Well time has sure flown by. I keep meaning to come and update my blog, but life just keeps happening and I don't always get the time I want. Since school has started we have been so busy. Between ORLA, swim team, dance and homeschooling we don't have much time for anything else.

Steven had his first swim meet in October, he did really well for his first one, he had lots of fun. Did you know even just starting out and doing it mostly for fun they still have to follow all the rules/regulations as if they were swimming in the Olympics...it's crazy. There are so many disqualifications I am surprised anyone places. You can get disqualified for your arm not being bent just the right way or when you start out you kicked just a little wrong. Steven's coach's daughter was hoping to qualify so they could compete in a certain meet and she was disqualified for her shoulder being back instead of forward on the turn. Needless, to say Steven didn't place, but he had a lot of fun. I was bummed Pete forgot the camera so we don't have any pictures.

Halloween was fun! The homeschool group had a dance with trunk or treating before, so we deck

the van out and the kids went around and got candy. Then Abby stayed at the dance and Pete and I took the boys trick or treating. The boys got way to much candy which Mom and Dad had to check over first to confiscate all the "bad" candy! LOL

Steven was a Skeleton Chopper biker guy and Austin was Wolverine.

Abby I am not sure what she decided she was. She was going for a punker, but had gone to a friends house before and ended up not doing all that she had planned?

We just got back from Disneyland, where Abby's clogging dance group dance 2 days (once at California Adventure and once a Disneyland) It was a great time to go, the lines weren't bad at all, I think the longest we had to stand in line may have been 25 minutes. That was until Monday (11/10) when California schools were out Monday and Tuesday for the Veteran Holiday, then it was just crazy. Pete's Mom Marilyn went with us too, I think she had a lot of fun. She hadn't been to Disneyland since 1964 so a lot had changed.
Abby had the best time, Saturday Disney was filming their Christmas special, so the Jonas brothers and Corbin Blue were there. She was ecstatic that she was up front when Corbin Blue performed, she got lots of pictures and some video. We will have to watch for when it airs and see if we can see Abby. Here are a few of the many pictures that we took!

Abby and Emma(right) dancing their part in their Highschool Musical dance!

I love how Marilyn is looking at Goofy in this picture!

Gramma and Austin

The Boys

Dracula and myself (Austin took this picture, I thought he did quite well)

Austin didn't want any of the girl characters to sign his autograph book. I told him it was going to hurt Minnie's feelings and she did pout for a second or two, then Mickey gave Minnie Austin's book and she pretended to kiss and hug it and then she handed it back to him. He was like Ewwww! It was pretty funny.

The Incredible!

We were suppose to act like we were strong, but the boys must have decided not to?

Cuneiforms and Mummified Dolls

This past week was a fun week, one I think the kids will remember. We made Egyptian cuneiforms (first writings), the kids rolled out their clay and use either cuneiform writing or hieroglyphic letters to make out their names.

Steven working hard!

Austin's Cuneiform

We also mummified a Barbie doll and 2 G.I. Joe dolls. I got this great idea from another blogger http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jaminacema/319302/ who showed how they mummified their dolls.

We went to Value Village and just got a some cheap dolls paid about $4 for all of them. When we started we talked about how they take out all the organs except the heart. They leave the heart because the Egyptians believe that the gods weighed a person's heart when they entered the Next Life. The weight of the heart tells the gods if the person had lived a good life on earth. Since they left only the heart we used a shapie pen and drew red hearts on the dolls.

Next we washed the body with wine (rubbing alcohol) and said a prayer, then rubbed oil and spices over the bodies (dolls). Then we sprinkled with salt (Natron) to dry out the body. We waited 40 minutes to represent the 40 days they left the bodies to dry out. While we waited the kids made their tombs/coffins for their bodies.

After our bodies had dried out for 40 days we then wrapped them in cloth that was soaked in flour and water. There you have it our mummified dolls!

The kids had a great time making their mummies. Austin didn't like the messy part of wrapping them so I helped him out a little.

Back to School

We had a great week back at school! Here are a couple of pictures I snapped on Tuesday of the kids doing school. Austin had already finished so he was already off playing by the time I thought to take pictures.

This year we are learning about Ancient History following "The Story of the World Vol. 1" So far we all are really enjoying it.
This week we learned about the Early Egyptians and how they lived along the Nile River. We recreated the Nile river flooding to showed how it helped to water the crops. Hopefully in a week or so we will have grass growing.

Building the river

Flooding the river

Flooding the river again!

Our curriculum order from ORLA came in this week, it's always fun to open the boxes and see all the fun and exciting things we will be learning this year.

The End of Summer

Everyone starts back to school tomorrow so I guess thats it, summer is officially over! We actually started easing into school about three weeks ago. We did two weeks and then took a week off to go camping at Lake Chelan State Park. The weather cooperated for the most part, the day we got there we had just finished setting up our tent and it started to rain. It continued to rain for the rest of the night and was sunny and in the 70's the rest of the time. We took one day and went into Chelan and enjoyed the waterslides, the kids had a blast, and so did I. It was pretty windy, but once you were went on a few slides it wasn't so bad.



For Labor Day we went to Burfoot park with some friend and had a BBQ, walked down to the beach, played games and had an all around good time. A great way to finish the summer.

Chickens

I have kind of been toying with the idea of getting some chickens since spring time. Talking with Pete he wasn't so sure about the idea, but had said if we did get chickens he didn't want anything to do with them. Well, the boys spent the night at Gramma's house this past weekend, she called to tell me the boys were asking if they could take home some of Gramma's chickens. Guess what I said? Yes, we now have 5 cute, well I guess they are kind of cute, chickens!

Pete was such a sweetheart, even after saying he wanted nothing to do with them he built an awesome chicken coop. More than I could have done, although I would have tried! He is such a sport!! I spent one morning on the computer looking at different coops and decided I wanted one that we could move around the yard...a chicken tractor, and this is what he built. He was even so kind that once it was built I decided we needed a door down below and he put it in without to much grumbling.

In this picture you can see that the one side opens up so that when they start laying eggs we can easily collect them. I still need to put in their nesting boxes and their roosting bar, but you get the idea.

Steven even helped put the chicken ladder on. He was so excited to be able to use the air gun. There is a rope on a pulley system that will close up the ladder at night, which I think is pretty clever.

It hooks up to the lawn mower for transporting around the yard. You can see in this picture that we ran out of roofing, so it isn't totally complete yet. Back to Lowes we go. Here you can also see how the top part closes up to keep them safe at night.

Right now we have the tractor under the apple tree, they should be quite happy there for awhile. The dogs are quite fasinated by them too!
I thought I would share this cool picture Austin took of his chicken "Mellow Yellow" Isn't it neat?