Celebrating People We Love!

Some birthdays we've celebrated lately for people we love:

1.  Great Aunt PJ's (two weekends in a row!)

2.  Sweet Niece Sara's (two days in a row!)

COS won in the category "Girls age 6-12" for her costume of Eve at our AWANA church the Sunday before Halloween.  :)

The kids all prepped to go celebrate Sara's b'day (day 2):

*JDS as Napolean Dynomite

*AMS as a hippie chic

*JSS as a police officer

*COS as Eve

*Sweet Sara as Sweet Sara

Here's the birthday girl with "her horse" on birthday celebration day #1 for her!  :)  She is really good on the beast!

JSS on the trail ride.  First time he's ever ridden solo.  He LOVED it!

AMS with her cousin Sara the Birthday Girl and our trail boss.

YES!  COS really did command her own horse...on the trail ride, too!  She did pretty alright, too!

Dad and JDS getting the hang of things in the corral before we headed out on the trail.  They LOVED the experience...we ALL did!  And what blessed memories we all share with Sara and her dear Mom!  This is the first birthday of hers we've gotten to attend and it was wonderful!  My sister really knows how to throw a themed party!

Celebrating (day #2) of Great Aunt PJ's b'day.  This is right after our play and it had something to do with M&M's, which is why she is holding them.

Man on the street type interview with "disgruntled teen" played to the hilt by our resident thespian, AMS!

Teen guys opinion of M&M's?  "Video games rock, man."

We had a STELLAR "night in" celebrating with Great Aunt PJ (food, fellowship, skit, games, dancing...)!  She's up for just about ANYTHING!  We love that!

At Great Aunt PJ's b'day dinner...on her actual b'day.

Great Aunt PJ with two fabulous people (my sister-in-law, Amanda, and my studly man, Simon).  :)

It's all about the birthday celebrating lately for the people we love!  What a precious time with had with them!

All about EYES!

Below are photos of our dissection of a cow's eyeball.  The photos are NOT for the weak stomached people, so BEWARE.

Long story short...we're going to encourage COS to become a surgeon (she LOVED this!) and encourage JSS to become...well, whatever is the OPPOSITE of a surgeon (this grossed him out completely!).  Go figure!

ENJOY!

Birds Study (Attentiveness Unit)

Some highlights from our 2 week study of birds included:

A trip to the pet store and a lot of

information from one of the employees there.

Learning how God uniquely created different birds

for different habitats, foods and flight.  This is

a sorting game where the kids matched bodies with

corresponding beaks, feet and tails.  

We did some experiments like this one where the kids had

to figure out which beak type went with which types of food 

(some food substitutions were made to represent food found in the wild).

Can you guess what bird each type of beak belongs to in the below photos?

JSS's duck and ostrich feet.  :)

The next series of photos is from our "Feather Hunt" at the park.

God went above and beyond by even supplying us with...

...and entire bird's wing...

...and when we got home, an entire bird!

(It was found next to our house looking like it was 

just sitting there, but it had actually died in a sitting position.)

JDS was resourceful enough to grab the gardening gloves

and show the kids the different parts of it's body, like these flight feathers.

Zoo Field Trip

This is the SAME woman that helped JDS and AMS

with their nature journals when they were this age!

She thought they were them!  She was astounded

at how much they look like JDS and AMS...

and JSS's artwork brought back memories from 

JDS's nature journal.  Very sweet hour together.

The yellowish bird enjoyed "perching" in JSS's hood

and these two birds in particular LOVED flying up

onto Jesse and making themselves at home.

God allowed us to be the only people in the entire

aviary for about 25 minutes of one-on-one instruction

with the keeper (in green behind JSS's ear) 

and face time with the birds!  Sweet!

Attentiveness, Weeks 1 & 2

COS with her first experiment with sound!

(That's sugar in the air from her sweet sound waves vibrating against a saran wrapped bowl.)

JSS's first experiment with sound...and his dismay with the sugar vibrating right up into his face!  (Check out those beautiful eyelashes!)

One more experiment, this time in teamwork...you know, just in case we hadn't fully awakened JDS and AMS with the yelling before this last experiment before 9 AM.  :)

COS finished her very first chapter book this week!  YAY!!!

COS had a handset from a cordless phone to dismantle.  This was a hard-earned peek inside!  Those little buggers are very durably put together, trust her!

JSS nearing completion in his 2 day project of dismantling an "old fashioned" (ie. not cordless) phone, which had more than triple the amount of insides than COS's!  He is already busy recycling it into his very own robot!  :)

A lesson in teamwork during a lesson on sound.  I love this shot!