7th Grade Writing

Photo 53 of 365, taken February 28th:

Today when I turned the corner by Alyssa's school to meet her where we always pick her up, I could see her happily waving something in the air. She jumped in the car already telling the story of the 7th grade writing contest before she even closed the door behind her. Her English teacher finished evaluating all of her students' writing submissions and Alyssa was so excited to win first place. She had to write about the advantages of year round schooling and explain why it is a decision her school {or any other school} should consider.

Jelly Belly

On Monday the girls did not have school so we ventured to the Jelly Belly factory.

Photo 52 of 365, taken February 25th. The girls looked so Spring-y in their pretty new shirts from G&G, thank you! They matched the delicious Jelly Bellies too.

Singing with my Sister

Photo 51 of 365, taken February 24th:

Alyssa and Rebekah sharing some headphones and jamming out to what must have been some good tunes!

A Fun Saturday

Photo 49 of 365, taken February 23rd:

This is a photo of the girls and their lego creations from this year's Block Kids Contest held at Mount Mary College. Rebekah made a skyscraper with tin foil rocks surrounding it, and Emma made a lego car that carried tissues, based upon her need for a tissue during the building time.

Photo 50 of 365, also taken February 23rd:

After the lego contest we headed to the sled hill.

Emma and I took our large sled down the hill and with both of us on it, there was enough weight in the sled that as we hit a slight slope, the front end bottomed out throwing snow up into her face. She was not too happy about it.

This little one on the other hand was overjoyed to dig in the snow with a stick.

What do you do when your sled slides down the hill without you on it?

Chase after it and drag it up, of course! I'm surprised she is smiling underneath her big scarf in this photo. There was a solid sheet of very slippery ice underneath the fluffy snow. Getting back up the hill was often more treacherous than going down.

Sweet girls with frozen fingers ready to go home for some hot cocoa!

William Howard Taft

In honor of President's Day last week, I thought I would put together a post about a president that I admittedly knew very little about before we had a chance to visit his home last August.

On the last day of our vacation, as we drove home we made a stop in Cincinnati at the home where William Howard Taft was born and raised. It is the light yellow house in the back left of the photo.

William Howard Taft is the only person to ever serve as both the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the President of the United States. His entire family was quite influential in politics and education, many of them serving as outstanding leaders in their fields. This historic site gives a lot of insight not only on President Taft's story, but also on several of his family members. His wife had a lot of poilitical ambition, not necessarily the desire to be a political force herself, but she was definitely a driving force in his career.

There were a lot of momentos in the home, the above are some of my favorites. The top left corner shows a hand painted gourd given to Taft by the Guatemalan government, kind of a different gift?! The top right photo shows a cartoon representation of his two roles as President and Chief Justice. The bottom photo shows how in the 1912 election, a cartoonist humorously illustrated Taft's evolution into the ideal Republican candidate for President.

Photos from the Taft Study. And that photo of the cute little girl in the dress ~ it's President Taft as toddler. Apparently it used to be a totally normal thing to dress a baby boy like this for photographs.

The nursery in the Taft home.

And the parlor.

The girls clearly had no problem making themselves comfortable in the former president's home.


This is now the 4th presidential home we have visited {others include: Lincoln, Reagan, and Eisenhower} and I have been surprised, interested and intrigued to read about the varying backgrounds that each of these presidents had on their road to the White House. One common thread these presidents shared is a huge emphasis within their families of having a strong education. Regardless of the economic status of the homes they were raised in, each grew up in a family that valued the best education possible for their children.

Beautiful Blooms

Photo 48 of 365, taken February 23rd:

Rebekah's kindergarten teacher gave me this beautiful amaryllis plant last year and when it bloomed last January, Rebekah was so excited! After a few weeks of beautiful brightness, the flower wilted, I assumed the plant was done, and I was going to plant something different in the pot. Rebekah was certain it would bloom again, and didn't want me to dig the small brown root up. This pot sat around all Spring, Summer and Fall of 2012, with very little, if any signs of life in the dry soil. Then about three weeks ago, the stem suddenly began to grow taller and greener, and within a few days there was no doubt that it was on it's way to blooming again this Winter. Since taking this photo, 4 bright blooms have opened up, they are huge. The pretty red color is so cheerful, it brightens up our window sill on these cold and gray snowy days!

In her clothes hamper habitat...

Photo 47 of 365 taken February 2oth:

Last night I had an empty hamper at the bottom of the stairs, just waiting to go upstairs to collect clothes all over again {the never ending laundry cycle...too bad those hampers don't stay empty longer}. As the girls were supposed to be getting ready for bed, I heard Rebekah rustling around. When I asked her if she was ready to go up she replied, "Wait, I'm getting back into my habitat."

Fox 6 Wake Up

Photo 46 of 365, taken February 20th:

This morning, Fox 6 Wake Up News came to our gym. They feature a segment called Learn With Laura, in which one of their reporters visits area attractions and learns what they specialize in there. She came to try out her gymnastics skills and I was pretty impressed! Laura did great and all our gymnasts had a lot of fun with a camera crew in the gym. Emma looks like she took a bath in the chalk for this photo.

There are a couple of video clips below where Emma is in the background as Laura learns gymnastics.

Here she is on beam.

And vaulting here.

President's Day

Photo 45 of 365, taken February 18th:

For the second year in a row we made an old fashioned recipe for Cracker Bread on President's Day. We learned about the recipe from Emma's Time for Kids magazine last year and it is said to have been made in George and Martha Washington's kitchen. We were talking to Dave's grandmother on the phone while these were baking and she seemed curious about them, so I thought I would post a picture of the bread as it was coming out of the oven.

It's a super easy recipe: 4 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of butter or margarine, 1 and 1/2 cups of plain yogurt, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. Mix all the ingredients and let the dough rest for 5 minutes. After rolling out the dough, use a fork to poke holes in the top and cut it into desired shapes. Bake on a cookie sheet at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes, then ~ Yum! The little biscuits have been a huge hit with our girls. They eat them with just butter, I like a little strawberry jelly too!

Shamrock Shake it Up

Photo 44 of 365: taken February 17th:

When I was a kid, I loved shamrock shakes from McDonalds. I remember being so excited to see commericals advertising their limited time availability every February-March. Before today, it had been at least 13 or 14 years since I had one. Earlier this afternoon, I met my parents about half way between our homes to bring Alyssa and her friend Katie back from a weekend spent in Illinois. We met at a McDonalds, and the whole drive I was craving a shamrock shake. It wasn't quite what I remembered, not terrible by any means, just not as wonderful as I day dreamed it up to be in my hour long drive to get it.

6 and a Half!

Photo 43 of 365, taken February 16th:

Last night while Alyssa was with my parents for the weekend and Emma was at a birthday party, Dave, Rebekah and I went out to dinner. During dinner conversation, Rebekah asked Dave and I precisely how old she is, and how long until her next birthday. It was then that Dave realized that it was exactly her half birthday. He told her she was 6 and a half on the button, and she was sooooo happy! And what better way to spend your half birthday than to have Mom and Dad all to yourself :-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Photo 42 of 365, taken February 14th:

Happy Hearts Day from our Valentines to you!! Despite one of us being a little sleepy after German dance, we enjoyed lots of sweet valentine treats!

Cruise Classic

I'm jumping a bit out of order here, but these are some gymnastics pictures from our home meet last weekend.

Alyssa in action. She is not officially competing again, she just wanted to jump in since it was our home meet. She loves the sport but because of other activities that she loves even more, she only gets the chance to work out about once once a week {sometimes not even that often} when I coach. It was so much fun for her to pick out music for floor, she chose a song from Les Miserables, and we choreographed a routine in our living room. She was so proud of it!!

Some of Emma's pics from the meet.

I loved this photo of Emma running down the vault runway. When she first started gymnastics she used to bolt down the runway with a huge, silly grin on her face ~ something she still does quite frequently, but she's also gotten more serious in her vault technique as well. One of the boys on team was watching Emma vault recently and he told Alyssa, wow, your sister is really intense! Vault is probably not her best event, but she sure does attack it!

Photo 41 of 365, taken February 10th:

Oddly enough the girls, although competing in different levels, had the same exact all around score on the day: 34.55. Alyssa was 1st in her age division and level and Emma was 5th. It was a fun meet!

Lincoln's Birthday

Photo 39 of 365 taken February 11th:

In honor of President Linocln's birthday and President's Day coming up, Dave took Alyssa and Rebekah to a library program where they learned about Abraham Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. She never completely recovered from the tragic events of her life, having lost three of her four sons before they reached adulthood and the death of President Lincoln, so it was very sad, but still interesting for them to hear about her life. The storyteller who played Mary Todd Lincoln told a story about her sons Tad and Willie's toy soldier doll, Jack. It is a story the girls know because of this book. Alyssa said she liked hearing her version of the story!

Photo 40 of 365, taken February 12th:

And this might be cheating a little for my 365 photos project because this is not exactly my photo, although I wish were at this school in Hawaii to take it myself! This picture came to us from Dave's dad. Every year, our nieces' elementary school does a special program to honor President Lincoln on his birthday. Our niece is not in this photo, but she got to be one of the speakers for her grade level this year and did a great job! I thought the huge leis layered on Lincoln's statue were beautiful.

Winter Window View

Photo 38 of 365, taken February 9th:

On a snowy afternoon there's nothing better than bundling up and going outside to play...if your a kid, that is! It was a bit too chilly for me to venture out, so all these photos were taken out the living room window. Rebekah and Skyler stayed busy wiping snow off tree branches or any kind of ledge where the snow had piled up, while Emma and Jaydon dug a snow tunnel next to the driveway and threw snow at each other.

Fasching Party!

I mentioned a very exciting Fasching party last week in Emma's class. They {loudly} sang festive songs and played two hilarious games ~ Emma could not even believe she was at school. She kept looking over at me, I think trying to get my approval that it was okay to be this wild at school.

After singing, the first game the kids played was a eating contest, here is a short video clip:


Everyone was having so much fun watching and cheering each other on!


The second game began with a pile of Winter clothes and a wrapped chocolate bar.

The kids were split into groups and each student had a turn to roll a die. The die kept going around the circle and each time a student rolled a 6 they had to frantically put on all the winter gear and try to unwrap the chocolate bar. This wasn't easy because of the big mittens they were wearing.

Once they were finally successful in getting the bar unwrapped, everytime a 6 was rolled it became time for the lucky child who just rolled the 6 to eat as much chocolate as they could. I have never seen such a loud, excited group of kids before ~ the prinicpal had to stop by the room with a friendly reminder to quiet down.

This is what it looked like outside during our crazy celebration to welcome Spring. Almost without fail, there is a snowstorm every year on the day we have Fasching. I am beginning to think that Winter isn't scared of us at all!!

Missionette Sleepover

Photo 37 of 365, taken February 8th:

Last night was the annual Mpact girls club sleepover at church. The sleepover is always in Winter so it seems that every year we are lugging sleeping bags, pillows and a lot more stuff than anyone could possibly need in one night through the snow and into church, but it is always the funnest time for the girls!!

This was the first year in the last several that I have not stayed over at church to experience all the fun for myself. And the first time ever that Rebekah slept over somewhere without either Dave, myself or one set of our parents. Yesterday, between helping out at school and coaching gymnastics, I had been on my feet for about 9 1/2 straight hours, so by the time the sleepover rolled around I was pretty well spent for the day.

Alyssa ran off with her friends almost immediately as we arrived at church, but I managed to snap the above photo of the two younger girls before I went home to get some sleep. They were so tired the next morning when I showed up to help make breakfast for the girls. I, on the other hand, was well rested :-)

This is a collage of photos from the 2012 sleepover. When the girls are all grown up, I know they will remember these overnights, ice packs and all {see the zebra Emma photo}.

Happy Birthday to our Precious Niece, Ka'anela!!  We hope you had a wonderful day! XOXO

School Days, School Days

Photo 36 of 365, taken February 8th:

As I typed the title to this post, a very old song that I can't even remember how I know it, popped into my mind. I couldn't remember very many of the words, so I had to look up the lyrics:

School days, school days
Dear old Golden Rule days
'Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hick'ry stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful, barefoot beau
And you wrote on my slate, "I Love You So"
When we were a couple o' kids

School has changed a bit since the writing of this sweet song, a lot more than just school, actually! I'm still sometimes amazed when I think about the girls' daily schedules at school. Thinking about how the girls have the opportunity to learn a language we haven't taught them at home and how well they speak, understand and read German ~ well, it's pretty neat and we are so thankful for such a nice school community and their teachers who work very hard.

This schedule is a pretty typical day for Emma, with exception of #5 on the list which I hope to post more about soon ~ it was a party for Fasching and it was F-U-N!

To Scare the Winter Away

Every year the girls' school has a small festival called Fasching. The way we have always celebrated is by the kids making masks of springtime animals {the 4th and 5th graders sometimes choose to make scarier animals not neccesarily associated with Spring} followed by marching through the hallways all dressed up in disguise as birds, butterflies, bees etc. singing German songs. The practice has been described to the girls as a way to scare the winter away and usher in spring. As I googled information about Fasching, I found out that it is a traditional German, pre-lent festival that sounds a lot like Mardi Gras to me, although I have never once heard it compared to that at school. Today was the day to make Fasching masks in Emma's class.

Emma's classmate has a mom who has to be one of the craftiest, most creative people I know and she created some example masks for the students to follow. Barb's animal example looked a lot like a mix between a racoon and a lion, and her human mask example looked like a scary old lady. Barb is German and a lot of the materials she prepares for classroom activities come right from German traditions her family did when she was a child. I'm not sure if that is where these ideas came from, but her masks were so neat!

Emma's scary mask! While I was wondering what kind of animal she had made, Barb was so proud of how Emma's mask turned out, telling her it was such good use of the supplies and was exactly what she had in mind as she put the materials together. Okay! I guess I will leave mask making to the true visionaries.

Emma and Sydney showing off their creations. Sydney opted to follow the old lady mask example.

Photo 35 of 365, taken February 7th:

Emma and Lauryn {who made a sweet kitten mask :-)}

It was a very WINTER day outside as we worked in a warm classroom making masks to scare the Winter away. I sometimes wish it worked like that ~ when we get sick of all the snow, we put on some funny looking disguises, sing a few songs and poof! it all disappears, the grass turns green again and the flowers bloom.


A picture of Rebekeah, our sweet little Hawkeye Bee from Fasching last year. Rumor has it this parade in February 2012 was the last official Fasching parade at our school, classroom celebrations only from now on...

Map Loving Duckie

Photo 34 of 365 taken February 3rd:

As I believe I have mentioned here before, this little one is fascinated with maps! This huge, laminated map spread across the floor and a dry erase marker was enough to keep her busy all morning. She was jumping from state to state singing silly songs she made up about the places as she went along. And yes, that is the great state of IOWA she is outlining :-)

Alyssa's Breakfast Invention

Photo 33 of 365, taken February 3rd:

Earlier this week we ate lasagna for dinner. Alyssa started imagining how delicious a breakfast version of the meal would be, so earlier this weekend we went shopping for the ingredients and tried it out this morning after church. It is a hasbrown patty on the bottom, sprinkled with a little cheddar cheese, then comes the fried egg and more cheese, and finally it is topped with some bacon. It was pretty good!! And it was cute to hear her tell my father in law that she had invented a whole new breakfast.

Art Project ~ It Takes a Village

Rebekah's class is working on an art project to donate to the German Immersion Foundation auction coming up in April. One of the mom's in class researched and found this cool project that we all agreed was something our kids would love doing and it wouldn't be too difficult to create something auction worthy from this neat idea.

Each student in the class was able to build and decorate their own house from colored construction paper {or card stock}, trying to make everything as detailed and colorful as possible, and eventually we will collage all the buildings into our little Room 28 village. I love the idea of community the project inspires and the kids were really excited to do it!

The project started with a table full of construction paper shapes that the kids could use to build. I cut all of these out and as I worked on them I just hoped that the less than perfect lines I was cutting would only add to the child-like quality of the buildings.

Sharing oil pastels as they decorate their houses.

Rebekah showing one of the houses she made.

Photo 32 of 365, taken February 1st:

A great group of first graders, very proud of their work! I loved the project and hope that the big collage comes out as cute as the individual pieces. I will definitely post a photo of the final product {although it will probably be close to April by the time I get it all together}.