Quiet Please

Today, was a slow day for us. I must say it was a welcome change to our schedule recently. We are heading into a very busy month. October will have at least one engagement per weekend. I know today is a rare quiet treat; I am really enjoying it before the storm.
Today, as I cooked lunch Richard played golf in our living room. The girls got in on the fun too. They were rooting for him like he was Tiger Woods. I absolutely love the fact that my girls have fun with their Daddy no matter what they are doing.

Have a great day!

Welcome Fall

I knew I was going to have a good day yesterday. The first thing I heard on the news was it was the first day of fall. I LOVE FALL! 

Though when I looked out my window the trees were still all green. I told Richard I wanted to go and spray paint the trees orange.
We decided to take our girls on a field trip since they are studying life cycles and classifications. Richard found this little wilderness center in Redondo Beach. We packed a lunch and headed out the door. Now, the internet says this place is 11 acres. I either have no clue how big 11 acres are or they lost a few of their acres.
We still had a great time. There was a lot to see. The girls were able to see ducks, koi, turtles and many little fish.

The girls looking at the turtles.

Feeding "Queenie"

My Little Abby

The weather was perfect yesterday it was a clear warm day with a slight breeze. While we were in the wilderness center, we were in shade most of the time. There were hundreds of trees to keep us cool and also allow us the opportunity to hear the wind blow through the trees. Among, all these green trees was a beautiful gift from God just for me. 

A sugar gum tree that realized it was the first day of fall.

After our excursion to the wilderness center, Richard decided we would drive down to the beach for a walk, since it was such a beautiful day. We were blessed to even find free parking.

This picture is important, because they were

just supposed to get there feet wet.

The girls  with their Daddy.

Tonight I made this cake for dessert to celebrate everything fall. It is a Caramel-Apple Walnut Cake. I used apples from my father-in-law's tree. It was delicious. You can find the recipe here.

Hello Again

I can't believe I have not posted in over two weeks. Life just seems so busy right now. I think about posting often, but I always seem to get side-tracked. So I will let you know what has been happening in our world. School is going great this year. The girls are still having fun after a month. As part of my school day I am also making it a point to spend time with Abigail to do "school" things with her. She loves puzzles so I am doing that quite a bit with her right now. I found this great website called Chasing Cheerios with so many simple ideas for teaching children. One of the ideas was to make homemade puzzles from the front of boxes (cereal, crackers, granola bars, etc.).

Abby working on puzzle.

Abby with her first completion.

Hannah and Rachel really excited to do the puzzles too.

Rich teaching the girl's about life cycles of plants.

My first attempt at making my daughters clothes. 

Back to the drawing board.

Izzy and Robin

For all those who are wondering Izzy is doing great. We do not know if it is a boy or girl, so we just refer to it as Izzy. We are having a lot of fun watching him/her. Richard and I have been making sure Izzy is eating well. He/she seems very content, well at least as far as we can tell.
We pulled our resources and bought Izzy a new home with more room than the jar. Now the kids want to fill the jar with another animal. What have we started?

Richard has decided we will be releasing Robin the spider back into the wild this week. He is concerned that if Robin is a girl, we could have baby spiders. Yuck! Robin has grown bigger just in the week we have had him or her. Let me tell you spiders eating things is not pretty. We watched Robin suck the life out of a fly and another unidentifiable bug. This is science in action.
I keep hearing "wow," "cool," "come see this" I have to admit it is great for the kids. I also enjoy having Izzy in the kitchen while I cook. He keeps me company.

We Grew By Two

Yesterday we started our 2007 - 2008 school year. It was a great day of learning. Even if we had not started formal teaching, God would have got our little girls excited about learning with everything he put in our path.

We started out our morning with oatmeal for breakfast and Richard going over his expectations with the girls. After breakfast Richard and the girls took the trash out.
On the way out Rachel found a very large spider. So Hannah runs in and asks for a jar. I don't have any jars, so I do a quick check of condiments and find a jar to empty.



They all come in and are very excited. Richard, being the great dad he is goes and gets the field guide so they can figure out what is living on my kitchen counter. No luck. I have a pet spider named Robin living on my counter now.

Now, I must add as a side note here, when I was in high school I bought a tarantula for my dad. My mom freaked out and would not let it in our house. So we had to find a pet store to take it. My mom would not even ride with it in the car. When I was growing up she would always say, "I hope God gives you a daughter just like you," or she would utter some kind of bad karma on me. Well, yesterday I called my mom and she laughed and laughed and said God was good. He is good!

So, back to the story of our first day of school, after the whole spider event we started in on school.


After lunch we took the girls to the library. We came back home and were getting ready to go to our friends' house for dinner, when I found a lizard by our car. Don't ask me what I was thinking, but I caught it, gave it to Rich and went in to find another jar. I have named our lizard Izzy. He is sitting on my kitchen counter next to Robin the spider.

As a final example of God's beauty in animals we were on the freeway and a Great White Egret took off from right next to us and flew over our car. It was so beautiful and graceful.

We finished off our first day of school with great friends and food. What more can you ask for?

Rachel asked me today if we are going to start carrying jars around with us.

USS Midway

This week we had an opportunity to take our girls on a field trip to the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum in San Diego. We all had a great time, there was so much to see. We were on the boat for over 4 hours.

Richard and the girls in jail.

Now, this is a mixer.

Thanksgiving in this kitchen would be easy.

The girls giving Daddy a haircut.

My beautiful girls on the flight deck.



The girls with the soldiers (these are wood cutouts).



Inside one of the helicopters on the flight deck.



Rachel after our field trip.

Math Test

Today, as I was correcting my oldest daughter's math test I noticed she kept breathing hard. I asked why she was doing that and she answered that she was nervous. I explained to my daughter that tests are to help us, not make us nervous. We need to learn things in life and tests help us to know if we understand things correctly. She passed her test which means she finished her book. She made a couple of small mistakes, so I had her sit next to me and we worked on them together to make sure she completely understood. I do not want her to go to the next level of math unprepared because I was eager for her to pass.
As a homeschool mom, I need to be very careful that I do not put pressure on my children to make the grade I would want(to somehow validate me as their teacher), but that they are learning and having fun doing it. As a HS mom I constantly feel the pressure to make sure they are learning what their friends are learning in school, but as I pray God reminds me I have them home for another more important reason. That is to mold my girls into godly women. To not just say "sit down and do your work," but to explain patiently to them how to figure things out on their own.
When I was in school I would cram the day before for a test and forget everything as soon as I wrote it down. I want my girls to remember what they learn because it was enjoyable to learn about in the first place.
Homeschooling for me has been God working on me in so many ways. I am so thankful that God uses every detail in our lives to teach us of our dependence on Him.

Field Trip

Yesterday, we took our girls on a field trip to Pt. Fermin Lighthouse in San Pedro. We had a wonderful time, we had a picnic at the tables in the park and then we walked around the edges of the park looking down along the coast.

We were able to see seven sea lions on a rock below.

While we waited for the next tour of the lighthouse, a volunteer in the gift shop offered to take us over to the little gardens on the property. He had planted most of the plants himself. He took us through every bed. He even pulled off leaves and let us try several of the edible plants.

This is the kitchen in the lighthouse. There is a wooden high chair in the background.

On the other side of the kitchen was this washing machine. The tour guide explained to our girls how clothes were washed during that period.

The sewing machine was in the master bedroom along with this rocking chair.

The girls were able to dress up in keeper clothes.

We were able to go up to the tower of the lighthouse. This is the view looking up the coast to Palos Verdes.

Rachel feeding the very friendly squirrel, he ran up to us as we left the lighthouse.

A very enjoyable day in Southern California!

Home Education in Our House

Our local volcano

The little stickers are the girl's villages


Today, my husband and children gathered around their volcano to watch it erupt. They built the volcano last week, painted it yesterday and today was the day to watch the explosion. The eruption was quite small, but I was happy since this great event was happening on my kitchen table.

My husband has been teaching our girls about volcanoes in science and this was the culmination of lessons. I believe our girls will always remember these lessons.
When I was teaching our girls science, I would just read the lessons to them. My husband is quite the opposite, he does every experiment with them.
That is what makes learning fun for all of us.