NPS headed to state wrestling

The boyz finished up wrestling at section 4A yesterday in St. James. We had 5 Raider wrestlers place! Tanner placed 6Th at the 112lbs bracket and will be traveling to State to help his teammate Jaydon who took 1st in sections at the 103lbs class. Dalton will continue to practice as well with NYWA section wrestling coming up on Saturday March 12Th. Now we are off to the lake to get a little fishing in!

One & One for the night

Section 4A wrestling started last night and both Tanner & Dalton went 1-1. Dalton had one of the nights fasted pin of 27 seconds. Today they boarded the bus at 6:45am and headed back to St.James.(worst gym for photography ever) The entire NPS wrestling team is still in metal contention. We should be home around 6 tonight and then its to the lake for some ice fishing!

Field trips of Feb 2010

My best friend decided to put together pictures of all of the field trips by months. I thought it was a wonderful idea and so shamelessly stole it.

Was there ever such a thing as "homeschooling via field trips"? Cuz we would be those people. ;)

There were at least two trips I didn't take pictures... The Audubon Society and the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. And it's Feb. LOL!

ill tempered sea bass

We have been on lots of field trips these last two weeks. The latest being a trip to the Seattle Aquarium... Before we went, I had an interesting conversation with my toddler:

Me: "Hey hon, you ready?"
Toddler: "Where we going?"
Me: "To a fish place to see fishes!" with enthusiasm.
Toddler: "Oh! With guns on them?"

Oh yes, I have birthed Dr Evil.



A slide show of our awesome trip! (Make sure you turn on the captions. It is much better that way. :) )

Busy Busy

Over the last couple of weeks the boyz have been super busy with a new semester starting at school and we are in the tail end of wrestling season. Nicollet hosted the Valley Conference Tournament and the gym was packed with over 90 wrestlers. And the Raiders had their first "BIG" win over Mlps. Edison 56 -6. Tabor is still out for 3 more weeks and is hoping not to miss the start of baseball season with the rip in his tendon. But he's all excited he brought home Grandpa's Ice house and plans to get in some time on the lake this weekend. Besides who can think of baseball when we have all this snow?

The Little Prince

The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery is an amazing book. . I hadn't read this book in about 15 years. All I remembered was that it was sad. As a 'grown up' I was able to see so much more. The ideas that were common place to me as a child are now extraordinary and deep. Which is the exact phenomenon that he speaks of in the book. About 'grown ups'.

A friend of mine has a tattoo of the Boa Constrictor from the inside and outside. One on each of her forearms. I found this out only last week as I had never seen her in short sleeves before. The next day, I was enjoying a morning of happy thrifting and saw this book on the second hand book shelf. I sat on the floor and read it until I was finished right there in the thrift store. Then I bought it, brought it home, and read it again. It has been in my head for the last two days... I don't feel that I can explain the story very well... it is just a book that everyone should read. Especially if you have not read it in a very long while.

It looks like a children's book. Don't be fooled. This book is not really for children, but for the grown ups that children have grown into.

Happy Birthday Bubba!

Holy Smokes! Tabor is 17 years old today.....where did the time go? Bubba has had a very busy year. He learned to love a new sport of wrestling but is still out for another 4 weeks will that ripped tendon. He also had a championship year for football (which is his first love).

Tabor is a avid sportsman and loves the outdoors like he loves engines. This winter I think he has put on over 500 miles on the sled. Over the past month he has been really looking at colleges. At school some of his favorite classes are web design, pro engineering & math.

Tabor babysits and loves to be around little kids. This semester he does not have Chinese so he has a open hour and during that time he can be found in the gym helping with kindergarten PE or he likes to be in the 4Th grade with Mr.Amsden.

Bubba also is our Chef, some how he has picked up a food pallet like no other. At 10 o'clock at night he could be found in the kitchen whipping up some cream sauce that he will pour over his chop along with the garden salad that is covered in blue cheese dressing.

Happy Birthday Tabor!

Daddy Daughter Dance

Daddy Daughter Dance history.

It has been an annual event for the past four years. I missed taking pictures of the one from 2008, but these pictures are amazing to me! Not just because my daughter is turning to a beautiful young woman before my very eyes, but because my photography and camera skills have gotten SO much better! lol!

2007:

2009:

2010:

It is a tradition that will not be broken any time soon. Cyan asks when it is for months beforehand. She has had this dress picked out since Summer. She had her hairdo picked out for the last month. She looks forward to it and I have to admit, these putting this post together got me a bit teary, seeing my love with our beautiful girl, as she turns to a little woman.

Off for an evening with the boys. Let the shooting and rowdy movies begin!

Valentine's Party

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY from Cultivate Homeschool!

A few of my favorite things..

I have really been enjoying my kids and family as of late. Not that I don't usually enjoy them, but, I have just had an awakening to how much fun they all are. What a blessing to be a wife and mother to this crew. I figured I better blog about it so that on some future frustrating day..I can look back and remember...

Steve and Derek have been working hard on Derek's science project. Determining which metal is softest-aluminum, copper or brass. Here they are cutting the metal to be tested..

For FHE we each made valentines day mailboxes that we hung on our bedroom doors. We spent the week filling up each others boxes with notes of love and appreciation. You can see that this girl is loved AND appreciated.

I couldn't resist getting a picture of the new glasses. Isn't she cute?? You can almost see the little heart she had in her hair for V-day today. We've had fun putting hearts in her hair all week.

And here's my boy with his newly acquired braces. Life is constantly moving and busy at our house...but for the most part..I sure enjoy these guys.

Will it ever end?

Here we go again! All of our sporting events have been cancelled for tonight and who knows about tomorrow? Darin spent the better part of the evening blowing a fresh 10 inches of snow. The only bright spot is that the boyz are getting a ton of use out of the snowmobiles.

So far our school has been lucky and as of today we don't need to make any of the snow days up. Today we made it to school and then let out at 10:30.

We have had 5 sets of friends recently come back from Mexico and tell us how wonderful it was. The next couple to tell us they are going someplace warm is getting a snowball right in the kisser.

Well I'm heading some place warm too! I'm going to put my feet up in front of the fireplace door and sip on some beverage that doesn't have a drink umbrella in it and watch the travel channel.

The Toymaker

Archiving Emails I came across one I hadn't really looked at before... And WOW! I love this site! My older kids will have a lot of fun with these paper toys. :)

The Toymaker

Haha... a funny for your Sunday

Ms Stinerite

Late winter nature table

This nature table is such a reflection of what is going on in our yard right now. Once again, it is blank... even more blank than the winter nature table. In the yard we have been pruning, cleaning, raking, and carefully replanting. Our trees are coming this next week and we have to find a place to put them all. I have given The Man the task of getting the garbage and yard waste from the carpet pulling and the ivy cutting to it's rightful place... so far that has been an epic fail. The kids and I have been making a dent in it though... as much as a single yard waste bin every two weeks can do. ;)

Back to the nature table though. I added these sweet little paper roses for the celebration of Valentine's day (I know, no roses would usually be blooming right now, but this is the only place in the house they will be safe). I made Mother Nature a beautiful valour cape with a red silk ribbon and she is holding a red glass heart (I love red glass!).

Here is one of our candles from our Imbolc candle making.

Perfect for the celebration of the new light!

If you look really closely, you can see our little teasel hedgehog under the story 'The Hat' by Jan Brett. :) So cute!