Monday, September 22, 2008

Alex the fire fighter

I got Alex a fire fighter costume so he’s been a (very cute) fire fighter, (even more than usual) most of the afternoon and evening. I was planning on waiting until after Halloween, but it was only $5 and Frank had given Alex some money so Alex agreed to give me his money to pay for it when we got home.

Our red car has been a fire truck almost every day for months. We are fire fighters who are going to fight a fire almost every time we go somewhere. And Alex gets calls on his toy cell phone from people whose homes are on fire. “Hello. Is your house on fire? Ok. Is everybody out? Ok. We’re on our way, bye.”

For the past few days Alex has played games in the kids section of a fire fighters’ website. When we were in Phoenix I took Alex to a fire fighter museum and he still talks about it and asks to go there. I am planning on scheduling a time to tour a real fire station in a few weeks when we start the firefighter lapbook.

Alex says he has to grow big and strong so he can be a fire fighter when he grows up.

Marie-Anne

Las Vegas Zoo

Today I took Alex to the zoo. Las Vegas’ zoo is the smallest zoo I’d ever been to. It didn’t take long at all to go through it, which was fine with me because I was hot and tired.



We went inside the gift shop to rest in the air conditioned building and then walked around again, this time going into the goat’s pen. This was our second time being there.



Marie-Anne

Friday, September 19, 2008

Lapbooking

I recently discovered lapbooking- using manila folders as a portfolio of a child’s work on a certain topic. To see an example of a lapbook go to- http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SchoolinRhome/Lapbooks/

Alex and I started our first one yesterday on Rainbows. Yes, I got the idea from the blog I mentioned, but since I’m new at this I’m making it simple. I’m only using one manila folder; on one side I have the water cycle, on the other side are some worksheets that I shrunk to fit, (two are the color wheel, one is a color by number, and the other is tracing the letter R with a picture of a rainbow. In the middle I have a mini book on Noah’s Ark and a Bible verse. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of it.

It’s fun, but takes some planning. I’m already looking for ideas for other lapbooks, but we will finish this one before we start another one.

Marie-Anne

Sunday, September 14, 2008

New Creature Butterfly craft

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new 2 Corinthians 5:17

For Sunday School our craft was a butterfly mobile. I found some cute butterfly coloring pages that I copied and pasted into a Word document to get 4 to a page. I printed them on colorful paper and had the kids color them with markers. I used long lollipop sticks from Wal-Mart’s craft section as the cross. Then I used embroidery floss to tie the lollipop sticks together and to tie the butterflies to the sticks once I hole punched them. All the kids loved them.

Marie-Anne

Louisiana

While Frank headed to Florida Alex and I went to Louisiana. Monday and Tuesday we mostly visited at Mom’s. I thanked them several times for getting electricity back just in time for my visit. The hurricane came through the week before and they just got electricity back as Mom was driving us from the airport.

On Wednesday we went to lunch with Dad and a few minutes from the house we saw a box turtle crossing the highway so we stopped to get it. Alex had never seen a box turtle, (though he has seen a desert tortoise). He was very excited and watched it crawl around in a box for a while and kept picking it up.

After lunch I took Alex to Adam’s Pest Control to see their amazing collection of bugs. Alex was very excited and ran from display to display and back again. You would have thought it was the greatest museum in the world instead of a lobby. I was impressed with their collection too. I had never seen so many butterflies.

We left there and headed to Colfax to visit my Nana and Jimmy (my dad). While we visited Alex let the turtle crawl around on the floor which was fine until he decided to push the poor thing like it was a toy car. The turtle’s traumatized for life. When Courtney got home from school she drove Alex in her dune buggy. I told her not to go too fast, but what’s too fast to a 17 year old? She came right back and said Alex started crying. He said it was so fast he got dizzy. Then Alex kept going on and on about on the way home until I told him he’d be in trouble if he mentioned it again.

After we showed the box turtle to Mom and Mamaw we let it go near one of Mom’s flower beds.

Thursday Mom, Dad, Alex, Amelia, and I met my friend Tiffany at Chuck E. Cheese.This was Alex’s first time there and of course it was Amelia’s (she’s one). Both of them were excited and really enjoyed every bit of it. Alex even ate some pizza, (unlike at Peter Piper Pizza).

Later Mom and I took Alex to the Louisiana Maneuvers and Military Museum at Camp Beauregard. We didn’t actually go inside the museum, we will do that next time. Outside they had tanks, a helicopter, a plane, hummers, and several other pieces of military equipment that I’m not familiar with. Alex of course loved every minute. We didn’t stay long just long enough to see it all and for Mom to get some pictures.

All in all it was a real good trip, but I’m glad to be home.

Marie-Anne

Zacchaeus craft

This craft is very cute, but time consuming. Be sure to give yourself time to cutout the leaves and people.

Have blue construction paper as background. Trace each child’s hand and part of their arm for the tree. Draw in a few clouds and glue cotton balls to it. Print simple leaves on colored paper, (I used fall colors). Have kids glue leaves on tree.

Copy a Zacchaeus coloring page to a Word document and shrink it to the size you need. Do the same with a coloring page of Jesus and a crowd. Print as many Zacchaeus and Jesus pages as you need. Cut out Zacchaeus and the branch he’s on. Cut out Jesus and the crowd. To be sure Zacchaeus can be seen you may want to add him last.

Marie-Anne

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Labor Day

We were going to go to the fish hatchery, but they were closed so we decided to go to the Valley of Fire. We turned at the sign and drove forever without seeing another sign- kinda weird considering it’s a state park. We ended up just stopping at a closed boat launch and hiked to the water. Alex had fun throwing rocks in the mud and Frank and I threw them in the muddy water. It was a nice little hike, though not at all what we had planned.



On the way back we stopped at a pullover next to some red rock formations. We got out and took a few pictures. We were going to stay longer, but as Frank took a picture I noticed 3 hornets flying around him. We decided we were too close to their nest and we left. Though nothing worked out quite as planned we enjoyed getting out and doing something different and just being together.

Marie-Anne