Marble Earth

Justin's earth made of marbles. Can you see the continents? I love this child!

He is always creating something!

JK Wedding Entrance Dance~You have to see this!

What's New At Homeschool Share

Have you been to Homeschool Share (HHS) lately? There is a ton of new stuff that has been submitted by some very talented mom's! If you are not familiar with Homeschool Share it is an on-line cooperative effort of several homeschooling moms to provide free but quality literature-based unit studies and resources.

Homeschool Share is one of my favorite homeschooling resources. There are literature-based unit studies, lapbooks, templates, FIAR resources and even a new workbox section called workboxables! You can find all the new stuff by going to the homeschool share homepage and clicking on the "What's new" button. I have tried several times to link it from here but it will not let me. Happy planning!

Smelly Science~ Scratch and Sniff

Our final experiment for Smelly Science was to make scratch and sniff cards! We used three different scents. We used lemon, lime and grape.

our official test strips.

Kaden's scratch and sniff artwork

Justin's scratch and sniff art work

testing it out

It really does smell!
We were able to detect each scent. The strongest? Lime!

How does it work? When you scratch a scratch and sniff card. Your fingernail breaks open the little crystals releasing the scent into the air.

Great Movies!

We subscribe to Netflix and really love their service! Recently we have seen some very good movies! I thought I'd share here.


Wall-E~What a cute movie. I really didn't think it would be that good. I was surprised. It was really cute. A great movie about friendship and team work!

Fly Wheel~This movie was the first movie from the creators of Facing the Giants and Fireproof. It is about a dishonest used car salesman whose life is turned around in a way he never expected. I hope the creators of these movies put out more. They have all been excellent!


October Sky~This movie is based on the memoir Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam Jr. Homer Hickam was inspired after seeing Sputnik satellite in the night sky, he is inspired to build a rocket along with three of his classmates. It is an excellent movie about pursuing your dreams no matter the odds.

Larry and I had seen this movie years ago but we wanted Justin to see it because of his love of space! It is really worth watching!


Bolt~This was another great kids movie. I didn't expect to like it so much! I would watch this one again. It is about a dog who thinks he has superpowers only to find out he doesn't. It is a great movie about friendship and love!


Paul Blart Mall Cop~I can describe this movie in one word. FUNNY! Oh we laughed and laughed! This is such a funny movie and pretty good too. Not cheesy like I expected!

What good movies have you been watching lately?

Ladybug, Ladybug fly away home......

But not until you finish eating all the aphids off my rose bush! A few weeks ago I noticed a ton of aphids on my pink rose bush, I mean it was covered. I thought I should try to get them off. A few hours later Kaden came and told me to come look at the ladybug on the rose bush. There was a ladybug alright and she brought her family! They had a sumptuous meal of aphids for dinner and didn't leave until they were gone! Ladybugs are so neat aren't they?

(click on the pictures to enlarge)

Now for a bit of photo editing:

Here is a picture straight out of the camera

After a little photo editing using Picnik.

I used the boost effect.

Wow! Now those ladybugs pop!

A close up!
Can you believe it is the same picture?

A Visit with Great Mom Mom

A few weeks ago we to visit Larry's grandma (great mom mom). We had a great visit and wanted to go right back the next day!

Hangin' out with great mom mom!

I love this picture!

My Little Bike Rider

Kaden learning to ride his bike.....

ready to roll!

and he's off!

this takes concentration!

Aaaaahhh there he goes! My baby....who is not such a baby anymore.....sigh

Preschool Activity Bag Swap

Last month I participated in a preschool activity in a bag swap. Kaden now has 20 new activities to keep him busy! I plan on pulling these out when he is bored or needs something new to do. Stay tuned......

40 Year Anniversary of The Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Yesterday was the 40 year anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing! We marked this historic day by reading a book Justin received not too long ago. It is a great book, a behind the scenes look from the perspective of the many people who worked together to make the space mission a success.

We will spend the week reading through the book and discussing how much work it took back before the computers and modern technology we know today. What a gargantuan effort it took to build the lunar space module and send three astronauts into space for that most historic landing!

Team Moon: How 400,000 people landed Apollo 11 on the Moon.

We also spent some time exploring this site: We Choose the Moon. It is an interactive re-creation of the Apollo 11 mission. You can launch the Saturn V rocket into space and follow the entire journey and landing on the moon. You can also watch the videos of the launch, visit the photo gallery, see up close pictures of the launch of the Saturn V and much more.

Smelly Science~Making Perfume

For this edition of our Smelly Science class we made perfume. It was really fun to do and our results surprised us. We we chose two different types of roses and one of our peonies.

the peonies

Justin chose the red and white rose

Kaden chose the pink rose. We added the petals to some warm water.

We mixed them for several minutes

next we strained the flower petals from the water.


then we smelled the water

We also smelled the petals to see if they still had any fragrance. They did but not as strong as when we started

Kaden smelling his perfume

finally we compared the three perfumes to see which was the strongest.

Any guesses? We thought for sure the peonies would be the strongest because they had the strongest scent to begin with. We were wrong, the roses were stronger and it was hard to tell which had the strongest scent.

Another fun experiment!

Justin's Birthday

Last week we celebrated Justin's birthday. We celebrated his actual birthday on the 10th and then had his party Sunday. He wanted a Star Wars party this year. We managed to pull it off and everyone had a wonderful time! Especially the birthday boy! Here are a few highlights.

Favorite gifts

Justin was very surprised by this gift. He loves to watch a show called Life After People. On a recent episode they showed the Petronas twin towers in Malaysia. (I feel a unit study coming on) He was fascinated. I was not surprised. He loves architecture. Can you believe that he spotted these twin towers from Malaysia in our local thrift store. We had already paid for our purchases and he wanted them. We told him no. Larry went back in and bought them for him!

His other favorites were the Lego Seattle Space Needle and The Empire State Building. These are so neat! He loved them!

The Star Wars party!

Well I managed to pull off a star wars party! Here is the cake. Justin wanted the Death Star. I started searching and found this version of the Death Star. The part sticking out of the side for those of you uneducated in all things star wars is the death ray!

We even managed to find the millennium falcon to "land" on the death star. (it is a key ring, we pulled the key ring part off)

I sprinkled confetti stars all around the cake and made cup cakes out of the remaining cake batter.

Of course no star wars party is complete without light sabers. We used pool noodles cut in half and added duct and electrical tape for the handle. These were a huge hit! a young Jedi knight getting ready for training!

another young Jedi knight wielding his light saber!

We played asteroid toss. The asteroids are just black felt cut into squares, hot glued and filled with rice. I also glued small pieces of felt on the fronts.

The Death Star pinata! I had actually started to make a pinata from paper mache. Saturday morning I checked on it and it had split down one side! What to do? I knew I didn't have time to repair it and have it dry in time. I did the next best thing. I went to the party store and bought a soccer pinata brought it home and spray painted it gray. Then I took black sparkly felt and made all the bays and doors on the death star. I also took a piece of gray felt and made the death ray. The kids loved it!

C3P0 made an appearance!

as did Darth Vader

along with a clone trooper!

(the masks came from the star wars website. I bought half masks at Walmart for about 50 cents each and hot glued them to the star wars faces)

a clone trooper down for the count.

some light saber training between my niece and her dad (my brother Mike)

time for cake!

The birthday boy!

He blew them all out!

time for some death star (pinata) destroying! Isn't my dh Larry so brave! Holding that pinata with a bunch of kids and a bat!

Yes he did get hit in the leg with the bat! He was ok...the picture looks bad, but he said it was more from surprise than pain....Surprise??? Whatdya mean? You can't see those kids and that bat? (the bat was foam with a hard center core)

the party goers!

Time for silly faces!