Speilgaben has arrived woo hoo

This is what arrived today after waiting since October. They were supposed to be here for Christmas, but you can't rush customs.  Oh well my guys didn't care it just extended Christmas for them.

The top box was a wee bit mangled, but all the pieces are fine. 

This is what came in the top box. 

So it took mommy an hour to unwrap everything. And it was so much fun all I could think of the whole time was what will my sweet boys do with all these fun things. 

And once daddy got home they were allowed to open their last Christmas gift and they went at it with a vengeance. 

Mom I love the colors and the circles, these are my favorites. 

Daddy look I can lift this huge barbell I made.  Daddy told him to be careful and not over lift such huge barbells. 

Check this out brother aren't these circles super cool. 

This is my volcano that will spill all over the Earth not another plant brother.  Mwahaahaahaa 

Mom I lost my main support, I need more support.  Argggggh 

The bad guys are trying to get rid of my fleet mom.  (Some squares and half circles were added to the board.)  They are trapping the guys.  (More squares and half circles.)  They are going to be attacked by more bad guy fleets.  (Even more squares and circles.)  Wait how did you guys get in here?  (Ahhh the diamonds have been added.)  This side is good, that side is bad.  They are going over all my fleets all the bad guys are trying to get me.  (The circles have been added.)  I have beat the bad guys mom.  (The circles and diamonds have been put away.)  I have now turned them all into good guys.  (The rest are put away)

Hope you all had as much fun over Christmas as we've had.

God Bless you and your family.

Gretchen

Edgerton Science Center

We had a blast yesterday going to the first homeschool event of the year at Edgerton Science Center, in Aurora, NE. My boys had a blast for an hour, before classes started, playing with all the hands-on fun. 
Mine traveled around and looked at most of the stuff, Bobo stayed at the train tables and Buggie tried out eveything he could get his hands on, but loved being at the spinning table the best. He also got to play a Kinect Wipeout game with an older girl and Bobo, life sized Operation game, waterway play, and lots of other fun things.
Then the class began about Monarch Migration. The class went over lots of information on Monarchs life cycle and migration patterns. Then we all split into 2 groups:  catching and tagging was group 1 and cutting and gathering seeds for butterfly habitats was group 2. Lots of fun had by all.
Buggie said his favorite things were "being with his family, making giant bubbles and seeing the butterflies".

Sick House

Ok I was going to post for the last 4 days , but I've had a horrible head cold and cough and just didn't want to.  On the up side we've been having fun anyway, even with mommy grumpy sick. 

Buggie had a blast making up his very first recipe, he decided we needed more to our croissants so he made his own mixture of sugars and cinnamon that he put in the dough and on the outside.  I was very proud of him for wanting to take control of it and mom didn't help he did it all himself. 

Then Bobo was feeling left out so he became the laundry.  Such a silly guy, but he got our attention and that was the point right.

 

So then Buggie decided he would help me crack eggs for our egg bake Thurs night after our learning meeting with the vet on how to give insulin injections.  Not a big deal and the kids thought it was fun.  Thunder does not go in unless she has to so we we're shown on a vet cat and Bobo took great pleasure grabbing one of the needles, yeah mommy freaked, and "shot to kiki" was told to the worried looking tripod kitty on the examining table, poor thing.  Daddy explained that these were only for sick kitties and only mommy or daddy can use so off Bobo ran to tell his big brother all about it, I do love how they like to share with each other it's so sweet. 

 

And this is what Friday looked liked, which is how mommy felt.  We all were feeling icky so we had "movie day" and watched leapfrog and "chuck and friends", Netflix is our friend on days like this.  Buggie has been doing some work even though nothing real structured, I've really been lazy, but that is all changing today with a new schedule, will talk about that later though.  So Buggie has been on abcmouse.com and he loves it because it let's him control what he wants to work on, but he has to spend an hour on the learning path they have set up for him, before he can go shopping and build more tunnels for his pet hamsters, on the game, or get new things to play with in his "room".  It's a nice program and it's helped him build independent working skills and use of his timer.  We started using it on the trial basis and Buggie wanted to "buy" it the first day in and for our family it has been a really good fit.  It starts with Toddler, which we'll be starting Bobo on some mommy computer time soon, and goes up till Kindergarten.  Buggie is also loving Charlie Churchmouse software and Lego.com. 

Well daddy said church was a must on Sabbath, which is good, but mommy didn't feel like it surprise, I would have much rather been sleeping without noise as they went to church, but off we all went together.  Afterwards we went to a beautiful lake with family friends and the boys had a blast, and it helped me feel better to be in the sun and water too.  We spent the afternoon looking for rocks and shells and the kids founds some beauties.  A wonderful day playing and having fun in God's nature.

 

 

Then Sunday we hung out at home while daddy did daddy things around the yard, the boys played and mommy sat and read to them all.  That evening Buggie and daddy went to empty one of our storage units and got met with rain once home, which made for a hard time to get expensive computer equipment into the closer storage building, but he managed it without any issues, what a man, love him to pieces.

So off we go on a new week, trying to get structure back in our school lives and in general.  I am trying Teaching with God's Heart for the World this week, please go check this free resource out.  She gives a great background and daily lessons all tied together.  I just needed something I didn't need to think about but could just do it now and this will work perfect for right now. 

Hope you week begins beautifully and may God Bless you.

Gretchen

Happy Springtime

I hope you all were able to go outside and enjoy the wonderful weather over yesturday and today we sure did. Buggie did lots of school stuff but in an unstructured way we enjoyed a great afternoon out yesturday listening to the birds, dogs and trains, while naming all the vehicles that drove by. It was good to be out in the fresh air so much so that this morning when Buggie woke up and saw it was sunny he asked to go out, so I checked to see how cold it was, it was chilly. He wanted to go out so bad so we were out till his cheeks were starting to turn pink, but he wasen't cold at all, had to promise to come back out later. So in we went and played and warmed up with food since going outside was much more important then eating our morning meal. Then around noon I tried to sneak out and check the temp but Buggie was right there asking to put his shoes on so off we went into the wide wonderful backyard for 2 hours of fun.
he turned our backyard into quarry as I read him Goldielocks and the 3 Bears (This is fun because he gets to play but he has to pay attention too cause mommy asks questions as the story goes along and he did an awesome job of answering them and he retold the story afterwards while burying all his cars)and we played stop/go or green light/red light same thing. And we were in our sterilite sandbox driving through the purple sand and rescuing all the vehicles we could. Then it was back to the quarry after a quick run on our balance beam in the middle of the yard (a 2x4) and mom got ready to read The Gingerbread Man, now Buggie is 2.5, but we are finding he has an amazing retention and recall ability. So I ask if he remembers the story and he says yes mommy. I ask was he nice or naughty, oh he was very naughty mommy. Well Buggie why was he very naughty, beacuse mommy he kept running away, I was so proud of him. But here is the kicker, we've only listened to that story once on CD 3 weeks ago. So if anybody has any advise on gifted homeschool curriculum, please let me know.

We went out again after nap because it's supposed to snow tomorrow and I wanted Buggie to get as much fun in as we could without snow.

Well God is good and I hope you all have a Blessed evening.

Gretchen

PS I promise to add pics later oh and did I say we colored rice tonight, well daddy and Buggie colored rice, check out The Foster Clan's site to do this project too. So much fun and we are so excited to play with it all tomorrow.