Pool Party

Kathryn and I went to Will and Christina Iscrupe's birthday pool party today. Kathryn is getting better at diving. Last year all she could do were belly flops. Just look at her now. Here my graceful mermaid is diving for the dive rings.
This is Will and Christina opening their presents
It's time to cut the Birthday cookie . Yum yum chocolate chip.

Good News Cruise

For Kathryn's final production of the year. Samantha was an officer on the cruise. Grace and Kathryn were passengers.
This song was the kids favorite because it had the most fun beat. It was called the word game. They made words from the title Good news Cruise. This one says " We grow in God's word"

Kathryn had three lines in the show. This line was right after a storm had rocked the boat. She said " It's so calm and peaceful now" The yellow things they have on are life jackets.
This song was called "Got Jesus" Lostin Leftfield was just discovering about Jesus and how to get Him in his life.

The play was a huge success and the children had a great time putting it on. Kathryn's friend Grace ( tallahassee) came to see her with her parents. Kathryn has decided she wants a break from performing for a little while so we will probably skip the Christmas play this year. She is a little ham thoough and I love seeing her perform.

Fun at Lowes

Kathryn, Samantha, and Grace went to Lowes last weekend and made this planter box. You plant a seed near the glass window and watch the seeds sprout. Kathryn has been doing the free clinics at Home Depot for three years and at Lowes for about 6 months. The more she does them the less help she wants from us. She is getting better at handling her tools on her own and barely hits her thumb any more. After we come home we paint the projects and find a new "home" for them. Sometimes in her room and sometimes elsewhere in the house.

Last day of soccer

Thursday was Kathryn and Grace's last day at soccer for this year. Unfornatually it will be Coach Roy's last day of soccer in America. He and Ms Mary are moving back to England so they can be closer to their children and grandchildren. They will be greatly missed.
Coach roy, Ms Mary, Kathryn, and Grace.

Their new 4H t Shirts finally arrived today ( the last day of soccer) We have been waiting a long time for them. We got pictures of the front and the back of the shirts.

Alex's Lemonade Stand
Today at Albertson's we held a Lemonade stand to benifit Pediatric Cancer research. This stand was started because of Alex Scott a little girl who lost her 4 year battle against cancer. When she got sick she told her parents she wanted to have a lemonade stand to raise money for her doctors to find a cure. In her 4 year batttle she raised 1 million dollars. Since then almost 16 million dollars has been raised due to these lemonade stands. We dedicate this stand to Alexandra Scott and to Daniel Phillips who lost his battle 4 years ago to leukemia. To them and to all the children who have won, lost, or are still battling our prayers go out to you. This nice lady was our first customer. Many people who stopped at the stand did not want any lemonade but gave generously.
Some of our corporate sponsors included McDonalds ( Pictured here is Lo, a McDonalds representative, who brought us the cooler and the cups), Chick fil a ( who donated 5 gallons of fresh squeezed lomonade.), and Walmart( who gave us a $25 gift card for supplies). And a special thank you to Albertson's for allowing us to set up to have the fund raiser.

As the Albertsons patrons would come up to the store the children greeted them with an American Flag sticker and invited them over for lemonade and to make a donation. All total we gave out about 100 glasses of lemonade. Thank you to all the children and parents of K12 , TCHF, and TEACH who came out to hand out lemonade. With all of your help we had lemonade, cookies, muffins, fresh fruit, brownies, coolers, a much needed tent for shade, lots of hands helping, and wonderful fellowship.
Kathryn is helping to make some more lemonade.
This was the last group shot that we did that has all the children and parents in the shot.

The children passed out stickers, tatoos, and glasses of lemonade. They were just too cute.Here is one of our little attention getters. Isn't she adorable.

All total today we raised $258.45. Tomorrow we will have a 2nd stand and raise even more for research.

Habitats

This particular project has been 12 weeks in the making. We began by discussing the various habitats and for the last 6 weeks we have been adding critters to the various ahbitats. We used every art medium that we had available to create the habitats and animals. We painted, chalked, tissue papered, glittered, and even recycled to make this wonderful picture. What you can't see in this picture, because I could not get far enough away, is this thing is from floor to ceiling and corner to corner. This is our laundry room wall. It was the only wall space big enough to encompass the whole project. I am going to be sad to see it come down. We are going to leave it up over the summer and add more to it. But when we start school in August it must come down.

We added a line from each habitat to the place on the map where it belongs. Yes, there could have been more than one place for these, but we chose the largest concentration of each habitat to mark. We also reviewed the seven continents as we were labeling the habitats.
This diorama of the Great Barrier Reef we did very early this year but it was still on the shelf in the office so Kathryn wanted to add it to the wall. Click on the picture to see more details. Our Aunt Nancy went to Africa last year and when she found out about Kathryn's project she sent her several photo albums of pictures from her travels. (they are sitting on the diorama) We took several pictures from the albums and made scrapbook pages so we could put them on the wall to display them

I think the ocean was Kathryn's favorite. We made these string octopi, glitter fish, and several other things. For the background ocean we used chalk. By the time we got up off the floor from coloring this we were both covered in chalk. Thank goodness it is not permanent and washed out easy.
We learned the difference between a jungle and a rain forest. The above picture is of the jungle. notice no emergent layer. We used bird feathers and created birds to put in the trees. She also added snakes and a few other things. The jungle is still a work in progress. The picture below is the rain forest and all its defferent layers.
A close up of her string octopus.

Yesterday was Kathryn's 6th birthday. She celebrated it with Haddy, Hannah, Grace, and Sam at Build A Bear. This was before the party. She helped me set up and was waiting patiently for her guests.

Eva made the cookies and Kathryn decorated them.
Here is Kathryn and Hannah listening to Ms Casey ( our party hostess.)
Ms Casey was so much fun. She had them hopping and skipping all over the store moving from place to place.While one animal was being stuffed she had the others play games like monkey in the middle and a hula hoop game where they had to hold hands and step through the hoop. It was funny and the kids enjoyed it.Here is Kathryn getting her Labadore stuffed. She is naming her Katie.
Happy Birthday little one Mommy and Daddy love you.

pics from the wetlands

Click to view a larger pic of this turtle.
There were about a thousand of these roly poly bugs on the walk way today.

We went to Montecello to visit our friends who own Monticello Pizza Kitchen ( good place for pizza ). We were on our way back on Hwy 90 and just as we were hitting the Leon County lline there is a boardwalk over a wetland. Tom, Kathryn and I went exploring. We walked the entire boardwalk and saw at least 5 different caterpillar species, a family of turtles by the dam, and some bill gar fish. The lilypads are in full bloom they were just lovely ( and me without my camera). We also saw lizards and several bugs I have no idea what they were, but they facinated Kathryn as long as she did not have to get too close. There were some caterpillar nurseries ( Kathryn's words not mine). It was a web like structure in which there were about 50 baby caterpillars munching on leaves. We were Missing "school" lessons at home ( basically we were playing hookie) but I could not pass up this teachable moment. It was so special to all of us. We will be going back soon, probably after the picnic on Friday since we will be on that part of town, and this time I will not forget my camera.

As part of her education we have been participating in an Author study at our local library. We have studied authors like Rosmary Wells, Tomie dePaula, Ezra Jack Keats, and Laura Ingals Wilder. We have both had fun and learned so much.

This is Ms Diedra and several students in our group

Her are Bristal Grace and Tallahassee Grace. Two of her best friends

Kathryn participated in a church musical called " Experiencing God" She is part of the children's chior and their leaders are ms. Pam, Ms Susan and Ms Ashley.

Daddy decided the cat needed a bath!!! The cat did not agree!!!

At Kidfest this year Kathryn, Samantha and Grace had fun doing all the different activities. They participated in arts and crafts and went in this cool bounce house. Sam was even given a new bike helmet.We had been there for about two hours when the sky fell out....

... and then they had fun playing in the rain and puddles. I am pretty sure that this was not on the Kidfest agenda, but we have to roll with the punches. We went home for a hot bath and some hot chocolate. It was a good day.

It seems that with the end of the year I have more time on my hands. Now that Gynastics, art, soccer, and Author study are over with I have more time to be at home. I have decided that over the summer I am going to do a clean sweep of my house. I am giving myself a week for each room so I do not feel stressed. Now that we are part of the Virtual Academy they send me all of Kathryn's workbooks I can get rid of most of what I have and only keep a few for enrichment. My biggest problem area is that I love books and it is hard for me to get rid of any, but I must be reasonable and get rid of some. I was going to have a yard sale but out where we live it does not work very well so I will probably just wind up donating them. There is a mission project leaving in August that would like any art supplies that I am getting rid of. When we moved to Orlando all of my stuff wnt into storage and so I bought more down there and now I have duplicates of many things. It is an overwhelming task but taken in little bites I will acomplish it. TTFN

In these pictures Kathryn with Grace at soccer. Kathryn using a blade of grass to blow bubbles and Kathryn and daddy at the walk way over the swamp.