School and Crafts and DIY-ing

We've been very busy with school and other things around here!  We just finished our 3rd week of school and so far it's going pretty well.  Chase is learning and remembering a ton and Joanna still likes to do school too.  I don't have a schedule for her or anything.  When she asks to do school I'll give her one of her workbooks to do, or she will come up with her own "craft" to do.  She is VERY into crafting, although almost everything gets painted or colored pink, purple and sparkly :P



Little plaster animals that she painted with sparkly acrylic paint the other day.

Chase painted a couple trucks:

Katy likes to get in on the action too:

I'm a pretty lazy crafter and will usually just give them a piece of paper, glue and scissors or paint and a brush and tell them to "have at it".  It's actually pretty neat to see the things they come up with on their own though. 

Monday mornings I take the girls to swim lessons at our local rec center. Katy was not doing good at all and just wanted to "Swim" on her own and screamed and tried to get away from me the whole lesson.  I decided I'm not going to take her anymore.  They said I can't have a refund because "it's not for medical reasons" but it's just not worth the stress to me.  I'll enroll her later when she's more able to take instruction.  Joanna is doing awesome with her class though and listens to the teacher really well!

Tuesday afternoons I take Chase to a Gym and Swim program at the same rec center.  It's a really neat program and he is having a blast with it.  I'm really happy that I found out about it for him.

Every other Wednesday night Chase and Joanna have Bible Club at our church.  It's a program that they started for the first time this year and the kids love it.  They each got their own devotional book that we do every morning right after breakfast.  They earn points for doing their devotions, church attendance, Bible memorization and service projects.   On the Wednesdays that there is not Bible club a few friends and I have decided to do a field trip once a month and a play date once a month.

 

Thursdays we don't have anything extra going on, phew!  Friday's have been difficult for me to squeeze school into the last few weeks.  Once in a while Ricky will have a Friday off so that messes with our schedule (but in a fun way since we love having him home with us :)  and Friday has been my errand running day for a while now so that pretty much takes up the whole morning since I want to get out first thing and beat the crowds. 

Somehow, someway we've been squeezing school in and getting everything done.  I'm very pleased with how Chase is doing this year, he has grown and matured by leaps and bounds, it's amazing.  I'm also happy with the curriculum we've been using this year.  I got a whole 1st grade kit from Rod and Staff publishers.  I don't think I'll get the whole kit next year but this year it is working really well and I'm so thankful for it.

 

So anyway, that's pretty much been our life for the last few weeks.  The weather has been gorgeous.  Fall is my favorite season ever!.  A couple weeks ago it was so nice out and we had finished our school stuff fairly early so I decided to pack everyone up and head over to French Creek State Park.  I thought we could go on a little hike, play at the playground or in the lake and check out the Ranger station and see if there was an educational center there.

There didn't have a center there but the Ranger told me about these back pack kits that they have.  Joanna picked the topic of "Tracks and Signs" and Chase picked one about "Bugs and Insects."

We took the packs out and immediately started digging through them.  They were actually very cool!  Lots of kids books to help identify what their pack was about.  Joanna was most excited about her first aid kit :P

The backpacks were actually adult sized but the kids INSISTED on carrying their own.  Joanna's was almost as tall as her!

We went for a little hike to try and find some animal tracks or insects to enter into the log books in the packs.  It ended up being a very short hike because Katy threw a fit when Chase tried to take the magnifying glass and then Chase was mad that he couldn't have it and everyone started having a meltdown at once so I thought it must be lunch time :P



We went and sat at a little picnic table in the shade and had our lunch and looked at our books.  It was actually very nice.

Chase found a good climbing tree after he was done eating:

The other day I got these wildlife posters from the PA Game Commission.  They're really neat posters and the kids love looking at them.  I got 8 posters for $10, not bad!

I got them laminated to help preserve them but that cost all of 2 dollars.

Of course I used my awesome home decorating skills to decide where to put them (middle of the dining room :P)

I was kind of surprised about all the birds that Chase was able to identify.

So I'm still on Pinterest and still finding lots of good ideas on there.  The other day I decided to try and make my own laundry detergent.  It sounded easy enough, and cheap and had rave reviews sooo....

Voila!  Supposedly that is a years worth of detergent for less than $30!  I used it on a load already even though I'm not done with the stuff I have and it works really well!  The clothes I washed with it smelled so good too!
I also want to try and make my own Dishwasher soap once the stuff I have now is gone.
I've been wanting to get a little table for our kitchen for a while now.  I thought it would be nice to have a smaller table with a few bar stools for the kids to sit at and eat breakfast or lunch or what have you.  I've been looking around for a while and just hadn't found exactly what I wanted.  Then I found this on Pinterest and I thought it looked like an awesome idea!  Except I didn't like the idea of a chalkboard top.  I though it would make a good craft table for them and didn't think the chalkboard stuff would clean up as well as plain ol' paint.  And I also didn't want a bench because I figured that would just cause problems and arguments.
So anyway, I took our old table that we've had for 8+ years now and got a couple different footstools and once little chair from roadside stands and got to painting:

Before

During:

Katy was already excited about it :P

And after!:

The flowers are from a 97cent pack of wall decals at Walmart.

The lighting in my kitchen is weird and doesn't do it justice, it's super cute and the kids love it!  They put it to use right away too :)

So that's pretty much it for now.  I thought I'd share this photo of Chase during his quiet time the other day:

He made a town our of all his books. There were houses and car washes and garages and lots of other stuff.  He even put little Lego chimneys on all the houses!  Who needs fancy toys and stuff? Not us?! LOL :P