VBS Take 2

The PKs went to VBS in our neighborhood with all their neighborhood buddies last week.  This is so funny.  The church that was hosting the VBS also provides a free breakfast and lunch program to needy kids all summer.  They said that the VBS kids could just eat it too.  But all of us snotty moms thought..oh it will be that terrible school lunch they always feature on 20/20 that has no nutritional content and we told our kids, "We can eat at home, we don't need to eat the lunch and breakfast."  Well, we show up on the first day of VBS and all the neighbor kids are eating the breakfast.  The other moms said they couldn't stop them, they wanted to have it too!  The PKs are like, "Why can't we eat the breakfast too."  You can see where this is going...

I am pretty sure it was the chocolate milk that got them.  Anyway, my kitchen was really clean the rest of the week because my kids ate school lunch.  Here is PK1 at the breakfast line.  Papa, you may recognize a friend of yours who was volunteering at the church.  He may or may not think we are on food stamps.

And here is PK2 with her new best neighbor friend.  (also eating the aforementioned free food)

Here they are dressed in some of the stuff they made.  PK2 wore that cape all week.  (and no, I don't think she is supposed to look like Elton John) Loved seeing my big girls having fun and being independent, but also glad to have them back home.

July 4

I'll bet you can guess what we did over the 4th...political stuff.  Actually we had some fun family time too, but we kicked off the weekend by driving to Lancaster, Ohio to walk in a parade for our candidate.

 

Afterwards we rewarded our little walkers with a VERY overpriced ride.

We saw this GIANT ox. 

And the girls got their picture with Colonel Tom Moe, who spent five years in a POW camp in Vietnam with John McCain.  He was talking politics with PD, and we were both just in complete awe..we were like... "yeah..thanks for that whole thing you did for our country!"  He was dressed for some kind of historical reenactment.

Then we headed to Gram's for our patriotic feast.  I cannot even tell you....this lady can put on a meal!  We had hamburgers and sausages on the grill, grilled onions and mushrooms, potato salad, homemade baked beans, corn on the cob, homemade ice cream and from scratch apple pie.

PK2 is getting to be just like me.  She asks me all day, "Do you think Gram will have her beans?" "Do you think Gram will have corn on the cob?" Then she just eats herself sick and loves every minute of it!  We are such food people.

We had that whole side of the family together, with a surprise visit from Cincinnati cousin.

And our special Great Grandma:

Then we ended the day with fireworks with all our neighbor friends. Here are my big girls who are big enough to sit with their friends at the fireworks instead of snuggling in the blanket with mommy:

And they wanted me take a picture of their patriotic manicure:

Latin

Ad vitam paramus - We are preparing for life.

We delved into the study of Latin just a bit this year.  I really like this book Song School Latin:

The girls loved doing it.  It is mostly songs with just a little bit of vocabulary to learn for each lesson. We mostly do it in the car.

I also worked on some Greek and Latin prefixes, suffixes and roots with PK1.  She really liked this once she learned a few.  She started recognizing parts of words everywhere in our reading and everyday life.  Examples would be like.."hydro" for something to do with water or "manus" for something you do with your hands.  There are obviously a ton of them we use all the time and it is really supposed to help kids with their vocabulary.

Here they are singing a couple of the songs.  Once again, I think they look really young here.  It was at least six months ago..maybe more that I made the video.

Awana or "You've been bamboozled"

The girls were in Awana this year.  It was such a great experience.  I waffled at the beginning of the year because they are out very late that night, but it turned out to be the right decision.  It was PK2's first really independent thing.  One night she asked me if I could stop walking her into her class and let her go in by herself.  Answer, "No...and I am not going to stop kissing you goodbye 15 times either."  Here they are before their Awana Awards night at the end of the year.

Halfway through the year they have a derby where you build a car and race it.  Believe it or not, PK1 won for fastest car.  We always say PD should have been a mechanical engineer.  The other daddies were trying to figure out his secret.  Some of them had even gone to a woodshop someone owns to tweek their cars.  But PD did not spend that much time and he let PK1 help him with all that she could.  Here they are after the race with their cars and the award.  PK2 was actually not eligible for the race because she is only a "Cubbie" so her car was only for fun.

PD also had to sew on the badges.  I can't sew straight (that's my story).  One night PK1 told me that a girl came to her class with all her patches pinned on with big safty pins.  I said, "Well, maybe her daddy was too busy to sew on her patches."  She nodded thoughtfully.

Here are a few more pictures from the award night with some of their friends:

Yes, my church has these colored lights on the curtains...but the preaching is really good!

The girls won a lot of awards that night too for memorizing lots of verses and having good attendance.

It was so funny when we first started with Awana because PD and I were never in it growing up, so all the books and badges and pins and jewels that you earn were new to us and so complicated!  One night we were going over all the materials they brought home trying to figure it out when PD looks up at me and says, "we've been bamboozled."  That is a line from one of our favorite Friends episodes.  In it, Joey is trying out for this really complicated gameshow and they have to practice with him.  Here is a link to a little clip of it.  It is still SO funny.  Friends Link: Bamboozled

Physical Education

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it. ~Plato

PK1 gets a PE class every week at her co-op.  It is taught by the greatest homeschool dad who has his own business called, The Homeschool Gym.  Here is an article on it, if you are interested. Homeschool Gym

The girls also participated in a basketball clinic last winter.  It was great!  First they would warm up:

Then they were divided up to do dribbling and shooting and passing drills:

Then the last few times we divided up to play parents verses kids.  Here is me after a big score! Look how low the hoop is:

The funniest part was trying to get the littlest ones to go the right way down the court.  Look at all the daddies trying to make sure they understand.  (Also, do you notice the only daddy in dress shirt and dress shoes who came straight from work?):

Coach had to remind PK2 one more time.  He made her show him which way she was going to go.

The girls did really well.  The coach kept saying that PK2 could really launch it.  They got participation awards at the end and he made special mention of PK2.  I did not have my camera on the award night because I didn't know it was going to happen. Next year I hope we will join a league and see if we like playing basketball for real.

All the World's a Stage - Theater Arts

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being." - Oscar Wilde


We saw lots of plays this year. Some were matinées, some were evening performances, most were based on books we have read.

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle:

The Boxcar Children:

Friendship and Freedom: A Play Featuring the American Girl Addy (note PK1 on the right and Little Neighbor Girl on the left)

A Christmas Carol (featuring our best friends): 

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (my favorite this year) (photo with Gladys Herdman):

Charlie Brown (thank you for taking them to this one Gram and Papa):

On a really cold winter night, I think it was the night we saw Boxcar Children, my friend had a sinus infection and we were both cold. We would so rather have been home in jammies watching The Office.  It was the longest play we saw this year and our least favorite.  We saw that the next play they were featuring was "Robin Hood"  which we did study this year.  But when the kids asked us if we could go to it my friend and I said in unison "NO!"  But overall our theater-going experiences were very positive this year.

Art

Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.  Pablo Picasso

PK1 gets an art class at her once a week co-op, but we do things off and on here at home too. Their favorite is when I dump a bunch of supplies out and just let them go. They also love painting.  But here are a couple actual projects I documented.  I want them to be familiar with different famous artists and I thought we might study one each week (insert gales of laughter).  I think we only did 3 this year, but 3 is better than nothing.  I start with this series of books.  It helps kids identify the characteristics of a particular artist's work:

And then get a bunch of other books about the artist..including postcards or an old calendar for examples:

Then you try to paint in the style of the artist.  This is Monet's Water Lillies.  We did these on days when Gram was able to join us when she had a day off of school.

Here is the one we did for Georgia O'Keefe:

Then occasionally we will do a more crafty art project.  This kit, which included everything you need to make sock puppets, was given to us by Cousin Karen.  It turned out to be a HUGE success. The kids even made up a theme song that starts off every puppet show they produce.  It goes like this "we are the sock puppets...we like to sing sing sing.  we like to play play play.  we like to do almost an -y - thing!"