Miscellaneous

 Here are a couple of things that we've been up to.  I've got some more school stuff, but I haven't taken it off the camera yet, so this satellite is all you get right now.  We've been studying space things so Little One made this cool SOHO satellite.  It collects info from the sun.

Lately, Little One has been liking to play waitress.  I got her a little book from the store where she can write her orders down so for lunch she goes and gets her apron, book, pencil, and even straws to take our order for lunch.  Not only is she waitress, but cook as well.  She can do grilled cheese sandwiches for us as well as put together left-over tacos, so far.  She also doesn't like help.  She wants us to just sit at the table and wait as we would in a restaurant.  So cute!

You can even see the straws in her pocket if you look closely. :)

Next up was the first book signing for my friend, Margot.  She's been trying for years to get a book published and it has now become a reality.  It's been so fun for me to watch her on this journey and to read her different drafts for the books she has that will hopefully also be published.  Go Margot!!!!!!  I was even privileged enough to have the author picture I took of her printed in the back.  My one and only claim to fame. :)

More School Projects

Here are a couple of other things we've done recently.  First off is the picture of the battle the kids had after making axes a couple of weeks ago. :)

This next one is something Ira did for her FACS class.  For anyone that doesn't know (like me) FACS is some fancy new acronym for home economics.  She had to do a floor plan of a house.  I was quite impressed with how it turned out.  The details on her furniture were really good.  She had drawers carved into the dressers, lamp shades on the lamps, a cord on the iron and a design on the shirt.  It's not exactly to scale because the carpet she has in there is as high as her kitchen counter, but it's still pretty awesome.  From the bottom left-hand corner and going clockwise you have a bedroom, bathroom, bedroom, family room, kitchen, laundry room and a room with an ironing board.

Birthdays and our 18 Month Mark

Tis the season for birthdays.  Mine was last Friday, my brother's last Saturday, Ira's today and my mom's this coming Friday.  Since neither my brother or my mom particularly like pictures I assume that mine and Ira's are going to be the only ones photographed.  It's been a fun few days.

First off is my birthday.  Little One is my budding photographer and took a BUNCH of pictures.  I will spare you and only post a couple.  Mom always cooks us the meal/dessert of our choice.  Trying to find something that Little One will also like is not always an easy chore.  This year I chose to have a "Roman Dinner" which is something we did for history a week or so ago.  It's just a tin-foil dinner (hamburger patty, red potatoes, carrots, onion) but is really yummy.  For our history dinner we ate without forks, but I wanted a fork this time. :)  Then, as is my tradition, we had lemon bars for dessert.

My "Roman Dinner" ready to open up and eat.

Ira and Little One drew on the envelopes.  So cute! :)

The girls got me the book and the iHome, my brother got me my first blue-ray (I LOVE Star Wars!) and Mom and Dad got me the cute shirt I have on. :)

Since the girls are with their dad tonight we did Ira's birthday stuff last night.  It was a really nice night. She wanted a white cake.  I'm very much not a cake decorator.  My writing looked much more "Halloween-ish" than like something for a birthday.  Little One wrote Ira's name and it turned out more like the Russian spelling since we didn't get the frosting to stop on the "r" soon enough.  Ah well.

Cool flame we had going, huh?

Little One got her some zebra sheets.

Mom and Dad got her some super cool nail polish and a drawing book.

Kyle got her a book.  She loves to read.

Finally, her own curling iron!  And a nifty new sketch book for her drawings.

Happy Birthday, my Ira!  I can't believe she's 14 now.  She was barely 12 when we first met.  I looked at a picture yesterday of us at the airport fresh from Ukraine and she was a LOT shorter.  She's grown a lot, in a number of ways.  I also can't believe that we've been back in the USA for 18 months to the day.  What an adventure it's been.

I Love Little Girls

I came out one morning a few weeks ago to find this.

A couple of Little One's babies had been listening to what she'd been doing at the table that morning.  This is a fairly common occurrence.  Usually she has a few of her babies/animals "watching" her do her schoolwork everyday.  So cute!

Friday Projects!

Last Friday we got together with our homeschooling buddies and did some science and history projects.  We had fun.

First we saw what would happen if our planets didn't stay in their orbits.

Then we tested Aristotle's theory about heavier things falling faster.  We proved him wrong. :)

The ping pong ball and the softball hit at the same time.

Little One was the sun and we talked about how and why we get our seasons.

Next we moved to history.  The kids made Roman signums.

A kid after my own heart.  After he made his circles, he made a Mickey head!

Here is Little One's close up. :)

First Day of School

I'm a horrible mom.  I didn't get the traditional "first day of school" pictures.  Ira just about missed the bus that first day and in fact ran to it in her socks, carrying her shoes to put on when she got there.  I actually took my camera outside but since she had to make a mad dash, it didn't happen.  Of course, I forgot about Little One's picture too, so there you have it.

Ira did not die, much to her surprise.  She just knew that she wasn't going to know a single soul and no one would even acknowledge her presence, let alone talk to her.  Never mind that she had lots of kids that she talked about just from her 4 classes last year.  Those kids wouldn't be in any of her classes though, she just knew it.  She was going to starve at lunch because she didn't know how to do school lunch and no one would be willing to help her.  I sent her with a lunch from home so she would have something to eat.  She came back happy that she knew kids in at least some of her classes, hadn't starved at lunch and actually had people talk to her.  There you have my Drama Queen.

Little One had an incredible day.  She was up early and zipped through her schoolwork faster than I've ever seen her do it.  She was done shortly after noon, with the exception of some reading.  There is a family in the neighborhood that is starting to homeschool this year and the younger of the two is Little One's age.  They wanted to do a "back-to-school party" that first day so we went to Gateway and let the three of them play in the fountain.  There are some perks to homeschooling and one of those is that you get to do fun things like that when all the other kids are in school.  Bwahahahaha!

The second day didn't go so well for Little One, but the third and forth went great.  Ira also had a good rest of the first week, with very little homework, to her delight. :)

These cute little boys decided to join in the fun.