Only One Way

My son was finishing up his maze from Diana Waring's Ancient Civilizations Elementary Pack and explained, "I did it, Mom. See, there's only one way to finish the maze. Just like to God, there's only one way to Heaven-thru Jesus." I love this kid! I love how he weaves real life examples into his spiritual life.

 "Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

Valentine's With Hieroglyphics!

We have really enjoyed our study of Egypt particularly since so much of the news lately has been about Egypt's current revolution. I love studying history along side current events. It makes learning so much more relevant. So today I decided we would take our art class and finish up our study of hieroglyphics and make Valentine cards, hieroglyphic style!
We started with a basic recipe from Diana Waring's, Ancient Civilizations, book.

One cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt, 1 TB oil, 2 tsp. cream of tartar, 1 cup of dark tea water or use food coloring with water to color. Combine all ingredients in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium heat until thick. Form this mixture into a ball, caution, the dough will be very hot. Kneed for several minutes to make a uniform consistency, then roll into rectangles of 1/4 inch thickness. We used toothpicks to make the hieroglyphic symbols!

How could you not love a Valentine like this one?! This is my third son with his hieroglyphic letter. It says, "Hug me". How sweet!

Here are the rest of the Valentine's cards. Two say "I love you", one says, "Hug me", and another wasn't really a Valentine but more of a fun word-"Basketball", my son's current sport!
 We also studied God's great love for His people as He brought them up out of Egypt and finally into the Promised Land. Being that this was a holiday for "Love" it was a great way to emphasize that we only love because God first loved us. God's love is so merciful and patient, and we talked about how we can show these same qualities with our family and friends.
"You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Exodus 19:4-6

We had a great time making these. I hope the kids won't forget this Valentine, bringing history and holiday together!

Pyramids!

So the kids and I have been kind of cooped up with the winter weather we've been having, plus having little ones, it's hard to get them outside. However, today I couldn't stand it, I took the kids out and decided we should build a pyramid out of snow!

These are the two children that actually help build the pyramid. The other boys only agreed to have their picture taken after they saw that it looked pretty cool!

Here is a great guide my friend gave me to enhance our ancient civilizations studies.

Breaking in the ice shack-2011!

DH took the boys out two days in a row ice fishing. Here they are all crammed into the ice house with our friends the Greens! They went out yesterday in a blinding blizzard of a snowstorm-our biggest storm so far this season. Today they went out again and caught quite a few fish, brought home six massive bass!

                Here are the fish!

                        "Super C"-And one proud fisherman!

Here is my oldest son, filleting the fish so I could make a fish chowder. It turned out sooo good!

I'm pretty sure the kids won't be too happy to get back to their regular routine of school work tomorrow! We are so greatful to have this extra time with their Dad on his days off. Homeschooling really brings us all closer together. The kids will be grown and gone before long and it's so nice to capture these moments of "life learning" thanks to homeschooling. Our oldest can now fillet the fish-PTL! As well as DH said that our 8 year-old can set his own traps now and has even been able to catch his own fish! Way to go "Number One" and "Super C"!

Moose Hunt 2010

Here are my boys posing proudly with the moose my husband harvested back in October. We are still enjoying this moose. We had some of the meat made into sausage and we used that sausage in our Christmas stuffing! What a blessing to our growing family as well as it made for lifelong memories for the boys AND we could count some of the hunt as SCHOOL! I guess I'm becoming quite the Mainah these days-because I really LOVE moose meat! I am so thankful every day I can go to my freezer and get such lean, healthy meat and not have to drag my kids to the grocery store! What a blessing!
I loved what Sarah Palin had to say in her show, Sara Palin's Alaska, about having meat in your freezer. I am not ashamed anymore to say we have meat in our freezer! :) Here's the link to the clip from the show:
http://tlc.discovery.com/videos/sarah-palins-alaska-shes-a-great-shot.html

Leaving our study of Ur with Abraham

We have been journeying through history from Creation to Noah's flood to the tower of Babel. Presently we are leaving Ur and the Sumerian culture that God called Abraham out of. Above is a picture of the ingredients we used to make a lentil stew. The Fertile Crescent was a very fertile land for growing lentils and other crops during Abraham's days.

The lentils are soaking in the pot here.

The finished stew!

Enjoying the meal as a family!

Dressing up to complete the lentil stew experience! The boys thought I was a bit carried away! :)

The Princess Turns 3!

We had a fabulous birthday party for my dd last week!

Here is her princess castle cake! The cake was made with ricotta cheese and apples with cream cheese frosting. Even the children were asking for seconds on the cake! (I can't tell you how many times we throw away cake that has been served to the children. They usually won't eat a lot of cake.)

Some of the delicious sandwiches to go along with our princess feast of bbq chicken, potato salad (pink of course!), pink mac-n-cheese, macaroni salad, chips and dip, and pink lemonade!

The lovely Queen Elizabeth, aka, "Granny"! When she said she was going to dress up she wasn't kidding!

The princess hosting her friends for dinner!

My 14 year-old ds dressed as a jester doing some juggling for the children. He had quite an audience, even the adults were entertained!

One of our guests was very helpful in our craft time. The girls all got to make their own princess crowns from foam, glitter, stickers, and glue!

The bouncy castle we rented to go with our theme. The kids had a blast!

Digging for the King's treasure! We bought two big bags of rice and added it to our sand table. We buried gold coins from the dollar store and some fancy gem stones from the dollar store too! It was quite a hit!

Me, as Jasmine, dh as a knight and baby as Tinkerbell!