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.

Good Morning Bacon and Let's Not Burn the House Down.

This morning Nick wanted his home economics learning to be how to cook bacon and eggs on our gas stove.  Okay not a problem as I knew he'd not cooked bacon before, but I was puzzled by the request of cooking the eggs until he explained that this would be his first time on our gas stove and he was only used to an electric stove and electric skillet.  With it being a rather good point he was making, we sat out to do so.

He did rather well with the experience but the main thing with him we decided was learning that not only does grease pop when cooking bacon, but it's also important to realize you don't need the fire up so high, as that in itself can be dangerous.  And then we quickly did a quick lesson on fire safety and kitchen safety.  He took it all in like a sponge and asked good questions in respect to the why's of things.  And then said he'd like to own his own restaurant someday as he really enjoys cooking etc and his next home ec class he's asked if he can learn to make macaroni and cheese.  So that's really cool...And I also know that once summer sets in he'll want to learn how to cook on the grill too.  I can already see that coming, guess we'll be learning then of outdoor fire safety at that time.

So this morning was bacon, eggs, toast, and fire safety for home ec class.

I know it doesn't seem like we're doing lots but with Nick it's actually his 3rd class for the day as he takes his Science, Language and sometimes Reading books with him to bed the night before and does the next days' assignments as homework so he's already done when he gets up with at least 2 classes.  And JJ has workbook sheets he's doing today and Annie has her workbooks she'll be doing ready for this evening when her daddy gets home...shes' been working with him the past couple evenings.

Matthew is hiding I think as he's reached a critical point with his Algebra where he's bombed an assignment and he now "hates" it as he put it....not to mention he thinks the instructor on the DVD series that came with the Saxon Algebra is boring...what is it with the kids and boring...seems like we've heard that phrase tossed out already this week and the weeks not even over.  Got to track Matthew down.

So now we're into the afternoon and here I am waiting for Eric to pop in for our afternoon history class, which today's assignment is on The Invention of the Printing Press and Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation....should be interesting on one scale that if the printing press wasn't invented the Bible wouldn't have found it's way into many hands...in fact this is the most important invention ever in the history of the world and it played a part in furthering the production of the most important book in the world.  Come to think of it this history class can also be counted for bible class as well.  I like it when our subjects link up.

English is fun, we've entered in the upper grades Pre-Writing and Narratives, now mind you only Nick is into writing the way that I am, Matthew would prefer to draw pictures but when pushed he can tell a good tale orally, the hard part is getting him to put words from mouth to pen to paper, and Eric, oh heaven help us as he's just into reading really and not much of anything else, in fact I worry it might be the one part of his class that he bombs.  But, I guess not every child fancies the same subjects or even learning itself.

Guess we'll just see what happens .....But Eric does fancy one thing, and that's grossing others out, his latest is drinking Barbecue Sauce straight out of the jar....yep straight.

His poor tastebuds!!!!!

Snow Mom, We don't wanna get up!

We did get more snow this morning and have more coming in later this evening.  The kids will love it.

As you can see we got a pretty good covering.  Course noone's out and it's all so neatly laid down from falling slowly overnight and all morning.  And it smells fresh and crisp.  But it's cold, it's only 17 degrees out there.

And that prompted our discussion of snow and how they didn't want to get up and wanted to lay down for a just awhile longer.  So I was nice I let them.  Of course JJ has been up since 8 a.m. and check it out - my little man is not such a cave man after all (you should read that post of mine below regarding) you can tell he doesn't like the dishes scene, but hey he's over there I have proof he won't melt and can do it.

Now if I could just get him to work with his dad on that wooden kitchen drawer missing part of itself I'd be doing something, I keep telling him it's a good project for shop class....and the way I figure it's only a hammer some nails, and wood glue and oh yeah the wooden piece that's missing.

Well, now that brunch (breakfast + lunch) is out of the way, I've got them preparing for afternoon classes which will really be small considering they slept the morning away (but it was a nice treat for them)...and look what I found as I was toying with something for Home Economics :

Spotty Cat Wall Quilt Kit Giveaway

Gifted by Rachel’s of Greenfield

Image from Rachel’s of Greenfield
www.rachelsquiltkits.com

Kit includes: All fabrics and woolfelt® to complete quilt, complete patterns, illustrated instructions, batting, buttons, embroidery floss, and full size templates.


Contest ends January 29, 2010. You can enter once daily, so return often to improve your chances of winning!

Enter Give-A-Way Here

Now that's really cool and pretty.  Course I need to focus on projects the boys can do also.....I doubt they'd be willing to learn to quilt.

Oh and yesterday, it was expressed to me, during a chaotic class on Constantine in history that they thought learning history and learning bible was BORING, yep they said it but they more or less yelled it at me.  So does it really have to be boring?

Well, you can try out the Emma Leslie Church History Series for yourself ABSOLUTELY FREE!

And I'm yelling that out, as it's cool I think.  They are offering a FREE DOWNLOAD of the entire first book in the series, Glaucia the Greek Slave right now.  

The free download is only AVAILABLE THROUGH THURSDAY, JANUARY 28TH...

and since I have one child who is patiently waiting for us to get his Greek Mythology material and is fascinated with anything Greek, this might be up his alley.

To get your download - Click here! 

I'll let you know how it goes with us......for now off to do Math with Annie...