What's for dinner?

My new favorite meal. It is quick and delicious!! It is organic sweet potato fries and organic asparagus along with an all natural chicken patty with caramelized onions and red bell peppers topped with a spring mix on Wild Flower sesame bread. YUMMY!

How important is writing??

It is that time of year again where we put on our thinking caps and brainstorm away. This will be Kayla's second story submission to PBS and their writing story contest. Last year, she won first place for second grade in the entire state of Arizona with her story "Tom The Turkey!" This will be her last year to submit a entry as third grade is the highest entry level accepted. She first thought of a dolphin story then quickly came up with the second book of "Green Aliens in Space." She has had writers block for part 2 of this book and all of a sudden the story came to her. She ran to me and said that she just wrote the story for part 2 of "Green Aliens in Space." What a great story it is and I am very proud of her. We then had to do some editing and page out the book and pictures to it. Kayla worked on her artwork today for about 3 hours and finished it up wonderfully. More pictures of that in a later post.
Now, this year Shae jumped in on the fun as well. She thought of a darling story about a flower named Emma and it is about how she wants to leave the garden that she is in and go inside the house with a little girl named Elisabeth. Pictured above is her many drawings of flowers to find the perfect Emma. Today, she worked on her art work as well and completed all her drawings for her story. Good job Shae!!!

Fun! Fun!

Yahoo! Both the girls are in a play together and it is called "True Love A Wolf's Tale."

This is a cute play and pretty low key compared to the others we have experienced and been in. The director is great with the kids and all the kids have a cute part. This is a darling story of Red Riding Hood and the wolf falling for her. Most of the Disney princesses are in the show including Kayla staring as Jasmine. Both girls are also forest animals and in the grand ball room scene at the end.

Get tickets today! You can contact me or call Tamee on the flyer.

Cartoon Characters

This month we had a great art class on cartoon characters and facial expressions. Above is a couple of pieces of art work from some of the kids in class. All kids weren't present this time and we missed them but we learned a lot about drawing cartoon characters and had lots of fun playing afterwards.

BLANKIE

Shae has had this blankie since she was a baby. She loves it dearly and would never want it to go away. However, lately she has noticed how thin it is becoming and slowly it is getting smaller than it once was. She loves the smell of it. She loves the feel of it. She loves to gently rub it on her lips and nose. She has lost it a couple of times and I thought she was going to die. It was so sad as she cried for hours as we looked for it. Thank God we found it!

I will never throw it out and I wish for her to keep forever if she chooses to do so. But I know that day will come where she will part from it. I will keep it for her in a special box.

Shae loves her blankie!

We are out of here!!

This was an interesting day for my good friend Bethany and I! We made this "wonderful" plan to meet in Anthem (she was coming from Mesa and I from Prescott). We get there and had all the "fun" necessities for any child .... i.e. bikes, scooters, lunch and all. Within 30 short minutes the kids were hot and claiming that they were bored and tired! They were to the point of scrambling behind me to find what shade my body was making. Ryan even laid on the balance beam just pooped out. Bethany and I could not believe it!!! Every time we tried to speak to each other we would fine ourselves looking at a child staring at us complaining about something. We finally busted out laughing and yelled out ..."You got 10 minutes and we are out of here!"

Desert Landscape

We are very lucky people to have our Prescott Art Docents and our local library support the homeschoolers in the area. Each month the Art Docents hold a art class on a certain topic and educate the kids then do a art project that pertains to that topic. This month they gave the kids a slide show presentation on desert landscapes and showed the many scenic pictures that our beautiful desert has to offer.
Next month : Famous Portraits

SCULPTING CLAY

Kayla has discovered that she LOVES to create things from modeling clay. She made this adorable dog and since then she has made an entire family of dogs. She has also taken up drawing which is a "big thing" for her. Kayla is an absolute perfectionist so she has had a difficult time accepting her creations with art. I do lots of art with them and emphasize that everyone makes and creates things in their own way and that no two will be exactly a like.
This is a great thing for Kayla ... as just a year ago she hated everything she drew and was to the point where she didn't want attempt to draw anything and therefore refused to do art with Shae and I. GREAT JOB KAYLA!! I love your art work!

I am thinking ...

Yes, I am thinking of what to do with my blog. I have not had much of that feeling lately to "blog". I have neglected my children's scrapbook which I converted to a digital glossy printed yearbook created online. Hummmmmmmm... I need to get caught up on that and keep that up to date. I will think and get back to this one. Should I continue?

Schools may become more like homeschooling!

Yes, you read the title right! The Obama administration is working on reviewing the public school curriculum. They feel and they are right that things are being taught for no reason or at the wrong age for the child. Posted in the New York Times!
READ HERE

ROCK ON!!!

Last night the girls had a jam session! Kayla is getting pretty good on her guitar and can now play "Letting Go" /Francesca Batistelli, "Teardrops on my guitar" / Taylor Swift, and now "Lovebug" / Jonas Brothers. Both Shae and Kayla can play the drums and do some cool drum beats. It is fun to see them enjoy life together! They are cool cats!

On a serious note .... I went ahead and gave Kayla the state AIMS math test for third grade yesterday. Anyone can find that on the AZ public schools superintendent website.

It was a blind test for her and she did real well.

Ya see ... the public school teaches to the test and before the students will take the AIMS (which is in April I think) the teachers go over extensively sample problems from the test. And now they actually have computer simulations that the kids do for a certain amount of time each week to prepare them for the AIMS test.

So, considering we didn't teach to their specific test Kayla did damn good! She missed a total of 4 out of 37 problems. Congrats Kayla ... job well done!

One she missed was a combination word problem which I thought was funny of how many different food combinations could a person have with a choice of 2 different sandwiches, 2 different drinks and 2 different snacks. Tom thought she would need to know that if she planned on working at a fast food joint. ha,ha,ha!