Robots and Toothbrushes....

Well we have not been doing much official schooling over the last few weeks. I have been trying to give them ideas to stretch their mind. Here is one of the projects that Sam did.
It is a really cute robot helmet. I also included some shots of each of the boys trying it on.

Then Santa left a new toothbrush for each of the boys in their stocking. It was one of the Toothtunes brushes. Gabe has loved them a little to much. This is pretty much the way he has looked since it came out of the package. It plays the Transformers theme song. Funny kid.

Our Weekend

How was everyone's weekend. Ours was really good. Busy but not to busy. On Friday Dh had to work but got out early. So we went out to supper. He got a gift card to the Olive Garden so we decided to go there.
As you can see Gabe was completly full of energy and never stopped moving. When the bread basket was empty he asked if he could play with it. Silly me I thought he was going to use it as a boat. Nope straight on to the head! LOL. Can you tell that his big brother was a little embarrased.

After supper we went and used some of the kids gift cards that they got. So even more toys. It never ends does it?!?!

Well Saturday was Go To The Zoo Day! Of course we had to go to the zoo. Our zoo is kind of small so I thought I would share some of the great sights that they have that creates some great discussions.

Like this, The Myan pyramid. It even had some great pictures carved in stone around it.

Plus some really fun statues to hang around on. Look at this really cool tree. The picture just does not give it justice. It is really neat to see how the tree wraps around itself.

Then of course you can hang out in the life size bald eagles nest.

Then Sam and I went for a little walk by ourself while Gabe got a drink with dh. We thught that we would look for them. Is that him out there. Nope just some Siaming monkey's. Sam thought he might have spotted him what do you think?

Don't worry we did find the real Gabe and did not leave him behind at the zoo.

Then of course, there is always the favorite of the goats at the pettting zoo.

We finished up the weekend with a trip to the movies. Have you seen the new movie Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler? If you have not I recommend it. Very cute and funny.

Our Christmas Celebration

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas. I thought that I would share some photos from our Christmas with everyone. It was alot of fun for everyone. Our grandmother came and stayed with us for a couple of days and the boys had so much fun sharing all of their new toys and games with her.
On Christmas eve the boys each got to open one gift. They choose the gifts that were from each other.

Gabe got very excited when he saw what Sam got for him. He got the Mach 6 from Speed Racer. For anyone that knows him, knows that is a perfect gift for him.

Gabe showed how well he knew his brother Sam. He got this set of egyptian book ends. Sam loves them and carries them every where.

Like I mentioned earlier our Gram came over for a couple of days. One of her favorite things to do is play skip-bo. She could play this game all of the time. She also got into Sam's new pinball machine. She played for hours. Her top score was 5000 points. The boys even introduced her to the Wii system. It was alot of fun with her.

Sam continued on with our around the world studies and made lamingtons for Santa. He read that is what little kids do in Australia. Of course he had to taste test and make sure it was good and yummy. Which of course it was.

Gabe loved the book Whopper cake and wanted to make it. We decided that would be a good dessert. Instead of topping it off with frosting and ice cream we put cool whip on it. Very yummy that way and not so sweet.

Of course there was much joy and excitment seeing what Santa brought for everyone.

Santa got a King Arthurs castle by megablocks from Santa. This is what the table looked like trying to put it together.Very Crazy and it took about four hours to put it together.

Of course with bumble bee attacking while you are trying to build did not help either. LOL.

We did get it finished though and here is a front view.

And the inside. It even comes with a round table for King Arthur.

I hope that you all had a great holiday!

Merry Christmas

The Best of Intentions.....

I really have had the best of intentions on staying up to date on the blogging. Well you know what happens to the best of intentions right? Life happens thats what. I mean we have been trying to have stress free holiday and that was going on just fine. That is until last week when DH got sick. He is doing fine now but last week he was down for the count. Of course between that and taking care of the boys I have not been able to get to the computer much. We have been having some fun though so here are some pictures of it. I bought each of the boys a new book from the dollar store. It was a 3-D fact book. How cute are they in their new glasses. Sam's book was about the solar system so his glasses has suns on it. Gabe's was all about the jungle so he had some super cute tree frogs on them.

Once Dh started feeling better he sat with the boys and did a fun project with them. They made their own gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. Check out what they look like.

This one is Gabe's. He called it construction catastrophy. Funny kid. He loved the gum drops. He ate them then asked if he could decorate it again.

This one was Dh's. He did more after the picture was taken. He was afraid that it would fall. He was trying to be creative. LOL.

This one Sam's. Such a cutie he is. I loved that he even made a whole yard for his.

I love doing projects like this and seeing how different they all come out. It is a lot of fun to see.

Now for the final picture. Can you guess what happened here? Gabe happened. My beautiful little child has been on a bit of a mischiveous stage lately. Ok a little more than usual that is. This incident he wanted to see how strong his toes were and tried to put them through the picture. Thankfully he was not hurt. Oh what to do with this child.

Fact List Time.....

1.) Turkeys have heart attacks. When the Air Force was conducting test runs and breaking the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead.

2.) Turkeys can drown if they look up when it is raining.

3.) A wild turkey has excellent vision and hearing. Their field of vision is about 270 degrees. This is the main reason they continue to elude some hunters.

4.) Turkeys’ heads change colors when they become excited

5.) Male turkeys gobble. Hens do not. They make a clicking noise.

6.) The heaviest turkey ever raised weighed in at 86 pounds -- about the size of a large German Shepherd -- and was grown in England.

7.) Gobbling turkeys can be heard a mile away on a quiet day.

8.) Domesticated turkeys cannot fly. Wild turkeys, however, can fly for short distances at speeds up to 55 miles per hour. They can also reach speeds of 25 miles per hour on the ground.

9.) Turkeys sometimes spend the night in trees.

10.) Domesticated turkeys cannot fly. Wild turkeys, however, can fly for short distances at speeds up to 55 miles per hour. They can also reach speeds of 25 miles per hour on the ground.
1.) Otters are found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.

2.) Otters are the only marine mammals that have fur instead of blubber. Otters must groom their coats constantly to keep them from becoming matted. A grown otter's fur can contain up to one billion hairs.

3.) Otters mark their territory with droppings called spraints that have a very distinctive odor that resembles fresh mown hay.

4.) Sea otters are often referred to as "Old Men of the Sea" because they have long white whiskers on their face.

5.) When baby sea otters are born they are almost as big as their mother.

6.) Otters can dive down over 55 feet when they are chasing a tasty fish. That’s more than eight times deeper than a swimming pool.

7.) River otters can hold their breath for up to 8 minutes.

8.) Eyes of river otters have special lenses that aid in underwater vision.

9.) Old male river otters often have white body fur.

10.) River otters have ears and nose with a special skin that closes and keeps them watertight underwater.

Any one have ideas of what we could do for our next animals. What would you like to see us do for the fact list. Just leave me a message and I will try to get them done.

M.I.A.

Wow when I disappear, I can really disappear. I figured that I better make a post though before everyone thinks that I dropped off the face of the earth. We have been busy around here getting things done for the holidays. It has been a nice busy though. This time of year is normally so stressful on people that I decided to take an easier approach. I mean normally our school lessons really are not that bad but during the holidays it can get a bit much. So dh and decided to change up for what we do normally. The kids are getting all of the same classes it just may not challenge them the way we normally would. Next month we will get back to the regular schedule because the structure does work here. Until then we are enjoying the holidays and getting some learning done in new ways. Here is some pictures of what we have been up to. Christmas can provide lots of learning oppurtunities. Just decorating the tree we covered so many subjects. You just need to be a little creative. ;) For example we covered science, history, art, and geography. The science was covered by learning about the type of tree that we got. You can even learn a little bit about electricity if you explain why some lights might not be working. History is more of a family history when you talk about how you got all of the ornaments. Art of course is covered when you decorate the tree. Then there is Geography. I signed the boys up for an ornament swap project online this year. They made oranaments and sent them to kids around the country, then got some back. Sam has also been busy researching types of decorations that other countries put on their trees. See who new there was so much learning just from having a christmas tree.

Of course math has been covered with lots of cookie baking. That even covers our life skills. Gabe even made it into an english leason by practicing reading the recipes.

For Sam's english he has been reading Little Women aloud to me.

We also got out side for science a little bit. I took the boys on a walk around the block to do a rainbow scavenger hunt. They had to find things of different colors that were alive and sketch them in their journals. It was a ton of fun on such a beautiful day.

So you see there has been lots of learning going on. I have been loving this time. Now if I could only hire a maid to come and do the cleaning, so that I can spend all of my time doing this. I would be one very happy mama.

Before I go I wanted to share with you guys one of the Christmas projects I have been working on. Gabe has been talking alot about farming. For one of his gift we wanted to give him a farm set to play with. I found a really cute project idea at Micheals. These are just some of the project that I have finished so far. I love that cow. I think that it is so cute.

Hope that all of you are enjoying your holidays. I would love to see what all of you have been up to.

School at the zoo.....

Yesterday we took the boys to their first homeschool class at the zoo. The boys had so much fun. Unfortunetly it was the last class until the spring. Sam is already saying he can not wait until the spring, so that he can go to class again. The boys were in two seperate classes but we did manage to get some picture if you want to see them.

Gabe's Class was about invertabrates. At first the class started off showing different invertabrates, such as a live trantula. That of course freaked Gabe out. I understand though because I was a little nervous of it. It was in the cage the whole time to though. LOL. Then she showed lots of different exoskeletons, which were really cool. At the mid-point the class went outside to have a scavengerhunt for invertabrates.

Now time to explain the photos from his class. Dh had the camera in Sam's class so we did not get pictures of Gabe's begining. Dh joined us when we came in from the scavenger hunt. For the last half they showed animals that eat primarily invertabrates.
This picture was of my brave little boy touching the most adorable little hedgehog. After all the kids had a chance to touch it, she set her down so she could feed.

Oh look how cute that little screech owl is. The owl was very talkative during the class because she did not want to be awake.

It is hard to see in this picture but she has a really cool lizard on her arm that is from the middle east.

In Sam's class they talked about porcupines and hedgehogs. Here are some of the pictures that dh took of the porcupine.

The kids in Sam's class they kids made some fruit kabobs to feed to the porcupine.

It was a really great day. The boys had such a great time.

Eku Odun Ebi Jesu

The season is finally upon us that I love so much. The time to decorate for Christmas. Oh I love this time of year. It is so much fun. We found this great book at the library this year. It goes right along with our around the world studies for school. Our friend Kate is having a Holiday Decorating Party over at her blog. So we wanted to share some of our projects that we are doing. It is each Friday until January 2 so make sure to look over there and see everyone else's wonderful decorations.

Our first stop on our world tour of the Christmas Holiday had us landing in Nigeria. Oh yeah I guess I better translate the title. It is pronounced "EH-koo oh-DONE eh-BEE hay-SUE", This means "Happy celebration on the birth of Jesus Christ" in the language of Yoruba. A tribe in Nigeria.

The project that they share in the book is decorating palm branches. The Nigerians actually decorate palm trees instead of evergreen trees at Christmas. They believe that palm branches are a sign of peace and a symbol of Christmas.

Sam took on teaching art class today and I think he did a wonderful job at it. Don't you? :) Sam's palm branch is to the left and Gabe's is on the right side.

Make sure to check back for our next stop on the world tour.