Mary Brogan

This past saturday was Free day at the Museums. Sam, Kathryn, and I went to the Mary Brogan. Even though we have been many times in the past this time was better because they had different programs going on. We started off by making a bracelet that changes colors when you expose it to uv rays. We then went to the top floor of the museum which is where the art is located. This months exhibit is about All That Glitters. They had all kinds of sparkly gems. The girls thought the gold Monopoly set and the diamond studded cell phone were neat. We did have a laugh about the gold covered trash can.
After we left there we went one floor down to the science part of the museum. The girls explored a little before the next class which was making a casitias basicly a diorama. lots of glue and other messy things fun fun fun. Kathryn's was an ocean scene and Sam made a picture of Kathryn's swing set that is in the front yard.
We finished that and they went back out to the second floor to explore some more. The last thing they participated in was a walk through of the aquarium area and they got to touch a horseshoe crab. I forgot my camera so these pics are from previous trips but you can see some of the fun things to do there.


wind tunnel the wind gets up to cat 1 force huricane winds.
lifting your own body weight.

Kick ball

The weather here in town has been so pretty lately that Kathryn, Daddy and I went outside to play kickball. Kathryn had a great time running the bases. We had to play a lot of "ghost men" on bases when we could not make it all the way arouond the bases.
Tom likes to kick pop ups which are easy to catch and get him out.
Daddy threw the ball and Kathryn decided to steal thrid base.
Kathryn threw the ball and missed daddy as he rounded third on his way home.

Pizza Hut Field Trip

Today we went on a field trip with several other home school families to Pizza Hut. This is something new that Pizza Hut is doing. We were their first tour.

Here Kathryn is flattening out her pizza dough.

We learned that all the toppings are put on in a spiral pattern so that it is spread evenly over the entire pizza.
Into the oven for 8 minutes. Kathryn says that the oven moves slower than a turtle.
How would you like one of these to cut your pizza at home?


Katyrn is about to enjoy her good work.
She is now an Official Jr. Pizza Maker. She said in the car "Now I can come make pizza whenever I want to" I told her "I don't think so"

The pizza delivery girl delivering the pizza she made to daddy.
Here are the others that were on the trip with her. She loved the little dog in the mural.

School time

We are back in school and doing great. We tried an experiment this week where we tackled only one subject a day. Monday and Tuesday were rough because it was all math and phonics and lang arts. Wed she loved it was science, Thurs was history, and Friday was music and art. I have discovered that you can do certian things all in one day but that there are others that need to be taught daily. So next week we will revamp it again.
This is papyrus paper that the ancient civilizations used to write on. Of course theirs was made out of bark and stems and stuff. we used paper. Kathryn also used clay and made a tablet that she put hieroglyphics on. We talked about which would be easier to carry around to share stories with other people. This vest was a review of her plants unit. this part was the parts of a plant and what they need to grow.

We began our under the sea unit by creating an octopus from model magic. He lost a leg after he dried that we had to hot glue back on. The face is because she is holding her breath and swimming with the octopus.
We had fun creating a kelp forest out of pipe cleaners, pom poms, construction psper, and foam balls. She also wanted to create some pom pom otters to live in her kelp forest. If you click on the picture it should enlarge enough to see the otters.

We created a tidal pool with the model magic. Personally I love that stuff way better than play doh. We still work with play doh but for projects we do not want to crumble and fall apart this stuff is fab. There is a snail, sea snake, starfish, sand dollars, tadpoles, and green plants ofr them to eat.
Daddy has added to our science unit too. He and Kathryn we walking to get the mail on Wednesday and came accross this gentleman sitting in the gulley. They brought him up to the house and observed him for awhile. This is his mad face he was not happy about being picked up. Then they took him to the swamp in Amanda's back yard and let him go.
Our next adventure came when Daddy and Robert came back from Lowes Yesterday(Friday) and the cats had this cottonmouth cornered. Yes it is dead. Notice the missing head. The darn thing wiggled and squirmed for about an hour before it finally realized it was dead. Tom showed the girls it's fangs. Later that afternoon They found another one by the horse pen but it hid before they could kill it. It was getting dark so they are going to flush it out today and kill it.

Their idea of clean

I was tired of Kathryn's room so I sent her in there to clean it up. My directives were "I wnat nothing on the floor. I want to be able to vacum in here" I told her what ever I found on the floor when I went to inspect it was going to go in time out for awhile. I gave her about an hour and then said I was coming in after I do the dishes. that gave her a time table. While I was doing dishes her daddy went in to help her. As you can tell by the pics nothing is on the floor. It is also not put away but it is not on the floor.
Got to love those daddys and kids working together.

Yes that is a baby high chair hidden under all that junk. I did go in the next day with her and we put things away where they belonged and now she has nightly inspections where mommy checks her room so it does not get this way again.

Downtown Getdown

Football season has begun and each home game they have a sort of pep rally in downtown Tallahassee. This was the first one and Robert and I took the girls.

You could almost divide the event into two areas. The first one was for those consuming alcohol, the other was family friendly where alcohol was not allowed. They had balloon animals, face painting, games and other events for the children. This weeks theme was Beach Party so they had an area with a big pile of sand and had buckets and shovels out there for the children to build castles in it.
Sam was easy to track where ever she went in the crowd.

What event would be complete without a funnel cake. Yum Yum!!

Tripical Storm Fay

We survived another tropical storm with just some limbs down in the yard. After the storm had passed and we were just getting some rain I let the girls go out and play. They had been cooped up in the house for 2 days and were getting cabin fever. They slpashed int he puddles and made mud pies. I was safely on the porch with the paper and the camera.

Beginning First Grade

On August 18 we began our 2nd year of homeschooling. we are still with Florida Virual Academy and loving every minute of it. I have been working the last 3 weeks so we have been doing school in the afternooons. We started off with daddy doing some school in the morning but daddy soon realized he did not have the patience for it. So I took over again.


This last week Tom and I have been doing Security for albertsons. They have to have a presence in the store to make sure no one breaks in before they hand the keys over. Kathryn has been going with us and doing school. It has been fun because we are the only ones in the store most of the time. This project was a vest. We were reviewing plant parts.

Kathryn's favorite part was recess where she was able to ride her scooter and bike around the store. She and daddy played a game of hide and seek. She was on her bike and she would ride the isles looking for him.Tomorrow is our last day at Albertsons and honestly I can not wait to be able to focus totally on homeschooling again.

Grace's birthday

Kathryn's friend Grace Spear had her birthday party at Chick-fil-A. Kathryn and Samantha were both in attendance.

The children started off by playing on the climber .
Kathryn, who hates to get her face painted, actually got a butterfly on one cheek ...
... and a cat on the other.
Ms Eva evenhad her face done. My talents were enlisted to make balloon sculptures. I really enjoyed making these for the children. Even those who were not part of the party asked for an animal. The manager got my number so I could do this for some of their events.

This was my first flower.
Kathryn gave Grace Geofrey and some Tinkerbell school suplies. Awhile back Kathryn promised Grace that she would get it for her birthday. Sam gave Grace a scrapbooking kit. The party was a lot of fun for everyone.