Christmas Past

Now that Christmas is a "last week" event, I finally have time to post a few pictures!  Even though we stayed home this year, it still was a festive, food filled time and felt like a holiday :)

Our tradition - a cinnamon roll Christmas tree:

The last time I bought yeast, the only bottle of yeast I could find was bread machine yeast - it can be used without a bread machine, but you don't allow the bread to make a complete rise during the first phase.  It cuts the prep time about in half.

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Morn:

Beany Boo Love

Local Lights:

And even our red poinciana bush looked very seasonal!

So Miami: Feliz Navidad

Your neighbor may have given you a fruitcake, but mine gave us homemade caramel flan!

Feliz Navidad indeed!

Kicking off Christmas

The first weekend in December was a busy one for us.  The Christmas season gets so full that it feels like a lot of events are as early as possible and to me, that is too early to feel even remotely festive!  At least we haven't really had anything since then.  We are going to a Christmas party Saturday night and the kids' choir sings on Christmas Eve.

So on the first weekend - we had 3 events in a row.  Friday night we were invited to a Costume Dance.  Technically not a Christmas event, but for some reason held at Christmastime.  Annalise and Natalie took a folk dance class at PEP and their teacher held the dance and called the dances.  It was a fun time - and EVERYONE came in costume!  I don't have pictures, but there is a short video linked below and if you watch closely, you can see all six of us at different parts.  Irene did not participate in the dance, but when we "strip the willow"  you see her follow the line down the room!

Costume Dance Video

Saturday, the kids' choir sang at the church's Christmas concert - the Christmas eve concert is also at the church and on that concert they will wear "Christmas clothes" (left to parental interpretation) and I, having cobbled together six costumes and made mini quiches the day before, plus the distraction of a very sick dog, got the two events mixed up and we came in "Christmas clothes" when we needed to be wearing Choir Uniforms.  So we quickly went home and changed.

Did I mention that it rained NINE inches that weekend?

Rob tried to take a picture of the kids in the glow of the Christmas tree...

Ahem...

So Sunday, the ladies of the church held a Cookie Party - where we all brought cookies to eat and some to put in boxes for people who are home-bound.   They also sang Christmas Carols and the kids - completely impromptu - volunteered to sing too:

Meredith - you are going to love this:  Those two Christmas trees...are POP UPS!

One of the older, but not too elderly, ladies played duck duck goose with the kids!  I thought she was awfully brave!!

We got to bring home a cookie assortment too:

I'd like to say that all this really got me into the Christmas spirit, but the thought of maintaining that for a whole month was just too much!  I am saving up for next week!

Gift Expectations

I was looking at this and it made me think about Christmas, so I took a picture of it.  The kids will be receiving several gifts in the next couple of weeks and I hope they will be thankful for all of them - or at the very least be politely thankful!  But something I've learned about gift giving is that when you give a gift, you have to let go of it and not be too caught up on whether or not the recipient uses it in the way you intended or not.  You never know when a new toy gets cast aside for a chance to play contentedly on the beige, out-of-date printing calculator that cost 50 cents at a yard sale!

Mako

We lost Mako early Monday morning.

Trip to the bank with Rob last week.

Late last week, I texted Rob that Mako had refused his breakfast - which meant: no insulin.  It turned out that he would never eat again.  For 3 days he drank, but would not eat and was very sick all day Sunday.  Rob was planning to take him to the vet early Monday, but he could not wait that long.  We were up with him in the night - Rob was up all night - and we woke the kids early to let them know.  We had him cremated Monday and it turned out to be a nice day for a family outing - even if the reason was not a nice one.  We are sad, but while not surprised, we all feel kind of lost without him here.  Even when I did not give him direct attention, he was often underfoot while I was cooking (hoping I'd drop something!) or prowling around the table while the kids ate or giving a low warning woof to the Fed Ex man delivering a package next door.  Today I pushed a dish to the very middle of the table out of habit (even though I've seen him get it there if he really wanted it!).

So, I am posting a few pictures that have not made it to my blog before. 

 I will see if I can get some puppy pictures on here in a day or two.  We love you, Mako!

Correcting Handwriting

I have found an awesome way to help Natalie with her handwriting.  I have always struggled with making enough time to help the kids learn proper form - especially with print letters and numbers.  I found this game called Race to Trace - the original worksheet only practices from 1 to 6, but you can modify the game and your dice to practice other numbers and letters.

To play, you take turns throwing (dropping) the dice and tracing the number you get.  If your number is already used up, you lose that turn.  At the end, the one with the most traces wins.  The best thing is that she doesn't really even notice that it's a lesson!  To do more numbers, I covered the sides of a dice with sticky labels and wrote the numbers I wanted to work on with her. Then I made a number page on a website where you can generate custom tracing worksheets.

She beat me fair and square!

Natalie is doing really well in math and finished the first half of Kindergarten math with no sweat.  However, she tends to write from bottom up and writes several numbers backwards - and that is exactly why I was excited to find this game!

Movies, Books, and a Dramatic Performance

Rob and I don't catch a lot of recent movies - we'll pick something obscure on Netflix and aren't often impressed!  Last weekend we watched the movie Ragamuffin -which tells the life story of Rich Mullins.  We have seen a lot of Christian movies - to the point that I groan inwardly at the thought of watching another one, but this is one we both recommend.   The acting is good and the story is moving.  I knew two things about Rich Mullins before watching it - he sang Awesome God and he died in a car accident.  I read a review online written by someone who had known him personally and they said that while the movie exaggerates his personal struggles, it is a reflection of things that were not always visible about him. 

Caleb had been begging to see Jurassic World.  Since it is rated PG-13, we decided that (because the reasons it is rated PG-13 were things that he was expecting anyway) he could watch it as long as he watched it with us.  So we all watched it (except Irene).  Although it was plenty scary, none of the kids acted scared at all.  Probably it helped that we started taking guesses at which character would be the next one eaten - which ended up kind of funny.  And I thought that for a major movie like this, the acting was pretty awful

I recently read Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.  I thought the movie version was clever, but I liked the book much better.  The Ella in the book seems younger than Anne Hathaway in the movie.  The basic plot is the same, but the details are really different.The huge number of Cinderella variations just fascinates me.  We also watched the new live action Cinderella recently - and it is really lovely.

I also read part of a book called Just William by Richmal Crompton.  It was published in 1922 and is a collection of funny stories about a boy named William.  I am planning to read some of the aloud to the kids because they are engaging enough to keep their attention even though the vocabulary is a little out of date.

And I read Bunnicula by James Howe for the first time.  Having enjoyed Dracula, I found it a very clever and cute book.  Vegetables beware!

My friend Carmen took me with her to see a high school performance of Pride and Prejudice.  It was fun to discover that she and I both like that sort of thing!  It was a lot of fun - especially when you know the book - the girl who played Mrs. Bennet just nailed it.  She was really funny!

So in short, I don't get much culture, but little bits add up over time.

Deck the Halls

So Miami...

Today we bid Flat Stanley, "Adios"

Two things about Miami that I hardly even notice anymore -
*Cuban Espresso is a communal drink.  You buy a normal sized Styrofoam cup of espresso and they put a lid on it and a stack of little plastic cups - I suppose you can drink it all, but the idea is to share the stuff by the 3/4 ounce.  I have not had much, but when I worked at a law firm one summer, a lady there made it every day and I had some from time to time.  It is POTENT.
*The guayabera - four pocket shirt or maybe a multi pleated shirt, I'm not sure which is the more distinguishing characteristic - they are usually white, short sleeved, and untucked (they would look very odd tucked in) and are acceptable as dress shirts for men here.  Although they seem to be a Cuban thing, I have seen plenty of American men wearing them as well.  Maybe I need to get Rob one for Christmas...

Botany Week 12

Our Fall PEP semester has come to its end.  For our final Botany class, we did an art project - true to form, it did not go as I planned or envisioned, and that is ok.

My plan was for the children to create a set of thank you cards decorated with leaf prints.  This is a cool thing to do and very easy.  You color the bottom of a leaf with markers and then just use it as you would a stamp.  You can reprint the same leaf in multiple colors.  You can also color the leaf with a rainbow of colors.   I gave each child 5 cards, 5 envelopes, and a bunch of leaves.  (I also brought extra markers because at this point in the semester, more than half of the kids have lost more than half of their supplies.)

This is a sample one I made.

What happened was that a few kids did exactly what I suggested, a few kids did something similar to what I suggested, and a few kids just did whatever they wanted to do.  I did not intervene much!  Ultimately they did not understand that I meant for them to make a set to give as a gift, so many of them wrote cards to each other or for their family members and a few kids made cards for me, which I did not expect and appreciated very much.  Would I do the same craft again?  Yes, but only if I don't find something better.

Here is our final seed collection - the bottom are a few of the "specimens" collected last week and hastily taped to the poster.  If I teach this class again, I will be more aggressive at letting the parents know about the seed collection.

Hopefully, I will post some pictures of the art projects Annalise and Natalie made in their Great Artists class.  They really learned a lot in the class and have a very nice portfolio of work from it.  Their favorite class was Folk Dance (Caleb takes it in the spring!  All of the moms of boys were uncertain about it, but it seems all of us signed our sons up for it, so at least none of them will be the lone boy!)  The girls also have a pretty impressive collection of ceramic projects - another class Caleb will take in the spring.

The Longest Hopscotch Board Ever Made

Longest Hopscotch Ever (made by the kids)

I've spent so little time blogging lately, that I think I have forgotten how it is done!  Part of it is the Botany class - because even though I'd taught it before, I hadn't taught these kids and adjustments - lots of them! - had to be made.  Part of it is that I've been getting up a lot earlier and night time is shorter and sleepier. 

Mako has been given the clear to use human insulin.  I was surprised to learn that Walmart sells a human insulin without a prescription.  You do need a prescription for the syringes though.  He has been using an insulin that has 40 units in 1 ml and they call that kind 40U.  He is switching to a more concentrated - 100U - insulin, which means he will need a lot less.  The 100U human insulin is much less expensive too.  Eventually, we plan to buy him a blood glucose meter.  He is getting heavier - the insulin makes him hungrier - and lays around a lot.  He turned 12 last week.

Birthday Bath

 Caleb decorated his cake:

Mako didn't get to eat it!  We gave him some beef stew.

Irene is almost 16 months old.  She is an intense little lady in many ways!  She has always been loud and she is still loud, although she has shown she is capable of making cute little noises too!  She is always alert to the door being opened and fearlessly walks as far as she can get.  She talks all the time, but most of it is not understandable - just the same, she has 15-20 recognizable words, which is on the high end for her age, so that gives you an idea of how much she babbles!  She also signs please and thank you.  Mako is "Babo", all fruits (even bananas) are "Apple".  She likes all the big kids, but I think her current fave is Natalie.

This nap - she fell asleep on my lap, stayed asleep for me to move her to the stroller, then to the carseat and to the crib!

This is my handiwork - they asked for volunteers to paint faces at a church picnic.  Natalie asked for flowers and Annalise liked her eye wings so much, she wore them to bed!

Annalise lost a tooth:

We had Brussels sprouts for dinner tonight.  The kids had been so excited, it was funny!  We didn't dare tell them that most kids don't like them.  I roasted them with butter and salt and pepper and Natalie found them too spicy, but C & A liked the first bite or two, then suddenly they both declared that they did not like them at all.

Botany Week 11

Our focus this week was trees.  The objective was to become acquainted with several types of trees on the PEP campus.  Last time, I created an elaborate scavenger hunt, divided the kids into teams, assigned each team something to bring back from 6 different trees, and gave them all maps to find the trees.  Naturally, they had trouble reading the map, recognizing the trees, finding the things I asked for, etc.  So I knew that had to go, but I wanted to do something that would involve the trees.  I knew I needed to simplify things and spoon feed a little.

Nearest tree: Gumbo Limbo.   Distant left: Banana trees, Bald Cypress, Royal Poinciana.  Distant right: Live Oak and Black Olive

I looked online at lots of ideas and found a website where a mom made clue jars for trees in her yard and gave them to her precocious 4 year old.  I thought it might work for us, so I obtained 6 empty bottles, filled them with leaves and sticks and other plant matter from the trees and then filled them with water - because that made the contents very clear and slightly magnified.  I tagged the bottles with the tree names.

I also drew a map of the campus and only drew in the trees that we were going to visit.  Originally, I thought we'd also do a matching game to learn an extra fact about each tree, but scrapped the idea as too much - however I'll get back to that in a minute.  I also made a card for each kid that said to get a leaf, twig, flower, berry, etc. from a certain tree.  And I brought little tags to attach to the leaves, twigs, etc.   Finally, I had each kid take 6 pieces of paper and a peeled crayon and make a bark rubbing on each tree. And I thought a matching game was too much!

So here is how that went down:  We met in class and talked about how trees are beneficial.  I explained our tree hunt, the bottles, the specimen cards, and the bark rubbings.  I had kids peel crayons.  Then they packed everything in their folders and we went out.  The bottles were only useful to a few kids - but they did like the bottles very much - and by the time we were at the last two trees, no one needed them anyway.

As we found each tree, I chose a student to put a leaf shaped post it on the tree to label it.

The bark rubbings were pointless.  None of them look any different from another (although the trees had very different types of bark).

The specimen cards were kind of blah.  Some kids did as they were told, other kids lost theirs, once we got back we didn't have time to tag the leaves, twigs, flowers, berries, etc.

It should come as no surprise, in my class of over-enriched, energy filled 8-10 year-olds, most of them climbed most of the trees.

Banyan Tree

BUT, I think the kids left knowing that there were lots of different types of trees on campus and the names of at least 4 of the 6.  The bottle idea is cute, but better suited for a smaller group.  Given the chance to do it again, I would keep the spirit of the clue bottles, but tweak it somehow and do the match game I mentioned instead of the leaf, twig, etc. collection and bark rubbing.  The book also has a lesson on how to estimate the height of a tree, which I would have included if I'd had time.

Once again, my volunteer commended on how spirited the class is!  I have a half class left to go, we're going to do an art project, I'm not even going to make a lesson plan.  And even though I won't be sad to see the semester come to an end, I'm already thinking of what I might teach next fall.

Quotable Natalie

"You know in Sunday School, I'm the only kid who closes their eyes when Miss Vicky prays!"
 

Botany Week 10

This week our focus was stems.  Last time, I had the kids build a model stem out of bundles of straws and floral tape, complete with fake flowers.  This time, I found an easier way!

We discussed the visible functions of the stem - support and flexibility - briefly, but most of the class focused on the inner parts of the stem.  I kept it simple - just xylem and phloem.  Xylem and phloem can be compared to veins and arteries.  They are both vascular tubes, but they do different jobs.  Xylem carries water up from the roots and phloem transports sugar down from the leaves.  Instead of making models of this, we made a page for their lab book.  First they drew a kind of ugly plant with all the basic parts - roots, stem, and leaves.   In the stem we left a wide space.  In the space, we taped two straws and labeled one straw xylem and one phloem.  Then we put label tags on two pipe cleaners and labeled one water and one sugar.  We inserted the pipe cleaners in the straws to symbolize the water and sugar that flow through the tubes.  I have copied a lot of things off pinterest this year, but this one I made up myself!

Next we briefly discussed woody stems and how they differ from green (herbaceous) stems.  I had the kids make a "Me" tree - this seemed like a pretty preschool project and I did it mostly because I couldn't find a worksheet I used last time.  They wrote on the back of a paper plate "A _______ Tree" (their name went in the blank), on the top they colored the bumpy edge brown for the bark and made rings in the middle to represent their own ages.

I did not expect any of them not to know about how tree rings show a tree's age (and they all did), but it was something to do while we talked about things that might affect a tree's growth over the years and the fact that trees in tropical climates have less defined rings because they grow pretty much year round.


Yea botany!  Yea 1 1/2 classes left!  Since I am the 3rd class, my last class is interrupted by the annual Thanksgiving Feast!

A Day at the Beach

After we got home, I realized almost all my pictures were of Irene! My excuse is this: she is a wanderer and therefore I am "that mom" who chases after the baby.  The other kids were more clingy.  I mentioned this at her 15 month check up and the doctor (who happens to be a new mom) said that was good - it showed independence.  I kind of disagreed about how good it is, but I did not comment aloud.  Good or bad, it certainly keeps me on my toes!

Even with the blurry palm trees, I love the green on blue.

Irene really thought they would catch this heron.

Checking out the hermit crabs.

Halloween 2015

Our Halloween...

Did you spot Irene?

My cousin's son's Flat Stanley was here to dress up with us.  We considered several costume options, but decided the safest bet was to do something traditional. 

His little loot bucket can hold real candy - that is one really small piece of candy!

Costume line up:

This little cutie was eager to pose for pictures!  That is not her usual style, she is usually much to busy to pose and smile.  Originally the big kids all wanted to be minions - the three main ones, I don't know their names,  and they thought it would be fun for Irene to be Scarlett Overkill (I have not seen the movie, so I don't know if that is an appropriate character to dress your 15 month old as or not, but it got a little more life out of this Christmas party dress!). 

Our ballerina!

Our angel:

Annalise and I made the wings out of cardboard and paper.  I saw a pin online about how to make paper feathers and the wings are really beautiful.  I should post better pictures of them.  They were easy and fast to make, unlike...

Brutus the Buckeye!

It was warm and humid and not only was he wearing two shirts, sweatpants and gloves, the head is packed with extra foam to keep it from spinning.  We were going to add a hat and details on the flag, but as the time began to crunch, we decided those extras were not that important to us.

We went to a nearby neighborhood where they block off the streets.  Caleb got a lot of comments on his costume - both positive and negative - we are in 'Cane country after all.  But we did meet a few sympathetic Buckeyes and he got as much candy as the girls anyway.