A peek into our week

Shae has been enjoying her school work. We have been focusing on her reading a lot as well as her math. Thanks to "Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons" her reading has gotten so much smoother and she is feeling more proud of herself. She is counting up to 100 and more and she does great with addition and subtraction. I made this cute bunny and carrot slider thing to help her see the subtraction problems better. She likes to show her dad and make the bunnies eat the carrots."There are 7 carrots and the bunny ate 3 of them. How many are left?" And she slides the carrots to figure out the answer.
We have done the seed thing before but our science book was talking about how plants grow and our friend just did this ... so we had to do it again. She loves to watch the beans sprout.
As soon as we placed them at the window she watched them for a bit then asked "When will they grow?" We are charting how many days it takes and at day 2 one has already begun to sprout.
Kayla is very interested in sewing and since I am pretty good at sewing I will teach her. Plus I have way too many adult girl~friends who cannot sew even a button on a pair of pants. My daughters will definately know how to sew. I know first hand how important sewing is as I have altered just about every piece of clothing the girls and I have. I owe "thanks" to my mother who taught me how to sew when I was a young girl.

Kayla decided to make a butterfly pillow. So I dug out the scrap fabric. I made up a simple pattern and had her hand sew on several pieces first. She finally figured out how to knot the thread. She did awesome! She worked on this for a few days on and off.
She couldn't wait to get to the "real'" sewing machine. I didn't think about how curvy the butterfly was so it was a bit of a challenge. She did great and had good control of the fabric.
Finally, she got to hand sew on the buttons for eyes which was fun for her and then stuff it. Great job Kayla! She loves her pillow and has slept with it every night.
This is Kayla preparing for her performance at the adult day care center that we go to every month. This week was great! As Kayla was playing and singing her song she had one elderly lady singing along with her and several others clapping along to the beat. She is very confident and loves to play for people.
She is pretty excited to be playing a song at the Prescott Acker Christmas Festival this year.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving day!
I am now ready to eat my chocolate chip cookies and hang out on the couch with Tom and the girls.
As soon as I click "publish post"

Finally ..... 8 years old!

"Mom, when am I really going to be 8?"

At 10:23 am my dear child. :)

She woke up to the house smelling just delightful with a cookie sheet full of fresh cinna bites covered in frosting.... her favorite over cake.

Shae drew her big sissy a picture of her favorite bug "lady bug". She put it in a gift bag and presented to her with a happy smile. Just like a "5" year old would and should.

Thanks Aunt Judi! Kayla says "WOW! A million dollars!" And of course I wouldn't leave out lil grams either for her cash donations. Kayla is saving some for when she grows up and saving the rest for the "big sales" after Christmas.

This one is pretty funny! Kayla wrapped herself one of her new books and made a card that said "To: Kayla ~ From: Buttercup (her pet hamster)". And she said "oh my goodness ... Buttercup got me something". It was rather funny.

All she wanted was a basketball and that is what we got her.

After our breakfast we took the girls to a local school play ground to try out the basketball. But do you think the city is smart and would have kids height basketball hoops at a elementary school? Of course not! They were 10 feet tall and for adults. So, we played on the playground and then hit 2 more parks and played all after noon for Kayla's birthday. We spend the girls actual birthday together as a family. They get to pick out anywhere they want to go and eat for dinner and Kayla picked Peter Piper Pizza and that is how our day concluded.

Congratulations Kayla!

You are such a young lady and I can't think of life without you. I look at you daily and know how lucky I am to have a daughter like you and how lucky I am to be able spend so much time with you.

Love, mommy

All Aboard .....................

The Polar Express!

We told the girls that we were going out to dinner at a new place and it was a bit of a drive. Kayla wasn't feeling well but she went for it anyway. A couple of miles before we got to the exit in Williams I gave each of them a envelope with their golden ticket that I had made inside. I punched it with a nail with the word.... "Believe."

They about jumped out of their seats with joy! Kayla read it out loud and knew right away that they were going on the "Polar Express."

Of course we went to visit Mrs. Claus and she was delighted to see the girls.

They each got to write Santa their letters.
And mail them They were so excited to get on the train!
We all got hot chocolate and cookies. YUMMY!

We finally stopped at the "North Pole" which was lite up and Santa and his sleigh was there. We opened up the train windows and waved to him. Then he got on the train with us and passed out each child a large bell.

Listening to the bell ringing.

What fun it was!

A great imagination and more to come...

Each time we visit our library ..... Kayla looks for her book on the shelf. It is never there. The librarian tells Kayla that her book is always checked out and at times on a wait list. It gets Kayla excited to know that lots of kids have checked out her book. We were recently there and finally saw it on the shelf. That made her so happy to see it there sitting among the other books.

The Prescott Library has been asking Kayla when her next sequel is due to come out. I guess we can say that Kayla has had "writer's block." Kayla has brainstormed the second part of this story with me a few times and just doesn't like the second edition to this book. She tells me "Mom, I don't think I want "Green Aliens in Space" to have a second part." I tell her that is just fine and that it doesn't need to have another part. :) She had much success with her first book and a great experience doing the local newspaper interview and photo session.

Then along came News Channel 3 TV to her book reading and signing at the library. This was a last minute surprise to us but she loved to see herself on the TV later that night!

I think all the kids were pretty excited to see a young kid like them write a book. To all of you with young inspiring writers..... I definitely recommend encouraging them to go beyond the cover.

Her book can be found on Amazon.com and lulu.com http://www.lulu.com/content/1420540
Here is the news story clip
http://www.azfamily.com/video/localnews-index.html?nvid=202934&shu=1

Last week during our writing assignment she came up with another darling story. She wants to publish this one too! This time her sister Shae will do the illustrations for the book. Kayla has already paged out the book with her story sequence and sketched out adorable art work for Shae to start working on. So, stay tuned for her second book.

A learning moment

I managed to get a shot of these two adorable kids playing a game of chess the other day. Kayla has had this travel rolled up Chess game for over a year now and has been wanting to learn how to play it. Finally, while Kayla's friend was over the other day ..... she started to learn the game. He knows how to play and so graciously and patiently he sat and was teaching Kayla how to play the game of chess. Next item on the to do list for her is ........... "I want a real chess board that doesn't roll up" :) And Jomama we need a play date at least once everyother week so they can play the game.

We did it! We are CLEAN and GREEN!

Loads of fun and we made enough to do many loads of laundry. Probably 6-8 months or more and all for $4.

To fill you in ... I saw a T.V. episode of a family and they made homemade laundry detergent and it lasts for a long time and saves a ton of money. The best part of it is that is it enviromentally friendly and safe. With my family of 4 ... this large 5 gallon bucket of laundry detergent that I made will last us almost a year. YIPPEE!

It was rather simple and very cheap to make. I would recommend it to anyone. The largest purchase amount was the 5 gallon bucket with lid for $5 which we will reuse for a long time.

These are the 3 simple ingredients that I used.

Washing Soda, Borax and Fels-Naptha bar soap (in the laundry isle)

I shaved the bar soap with a knife and it basically crumbled.

In a large pot ... put in the soap and cover with very hot water and put on stove on med/high. Stir constantly until dissolved completely.

I am feeling primitive already! ha,ha,ha!

Kayla was excited to do this so she was declared my "official helper". She measured 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup or washing soda and added to bucket. Then we filled the bucket with SUPER HOT water and stirred with a long stick until dissolved. We left enough room for the now melted Fels-Naptha and added the entire pan to the bucket and stirred real good for 3-5 minutes. Next, put the lid on and let it sit over night and it gels up like jello and oil. Kind of weird but whatever ... it works.
This is what the end product looks like. Use measured 1 cup full per load of laundry. We have used it now on 4 loads of laundry and it works great! It has a nice smell and the best part is that is is environmentaly safe and cheap and gets the job done. I can say that I will never buy laundry soap again! tee,hee,hee!

You can find several homemade laundry detergents both powdered and liquid in either of these books or Google "homemade laundry detergent."

HAPPY WASHING!!

http://www.thefrugalshopper.com/articles/detergent.shtml

A day to honor our veterans

Today, we went to the VA hospital to honor the American Military Veterans. As we wait for the parade to start we walked around the grounds surrounded by several military both young and old. We came across this "In memory" plaque and statue and as I turn around there was Shae putting her flag into the ground along side the others. It was a touching moment to see.

The day before the parade I read in the paper of a local Prescott Iraq War Veteran and that he was going to be the Grand Marshall in the parade. He was severely injured in the war and in a coma for a year. The crazy thing is ... that out of the hundreds of people there.... I picked a spot to set up our chairs and ironically it was the mother of this man. We met and talked to them and heard stories that made the day seem so complete of why we were there to honor the many military veterans.

Dippin Dots!!! YUMMY!

They have become an after game tradition. Dippin Dots!
I must say Shae earns them every game! She plays her heart out and yesterday she scored 3 goals.

Just two games left of the season and we will sure miss it.

November fun!

As November is in full swing we are learning about the "First Thanksgiving" and how important the Indians were in teaching us about growing crops.

We made placemats for our feast that were covered with fall leaves and acorns. I gave Kayla this assignment the other morning and she wrote the entire thing without help and then I worked with her on the computer to type it, pick her font, size it and find a picture of fall leaves to copy and paste.

She was very proud of her work!

We learned about how many years ago the people didn't go to "Target" to get their cups, bowls and plates. The girls coiled clay and created their own mugs and bowls. They learned that it was a bit messy and they had to smooth the coils together so it would hold a liquid and be strong.

Alpaca Ranch Field Trip

With the Welcome homeschool group we went to a near by Alpaca Ranch. The weather was pretty chilly and windy. But those Alpacas were so darn cute the weather didn't matter much.

We learned that they don't have hooves but they have a pad on the bottom of their feet which consists of 2 toes. They live about 25 years. They have no teeth on top and the teeth on the bottom are much like a rodents teeth and they keep growing and need trimmed frequently.
Alpacas come in several different colors of fur they call "fiber". Depending on the fiber an Alpaca costs anywhere from $10,000-$40,000. They can be a great source of income for these ranchers.