Well today everyone was back in school and ready to move on. A lot of fun stories and memories about the past weekend. We had some exciting news today! Tabor received a letter from a college recruiter here in Minnesota. Tamara has a tendency to always complain that the O-line doesn't get enough love. Well it looks like someone was watching the line long enough to have a good look at Tabor. Another high lite was Tamara getting to hand all 3 of her son's runner up metals at the welcome home. The Boyz are taking a couple days off to heal up the bruises and then its off to wrestling practice for all 3. Yes, Bubba has made the switch to wrestling. YEAH we are going the same direction for sporting events.

The End of a Dream Season

I would be lying if I didn't tell you it still stings a bit that we took 2ND place. But we set some great records and made even more great memories! At the start of the season the state of Minnesota had 63 - 9man teams. At the end of the Dream Season we can say there was only 1 team better than us. And how many of those teams can say they had 4 fathers who coached and 7 son's who played. Big thank you to all who cheered us on each and every week. As the days go on and our bodies & hearts heal we will post more of our Metrodome Memories.

Mushroom Spore Prints

According to the chart, getting firm specimens is really important when trying to get a good spore print. Some of these mushrooms were obviously older, being past their time to make spores and they decomposed into water. But a few of them made beautiful spore prints! I am excited to add this to our 'something to do' list.

Now that we have all of our information compiled, we are going to try to identify them. I have made a chart for such a purpose, and Alex is filling it out right now.

This is my favorite (#5):

I honestly didn't realise that mushroom undersides could look like this. I was so used to the gills. Even teacher learned something today!

Wild Mushrooms

We spent Black Friday at home, hanging out. The boys got a hair cut, and we did some fun crafts. We watched a movie together and had hot cocoa, and then we went to a park and picked up litter. I was AMAZED at how much litter there was in this tiny little inner city park... we got 3 handle bags worth of litter and a gallon bottle of something that looked like Kool Aid (I wouldn't let the kids open it) in less than a half hour.

While we were collecting litter, I brought along a basket to gather wild mushrooms. I have had this 'life cycle of a mushroom' deck of cards for a long time and thought that now was the time to pull it out.

We found so many varieties and we were only there for a little while. I am excited to go back and find more kinds next time. We laid them all out on white paper, and then looked under them with a magnifying glass.

Then I had the kids cut the stems off and place them gills (or sponge) down to get spore prints tomorrow (which I will also put into a collage like I did the pictures to help us identify them later).

We are trying to figure out what they are, but I am SO new to this that I am not even sure how to teach the kids to identify them. We are not eating any wild mushrooms at all, although we love Chanterelles. But I am pretty sure that none of these are those.

For now we are using this chart:

And these books to help figure out the characteristics of them. Once we know what to look for, we will start to try and ideitify them. No worries though... my children and I will not be eating wild mushrooms any time soon.

This may have to be Logan's new t-shirt

Don't you think?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! This year we are "Thankful" for all our family & friends and our Raider Brothers. In just one hour we will be packing up the bus and headed for practice on the Minnetonka Dome. One more game and one more win. Tabor~Tanner & Dalton

Dome Dome Dome

This has been one amazing ride! And to think 20 years from now our boyz get to have this memory of our entire family on the turf at the metrodome. Truly a milestone they soon won't forget. They can do this ........ our RAIDER family ........lives it .........breathes it......... and knows it.

Famous homeschooling comments from today

We spent a lot of time in the car today. We got lost... and so we of course, took the moments that we had to 'teach'. Every homeschooler uses these moments right?

"Hey look kids... When Santa isn't at the north pole, he is holding a sign in Graham."

Don says "What has a tongue like this?" Don sticks his tongue out like a snake. And without a hitch, Logan says "A bison!!!"

Thank God for homeschooling. Lol...

Window stars and origami

Alex has been going crazy with the origami. He sold over $10 worth of his creations last weekend at the craft fair we went to. He is so good at it, and his work is beautiful and crisp.

I got him this book on Magical Window Stars for another paper folding activity, and he has loved making them so far! His first one was put in the nature case at the library to show the sun behind 'summer', and this is his second one:

He and I share the paper obsession. When he was little he used to like to make 'confetti'... which meant that he would take whole pieces of paper and cut them up into tiny bits, and then put them in a box or envelope. His paper crafts have grown with him and I am so proud of his latest works. They are beautiful and well done. He is becoming a master of folding paper and I am excited about having lots of Christmas decorations around the house made by him!

Feeling Like Home at the DOME

Words can't describe what happen today. We never gave up! Big "THANK YOU" to all our family members & friends who came to cheer us on. Even the Birthday Boy Justin came to the DOME to bring the Raiders good luck. I have a ton of photos to post of our adventure. Here is just a few to share. We are going to do it all again next Friday which by the way we are changing the name to BLUE FRIDAY!

Feeding Elk... out of your car???

Yes. That is what we spent the day doing. We fed elk, out of the car. It was amazing. I can't even describe it in words... all I can do is show you pictures:



Oh, and tell you where we were. ;)

If you want the full sized slideshow (see all the bison slobber up close!) then click here. I'll fill in more details later.

More rainbow fun!

Remember this? We got it back from my friend a few months ago. But I knew Logan wasn't quite ready for it, so it has been sitting on a shelf until yesterday. I thought that it might go right along with the rainbow puddles game... and it did!

He quickly and easily figured out where each one went... even the gradual color change ones. The clothes pins are perfect for working on finger dexterity too!

I am still amazed at what a difference a few months can do for a child's skills. 7 months ago he just wanted to rip the stars off of these clothes pins. Now he can understand the color differences between light purple, dark purple, and violet and match them all up correctly. Their little brains are just amazing!

Milking Dairy Goats

Our food production studies have come a long way, although most are hard to discribe as I haven't been taking as many pictures as usual.

Last week it took us to a fun little farm that produces goats milk. The owner was a wonderful tour guide and she and her two homeschooled kids taught us how to milk a goat!

First comes grooming and reassurance. Then cleaning the utters to make sure no hair or dirt gets into the milk.

Then the milking:

And of course, goat conversation. ;)

The kids with their "I Milked A Dairy Goat!" ribbons.

For the love of Rainbow

It has been raining... a lot. Every night it storms and then each day it rains... all day long. We got a three hour respite yesterday and we were very grateful, but it was just enough to wet our appetites for more dry and sunny weather... and then it started raining again. So I took a trip to the craft store for things to do... and found these:

What can a mama do with a bag of 300 of these? Hmmm... lets find out. Today it was a story and a game for Logan.

The story is about 6 rainbow goblins who like to jump in mud puddles. They thought it was great fun. But each time they got out of a puddle they noticed that all of their jumping had caused the puddles to change to colorful paint! And when they looked up, the raindrops on their arms and legs had changed to paint too! They had to quickly put all of the drops of water back into the puddles where they belonged so the puddles would turn back to clear good water to drink because all of their jumping had made them very thirsty.

Logan loved matching up the raindrops to the puddles and hearing the story. I think I will stick with a rainbow theme for a while in our homeschool lessons. I am even trying to find/think up things for the older kids.

I was thinking of reading him the story of The Rainbow Goblins but decided that my modified version was better for the younger crowd. (In the book the sinister Rainbow Goblins plan to steal a rainbow out of Rainbow Valley and the flowers very effectively fight back. Good for older kids... but may have scary moments for the youngers.)

Introducing Blue Bear

Saturday the team stopped to eat at Perkings in Owatonna around 8 am prior to our big win. Well as the boyz were finished eating they were playing the claw machine. The defense boyz thought they would take an opportunity to "get even" with Tamara. So Turbo came with this bear for her and a line of crap about how much she does for the team. Well under the bear are all of the breakfast bills! They all had a good laugh but then Tamara stops at wal-mart to get the bear a new blue ribbon and he came to the game & welcome home an he will be at the dome! Right now he is tapped to her office door for all student body to see. Could Blue bear make the local paper?

DOME BABY!

You can do anything together! We had a escort into town tonight, Nicollet County Sheriff & Nicollet fire department along with 250 fans left the lights on the football field to welcome home our players. This has been an amazing season for us and its far from over. We took a couple of hours to celebrate with family and friends. It was a win but there is next weeks game to prepare for! Next Saturday at 8:00 we will play Ada-Borup in the dome. These good southern boyz are going to show the pig farmers from the north just how we play 9-man football. Hey, the last one to leave Nicollet Friday night please turn the lights off!