Black Friday Adventures

What was I thinking? Get up at 3:00 a.m. and go shopping. Yes, that is exactly what I did. I have not been to the Black Friday sales in probably about 6 years. My sister was going and I thought it might be fun. Started out at Walmart and got some movies, games, toys for church food pantry give away, and snow boots. Surprisingly - no problems. Crowded, but everyone was happy, helpful, calm, and quick. After Walmart scooted over to Burger King for breakfast and on to the road for our closest Kohls, about 45 minutes away. Got the rest of my son's presents at Kohls and Game Stop. Kids are done. Yeah! Now I just have my sister and her husband which are the names we drew. Going shopping again with mother and Grace on Sunday, will get those presents then. After Christmas shopping I had to go get groceries. So obviously this day was pretty pricey. Didn't start feeling drowsy until about 2:30 - tried to lay down and take a nap but the dogs would not leave me alone. Finally got back up at 4:00. I will probably go to bed early tonight.

There has been no book work this week. Taking a break for the holiday. But just like any homeschool family, stuff got done. Today Scott found our old video camera and most of the day Grace has been doing stop action filming with her legos. Making backgrounds, etc. I also sat down and read two chapters to her from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Also much drawing and reading going on. Yesterday we put the tree and such up. Tomorrow is big clean house day. Hope everyone out there is having a good Thanksgiving and holiday weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving and an Update on Mom

As some of you know my mom has had recurrent thyroid cancer for 8 years. She has had many surgeries, radio iodine treaments, and radiation treatments. Nothing has really worked, it always comes back. We came back from her oncologist yesterday at Emory and in two weeks she will be put on a clinical trail. This trail will go on for 6 months with chemo infusion once a week and pills every day for four weeks then a two week rest. There are many side effects that we will have to watch for and deal with. Please pray for my mom. This has been such a long battle for her. Pray that the side effects will be bearable and that the medication will do its job. I am thankful that I still have both of my parents and am a little selfish and want her to be here longer. Thank you in advance for any prayers you can send our way.

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!!!!! Have a Blessed Day!!!!

Play Posters and Cupcakes

In cake decorating today the girls got to make turkey cupcakes. Each student made between 4 -6 cupcakes and took them home to share with their families. They really enjoyed this activity.

We got our play posters today for Willy Wonka. I took this close up to show you Grace's character which is Veruca. She is stealing the nut. One of the older drama students drew the poster. She really did a awesome job.

Thanksgiving Fest 2009 At Trinity

What a fun day we had! All day was about everything pertaining to Thanksgiving. This is how the day started out. Everyone was put into groups with kids ranging in age from 5 - 14. This little girl in the picture with Grace is actually a buddy from church and they hung out for the day together in the same group. You will see her in alot of the pictures. Alot of the centers we visited was food related to prepare for the Thanksgiving lunch we all had (about 120 people).

This first picture is of my group peeling sweet potatoes for the sweet potato souffle we had for lunch. The potatoes were very hot.

Here is Grace and her friend again. At this center the kids made butter for the meal and ice cream for after the meal.

This is Grace's group with the next stage of the sweet potato souffle.

The kids also made applesauce to go with the feast. They peeled, cored and cut up the slices.

This center was out in the gym. String and sticks were attached to the plastic to make bird feeders.

Turkeys were made for decorations.

In the afternoon there was archery and a kickball game.

Mr. Dan gave us a 45 minutes presentation about the Pilgrims.

We also saw a presentation about the Cherokee Indians.

All in all it was a great day. Grace is exhausted. Last night she spent the night at a friends then they both had to get up this morning around 6 to get ready for this day of fun. I was a group leader all day. We were both happy to get home and relax a little bit. Grace is now downstairs watching an American Girl movie and I of course an working on my blog. No school this week! Yeah! Time for relaxation and rejuvination.

Thanksgiving 2009

As many of you know my Aunt Linda passed away this past summer and this is our first holiday without her. All of our extended family got together for the Thanksgiving Feast. We probably had about 30 -40 people. Food was great and fellowship was even better. We took alot of photos. This top photo is three of my cousins and of course Charlie Bear, the hit of the day

This is my sister, another cousin, and me.

My Aunt Julie, Uncle Whitey (he also lost his wife a couple of months ago), and my mom.

A bunch of the kids play ball ,etc.

Travis and Granny.

Sisters.

Cooking Class and Stage Design

Today we went to a cooking class at our library. "Cooking with Rachel", of course not the real Rachel. But her name is Rachel and she is the head chef at Unicoi Lodge in Helen, GA. This class centered around easy entertaining ideas. There was butternut squash soup, chocolate covered pretzels, truffles, pumpkin rolls, and veggie trays. Grace really liked the chocolate covered pretzels. I being on my diet have been very good and only had a glass of eggnog. Did I mention I have no lost 12 pounds. Yeah Me!!!!

After leaving the library we headed to our church which also houses Trinity. We had set work to do. I painted the pink candy boat and we got half of the curtain hung. Still lots of work to do.

The most exciting thing happened when we got back home. The Artful Parent has started an art pen pal program. I think over 200 kids signed up for it. Grace got her email tonight of who her art pen pal is and she lives in South America. Yeah!!

Random Items

Today was a Trinity day which meant we were gone from the house from 10:00 - 2:30. In chorus they are practicing Christmas songs to sing at a nursing home and for the Fine Arts Program in December. In drama we are getting down to the nitty gritty with Willy Wonka. Very intense, long practices. But still enjoyable. Cake decorating is still going on in handicrafts. This afternoon for school we didn't accomplish much. When we don't get home from Trinity until about 2:30 I only fill about 6 wokboxes. Today we had a review worksheet in math over long division and multiplication. We have also started a math book I picked up last weekend that has a daily math riddle to solve. For Bible we have been reading through The Children's Story Bible by Catherine Voss for the last year and a half and hope to be finished with it in January. Then we will start The Greenleaf Guide to the Old Testament which I won in a blog giveaway. Since Grace loves to draw so much, I try to include some form of drawing in one of her workboxes each day - today we looked at an activity that emulated Audubon and his sketching of wildlife. Grace chose to do a wild rabbit and then wrote some facts around the drawing. In Literature it is On the Banks of Plum Creek and we are almost halfway through the book. Right now we are reading the chapters about Christmas which is very fitting with us also about to go in to the holiday season. Tomorrow will be our last day of book work until after the Thanksgiving Holidays. Tonight after dinner went to the grocery store to pick up the few items that I will be responsible for with my extended families Thanksgiving feast on Saturday. Looking very forward to seeing all of them.