Doing School and It Doesn't Even Feel Like It

I am a Virgo. I like order in my house. I was so excited when Mr. W gave me a fancy label maker. I've had a the desire to purge my spice rack and re-do the spices that I had in it. My spice rack I've had for a long, long time. I made a list with the help of Vivian of all the spices I actually used.  I made another list of the spices in my cabinet that I use that were not in my spice rack. Vivian and I visited local health food store and purchased in bulk the spices we needed.  We came home and with her help dumped all spices, washed all the bottles and refilled them with the new spices we purchased.

In this moment all is well in my kitchen.  I love my new organized spice rack. Vivian enjoyed helping me. It was a handwriting lesson. Spelling lesson. A life lesson of being thrifty. Why spend money on over priced spices at the grocery store when you can go to the health food store and buy in bulk. Most of the spices at I purchased were organic. Next I tackle my pantry!

Olivia Basketball Season

This year Olivia emerged as force to be reckoned with on the court. Gone are the days of being shy and afraid of the ball. Looking at Olivia out the court I had to do a double take because that did not resemble the Olivia I knew last year during basketball season.

It helped that this year Olivia had a fabulous coach who motivated and encouraged the girls. Each game they got better and better. Yes, they lost a lot of games not just lost but got creamed by some pretty aggressive and talented teams but during it all they kept getting better and stronger.

I loved Olivia's attitude. She didn't get caught up in the winning and being obsessed with how many points she made. She just went out there and played because she likes to play.

Mark Williams, the girls basketball coach worked the girls hard at every practice and it showed at the end of the season. Olivia was so pumped and excited to play this year that she was sad when basketball season was over.

Next year Olivia will play middle school basketball and will not have Coach Williams as her coach. She is looking forward to playing with different girls (some from last year) and having a different coach. I can't wait to watch her as each year she gets better and better as well as taller and taller!

Yoga & Meditation: Never too Young to Learn

Through a funny introduction I met a wonderful friend. We share many interests and beliefs about the world around us. She had the fabulous idea to start a weekly yoga and meditation group for home schoolers in our area. Her mom, Michelle is a yoga instructor. She has fabulous pictures of cats doing the various yoga poses each Friday for the kids to follow along. Class is about an hour. We end with five minutes of meditation. My girls love the class, I do too. I am so glad that my girls have this fabulous class. I didn't take a yoga class until I was in my 30's!

Celebrating the Winter Season: 25 Days of Christmas

Every year we have the tradition of celebrating Hanukkah with our good  friends, Barbara & Bernie.  This year I hosted a fun Hanukkah dinner at our house. I made Potato Latkes and Matzo Ball Soup. Months before the month of December I had an idea of celebrating the entire month, just not Christmas but other winter holidays and the origins of the the modern day Christmas. This is our first official Christmas without Santa Claus.

Here is Barbara's beautiful menorah. She gave us a smaller menorah that we will forever treasure. Hanukkah fell early in December so we started our 25 day winter celebration with a fun evening with Barbara and Bernie celebrating Hanukkah together.

Later in the month on December 21st, the girls and I celebrated the Winter Solstice with a pizza dinner by candle light and wearing glow sticks.

Now that the girls no longer believe in Santa I wanted to take the focus off the materialistic nature of Christmas. As I grow older I have a fascination of the origins of modern day holidays and how other cultures celebrate the season. My plan was to celebrate the 25 days of December leading up to Christmas with different activities that celebrate the Winter Season, just not Christmas. I wanted to weave in Advent and St. Nicholas, traditions that I grew up with as my family is Catholic. I also wanted more of celebrating Christmas than the cheap advent chocolates from Walgreens and opening up gifts on Christmas Day. I want to expose the girls to different cultures, religions as well as incorporate fun things like watching family favorite movies, baking Christmas cookies and gathering with family and friends. I really want to get away from the "stuff" of Christmas.

I took the calendar and mapped out our December. First looking to see when Christmas was and when Hanukkah fell. Each day I planned an activity. We enjoyed a special poetry tea time where we read poems that we themed in winter and Christmas. I found a bunch of great poetry books at the library. We watched the movie White Christmas, Elf and Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.  My girls had never seen White Christmas before. They loved it! I grew up celebrating St. Nicholas which falls on December 6th of each year. I never celebrated with the girls before this year. This year I incorporated the tradition in our 25 days of Christmas. A knock at the door and there was a bag of peanuts, candy and oranges.  I did a little research of St. Nicholas and shared that with the girls.  We made gingerbread houses together, visited the aquarium in Newport to see the light display. This was the first year. Next year I want to expand it more and do more community service. I have a file that put in ideas. Olivia suggested that we make a yule log. I love that idea. Shortly after the holidays I came across a magazine that had a recipe for a yule log. It has been added to the file. We took most of December off from our daily "school." I am already looking forward to next year.

Christmas

I love this picture of our little tree in our living room. This year we celebrated Christmas in Central Oregon with my in-laws and Mr. W's uncle. It was really important to me that we have a "mini" Christmas together and open gifts together. As the girls get older I realize that in not too many years they will be gone. I treasure holidays together in our home, just the four of us.

This year we gave the girls each their own Kindle Fire. They have been wanting tablets for awhile. They were so excited.

Like most things in our life, I plan for something and it ends up that Mr. W has to work, I took matters into my own hands and got the tree myself with the help of the girls. I was proud of myself. Yes, I know we are not going to be home but I was determined to have a tree and our own little Christmas morning together before we left. My Prius looked so festive with the tree strapped to the top.

Vivian and taking a few laps around the ice rink. It was festive way to celebrate the Christmas Season than ice skating outside in Central Oregon. We had a blast!

This is one of my favorite pictures of our Christmas visit to Central Oregon to visit Mr. W's parents. I was the only brave adult to get on the ice. It was so much fun!

Girls Art Class

Our little co-op had the amazing experience of having a weekly art class for 8 weeks taught by a lovely neighbor of Megan's who is a retired art teacher. They learned different elements in their weekly class in a art studio.  They explored drawing with graphite, colored and water colored pencils. They learned techniques of line quality, contour drawing and sketching.

They also learn color theory and made their own color wheel demonstrating hue, shading utilizing charcoal. They used acrylic paints. They also played with clay and learned simple techniques of slab, coil and pinch. My girls enjoyed every lesson and learned so much. These classes reminded me of the art classes that I took in college.

I love this picture that Olivia made, titled "Under Water Kelp." She said it reminded her of learning about the ocean and seeing it at our science day at Hatfield Marine Science Center. Vivian also made a similar painting. My plan is to have both pictures framed. They are beautiful. We ended our eight week art class with a small Christmas party and a open house showing off their work they created over the past eight weeks. All the girls are so talented and creative.

Gingerbread Party

Our friends who attended with the girls last year invited us to a gingerbread making party at their house. It was a fun morning of visiting, making gingerbread houses and a yummy lunch together.

The girls had so much fun. Our friend, had so many awesome candy and treats to decorate our houses. It was neat to see all the different houses that were created. Olivia and Vivian are so creative!

Our Very First Dissection

I had flashbacks to middle school science class at Whiteaker Middle School. Thankfully they stopped as soon as Megan laid down the law explaining to the girls that the dissection kits she had just laid before them had very sharp instruments. She explained that our dissection kits were more likely nicer than the local high school's. The dissection that we were about to do was going to be more like a high school biology lesson than a elementary school lesson but she knew that they were up to it. She went on to explain that if any one of the girls had a difficult time listening that that they would be put away and she would be done. At that point all eyes were on Megan and out came the worms.

Once the girls got past the smell they all did fabulous. Worms are difficult to see exactly what is inside them. What better way to get in the festive mood of the holiday season than donning your Santa hat and cut open a worm! Merry Christmas!

Science is becoming my girls most favorite subject. Can you see why? It's becoming mine as well. Wednesdays are our lab days where Megan introduces us to our new information and we do dissections (this is a first of a few more) and experiments. We take turns among the three of us of hosting. Mondays the girls and I review, do our weekly reading and do a simple outline together of what we have read and covered in the lab. We have fabulous supplemental books that make science even more interesting and fun.

Happy Ducksgiving!

This has to be one of my favorite pictures from 2013 so far! Our family is getting into footfall since meeting the Weavers. Since I don't want to sit on the "naughty bench" reserved for Oregon State Fans I always come sporting yellow or green. It's very fitting that my friend Jen has a special photo wall decorated complete with photo props. It was a great day celebrating University of Oregon style. I think I like this holiday better than Thanksgiving!

Science Dioramas

We are learning about different habitats in science. We had a group project where every one selected at random a different habitat and made a dioramas and then presented their dioramas to the group.

Olivia had coral reef. I like the detail of the scuba diver in the top. It was really fun seeing how every one did their own dioramas. This was a fun project that all the girls enjoyed.

Vivian had ocean. I love that she added a narwhal. I have a special place in my heart for them as they are unicorns of the sea!

Olivia Building Lego's

Olivia showing Mr. W and Vivian her latest Lego creation. Ever since Olivia was little she has enjoy building things. First with blocks now Legos. She enjoys the Friends Lego collection and has almost all of them. She can sit for hours building different houses and vehicles with her different sets. Olivia is so creative. 

Fall Home School Day at Hatfield Marine Science Center

This was our very first time attending a home school day at the Hatfield Marine Science, after today it won't be our last! Megan highly recommended that we attend the fall home school day at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. Her daughter had attended the year before and loved it. As our science adviser we made sure to schedule the day on our calendar. 

We had a great day of learning, with hands on experiments and seeing marine life up close. Here Vivian and Olivia are measuring bull kelp. 

We got to hold sea urchins. We learned the difference between sea otters and river otters. We learned how scientists tract and study animals such as sea lions. We even got to go a experiment measuring the temperature of a little vial of warm water. We had three materials to keep our vial of water the warmest using fur, blubber or bubble wrap. Blubber kept it the warmest.

The highlight of the day was observing a necropsy of a river otter. I love how our little mini co-op of five girls had the first row view of the entire necropsy. While other kids got bored and wondered off our little group stayed right there not moving, with noses plugged. We are already looking forward to the spring home school day that the Hatfield Science Center has scheduled for March. The day was amazing. We are so glad that we were able to attend. 

Halloween

Even Rudy got in the spirit this year~actually it was Vivian who decided that Rudy needed a costume. The original plan that she was going to go trick-or-treating with us. At the last minute I decided that it best that Rudy stay home.

I am so thankful this year for yearly traditions in the mist of change are so familiar and fun! Every year we get together with friends in Lincoln City and trick-or-treat in a real neighborhood.  Every year my friend Jen decorates turns her dinining room into a fabuous "Trick-or-Treat VIP Suite" complete with snacks, drinks and a official Halloween picture backdrop area. I now have a collection of pictures of the girls in costumes with their friends throughout the years. I love that so much.

The girls started off the afternoon at a Halloween party with our local home school group. Then we hit the local elementary school to meet up with some friends. The girls had fun seeing friends from when they attended the local public school. We then moved on to my friend, Jen's house to visit the VIP "Trick-or-Treat Suite" and trick-or-treat in her neighborhood.

Vivian dressed up as a witch, though she looks more like a green faced Cruella Deville. Olivia dressed up as a pirate. I am not big fan of Halloween. I hate the plastic-y, cheap costumes. I hate even more the slutty inappropriate costumes that are marketed to little girls. Worse it seems as my girls get older. I am a big fan of being creative and pulling costumes out of our dress up box and not spending a small fortune. Thought after this year I am going to have to re-vamp our dress up box as it's getting a little threadbare and needs some tender loving care.

We had a great time! This was the first year that I allowed my girls (along with their friends and an older responsible teen to accompany them) to trick-or-treat on their own.  Mr. W hung out watching tv while I got to visit with friends. It was a fun evening. Better yet, we didn't have to worry about hurrying up and getting home because we didn't have anywhere to be the following morning! Another perk of homeschooling!

Anniversary Trip to Fort Stevens State Park

Mr. W and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary with a trip in the Wonder Wagon to Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon. Mr. W and I have been wanting to visit Fort Stevens. We thought this would be the perfect time. I didn't realize until checking in that Fort Stevens is the largest state campground. The park is huge with over 500 camp sites, cabins and yurts. There are over 7 miles of paved hiking and biking trails. My in-laws came and stayed at our house with the girls. 

We explored Astoria and stopped to see the famous Goonies house.  Mr. W and I had to, we are children of the 80's. We enjoyed moment and a snapped a few pictures. We met up with some friends and enjoy a beer at Fort George Brewery. I love the vibe of downtown Astoria. Lot's of cool shops, breweries. There is a cute little trolley that runs up and down the waterfront. Unfortunately it wasn't running as we were visiting during the week, it runs on the weekends.

On the way home my friend Marilyn said that I needed to stop and see the large frying pan. Not sure what the significant meaning is behind it but it was quirky and fun so I had Mr. W snap my picture in front of it.

We decided to go for a walk on the beach to check out the Shipwreck Peter Iredale. What turned into a little walk on the beach ended up being a few hours and an almost 8 mile walk through the forest and back to our campsite through many different trails. 

  
Rudy enjoying the beach. Mr. W took this artistic shot of Rudy on the beach before our epic hike through the forest. 

It was a beautiful day to go exploring. We saw only a few people while hiking. October was the perfect time to visit. We would love to return and bring the girls as well as all of our bikes.

It was a fun adventure. Exploring a park that we had never visited before. It was the perfect combination of exploring, being a tourist and relaxing. It was a win-win for everyone, the grandparents go to spend some time with the grandchildren. Mr. W and I enjoyed some time without the children. The children had a total blast being spoiled by the grandparents. Our weekend came to a close too fast.

So many beautiful areas to explore in the park of Fort Stevens. The weather while we were visiting was beautiful. I was able to get some long runs in mornings exploring the park.