Animals and A Giveaway!!

Don't you just love National Geographic?  Since I am using Galloping the Globe as my spine for this coming year's curriculum, I am gathering all sorts of resources to study places around the world.  For each country we are studying, I am also making mini-units on animals that live in that country.  My hope is to end up with a Stanley-like "Great Big Book of Everything" at the end of the year.  (Are you familiar with Stanley?  That is one show I wish Disney had not dropped from its line up.)  I think it will be great to have our very own, homemade animal encyclopedia!  Anyway, Galloping the Globe directs its readers to this National Geographic Animal page. On the right side of thie page, there is an animal A-Z search where you can find great pages on tons of animals with facts, pictures, and maps of where the animal lives.  How cool is that?

Do you want to study the aardvark? No problem - they have a page for that.

Interested in the spotted salamander?  You're in luck!  There's a page for that, too.

I am really enjoying planning the year using Galloping the Globe.  I think it is such a great book, I'm giving one away here!  This book is adaptable for K-4th grade and covers geography, history, and science, and also give suggestions for literature, language arts, and Bible.  In addition, it has ideas for activities and cooking projects for each country.  This giveaway is for one copy of the 2010 version of Galloping the Globe with included CD-ROM.

To enter, simply leave a comment telling me what your favorite homeschool resource is.  Simple, huh?  It can be a web site or a book or a piece of advice you've been given. 

Rules:
1. One entry with a resource per person.
2. Earn an additional entry for each of the following: (leave a separate comment for each one you do)

• Mention the giveaway (with a link) on your blog.
• Facebook about the giveaway.
• Tweet about the giveaway.

3. The contest will close Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 8:00 PM CST.
4. Winner will be chosen randomly and announced Friday, July 2.

I cannot wait to lean what all of your favorite resources are!

Proof Positive That I Am Indeed Crazy

As we contemplated the task of refinishing our kitchen cabinets, we seriously considered paint over stain since the amount of work involved in stripping stain off the large amount of wood we have in our kitchen is staggering.  In the end, though, when I saw just how amazing the countertops were, I couldn't put painted wood up next to it.  Jerry told me over and over that he would really, really prefer to use the power sander to strip the cabinets since using the stripping compound and scraping would take forever.  I kept refusing since I knew it would make the biggest mess I could imagine - dust all over the house!  But when I watched Jerry strip and restain the one small area he did already, I saw what he meant.  Since the cabinet doors were already off to have the hidden hinges added, I thought I'd surprise Jerry by prepping the kitchen for power sanding.

Moving the refrigerator and putting up the plastic sheeting.

A closed-in kitchen "before" shot.

I removed every last item from my kitchen.  I emptied every cabinet and put everything in my bedroom.  I bought plastic sheeting so that Jerry could seal himself in while he sanded to try to contain the mess as much as possible.  I didn't tell him I was doing this, I just had it done when he got home from work last Friday.  He actually didn't notice that all the cabinets were empty when he walked past the kitchen! It wasn't until he went in our room to put his things down and saw al the contents of our kitchen on the floor that it hit him.  I love a good surprise!

Ethan thought a bicycle helmet, safety goggles, and a bandana = perfect outfit for power sanding!

The first step was to try to seal the kitchen off as much as possible to try to contain the dust.  Next, Jerry and the boys had to suit up for the work.  I found it hillarious what the boys thought would be a good get-up for power sanding!

Aaron went with the full cammo get-up, a Bob the Builder construction helmet, safety goggles, and a bandana!

This is over halfway through the process.  Notice how dusty Jerry's skin is!

It took a long time, and created a LOT of dust, but in the end, we got all the stain off the parts of the cabinets that cannot be removed and sanded or stripped outside. 

Everyone helped with the clean up!

Cabinets ready for new stain!  What looks like a dirty lens is actually dust particles still hanging in the air from cleaning up!

Of course, now the cabinets look really funny.  Some still have the original stain.  Some are stripped down to the raw wood.  Others already have the new stain on them.  It may look silly, but it is the look of progress, so I'm okay with it.  Overall, the sheeting did work pretty well.  The dust primarily stayed in the kitchen, but the kitchen?  There was a layer of dust on the counter so thick, you couldn't even see the counter.  Even the walls and ceiling were completely coated with it. 

Through the process, we discovered that the end panels of the cabinets are 1/4 inch plywood.  They'll have to be removed and replaced since you cannot power sand stain off that thin of a board...Live and learn!

Ready for the next step!

This isn't my favorite part of remodeling, but the results are very worth it!

Mini Post

• I broke my toe last week.  It still is quite painful when I wear shoes, but is almost pain-free without shoes.
• I exercised today for the first time in forever, broken toe and all.  I think the toe actually helped me because normally I tend to start exercising with too much gusto, end up injuring myself, and have to take another month to recover before starting the whole process over again.  Smart, huh?
• My kids are in VBS all week this week.  Why, then, am I the one who is so tired I could fall into bed and sleep for a week?
• Both my kids invited friends from their T-ball teams to go to VBS with them.  I love watching them want to share their love for Jesus with others!  I don't even mind the extra driving to pick up and drop off two extra kids this week to foster that mindset!
• I have had a half finished post showing more kitchen progress for almost a week now.  I'd love to say I'll have it up tomorrow, but I know better. ;)
• Our blackberries, the one plant we've had success with in the garden, are dying.  The only bright note to this sad story is that I think through trying to figure out why the berries are suddenly dying we've figured out why we cannot grow anything in this yard - our soil is infested with more roly-poly bugs than you can imagine!  Now I have to figure out how to kill doodle bugs.
• We got new phones last week.  I am loving being able to text, check facebook from my phone, and take great pictures with my phone.  However, they sent me a defective one, so I have to exchange it.  The battery on mine dies within 4 hours of a full charge, even when I am not using it!  The store tested the battery for me, and it is fine, which means I managed to get a defective phone.
• When my grandmother was visiting last week, she was playing "Sorry" with my kids.  After beating them pretty soundly three times in a row, Aaron asked her, "Great-Grandma, what game are you really bad at?"  Ha!  I guess now I know why my whole family is super competitive.  It has been handed down for many generations now!

The Look of Progress

The kitchen is still a work in progress.  Today all the cabinet doors are off!  Jerry took them to a custom cabinet maker to have interior mount hinges put in them.  I cannot say that I will be sad to see the old, brass hinges go.  Out with the eyesore, in with the polished and streamlined.  Progress is good, even if it means I have to watch Andrew like a hawk today!

He's a big boy officially now, folks.  That's right.  Gone is the high chair, and Drew-Drew has joined us at the table.  You cannot tell in this picture since he is focused only on eating his applesauce, but he is very, very happy about this new turn of events.  His high chair is still out waiting for a cool morning to put it up in the attic, but he ignores it and goes right to his booster seat when it is time to eat.  I have to say that it feels really good to have our entire family of five at the table for meal time.

His God-Given Right

As the oldest child in our family, Aaron feels that it is his God-given right and responsibility to keep the rest of us in line.  He consistently corrects his baby brother and religiously tells his other brother everything he is supposed to do right after I have already told him.  And he doesn't limit his correcting reminders to his siblings.  He also makes sure I know when it's nap time, dinner time, snack time, or the day for an event we've been planning.  He is especially hard on Jerry, reminding him what foods he is allergic to and admonishing his father when he dares to eat something that isn't the best choice.  In short, he's bossy. 

Thankfully, he's also cute.

But 7 is oh, so grown up, right?

Ahem.  Anyway, we faithfully remind him that our family already has two parents to help guide the children (including him) and that he is NOT one of those parents. It hasn't sunk in yet.  Just the other day, he left these two signs on the table at Jerry's spot.

"Jerry, This is how you shold (should) write your name."  He's on a first name basis with his dad these days.

"Not like this - lashdfoewingoasnl."

Apparently, on top of everything else, he is now also the handwriting police.  Great.

Wheat

We just got some food back in this last month, and wheat is one item we can now add to our rotation. We can have some wheat twice a week, and I have to tell you that this is very exciting for me!  I have missed pasta.  Tomatoes are still out, so a traditional Italian pasta dish is still out, but pasta is quick, easy, filling, and cheap.  We have dabbled with bits of wheat here and there, but I finally finished our new, revised schedule for foods and yesterday was our first full-fledged wheat day.  For dinner I made a great Olive Oil and Garlic sauce for pasta and added chicken and broccoli.  Oh. My. Word.  It was so good! All four of my guys asked for seconds!  I'm sure to the average person it would have just been an average dinner, but to us?  This was special, amazing, magical even.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but I was too anxious to dig right in to stop and get just the right picture for you all.  Sorry about that. No.  Really I'm not sorry.  I am a bit sorry that I'm not sorry for caring more about getting into the pasta than getting a good picture for you, though.  What? I lost you with all the sorries?  Oh.  Sorry.

I was equally excited about dessert.  I made a chocolate cake and frosted it with this frosting that I had seen on Tasty Kitchen. (I couldn't make a regular frosting since powdered sugar has corn in it and it isn't a corn day...) I don't know if it is because I bought whole wheat white flour or if our tastes have just changed that much, but we didn't really enjoy the cake that much.  Or the pancakes I made this morning, for that matter.  I am determined to keep trying, though, because wheat flour is about 1/5 the cost of spelt flour and 1/7-1/10 the cost of the other flours we have been using.  Oh, and it is already ground for me.  You know? Maybe that's it.  Maybe I should buy some wheat berries and grind them myself.  Perhaps we are just used to the taste of freshly ground flour now. 

Either way, the bottom line is the same.  We love pasta.  We've missed pasta.  We'll be adding pasta to our regular menu again with rejoicing.  However, the other wheat flour items?  Well, their just not all we remembered.