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H is for House of Cards

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HOC collage

A few weeks ago, Seahawk decided that he wanted to try his hand at building a house of cards. We don’t have carpet in our home, so he quickly found out that this made his goal quite a challenge. But, being the good problem solver that he is, he simply got a washrag out and used that as a “carpet” for his tower, which gave the cards much more stability.

Seeing Seahawk’s success inspired Munchkin to join in the fun, and for several days, our living room had two houses of cards going at any given moment. And with my kids, working on the task isn’t necessarily what they enjoy. They like the finished product. So once they’d completed their houses, we were walking gently in the living room so as not to accidentally knock over the towers before they were ready to put them away. This lasted about a day and a half.

And when they were ready to tear them down, what did we discover? That those cards were pretty darn stable! Even after a lot of jumping right next to the towers, only a few cards had fallen. Kids and Dad had to physically take the cards down by hand. They weren’t going to fall over mistakenly.

Have you ever built a house of cards?

Blessings,

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G is for Gingerbread House

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g is for gingerbread house

For the second year in a row, my dad bought the boys a gingerbread house kit to build and decorate. The difference this year is that he chose a gingerbread village instead of just a house, so while the individual buildings were much smaller, each child got his own to decorate. They didn’t fight last year, but I still think this was a better way to do it. They weren’t crawling all over one another to try and decorate their wall like last year. And as an added bonus this year, while we were decorating, one of the boys’ friends came over. I was happy to have an extra house to share with her. (And even more happy to send it home with her when she left!)

Blessings,

F is for From the Mouths of Babes

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Photo credit

 

I have this statue on my bedside table. It was a gift from Will a few years ago, and is very special for a few reasons. (Mainly because he gave it to me, but also because it’s done in a style that his mom – who passed away in 2007 – really enjoyed and collected art in.) It’s been a mainstay on my bedside table ever since I got it. We’ve tried putting it in different places, but nowhere else is quite “right.” Some things are like that, you know?

So, there the statue sits. Small Fry is a bit behind on his speaking skills (but he’s making real progress the past couple of weeks!). He has just a handful of words he says (Mama, Dada, water, bubble, yeah, no). When I went into our room the other day to get a fresh diaper so I could change him, he followed me. He’s seen the statue before, of course, but this time he picked it up and pointed at each figure in turn, saying, “Mama. Dada.”

I love that this is how he sees his parents: in a caring, loving relationship.

What a way to melt a mother’s heart!

Blessings,

Wendy

E is for Eating Bugs

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E is for eating bugs

Will’s been traveling a bit to sell his books this week, and one of the traditions he has when he’s away from home is to bring suckers back for the boys. But not just any sucker – a sucker with a real bug inside. Seahawk and Munchkin are well versed in this tradition, but it was Small Fry’s first time participating. To introduce him to the idea slowly, he got a cricket lollipop, while the other boys got scorpions. You can see the cricket suspended in the candy in the larger photograph up above. [Read more…]

D is for Division

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d is for division copy

As much as we struggled with multiplication facts with the boys, I was beginning to think we’d never move on to division. But I’m pleased to say that we have done just that.

After Will saw the way our current math program was teaching the topic (it was insanely crazy and confusing, using “longs and shorts” – is this a Common Core thing, does anyone know?), he made the decision I should have: teaching long division the normal way. He spent about an hour with the boys and they came out the other end of that one lesson able to divide.

And now, on to fractions!

Blessings,

Wendy

C is for Costumes

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c is for costumes sbh

You know that Halloween was last week, so I want to talk today about how we do costumes in our family. First, though, let me go over Halloween. We don’t give the “holiday” much emphasis in our family, but we also don’t avoid it altogether. The downtown association in our town sponsors a trick or treating event every year where the local businesses along the main drag offer candy (and other goodies – coupons from the dance studio, toothbrushes from the dentist, etc) for the children. It’s a completely safe way to do trick or treating, and it’s always really fun to see all the children’s costumes. [Read more…]

B is for Baking

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b is for baking sbh

Seahawk’s birthday was earlier this month. He’s 11 now. I still can’t believe it. His birthday fell on a Friday, so we did the “Grandparents’ dinner” on the day of. We served pasta with three sauce choices (marinara, Alfredo, and vodka, all from jars – I can make pasta sauce from scratch, but honestly, a lot of the jarred sauces are very tasty, have no questionable ingredients, and are cheaper than their from-scratch counterparts, which makes them a win all around), and homemade bread sticks. This is my go-to bread stick recipe. It’s so easy and so delicious. If you’re looking for a good one, try it out! It’s truly foolproof. [Read more…]

A is for Armadillo

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a is for armadillo sbh

A colleague of mine through the Schoolhouse Review Crew (Marcy at Ben and Me) has done a “Blogging Through the Alphabet” series several times now, and I’ve never remembered to start when she’s back at “A.” She’s since decided not to do the series, but I think it’s a great idea, so I’m going to give it a go. Alphabet posts will happen once a week in addition to anything else I have to write about that particular week and may or may not relate to each other. Some will be about our homeschooling journey, some will be recipes, and some will simply my thoughts for the week. Enjoy!

So . . . A is for Armadillo. Pretty random, no? Not for our home this week. We just started a unit study on Wild Animals: Small Mammals (from the set of My First Reports by Hewitt Homeschooling) in our homeschool, and the first animal we’re studying is armadillos.

Here’s what’s on tap for this week of our study. [Read more…]