When Josiah turned . . .

. . .One, he had a Winnie the Pooh party.

At 2, it was a shared Miss Pattycake Party with sister.

At 3, trains were the theme (and he got a John Deere tractor from grandmother and grandfather).

CARS was the theme for number 4!

This year it was Planet Heroes (http://www.theplanetheroes.com/) and each cupcake was a planet with the sun, moon, and stars, also.

He has enjoyed learning about each planet and is always wanting to play with his Planet Hero figures and hopes to add to his collection in the future. He has 5 of the 9 characters for the planets and Lunar and Star Shooter.

Wordless Wednesday

- Our first little rose bloom-

Remembering Hannah's 8th

Hannah turned 8 on February 10th. We had family over on Saturday the 14th (Theron's birthday and Valentine's Day), so we had a cake with hearts on it.

Josiah really enjoyed playing with Allie.

Hannah got to have some girlfriends over for a tea party on the 10th with angelfood cake.

I think Lady's tired. Aren't the matching pajamas cute.

January Days

It's kind of hard to remember the colder days of winter - playing indoors with the dog . . .

. . . doing school work and reading on the couch . . . with Little Lady, of course. . .

. . . recess when the weather permits . . . soaking in the sun through turtlenecks. . .

. . . and more fun school . . . . like picking cotton . . . what? Yes, picking cotton! Well, actually they were cotton balls that I had glued cardboard seeds into for the kids to TRY to pick out.

They each had only one ball each to do and it took quite a while. This was suppose to allow them to see how hard it was before the cotton gin was invented. I think it worked.

Quill Pen Writing

Back when the Declaration of Independence was written, there were no ball-point pens. What did they use? Quill pens, of course.

I bought craft feathers, cut the tip at a slant and then made a slit at the end where it would touch the paper. I did not make ink from berry juice. I think I used food coloring. It worked alot better than I thought it would. Dip and draw!

Early Summer?

Can you believe we got in the pool today? The air was a warm 90 degrees and the water a cool 80, thanks to our heater working. Hannah was very excited to jump in and connect the rope that marks the drop off into the deep. Josiah was getting his gear on. And there is alot of it. You've got to be prepared, right?

Hannah's lovin' it. This is the life!

All systems go . . . .

Mother/Son Outing

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Can you guess where this picture was taken? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We are at the Great Harvest Bread Company. Josiah and I went with our homeschool group for a tour, yesterday while Hannah was at a "Take your child to work" event with Dad. The children got to see the big mill, a huge barrel of honey, the oven that takes the bread on a ferris wheel ride, and knead some dough. The story of the Little Red Hen was read and the kids got to take their dough home and bake it.

It was delicious. Maybe even better than what I make. At least that's what Josiah says. They also gave us seeds to plant our own wheat grass and coupons to come back and get free bread and cookies with.

Wordless Wednesday

Josiah aka Johnny Rex

"Mom, come see our show!" My then 7 and 4 year old call for me to be their audience. Josiah is acting as a cowboy (from early American history, I suppose) and his sister is in charge of sound with her tape player. Johnny Rex, as he is called, is a brother of Johnny West (characters that I have from my childhood that I allow the children to play with on occassion).
This is the exciting part! See the expression in his face.

Uh, oh! Johnny Rex got an important call on his John Deere cell phone. Did they have cell phones back then? He's got to go rescue someone. . . . . . See you next time on the Johnny Rex Wild West Show.

Adventures - Pumpkin Experiments

During 2008 Thanksgiving holidays, Hannah got to do her science experiments at Grandmother and Grandfather's. Hannah recorded everyone's predictions and her observations in a notebook.

How much do you think this pumpkin weighs? How big around is it? And will it float? You'll find the answers below each picture.


This little pumpkin weighed in at 3 and a half pounds. We had asked if people thought it weighed more, or less than 5 lbs. Most people guessed less and they were right.

For this one, we asked . . . "more than 12 inches around or less than 12 inches around?" It was 19 5/8". Most people got this right, too.

And yes, it floats! Most people thought it wouldn't. Only cousin Valerie had all correct predictions.

Later on, after we got home, we opened the pumpkin, took out the seeds and counted them. Hannah thought there would only be maybe twenty seeds. There were almost 500! As you can see I put them in piles of ten each, so she could count them by tens. We tried toasting the seeds and eating them. I liked it. The kids didn't. I also tried to cook the pumpkin and make something out of it. Hannah loves pumpkin pie. But I don't remember how that turned out.

Josiah in a tree

" Do you want to see something? This is fun, but don't let your mom watch or she'll get very nervous." "Up, up, up, we go! How high is too high?" . . . "You want me to come down now? Okey."

No, he didn't jump, even though it kinda looks like it. This was last fall. I was surprised to see my "baby" in the dogwood tree. He was 4 at the time. I think I was much older when I climbed my parent's dogwood tree all the way to the top and felt it sway. Wooo! At least he didn't go all the way to the top.

Adventures - Farm days

In October 2008, we took a tour of McDaniel Farm Park. The guides showed us tools and things that were used and gave us a tractor ride, but nothing can beat the ANIMALS! They indulged us and let us visit the farm animals twice on this day. There was a pony, a cow, a pig, some ducklings and other fowl, a sheep, a goat, and cuddly soft bunnies. This goat was so wonderful and did not seem to mind at all the attention Josiah bestowed on it.

Hannah liked the bunnies best and could have sat all day just holding a bunny, I think. She was very good-natured that day, though and allowed others a turn as well. We did not know the other people on the tour with us that day, but they were a well-behaved bunch. No running and chasing animals.

Josiah, do you like the bunnies, too?

Field Trip!

Today, Hannah and Josiah and I hiked up Stone Mountain for the first time together. I had always enjoyed the walk myself and looked forward to the day I could take them. Josiah liked crawling into the shady places under the rocks. The kids never complained of being tired, although we did stop to rest quite often and take pictures.

This is a cute picture, but Josiah's squinting. We're almost to the top and the kids started doing the bear crawl.

We made it! What an accomplishment! The wind always feels so good at the top after a warming walk.

I'm happy to say that our trip up was without incident. I can't say the same for our trip down. We encountered 5 injuries on the downward trek. In spite of words of caution, Hannah fell twice and Josiah had one minor bump with a rock. The other two were people we passed. One the paramedics were helping, the other we saw and helped until the paramedics got there. Interesting, because the kids were watching a video in the car on the way that included the story of the good samaritan and I had felt prompted to bring the first aid kit along. My children only required a band aid, but the person we helped needed gauze and an ice pack, which I had! The boy should be fine, but their day at the mountain was over. I felt sad for them.