Accurate Acrostics?

The kids worked on these acrostics for Language Arts the other day. You gotta love the misspellings!
Jonah first:

F-faster at eating
A-and he's dashing
T-the best dad
H-halarios
E-everything good at
R-really awesome!

A-awesome
V-very cute
A-a great girl

M-marvelous!
O-olimpic (he explained that this means I am competitive!)
T-the butifalist
H-happy
E-exellent
R-rather pretty

Ava made these:

J-jam lover
O-OK but nice
N-nice and wunderful
A-akshin (action) goooooooood
H-he always has a hand

B-big but difrent (different)
L-loving
O-olwaes (always) comes when we cry
S-sweet
S-shes like a sister
U-un fer getubl (unforgettable)
M-marvuliss

P-plays stufd anumals
A-awesome
G-graet frend
E-extra fun
A-always plays with me
(this is supposed to spell Paige, her best friend and also a Durias).

Joe the Writer

I know he's only 8. And I know he's only in 3rd grade. But this got me so excited today that I had to share!
Jonah took this paragraph:
"On a morning in 1609, a man made his way over a bridge. He wore a jacket and a cap. His clothes were splashed with mud, and mud sucked at his shoes. He could hardly see for the rain in his face."
and turned it into this:
"On a foggy morning in 1609, a mysterious man made his way over a muddy bridge. He wore a damp jacket and a cap. His clothes were splashed with mud, and mud sucked at his shoes. He could hardly see for the cold rain in his face."
Much better, right?!
His teacher thinks he's destined for greatness. ;)

Pumpkin Patch Kids

"Ricolaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" (I made baby Samuel this sweater and hat and this was the first time he got to wear it)

Boo was a little grumpy that I wouldn't let her run to the farthest field...

BFF Makaena and Clara. Both so sweet and such a privilege to watch them grow together.

The four girls together (L-R: Paigey, Ava, Jolie, Audrey "Rosie")

The three boys together (L-R: Aidan, Tim, Jonah)

Our very own homeschool co-op! Gone are the days when we can all pile into two minivans... :)

She's A Going Concern...

Brynne is 19 months and into everything. She is actually pretty smart and knows when I tell her not to touch something but often she will just look at me and touch it anyway. That's when the "mommy-finger-flick" comes in, but then she moves on to something else and it starts all over again (note to self: flick hand harder).

This would be all fine if it were not for the fact that she moved from two naps to one the day we started homeschooling this fall. So, consequently she is up and with us during school, trying to get to Ava's markers, glue sticks, and scissors, and tearing up Jonah's worksheets. I had to talk to Jonah about saying "Bad Boo-Boo!" to her this morning ("Does Momma say 'Bad Joe-Joe to you?'")...

I have made the Little Terror a school box and a bean box that only come out when we do school. Nope, she plays with them for about three minutes (if at all) then goes on back to menacing the Living Room Homeschoolers. I guess school in the afternoon may be our lot for the time being...

Ava with her teacher.

Jonah with his teacher.
Hey, wait, they have the same teacher! :)

First Day of School 2008

Ava's first day of Kindergarten!

Jonah's first day of Second Grade!

The Pressure's On!

It's 9:58pm.
I walk past Jonah's door and hear him humming.
"Jonah, you need to go to sleep..."
"I'm trying to, but I'm just too excited for school."
Wow. Someone better tell that boy it's JUST homeschool. No reason to be excited! (insert sarcasm here)

Last Day of Summer

School starts tomorrow...
Mario Kart Wii tonight.

Oh, the Joy of Reading New Books!

Our homeschool curriculum came in the mail today.
That means like 40+ new books to explore and Jonah delved right in (I think it would be cruel to make him wait until we "officially" start school next week, don't you?). And I am excited to get everything organized and in it's proper spot (I know, type A).
So we're all happy today and it's quiet for now.

The Homeschool Family

"Oh, the misconceptions..."

Laura's Magic Mud

Jon's cousin Laura put this on her blog and the kids tried it out today...It's called Magic Mud, made from water and cornstarch. It totally feels dry--so crazy! Jonah loved this but Ava wasn't so sure...she calls it Goopey Gunk instead.

War, Part 3

Jonah, Adian, and Makaena, and I (elisabeth) toured the USS Blueback Submarine at OMSI yesterday. The kids were so awestuck by how compact everything was and of course the periscope, all the switches and lights, and how cool it is that this sub had been involved in a war (Vietnam).
Plus seeing the torpedoes was really cool (about 1.2 million apiece!) Our guide asked if anyone knew the difference between a missile and a torpedo...his answer: 12 million dollars. Yikes!

Outside the partially submerged sub (we were only about 12 feet underwater).

War Part 2

My Grandpa Fred (Jonah Fredrick's namesake) served in the Navy during WWII aboard the USS Nashville CL-43 as General MacArthur's personal signalman. The bottom picture is of General MacArthur aboard the armed cruiser. There was a book published in 2007 called Humble Heroes (click on title to follow link) solely about this cruiser during the war. Needless to say, it is being shipped to us as we speak. :) Click here to read the author's blog.

Boys, Girls, and War

Jonah has been all about World War II lately. It all started with playing Battleship and reading a book for school called Twenty and Ten (fiction story about 30 children hiding from the Nazis in France). Anyway, we are now buried in books about submarines, battleships, destroyers, true stories (I threw these in more for my sake and Ava's, and to put a face on the victims of the war), activity books, and history books. I think next week we're going to try and tour the submarine at OMSI. Tonight Jon wanted him to see the movie U571 (censored) about a Nazi submarine boarded by the US Navy (Matthew McConaughey). Ava sat and watched it with us and amidst all the explaining she finally sighed and said, "I don't like this movie cuz it doesn't have any songs in it!!"
(BTW: If anyone has some tips on age-appropriate WW II info for Jonah right now, let me know in a comment! Thanks!)

On Girls...

While having his 7 year-old photos taken yesterday:
Photo guy (trying to get Jonah to smile): Say "Girl's Stink!"
(Jonah belly laughs)
Photo guy: I bet you have a lot of girlfriends, huh?
Jonah: Uh, no. I homeschool.

I miss my hot tub

A lot has been going on in my brain lately. It would be kind to say that I have only been "fuzzy". Consequently I haven't been able to remember the smallest of details (just ask April). Like why I am going to Gresham on Thursday night? Or that I am even going to Gresham. Where's Gresham again??
My little boy has been in school for three years (yes, he's 6 and no, he's not stupid. Two preschool years and one year of K) but last week when asked by his Sunday School teacher when he starts school he replied, "I'm not going to school this year. I think I'm just going to stay home." He's right. We start homeschooling in just two weeks. Tonight my friend Mindy and I went to a coffee shop to organize our individual homeschool curriculi (curriculums?) and I could hardly focus. I reread everything at least three times.
What's on my mind?? I'm glad you asked:
1)My sister recently sold almost everything she owns and packed the rest into boxes (now snug in my attic) so she can move to Romania and serve others for the rest of her life. That's a BIG thing on my mind.
2)Homeschool. I am inwardly FREAKING out while outwardly saying I'm OK.
3)I have three kids now. And one of them just started eating no-so-solid food (why do they call it solids anyway?). That's a lot of cooking and freezing into ice-cube portions to remember to do.
4)Life group just restarted again last night and I felt mildly punked about something in my marriage, namely letting my husband be a MAN and being his helper, not the other way around.
5)One of the girls I grew up with lost her dad to cancer not long ago. Life is so precious and so short. Her kids are now growing up without their Grandpa.
6)A friend of mine who was almost full-term with a baby boy has to make funeral arrangements for him instead of painting the nursery.
7)My son has been pretty naughty lately. And I am so drained from talking and talking and talking and it not sinking in.
9)I've been thinking about people I grew up with in the Inland Empire of California. What they are doing? How many kids they have? Do they still walk with the Lord?

I'm really not trying to complain. And I am not saying that I am even worried about these things. Just that they are on my mind. I guess I could say something really trite now about casting my cares on the Lord. But the truth is, that's...really... hard.
And aren't blogs really just online web logs/journals? The diary that everyone reads? The fact remains that any time in my life that I have ever kept a diary it has been written with the thought in the back of my mind of "What if someone reads this?!" (you know you think that every time you pull out that journal at Starbucks!). And really a blog is the ultimate form of exposing ourselves to the world-wide-everyone-else. Or at least the parts that we want seen.
So (raise your glasses with me) here's to the guy who bought our house in Clackamas and subsequently a hot tub. May he relax many a night beneath its hot waves. Tonight I could have used one.

PE Class Park Day

We joined a PE Co-op for homeschool next year and went to one park day already. The older kids decided in advance that they were going to make a raft this time to float out to the little island in the middle of the pond...

It didn't quite float, but they had fun making it! I thought it was very creative of them and Jonah got to help hammer a few nails in, too.

Ava posing by the pond...I can't remember that little boys' name...