The boys loved it. They were a bit scared, but fascinated at the same time. I'll tell you one thing: it sure was LOUD! I was very thankful the van was in the garage. Jerry was at work but they didn't get hail quite as big across town so, thankfully, no dents in the car. I ran out to grab these few pieces off the back deck to stick in the freezer to show Jer and to take pictures for the blog, of course!
Friday, October 1, 2010
Wacky Weather: Quarter Size Hail
This could be a "Wordless Wednesday" post, except it happened over a month ago on a Friday (August 20th). We had a hot, wet summer which made for some wacky weather at times. Here is a photo of the largest hail I've seen since moving back to Wisconsin 10 years ago:
The boys loved it. They were a bit scared, but fascinated at the same time. I'll tell you one thing: it sure was LOUD! I was very thankful the van was in the garage. Jerry was at work but they didn't get hail quite as big across town so, thankfully, no dents in the car. I ran out to grab these few pieces off the back deck to stick in the freezer to show Jer and to take pictures for the blog, of course!
The boys loved it. They were a bit scared, but fascinated at the same time. I'll tell you one thing: it sure was LOUD! I was very thankful the van was in the garage. Jerry was at work but they didn't get hail quite as big across town so, thankfully, no dents in the car. I ran out to grab these few pieces off the back deck to stick in the freezer to show Jer and to take pictures for the blog, of course!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Click for Cans!
I have a bunch of posts I need to write but wanted to get this on here to help everyone remember...
Campbell's Click for Cans has started! So take a minute to vote each day for your favorite team.
Each team gets 1,000 cans of soup, but division champs get an additional 12,000. The winner gets 5,000 more for a total of 18,000 cans. The Packers have won this the past 8 years! That's a LOT of soup for our local food banks! No matter how the Pack plays we can always win this "Souper Bowl".
To see how the Packers are doing, click on "Match Ups". Either word has not gotten out in some NFL cities or Packer fans are the best because we out click every most teams by almost 20,000 clicks! You can vote once each day... I'll put a little Click for Cans button in the sidebar to make it easy to click over and vote!
Campbell's Click for Cans has started! So take a minute to vote each day for your favorite team.
Each team gets 1,000 cans of soup, but division champs get an additional 12,000. The winner gets 5,000 more for a total of 18,000 cans. The Packers have won this the past 8 years! That's a LOT of soup for our local food banks! No matter how the Pack plays we can always win this "Souper Bowl".
To see how the Packers are doing, click on "Match Ups". Either word has not gotten out in some NFL cities or Packer fans are the best because we out click every most teams by almost 20,000 clicks! You can vote once each day... I'll put a little Click for Cans button in the sidebar to make it easy to click over and vote!
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Helicopter Ride!
Today we went up to Oconto to check out the Air Show with my parents. The big boys and Jer all took a helicopter ride with my dad. They had a great time! Below are two short videos, one of them taking off and one of them landing!
But first, here a few pictures I took right before they took off. Eli looks a little nervous but he did just fine. When my parents first suggested we come up and they would treat the boys to a helicopter ride, I have to admit I was a little nervous myself. But it turns out that Jer works with the pilot's son-in-law (you can see Ben in the second photo below helping load the gang into the helicopter) and for some reason that just made me feel a lot better!
Helicopter Take Off
Helicopter Landing
Jerry took this photo of my parents house as they flew over in the helicopter. You can see the river towards the top.
The other highlight of the day didn't really have anything to do with airplanes. As we were walking I saw Reid Ribble (candidate for Congress in our district) walking around. I pointed him out to my parents who headed over to say hi and went off to find Jerry and Hayden who were off looking at the cars. Hayden loved looking at the cars and could care less about planes! As we walked up to join my parents, Reid said, "Hi Jeremy" like he was an old friend! He said some very nice things about Jerry's blog too. He's hoping the next congressman we send to Washington knows us by name!
But first, here a few pictures I took right before they took off. Eli looks a little nervous but he did just fine. When my parents first suggested we come up and they would treat the boys to a helicopter ride, I have to admit I was a little nervous myself. But it turns out that Jer works with the pilot's son-in-law (you can see Ben in the second photo below helping load the gang into the helicopter) and for some reason that just made me feel a lot better!
Helicopter Take Off
Helicopter Landing
Jerry took this photo of my parents house as they flew over in the helicopter. You can see the river towards the top.
The other highlight of the day didn't really have anything to do with airplanes. As we were walking I saw Reid Ribble (candidate for Congress in our district) walking around. I pointed him out to my parents who headed over to say hi and went off to find Jerry and Hayden who were off looking at the cars. Hayden loved looking at the cars and could care less about planes! As we walked up to join my parents, Reid said, "Hi Jeremy" like he was an old friend! He said some very nice things about Jerry's blog too. He's hoping the next congressman we send to Washington knows us by name!
Monday, August 30, 2010
(Home)School Pictures and the First Day
We have a back-to-school tradition of taking pictures of each child on the first day of school. In addition to taking a picture, we fill out a little "About Me" booklet asking about favorites and listing information like height, weight, and shoe size. I'm hoping that it will be fun to look back at these little booklets years from now.
If you would like to see the booklet or print one here is a link to a pdf version I created. I will paste the photos I took (below) onto the "picture of me" page, but I also let each child do a self portrait on a "drawing of me" page. There are also pages for them to draw a picture of our family and to trace their handprint.
If you want to see how much the boys have changed, you can see last year's pictures here. Here are the pictures I took today:
Wesley--3rd grade
If you would like to see the booklet or print one here is a link to a pdf version I created. I will paste the photos I took (below) onto the "picture of me" page, but I also let each child do a self portrait on a "drawing of me" page. There are also pages for them to draw a picture of our family and to trace their handprint.
If you want to see how much the boys have changed, you can see last year's pictures here. Here are the pictures I took today:
Wesley--3rd grade
Eli--1st grade
Justus--1st grade
Hayden--age 4
J.D.--age 3
Justus--1st grade
Hayden--age 4
J.D.--age 3All the boys were happy, eager students today. Hayden actually cried when he had to go to nap instead of "doing math" and Eli requested more spelling. Wesley commented several times on our great new school setup. Even the new chore assignments were met with cheers of excitement. (Chore post coming soon!)
I'm not naive enough to think this will last, but will definitely enjoy it while it does. (And document it here to remind myself how wonderful the first day went when I need encouragement in February!)
I'm not naive enough to think this will last, but will definitely enjoy it while it does. (And document it here to remind myself how wonderful the first day went when I need encouragement in February!)
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Heritage Hill
We took advantage of Kids Free Week at Heritage Hill and went on an early field trip. The day we went was sunny and perfect weather. We didn't get to every single building, but we did quite well considering it was just me and five boisterous boys. The first stop was my favorite: the farm. The farmer's wife put us to work grinding coffee (those of us that went in anyway... Justus and Hayden were being shy and played in the yard instead).
The boys really enjoyed seeing the farm animals. The chickens ran right up to us (I think they were hungry and thought we were bringing breakfast) while the sheep ran away from us. The pigs were laying in the mud sunning themselves. Wesley got me laughing when he looked at the wallowing pigs and declared he couldn't "believe we eat those smelly things"!
We listened to interpreters in the farmhouse, military mess hall, library, printer's shop, and fur trader's cabin. We skipped the church and Tank cottage because we ran out of time. The boys were very well behaved. They could run between each building to get out some energy. The printer got after Justus once because he tried to touch one of the printing presses, but otherwise we didn't have any issues.
We finished off our visit at the fur trader's cabin on the far end of the park. Instead of walking all the way back up the hill the boys wanted to ride the little tram. I think that was Hayden's favorite part! 
We made out way out the gate and had a picnic lunch on some tables in the grass before heading home for naps. If you have never been to Heritage Hill, I highly recommend it. If you have kids be sure and take advantage of their free kid's admission week (we all got in for the price of one adult), we'll definitely be going again next year!
The boys really enjoyed seeing the farm animals. The chickens ran right up to us (I think they were hungry and thought we were bringing breakfast) while the sheep ran away from us. The pigs were laying in the mud sunning themselves. Wesley got me laughing when he looked at the wallowing pigs and declared he couldn't "believe we eat those smelly things"!
We listened to interpreters in the farmhouse, military mess hall, library, printer's shop, and fur trader's cabin. We skipped the church and Tank cottage because we ran out of time. The boys were very well behaved. They could run between each building to get out some energy. The printer got after Justus once because he tried to touch one of the printing presses, but otherwise we didn't have any issues.
We finished off our visit at the fur trader's cabin on the far end of the park. Instead of walking all the way back up the hill the boys wanted to ride the little tram. I think that was Hayden's favorite part! 
We made out way out the gate and had a picnic lunch on some tables in the grass before heading home for naps. If you have never been to Heritage Hill, I highly recommend it. If you have kids be sure and take advantage of their free kid's admission week (we all got in for the price of one adult), we'll definitely be going again next year!
Back to (Home)School
Charlotte Mason once said "Education is an atmosphere..." In an effort to improve our learning "atmosphere" we are shaking things up a bit this year. How? We're moving the majority of our sit down school time down to the family/rec room in our lower level.
Now, before I show you the pictures I want to mention something. Something important. Homeschooling is NOT just school at home. Homeschooling is a way of life. You can learn anywhere and anytime. There may be more intense learning times throughout the day, but we never really turn off our brains and stop learning because school is "done". You can learn through play, chores, cooking, or just about any other activity that is done throughout the course of a day.
Got it?? Good. Now I can show you the pictures...
While this might look like a mini-classroom, that was not my goal for this space at all. My reasons for setting up our learning space in the basement are:
Now, before I show you the pictures I want to mention something. Something important. Homeschooling is NOT just school at home. Homeschooling is a way of life. You can learn anywhere and anytime. There may be more intense learning times throughout the day, but we never really turn off our brains and stop learning because school is "done". You can learn through play, chores, cooking, or just about any other activity that is done throughout the course of a day.
Got it?? Good. Now I can show you the pictures...
While this might look like a mini-classroom, that was not my goal for this space at all. My reasons for setting up our learning space in the basement are:
- we are blessed enough to have some under-utilized space in the rec room.
- it will be easier to keep books open and out if we are in the middle of something when a meal time approaches.
- the colorful posters are fun to look at and encourage the kids to think about what we are learning even when we aren't "doing school". (The boys learned a good bit about US Geography after I hung a US map up in their room.)
- we can all stay together and it will be easier for me to keep an eye on JD and Hayden while working with the older boys.
- we wanted to give the big boys a more comfortable, ergonomic learning space. (It is hard enough to learn to print or write cursive without trying to do it while kneeling uncomfortably because you can't reach the table.)
- it gets me away from my biggest distraction... the computer!
We did this mini-makeover quickly and pretty inexpensively. We already had almost everything you see, just in different areas of the house. The bookshelves, world map, and toy boxes were already there. The tall cabinet was in the storage area (full of extra blankets and towels). I'll have to take a picture of the inside of it now for another post. It's full of all sorts of great learning fun. And, yes, it now has a padlock on it. :)
The little "desk" area is really just a jumbo coated utility shelf from the home improvement store ($18). I did buy the two chemistry posters and the big calendar ($2.49 each). The biggest investment was the desk chairs ($23 each) but they are built to last. I'm pretty sure our grandkids will be sitting on them at some future date!
I didn't take a picture of the other half of the rec room. It is the same as it was before (window, couches, and TV). If you would like to see it (or any other part of our house) you can take the "tour" by clicking on the "Tour Our House" tab at the top of this page.
The little "desk" area is really just a jumbo coated utility shelf from the home improvement store ($18). I did buy the two chemistry posters and the big calendar ($2.49 each). The biggest investment was the desk chairs ($23 each) but they are built to last. I'm pretty sure our grandkids will be sitting on them at some future date!
I didn't take a picture of the other half of the rec room. It is the same as it was before (window, couches, and TV). If you would like to see it (or any other part of our house) you can take the "tour" by clicking on the "Tour Our House" tab at the top of this page.
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