Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Waffles

Grams brought me some pumpkin all the way from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, so today I branched out from our normal chocolate chip waffles and made these pumpkin chocolate chip waffles.  My choosy eater chose not to even try them, but everyone else loved them!  I made them the busy mom method, which is to not separate the eggs.  Grams liked them so much, she had some for lunch, too!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c flour (I used 1 c white and 1/2 c whole wheat)
1 T corn starch
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t ground ginger
3/4 c pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 c milk
1/4 c honey
3 T oil
1 t vanilla
1/3 c chocolate chips

1. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Add liquid ingredients and mix well.
3. Add chocolate chips and mix.
3. Cook in a waffle maker according to your waffle maker instructions.
4. To keep warm, place waffles on a cookie sheet in an oven set at 200 degrees.
5. Serve as is and enjoy counting chocolate chips:)

Glitz and Glam

I am so not a jewelry person.  I own lots of jewelry, but it just sits in my jewelry box.  My girls, on the other hand, love glitz and glam.  Necklaces.  Bracelets.  Tiaras.  Rings.  Boas.  Wands.  Somehow, they have all found their way into our house.

Needless to say, Mary has been wanting to get her ears pierced for what seems like eons.  So, she's been saving up her money and eagerly waiting for today to come.  Today we headed out to Wal-Mart for the grand event.  Initially, Mary chose a beautiful pair of purple earrings with a matching necklace.   Unfortunately, they didn't have those on hand, so she settled for these rainbow colored balls.  Somehow the ear piercer figured out that she liked purple--could it be because she was wearing all purple--so he marked her ears with a purple marker.  He won big points with Mary for that.  I was prepared for tears and crying and, "Mom, why did you let me get my ears pierced?!"  But, my tough girl did not even wince during the ear-piercing process! 

Now, we're just trying to figure out how she can continue her judo lessons if she can't remove the earrings for the next six weeks!

Picture Books We Love: My Favorite Fairy Tales

Can I really call My Favorite Fairy Tales a picture book?  I'm not sure. It's actually more of an oversized board book, but it's one my girls love and it does have pictures. 

There are so many different fairy tales books out there.  We certainly have our fair share of them, but this is among our favorites.  What makes this book stand out is the play-along aspect.  Each two-page layout includes the fairy tale on one side and a felt play area on the other.  Children can use the accompanying felt pieces to act out the fairy tale while you are reading or afterwards or whenever.
There are six fairy tales included in this book: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Gingerbread Man, The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel.   

I have to say there is one downside of this book and fairy tales generally speaking.  The other morning Maggie woke up very upset because she had a bad dream about a witch chasing her.  My husband looked at me with a quizzical look as if to say, "Where has she been learning about witches?"  Fairy tales!  Even so, this is a fun book among the most popular in our home!

Goodbye, Abraham

Our little guy, Abraham, breathed his last breath early this morning. He was a great kitty, and we really will miss him lots. He had a few quirks, but they were the sort that made us all laugh. Mary officiated a funeral service for him this evening, and he now lies in the ground beneath the bird feeder.

Is it dinner time yet?

Who says you need wings to fly?

Go ahead and try to take my picture!

It's easier to catch Sarah's tail than mine!

Now that I got up here, how do I get down?

You're taking me with you, aren't you?

He would have made a perfect Boppy pillow!

Ahhh, you found me!

Yikes!  That hurts, Maggie, but I love the attention!

These shoes are really comfortable!

Thanks for the blanket, Mary!

This is actually pretty comfy!

It was a little difficult to play board games with the little guy around!

Homeschool Resources: Apologia Science

I have not been shy about admitting my deficiency in the realm of science.  That's my husband's strong suit, not mine.  So, you can probably imagine that teaching science to my kids is, well, somewhat intimidating.  How do I deal with this?  I just try to be completely open and honest about what I know, which is to say very little, and what I don't know, which is to say a whole lot. 

Being a non-science person, though, I found the idea of choosing a science curriculum overwhelming.  Fortunately, my husband was willing and eager to help me.  Something that is important to me in teaching science is that we worship the Creator as we study his marvelous creation.  Apologia Science helps us do just that.  From beginning to end, it is evident that the author loves God and his creation.  While it appears that you can begin wherever you want in this science curriculum (zoology, astronomy. botany, anatomy), we chose to start with Zoology 1, which covers flying creatures, including birds, bats, insects, butterflies and moths. 

The material includes a schedule which you can follow to complete the Zoology 1 course in 28 weeks, although you by no means need to follow this schedule.  Each chapter is packed with information about flying creatures as well as hands-on projects and experiments.  Creation Confirmations or things that we observe in flying creatures that evidence that they have been designed by an Intelligent Creator are included throughout the text.

I recommend purchasing the notebooking journal along with the text.  It has pages for students to write down important information from the chapter as well as record the results from their science projects and experiments.  There are even places for the students to draw pictures!  For each chapter, the notebook includes review questions, a crossword puzzle and copywork (a Bible verse that relates to the topic of that chapter) also.  Plus, there is a mini-book for the student to complete for each chapter.  The mini-book activities combine creativity with review and have been a lot of fun for Mary, as have the crossword puzzles.  She gets that from Gramps.

How do we use this curriculum?  We pretty much follow the suggested schedule.  I read the appropriate section aloud to Mary.  We take frequent breaks to discuss things that we found really interesting and record them (sometimes Mary wants to do this and sometimes I write what she dictates).  Usually, I can just let her loose with the copywork, review questions, crossword puzzle and mini-book activity, but sometimes we work on those things together because we enjoy working together.  We honestly haven't completed every experiment because, well, it was really difficult to do that with Matthew and Jonathan, but we are planning to complete the experiments in the spring.

I really love this curriculum and am definitely planning on continuing on with Zoology 2.  The author communicates her love for God and his creation on every page and writes in such a way that excites the reader, too!  This book has inspired us in many ways.  We now enjoy identifying the birds that come to our bird feeder, looking for eggs on the underside of leaves and even watching ant behavior (from a distance--they are fire ants after all)!