Today in a morbid boys world

Alex's recipe for Crocodile Pie

1 cup of flour
all of a crocodiles blood
all of the crocodiles skin
1 cup water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 gallon milk

Mix all the dry ingredients together and stir until smooth.
Add milk and water and stir for 1 hour (at most) or until it all blends nicely.
Add blood and bake at 400* for 3 hours.

Serves 10

Cyan's Community Brochure

Cyan and I have spent the last two school days working on her final project for MBTP Community unit. She had so much fun with this! She has some interesting ideas about her own little world (doesn't everyone though?) and I found most of her thoughts really endearing as I typed them out for her. All the art is hers, although for some reason the online viewer presented one of the pictures on it's side. The ones we printed came out correctly though.

Enjoy!

Lakewood Leaflet First Page

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

Lakewood Leaflet 2

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

You can tell so much about what a child thinks of the world when you look at projects like this. Obviously, I work with food a lot. lol... Because in her world, that is the only job mothers do... oh wait, I forgot that I can collect wildflowers for the dinner table while waiting for food to cook. Kids are such a riot! And how horses are designated to different people by color. And hunting chickens... can't forget that. Oh gosh... so cute!

Painting in the sunshine

Today the weather finally turned. We have been thinking for days that it was going to rain any second. But it didn't... until last night. Even just yesterday afternoon it was still warm and shining enough to sit in the grass and paint.

We are probably in for another month of drizzle here in the rainy state. But it was a nice respite from the wet.

PREVIEW OF THE EASTER SHUTDOWN PART 1

COME BACK TO SEE MORE.....

-KP

Ocean Side at MTM!

This week Muffin Tin Monday headed out to the shore.

Top row: Seaweed juice (superfood), Iceberg with jelly penguin, candy sushi

Bottom row: Tiny shells with seaweed (parsley) and cheese, octodogs (both sides), mini goldfish crackers

Seriously, I have been planning this for days. The kids were very involved in making this weeks MTM meal... they helped with every step.

I learned something new about my children today... they both know how to use sharp knives... correctly. I knew I hadn't been worried about either of them around knives forever now, but today I put my finger on why I was so comfortable with them using my Cutco's and my other really sharp knives. They have knife technique. Stabilizing with their finger above the knife, holding the bottom of the blade, everything. I was not that surprised with Alex, but Cyan too.

I love being home with them to learn these things. It makes me happy.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
4 cups mini marshmallows
6 cups crisped crispy rice cereal
20-25 gummy worms
1-2 box fruit leather

Directions

Grease a 12x17" baking sheet.

Melt butter in a 2 quart saucepan over medium heat.

Add marshmallows and stir until smooth.

Remove mixture from heat and stir in rice cereal until it is evenly coated.

Turn the baking sheet so that the shorter ends are at the top and bottom (I covered with parchment paper so that it wouldn't stick at all).

Then press the marshmallow mixture onto the sheet, distributing it evenly.

Starting at one side an inch up from the lower edge, place gummy worms atop the mixture end to end in a horizontal line.

Gently roll the lower edge of the marshmallow mixture over the gummy worms (this is where the parchment paper came in really handy. I rolled it just in the paper just like I would us a bamboo roller with real sushi).

Then stop and cut the log away from the rest of the mixture.

Use the same method to form 3-4 more logs.

Wrap the sushi rolls in a fruit leather and then slice each log into 1 inch thick"sushi" rolls using a very sharp knife (do not press down much or you will squish them).

The only thing that I could say to improve this is if you are not going to eat them right away, don't cut them until you are just about to eat them. The cut gummies get hard really fast (like hours) and are hard to eat.

Spring in a Sunday fairy house

Three little girls spent the sunny afternoon in my back yard talking about fairy houses... when I came out they were building one. They laid out pictures of the ones they wanted from Cyan's fairy house books, and then built the house above... 100% on their own. It was so beautiful! There is even a "recycled table" (ie: a bottle cap from Cyan's superfood) with small cut up peices of apple on them (from their snack).

Afternoons like this make a childhood. So often kids afternoons are spent playing video games or sitting indoors watching tv. If they only knew what they were missing! I am so lucky to have a community (including my on line friends) that believe in life away from the screen. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside thinking of a whole huge group of children getting these amazing experiences.

Thursday the boys hosted Lake Crystal and got another win! The weather warmed up into the high 80's. The boys worked the concession stand on Saturday for the girls home tournament. The girls game go a little slower than the boys but it was nice to see the boys support the girls team which by the way they took 2ND.

Photo Friday

Meet Samson. Our brave new guy.

Tomato experiment

One growing up and one growing down. I bought a Topsy Turvy from Gardening with Kids so that we could do this experiment. I tried very hard at the store yesterday to find two really healthy Celebrity tomato plants of similar size so the experiment would start out well. I have it set on my calendar for the kids to see how many tomatoes grow on both, how tall they are in 1 month, and then in 3 months, and the size of the largest tomato on each plant. It should be interesting.

Even if we did nothing for homeschool with these plants, they would give us good food to eat. Win/win. ;)

Gears of War Xbox 360

Product Description:

Anointed by the games media as Microsoft's first "killer app" for its Xbox 360, Epic Games' Gears of War is a futuristic thirdperson shooter emphasizing tactical action over runandgun battles. Players are thrust in a climactic clash between what's left of humankind and a swarming underground race called the Locust Horde. The main protagonist is Marcus Fenix, a once disgraced soldier looking to redeem himself by leading a ragtag squad against the monstrous threat.
Since the alien army vastly outnumbers the team, players must use the postapocalyptic world to their advantage, such as seeking cover behind dumpsters, pillars, cars, rubble, and other objects. The developer has adapted its awardwinning Unreal technology to create interactive environments with a physicsbased damage system. Players, for instance, can shoot down structures to forge new routes or opportunities to trap the enemy. Up to three squad mates will accompany Fenix in each mission, with basic commands such as "advance," "hold," or "freelance" available to guide them.
A behindtheshoulder view similar to the one employed in Capcom's Resident Evil 4 is the default perspective in Gears of War. Weapons include an assortment of grenades, pistols, assault rifles, and other longrange blasters, many of which offer a means to engage enemies in melee combat. The Locust Horde is not averse to lunging, rushing, or gnawing at soldiers, so players have the opportunity to perform grisly finishing moves by quickly tapping specific button sequences during close encounters. Cooperative support for two players is offered throughout the campaign, and up to eight can battle each other in teamoriented modes via Xbox Live. ~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide.

Product Specification:

Genre: Shooter

Style: Squad-Based Shooter

Platform: Xbox 360

Release Date: 2006-11-07

Features: Features Dolby Digital Sound


Enjoyment Rating: 8 9

Graphics Rating: 9 9

Expert Rating: 8 9

Replay Rating: 7 9

Sound Rating: 9

Fires of Liberation Xbox 360

Product Description:

Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway brings the Brothers in Arms franchise into the next generation of gaming. Delivering on the franchise's compelling story, unrivaled authenticity and intense squad-based action, Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway drops you into an immersive World War II combat experience. Take part to the intense Operation Market-Garden, the largest paratrooper operation ever, where you fight to open famous "Hell's Highway" in a daring bid for a quick end to the war.

Product Specification:

Genre: Racing

Style: Rally/Off-Road Racing

Platform: Xbox 360

Release Date: 2007-06-19

Release Date Type: - -

Game Developer: Codemasters

ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)

ESRB Description: Mild Language, Mild Violence, Alcohol Reference

Features: Features Dolby Digital Sound, Xbox Live Scoreboard

Included in Package: Registration Card

Number of Same Screen Players: 1

Expert Rating: 7 9

Also known as: Xbox 360, Dirt

UPC: 767649401550

Nintendo Wii Console

Product Description:

Following a trend begun with the GameCube and continued with the DS handheld, Wii evidences a significant split of Nintendo's philosophy from those of its consolemaking competitors, Microsoft and Sony. As suggested by its development codename, "Revolution," Nintendo did not want this console to represent another evolution in gaming technology, but a new direction in the video game industry.
Instead of concentrating strictly on advancing the processing and graphics capabilities of its next game machine, Nintendo's research and development focused on easing accessibility, widening its audience beyond young and "hardcore" gamers, and expanding the scope of games that people make and play. With Wii, Nintendo aimed to innovate instead of simply improve.
This focus on innovation is manifest in the console's two most notable features: its controller and its backward compatibility. The Wii controller is rectangular and slender, similar to a television remote control. It is wireless and, unlike the GameCube's WaveBird, features a builtin vibration function. The wandlike Wii controller senses threedimensional motion up and down, back and forward, side to side allowing it to be aimed like laser pointer, wielded like a sword, swung like a baseball bat, cast like a fishing rod, and employed in other intuitive control schemes.
For use with games requiring conventional analog input, a thumbstick accessory, with trigger, can be plugged in the bottom of the Wii controller, to allow more traditional, twohanded manipulation. Without the thumbstick, the controller can also be turned on its side an used like a Nintendo Entertainment System gamepad, with its crossshaped Dpad beneath the left thumb and two action buttons on the right. This feature is useful for both new and old Nintendo games Wii can run.

Product Specification:

Platform: Wii

Wireless Type: Wi-Fi

HDMI: No

Installed Memory: 512 MB

Accessories Included: Wireless controller

Processor: PowerPC

Game Media: Nintendo GAMECUBE disc

Slot Types Provided: Nintendo GameCube Memory Card, SD Memory Card

Connector Type(s): 2 x USB 2.0, 4 x game controller, Component video output

Top Spin 3 Nintendo Wii

Product Description:

Top Spin 3 brings the fun, action packed excitement of tennis to your console like never before with authentic features including signature styles and expressions for over 20 top ranked players, more than 40 breathtaking real world venues, jaw-dropping graphics via Evolutionary Visuals, and much more!

Genre: Sports

Style: Tennis

Platform: Wii

Release Date: 2008-06-24

Release Date Type: - -

Game Developer: PAM Development

ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)

Included in Package: 32-page Instruction Manual

Number of Split Screen Players: 4

Expert Rating: 4 9

Also known as: Wii, Top Spin 3

Technical Support URL: www.take2games.com/support

UPC: 710425343728

Dancing with the Stars

Product Description:

The "Dancing with the Stars" video game gives fans of the show and players of rhythm games exactly what they want - hours and hours of active family fun! The gameplay in "Dancing with the Stars" for Wii is accessible for gamers of all ages and abilities. The Wii Remote and the Nunchuk is used to physically mimic elegant dance moves while at the same time allowing the player to add his or her own personal flair!

Product Specification:

Genre: Simulation

Style: Dancing Sim

Platform: Wii

Release Date: 2007-10-31

Game Developer: Zoe Mode

ESRB Rating: E10+

ESRB Description: Mild Lyrics

Included in Package: 12-Page Instruction Manual

Number of Same Screen Players: 2

Expert Rating: 4 9

Also known as: Wii, Dancing with the Stars

Technical Support URL: www.activisionvalue.com

UPC: 047875754478

Dancing with the Stars

Dancing with the Stars

Mario Party 8 Nintendo Wii

Product Description: Mario Party 8
The worlds most popular party video game is getting a lot crazier in Mario Party 8 for the Wii. Whether youre shaking up cola cans or lassoing barrels, you and your friends will be drawn into the action like never before using the Wii Remote!
Play with motion control! Row your way down a river, punch a statue to pieces, steer race cars and mopeds, and handle a balancing...
The worlds most popular party video game is getting a lot crazier in Mario Party 8 for the Wii. Whether youre shaking up cola cans or lassoing barrels, you and your friends will be drawn into the action like never before using the Wii Remote!
Play with motion control! Row your way down a river, punch a statue to pieces, steer race cars and mopeds, and handle a balancing pole while walking a tightrope! Play with the pointer! Drag and drop decorations onto cakes, shoot Boos in haunted house, quickly choose your answer in a game show! Mash those Wii Remote buttons! Jump and pummel your way through a football brawl, hop and run across an obstacle course of spinning platforms! Mario Party 8 includes six brand-new boards, dozens of minigames and tons of new modes. In a franchise first, you can collect special power-ups that transform your character into a boulder that smashes rivals, a coin-sucking vampire and more! Mario Party 8 includes extra-large minigames, including Star Carnival Bowling and Table Menace.

Product Specification:

Style: Party

Platform: Wii

Release Date: 2007-05-29

Features: Features Dolby Pro Logic II

Number of Same Screen Players: 4

Pro Reviews:

Young Mario fans might enjoy the bland cartoon hijinks of their heroes, though just starting a game or viewing your trophies is such a convoluted procedure they might never get there.

Art

Supa DOPE

NEW BBC

GA GA

GA GA

Need I say more???

-KP

Shayster!

Shay: Dad, listen to the poem I wrote for my Social Studies class.
Dad: okay
Shay: reads poem
Dad: That's really good, you didn't go online, find a poem and change a few words around...did you?
Shay (In her teenager voice) DAD.............I'm not a polygamist

An Earth day Trip to the grocery store

Today we went to the grocery store. Since we are studying Botany on Your Plate, I decided that we would continue our food education even on Earth day. So after making a fun Earth Day stamp design, the kids and I headed out to meet friends at Fred Meyers to calculate exactly how far away our food comes from.

I made a chart that said "Food Name", "Where was it grown?" and "Miles". We haven't gotten to the miles part yet... that is tomorrow. But we were able to get all the info for the rest of the chart via the grocery.


This is Cyan and Alex with their friend Jacob and Autumn, filling out their charts. You notice the two 'almost readers' put the stickers from the fruit onto their charts. It worked GREAT! So if they couldn't read the label correctly, the label was right next to their words and I was able to help really easily. One of my better ideas for sure. :)

The great thing about having a large grocery near you is that you can have two kids find the exact same item (in our case, onions) and have them be from two totally different places! (In our case, Texas, and then grown right here in Washington) It really brought the importance of reading labels home to my kiddos.

The second part of the trip we went to Terry's Berries, our local farm here, to find out where their food was from. And, me being the planner that I was, was thinking that it would all be from the west coast at least. I was wrong! I was shocked to find Bananas from Ecuador, and Lemons from Mexico there right along with the carrots from CA and the Apples (all varieties) from WA. It does show what a hard winter we had up here... but wow. I thought that more would be from our area. Of course, there were many more things from this area than at the big chain store... but the difference wasn't what I had anticipated.

When we got home, and after we had had some lunch, we sat down and looked at Google Earth for a general distance between where we buy our food and where it is grown. Now that was amazing! The kids loved watching the camera zoom across the world to stop on Chile, or Ecuador, or Mexico for each product we had picked.

All in all, a good lesson, and a GREAT day!

Plant Science going great...

That is, when it is going at all. The last two weeks have been SO crazy busy! We have been searching and searching for our perfect house, and we have found a couple that could work. But it has sort of consumed our world. I told the kids that for the next two days stuff was going back to normal.

Above is the egg shell herb garden. It gets bigger every day and is so sweet looking! I made those little signs so the kids could identify the seedlings easily at the same time the third leaf was coming out (which is usually a great identifier) and they have been enjoying guessing what each one is before I put the label back in and then being all excited when they are right.

Stems. In botany we are studying stems. This experiment was about water pulling up stems and how the water goes to the tips of each of the petals. It took about 24 hours for this dye to really show.... but when it did, they really got the point.

A white rose in green dye.

White daisy in blue.

White daisy in pink.

Amazing contrast huh? This is just after 24 hours. They will get darker as they are left in the water, and pretty soon each of the flowers will be an unnatural hue. This experiment really hits home how important water is to plants. And it shows the water cycle very well too... because if you leave one of these plants in the sun and the water gets warm enough to evaporate, the flower dies.

I found that celery is the very best stem to study. If you cut it in half and put each end in a different color of water, you will see that the celery leaves will change differently depending on which side of the stem is feeding it. We tried that with a daisy stem, but it really didn't work we as well. So I think that we are going to add celery to the stem experiment in the next couple days and I will let you know how it turns out.

STUDIO PIC

KP IN THE STUDIO

It was a bitter cold win! The boys faced the very cold north wind in Lake Crystal on Monday night. We won 10-1. Even the coach found it unbearable to stand out in the wind. Darin filled in on coaching 1st base. Hopefully we will have the same out come tonight.

Muffin Tin Monday goes AWOL!

Today Muffin Tin Monday went AWOL. We took ours to the zoo. It was a nice, warm, beautiful day. We were there for hours... enjoying the beauty of the sun. Before that, we took a jog down at Chamber's Bay... that was nearly as interesting (and photo-worthy) as the zoo. Make sure to turn the captions on.

Winning run on 3rd base (Dalton).........Tanner is up to bat........Raider's win 8-6! You think those brothers would be a little happier than that. Dalton caught 2 pop flys to secure the win. Tabor played some varsity last night and they are undefeated too! So far so good, next week we have a marathon of games 4 for the week.

Science Month

I feel, that like us, if kids have each and every subject you could possibly push at them each and every day, they won't retain any of the informational chunks that get tossed their way. I always found the public school day is crazy in the way it is split up. It isn't until high school (and very often, not even then) that kids are expected to study one subject for more than 40 minutes... That usually means they don't get to start and complete a experiment or even a chapter in one day... they have to come back the next day and are expected to remember everything that happened the day before. Even though as many as 6 other subjects, and who-knows how many after school activities they have seen between today and tomorrow.

I try very hard not to do that to my kids in homeschool. I try to give my kids whole days, or even weeks, sometimes on subjects we find interesting.

This month it is Botany. We are LOVING playing with plants and food, and different flowers and such. For a few $$ in different varieties of white flowers and some food dye from the kitchen we are learning all about stems of different plants, and what it really means when the plants soak up water to the tips of their petals. We have planted at least 10 different varieties of seeds and are checking on them every day to see what new things they are doing. On these days, the kids have not been required to do any Math or any Reading except what is on their Botany lessons and even Creative Writing has taken a turn for the plantlife inclined.

The pic above is Cyan with her apple seed seedling. She sat for a few minutes just staring at it like she had never seen a seedling before. When asked what she was doing she responded with: "I am just so happy to see that from this tiny thing comes a tree that I can grow in the back yard of our new house and it will give us apples!" I don't know if it will or not... but what a beautiful idea.

Photo Friday

WaHOOO! The Raiders are on a roll. Tonight we traveled to Truman to smoke out the Blue Jays. Both JV and Varsity scored big runs to make that long road trip worth it. Bubba had a great bunt to score a run plus he made it on 1st base. Looking forward to the Jr. High game on Friday, will the Elliott Boyz be swinging for the fence?

jennifer Lopez

Every man wants a working women that knows how to keep it moving in fashion.

-KP

After hearing some of swiss exclusives i was shocked of what was playing out of the speakers. We know that he crafted many artist with hits. Personally he wouldn't be a producer that i will check for on the daily, but i think he will have a good summer in 2009.

-KP

Cassie

When your a artist you tend to keep your fashion game at 100% but sometimes when the pressure is on your neck you go off, but in this situation I think someone is trying to get some attention for there new LP.

-KP

One day I am going to feed you fried dandelions for dinner!

Sounds like a threat doesn't it? lol! Well today, thanks to this post (I made up my own recipe), that threat came true!

Dandelion Batter

1 cup spelt flour
2 eggs
1 tea sea salt
1 1/2 tea Spike seasoning
2/3 cup of milk or enough to make the batter kind of runny.

Mix it all together in a large bowl.
Wash and spin dry the dandelion flowers.


Dip in the batter, and fry in hot oil (we used coconut oil)



Allow to cool on paper towels, and eat away.

The kids absolutely loved them! They didn't last until dinner. Weeds... who would've thunk?