Halloween In Nixa

An Egyptian Princess, Pooh Bear and a Jedi Knight!

Okay so I'll admit it, I wrestle with myself about Halloween, but in the end we have so much fun thinking of a silly costume that usually reflects something that our children are interested in and well my children love, love, love free candy.

That may seem somewhat lax of a family focused on missions and reaching out to an unreach population - but Halloween is one of the few "Holidays"  really more of an event then a holiday - where you are suppose to knock on your neighbors door and say hello.

I do not take a strong stance on Halloween and don't plan to start.  I have a few rules about what is okay for a costume and what isn't and did once have a conversation with my son - that no I didn't think that God loved Halloween.  But I don't actually think He hates it either.  The Bible doesn't mention it.  Though the Bible does address many issues that people do connect with Halloween and I totally respect people that feel strongly to not celebrate it in any way.

This year Halloween ended up taking place in Nixa, MO where a large portion of my husband family lives.  I have to say that it was the most fun we ever had. - In the North, Halloween usually ends up on a dark cold night so we run around to a few of our neighbors houses and are back inside in about 30 to 45 mins. I don't remember ever having such a nice bright day for Halloween like we had this year.  We had a lot of fun going door to door with some cousins.

It ranks as the most fun Halloween that I've had since I was a kid.

Ballet, Soccor, and Tap Fall 2010

There are many reasons to love Aberdeen, SD - one of them is the amazing Parks and Rec. department!  There are so many things for kids to do throughout the year and dance classes and soccer are just two of them.  When we returned from South Africa we thought for sure that we would be heading out quickly and so I didn't sign the kids up for anything.  So when this fall approached I said - you know I will sign them up and then for sure we will finally go.  Well - I'm not saying I am a prophet!  But it was so.  The kids enjoyed the classes and I was thankful that we lived across the street and so only had to walk over a few minutes before classes started.  The kids loved the classes and were sad to leave them when we left for Moldova - but I know they remember them fondly.  

Irina - 5 and fabulous!

Oct. 3, 2010

Okay maybe I'll smile for you...

Sweet 

And silly!

Wesley - growing up

Age 7

Oct. 3 2010

Scaling Moutains

Loving to be just a bit Silly!

You gotta love that face!

Lucy Turns 3!

Oct. 3 2010

Her Golden Birthday!

She thinks grabbing her cheeks makes for a better photo!

Always in motion - unless she is asleep!

She likes to stop and smell the flowers!

Very inquisitive!

Precious! 

Cheese!

Yep, I am 3!

Opening presents!

Hmm what could this be?

Love the Free Zoo in Como, MN!

And the Merry Go Round too!

And Then There Were Three

It was such a fabulous day for photos on Lucy's Golden Birthday that I had to get all the children dressed up and take lots of photos!  I hope you love them as much as I love them.

Oct. 3, 2010

Science Experiments

I'm not always the best at doing Science Experiments.  I actually like to leave them for Tony to do.  So he does many of them.  But here are some I did back in September of 2010.

Growing beans - I was very happy with these plants and how long I was able to keep them alive.  I think I enjoyed this experiment more then the kids did.

Growing out of this carrot top proved pretty easy as well.



We had a lot of fun with magnets but by far the kids loved making boats and then using the magnets to push the magnets through the water.  Even Lucy got in on the action.

More From September 2010

 When we moved back into Aberdeen we decided to continue to rent out our house and live in a two bedroom apartment.  The space was quite small and all our homeschooling stuff was out in the dinning room.  While I am very thankful now for my school room - which I'll show one of these days.  I look back at this photo and realize that it didn't look as bad as I felt it did while I was living in it.  Now I look back and I think - wow what a nice cosy house.  We did what we could do with the space and used it for all our school books.  While I don't exactly miss it - it really wasn't so ugly.  I think that is one thing I really enjoy about homeschooling - here Irina is doing her

handwriting on the floor, okay so maybe not the best hand position.  
Here you can see a silly side to Wesley - as he wears his shirt as pants and his pants as a hat. What a silly young man!

Learning Our Numbers with - Sesame Street: Feist sings 1,2,3,4

We didn't use this song back in 2010 just found it in 2011 but I like this song - from Sesame Street and I really like Feist's voice - while I don't think the original song is a great one to use to teach numbers since she skips a few.  But as far as counting monsters go this is just so much fun.  Lucy and Irina had a great time coloring these huge numbers and then we matted them and hung them up around the apartment.

Homeschool September

September was a great month for our homeschooling - especially for Art!

"Octopus Yarn Guys"

We did so many fun projects.  I got smart and planed out all our Art projects through December.  Went and bought all the supplies and then made little baggies for each of the art projects we would do.  Many of which are sitting in our attic waiting for our return - we shall see when we ever get to them - but I worked so hard to get it all set up I figured I would love it when we return for our furlough in about 18 months from now.

Little Piggy

The Octopus were actually not that much fun for me - my kids are still pretty young so this was very mom intensive.  They are pretty cute though and they had fun playing with them for a few days before they fell apart.  My favorite project was some magnets we made.  Pigs, Sheep and Ducks.  The little piggy was so cute and there was also attached a small clothespin so you could use it to clip things on the refrigerator.  The kids really liked this project and they were quite capable of gluing the pieces together.  Lucy needed a bit more help but she at almost 3 was able to stick the pieces on herself.  I just helped a little bit...

Irina and her Little Piggy

My other favorite project were the paper plate suns.  We did this in two stages one to paint the plates yellow then the next day to dress them up a bit.  They looked very cute hanging on our refrigerator. 

Lucy was very proud of this and she really did it all herself!

Irina and her Sun

Wesley is a bit of a minimalist. 

You may remember before I was going to share how we did with the Artistic Pursuits.  I still really like the book, but I haven't been very good at following through on using it.  But here was our next lesson on Cave Art.  They kids really liked this and it looked really nice matted on the black construction paper and they hung in our kitchen until we moved to Moldova. 

Irina's Age 5

Wesley's Age 7

Lucy's Age 2.11

Me - Age cough 38

I did read the directions a bit wrong we were only suppose to use brown and black but oh well.