READING
Scout: Phonics Pathways (pgs 30-100)
The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading (lessons 30-70)
Independent Readers: Mercy Watson Series, Mouse Tales, Mouse Soup, Ready Set Read, Amelia Bedelia, Little Bear, The Blue Book and every Fancy Nancy book there is : )
Read Alouds: The Moongobble series, Toys Go Out, Mummies in the Morning, Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Pinnochio
River: Teach your Child to read in 100 Easy Lessons (lessons 1-40)
Independent Readers: BOBs books
Read Alouds: Mercy Watson series, Two Times the Fun, Winnie the Pooh, the House at Pooh Corner, Lion Storybook Christmas Book
PHONICS
Scout: Explode the Code (2, 2.5, 3)
River: Get Ready for the Code
All About Spelling - Level 1 (both kids)
HANDWRITING
Scout: Writing With Ease - level 1
River: homemade tracing sheets
LANGUAGE
Scout: First Language Lessons - level 1 (lessons 1-38)
MATH
Scout - MathUsee Alpha
HISTORY
The Story of the World - Ancients (both kids) chapters 1 - 11
Read Alouds: too many to count! Our favorites were The Gift of the Nile, the Seeker of Truth, Tales from India, One Grain of Rice, The Story about Ping and all the Anansi books (River's favorite)
SCIENCE
R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey - Space
FINE ARTS:
composers: Beethoven, Vivaldi and Handel
artists: Renoir, Rousseau and Monet
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
December 14th, 2012
Christmas Bells
by Henry Wadsworth LongfellowTheir old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
30 before I turn 30 - update!
My List - update!
3. Nurse Ryder for a year - 8 months and going strong!
5. Pray regularly with Tony
7. Do a 5k as a family of 5 - we so tried, but the snow and 15 degree weather held us back : (
8. Stop biting my nails
9. Have a "computer fast" (either one day a week or fast for a whole week, etc)
10. Memorize 12 Bible verses
11. Read a book a month Searching for Alaska, Namesake, The Well Trained Mind, Read Aloud Handbook, The Circus in Winter, the 19th Wife, Still Alice
12. Get pregnant (yikes!)
15. Play the piano/guitar more
16. Have "yes days" with the kids
17. Have a kid-free weekend (this will be a hard one)
20. Sign up for an Olympic Triathlon ( a Sprint if I achieve #12 : )
21. Incorporate 10 new recipes into our monthly menu - 4 so far; post to come; from scratch red beans and rice, creamy chicken and wild rice soup, crock pot potato soup and creamy tortilla soup
22. Move towards eating "clean" slowly but surely : )
23. Try 5 new restaurants
24. Family "TV fast" - we no longer watch TV during the week. This was way easier than I though it would be : ) and the kids honestly don't miss it.
25. Drink more water
26.
27.
28. Try 100 new recipes - 32 so far
29.
30.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Homemade Chistmas Gifts
It's December 15th and I am officially finished with our home made Christmas gifts. We've been working on them for a while now. The first 13 gifts were delivered this past week and we've got 10 more going out on Tuesday and then we are done. I'm really glad to have figured this out this year. I really wanted the kids' teachers to have special, thoughtful (and environmentally friendly!) gifts from us since they bless our lives so much. Overall this was a fun and and fairly inexpensive way to make a ton of handcrafted gifts. The kids were able to help and although it took a little bit of effort to figure out the recipes and gather the ingredients, now I feel like I could confidently whip up a batch of any of these things in no time. We made lip balms (so easy!), bath salts (even easier!) and body butter (not too demanding, and oh so worth it : ) Here are the pics. I wish I had more pictures of the process of the lip balms and the body butter but I was so busy trying to get everything right that I only got shots of the final products. Enjoy! I'm putting up my feet tonight and reading a good book now that the gift making has come to an end... for now : )
All of our ingredients and supplies... 
Bath Salt Time!
We mixed the bath salts in a big mixing bowl 
Salts go into the mason jars...
Lip Balms! I wish I had more pics of the process but here you go...basically you just melt a bunch of stuff together and then pour it into the jars and let it cool. So Easy!
The little jar is the body butter ( I'll have to do another post on that since I didn't take enough pics) and the little silver tube is a peppermint spritzer made with a pinch of epsom salt, water and peppermint drops.
Blendtec Adventures... baby food
I start with a cup of brown rice.
After just 50 seconds on high in the Blentec we
have rice flour for rice cereal. So Easy!
I think these are carrots? 
Love these cute little trays. They fit really well stacked in the freezer.
Our Journey to Ancient Egypt
We had so much fun "traveling" to Ancient Egypt! This was one of our favorite units so far. The kids made a replica of the Nile River with Tony, Scout let us mummify her (River was too scared : ) and we ended our unit with a family trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to see the Egyptian Mummy exhibit. We are so fortunate to have such an incredible museum so close.
 | |
| Our little mummy : ) |
The Gift of the Nile by Jan M. Mike was one of our favorite books for this unit. This story of friendship is simple and sweet.
 |
The Seeker of Knowledge by James Rumford was an amazing book and one I would highly recommend for any home library. The story is rich in history and very inspiring at the same time. It really makes you feel like you could do something extraordinary with your life. 
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| The Nile River : ) |
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| We been to this exhibit a handful of times but now we all felt like experts on the legend of Osiris and his brother Set. |
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| A replica of an Egyptian city |
What we're reading - Advent
The Lion Storyteller Christmas Book has been a perfect family read aloud. Each story is 2-4 pages and the illustrations are fun. We've really enjoyed this book.
The Handel's Messiah Family Advent Reader is a very special book and one we will certainly enjoy for years to come. It comes with a CD of Handel's Messiah and each day's reading connects to a portion of the Messiah. It's definitely over River's head but Scout has been following along pretty well. I think I cry every time we read it. Hopefully they will get more and more out of it each year.
This is a really sweet book that explains who Saint Nicholas really was.
Little Women is Scout's read aloud. Love this Classic Christmas Novel.
The Gift of the Magi. Another Timeless Tale. 
Ally's reading Cathy Day's The Circus in Winter. | ||
Tony's reading Jack London's Tales of the North.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Thanksgiving 2012
The wishbone : )
Football time!
All the girls attended a Christmas Tea in downtown Cheyenne the day after Thanksgiving. Scout was so excited! It was precious. Sweet memories...
Nana and Poppa took the kids to have breakfast with Santa Saturday morning. River said he would go as long as Santa didn't sit next to him...
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