A Visit to the Children's Museum

We have a new Children's Museum in our area and last week, our homeschool group took a field trip there. It was a lot of fun, even for the big kids. They had a great water table there. You could crawl under and get inside a plastic bubble and have your friends pour water on you. Very cool.

The big boys immediately set out to create long plumbing runs. When one of the workers mentioned that another group of children had made the pipes run all the way from the intakes here to the waterwheel, our boys were determined to duplicate the feat.

And they did. They ran the pipe under water, under the yellow bridge and over to the water wheel behind Nathan. They all got plenty of water on their clothes, but what does that matter when there is a challenge to overcome?

Aaron using the Force!

They had a great "doctor's office" and "dentist's office" for the children to explore.

There was even a wall of glasses that the children could try on. I even found ones that looked just like my cool, huge, tinted glasses from high school.

I personally liked this piece. It is a map of the United States made with license plates.

Catching Up

It's been a busy week or so and I haven't caught up my blog. So here goes.

First, the new chickens have begun to lay eggs. Yeah! And they even figured out how to use the nests by themselves.

Second, a goofy picture of Deb who tied herself up with her necklaces.

We had our monthly gym day last week. The younger children didn't want to run around but played with the toys in the church nursery.

The middle boys played with the basketballs...

...and the older boys played Axis and Allies. As you can see, it was a bit cold in the church that day. Nathan had a great time introducing his favorite game to his friends.

Lastly, we made "corn on the cob" cakes for a lunch we attended. The multicolored ones are the Indian corn cakes.

First Snow Day

Much to the children's delight, they woke up to snow on the ground. Our first snow of the year.

After lunch, Deb and Aaron went to play in it. You can kinda see that it is coming down fairly thickly at this point. Look at the dark parts of the woodpiles.

Deb told me that she was "taking snow from the boards and putting it next to the tree".

Celebrate!

My husband's workplace had a big 20th celebration and we all went, dressed to the teeth. New ties for the boys, new dresses for Deb and me.

The celebration was a big success and my dh's speech was the best. John Stossel also spoke and we got a chance to meet with him. Nathan is asking him why he didn't include homeschooling in Stossel's "Stupid in America" DVD.

What a difference a couple of days makes

This picture was taken on November 4th. I let the children have these long popsicles that had been in the freezer for all summer. We're now back to "real" November weather in the 40's but it was nice to have such a nice week of 65 degree weather.

Chicken Day

Today was election day and chicken day. We needed to get rid of our old chickens because they have become welfare queens. We had 29 hens that were only producing 2-5 eggs a day. I found a local lady who would butcher them. Nathan and Stephen caught 27 birds and put them into cages. We kept the rooster, Clucklin, and the two favorite hens, Blackie and Pearl.

We carted them off and then came back home to clean out the big coop. We shoveled out the old litter, swept, and then put in the new litter. We tried to corral the new chickens into the big coop from their smaller coop, but they wouldn't go. So Stephen and Nathan had to catch all those chickens as well and put them in their new home. They seemed to like it after a while, but they wouldn't go outside yet.

Here's the nice coop with fresh litter. The white birds are Delawares, the brown birds are the Araucanas, the black birds are the Black Astrolorps, and the speckled ones are the Silver Tipped Wyandottes.

Then we cleaned out the small coop where the newer birds used to live. We were a tired bunch of chicken farmers at the end of the day.

Happy Reformation Day

We had another family over on Friday for dinner and a bonfire. Nathan made some Technicolor Acorns for decorations.

A close up of one on his acorns.

We also carved our pumpkins. These are the biggest jack-o-lanterns we've grown and they gave us plenty of space to make great faces. But they were so thick that it was hard for the younger children to completely cut through the flesh.

The pumpkins are (from left to right) Nathan's, Stephen's, Aaron's, and Deborah's.

Here's what they look like in the dark. Pretty cool. You can't quite tell in this picture, but Stephen's tiger has a bite taken out of his ear.

It was a perfect night for a bonfire and of course somemores. It was nearly 60 degrees. That is very unusual for our Octobers. But it make for a great night of bonfires and running games in the dark for the children.

My first pair of socks

I took a break from my big knitting project to make some fun tube socks. These don't have a heel and were easy to make. Deborah picked this color out.

Deborah modeling her new socks. She says that they are great for sliding on the wood floor.

Apple Time

We took our annual field trip to a local apple farm. It was a great day and we had a big group. Here the children are learning how the apple farm sorts the apples.

We also got to pick an apple ourselves.

We had a fun hayride. Deborah got to sit next to one of her favorite friends.

We also ate cider donuts and drank fresh cider and played in their playground area.
Plus we decorated pumpkins. The children really enjoyed our annual trip.