Saturday, and it was also my birthday

My oldest three kids came back from church camp on Friday. By the end of this week I was TIRED. It's been a long time since I've been pregnant and had six kids 10 and under. Clearly it was back in my younger, more energetic days.

The energy I had during the second trimester has officially left the building.

But, despite it being my 37th birthday, I managed to pull it together and we all went to Grand Lake for the day with church family.

The kids had an awesome time!

They swam........

They cannon-balled.......

They stared blankly into the blue abiss, afraid to set foot........

They jet-skied....................

Then decided they were brave enough to go in after all......

And they slept all the way home.

I got a birthday pedicure from my sister in law, Cassandra. She works in a salon

and I got the full-foot-spa treatment. She gave me glittery purple princess toenails.

And Panda Express.

A purple, princess pedicure and Panda Express!

Try saying that five times fast!

It was a great day!

Monday Musings

At the dinner table...........


Me: "Travis, are you going to have a little brother or sister? Is there going to be a baby?"

Travis:  "A Puppy!"

Me: "No. A baby."

Travis: (Blank stare.)

Missions Trip to New Mexico

Last week Brittany, Tyler and 23 other teens and adults from our church went to Jicarillo Apache Indian Reservation  in New Mexico to do some house building.

They really enjoyed seeing how different the landscape is compared

to the Southeast and even Oklahoma.

I bet there are some coyotes somewhere howling

to this moon.

Oh! Don't step on the cactus!

Brittany and McKensie

They put on a carnival with games and face painting

in the evenings for the kids from the

reservation.

Tyler, Jack and my nephew, Devin

 

 

 

This is the base where they were laying concrete

to build a Hogan. They said sometimes up to four

families lived in a one room house this size.

Here is a hogan that they were helping to remodel.

It's roof had been damaged.

This is the church that hosted them. They slept in the sanctuary.

Brittany is part of the youth drama team and they performed several

skits for some evening services they did for the

people of the reservation.

Thursday was their last day. They went to Albequrque for the day and stayed

in a motel that evening before the 13 hour drive back on Friday.

This is the Gondola they took up the mountain, looking at Albequrque down below.

The whole group!

Overall they had a terrific time. They did lots of hard work, moving, mixing, and sifting tons of concrete, putting on a carnival, skits and church services and just showing the love of Jesus to those at the reservation.I'm so proud of them!

A Canada Unit Study

Every Friday for two hours in the afternoon we do some geography. This year we've been studying Canada.

I made a 13 week outline covering one province or territory per week with an activity for that week, related to that province if possible.


Here are some resources I had been collecting knowing eventually I wanted to do a Canada unit........

 

We checked everything else out from the library.

We started off with a map of Canada and each week labeled the province, capital and other various surrounding aread and landforms. We also labeled a map with the time zones and Native American groups.

Other things we covered were........

-Canadian National Anthem
-timeline of major Canada events
-french words and song "Alouette"
-french numbers 1-10
-flower, flag and bird for each province and territory
-other wildlife
-various worksheets from the Canada unit book
-history of food and types of food from Canada
-fun facts about Canada
-a history of logging
-books about the government, currency, imports/exports, etc.
-several library videos on the culture and history of Canada
-Canada map scavenger hunt

Then, we finished it off with a Canada meal!  We had.....

Brie en Croute

(I used pecans instead of almonds, omitted the parsley
 and put brown sugar on top
of the nuts and cheese. It turned out great!)

Poutine and Canadian Bacon

Fish and Shrimp

Wild Rice and Succotash

and...

Oh. Sweet. Deliciousness. Nanaimo Bars.

These are of the devil. I could not stop eating them!

Monday Musings

Thomas: "Mom, coyotes can hear really well. They don't even have to go like this...."