Changed By Love

Changed By Love

Following the Lamb wherever he goes… Revelation 14:4

Science for Snowy Days

Garrett is demonstrating how the moon moves around the Earth and the Earth moves around the sun. We got this from here. It’s an extensive lesson plan. I used pages 26 and 31 from the appendix. I may go back and get some more from it.

The planet page that he colored is page 31 from the lesson plans I mentioned above.

We read this book to learn about each planet and see how to color each one. It’s from a Christian viewpoint.

I saw an opportunity for copywork, so I seized the moment! I wrote about the amount of time it takes the moon to go around the Earth being a month, and then had them copy it on our story paper. Then they each drew a picture at the top. Lots of skills being used on one assignment.

They did a good job of copying. Their handwriting is improving, and I was able to help with some problems they were having.

Fiona loved the drawing part!

Garrett is enjoying drawing a lot more than he used to.

We made this booklet last week about Snowflakes. We started it the same day we made our snowflakes. We got it from Enchanted Learning.

As you can see, Fiona enjoyed drawing in the Snowflake booklet, too.

We only made one booklet, and Fiona did most of the copywork, so I will let her keep it in her notebook. But I made sure that Garrett knew the information, too.

I did some kitchen science and made my second batch of bread (ever in my life!) I explained a little about how the yeast works, and now Anna is a bit squeamish about yeast being living organisms and moving around in her bread. Sigh. She likes Science, but she is easily grossed out. She’ll just have to get over it.

She worked on her Science alongside us at the kitchen table. She’s using Apologia Exploring Creation with Physical Science. She’s studying the Earth’s atmosphere.

The twins and I already studied that from A Child’s Geography by Ann Voskamp. But she’s getting into it in just a little bit more detail. 🙂 She’s studying for a test right now. She had her iPod on, so she could drown out all the noise we were making.

It was a good Science day for us.

We have been enjoying our Science studies during this SNOWY weather we’ve been having.

Stuffed Animals Show Up in Strange Places

I walk into the bathroom and what do I see?

One of those strange things I was talking about.
He is creative, whoever nobody is.

I made my first loaf of homemade bread ever! It turned out great. We all ate a whole loaf in no time flat. I actually made two loaves. It’s a good thing because I wouldn’t have been able to take a picture of it. I was too slow with my camera.

I know who did this one! Kelsey wanted to give Chef Kirby credit for making my bread.
Kelsey again - she called this getting up on the wrong side of the bread.
I still don't know who did this. Or why.
Patrick tells me this is our guard dog.

Christmas: Joy Comes in the Morning

A beautiful white Christmas. It even snowed on our Christmas Day!

Kelsey and I worked together to create a Christmas ambiance on Christmas Eve. The sights, the sounds, the smells – we turned off the lights and lit our cinnamon and apple pie-scented candles, turned on the Christmas tree lights, played the Charlie Brown Christmas CD and kept everything calm and peaceful.

We even enjoyed the aroma of fresh bread. I baked my first homemade dinner rolls on Christmas Eve. They were delicious!

One of the four ornaments I bought from Kim Ketring at her Etsy store. They looked so nice on our tree!

Kim’s Etsy store is here.

We're so thankful to have our home, our candles, our Christmas decorations, a peaceful place to rest.

Kelsey has learned some Christmas songs on the keyboard, so she played them and I sang them with her. Then we sang several Christmas hymns, all having the theme of Jesus our Savior being born in a manger in Bethlehem and the angels singing and Salvation coming to the world through Him.

Then came CHRISTMAS MORNING!

Patrick had a little dog like this when he was a little boy. He lost it when we lost our house. Now he has Brown-White back, and it appears that he grew with Patrick!

Garrett Makes a Play-do Movie Theater from Penney Douglas on Vimeo.

Garrett Finishing up with Play-Do from Penney Douglas on Vimeo.

Death has been destroyed.

Little Birthday Party for the Littles

We’re all gathered, anxiously awaiting the blowing out of the candles.  Emma gets to go first since she’s the youngest and will probably scream if we let anybody else go first.

We’re singing so sweetly.  Can you tell?

Emma climbs up on the table to blow out her candles.

Now it’s Garrett’s turn.

It looks like Morgan helped him blow out his candles.

Now we’re opening presents.  We use Christmas wrapping paper for these birthdays.  Can you blame us?  Five birthdays occur between Dec. 31 and Jan. 10.  What other wrapping paper would you expect us to use?

Little Birthday Party for the Littles from Penney Douglas on Vimeo.

And, finally, Fiona gets her turn to blow out the candles.  Her cake was the last to get done.  Three cakes is a lot to bake in one day.  Especially when I just decided in the middle of the day that we were going to go ahead and have the birthday party that night!  That’s after taking Nelson to the airport and little ones shopping for presents and returning the rental car. That was one full day. Fortunately,  Katie made the strawberry cake. I only had to bake two cakes. I never used to make cakes at all, because I don’t like cake. But I found some cakes that are worth the eating, and now I’m pretty good at making them.

Did I say I don’t like cake?  Well, I like my cakes.  We have three different cakes that the kids choose between for their birthdays.  Strawberry 7-Up cake, lemon cake that’s a special recipe from a former co-worker of Gary’s, or chocolate pudding cake.  They are all moist and yummy!  So for this birthday, we had all three kinds.  And, of course, I had to try them all to make sure they were good. 🙂

Sometimes I let them choose an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.  Those are pretty scrumpdillyicious, too.  But we don’t usually get those for the January birthdays.