Friends

Preschool Picnic

It was rainy.

8 years old

You know its going to be a great birthday when your 2yo brother throws a rock at your head and you have to go get stitches.

8yo loves China, so for his birthday we went to see the Terra Cotta Warriors at HMNS. 6yo and a neighbor came along, too. Here they are doing their warrior poses in front of the exhibit entrance. No photo taking was allowed, but it was a great exhibit. 8yo loved it.

After the exhibit we went to eat at China Bear. Here we are are feeding the fish at their koi pond.

Singing Happy Birthday.

A little help opening presents.

We love China.

3 years old

We had a quick party in the morning and then went camping for 3yo’s birthday. I could not get this kid to smile for anything!

Preschool Day 2

We started the day watering the broccoli plants and talking about corn. Why corn? Why not? We talked about how it came from Mexico and now its grown and eaten all over the world. So we put a corn kernel in the window to sprout and made cornmeal cookies. Then we blew up balloons, played with them a long time, and some of us got around to drawing the world on them and making a globe.

Then we painted caterpillar puppets.

We started with several colors to choose from, but they all ended up with black caterpillars in the end. Kids like to mix paint. And put a lot of paint on. We have to let these dry and finish putting on their faces next week.

All Dressed Up…

…and nowhere to go! 4yo came downstairs all dressed up one day. She does that often, but its usually princess stuff. This time she looked stylish, so I took her picture to remember.

Notice the camo hat with sequin headband and pink backpack.

And that great scarf!

Tennis

Preschool Day

I decided to start a preschool time for my 4yo and 2yo and some friends. 2yo didn’t participate today, but it was a fun time for the others. 6yo and 7yo even got involved. I wish I had more pictures, but it was busy.

First we made a seasons circle. We covered a cardboard pizza circle with construction paper for the seasons, divided with ribbon, and colored pictures for the seasons. Here are the kids holding it:

The drawings by season:
summer: sun, strawberry, green tree
fall: orange leaf, moon (Halloween)
winter: snow, Christmas Tree
spring: pink flower, rain drops, sun, pink squiggle

Then we talked about seasons and plants growing and the colors of the leaves changing. We talked about that for about 30 seconds and then went downstairs to plant baby broccoli plants. We should have some broccoli for the kids to eat in 45-50 days. We talked about plants needing sun and water and dirt and time to grow.

Next the kids helped make banana cookies. Kids like to mush bananas. They also like to eat sugar straight.

Banana Cookies

3/4 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
1-1/2 c. flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1/4 t. nutmeg
3/4 t. cinnamon
1 c. mashed banana
1 c. rolled oats
1/2 c. chopped nuts

Cream shortening and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Combine flour, soda, salt, and spices. Stir into sugar mixture. Add banana, oats, and nuts. Drop by teaspoons onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400 for 12 minutes. Makes 3-1/2 dozen cookies.

While the cookies were baking we went back upstairs to the gameroom to do a craft. The girls made wooden spoon dolls and the boys made trucks. Except 2yo was off doing something else and 6yo decided he wanted a doll instead of a truck. Here they are working:

Here is the one truck that was made:

The girls with their dolls (plus the boy) later on:

Today

This is my first link to Darcy’s Not Back to School Blog Hop. I just can’t seem to get everything together and up on my blog in time. I eventually did post a very short post on our school plans, after trying for weeks to write a long, detailed post with pictures like everyone else and never making the time. So today I’m doing the blog post, because I’ve really enjoyed reading all the other links. I just think mine won’t be nearly as exciting or funny, but its nice to look at what you did in a day sometimes.

Morning

I got up a little before 7 today, took a shower, dressed, and went upstairs to get on the computer. I check my email every morning before the kids get up, and I also have my daily plans and task lists on my google calendar, so I check up on that throughout the day at the computer. Plus, the computer is a great place to get in some morning reading. When the kids were up at about 8, I sent them in to tell grandma happy birthday (grandma lives with us and its her birthday today). 6yo asked for cake, so I told him when all the work is done today I’ll make the cake. Then I went downstairs and made breakfast while the kids visited with grandma. Today’s breakfast, by request, was chocolate sandwiches and chocolate milk.

I had eaten granola at the computer this morning, so while everyone ate at the kitchen table, I washed last night’s dishes and figured out which chocolate cake recipe to make. Then the kids built “sonic world” in the front room with trains and blocks, and played a little on the piano in there, while I did some laundry and rinsed breakfast dishes.

I didn’t get my weekly school planning done over the weekend, so a little before 9 I was on the computer again typing our daily work into my google calendar and posting it on the wall schedule for the kids. Then the kids were so busy playing – baseball for 7yo, 6yo, and 4yo and army men for 2yo – that I came in here and started my “Day in the Life” blog. Now it’s 9:30 and definitely time to start working.

Lunch

We do lunch at 11 everyday because that’s when dad comes home for lunch. So between 9:30 and 11 we did math lessons and writing. Here is 6yo working on math in the gameroom.

At lunch, the kids played restaurant – I think they watched Ratatouille again recently. 2yo dressed up in the chef clothes and kept bringing mom and dad the imaginary stuff he cooked. The other kids made a pretend menu and took turns pretending to order and bring the food. They ended up eating leftover rolls from dinner last night. 4yo had some peanut butter, too. That’s all they wanted. I think they are saving up for chocolate cake.

Now we still have to do Latin, independent reading, and read aloud time. We’ll probably do Latin and reading, make the cake, and then have read aloud time while the cake is baking. We also need to make birthday drawings for grandma, and we should do some maps for our geography notebook. Not to mention start up our memory notebooks. Some things may have to wait for another day.

Afternoon

We did Latin for 7yo, Headpsprout for 6yo, and independent reading for 7yo between 12 and 1. Throughout the day 4yo and 2yo have been putting together puzzles with grandma and just generally playing. At one point I found this in the upstairs hallway:

Then we went downstairs to make a chocolate cake. The kids went back and forth between helping me and playing in sonic world in the front room. 2yo stayed with grandma and worked on puzzles. 7yo asked to dust, wipe the table, and then set the table for cake. So we have a table set with cups, plates, and napkins waiting for the cake to be ready. While the cake baked I did the dishes and 4yo and I made the frosting. Now its cooling and the kids are working on birthday drawings for grandma.

I think mom is cool with this, so I have to tell a story about the pictures. Something funny for my post! I saw 6yo trying to stick the drawing to grandma’s door with stickers, so I got some tape to put them up. I thought it was a good idea. Grandma came out, looked at 6yo’s drawing, and said, “Oh, I have such pretty hair!” 6yo said, “Yeah. That is when you were not old.” Mom just looked at me. Then 4yo brought her drawing to be taped to the door and mom told me that 4yo said some certain letters on there meant “old”. 4yo spelled it “ood”. So I think this is probably grandma’s best birthday ever. It turns out 7yo is old enough to be discreet.

Well, the cake is cooling and its not that great. I can’t seem to find a great chocolate cake recipe. I used the Hersey’s Cocoa one because I heard again how much someone liked it, but I’m not in love. I think it might be because I grew up eating sheet cake. Since I’ve been an adult, I’ve found out that people from outside Texas call it Texas sheet cake, and in one cookbook I saw it as Texas Cake. So I started to think that there might be this huge population out there that hasn’t had sheet cake. I’m posting the recipe for you folks. I’ve never made it for birthday cake because, well, its sheet cake, and somehow that just doesn’t seem right. But no other chocolate cake really tastes good once you’ve had it.

Sheet Cake

2 c. sugar
2 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 – 8oz. sour cream
2 large eggs
1 c. butter
1 c. water
1/4 c. cocoa

Combine first four ingredients, stir in sour cream and eggs.
Melt butter over medium heat, whisk in water and cocoa. Bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Remove from heat.
Stir cocoa mixture into flour, pour into a rimmed cookie sheet (that’s what I use) or a 15×10 jellyroll pan.
Bake at 325 for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Spread the frosting over the warm cake. Eat warm.

Frosting

1/2 c. butter
1/3 c. milk
1/4 c. cocoa
1 – 16oz powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla

Melt butter over medium heat. Whisk in milk and cocoa, bring to a boil. Remove from heat.
Slowly add sugar, stirring until smooth. Stir in vanilla.

Evening

Well, that was weird, huh? You probably weren’t expecting a recipe. After cooling, frosting, and eating the cake – and singing Happy Birthday and blowing out candles – we went back to work and read some history from reference books about the time of Abraham in the Bible. We also looked at maps and timelines and worked on our own Book of Centuries and geography notebook.

The kids also worked on sonic world some more.

Then dad got home a little after 4 and we drove to dad’s uncle’s parents’ house to deliver some birthday drawings and a gift (it’s Pop’s birthday, too). They live out on some land a little ways out in the country, so the kids had fun looking at pet turtles, feeding them worms, playing with the dogs, climbing trees, and generally living it up.

We stayed so late that we picked up pizza on the way home for dinner. Then everyone was pretty tired so we read scriptures, sang songs, and went to bed.

And that was it.

Touch a Truck

Here are some pictures from over the weekend. At a local park they brought in some work trucks and vehicles for kids to climb around in.

Fire Truck

School Bus

Ambulance

Police Car

Here we are in our truck getting ready to go home. Can you tell it was a hot day?