A Fun Fruit Snack

O(6) was SO excited when I made this fruit tree snack for her!  (E was out on a daddy/daughter date) The idea for this fruit tree snack came from  Pinterest  (I'm linking to my pin, but it doesn't link to the original picture, so I'm not sure where this idea actually orignated).

Elliott's Kit Kat Cake

After seeing this cake on facebook and Pinterest, I realized it would be perfect for Elliott's birthday since he loves kit kats and m&m's.  Also, it was easy!   Elliott was excited and impressed with his cake, and we are all overjoyed and relieved that he made it to 35 after his (our) traumatic year!

Bob the Builder

This may not look like Bob the Builder to you, but to the girls of Lakeside Homeschool, it does!


We found this insect on our deck, and O(6) suggested naming him "Bob."  E(3) agreed immediately, but said he should actually be called "Bob the Builder."  We watched him for quite a while.  He was moving slowly, so we knew something must be wrong with him.  We left him with leaves and other things, but he died while we were out of town.  He is now a part of our dead insect collection.  Poor Bob the Builder.  (Btw, these dead insects from our collection have a tendency of finding their way all around our house...I try to round them all up and back on the nature shelf before playdates...don't want to scare away any of our new friends!)

The Best Part of Our Day...

is our morning kayak ride!


Lately, the girls and I have been taking morning kayak rides right after breakfast and before we begin "school."  It is the most wonderful part of our day!  We have so much fun looking for wildlife...on our first morning, we tried to find 1 blue heron, 2 egrets, 3 turtles, 4 waterbugs, and 5 fish.  We saw everything except the 2nd egret.  The most exciting part was gliding right over a turtle.  My goal is to kayak with them at least 2 mornings a week....last week, we had 4 kayak rides, but only 1 so far this week.

Learning About Heiroglyphs

The girls received a history fun box in the "mail" on Wednesday.  They were very excited.  In the box were a few books about Ancient Egypt including a book about Hieroglyphs.  The girls loved playing with the hieroglyphic stamps.  O(6) has had fun pretending that she is a scribe.

A thoughtful scribe who is hard at work!


O was excited to stamp the hieroglyphs on her pretend papyrus and then roll it up into a scroll.  After she rolled several scrolls, she delivered them to the pharoah (me) and read them to me.  We are having so much fun studying Ancient Egypt!


Here is a link to the Hieroglyphs book that we have.  The stamps are not very good at all, but the children seem to like them.


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Birthday Party Snacks!

I had fun gathering ideas for E(3)'s birthday party via Pinterest!  I loved this waffle cone snack idea, so it immediately went on my list!   The girls had fun helping me filling the waffle cones, and they were excited that we had leftovers for them to enjoy later in the week!

I debated for a while on what kind of container to put them in, and I realized that the rainbow rice from our rice pit would work perfectly to hold them upright in a bowl...and it did!



Since E(3) was having "L" week during the week before her party, we decided to make a lollipop tree for the party!  O(6) and I did most of the work, but E helped a little bit. To make the lollipop tree, we stuck dum dums into a styrofoam ball.  We ran out of lollipops when the ball was about half covered, but we decided to just go with it and stuck it in a flower pot.  (here's the lollipop tree that inspired ours...this one looks much better than ours!)


Our girls and their cousin have LOVED homemade popsicles this summer, so I decided to have homemade popsicles at E's party.  I ordered several popsicle sets from Amazon, and my mom and the girls made juice and frozen fruit popsicles for all of the kids.  Each child got to choose his/her own popsicle...fun!


We also had homemade brownies and cookies (made by the girls' grandmother), watermelon, carrots, broccoli and dip.


The highlight of the party for the birthday girl was the cupcake decorating activity, but that's for another post!

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Birthday Balloon Surprises

I always have trouble coming up with party favor ideas for our girls' birthday parties, and this year I ran through several ideas before finally deciding on balloon surprises (the idea came from this blog via Pinterest).

(this is not a great picture...sorry about that)
Late into the night before E(3)'s party, I was filling these balloons with small prizes...stickers, candy, rings, etc. I then blew up the balloons.  This sounds easy...it wasn't!  It took forever, and I popped many balloons.  I was dizzy by the time I finished blowing them all up.  But enough complaining because it really wasn't that bad...I had a book in my lap, so I was able to read while I worked :)


Each child chose his or her balloon, and they took turns popping them with a stick pin.  I helped them and screamed when each one popped.  Really you would have thought that I was used to the POP by the 14th or 15th balloon!  The kids were all really excited when the prizes exploded all over the ground.  I'd planned to put glittery confetti in the balloons, but I was worried that the birds would eat it.  Maybe I'll put bird seed in them next time...

Studying the Human Skeleton

O(6) is studying the human skeleton in her 1st grade science curriculum.  We've spent way too long on this unit and it's time to move on, but we've had a lot of fun!

The girls and I had fun building a skeleton using a human body x-ray set (that they were given for Christmas).  This was more difficult than it looks!  We had to overlap a few x-rays to make them fit.






His spine is a little crooked in the picture, but we realized it and straightened him after I took the pic :)

The x-ray set came with labels which I laminated, and we taped to the correct locations.  We review the names of the bones every couple of days while looking at the skeleton x-ray and finding the bones in our own bodies.   On rainy days and nights, we eat our meals at our kitchen table (we eat our meals on the deck at all other times...unless it's too hot) which is right by this door, and we have had fun reviewing the names of the bones.  When I was asking O(6) the names of the bones tonight, I was surprised by how many she knew...then I realized that she was reading the labels, which made me even happier than having her
memorize the names!

O and her cousin had fun completing the skeleton lab from her science curriculum.



Then the girls had fun putting together this skeleton puzzle on the floor.  It's fun to watch them work together to get the job done!

We've had a lot of fun playing this Skeletons in the Closet game.  The girls weren't very good at following the rules because they were so excited to build their skeletons, so we decided to put aside the rules and just have fun building our skeletons. The girls now know more than I ever knew about the human skeleton throughout my school career, and we've all had fun learning!

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Kid Decorated Birthday Cakes

Our sweet baby girl is 3!!!  Time flies!  E's birthday party was lots of fun, and much more work than we anticipated (as usual!).  We started letting the girls decorate their own bday cakes when O(6) turned 3...this is always a HUGE hit with the girls.  They love the decorating process, and they are always so proud of their cakes.  I love to see them being so creative, and it takes the pressure of creating the "perfect" cake off of me (or my mom!).

E(3) was happy and proud to decorate her own "cake"...a fairy garden dirt cake (made with pudding and crushed oreos).

An action shot of the decorating process.


She received Playmobil fairies as one of her balloon countdown surprises, and we used them to decorate the cake...SO much fun!




Here is a link to E's cake from last year.  O's 4th bday cake was one of my favorites!  Here is a link to it.

My Apologies...

for the serious lack of updating to this blog lately!  I just can't seem to find the time or motivation to keep it up.  We've been super busy planning for and hosting E's 3rd bday party (which was this past Saturday), and since then we've been recovering and schooling.  Busy days!  I have lots of half written posts, and I'll try to finish one to post soon...  Also, I'm WAY behind on email, so please be patient!  Thanks!!!

American Girl Fun Packs

O(6) received a Kaya fun pack as her first monthly American Girl fun pack (this mama made "subscription" was one of her 6th birthday gifts).  In her first package, she received Kaya paper dolls (bought from ebay), a couple of Kaya stickers (from Michael's), and a Native American toob.

We have had fun reading about Kaya and pretending to be Kaya this month!  One day last week, we pretended to be Kaya and her family all day.  O(6) was Brown Deer, E(2) was Kaya (she always insists that she is Kaya), and I was Eetsa (the mom).  E called me "Pizza" all day, and it was incredibly cute.  O and I kept smiling at each other in that "isn't she cuuute?" kind of way :)

I braided both girls hair, and they wore their moccasins.



O wore her Native American dress (making a similar dress for E is on our to-do list!).  O gathered grass for making baskets and stew.


We planned to build a teepee, but the ground was saturated, so we decided that our treehouse made a good Native American home.   The girls gathered twigs for a pretend fire and leaves for a stew.  I "ground" the leaves and other stew ingredients.


Everybody wanted a turn grinding up the food.


Then the girls started making baskets.  They shredded bark that they gathered and gathered straw.




The girls are now obsessed with making baskets, and they are having SO much fun!






I changed my role from Eetsa to Kautsa (Kaya's grandmother) and read stories to them from a Kaya book while they worked.



We had an afternoon thunderstorm, so we went inside to play with O's Kaya paper dolls.  We all sat on the kitchen floor together and spent almost 2 hours cutting out the paper dolls and accessories while listening to 2 Kaya books via Tales 2 Go on the ipad.  O and I divided the cutting duties while E arranged the paper dolls and accessories.  Surprisingly, E seems to love the paper dolls even more than O does...Luckily, O has not hesitated to share with her!

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