Sunday, August 15, 2010

And the Blog Goes On

I took a break.
I'm really just not that good at this blogging thing but its school time again and I want to be able to keep up with what I'm doing and where we're headed and who said what and who did what and when it happened and if it was funny or sad or crazy and really ... really, I just can't keep it all in this jello-y brain of mine.
Oh, and meet the newest member of our family.
He's four months old and rather charming!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Homeschooling Week 1

DD1 started kindergarten this week! She is beside herself with the thought that school has started and she is finally in kindergarten (telling me everyday that she is,in fact, ready for the first grade)! My schedule (term used *very* loosely!) looks a little like this.
Bible using a devotion from God's Little Princess Devotional Bible
Reading which is 20 minutes of Hooked on Phonics
BFIAR Its technically too young for DD, but we've never finished the book and I'm actually only using the curriculum as a guide. This week we read Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear and talked about dressing appropriately for the weather, patterns, size comparisons, etc .. something different for each day of the week. Today, our science lesson was (slightly derived) from the story. More on that later.
Math
Handwriting
Worksheets

The week went well and what I love about homeschooling is that I can do it whenever during the day that is convenient. I also like that,unlike the scene transpiring next door, there were no tears from a screaming five year old in the front yard this morning and dragging of said five year old to the car so that they could go start kindergarten! Yeah, it was easy this week but I know it won't always be.

On to the fun stuff ... Is there really a man in the moon and how did he get there? I'm glad you asked. Actually, the man in the moon is not a man, but a bunch of holes, now termed craters, in the moon that look like a smiling man from way down here on earth. Now, how exactly did those craters get there? Is the moon really made of swiss cheese? Nope, not cheese. In fact, those holes came from trash, now debris, floating in space that hits the dusty moon. Wanna see?

Here is our debris ..


I was supposed to use a ping pong ball and not a wiffle ball but since i don't have a ping pong ball .... anyways, @ this point we talked about size - bigger and smaller, heavier and lighter, wider and skinnier - and which ones we thought would make bigger or deeper holes. Here I pointed out that just because the wiffle ball was the biggest didn't mean it would necessarily make the deepest hole. We dropped the balls on round one from 1 foot (math!) into a pie plate filled with flour.





Next we observed what the balls had done. Then we smoothed the flour out and dropped them from two feet, paying more attention to the dust cloud that it created.






After we had finished making all of our observations and cleaning up the mess DD "journaled" her observations.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Show & Tell Monday: ISO

I'm participating in Show & Tell Monday thanks to Melissa who is graciously teaching us how to get out of that automatic setting on the camera! This week's lesson was on ISO.

I like learning how to do this! I didn't practice much this week but I did do one photoshoot of a beautiful moonrise. I have, however, been working on changing the light settings. It is amazing how much better the pic looks when I adjust from sunny to incandescent. I love learning how to do this! It may not look like it is paying off, but I am having fun just the same!

Picture 1:


On this one the ISO was 460, f/stop 5 and set on sunny ... the color wasn't right so I did some tweaking.

Picture 2:


On this one the ISO was 200, f/stop 5 but I changed the setting to cloudy. The color was perfect.

Picture 3:



ISO 800, f/stop 5 It was getting dark really fast so the color is accurate again. I loved getting these night shots without using the flash!

Just to prove that I am learning something here are some macro shots of flowers from our flower beds.




Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Three

My baby will be turning three on Saturday! In some ways it feels like she has been here forever but part of me can't believe that she will actually be three in just three days!
I remember being pregnant with her ... I was really sick. A lot. You know, like 29 of the 38 weeks that I was pregnant with her. I was scared. I had such a crazy delivery with my first that I was paranoid. A few months before I was to deliver we found out that our first born had cerebral palsy as a result of said crazy delivery. Now I was really nervous. Just ask my ultrasound tech. I've never been so interested in where one's umbilical cord was located. But when the time came, and it came early because it was thought that her cord was indeed wrapped around her neck, everything was fine. Well, aside from me absolutely going insane as they strapped me to the table for my c-section (did you know that those meds could literally make one crazy?? thanks blood pressure for bottoming out on me ... i needed that), it was completely normal. And strange. I held her right away. She got to come straight to my room from the OR. I held her and snuggled her and then yelled for my friend to get her quick so I could throw up (did you know those meds would make you insanely nauseous and make your face itch so bad that you look like a complete druggie??). But I recovered and she was easy. She was just happy to be here, and I was happy she was here, too.

Now, she is (almost) three. She's not as easy as she used to be. She's quite the character. She has the craziest things to say and is very comical. And smart. Too smart. And she's cute and very happy to be holding up three fingers in the near future. I love that baby. I'm glad she's mine and that God blessed us very richly with her three years ago.












Monday, July 27, 2009

I'm back ... I think

OK, so I really do have some part of me that wants to blog but the good Lord hasn't seen fit to add any more hours to the day or days to the week just yet so I can't promise that I'll be a proficient blogger. However, I am really excited that Melissa at A Familiar Path is so kindly reading the camera manual for us and giving pointers on how to use a camera so I'm back to participate in her weekly sessions.
I missed last week getting ready for my baby's third birthday party. I have 2 cameras, a Sony Cybershot that I've had for 5 years (love this camera)and a Nikon P90 that I just upgraded to a few weeks ago. I suppose I never even opened the manual for the Cybershot. I just assumed I knew how to use it. I went out with some great college buddies Friday night and learned a few things about the cybershot. In five years I never knew it could take black and white photos. Sad. I can't find the Cybershot right now. Its a little game we play - it hides and I find it a week or so later. When I win I'll post those pics.
On to this week's lesson ... self timer and macro. I love the self timer and am pretty well aware of how to use it. On the Nikon I can turn on the smile recognition option and the camera won't snap the pic until it has detected that everyone is smiling.
This pic is the girls and me dressed up for the cow appreciation day at Chick fil A a few weeks ago taken with the Nikon, without the smile recognition but a 10 second delay.

I'm learning to use macro on the Nikon and I love it. I think it is pretty neat.

A pansy on the back porch





Three! Wow! I can't believe that on Saturday my baby will be 3!

Monday, May 11, 2009

I ♥ Faces (week 18) Laughter



I've never entered an I ♥ Faces contest, but this week I just knew I had the perfect picture!




This is me and my girls. I love those girls!

Want to get in on the fun? Enter a different contest weekly at I ♥ Faces

Monday, May 4, 2009

Not Me Monday, Shameless Edition


Shameless. Who me??? Couldn't be.
I would never revive my blog on Monday just to participate in my first ever Not Me Monday over @ MckMama's blog just so I could have a miniscule chance to win a super cute necklace that I could stamp all three of my babies names on. I would never do such a thing because why would I ever want to have all three girls, side by side? Not I.