Easter party

My great friend Kimberly Delongchamp put together a fantastic Easter party for our neighborhood. Complete with the Easter Bunny himself!

I was honored to be asked by the Easter Bunny to read a small story on the steps of the park about "Curious George and the Easter Eggs"

Yes, my friend is amazing, that is 800 filled plastic eggs!

Show & Tell

We had show and tell, one of the last Friday's in March. The girls really wanted to buy my mom a gift for her farm.
 This made a wonderful opportunity to a) buy gift b) have cool show & tell object to share.

Off to the Triple D Feed store and we are now the proud owners of two French Guineas!

Who will grow up to look like this

They love to eat ticks, so they are awesome for farms in the south that have tick problems. Many junk yards also have guineas instead of a dog. Guineas will roost high in trees and sound quite the alarm if ANYTHING happens out of the ordinary.

Here are the girls telling about their guineas (You can't see the 12 or so people listening!)

Play time

Snack time ( we were celebrating March B-days)

March 22nd a Sunny day for the Renaissance Festival

I was bound and determined to learn how to spell the word renaissance by the time the day was out, but I still misspell it every time!

I did the girls hair in the morning because I did not want to be suckered into those $40 braids they do for kids at the festival.                                          Et Voila !

We had just finished the portion of our Sonlight curriculum that covered the time period 1400-1600 AD. We studied lots of Michaelangelo, the Medici family, and the rise of King Henry's Church of England.
Here is a great book on Michaelangelo and Queen Elizabeth.

I definitely wanted Jessica to learn something about the renaissance from all this.
 (We went on elementary student day-which made the festival very modest & clean)

We watched the falconry show -

And the jousting tournament.( I was so glad she finally was able to see and understand a joust!

After we had read so much on Castles, Keeps, pages, stewards, lances, knights etc etc etc. She finally got a great visual!)

Their favorite part of course was a pantomiming fairy named Twig

Tori still talks about Twig, and how her stone is out of fairy dust. :)

Jess on the bungey line

The long day was finished off with a visit to Great grandma's house, and a rest in Grandma's lap

And a mad rush back to a church in the West Valley where Jessica sang "Raindrops On Roses" and "Part Of Your World" at her very first vocal performance! 

Great job! Although eye contact was only made with the floor for her ;)

I am so proud of this gentle girl!

What that in the Sky? It's a bird! It's a plane! It's rain?

March 21st we had a scheduled trip to go to the Glendale airport's Fixed Base Operator (fancy name for flight school)http://www.aerosimaviation.com/

The plan was to have the kids get a presentation from a real life airline pilot, (step in nervous airline pilot husband) fly in a simulator, have an aviation related snack (my airplane cookies with the wings falling off) and hopefully listen to Air Traffic Control bringing in a few personal aircraft to land on the runway.

BUST!!!-We had rain, 60 degree temps, and heavy clouds above the airport that morning. But that did not stop our determined young minds-we pursued our FBO tour, hoping that we could steer some of the talk toward weather and how it affects flying. 

This is the 710M simulator the kids flew. I think only a few crashed ;-)

Bobby told the kids that being good in math is an added plus (pun intended) in aviation.

But anybody can do it. They just have to teach themselves how to learn the material and retain it.

 He started when he was 14 years old mowing grass and washing cars, to make money for his flight training!

Bobby showing the kids a Cessna 172

I think he touched very briefly on Bernoulli's principle of lift, (how particles of air move faster over the curved top of the wing thus creating a sucking vacuum and therefore lift)

First Office Stokes pointed out the Stall Indicator device. Which can be tested manually by sucking on the bug infested wing (yum!)

"Yes, I think this wing is flight worthy"

All in all, we had a great time. Above are two of our 8 year old boys who may have dreams of sailing the skies one day soon.

Thank you to First officer Stokes and Aerosim Aviation for your knowledge and time!

Happy Saint Patricks Day!!

The month of March is my month to plan activities for our homeschool group in Verrado.

(Every single one of these ideas was given to me by a wonderfully creative friend Heather Haupt, Who I credit and thank for these wonderful suggestions that I could copy.)

Today, we had our St Patricks Day party. There was a bit of preparation before the event. Such as buying
prizes dowels, paint, pretzels, white chocolate, heart-shaped cookie cutters etc. But it was so fun putting it together and hoping the kids would learn something!

We borrowed and read "Patrick"  by Tomie Depaola

I also made clover pretzels with white chocolate! Very easy and yummy! All were eaten at the party!

At the party the kids were encouraged to make a card with a shamrock on it, representing the trinity.

This card could then be used to share the Good News with a friend:)

None of the male children participated. Whatever! I can only control so much.

I then asked the girls what the Guinness World Record was for leaves found on a shamrock?

 The answer is-18 leaves & found in Japan!

(winner received prize)

Afterwards, there was a relay race where the children passed a baton to each other signifying the sharing of the Good News.  Just as Patrick, patron saint of Ireland did!

(Baton I painted)

A day at Blue Sky Organic Farms

We are very blessed to live about 2 miles from Blue Sky Organic farms.
 http://start.cortera.com/company/research/k3j2juj5s/blue-sky-organic-farms/


A friend of mine, Carl Seacat, has an acre there, where he plants heirloom tomatoes, flowers and different varieties of lettuce, vegetables and melons.
He sells to local and renowned restaurants around the valley including the Wigwam Resort and Sauce in Phoenix.


After a particularly long week, I stopped out there to see if I could help Carl with anything around the garden

 He told me that since tomorrow was the farmer's market in Phoenix and Scottsdale- He needed hundreds of Poppies and Calendulas cut to be sold in the morning.


What fun! I spent about 1.5 hours just cutting flowers while the girls picked/washed/ate- fresh out of the dirt carrots! 


It felt so peaceful to just have the sun shining, & the wind whipping my skirt as I cut flower, after flower, placing it in the metal tub--monotonous perhaps, but therapeutic.

Here is my bounty!! (doesn't look like much, but those little suckers cost .75 a stem!)




I don't know what it is about gardening for me. Perhaps because life began in a quiet beautiful garden?
My soul is made whole there. I no longer feel the brokeness of life. It is when I feel closest to God. Alone, quiet, reflective......

I found this funny hat in a pile of gardening equipment, It isn't pretty, but it still did its job! LOL

HAPPY SPRING GARDENING!

Science Experiments gone crazy! PART II

Well we have finished our science experiment and loan behold, seeds like water the best! (who knew right?)
The second runner up was a Diet Coke seedling which was all puny and yellowed, but still growing, and quite a ways behind the growth of the plant which received water.

Jessica threw the D.C. seedling somewhere in the grass so I was unable to get a picture! :(

The milk seed did horrible. Milk does not have the same draining abilities that water has, and it just rotted the whole amount of soil in the cup. (seed was found unchanged) I am now curious about Almonzo's milk fed pumpkin in Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls. This maybe be coming to you this summer in Wacky experiments part 3! LOL

The orange juice cup had molded on the top where the OJ had sat exposed to air. below the layer of mold, the seed was found..undisturbed....:) Until I disturbed it.

I thought it would be neat to try and plant the 3 "losing" seeds in a normal condition and see what happened, but I did not.

So, You Are What You Eat! And water is really good for seeds. God knew, again, what was best for us and everything He created.