suction cups on the end..no hurt birds, I promise!)

Happy Birthday baby girl! It's so hard to believe that only 7 years ago I held all 10 lbs of you in my arms for the first time.

yes, you read that right...!!

Birthday boy

The boy-wonder had a birthday. I cannot believe he is nine years old!
He requested a dragon cake again, I made a blue one last year. You can find the directions to this surprisingly simple cake at Family Fun magazine..go *here for the directions. It had to be simple or I would not have attempted it. I did try to coax him into a cake from my favorite cake place, but no- he wanted me to make it. I was frosting it as the guests arrived..it's a Jen thing...

Happy Birthday, man-boy!

House of rock

Demi is my dreamer. For years he has been intrigued by wishes in different forms. He asks me about wishes, which forms of wishing works best...(praying, a dandelion, a falling star...) and in general is busy figuring it all out.

Lately he has been asking about four leaf clovers. Friday as I was busy working on something, he began on the questions...I encouraged him to go look for some, confident that search would keep him busy for many, many minutes. I was pretty sure he would be busy for a long time because I've never found a four leaf clover... Not even ten minutes later, he came running in with one!

"Good job, baby- now go buy mommy a lottery ticket..."

Sunday nights at our house, we have the Bible college boys over for dinner and just to hang out. They live in a really strict dorm environment, with inspections and cafeteria food. They like to come over and unwind.

Sometimes they really unwind....

We had some kind of fantasy role-play game going on all evening...complete with kidnapped princesses, knights and grenades.

Here is one company about to launch an attack on the enemy's lair...

The grenades were my favorite part, they were a blob of legos. Someone would pop off the 'pin' (a lego) and then throw the remaining blob into the room...it would "explode" and legos would go flying.

My little ones took no prisoners...

Here's a shot of the general chaos of the game.

Notice our friend Jesse on the couch trying to read.

This game was raging around 10 p.m.

I'm wondering what the neighbors thought...

We have a lot of fun at our house.

Tron, dead people in walls and cuteness-it's potpourri

Not a lot of blogging going on, mostly because I'm just too busy living it, I guess! I thought I would do a rambling, things-we-are-doing-right-now-post.
The other night we rented "Tron" from netflix and had a family movie night. You know, decades later, it's still a pretty good flick. Sometimes we rent something we remember enjoying when we were young..sometimes it works out, and sometimes it proves to be way too cheesy then we remembered. This one was a hit with everyone.

This week we are covering Ancient China in our history studies. I read The Great Wall of China to the kids, and then they colored a picture of the wall from the Story of the World Vol. 1 activity guide
(I just looove that book, it saves my hide when I am looking for something to cement our learning-or when I am looking for a map to color that is not too complicated...)

Anyways, here are the rug-rats working hard.

Great bed-head look on Demi, don't you think?

Here is Amie's color sheet.

I had to ban the kids from including any dead bodies in the wall...the two 8 year old boys in particular latched onto that little factoid with too much gusto. Boys....

I took Amie for a nature walk the other evening. I walk pretty regularly for exercise, and Amie asks to go. I usually have to tell her 'no', because the mile plus would be too much for her, as would my pace (especially if I um, actually, you know- 'ran', like I aim too..it could happen, guys!)

So, I took her out for a rambling kind of walk. We had a really good time.

I'm prejudiced, I know, but I think she is really cute!