Back to School... or should I say, "Back to Home"?

Or 'Back to the Basement'?! Regardless of how you say it, it is that time of year once again-- time to get back on a schedule and start hitting the books... Summer is on it's way out (not that I'll miss it's blazing heat and thunderstorms!) and I am looking forward to FALL!

I didn't take any of my typical first-day-of-school pictures with the girls-- however, these pictures of them cooking for our anniversary dinner happened to also fall on our first day, so I guess they will have to do.

Our 5th grader (with her apple pie):

Our 2nd grader (with her potato gratin's--recipe courtesty of The Next Food Network Star show winner!):

We are continuing with much of the same curriculum this year. Math for both girls stays the same but some new changes are taking place in grammar and vocabulary for Abbie, spelling for Emma and writing for both girls. Our core is again from My Father's World and we will be starting in our 1st year of a 4 year cycle of world history. This year we will be studying history from "Creation to the Greeks". Because of the time period covered in this curriculum, we will naturally be focusing quite a bit on Biblical history as well as many of the traditions and celebrations of the Jewish people. Part of our 'hands on learning' will include preparing and participating in the Jewish holiday and holy day celebrations such as Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, Passover and Purim.

(Notice the happy look on Michael's face that I'm taking a picture of people at the table! My mom will be proud!)

Our first Jewish tradition to celebrate was the Sabbath. Fortunately, we have a book that details all of the preparations and prayers that are a part of this event. We didn't have a typical Jewish meal (no gefilte fish for us, thanks!) but we did bake homemade challah bread and make potato latkes (which we do enjoy!). While it felt a little awkward because it was our first time and we didn't exacly have a feel for the flow of the events, it was definitely an interesting experience to see all of the detail and symbolism that goes into a weekly celebration. We were all really ready to eat by the time we got through all the ceremony!!

(The challah loves and covering made by the girls)

In other news, the garden is still producing tomatoes by the basketful. I've canned a total of 7 quarts of marinara sauce and 4 pints of salsa... and now I'm just putting tomatoes in the freezer (because I've decided that the whole sauce making/canning thing is just too time consuming now that we're back in school!!). Here are a few more pictures...

I've decided that pioneer life was certainly much harder than I've ever imagined-- it took me ALL DAY to make my few quarts of sauce. I'm certainly glad my family's survival through the winter is not dependent upon my gardening and food storage preparations!!

All about Abbie...

Those of you who are very observant may have noticed something 'missing' from the last few posts that I've done of Abigail... specifically 10 1/2 inches of hair! Abbie has been growing out her hair for over a year with the goal of donating her hair to the organization "Locks of Love" which uses donated hair to make wigs for cancer patients. She accomplished her goal at the end of April and surprised Emma & Daddy at SEFF with her cute bob haircut!

Abigail had her spring piano recital this May and she played two pieces: Amber Glow and Slavic Dance. I have to admit that back in January when I first heard Mrs. Sylvia playing pieces for her to choose from, I was a little doubtful that she could pull these off by May-- but she certainly did!! Click on the links below to hear excerpts from each song:

Amber Glow from Wendy Timms on Vimeo.

(I especially love how graceful her hands are during this piece!)

Slavic Dance from Wendy Timms on Vimeo.

Rounding out Abbie's accomplishments this spring was participation in the "Lit Blitz" competition sponsored by our local library. Lit Blitz is a combination book club and quiz bowl. The children would read a book each month and then meet at the library to discuss it, answer comprehension questions as well as go over related vocabulary words. Then 2 weeks later, they would have a 'blitz' competition where the coordinator would chose the questions/vocabulary randomly and they would have to 'buzz in' with their answers. First correct answers were awarded points which accumulated over the year. Then in May, they had a final "Blitzkrieg" with questions from all 6 books (120+ questions and 60 vocabulary words). Abbie led the competitions every week and was declared the 1st place winner in total points at the final competition. Our voracious reader has her reward!!

Spring events...

Since I can't seem to blog on any kind of a regular basis (unless you count once per month as regular??!), here's a post with all kids of information about what we've been doing this past month...

We started the month on a sad note-- my 89 year old grandmother passed away in late February and the girls and I travelled to Florida for her memorial service. Although we were sad to lose Gaga, we rejoice that she is 'home' and no longer suffering. We enjoyed spending time with family and even managed a quick trip to the beach.

(the girls with Gaga's bear collection)

(watching the cruise ships at the beach)

This is 'old news' to many but since I never blogged about it, I figured it was worth mentioning-- March in Atlanta arrived with snow showers! The girls were so excited to have snow on the ground for two days and thoroughly enjoyed sledding, snowballing and snowman making-- despite the fact that it was nearly SPRING!

(Have you ever seen a Labrador smile??!)

We also have been studying the continent of Asia this month and spent a few weeks in China. We enjoyed things like playing with tangrams and making Chinese lanterns and ended our trip with a "China Party" with some fellow travellers! Our friend, Angie, adopted a son from China last year so she was able to share her photos and first-hand experiences with the Chinese culture. We enjoyed a feast of Chinese food and the kids tried their hand at writing their names in Chinese (pretty difficult!)

The girls both had their spring choir performances this month. Emma's 1st grade choir actually had some choreography with their songs this time which she was excited about. She will get to move up to the 'big kids' choir in the fall and have the chance to participate in the musical productions and she is really looking forward to that. She loves to sing! Abbie was part of the muscial "Parablelooza" in which she had both a choreography and small speaking part. Our church's children's choirs always put on excellent productions-- but they focus on encouraging the children to see that using their talents to His glory is ultimately the reason for their performances.

(Notice her cute new haircut!!)

(Abbie is the 6th 'yellow girl' from the left.)

The girls have also been attempting to play soccer this month. I say attempting because I am pretty sure it's official that Georgia is no longer in a drought... in fact, I'm wondering if we had some kind of 'moving of the island' (you LOST fans will understand!) and Georgia is now located in the Pacific Northwest??? We have had more days of rain this month than I can count-- so needless to say, soccer practice has been spotty at best.

Abbie is playing her first season of soccer and it's been tough on her but she enjoys it. She's actually had one game so far. Emma is returning for her second season and she has the same coach and most of her same team from the fall which is nice. They've yet to have a game. Between them (and when its not raining) we have soccer practice FOUR nights per week plus games on Saturdays!! I am SO NOT USED to being a 'sports mom'!! This is crazy!! Fortunately, it only lasts for about 6 more weeks so I guess we will be able to make it. I'm not sure about having two kids in sports at the same this fall, however!!

(Abbie got to be one of the team captains and do the coin toss on her first game!)

March was a busy month for us... I'm not seeing that April & May will be much less busy except that we are now done with choir and our homeschool Co-Op until the fall so that does free up a few extra hours.

I, for one, am looking forward to June...

If homeschooling doesn't work out.... she can always join the circus?

The girls received tickets to the "Big Apple Circus" for Valentine's Day and today was the day of the show. They were eagerly anticipating this event as neither of them had ever attended a circus.

We arrived early at Stone Mountain Park and had time to look around a bit and check out their seasonal 'Snow Mountain' attraction (which was proclaimed super cool by both girls!)

We wanted to be in line early so we could choose good seats. We entered the tent and settled in with our popcorn, cracker jacks and cotton candy. Not long before the show started, one of the attendants asked if we'd like to move down to closer seats since the show was only about half full. The girls were excited to be sitting on the second row-- right near all the action!

It was a great show-- with enough clowns, musicians, horses, acrobats, dogs and jugglers to keep us thoroughly entertained. About midway through the first half of the show, however, things got really exciting!

One of the clowns picked Abbie out of the audience to come into the ring with him! He was doing a spoof about pretending to conduct the orchestra. He had Abbie take a turn and she did a great job!

Then he chose one of our Co-Op friends' dad to take a turn at 'conducting' and he... well... didn't do quite as good as Abbie. So the clown had to have her come back to 'help' him. It was so funny and what a memorable experience for her first circus visit!!! They even had them both take a bow at the end of their 'performance'.

Both girls and I thoroughly enjoyed this outing! If you ever have a chance to attend a performance of the Big Apple Circus, we highly recommend it! And who knows-- you may even see a performance by one of my daughters!?!?!

A visit to Saudi Arabia

We are so enjoying our "trip around the world" this year in school. So far, we have visited 4 continents and have just entered the 5th (and largest)-- Asia. It has been fun to have other friends using the same curriculum as we've had opportunities to share school adventures with them.

Yesterday, we had some of these friends visit and we learned more about Saudi Arabia together. The kids all wore some type of headcovering-- and we all decided that it pretty much would stink to be a woman there and have to cover everything but your eyes! It's hard to breathe through a scarf!!

We also spent a good bit of time talking about camels and learning some interesting things about how God created them to be uniquely adapted to their environment-- right down to their wide, flat feet that don't sink into the sandy desert.

(experimenting with mock 'camel feet')

We wrapped up our time tasting hummus and flatbread-- all agreed that flatbread was great but there was not such a consensus on the hummus! We were 3 for and 3 against!!

We are blessed to have such great friends that we are able to work AND play with!

A belated trip report

the flower gardens in Canada

playing native African instruments

It has taken a week for us (well, specifically Mommy!) to recover from "Girls Week" at Disney. We had a fantastic time but it completely wore us out! Our typical vacation plan when we visit Disney is to have 2-3 park days scattered in among 'rest days' at the resort. On this trip, we visited the parks FIVE DAYS in a row... and quickly came to the conclusion that that is not our favorite 'Disney Vacation Strategy'!! Next time we will go back to our more leisurely exploration of the parks...

Even though we have visited Disney many times, there are still many things that we (or the girls) have not experienced. Some of our 'firsts' on this trip included:

Staying in a 'value' resort (smaller rooms but just as 'magical' as a moderate or deluxe!)...

Learning to draw Goofy at the Animation Studio...

Having breakfast with Pooh & Friends at the Crystal Palace (the last time I ate here it was a cafeteria-- does anyone remember that??!)...

Getting faces painted (Tinkerbelle & a butterfly/flower fairy)...

Riding Astro Orbiter (the girls' first time)...

Participating in a 'Velcro game show' at Innoventions in Epcot (Abbie)...

'Driving' the boat on the Jungle Cruise (Emma)...

Driving an 'electric scooter' because of her hurt knee (grandma Anna!)...

We had also never visited the parks in January and went with the expectations of very low crowds and comfortable weather... which mostly happened. The beginning of the week was very pleasant (see previous post for swimming pictures!) but it got pretty chilly by Friday. The crowds started out extremely heavy at Hollywood Studios on Monday (not sure why except maybe leftover marathon crowds??), cleared out to nothing mid-week (we rode Buzz 5 times without a wait) but then picked up again on Friday (MLK holiday??). One advantage/disadvantage (depending on your point of view) of travelling in 'off season' is that sometimes rides are down for maintenance... can you guess which ride is NOT Abbie's favorite??

The girls chose two very different but special souvenirs of their trip. Abbie picked an oyster in Japan and had the enclosed pearl made into a necklace.

Emma chose to have a parasol custom painted in France.

All in all, it was a great trip. Michael managed well without us (although I think his buddy Jake the Labrador was sad to see us return as he was downgraded from 'house dog' to 'basement/outside dog'!!) We enjoyed visiting with our Florida family and having my mom along for part of the trip. Disney's "Homeschool Days" is a great option for travelling in off season and seems to be a pretty well-kept secret (the group at the special speaking event on Monday was fairly small-- only a few hundred people). We definitely plan to participate again... but will not be quite as ambitious in our touring schedule!!!

Live from Disney

Abbie here. One of mine and Emma's Christmas gifts was a trip to Disney. Anna (our grandma) and Mom, Emma and I, got to go. We are staying at Pop Century. Did I not say we are there now? I guess not. We got here on Sunday and are staying for a week. Yesterday we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios. Sunday we hung around and went swimming and went to Ohana for dinner. Today we are at Anna and Pacca's house and later going to the front part of Epcot.

The main reason we came was for Disney's Homeschool Days (which was at Disney's Hollywood Studios) .

Another fun thing we got to do was meet Prince Caspian from Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

One of my favorite rides is the new Toy Story Midway Mania. You get in the ride vechicle and then use your cannon to shoot different objects at different targets. There how was that for explaining? If I did it right you should be getting that picture in your head, right?