Blast from the past!

Wow, I had really forgotten about this blog, and DEFINITELY had forgotten WHERE it was! Cleaning out old email files is really a blessing :) I'm thinking it would be wonderful to put together an update and take up doing this again at least to some degree, to keep a record to look back on. I was GREAT about taking pics and printing them off when the kids were little but NOT GREAT about getting them into albums and organized. Now with the digital age i'm not great about taking all the pics and I NEVER print them. So doing more here would at least leave a place to go to and see them :) So.....update coming later! Hopefully with some very updated pics!!

Our piece of history...

Last Friday we were able to participate in a field trip with several other homeschoolers. We were able to travel back in time to 1910, to a one room school house for a full day of school. This was complete with a packed lunch only like they would have been able to pack back then and dress as they would have. So here they are beginning their day, of course the girls are on one side and boys on the other.......unless you act up to much and have to sit on the opposite side! Thankfully we didn't have anyone have to do that ;)

They were given a list of spelling words to write on their slates....

then one group was called to the front for recitation while the other group stayed at their seat and practiced writing each spelling word, in turn, 10 times on the back of their slates.

Here was the girls cabinets holding their lunches.

The cabinet on the left here contained the boys lunches and the table on the right was the hand washing station, complete with lye soap!

The students took turns washing hands, girls first of course, after which time their hands were inspected by the schoolmarm.

There were a variety of options for what we could pack for lunch. Some lunches include "leftover fried chicken from last nights dinner", bread and butter, bread with meat,etc.... Many apples and surprisingly LOTS of hard boiled eggs were had. No oranges or bananas were allowed as tropical fruit would not have been common in Oklahoma during that time period. 

 And of course lunches were packed either in a pail or basket, with food wrapped in paper or cloth and a tin cup to drink out of.

 After lunch, which had to be eaten inside due to the rain we'd had that morning, they were given a small amount of time to play outside on this wonderful thing called a flying jenny! The kids had a blast.....I so wanted to join in ;)

 Following lunch they had a short moral story while they rested their heads on their desks. After that was the history lesson  current events discussion where we talked about recent issues here in Oklahoma including our recent statehood which  occurred in 1907. Many of the other facts we discussed I found very interesting and news to me! Last but not least, the spelling bee. Miss Snap made it up till the last cut, she and one other student missed the same word leaving the last student to win....so close!

 And of course this trip wouldn't be complete w/o a shot of them in front of the schoolhouse :) I'll have to take a close up of their mini quilts they (with some help to get them done in time) made to cover their lunch pails ;)

Fun in the......water?

After a trip out to play in the water  mud this is how The Zipper came in, covered almost head to toe!! Boys will be boys huh?!?

April highlights

My mom and I took a trip with the kids to Iowa mid-April to visit some family and had quite the adventure! Here was our first "rest stop" which was just a slightly rural gas station where there was some fun exploring area for the kids.

Of course I had some GREAT intentions of taking lots of pics and documenting everything......which didn't happen :) But I have to share our grand adventure. As we were exiting the hwy in a not so great part of town in the Kansas City area mom's engine just dropped the gear. No matter how she tried to change (even reverse) nothing was catching. So we found some guys at the QT a block away, which was why we were getting off in the first place, to get gas there, and asked them to help us push the car into the parking lot. They towed us with a chain into the parking lot where we started checking things and making phone calls. Long story short 3 1/2 hours later we were on the road in a rental van while mom's van was towed to a dealer to get a new transmission! Lovely start huh :)

Well after making it to Des Moines and staying the night with my cousin we headed to the capitol building the next day for a tour. The Zipper was full of excitement

as he spotted this....pretty huh!

Among the many things we learned there I think one of the coolest was the fact that the exterior dome is "painted" with real gold. It's a coating that if you scrapped it all together would be about the size of a baseball....wow, that's a small amount to spread over that whole dome! I believe they said it has to be redone about every 20 years. It takes about 2 years to do it because weather conditions have to be exact for them to do it in.

The 2 younger boys needed a nap so my mom and cousin took the older 2 to the military museum on the base where she works. Among other things the kids loved the para-scope.

And the jump area of a plane.

I'm just now realizing I didn't really take any pictures of family or other activities we did :( We also went to the Music Man Museum in Mason City and visited with my Aunt and other family there. It was a great trip and we look forward to doing it again sometime :)

Easter fun

I got the coolest idea to do along with Easter this year. It really has nothing to do with WHY we celebrate Easter, it's just added fun for mom the kids! I of course can't find where I got the idea now....if you know PLEASE link it in a comment and I'll add it. But here it is (sorry, only partial pics) The idea is that you have wheat grass, or something similar, and you have the kids put jellly beans into the grass....

Here's miss snap with her packet and patch of grass.

The button with his....

the zipper.....

and zigzag stitch!

and in the morning......a magic flower has grown (sorry no pics of this but it's one of the big lollipops that are rainbow colored.) Of course the older two totally know it's mom and dad but who doesn't love a giant sucker! LOL

Lots of catching up to do...

Well I have sooooo much to get caught up on. I've got pics of some of the things I made family members for Christmas (that of course I couldn't post till they opened them), pictures of what I received in the handmade gift exchange I participated in, and sooo much more, but 1st...... the other day I was having a really hard, off day. So I got online to try and unwind a bit and I came across the greatest blog. It's called "V. and Co." which was wonderful, but the best yet was this post! Oh my, they say laughter doeth good like a medicine...I got a great dose. I was in tears from laughing so hard! My kids couldn't figure out what was so funny......needless to say I'm sooo hooked on her blog now :) Enjoy and I'll be back with some updates and pics :)

With Love Blue Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly for elegant custom Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Well I got my code today and here it is.........

Good intentions

 So are you one of those people like me.....you know, pre-marriage or kids, who used to be great about at least sending out birthday cards, thank you cards, and cards for no reason, but then a hubby and kids happened and all you've had is great intentions of sending them out? Yep, that's me (don't wiggle your finger at me now and lecture me on how terrible I am......I've already done that myself.) great intentions......hey some years I've even bought them on clearance for the next year but alas I can never find that great place I put them to not forget next year......until of course like Valentines day! Lovely :) Well not so this year! I'm even aspiring to do PHOTO cards. Of course it helps that I've been given this GREAT opportunity to do so by shutterfly.....they are offering 50 free cards to bloggers and HERE'S HOW: Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… sign up:   http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Check out some Christmas designs here

Check out some Holiday designs here

Or if you're a procrastinator you could try a New Years card here 


Well now just wish me luck in narrowing down which one I actually want and what pictures to use!   Stay tuned! Shall pick 

or

and maybe fill it with 

Enter to win!

Would you like to win a new quilt??? I sure would! Chelsea over at Pink Fig Design is doing a giveaway, two actually. She's giving away to one lucky random person, and one lucky random shop owner!! Head on over and check it out ;)

Handmade Tuesday...

Go check it out, i'm being featured there today :)

Awesome giveaway!!!

There's a silhouette giveaway here!! Of course i'd really rather you did NOT enter so I have more chances to win ;) LOL

3rd stop....

Our last stop for the buildings was the barn. Since the motto for the day was "Waste not, want not" we also talked about how they did this on the family farm. This first machine you would put the dried out corn husks in to get all the kernels off.

This machine was a sorter. It sorted the corn into small, med, and large bins. The small kernels were used to feed the animals as there teeth are usually smaller anyway. The med kernels were for making food for the family, and the large ones were for planting crops for the next season.

This was a mill for making corn meal. The one on the left is a crank and the one on the right is for milling by hand.

Though they don't use this it is a working cider machine. You put the apples in the top container and crank the wheel and a bucket placed in the wooden slats of the bottom catches the juices :)

This was a roping station where they had little fake cattle heads on the fence for the kids to practice throwing lassos at. Needless to say the boys LOVED this area!

And a slice of true work on a farm. They explained how one of the kids jobs, first thing in the morning,  was to clean the animal stalls out and put down fresh hay.

Last but NOT least, we made rope!

 Top: You attatch twine to the hooks. Bottom: you turn the crank to twist and tighten the twine creating a rope.

A bucket is at the other end acting as part of a pully.

Finished product :)

So as you can see we had a GREAT time!!!

A refashion

So I've been all over these hair flowers and a friend from church who's noticed asked if I wanted a necklace of hers that had broken to use for flowers or whatever. She showed it to me ...

and I explained to her that I could easily fix the clip or replace the ribbon if she'd rather have the necklace back. She said really she'd just like a hair flower made out of the flower on the necklace but with a little more added to it :) So I got to work looking around....

and I found an old scarf from Lerner New York from when I was in high school! Way out of style now, but lovely print ;)

 So I cut out some circles and used a lighter to seal the edges and cause the curling. (I think I ended up doing about 7.)

 Next you fold the circle in half...

 Then fold again, not quite in half but about 2/3 so it gives it some pretty body. I didn't show this step but I just began hand sewing each one on until it was as full as I wanted it and I got the finished result :)

Then you just add a piece of stiff felt on the bottom and add your alligator clip or pin, which ever you desire. Easy peasy :) I also went ahead and fixed the necklace and made my own flower to attach to it.....

 and it's a scrappy flower made from the scraps after I cut the circles out.