Happy Thanksgiving!!

You know how I say "You are what you eat"?  Well apparently we're veggie filled turkeys.  :)

The kids just ate over 1/2 of this in less than 15 minutes.  LOL

This is the one I made for our church Thanksgiving... I should have made MY kids the super big one.  :)

Holidays here at our house are not about food... this is the first time I've made anything this awesome and it was b/c it's a veggie dish and ridiculously easy to make.  :)  Years ago, my husband told me to just cook easy and not cook anything that causes me stress.  He has gladly given up so many "traditional" foods so I wouldn't have to spend days in the kitchen stressing over how to make our food look like everyone's holiday table. 

Here, holidays are about family... yes we eat, but we celebrate each other, not food.  I am so thankful for my family.  I am one lucky girl.  <3

New fairy stuff

Grace told me the fence is there so the fairies can lean over the fence and chat with each other.  I suspect it may also be a divider to keep her sister's dirt off her side.  ;)

We decided to really spruce up the area and make it homey.  These are pictures from old calendars I had before the girls were born.  I kept them specifically for the pictures not realizing they would one day decorate Fairytopia.

 

Kate's new garden... it's for very young fairies who like to move their stuff around a lot and play in the dirt.  The snake plants really were getting much too large for her original pot so this is perfect.  Grace gave Kate her hanging name b/c it's actually cookies for the fairies to eat.  It only LOOKS like a Christmas ornament to keep trolls and other non-fairy creatures from eating it.

Grace's new spruced up garden.  See how neat she keeps it?   This garden is for the more mature fairy who enjoys a pretty quiet spot to rest at the end of the day.

The girls collected that cup of red berries today while at our home school co-op. 

 Ooo one of the fairies left their toy on the bench!  Grace put tons of pretty flowers on the side so the fairies will not get sad when it gets cold and all the flowers outside turn brown and die.

 River rocks and water, complete with seashells of course.

This is actually an overhead view.  Kate wanted the fairies to see how much she loves them even when they fly overhead.  They can see this heart from their door.

And there you go... the newest fairy fabulousness.  One thing I have come to understand in these years of fairy gardening is that fairies are not picky creatures.  They accept nice and neat as well as dirty and messy.  Gotta love it!! 

Last week there was actually an article in the paper titled : Fairy gardens can spark creativity in kids, adults.  My hubby cut it out and saved it to show me.  :)  Yep, I'd say fairy gardens have definitely sparked creativity for all of us here.  Even Tony, who will not be caught dead playing in the fairy gardens, has made trinkets for the girls to give their fairies. 

Fairy garden update

Grace and Kate were sick this weekend and missed a birthday party because of it.  So to make things happier, I let them redo their fairy gardens.  Before we started I realized we  never took pictures of the last redo!  So here it is.  I'll post later with pics of the new gardens.  

The stuff in the seashell is medicine Grace made from leaves in case the fairies caught their cold.  :)

Grace made this pillow for the fairies.

Just a close up of the door.  That's a cinnamon stick to the right of the door.  We heard long ago that if you smell cinnamon in the air, it's because fairies are nearby...when they moved in here they brought the cinnamon stick with them.  

I hope you enjoyed the pictures... stay tuned for more soon!

Random pictures for October

Well I couldn't very well post pictures about swings and not have a post of something for Grandparents... so here's something for you.  :)

This little caterpillars were caught in my celery garden (which is now a twig patch, thanks to the varmit).  It has been living in the butterfly garden for a few days and just yesterday we noticed it has attached to the top... forming a chrysalis.  We can't wait to see if we end up with moth or butterfly.  :D

Some random school pictures... this was the Zen garden we made as we studied the Manchu dynasty.
  It lasted about 2 minutes before it was just sand and rocks all over the house.  Not doing that again.  ;)

Tony was making his face to go with his completely body study. 

Grace practicing her typing.  She can now type 3 words a minute without looking... not a bad start!

Oh look!  My veggie garden!!  Isn't it beautiful????

Cabbages

Collards

A soon to be pickle.  ;)

Tiny little tomatoes!

 

 So far I have bok choy, tat soi, collards, kale, cabbages, scallions and tomatoes growing.  Oh and radishes are trying to grow but they're still wimpy right now.  I love going out to get food from my backyard!!

How our swing is attached to the ceiling

I know this is random but someone was wondering how to safely attach indoor swings.  So here are pictures.  It is attached to the main downstairs support beam.  This is VERY sturdy.  I have had teen boys jumping onto and off of the swing, flying trapeze moves were performed, and I also sit on it... it continues to hold steady.

The swing is an Ikea swing.  :)

Hope this helps!!

EFMP goes mobile

The Exceptional Family Member Program is a military program that is supposed to help those in the service with special needs children.  In our 11 years of having special needs children in the military, they tried to help a few times but were way out of their league with our particular issues (extreme food allergies).  The dietician never knew what to tell us although two of them tried REALLY hard.  I don't blame them, they really don't have the right information to help someone with our challenges... they have a certain RX of thinking and that's it.  They also refused to help us with autism recovery so overall our experience with them was negative.  This has been an almost across the board response with autism in the military, whether the member is aiming at recovery or life skills. (I'm sure there are some exceptions to the norm)   However, I have friends in the military who have had positive experiences with EFMP.  They do not deal with autism and it has been a life saver for them in many ways.

The military has recently been asking questions of members regarding EFMP and has learned of the large gaping holes in the system, and are working to rectify the situation.  Here is a link to the newest ways they are trying to make things more parent-friendly.  So if you have a military friend with a special needs child, pass the link along so they can access their help a little easier.  :)

The tides of "boxed thinking" are turning and even the military is beginning to think some alternative therapies are worth investigating.  Yay for forward thinking!!  

Curricula for 2011-2012 School year

Whew! I am really bad at this whole blogging thing!!  We've been in school for 2 months now and just realized I hadn't written this post yet.  :D

So as promised, here are the goodies we're using this year.  (Click on the links if you're interested in seeing what the books look like)

Tony:

Teaching Textbooks
Story of the World 3 
Sequential Spelling 
Fallacy Detective 
God's Design for Life: Machines 
LOF
typing 
guitar
He's being taught IEW, Art and Grammar by other fabulous homeschooling mommies at a Learning Partnership


Grace:
MUS 
SOTW3 
Easy Grammar
Sequential Spelling 
Fallacy Detective 
typing 
piano
She is taking IEW & Apologia from our Learning Partnership


Kate:
MUS 
Teach your child to read in 100 Easy Lessons  
(Yes she did use that last year but was not quite ready to really learn... this year she's all over it!)
Sequential Spelling
SOTW3
Art appreciation at Learning Partnership

And of course tons of read alouds... not even going to attempt to list all of those.

Aha, someone called to my attention the fact that I do not have science.... must find a science program.  :)