Sentences!

Our church has a very casual environment, so we just don't dress up to go to church, except on Easter when Chase and Carys dress up. It's a good thing that we have 6 services over 3 days, so they get a chance to wear all their dresses. I managed to get a picture of Carys on Friday and on Sunday. She is talking so much now. She said to me, "I wear pretty dress."

Friday's dress


Sunday's dress


Don't grow up too fast, little girl!

Church @ the Springs

Our church is getting ready to build on 67 acres of land we purchased. The church is 14 years old and has always met in rented facilities. Our facility right now is a converted grocery store, converted entirely by church members. This is a neat preview video we saw in church this weekend.

Psalm 39

I read this Psalm in the New Living Translation Friday, and this part really spoke to me.

Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away. My life is no longer than the width of my hand. An entire lifetime is just a moment to you; human existence is but a breath. We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth for someone else to spend. And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you. Rescue me from my rebellion. (vs. 4-8a)

Well, I am not heaping up any wealth, but I am doing a lot of busy rushing and sometimes a little rebellion, too. "Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be!"

Easter

For several years now, we've spent Easter afternoon at the Walker's "He Is Risen" Easter Egg Hunt. For a few years we began with Greg telling the real Easter story. Last year he turned it over to Landon. He did this on the spur of the moment, though, so Landon was scrambling to come up with something. This year I suggested that he use our Resurrection Eggs. He did a great job! We'll have to look for another clever idea for next year.



Gerren decided he was too big to hunt eggs this year, so he helped Carys. It was her first year to hunt. So wasn't quite sure what to do, but she was an expert at eating the candy.


Greg was taking pictures, so we have a lot of cut off heads!


The egg hunt isn't the only activity. There's also an egg toss, with a non-hard-boiled egg, of course....


and a sack race.


Then, the Easter bunny comes to visit. Landon fulfilled this role for the second year, also.


When we finally got home, the kids opened their own Easter baskets. They had a nice assortment of candy and a book each. The boys are THRILLED with the new books I got them, Asterix and the Gaul, and Asterix and the Golden Sickle, recommended by the wonderful women on my homeschooling loop. I know we'll be buying more of these.

Happy Easter!

He is risen! He is risen indeed! I love this song which we performed at church for all six Easter services this weekend.

Win Rosetta Stone Foreign Language Program

Rosetta Stone has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while -- next week they are unleashing a brand new curriculum, and you can WIN the *all new* Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3… FOR FREE!
This is a $219 program (and believe me it's worth every penny!) and the winner gets to pick from any of these 14 languages: Spanish (Spain or Latin America), English (American or British), Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Hebrew, or Russian.
This will also include a headset with microphone, and students will participate in lifelike conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone still incorporates listening, reading and writing as well, in addition to speaking. Many homeschoolers requested grammar and vocabulary exercises, and with Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3, they're included! For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program and allow parents to easily enroll students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, and view and print reports.

To win this most excellent program -- in the language of your choice -- copy these (blue) paragraphs and post it in (or as) your next blog post -- then to enter the contest, go to the original contest page HERE: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/JenIG/501132/ and leave a comment with the link showing where you blogged about it. And please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post it. And good luck! The winner will be picked randomly on March 26, and will be notified thru the link they left to their blog pg. And if you have more than one blog, you can post them and enter those separately for more chances to win. Yay for free stuff!

Dissection 2: Crayfish

Today, Landon did the second dissection in Apologia's Exploring Creation Through Biology -- a crayfish.

He is really NOT a hands-on learner, and he does NOT really like these dissections. He is doing them nonetheless and doing a good job.








I can't remember what this was -- his brain?





He's always happy to finish!

Gerren and Science

Gerren is using Apologia's Exploring Creation with General Science curriculum this year. He is having a few struggles with it: 1) memorizing definitions, 2) explaining himself well on a test (even though he does understand the concept), and 3) warning me ahead of time when he needs something for an experiment (even though Sonlight does an awesome job in their schedules, which we use, of warning you the week before you need something).

Due to this last issue, Gerren ended up doing an experiment Sunday because we didn't have any distilled water on Tuesday. Lots of the experiments in this book call for purple cabbage. After buying numerous heads for Landon (or begging individual leaves from the produce managers), I got smart, bought one head the first time we needed it, and froze what we didn't use. We've been pulling leaves off that head as needed. Usually they are used to make purple cabbage water, so their consistency doesn't really matter.

He had to make several different cups of cabbage water this time. Carys cried and cried, begging for a "drink". He finally gave in and let her have a taste!


She didn't ask again!


This balloon contraption was used (along with baking soda and vinegar) to make carbon dioxide and trap it in the balloon which he then had to release in one of the glasses of cabbage water to see if it made the water change color. Gerren was afraid the balloon was going to burst!

Where Has the Week Gone?

I can't believe it's been a week since I last blogged. Where has the time gone? Well, Friday was lost in the blur of a migraine for me. It's not often that I get one (once every 2-3 months), but when I do, wowza! Chase was so great and helped me so much that day.

That morning Landon was complaining that his jaws hurt. I could barely see through the fog of pain and told him it was probably his eustachian tubes that were clogged up from the 5 days of awful congestion he'd had. That night when I was functioning again, he complained again and asked me to feel his jaws. I didn't need to do that. When I looked at him directly, I could see that the right side of his face was grossly swollen. No wonder it hurt. We spent Saturday morning in the walk-in clinic to find out that he has parotitis, which is an infection of the parotid gland. This is his 3rd course of antibiotics in 2 months. His tonsils are swollen and seem to be a petri dish for bacteria growth. We had a consultation with an ENT who said they were enlarged but not grossly so, and it was pretty much a matter of his comfort whether we wanted to take them out or not. I guess we're going to choose that option before he becomes resistant to antibiotics!

Oh yes, when I went to fill Landon's prescription, I had them refill my Imitrex as I had taken the last one. The last time I had this refilled (10/06) the cost was $99 for 9 pills. Seventeen months later and a different insurance policy (we now have a BCBS HSA rather than Medical Savings Insurance HSA), the cost was $189 for 9 pills. That's enough to give anyone a migraine. Our wonderful local pharmacy, Brashear's, suggested that I get just 3 at a time since I take them so infrequently anyway. $189! Can you believe that?

Oh, here's a picture of my little fashion queen in her sister's jacket.

How Many of Me?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 5 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

This was really neat, but the funny thing is that I know another Linda Meahl. Greg's cousin also married a "Linda" and we are both Linda Meahl living in the same town! She is a realtor, and every once in a while I will get calls for her!

Happy Birthday, Gerren!

I have another teenage boy in my house! How will I ever afford the groceries?

Gerren turned 13 today. It is hard to believe, as usual, that another year has gone by so quickly. His birthday fell on a Monday which was crazy with choir for Chase and Civil Air Patrol for Landon. There was no time for our usual birthday dinner out between these two activities. So, we went out yesterday. We headed to Orlando to eat at Sweet Tomatoes' new breakfast buffet. Afterwards, I finally got to tour the new IKEA store. It was incredible! I will definitely be back when in need of furniture. Then we spent an hour or so at the Mall of Millennia. I haven't been there in several years. On the way home, we decided to drive through The Villages, a very popular retirement area in central Florida which I hadn't seen since before Landon was born, probably before we were married. It has grown so much! Well, we have some dear friends who moved from Crystal River over there in January. We called them on the spur of the moment and ended up spending the afternoon and early evening with them. It was SO wonderful. We also had a very light dinner at TooJay's Gourmet Deli. I'd seen these restaurants, but had never eaten at one. It was awesome!

Today, the kids slept in. They were exhausted. They managed to roll out of bed sometime between 9:00 and 9:30 am. We had breakfast, then headed to Sears to have Gerren's pictures taken. After we got home and did some chores, he and Landon flew their RC airplanes. He finally started getting antsy to open his gifts.

Landon and Chase got him this shirt.


Greg and I got him a new crash cymbal (he broke his old one - I didn't know this was even possible).


While we were at it, we bought a splash cymbal and a boom stand for either of those cymbals.


He also got the entire set of the Terrestria Chronicles, adventure novels by a Christian pastor that I read about on my homeschool loop (I think)! He said they look good.


He decided to go with Landon to CAP tonight as they are going to fly RC planes. :-)

Cadet of the Month

Last night at Civil Air Patrol, Landon was named Cadet of the Month. He is now a Staff Sargeant and moving up the ranks as quickly as he can.

This award was passed to him from Ashlyn Wright. She and her two brothers are members of Landon's squadrons and come from a really neat homeschooling family.


Here, the Squadron Cadet Commander, Major Puchala, puts the award (cords, ribbons ???) on Landon.

Congratulations, Landon!

Ewwww! Gross!

Landon LOVES Apologia's upper level science courses (we haven't used the elementary stuff - Sonlight worked well for us on those levels). However, he's not so thrilled about dissecting! I say if we're doing Biology, we're doing it all the way!

Today was the first dissection--an earthworm.

Here "he" is ready to go!


Landon did pretty well, although he destroyed the worm's ganglia (which acts as its brain, according to Landon). He said the experiment information said it is common to destroy this part when cutting the worm open.


This picture proves that Landon actually did the dissection. (As you can see, I forbid it taking place IN my house. He used the back porch.)


This picture proves that MOM actually went outside and looked at the gross thing!


Landon celebrates throwing the worm away.


Thanks to Chase for taking most of these great pictures!