Fishing Fun

Ben requested that we go fishing for his birthday. So we loaded up the pontoon boat and headed out. We were headed to my mom and dad's cabin. We stopped to fish at the reservoir along the way.

Ben caught a couple of nice fish- but I didn't get very good pictures of them. But they were delicious. :D

Happy Birthday Ben!

Happy Birthday to my Wonderful Husband!

Ben- I appreciate all you do for me. Your willingness to work so hard to support our family. To go to work (way too early) each day- even when you'd rather be fishing. ;) I so grateful for the way you lead our family, and the way you honor your priesthood. You are such a great dad to the boys, and they really look up to you. I appreciate the way you support me in all my crazy endeavors- (homeschooling, triathalon- what was I thinking?!)

I hope you have a wonderful birthday- (even though you had to work on your birthday) At least you can go fishing when you get home! :D

Fall Field trip

We had a great field trip yesterday. We went to the American West Heritage Center. There was a school group doing the little "field trip" stuff, but we spent most of our time on the super slide, the hay jump and the corn maze- oh- and Roo liked the train ride.It was a fun time. The weather turned out great- a bit chilly, but it didn't rain on us. Roo loved petting the goats. (He didn't seem to like the goats we used to have- but he loved these ones.

Signs of Fall

Fall is here! Monday when we went for math class, the leaves had begun to fall from the trees. According to Roo- "The Weather is Fall" when asked what the weather was like for his weather chart. So some boys helped rake up Pam's leaves- Someone's sitting down on the job though. :D
Last night for Familiy Home Evening we carved pumpkins. Halloween is SO not my thing- but my boys really get into it. Including carving pumpkins. I think it's because they get to use KNIVES- Scary thought.
Ben and Doodle carving pumpkins
Bug carving his pumpkin. Roo throwing fits about having to scoop the "guts" and "brains" out. (Doodle was a nice big brother and did it for him.)
Doodle's finished product. He was SO proud that he did it all by himself

Ben and Roo with Roo's pumpkin
Bug and his pumpkin
The finished products- from L to R- Roo's, Doodle's, Bug's, Andrea's, Ben's

Climibng Kansas Mountains

Doodle and I have had a blast this week with School. We "rowed" Climbing Kansas Mountains from my favorite Five in a Row curriculum. The whole book is one huge metaphor- as they climb to the top of the "mountain" grain elevators, and drive home across the "table" prairie. Monday- we found Kansas on the map, did a mini book about Kansas, and read Scrambled States of America (since Kansas is the one in the story who is unhappy about being in the middle of the country) We also started on a salt dough map of Utah- In the story the boy talks about a Salt dough map of Kansas that he made for school- and there was one tiny bump on it.
Doodle also made a Sunflower out of pattern blocks- since Kansas's state flower is the Sunflower.

Tuesday- we hit on Similies and Metaphors, as this book is just rich with both of them. Doodle was excellent at determining the difference between the two of them. I typed up the similies and metaphors from the book, and doodle cut them apart and put them on the right side of the paper, similies on one side, and metaphors on the other side.

Wednesday was art day. We drew pictures with oil pastels. I am NOT an artist- but I love how I feel like I can teach a bit of art with the help of FIAR. :D
Thursday was Math day. In the book it compares the grain elevator to "8 houses stacked like blocks" So I printed off 8 clip art pics of houses for doodle to color, then made a simple applied math page to go with it- how many did you color red, how many doors in all? How many windows in all? Doodle thought it was fun.
Friday was science- So we learned about wheat. And of course- you can't learn about wheat without making some wheat bread. I didn't get a pic of him mixing it- but here's our bread in the oven. It was delicious!

Teaching Telling Time

We are still loving the Math their Way games for school- but since most of our math is games, with a few assignments that our math teacher Pam throws in (thanks SO much for teaching math!) We haven't really come across the "telling time" lessons in the math book. ;) But that's okay- because it's something that is simple to teach through life.

Doodle has been learning how to tell time. For a while now- I've occasionally put these telling time cards and teaching clocks in his workboxes. He has been enjoying the hands-on time telling. Some ways we've used them- 1- I tell him a time, and he makes his clock say that time. 2- I make my clock say a time and he tells me what time it says. 3- we pick a card from the deck and race to make our clocks show the same time as the clock on the card. 4- He picks a card, and reads the written time on the card, then makes his clock say the same time, and checks himself with the answer on the back. First we started with just telling time to the hour. Then added the half hour. Then when Doodle had counting by 5's figured out- we did down to the 5 minute.

I told Ben how good he was getting at telling time- so Ben came home from the store with this watch for Doodle. We simply ask him every few mintues "What time is it?" Or he'll tell us every few minutes what time it is.

This watch is perfect- as it has the minutes around the edge, so he doesn't have to stop and count by 5's every time. He knows how to count by 5's, but this is helping him to quickly know that if it's on the 3, it's :15, or on the 8 it's :40. He still occasionally gets mixed up on the hour- but he's having fun with the new watch. I'm sure the newness of the watch will grow old, but hopefully not before he has telling time totally figured out.

Closing up the cabin

Each fall we make a trip up to the cabin to close it up for the winter. We make sure there's enough firewood to last for the winter and spring cabin trips, take home all the food that's been left up there that won't last the winter, drain the pipes, put shutters on the windows etc. (Ok- so all of that really only takes a few hours- so of course we have to have some fun up there too) We headed up Wed. night after Ben got off work, and stayed until Sunday afternoon. It was a nice weekend. Cold- but nice.

One of my favorite spots. :D

Thursday was wood day- we got permits from the forest service and got busy. Ben and Doodle came back with the first load by themselves- OOOOPS! Must of tossed one of those logs too hard.--- yah- we're going to get that fixed tomorrow. Uggg! We rode home with a sheet of plastic across the back window.

We cut the limbs off, then sawed them into stove size pieces.

Even Roo got in on the action- what hard workers- Bug and Pam's gdd- M hauling logs to the truck.
Doodle's job was to stomp down the logs so we could fit more in the truck. Yah- notice that nice plastic window. ;) Love you Ben. ;)

The 2nd load of logs- and the hard workers.Darn- not a good picture- but we saw a whole family of moose. A Huge Bull Moose, a momma cow and a baby calf moose.Our friends the R family came up to the cabin with us. And no cabin trip is complete without feeding the fish at Big Springs.Pam, Roo and I taking a break on a logThe "kids" Sorry Ron- guess you are one of the kids. :D -- We sure will miss having you guys as our neighbors!We went fishing at one of our favorite spots---- what is that fishing pole doing in the water?!?! A lost her fishing pole in the river on the last cast- NO I didn't go swimming after it. Ben to the rescue again. :DSaturday we took a short drive into Yellowstone- We walked around Lower Geyser Basin. I don't know what it is with Doodle and cameras- will you please turn around!??! Little Stinker! More geysers, springs and hot pots
Saturday afternoon we went fishing- decided to try a new fishing spot- We got "skunked in the lake" good thing we had spaghetti planned for dinner instead of fish- or we'd have gone hungry.Silly Roo- What a dirty face!and Roo reading my magazine.Ben and Bug putting on the shutters Sunday afternoon- Yes- that's SNOW falling! brrrr!