More Magnets and King Narmer

School was so much fun this week.  I'm just going to post the pictures and tell the stories.

Luke continued to study magnets in science this week.  He learned all about how magnets can pull through certain materials.  These cork boats have a metal thumb tack stuck in them, and Luke is using a magnet taped to a pencil to move them around.  Very popular activity.



This was my favorite moment of the morning.  I gave Luke a piece of red paper, a nail, and a magnet. I challenged him to pick up the paper with just the objects provided.  Although the point of the challenge was to use the magnet through the paper, Luke found his own way.  He poked the nail through the paper and used the magnet.  He was thrilled when it worked.  I was, too.  I want him to be someone who thinks outside the box. :-)

Meanwhile in history...

King Narmer, the White Crown King of Upper Egypt, defeated the Red Crown King of Lower Egypt, joining the two regions into one country for the first time.  Narmer also joined the two crowns into the Double Crown of Egypt.  I made this.  I'm not crafty, but this thing absolutely rocks.  It totally looks like this in all the books.  Paul was stoked to wear it.  Luke loves it but declined to have his picture taken wearing it.

King Narmer looking fierce.

Okay, this wasn't school related, but it was another fun aspect of the week.  We bought an air popper.  After Luke went dairy-free, microwave popcorn of any variety was no longer an option.  This handy little machine is the answer to all our popcorn woes!  And it is SO much fun to watch.  We serve it up salted and maybe with a little garlic powder and the boys love it.  We are hoping to get even more adventurous in the future with some curry or garem masala.  :-)

God's Goodness When I Least Expected It

The grace of God amazes me.  Today's example begins with the fact that our entire family was up late last night hosting an event for our church.  Usually the boys are in bed by 7:30 pm and asleep by 8 pm. Last night we started bedtime at 9:15 pm.  And no, they did not sleep in.  I first heard Luke at 5:45 am, as he opened his squeaky dresser drawer while getting dressed.  Yep.   I felt sure it was going to be a LONG morning.

After breakfast we started school.  I simplified things quite a bit considering the boys' current state of sleep deprivation.  For his BSF lesson, we read the questions first and then I read Luke the passage and stopped each time there was an answer.  I figured that was a good reading skill to teach anyway.

I was pleasantly surprised at Luke's willingness and ability to do his handwriting lesson today.  I thought for sure we would ditch it, but I gave him the option and he was game.  First moment of grace.  Science is always popular and today was no exception.  History is also a winner, but today had a new activity that I wasn't completely confident would fly.  We have been studying about how agriculture began in the Fertile Crescent and spawned the birth of cities such as Jericho and Çatal Hüyük.  Today I had planned to introduce our first mapping activity, but now I wasn't so sure.  I shot a quick prayer up and decided to give it a whirl with the understanding that I could easily suspend it if things got ugly.


Low and behold, Luke loves the maps!  He followed my instructions perfectly, circling the two cities in red, tracing the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers and coloring the area between them green.  I was able to introduce the name of the region between the rivers as Mesopotamia.  He was elated with the size of that name.  :-)  


When I was done giving these instructions, he asked, "What else can I color on here?"  So we started coloring the other bodies of water, talking about their names and locations on our world map.


It is moments like these that remind me that God is bigger than I think and more full of grace than I can imagine.  Even on days that should go badly, the Holy Spirit steps in and provides us with the love and patience we need to not just survive, but thrive.  I am thankful.  Here are the pics.

 This picture makes me so happy that God asked us to homeschool our boys.  I got to see this face!  I got to share this moment with my boy.  It was special and I'm thankful to Jesus for it.

Luke's first map!

First Day of School and Other Joys

Lorene Park Academy started school a week ago today.  We had a great beginning to the school year and things have been going well.  Here are a TON of pics for the interested!

 Our classroom table all set to go.

 The welcome sign

 Our memory verse and character trait for the week.

Happiest First Grader on the Block 

 Sweetest Preschooler on the Block

Students and Teacher :-)

Getting down to business 

 Paul wrote his name all by himself on his First Day of School Questionnaire

 There he is, folks!

 More sweetness!

In other news, our family of seven is doing well.  Living in community brings so many blessings.  One of my favorite moments so far has involved Mr. David entertaining the boys during the Arsenic Hour...that's the time between 4pm and 5pm when I'm cooking dinner, the children are usually screaming, and I just want to poison the food.  In steps Mr. David to play Grizzly Bear with the boys in the basement.  Seriously?  I'm feeling like I should pay this guy!

Another sweet moment came when Mr. Matt challenged Paul to see how neatly he could eat his dinner last night, making it into a game.  Paul was intrigued, but actually didn't manage to keep much cheese off the floor.  Oh well. It was a valiant effort.

There have also been amazing moments of having other folks take out the garbage, empty the dishwasher, and sweep the floor.  WHAT?!?  That's just beautiful.

 Here we all are at our first dinner together, which didn't actually happen until this past weekend.  Starting with Erik and going around clockwise...Erik, Shantel, Matt, Luke, David, and Paul.  Not pictured: Amy, the happiest hostess on the block. :-)

Sunset and Grasshopper

Today's adventures revolved mainly around more bugs and a trip to the swimming pool.  Oma and I headed out together this morning, so Daddy was in charge.  He did a great job of keeping the boys entertained with bug hunting and airplane flying.  (Grandma left the boys these absolutely awesome little flyers to find via a scavenger hunt our first evening here...very popular activity!)  Sadly, Daddy didn't take any pictures.  Then our trip to the pool also went undocumented.  I was too busy being splashed by Paul.  We did make new friends, though.  The woman sitting beside me at the wading pool is a homeschool mom who lives just down the road from us at home!  It was so fun to get to know her.  We exchanged numbers and are excited to have a play date when we all get home.
After swimming, Paul took a nap of epic proportions beginning at 3pm.  Eventually at 6pm, after we had finished eating dinner (Teriyaki Beef made on the BBQ - SUPER YUM), Erik and I woke him up.  He was a pretty cheerful fellow and sat at the table enjoying his food while watching Daddy play Da Blob.  It's a video game.  The hero paints things.  We like it.
Around 7:15 Daddy noticed the amazing sunset taking place and we all headed out to enjoy the golden light.  I grabbed my camera and spent the next 20 minutes playing with the light.  Here are some of the results.

 Looking at the sunset from the front deck of the cabin.

 Oma took this picture of us.  We are both a little tired, but that's okay.  The lighting is great! :-)

I love sunsets.  I just have a point and shoot camera, but I still like the way this turned out.

 This is Erik mocking my attempts at photography.  He's good at it.

 Sweet boy who held still so Mommy could take his picture in the golden light of the setting sun.

After watching the sunset and throwing the planes a few more times, Daddy caught a grasshopper!  The boys immediately ran for the bug jar.  We brought it in for a few minutes.  Don't worry.  No grasshoppers were harmed in the taking of these photos.  Luke released our little friend as soon as Mommy was done with the photoshoot.

 Studious and serious about bugs.

 The wonder of being four and catching bugs

 Nice catch, Daddy-Man!  He's a big one.

Right after I snapped this, Luke asked me if I could see his funny face through the bug jar.  Yep.

Bugs and Such

Another fun day here in Sunriver, despite the fact that the Ducks are currently losing the season opener to LSU.  I will not be talking about football anymore in this post.  On to better things.

Our morning adventure was the Sunriver Nature Center.  They had lots of thing for the boys to enjoy.  I'll use the pics to explain.

This is a fun little display with a variety of eggs - birds' eggs, lizard eggs, snake eggs...fascinating for my dudes.

Both boys wanted to try to use the binoculars to look at the birds in the aviary, but neither was really able to get them focused.  Next time. 

Luke really enjoyed this display of Camp Abbott, the World War II training camp that was originally on the site where Sunriver is today.

This is the coolest microscope ever.  It has one large lens instead of two small ones, allowing the wee folk to easily use it.  Paul spent about ten minutes here.

Luke also liked it.

This was Luke's favorite exhibit, a box with a meteorite and a lava rock.  Luke was amazed at the comparison of the weight of the two, the meteorite far outweighing the lava rock.  He must have lifted each of them twenty times and explained the whole thing about thirty times...to each of us.  :-)

Outside they also have some very cool birds of prey.

On the way back to the car, Luke especially became fascinated with the number of grasshoppers available for hunting.  He was so cute to watch.  He would try so hard to catch one, but those little dudes move quick.  So during nap time, I went into the mall and bought both boys a little Sunriver present...their very own bug catching nets.  Luke had to try his out immediately.

He is so serious when he is bug hunting.  It is ultra adorable.

 GOT IT!

 A Boy and His First Bug

 Luke turned the jar toward me and said, "He wants to look at the camera for the picture." It's a butterfly of some sort.  We need a bug book at the cabin.

The boys with their nets. Paul refused to nap again today, hence the listless look.  He's better in the mornings.  We'll go bug hunting again tomorrow.

Overall, it was a great day.  We hope Grandpa reads this post and feels cheered by the cuteness of the dudes and forgets the results of the game.

Vacation

We arrived in Sunriver yesterday evening around 6:30 pm.  It was good to get here before the crowds.  And let me tell you, there are now crowds.  But we don't mind.  At the last minute our friend Mark was unable to come, so we brought my mom instead.  This enables us to have a bit more freedom.  See below.  :-)

Erik and I started our day with a sunrise walk at about 6:15 am.  We grabbed our coffee and walked over to check out the new bike path and construction site for the next great thing in Sunriver - SHARC.  The Sunriver Homeowners Aquatics and Recreation Center is going to be amazing.  Even in its current state of half finished it impresses.  We are so excited for this to be completed next summer that we are thinking of coming for an entire week with the boys for the first time ever.  It's that cool.

After our walk, we arrived home to fully awake and cereal fed children.  Considering that it was all of 46 degrees outside and not quite 7:15 am, we decided against sending them outside to play.  Instead we plugged in a Mighty Machines video from the library.  Eighty-one minutes later, the temperature was nearly sixty in the full sun, so out we went to show the boys some real life mighty machines.

Interestingly, although the construction site was fully operational, they were WAY more interested in the brand new outdoor basketball court.  We probably spent fifteen minutes there while the boys explored it and played follow the leader along the fresh, white lines.

 Paul wanted to touch the net.  Daddy helped.

 This was so cute to watch.

 I seriously could have enjoyed this sweetness all day.

When the basketball lines had all been walked, it was time to earnestly check out the construction.  I think it was Daddy who convinced the boys that they should move as many rocks as possible inside the fence.  It didn't take much persuasion.  The boys were convinced that they were helping.

 Hard at Work

 ROCKS!  Paul looks serious because he is serious about rocks.

Eventually, one of the machines came close enough to the fence to be irresistible to Paul. It was pretty cool.

The money shot.

After that we headed back to the cabin for some snack.  On the walk back, we all saw a grasshopper, prompting Erik to pull out his bug catching net from childhood.  It's a bit big for the boys still, but Paul was pretty jazzed to try it out once.

 Just...

 like...

 THAT!

We had thought we might visit the pool today, but the temperature just wasn't warm enough.  Instead we went over to the river for a little bit of rock throwing.  Again with the rocks.

Paul was pretty tired after awhile.  Did I mention he woke up at 5:50 am this morning?  So, he and Daddy sat by the river, listening to God's Quiet Things, an idea we stole from a book with the same title.  If you've never read it, you should check it out.  We use it as a family to encourage the boys to listen to the sounds of God's creation around them.  Today we heard ground squirrels, the wind, and a variety of birds.  Pretty amazing activity for a four year old. 

 Listening

Looking

Those were pretty much the outings for the day.  The boys spent the afternoon playing in the area around the cabin.  I took a nap.  Erik and I also headed into Bend to buy more fruit, because I left most of it at home.  I also forgot a pair of jeans and more than two pairs of shorts for myself.  See the previous post if you are wondering why.  Regardless, it's Labor Day Weekend and the outlet mall was crazy with sales.  No problem.

I used the BBQ here for the first time.  Pretty fancy.  I made Cajun Grilled Pork Chops.  They were astoundingly good.  Both children completely refused to eat them.  Oh well.  Keeps the grocery bill smaller.  The boys passed out early, having skipped nap.  I, too, am headed to bed soon.  Erik may or may not game until midnight.  He's allowed.  He's on vacation.  :-)