GEMS at the Fire Station

 The girls' scout group went to the fire station a couple of weeks ago.  It was a pretty fancy suburban fire station (not in my ghetto neighborhood).  The firemen gave us a really nice tour.

All the mommies asked a lot of questions.  Is that normal?  I thought later, maybe we were a little too interested in talking to the fire guys.  Can you imagine it..a bunch of home school moms, "sooooo..do you get a LOT of fires out here?"

They did have a lot of good stories though.  One said that his former station burned their kitchen down when they left on a run and left the stove on! They also said that they don't use fire poles anymore because the fire guys would horse around and get hurt too much.  Some fire stations have slides, but this one had neither.

It was a lot of fun.  All the girls were so well behaved and we had a Christian fire man come and talk to them before the tour.  He gave a really neat devotional on bravery. Our little club has been so much fun. We also made quilt squares at a nursing home and next week one of the moms is hosting us to talk about her backyard chicken coop.

Wrapping it up

Of course May means wrapping up some of our activities. We had the last day of our homeschool co-op:

PK1 participated in a science fair, her project was about birds of course:

And Zoo School ended with a bang:

The kids got to touch a hedge-hog or as Lola says, "a hedgey hoggy."

And they learned a lot about lions and other African animals.  I didn't get any good pictures of the animals, but I thought these pictures of the kids were pretty cute.

The girls won some awards at Awana for Bible memory.  They both have some special friendships at Awana and they look forward to going each week. 

While all those activities are fun and meaningful, it is nice to be on the cusp of our summer schedule.

Vote on My New Rug

PD just got a new (used) car...pictures to follow.  But in the meantime, here is the scoop.  We saved our pennies for 3 years thinking we would need a certain amount for his car.  Surprise though! We got it for a bit less, so I am redoing our living room with the leftover funds, plus whatever I can get on Craigslist for our current living room furniture.  I am going bleary eyed looking at all these Persian rugs.  If anyone wants to help me choose, I would be grateful.  I am hoping to buy ivory sofas if that helps with the decision.

Rug 1

Rug 2

Rug 3

Rug 4

Here is my current living room.  The purple velvet sofas seemed like a good idea 12 years ago in 1999. I actually did really like them for the first 10 years. Now when I walk through the living room, I want to put my eye out with a stick.

Some days I am so excited to get to have the room redone, some days I feel like it will just be a royal hassle.  But, my one and only kid free week of the year is coming up in June.  I will have the girls in VBS every morning for a week.  I am thinking I can maybe spend some time on it then..maybe even paint. Or maybe I should go to the dentist, get my hair cut and buy undergarments...you know all those luxurious things you can't do when you home school and your husband works 80 hours a week.  We shall see.

Hocking Hills: Memorial Day 2011

GEMS

The PKS are involved in a new little club for girls.  It is like girl scouts...but BETTER!  OK, that is just what the moms who put it together think.  But we assembled the nicest families of homeschool girls and started this little club.  GEMS stands for Growing in Excellence, Mastering Skills.  The girls will learn skills, have fun, be discipled by their moms and earn patches.  We had a kick-off bonfire for all the families, hosted by the best hostess in the world and my best friend:

There they received their sashes that will hold all the badges:

And their first badge:

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

PK2 wanted a Rainbow Birthday party to celebrate turning 6 this year.  We had two balloon rainbows, a rainbow cake and a bounce house!

 The kids played on the slip and slide:

Made a fairy garden...or for the boys it was a dinosaur garden:

Cousin made her this rainbow card:

And PK1's best friend made her this Richard Scary mobile for her room!  Precious! PK2 LOVES Richard Scary.

I think everyone had a good time:

Especially the birthday girl:

She got so many wonderful gifts:

Including these grass skirts from Gram:

And a stomp rocket from Gigi.  As soon as she opened the stomp rocket, it was like holding back wild horses.  The boys wanted to play with it SO BAD.  PD set it up right after the gifts were opened and everyone had a lot of fun with it.  PD is actually outside right now trying to get a couple rockets out of the tree!

And of course, the cake, around which the whole birthday was based.

Then, after everyone went home, the yard was picked up, and the girls had a shower, believe it or not, there was a real rainbow in the sky.  Our phone started ringing, everyone was calling to tell us.  PK2 had said a few days ago, "Maybe there will be a real rainbow on my birthday." I assured her that there would not be. What a beautiful surprise!  

Rollin Right Along

I took the girls to a kiddie skate time last week to work on our skating skills.  It was so much fun and PK2 really got the hang of it.  Watching her skate (she looks so much like me at that age) is like looking back in time to my roller rink days.

Untitled from Political family on Vimeo.

PK1 is still getting the hang of it:

Untitled from Political family on Vimeo.