Michelangelo's in the making...

Well we are fully in to our study of Italy now.  So of course that means we have to do a study of Michelangelo.  Here is one of the projects that we did.  They painted lying down, and thought it was a little cool.  They would have liked it better if their arms did not hurt so bad. 

They even took precautions to protect their eyes by wearing their sunglasses.  Too cute for words.

Overall the project was a hit.  I think that they would definetly want to do it again.

Happy President's Day!

Hope everyone has a great President's Day!  We saw this idea over here on MADE in honor of celebrate the boy.  There dad used her template that she offers and hand painted these.  He does such a great job with painting.  I will try and share some of our other pictures of the shirt later.

A little about Sam....

Sometimes it is kind of hard to know what Sam wants in life.  He is kind of a private kid and keeps all of that to himself.  As his mom, knowing what he wants is important of course.  Well lately he really has been into Arts and Crafts, so I decided to give him a project that would help me find out.  Some people call the dream boards, some call them wish boards, you can call it what you wish.  They are really the same thing, things that you want in life.   

So here is Sam's board.  He took a large canvas and covered in so polar fabric.  Then he glued some animal ribbon around the board because he wants to save animals all over the world.  Then he took some wooden shapes and painted them up to represent things he wants most in life.  Lets take a look at them shall we.

He wants to visit Canada!

Build his own house!

Start a store of his very own!

Be a farmer and grow his own food!

The monkey represents his brother!

Be a World Traveler!

Start a Zoo to help all of the animals he rescues!

Be CEO of National Geographic!

The frog represents himself, because that is my nickname for him.

Well I hope you liked his board.  He made sure to leave extra space because he will have more dreams in the future.  I love that he is always dreaming.  I think the world has a good future with him in it dreaming the way he does.

Celebrate the Boy

Two of my favorite craft blogs, Made and Made by Rae, started getting together last year to do a whole month on boy projects.  The projects were really great and they are doing it again this year.  I can not wait to see what they are going to do.  It starts today, so make sure to click on the button and head on over there.  What are you waiting for, lets celebrate those boys!

Valentines Day!

Since valentines day is only two days after Gabes birthday I never get to make much for this holiday.  I have been really enjoying making banners for the front window lately.  I put this one together pretty quick and I thought that it turned out really cute.  I just used felt and ribbon, so easy and inexpensive.

I even did some baking to send off to my nieces and nephews.  All in all it was a pretty productive valentine celebrations.  What is every ones plans for tonight?  Mine is grocery shopping, I know exciting right.  It is though because my favorite valentine gets out early today and is joing me.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S!!!

February 12, 2003

Someone Turned 8!!!

Needless to say he was pretty excited about it all.  He kept saying all day that it was the "BEST DAY EVER!!!"  LOL

One of his first gifts that he got to open was from his Aunt and Uncle in New Jersey.  He was to funny and told me I better get the camera.  Always the little ham!  They did such a great job.  They got him a little handheld game from the movie Cars 

This was his really large big gift from us.  He saw this monkey at Toys R Us and loved it.  The thing is though that he saw it at christmas after we had already finished all of his shopping.  So we really surprised him on his birthday.  We even bought a couple shirts for him to dress up in.  My husband thought that the Donkey Kong shirt on him was to perfect.

Look at the size compared to him this thing is huge.

He is really into music and wanting to be a singer.  Sam got him a new guitar for his birthday to help along that dream.  Such a good brother.  ;)

Gabe even wanted to have his monkey Sam (yes he named him after his brother) play the guitar too.  He actually took this picture of him.

My two monkeys eating banana monkey pancakes.  We got an adorable pan at Target for the monkey pancakes. 

Gabe is really into the movie Cars.  His dad made this play set of radiator springs for him.  then to go with it we picked up some extra cars to go with it.

His cake.  O.k.  first go easy on me they were really hard to take pictures of  because of all the different angles.  Of course it is not the best job on the decorating either, but that is a whole nother story.  It was of this really cool ice cream and cake pan that I got at target.  Unfortunetly I did not take a picture of the pan to share with you and I can not find a link for you to see it.    The animals on it were a monkey (of course), an elephant, a lion, a gator, and a hippo.

We had a really nice lunch with family.  Gram and Harriet made a 4 hour drive just to have lunch with him.  I think he is pretty loved.

Getting a little sugar high from the cake. 

What always comes after the sugar high...the sugar low of course.  This monkey is so comfy to snuggle with...  seriuosly comfy.

even Rob got a snuggle in.  LOL

Later that night we had some friends stop by.  Which it is always fun to watch this little guy play.  He really loved Gabe's car that he got for christmas.

Sam used his uDraw to make brother a birthday card

Another entry of those crazy boys!

OK I did manage to get back here for another post this week.  Yeah!!!  I just had to share this with everyone.  It is the newest public speaking videos.  This week I let the boys do their own.  I told them that they could set up a stage and use props, they had so much fun.   I hope you enjoy what they came up with.  Sam is actually already working on what he should do for next week.  Lets just say it should be interesting.  One is more than likely going to end up dressed like a sumo wrestler.

Here are the poems that each of them read.  It came from a book called Someone Used My Toothbrush!  The poems are written in the order of the videos, so Gabe is up first.

BELLOWING IN THE BATHROOM

There's a bellowing in the bathroom

Like a mad moose on the loose

Or perhaps it is a rhino,

Or a loudly honking goose.

could it be a wounded bison?

A gorilla's mating call?

It bounces off the ceiling,

And echoes down the hall.

Could it be a brontosaurus

Roaring at full power?

No, it's just our dear old dad,

Singing in the shower.

THE MEDICINE CABINET

Our medicine cabinet is full of junk,

Squeezed-out tubes of nameless gunk,

Little brown bottles of ancient pilld

To fix some long-frogotten ills.

Sprays for noses, feet, and pits,

Half-a-dozen cures for zits.

Barettes and scrunchies, mousse and gel,

Ointments with obnoxious smells,

Thermometers and toenail clippers,

Rusty razors, nose-hair snippers,

Cough drops, syrups of all sorts,

Patches to get rid of warts.

Wipes and swipes and salve for sores,

Two small plastic dinosaurs,

Sunblock, sunscreen, sunburnlotions,

Tiny jars of mystery potions,

Bandages and dental floss,

Fake tattoos and old lip gloss.

Safety pins and dye for hair --

Open up that door with care,

For if you don't, then you will chance

A medicine cabinet avalanche.

I hope that you are enjoying the shows that they put on as much as they are doing them.  I am so proud of these two videos because they did them all on their own and are very funny serious and well done.  No all joking aside I thought that they did a great job.

Public Speaking

I am pretty hit or miss on my entries latley. When I do post it is very little about the schooling any more, so  I thought I would share a little public speaking today.  The boys have one day a week where they work on public speaking for English.  I pick out a different poem for each of them to do and then they read it aloud working on emotion and pronounciation of words.  Well this week I put each of them on video after they worked on it a little.  Please forgive the poor taping.  I had not used the video feature on my new camera yet, so a few things to work out still.  Enjoy it other wise though, each video is around one minute long.

I got the poems this week from A Burst of Firsts.  It is a great book of poems, make sure to check it out.  Just in case any one could not understand everything I thought that I would include the poems each one read, starting with Sam and then Gabe's.

First Person to Create Blue Jeans

Levi Strauss - San Francisco - 1873

First, coal miners wore the pants.

(Denim came from southern France.)

Cowboys followed, then came teens--

Half the world is wearing jeans.

You decide which pair you want--

Zipper-fly or button-front,

Loose-fit, wide leg, classic kind...

Half the world's been redesigned,

Sew it seams, on its behind.

First Time the Sound Barrier Was Broken

By a Brontosaurus -- About 100 million years ago

A Brontosaurus tail

Could cause a frightful gale.

THE SNEEZE! The sudden lash,

The wind -- and then the CRASH!

What first broke the sound barrier?

A Brontosaurus derriere.

I am going to video tape the boys each week for their public speaking so I will try and share it with you all.  I hope to get back here soon, who knows though.  Got a lot of work to do around here right now, a certian little boy around here turns 8 on the 12th.  Hope to see you all soon, hacve a good one.

Japanese Egg Molds

Alright I am so far behind on my entries it is not really funny.  I was meaning to show you some stuff that we did over the holidays but it is just way to late know.  I did want to share something pretty cool with you that the boys got for Christmas though, Japanese egg molds

They come in sets of two.  We got the one that has a car and fish.  As you can see they are big enough to fit one egg each in.  We were not really sure how to use them since the directions were written in Japanese.  Thankfully they did have pictures on the back so we could have some clue how to use it.  First we made hard boiled eggs like you normally would.  Then we quickly peeled them while they were still hot, put them in the container and sealed it off.  On the package it had a picture with the containers in a bowl of water, so we put the containers in warm water for about 10 minutes.

Once they were done they looked like this.  The car came out really cute.  The fish however had a hard time getting the tail working though, LOL.

Look how cute the car is.  It was alot of fun for the boys.  Hope you enjoyed.