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Errands, Pipe Cleaners, and fun oh my...

It's been an interesting week so far.  We're nearing our completion of learning of England's beginnings, triumphs, and losses and of it's famous women, Beatrix Potter, and Margaret Thatcher to name just a couple. 

Annie is preparing for her 1st drama play coming up, she gets to play an Ant and a Snowdancer.  Costumes are easy enough but we still need to get a black headband, pipe cleaners and also some white and blue fabric and some glitter, I'm still trying to decide between gold and silver - of course I could use both.

Today is a very light day here in our home school schedule, a day mostly filled with simple work book pages.  For me that's a blessing as I have to get ready to do errands here in a bit, and stop in a quick trip to the grocery store.  Always fun.  Tonight might just be a burger and fries night.  Sounds good to me, maybe even I'll show Nicholas, our esteeming young cook, how to saute onions and mushrooms for the burgers. I think he's going to grow up and give Emeril a run for his money - BAM!

We have exciting news, our dog Roxy is pregnant and due with her pups around the middle - end of May.  It will be a learning experience for the kids in Animal Science, but it will also be fun to have baby puppies, love their little faces and their puppy smell.  But, we'll be giving them away to good homes when the time comes, I just hope the kids and even I do not get so attached.

Well off to do last minute preps before going out.

Snow, Taxes, Shopping, and my Robot Foot

Truth be told, winter is supposed to be a peaceful time of the seasons as things are covered in a pure white blanket of serenity and calm.  But not here in my neck of the woods, for even though we're blanketed with a crisp pretty snow and due to get more by the week-end it's been anything but peaceful and calm.

For starters  there was a roller skating accident about 2 weeks ago that left me with what my children have now deemed the "Robot Foot".  That's my walking air cast in the picture (and yes my foot is in it) as I have a fractured foot.  Needless to say I've learned not to help teenagers try to roller skate that do NOT have any balance whatsoever.  Hopefully though in 4 more weeks I'll be back to normal, as right now it's touch and go, as long as I am not up on it too much it doesn't hurt that bad, but when they want to go shopping or I have to be up doing chores boy does it get pretty painful and swollen.

We did get our taxes done and that's a blessing as it's allowed us to buy some needed toys for the kids we couldn't otherwise afford, help my parents out some, and pay our bills and there is even enough to begin to redo our great room and turn it into a master bedroom for my hubby and me.  That will also be an excellent way we've learned to provide some industrial arts/shop classes for the boys, I just pray they wait to begin til I have a stocked first aid kit and a fire extinguisher as my hubby in contrast could give Tim Allen who portrays Tim the  "Tool Man" Taylor on Home Improvement a run for his money and throw in 4 boys in the mess and well I'd say we'd almost have a pretty good sitcom of our own here.

Today we took a free day to just enjoy each other and also to get caught up on some household chores, but there is still much to do.  I think I could give those household shows about decluttering and ways to make things less cluttered a headache if they were to come visit us.  My house beats all so far as I know.

Tomorrow Annie has drama which she missed last week due to her birthday and the weather etc and timing of things so hopefully she won't be too far behind in the class as they only covered the Story of the Ant and the Grasshopper but still, I don't like it when she has to miss a class as it seems to throw us all off of schedule.

But she had a great party, I've got to upload into the computer her pictures soon and I will and write about it, hard to believe she's 9 now, but her party was grand and all her friends she wanted to be there came and she had a lovely time.  Me I'm glad it only happens once a  year for her.  Now no more parties until summer, but at least then the weather will be warmer and I shouldn't be needing a cast then I hope.

I See Snowflakes and the Kids See $$ Dollar Signs

Last week Nicholas and James Jr.  worked together after the snow we'd first gotten and made a total of $24 dollars shoveling driveways for people.  Last night we had a monstrous system move in on us, and today through tomorrow (they've forecasted) it's unloading.  Whereas I see pretty falling snow, the kids are seeing nothing but dollar signs falling from the sky, but it's given them the pefect intro to business math and making a small budget for their candy, pop, and gum.  It's great when even mother nature helps to provide school without the kids realizing it.  Here is what our neck of the woods looks like today:

It's up over the tires and that evergreen across the way just looks so pretty covered in snow!

This is headed down towards my mom's and nothings moving.

And this is across the way from our house....course that's not our trash can across the street, Nicholas had already went out and gotten our this morning but as you can see noone is really out in this and there is no traffic at all back here on our side at all.

It's snowing again here and who knows I might have to film the kids when they go out and have a snowball fight while this stuff is coming down.......sounds like a fun idea for them....and will give me a reason to play around with the computer gadgets on here....

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow....

Yeah where was this stuff when it was Christmas?  Ahh well, better late than never right?  And on top of it Annie was down hearted as there was no drama class today.

Mind you this was around 5 or so and it was only truly beginning to pile up....it's alot more now tonight and before it's over by tomorrow we're expected to have up to 10 inches, then by Tuesday of next week another 5 inches.  Can we say sledding, snowman building and snowball fights?  The kids are planning and the older ones are looking forward to shoveling driveways and making some money.

And here is another couple pictures of the kids and even Brad.....

This one here is my favorite!

My latest find

  I had to post this, I stumbled across this earlier in the evening and thought it was grand.  You know they say it takes a village to raise a child, but I don't know about you, but the village didn't give birth to my child, nor does the village hold the same values as I, nor does the village support my child in regards to love, nurturing, clothing, toys, books and more, so I really felt this summed it up for me, the village couldn't even teach our chidlren adequately before we started homeschooling and I certainly don't want them raising my children...so this is very cool.  Yeah I know I can be mean and sarcastic, but when it comes to my babies (well they're not babies anymore) I can't help myself, afterall I love them and want what's best for them, and I'm sorry but the village is failing and I certainly don't want that for my children.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words...

Today even though really frigidly cold was good.  Annie did very well in presenting her picture to the drama class my father told me as he stayed in it with her while I sat out talking to another mother whose daughter is in the class with mine and whom now I am friends with as well and I might even be attending a co-op she belongs to with her to see if it's something we'd like to do as well.  So it was a good afternoon.

 

 This is Annie with her picture she painted, although I did help her with the butterfly and showed her how to make the flowers, but everything else is her original work.  Not too bad.  She could be a famous artist yet.  She said she had herself with her friends from drama class at the park by a lake/pond.  I thought it was just beautiful.

After their presentations were done they reviewed Pantomime (acting without words) while using props, played games, did solo mimes and talked about exploring improvisation.

Now for a little ...

History

A 'pantomime' in Ancient Greece was originally a group who 'abused all' (panto- - all, mimos - abuse) accompanied by sung narrative and instrumental music, often played on the flute. The word later came to be applied to the performance itself.^[2] The pantomime was a popular form of entertainment in ancient Greece and, later, Rome. Like theatre, it encompassed the genres of comedy and tragedy and sex.

The style and content of modern pantomime have very clear and strong links with the Commedia dell'arte, a form of popular theatre that arose in Italy in the Early Modern Period, and which reached England by the 16th century. A 'comedy of professional artists' travelling from province to province in Italy and then France, they improvised and told stories which told lessons to the crowd and changed the main character depending on where they were performing. The great clown Grimaldi transformed the format. Each story had the same fixed characters: the lovers, father, servants (one being crafty and the other stupid), etc. These roles/characters can be found in today's pantomimes.

Traditional stories

Panto story lines and scripts typically make no reference to Christmas, and are almost always based on traditional children's stories, including several written or popularized by the French pioneer of the 'fairy tale' genre, Charles Perrault, as well as others based on the English tales collected by Joseph Jacobs. Plot lines are often 'adapted' for comic or satirical effect, and certain familiar scenes tend to recur, regardless of plot relevance. 'Straight' re-tellings of the original stories are rare in the extreme.
The most popular titles are:

• Aladdin (sometimes combined with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and/or other Arabian Nights tales. It can also be set in China rather than the Middle East)
• Babes in the Wood (often combined with Robin Hood)
• Beauty and the Beast
• Cinderella, the most popular of all pantomimes and first shown in 1870 in Covent Garden, London
• Dick Whittington and His Cat, first staged as a pantomime in 1814, based on a 17th century play.
• Goldilocks and the Three Bears
• Goody Two Shoes
• Jack and the Beanstalk (Sometimes including references to nursery rhymes and other children's stories involving characters called Jack, such as Jack and Jill)
• Little Red Riding Hood
• Mother Goose
• Peter Pan
• Puss in Boots
• Robinson Crusoe
• Sleeping Beauty
• Snow White
• The Princess and the Pea
• The Snow Queen 

So you see, Annie just by being introduced to Pantomime is getting her feet wet into a great beginning of understanding drama and hopefully her devotion will continue throughout her schooling and may even lead to something greater one day.  Who knows she may be on Broadway one day....

Now while she was in class I was introduced to a new health supplement drink that I must say grabbed my taste buds really quick but one that I actually liked and gave me a natural pick me up - had it not been for Brenda today (Annie's friend Zoe's mom that I am now friends with) I would never have tried it.  It's as I've learned from research Acai (pronounced, ah-sigh-ee), a purple colored fruit from the acai palm, has shown to contain more antioxidants than grapes, wines and even blueberries. With a wonderfully berry taste and other nutritional values.  Who knew I would like this drink so much, but I did...and I must warn you though the first drink kind of grabs you as very sweet yet tart, but after that it's good.  I mean really good.  I might even have to go pick me up some of this soon.  So thank you Brenda for offering me one today!

Oh but thank goodness the day is done for now...Matthew has a function to go to possibly this evening with his girlfriend provided his dad let's him as he's been grounded (yes I said the dreaded G word) and then tomorrow Annie has a birthday party to go to at a skating rink for one of her friends' birthday parties and then at some point this week-end I've got some more house cleaning to do and we've got to hit the grocery store.

I am toying with the idea of supper this evening as cheaply as can be done and I've came up with grilled cheese sandwiches so far or maybe home-made cheeseburgers....they both actually sound good so we'll see what dinner brings.