DISCOVER THE DINOSAURS FIELD TRIP

We had the most fun field trip today! Amy and I took our kids to "Discover the Dinosaurs" in Louisville today. We had so much fun and learned a lot too! I took over fifty photos. Here are some of my favorites:

The gang: Key Lime Pie, Kotten Kandy, Apple Pie, Marmalade, Nuts and Juice

Key Lime Pie stared down a dino wearing Juice's red hat....

Kotten Kandy loves the Triceratops dinosaur

Apple Pie wants to control the Apatosaurus dino

Key Lime Pie and Marmalade cower in fear over the strange and unusual dinosaurs

Nuts shows he's fearless by petting the beasts

Juice is impressed with the monstrous creatures

Apple Pie was a bit nervous at first but LOVED the outing -

Kotten Kandy (and Key Lime Pie [not pictured]) were wonderful helpers with the youngsters

The kids were mesmerized

Key Lime Pie is beautiful

Kotten Kandy is enchanting

Juice is super intelligent

Nuts is entertaining

Marmalade is cute

Apple Pie is adorable

My girls ROCK!

It was truly a wonderful day! We enjoyed good friends, cool displays and a delicious picnic. We needed a break from our regular, ordinary school days.

Walking Man

My daughters and I just finished reading the most wonderful autobiographical novel EVER! We read "Walking Man" by Gary McCallister (aka. my dad) This book is not a complete history of my father's life. It is the story of his conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is full of spiritual thoughts he had as a child and in his teen years. It has questions and early memories of his growing up years. All the stories in the book are somewhat connected to his quest for learning the meaning of life.

My dad's gift of love has lead to many of our own thoughts and discussions about religion and what we believe. I'm soooooo grateful for his "novel." It has strengthened my own testimony to read my dad's conversion. It also helped strengthen by daughters' testimonies as well.

The girls are writing letters to the author to express their gratitude and to ask more questions about their grandfather's life. Key Lime Pie has even begun taking a family history class. She realized, through the book and talks by Elder Bednar, that she wanted to serve her ancestors by completing their temple work, etc. She's the youngest girl in the family history class, but she's loving it!

This book isn't available to purchase... yet. I hope dad will look into publishing it. I think it's a wonderful conversion story (it even has unusual religions, and a marvelous love story!)

SOMETIMES YA' GOTTA READ

My daughters read non-stop today...

FUNNY HOMESCHOOL SONG

KEY LIME PIE LOVES HANDEL

George Fredric Handel’s Messiah
Oratorio
Composed: London 1741-1742 First Performed: Dublin April 13th 1742

Handel’s Messiah was an amazing oratorio. And I loved watching it! There was an orchestra, and being a violinist I paid more attention to the violins! I loved the songs too! We had an amazing trip to Nashville!

I especially loved the song “For Unto Us a Child is Born.” It was really cool to listen to the drums during the part where they sang, “his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace.”

I also loved the “Hallelujah Chorus!”

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah…For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth… Hallelujah! The kingdom of this world Is become the kingdom of our Lord, And of His Christ… And He shall reign for ever and ever … King of kings, and Lord of lords…Hallelujah!”

We all stood up during that part! And I caught myself and my mom singing! The violin part was also fun during the “Hallelujah Chorus”.

I loved the violin's part, and I wish I could play it someday! My mom bought two complete scores for us to follow along while we listened. The whole time I mostly followed the violins part. They played in third position a lot. It was an amazing thing to see. I wonder if I am good enough to play with the orchestra that played the Messiah.

We got to sit directly in front of the trumpet and the timpani. I wish we could have sat in front of the violins. But it was still a great experience!!

I loved the Messiah! And I am glad George Fredric Handel wrote it! I wish I could go again! I know that my family wants to go again! Maybe someday my family can go again when I am performing in the orchestra.

By Key Lime Pie

FRAZIER MUSEUM FIELD TRIP

Kotten Kandy, Applesauce and Key Lime Pie went to the Frazier Museum on Thursday for a field trip. We learned a lot. The museum is mostly dedicated to weaponry, but their holiday tree display was amazing! They had trees from all around the world. Of course, the American tree was our favorite!
The war armor was fun. Kotten Kandy is on the right... Key Lime Pie is on the left...



The museum was fun and educational. Key Lime Pie's favorite was the trees from different countries. Kotten Kandy loved the swords and war displays. I loved watching my daughters dress up in period costumes and get excited about learning! We can't wait to go again!

MESSIAH FIELD TRIP

In 1741, George Frideric Handel thought he would retire from composing music. His career was in the toilet, when he received a libretto (lyrics) based on the life of Christ and taken entirely from the bible. Handel moved to Dublin and began to compose his most inspirational and infamous work of art: Messiah. The composition was completed in only 24 days.

When one of the listeners at the performance congratulated Handel on the "excellent entertainment." Handel replied, "My lord, I should be sorry that I only entertained them. I wish to make them better." And that is what this oratorio does. It brings people to Christ.

We were blessed to attend a performance of Messiah last night in Tennessee. (We went with my friend, Amy, and her family.) It was amazing! All of us left edified and grateful for the opportunity to attend this magnificent event. It was inspirational and spiritually edifying.

We sat in the front row next to the world-renown trumpeter, Alan Cox. He was awesome! I also had a couple of full-scores that my daughters, husband and I were able to follow along with. We used this experience for educational purposes as well. Both girls are writing up their experiences. - I'll share those later! :-)The concert was next door to the Nashville, TN temple. So after the spectacular performance (and yummy refreshments), we took a family photo at the temple.... It is as beautiful as all of the other LDS temples. We love visiting them!Our fun evening was not over, despite how late it was. The 12 of us who attended the concert together then drove to Oprey Land to look at the lights. WOW! It was also amazing! But my favorite was a HUGE nativity display. It was bigger than the display at Temple Square. The pieces were larger than life and there were over 40 pieces. (My pictures don't do it justice.) This field trip was amazing! I want to take everyone I know to do it again next year!

THOMAS JEFFERSON MADE ME DO IT!

I am often asked why Scott and I decided to home school our daughters. Well, the answer is because of Thomas Jefferson (and Oliver DeMille).

Where do I begin? Key Lime Pie and Kotten Kandy had been begging me to home school them for about a year. I kept telling them that I didn't think I could do it. Then, last December, I read this incredible book. It was life changing.

As I read this book, it was like someone had turned on the lights and I could finally see my kids' education AND my own clearly. I had felt there was something wrong with the current education system for some time, but it was difficult for me to put a finger on what it was. Everyone seems to point blame in different directions and at the end of the day nothing has been resolved. All we do is throw more tax money at a problem we can't define.

This book finally explains where the breakdown occurred and continues to occur. It gives SOLUTIONS! Basically, DeMille challenges us as parents to study the classics and then encourage our children to do so as well. He suggests that the parent/child relationship should be one of mentor/student.

The Thomas Jefferson approach to learning resonated with me. It was because of this book that I thought we could actually go ahead and home school our daughters this year. It has been a wonderful experience for us. I've based most of our curriculum on classic literature. It has been exciting to watch our children respond and get excited about learning.

Key Lime Pie and Kotten Kandy are self-motivated with their education and they enjoy learning. Because of this book, Scott and I are more sensitive to their needs and better able to facilitate their growth. We understand better how to guide them with patience and wisdom.

TO DO LISTS

To Do Lists really work around our house. I love them and my daughters love them. They keep us focused on what we are supposed to be doing for school and for homemaking. The other day both daughters claimed that they LOVED making their daily To Do Lists because they get so much more done when they do!

Every morning we write out two lists. One is a To Do List - Have To Do and the other list is a To Do List - For Fun. The rule we have is that in order to do anything on the second list the first list has to be done. It works for us!

Here are a few tricks we have learned:
1. Everyone makes their own To Do List. Ownership of the tasks is half the battle in our house.
2. Be specific with your To Do List. We achieve more that way. We try to make our To Do Lists achievable so we break down our goals into smaller steps.
3. Having two lists helps us to PRIORITIZE. :-)
4. Be flexible. If we don't accomplish everything on our lists at the end of the day, we don't beat ourselves up. We just write it down for the following day, until it is crossed out.

We have found that making our To Do Lists helps us to be more focused! What works for you?

WEEK IN REVIEW

It has been a VERY busy week for us. Scott had surgery on his knee (Tuesday morning). We left for the hospital at 8:15 a.m. and didn't get home until 6:30 p.m. He is in a lot of pain, but they cleaned out all the mess in his knee. He took the entire week off of work, but plans to return to work tomorrow (Monday).

We are still trying to move in. It's difficult with an "disabled" husband. To make things more difficult, I injured my back moving boxes last week. My doctor told me to take it easy (ie. not lifting boxes or bending over, etc.). Needless to say, we are still living out of boxes. Hopefully this week will be more productive...
On Thursday morning, Key Lime Pie and Kotten Kandy made t-shirt dresses. They learned how to make them from Jan M. (a wonderful woman in our ward). I thought the dresses turned out really cute. They got tons of compliments on them at church today. They also made a cute baby gift for Brandie's baby shower on Friday. They made a Noah's Ark pillow toy.
Speaking of Brandie's shower, it went well. Amy B. and I made TONS of delicious food. And it looked really cute! We had about 30 people attend. We played "Name That Disney Tune." I LOVE that game! And Amy played a matching game complete with candy bars to go with the matches. For example: Matching "First Time Dad" = Butterfinger. Matching "Breastfeeding" = Milky Way. Matching "Nursing Bra" = Reece's Big Cup. Matching "Triplets" = 3 Musketeers. And my favorite: Matching "Conception" = Score. It was really funny! And Brandie was spoiled! I'm glad. She is such a sweet person! And we are excited to hold her new baby boy in about a month!

NaNoWriMo is still going strong in our house. Writing is our main thing right now. It seems like that is all we do. Today was my first day of real "writer's block." I'm hoping tomorrow will be a better day.

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo) is an annual internet-based creative writing project which challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel between November 1 and November 30. The project started in July 1999 with just 21 participants, but by the 2010 event over 200,000 people took part. Writers wishing to participate first register on the project's website (www.nanowrimo.org), where they can post profiles and information about their novels, including synopsis and excerpts. Word counts are validated on the site, with writers submitting a copy of their novel for automatic counting.

So... for school this month, Key Lime Pie, Kotten Kandy and I (along with our good friend Amy B.) have decided to take the challenge. Today is Day 1! I will be daily updating our progress for you - check out the side-bar for our numbers. In order to finish writing our novels by November 3oth, we need to write 1667 words per day. Our goal is a bit more ambitious - we're shooting for 2000 words per day.

This video describes it all! Check it out....

HECTOR BERLIOZ AND LUMINARIES

Music appreciation is extremely important to me. I want my children to grow up to love and experience all kinds of music (including the classics). Amy, my friend, feels the same way. So we decided that on Fridays, I would teach a small music appreciation class for our six kids.

One thing I love is the tremendous ability that music has to affect emotions. Emotional content of music is very subjective, but during this time of year there is some fabulous music that lends itself to spooky fun!

Hector Berlioz

This week, in honor of Halloween and "scary" music, I decided to introduce the kids to Hector Berlioz. Hector Berlioz is a 1800's French composer who was supposed to be a doctor like his father, but instead choose to study music. His symphony, Symphonie Fantastique, has five movements (instead of the normal four). And the last two movements are kinda eerie. I explained to the kids that it's fun to be a LITTLE creeped out, if we use our imagination. I told them that when he wrote the music he imagined someone going to the gallows and then a huge dance in a graveyard with all the witches, goblins, skeletons, etc. (The actual story is much darker... but some of Amy's kids are VERY young.)

By the time I finished telling them the story of the music, they were really excited to hear it. So I told them we would listen to it, while we made luminaries for our graveyard dance! We then painted jars to look like pumpkins and Frankensteins. The kids did a fantastic job! Even Apple Pie, Amy's 3 year old, painted with us.
When our crafts were drying, Apple Pie, Kotten Kandy, Nut, Marmalade and I decided to "act" out the music. We danced to movement number 5 like we were witches and goblins. Kotten Kandy also decided to be a zombie. It was tons of fun!
Everyone loved learning about Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. And we all loved our luminaries. (Amy and her husband especially liked that we used battery operated candles to light them!)
Music and art! Is there any better combination?!

From left to right: Kotten Kandy, Marmalade, Nut, Juice, Apple Pie and Key Lime Pie

FUNNY! PLEASE WATCH!

BORN TO BE HAPPY!

Being happy isn't a given in this life. It's a journey. And it is something that needs to be learned. So today, we discussed happiness in 'school'. We used Michael McLean's M2B:-) (Mission to be Happy) CD and handbook. Using music to help teach this subject to my daughters really is a good "fit" for our family!

The music really rocks, and brought smiles to all our faces. (Which is what it is designed to do.) It also taught us some great truths!

Michael McLean has struggled with clinical depression and diabetes for a long time. I could definitely relate. Depression has plagued me for many years also. I especially appreciated how he addressed getting help from doctors, therapists and counselors. It "opened up a discussion" with my daughters about how chemical imbalances run in our family, and that depression can be helped with therapy and pills. McLean's song, Pills, explains how he is dependent on pills, insulin and doctors, but he is mostly dependent on Heavenly Father. That is exactly how I feel and have felt.

Michael also reminds us that we don't know how long depression or sadness will last. He admonishes us to look for unexpected joys all around us. He sings about how he found an "unexpected joy" when he was listening to the Beatles and began singing "oooooh" With Paul and John.

Other suggestions at finding happiness include having faith in our Savior and finding YOUR own happiness (not someone else's). He also recommends finding good friends (including family) and letting go of negative friends and influences.

Michael McLean's book is a great handbook. And we loved the music. My daughters both want their own copies of the CD so they can listen to it in their own bedrooms.... I think this was school time well spent!