American Idol Junkies!!

As some of you may know, we are big American Idol fans at our house. We even vote multiple times for the artists we love...(should we be embarrassed?) This last season there was a contestant from Mesa who made it into the top 5. Her name is Brooke White. Since Steve is the Director of ..(the name is too long) suffice it to say PR for the city of Mesa he figured out a way to combine work and fun by organizing a "Welcome Home" party for Brooke this past weekend. Brooke's parents basically live across the street from us and are in the same Stake. Steve has enjoyed getting to know them and getting to know Brooke through e-mail and cell phone conversations. Last Saturday evening we had a gathering of over 1500 people at the Mesa Amphitheatre to congratulate Brooke on her accomplishments and hear her sing a few songs. As you can see, we got to be VIPs who had back stage passes for autographs and pictures. We are anxiously awaiting her new album to be released sometime in the next year.


Kinsey and Shay with Brooke White. A couple of star struck girls...Shay had Brooke sign her autograph for all of the Beehives in our ward....8 of them! (that was nice of her don't you think?)

Friday's road trip to Hills/Beaver Creek found the Elliott boyz on 2 different buses for the 3 1/2 hour trip that took us to within 12 miles of Sioux Falls SD. Our defense was outstanding, holding HBC to just 68 yards of total offense, but our special teams gave up 180 return yards and a turn over deep in our own end, lead to a 22 - 0 loss. The raiders are 2-3 on the year, with 3 more games before play-off seedings will be decided. Next week we have Janesville on Monday for JH and JV and then travel to Alden/Conger on Fri for a key conference match up that will go a long way in deciding home feed for the play-offs.

Family is where it's at!!!

My sister Janette's baby shower. How many squares will it take?? She's one of my best friends and I can't wait for her to start this crazy job of motherhood. She'll make a great one!

O.K....I had to put this shot in because my DH Steve made this!! It was the hit of the party. My cousin Jill lovingly nicknamed him "Martha Steve." We love that guy:)

One of the.....ok the MAIN reason we moved back to AZ was to be close to family. We have had some experiences in the past year that have reminded us that it's in our families that we learn the important things in life. Like....love, service, forgiveness, and fun just to name a few.

Darin was on another one of those Cargill business trips. This is what they did for team building....fishing on Lake Superior.

Archaeology, Van Gogh, and 'guys'

All the kids are doing well this school year so far. We are on day 38, and we have studied all sorts of things and we are really settling into the year. This week, aside from core studies and penmanship, is Van Gogh in Meet the Masters, and Archaeology in Story of the World this week. It has been a LOT of fun.

Books for Van Gogh that we have read:

The Yellow House

Camille and the Sunflowers

Art for Children - Vincent Van Gogh

Alex:

Cyan:

And me:

Logan gets to skip 'Day 1 Art Time'. We do it during his nap time. It makes for a long school day, but so far, it has been worth it. Oil pastels and paint and my baby just don't mix... and keeping him from them if he knows they are going on is neigh impossible.

Today was History/Geography day (Day 2). We are studying Archaeology.

Archaeology books we have read:

Archaeologists Dig for Clues

It's Discusting, and We ATE It!

I don't think that the sandbox dig is going to work out. I was sad to find kitty poo in it yesterday. I need to get all the stuff out of it carefully and give it to the kids so they can have the lesson... before washing the sand, so they can play in it on the warm days, without the benefit of kittyroca.

I don't think they are minding the sandbox-dig free lesson however. ;)

Alex's looks like something from Egypt... what could it be?

Very seriously brushing off their finds.

And now, I have to do a little update on Logan. He really has gotten left behind lately as the other two go on to greater heights of fun learning experiences.

Lately, Logan has taken to some "guys" as he calls them. They are Power Rangers (remember those?), and they were a gift from a long ago neighbors yardsale. My plan was to toss them in the Goodwill bag, but he found them and has carried them around ever since. He talks to his 'guys'. His 'guys' fight. His 'guys' talk and play. His 'guys' sleep with him. And if they are in sight, a full on breakdown happens until his 'guys' are in his hands, curled up with him in his bed. He asks for his 'guys' when he can not find them and we have to help him find them again. He really likes to carry all three.... but he only has two hands, so occasionally, he will volunteer me to be his 'guy holder'.

Another favorite is airplanes. He has two airplane figurines. I think they are both jet fighters. Those bash together mid flight and come crashing to the ground at least once a day with a huge "shooo, shooo, boom!" He is pretty much the cutest thing ever. He still loves going Bye Bye, he still loves seeing airplanes in the air and yelling and signing... but signing is quickly being paired with talking. "More Please" is a favorite phrase, as is "more juice", and "Please mine". They are, for now, paired with the signs, but I can see the day where he is clear enough that he doesn't need the signs and another one of my babies stops being a baby.

He was 20 mos a couple days ago.

Crazy happy post of SOTW

For Sarah/Sadie and anyone else who wants a great review of the first two lessons of SOTW.

I am LOVING Story of the World. I adore history, and she just did such an amazing job compiling all of these ideas and dates. I love the way they have books to suggest, and art projects and ideas about ways to get the kids to remember. The timeline was way more than I portrayed... just because I didn't have time that night to really go into it. But the first lesson in SOTW is about historians and archaeologists and what they do. But it is ohsomuch more than that. She talks about (of course, I got the audio book, which is read by one of my very favorite readers, Jim Weiss) how historians do there job. "What if" (this is not a direct quote) "you found a letter from your great grandmother, to her sister living far away. And you got to hear about your grandmother as a little girl. That would give you a piece of her 'history'." And other bits like "What day were you born? Do you remember that day? Could it have been the day before? Or the day after? How do you know? This is another way historians find out information. They find information that is kept on record about the people who live in the culture." And then it goes on to archaeology. "Imagine that a man went to a river bank. And saw an old piece of wood sticking out of the bank. He started digging because he was curious, and then realized that he was digging up an old building! He calls someone called an archaeologist to come with little tiny tools (so he or she doesn't hurt anything) to dig out that area, and they find a toy of an ox and cart. That shows us that these people who lived in this area had that type of technology." Etc... REALLY well written.

So last week, we studied what it is to do history. I asked the kids what the first thing they remembered was. Then we wrote it down and found a picture of that time (thank god for digital pictures!) Then after that, I had them remember things by looking at pictures. "I was a ninja for Halloween three years in a row???" or "Oh, I have to write down Baby Cake! She was my very favorite doll until her arm fell off." Then after we got down near everything they remembered, I started bringing out the baby books and we wrote down their first step, the day they were born, their first birthday, the first word they said, etc. Stuff they didn't remember, but that I did. And that was the lesson in history.

The lesson in Archaeology will be just as much fun. I am taking their sand box and turning it into a dig. OMG... So much fun! They have to figure out what time period (in their lives) that they are looking at by what I put in the sand box. (I am wetting it down today for Thursday so it will be nice and hard to dig.) I have had fun just planning it out. lol! I also got one of these because I thought they would just love that.... :) I will let you guys know the verdict this weekend.

Weekend Learning

Apples, apples, beatiful apples.  Last Friday we made apple cider with my dad. 

The boyz had a great Jr.High game in Truman on Monday night. Dalton had a kick return and had 4 tackles. Tanner finally pulled out a 2 pt conversion score in the 3rd quarter. Tanner also lead the team in tackles and had 1 sack.

Timeline of kids

We are doing the first lesson in Story of the World and it is all about history and what it means to keep records of peoples lives. Both the kids really enjoyed the project, although Cyan didn't really understand at first.

The idea was to get them to realise how history is collected. You ask them to remember as far back as they can, and then you go back farther for them in YOUR memory and you recreate their entire personal history. Because, of course, they don't remember being born, but it is kind of important that that would be on their personal timeline. You know? So you get to share that story with them and others from before they remember, and then slowly, you get up to the dates they remember, and you start adding those in too. For my kids, after we got to things they remembered, they took off, telling me everything that they can about the time I am talking about in our lives.

Basically it was to show the kids how to keep records of things they don't remember. Cyan remembers a lot. I was amazed! She remembers Don having a red motorcycle and him having to sell it. That was before she was 2 1/2. In contrast, Alex doesn't remember much before Cyan was born (he was 5).

It was an interesting and really fun project for all of us. I love that Cyan added things like when she lost her favorite baby doll, or that Alex added his baseball game where he hit the ball really well. Those kinds of things really make a kids life and the fact that they were able to be collected somewhere for them to go over was neat. :)

You can distinctly see the time when we didn't have a camera in Alex's timeline. From ages 3 to 6. lol... there are lots of blank spots. My camera got stolen and we could not afford to get another one until 2005.

Today was youth duck hunt in Minnesota. All 3 boyz shot a duck today but Dalton bagged the first one of the day. It got too hot for the boyz so they called it a day.

We celebrated parents night with a big win over JWP 26-6. The boyz we all pumped up and it was a beautiful night for a ball game. This win will make the 3 hour bus ride to Hills Beaver Creek a little easier. Tabor made big improvements and got to play both sides of the ball. After the game we hosted all parents and players out to our house for a player bonfire and parent social. The house and yard was full! All the parents brought a dish to pass and we served up some BBQ pork sandwiches and the kids ate and ate.

The story of our house

Some of you have asked about us moving recently. Here's the story...we moved from Reno, NV in 12/06. Because we were selling our home in Reno we rented here in Mesa. Our home sold quickly, but we continued renting for 1 1/2 years waiting for the right opportunity to buy. That opportunity came about in May of 2008. We found a home in a beautiful area that was a "short sale." It was pretty much ready for move in. We are doing a few things here and there to get it just the way we want it Here are a few pics.



The laundry room... LOVE the counters and all the cupboard space. You can't see the counter and cupboards that are behind me! I spend a few hours a week in here folding laundry:)
Another selling point about this home was the HUGE backyard. This fun b-bque was a bonus. We are waiting for things to cool down a little before we have a backyard bash with friends.
This is just another angle. You can see where we had our above-ground pool. We just took it down last week. We would like to eventually do some nice landscaping back here.

Kitchen...I am liking the black appliances. I always had white before.
Great room. The kitchen, eating area, great room foyer, music room are all open to each other. It is a BIG space. We've had a group of 20 over and it seemed to accomodate fine.
dining area
I think this is my favorite room....the music room
office

Here's a view from the front. We aren't super fond of the color. We'd like to paint the outisde a darker color and add either brick or stone to the entry way. Hopefully in the next year or two we'll conquer that project.

I didn't take a picture of the master bedroom because I'm currently washing the sheets on my bed:)

Handwriting, story telling, and sewing...

Sewing practice:

I picked up Cyan a copy of "My First Sewing Machine Book" by Winky Cherry at the Sew Expo back in March.  It has a bunch of things that you are supposed to sew with no thread on your needle.  As we went through and she mastered the needle, and using the presser foot we moved up to more real projects, but every time she needs practice I would copy one of those paper lessons onto card stock and have her 'sew' through it.  These lessons for first handwriting are very similar to what we did for her first sewing machine lessons and I thought I would pass them on. 

Donna Young, Penmanship Starters

Just print onto cardstock and have her follow the directions with her needle.  No thread.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW, this is a great site for just about every kind of paper you could imagine as well. 

Handwriting paper:

Donna Young, Handwriting Paper

 (which BOTH kids are using right now because Alex is in 'public school chicken scratch' mode)

And blank top writing paper:

Donna Young, blank top writing paper with penmanship lines

Or blank top lined paper:

Donna Young, blank top notebook paper (College Ruled)

for those of us who like our children to 'illistrate' their own work.  My kids use these blank topped sheets pretty exclusively for history so far.  I like the idea that they are drawing what they are learning at the same time as they are writing it and reading it, and listening to it.  lol... it seems like a fail proof way of getting as much as possible into their head.

This is something we just started...

Penmanship Lessons for Alex

Penmanship lessons for Cyan

Hope you all are having a great week!

Cyan's first spelling test

This is a great web site for Dolch Word lists.    It is where I have gotten all of her spelling words thus far.  They have games that you can play, and little cards to help her remember, it even has a way you can keep track of how many words she missed on the 'tests'.  It has been a ton of fun for both her and me, and it is REALLY speeding up her reading.  We will do one list a week for the next few weeks.

Food chains and food webs

Making your own food chain

What a cool little web site. I had the kids draw out their own, but this will be fun as well.

You can add it into a biome study by printing out the premade food chain charts and having kids put in the correct plant or critter for that biome.

Poetry and bugs, with a dash of schooling...

Alex and I are working on poetry right now. Not just writing it, but reading it aloud and well. He is getting pretty good at it. I bought two magnetic table boards for the kids to practice their poetry (or in Cyan's case, reading) on. I left them on the table and in the morning, this is what they woke up to in front of their breakfast:

They were each given the task of creating their own poem. Alex wrote a poem on snow (on paper) and Cyan wrote this:

You may be thinking how terribly rude she was being, but she is on a Penelope kick, so this was actually a compliment and she didn't even know if could have been insulting. (Alex did however... I talked with him about that).

We have been on field trip city lately. We went to the zoo on Friday, and the Nisqually Valley Reserve and the Farm I work for on Saturday. There are too many pictures to try to post them all here, but I will post some of the best.

The zoo was great! We had a good time and even got to see a couple of friends we hadn't seen in forever!

This sweet whale came up to say "hi" right next to us, and it started a chain of events that was pretty funny. Cyan dropped her toy (small blue ball) in the whale tank, and Logan started screaming... not because of the toy falling in (which was rescued very quickly by zoo staff who were wonderful about it!), but because he is scared of whales. Well, actually, anything that has glass between it and him. He was fine with the Lemurs, fine with the Meerkats and Walabies... but whales, polar bear, walrus, and even the otters? Climbed up my arm and screamed every time we got close. I hope it is just a phase as they are some of my very favorites, but it was needless to say, strange to have him so attached to me. Usually I am chasing him. But he wouldn't leave my side.

Then on Saturday morning, we went to Nisqually Valley Bird Refuge. This was a wonderful and educational trip. Did you know that birds are the fewest in our area right at the end of the summer? I had no idea. We must be in the middle of the migration path, so as the birds go South in late Fall, they are here, and as they go North in late spring, they are here, but in the Summer? Not a bird except for native ducks were at the refuge. We didn't even see a hawk. Amazing!

But you know what that really means? Visiting a bird refuge with no birds? BUGS!

This fell out of the sky (literally!) and landed on Alex's arm. Scared the crap out of him until he figured out what it was. lol...

And this one crawled right on to Cyan's finger from the bench she was leaning on. She was watching it as it walked up, and it crawled right on to her. She was thrilled that she 'got' a caterpillar to. :)

And here is yet another catterpillar we saw... I think it is an older version of the one Alex had on his arm, but not sure. They look very similar though. Deffinetly related.

This one is my personal favorite... a wooly bear. I love them!

Whatcha looking at buddy?

Ah-hah! Sweet little thing.

See how many things you see at a bird refuge when the birds are not there? My guess is, that all of these would have been food for said birds if they had actually been around, but since they were not, it made for one cool field trip. It openned up a huge conversation about food chains and food webs. We drew food chains these things were connected in a bit too, but that isn't nearly as interesting pics of cool critters we saw.