2/11/2013

Last week my friend Leah came down from Southern Michigan for the day, with her crew (Ada - age 6, Gunnar - age 4, Waylon - age 2). Together we visited the HealthWorks kids museum in South Bend, IN. 

I learned that our local library has a museum pass for HealthWorks. We were able to check out that pass and use it to save $30 on admission! Yeah for public libraries! 

HealthWorks is a fun and interactive place for kids. Everything is hands-on, giving kids permission to touch and explore the various exhibits. There's a "treehouse" and slide for the kids to use to get some of that energy out. There's a life-sized Operation game to play to learn about bones and organs. Occasionally, the staff put on small demonstrations (kind of like science experiments) and there's a theatre that shows a brief movie on how the brain works.

There was a dress up area. My son, of course, went for the firefighter clothes and struck a pose. 

There's a kid-friendly climbing wall. 

There is a pretend dentist office, complete with scrubs to wear, an x-ray machine, and large toothbrushes and dentures to show patients the proper way to brush.

If you have young children and are looking for something fun and educational to do, check out HealthWorks. And to save a bundle, check out the library pass. Depending on your family size, you may just get in for free! 

  

Just for fun: Here's a link to my 2009 blog post when we last visited Healthworks

2/8/2013 

Friday is here again. This week seemed extra long for some reason - it felt like Friday should've arrived back on Wednesday! Now Friday is truly here, so I have a few pictures to share from our week. 

Last week my daughter got new appliances in her mouth - retainers. She's had an expander and a spacer for many months. Now they are out and the retainers are in.

I've been more intentional about "school" with my son lately - focusing on recognizing the letters of the alphabet and basic beginning reading skills. Here he's posing with a page of letters he wrote all by himself.

And here he's busy looking at a book. My heart is so happy to see my kids enjoying books. 

We've had some winter weather this week. The kids, of course, love playing in the snow. We have a perfect kid-sized snow hill in our backyard.

Happy weekend, y'all! 

1/31/2013

My daughter... she can sew! 

This may not seem like a big deal to you, but to me this is huge! 

I can't sew a stitch! (OK, I can hand-stitch buttons, but that hardly counts) I'm fascinated with sewing, but have never really tried it myself. It wasn't required in my high school home-ec class (can you believe that?) and I simply never learned. Even though I would love to be one of those moms that sews her kids' clothes, it's just not happening at this stage. I greatly admire those moms who know their way around a sewing machine.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, is like a professional seamstress. She made her own wedding dress. She made MY wedding dress. Yes, she is THAT good.

So I am as excited as my daughter is that Grandma is now spending some time teaching her how to sew, using the sewing machine and all. Bobbin, presser foot, 20-some different kinds of stitches - yes, she knows all that now!

Now when she goes to Grandma's house, the first thing she wants to do is sew. Her most recent project - sewing this heart-shaped door knob hanger. She made two - one for me/dad and one for little brother. 

What's not to love about that?!

So proud of my "little girl" for learning grown-up things like sewing! She's reminding me of my Grandma Nellie, who could quilt and sew and used her abilities to create amazing gifts for her family and to give away to those in need. 

A sewing legacy - heading my daughter's way!

1/23/2013

1/22/2013

My kids and I have enjoyed a number of great books lately.

I've mentioned before that we use a curriculum called Sonlight which is rich in literature (for some reason I can't get the link to work, but you can visit Sonlight at www.sonlight.com to learn more). All of these books were part of school for us in the last 6 weeks or so.

 Old Yeller was a book my daughter read on her own. She really liked it and was sad to reach the end, as she is with many of our Sonlight books. 

Looking back, I think this book was also good preparation for my daughter. Old Yeller dies at the end of the book. For Christmas my daughter received a fish for a new pet. She'd been asking for a fish for a few months. She was so excited and surprised with this gift! Unfortunately, her new fish only survived a few days. She handled it  very well, though, and perhaps a part of that was the fact that she'd read through (and very much enjoyed) Old Yeller just prior to her own experience with a pet's death.

I read Caddie Woodlawn aloud to the kids a few weeks ago. I'm sure I read this as a child, but I didn't remember it. What a great classic! It reminds me of the Little House on the Prairie series, but is more tomboyish and adventure-filled.

The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs was a fun read-aloud book. A little silly, but a good reminder that there are wondrous, even miraculous, things that surround us no matter where we are, if we only have eyes to see them.

I like that Sonlight strikes a balance between "girl" and "boy" books. The main character in Caddie Woodlawn is a girl, but she is quite tomboyish and spends more time with her brothers than her more refined mother and sisters. The main character in Seven Wonders is a boy and the book we're currently reading - Little Britches - is another great book written from a boy's perspective of farm life. 

The last book I want to highlight is The Great Wheel. This book is all about the first Ferris Wheel, told from the perspective of one of the workers who helped build it. I expected it to be a bit dry, but it had a good storyline that moved it along. There was some technical engineering language, but it generally helped us envision the work as it was going on. 

The timing of this book was neat. We started reading it just after Christmas. For Christmas, my kids got a box of K-Nex toys and the first thing we built with them was a ferris wheel. So between the language and pictures of the book and our own visual, we could more easily imagine the process of putting together that first-ever ferris wheel.

I enjoy these special moments as they come along. It's wonderful to be a part of that eye-opening "aha" moment for my kids, seeing them make connections between what we read and real life. It's what education is all about!

1/21/2013

My kids love Legos. Today was Inauguration Day and we watched a little bit of the national festivities. 

It wasn't long before I was asked to come see what the kids were playing with - an Inauguration Lego scene, complete with a white capitol building in back, the President before the microphone with his wife behind him, and an audience of commoners on the sidelines.

Since shooting this picture, more has been added, including a camera-man, two secret service agents and two singer/performers. 

1/16/2013

 Everyone at my house likes bread.  

Toast with butter or jelly. 

Sandwiches. 

Or just a plain old slice for a snack.

 

It's been months since we've bought bread, though. 

A while back we decided to start experimenting with homemade bread recipes and see if we could land on something we all liked. We have and we love it! 

One recipe that we now make about twice a week is for English Muffin Bread - find the original recipe at Money Saving Mom.  We love this bread! It's so easy to make (no kneading) that even my daughter has learned to do it on her own. We've made it the way the recipe outlines, making two loaves, though the way we like it best is to bake it in the pan from our bread machine, in the oven. This makes one huge loaf, which we like better than two small ones. Baking time remains 45 minutes. We use this bread for breakfast toast and also for french toast.

A second recipe that we also like is for the bread machine.

 Mix together in bread machine pan: 1 cup warm water, 2 T white sugar and 1 package of bread machine yeast (one package =  2 and 1/4 t). Let sit 10 minutes. Then add in 1/4 cup oil, 3 cups bread flour and 1 t salt. Start bread machine on regular white bread setting. 3 hours later - yummy! This is great sandwich bread. 

I haven't been tracking our savings, but I have no doubt that cutting the bread from our grocery store trips adds up. We used to buy bread at a bread outlet store for around 79 cents per loaf. But homemade bread costs even less than that to make! Yes, we have to purchase the ingredients for bread - the flour, the yeast, etc. But we are enjoying financial and health benefits as a result of making our own breads at home.  And with the aid of a bread machine, making delicious homemade bread has truly never been easier.

 

Little by little, we're eating healthier.

Little by little, we are healthier!  

1/11/2013

Family Photo Friday - it's what we do around here on most Fridays - posting pictures from our week. 

 I've shared many times before about our Christmas card prayer tradition. Here are my kids with this year's cards, which we just today started praying through. 

Love this tradition!

My husband has been more intentional about playing/learning to play the guitar. 

The kids always want to help.

My son hadn't been able to play in the snow yet because he didn't have any winter boots... until last weekend. I finally got to the store to get him some. He immediately wanted to play in the snow! Here both my kids were playing with snow tubes borrowed from our neighbors. We have the perfect small hill for sledding in our side yard. It's a good thing they got out to play each day earlier this week, because now all of our snow is gone. We are hoping for more!

Happy Friday to you!

There will never be another 1/11/2013... make it a good one!