Top 9 from 2019

It was hard to pick just 9 things from 2019 that I felt were some high points for our family. But, these are the big ones.

Baseball

Graduation

Basketball

Snowshoeing

cub scouts last year/pinewood derby

Hawaii trip

Hippie Chick quarter marathon

Ice Skating Competition

Great Wolf Lodge

2019 had its highs and lows, but overall it was a great year.

 Happy New Year!

 

Zoolights

Our local zoo has an amazing Christmas light display every year. It's been a tradition for us to go almost every year. We began this tradition years ago when Mike's company would have their holiday dinner there, and we'd get to see the lights too. They did that for only a few years, so now we just go on our own when the opportunity/we have a membership allows. We learned very quickly from those first few years that it can be busy, so this year we chose to go on a Monday evening early in the month, on December 9.

Alex was just so excited and happy the whole night. He couldn't get enough of the lights, and anything fun like this eagle ready to pose in a picture with him.

While the train costs a little extra, I couldn't say no to this very excited boy. So many good memories of riding the train at the zoolights.

All aboard! The train is ready to go.

Alex was so thrilled that we were on the steam train this time. It looked pretty cool!

At night there aren't really any animals to see, but this polar bear made out of plastic stuff was pretty cool all lit up.

I gave the phone to Aric who wanted to take pictures during the train ride. He pretty much took a picture of everything. It's fun to see what the kids see when they take pictures.

They have so many cool scenes all made from lights!

I love how this picture came out of these lights on the train! I think we were in a tunnel of lights.

Another picture of the train...

I told Aric to stand in front of the snowman to make it look like he was wearing the light-up hat. It worked pretty well!

These trees looked amazing...

The turtles were fun...

Alex saluting with the snowman.

The big field has all kinds of fun animals to find. This giraffe in the background was fun to watch. He put the heart on the tree.

Alex wanted to make it look like the toucan was on his arm.

We tried to get a good picture of all of us that came, but we ended up having Aaron take the picture because we just couldn't get us all in a shot with the space we had. I need to get better at selfies with lots of people! Oh well, at least we got one!

The Zoolights were just as pretty as I remembered them (it's been a few years). So thankful we at least got that tradition in this year. I feel like we didn't get around to doing as much as I wanted to, but this was a fun memory.

My Homeschool Journal: Thanksgiving Journal

Life this week...

Another busy week getting ready for Thanksgiving and just trying to enjoy time with family which meant getting things done before the long weekend. We had our Thanksgiving dinner at home with just the 6 of us, Mike's brother Marc, and Mike's parents, so it was nice and quiet. Again I forgot to take pictures of anything. Oh well, it all happened so fast. How was your Thanksgiving?

Homeschool this week...

Since it was Thanksgiving we spent a lot of time prepping for that, and just doing cool stuff like playing with this Sphero robot that we checked out from the Library. This thing is pretty cool. There are lots of opportunities to do some coding, playing games, and scaring the cat with this thing. We only have it for a week, so it'll be a sad day when we have to take it back (PS: if you are local to me we didn't get this from our local library. It's from a different library system we are a part of that has a new program called "The Library of Things")

Reviews we are working on...

None! I am no longer doing reviews! The review crew year has ended and I have chosen not to continue. It's bittersweet, but mostly I am just relieved. I am excited to focus on what the kids really need to be working on and not switching things up all the time. I will be happy to remove this writing prompt!

Helpful homeschool tips and advice to share...

Don't forget about learning for yourself! I often forget to keep discovering and learning the things I find interesting, or that might help me as a homeschool teacher. It's important for you to learn and grow as well. 

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

We braved the mall/shopping on Friday after lunch. So crazy, but we really wanted to catch some deals for church shoes and clothes. We went to the LEGO store and dreamed...

We found this very festive display in JCPenney tucked away around the corner from where we were looking at suits. We weren't exactly sure what it was there for, but it was pretty for a photo op...

On Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) we were all feeling pretty restless. We just needed to get out of the house for a bit, and I knew I needed to make a stop at WinCo for some final Thanksgiving dinner food purchases, so we headed up north. At first, I was thinking we'd go for a walk somewhere, but it was mighty cold. So, before we headed out I looked online to see what indoor thing we could possibly do that didn't cost too much. I stumbled across the event for the Pittock Mansion decorated for Christmas, and thought that is perfect! We have wanted to go see the Pittock mansion for a few years now, and it being decorated for Christmas was a bonus. I knew we could get a pass for it at the library, so I quickly reserved that and we headed out. There are so many pictures from this outing that it needs a whole post of its own, but here are a few for now.

Alex walking up to Pittock Mansion

Each room was decorated with a literary theme from a popular children's book...

Pittock Mansion--Christmas in the Woods room

My favorite thing this week was...

Seeing Frozen 2 and eating a Frozen 2 themed birthday cake made by my girl April. It was my birthday last Sunday, and all I really wanted was to see Frozen 2, so we did that on Friday evening before, and then on Sunday, April made me a beautiful Frozen 2 cake.

We will pretend that the number of candles that ended up on the cake is close.

I received this gift from my mother-in-law. Some hand lettering pens. I am so excited to use these.

I also picked up some fuzzy socks from Costco. They look funny, but they are oh so warm!

My kids' favorite thing this week was...

Painting ceramic. This was actually last Friday before we went to see the movie. The boys have been begging to go paint ceramic ever since I went for a Mom's night. I had a coupon so I took them!

Alex chose a snake to paint

Aric chose a cat to paint.

I had a hard time getting Aaron to pick something to paint, so I offered to paint this nativity scene with him. It was a joint effort and would be added to our nativity collection. I really enjoyed this time painting.

Aaron and I painted a nativity together

I let him pick all the colors and how he wanted to do it. I just did what he told me.

Aaron and I worked together on a nativity

It turned out beautiful!

Things I'm working on...

Focusing on the positive. My first thoughts are always negative lately, so I'm trying to change that.

Random things the kids worked on...

Aaron has been working hard to get the 3D printer we got last Christmas up and running. He finally got his first successful print. This movable bug.

Alex wanted to make cookies all by himself one night, so I let him pick a recipe and with my verbal help he made them pretty much on his own. The only physical part I had to do was a little mixing and helping with the rolling part.

They were supposed to look a little less dark. More like these galaxy cookies that are streaked light blues and purples and reds. He may have gotten a little too much food coloring in the icing. They were still pretty delicious though!

Alex decided one morning to link an insane amount of paper clips together to make this long chain. It kept him busy for a while! April used to do this when she was his age too.

I'm grateful for...

Books! And the many books that are available to us from different sources including 2 library systems that we have cards for.

That wraps up our week! Time to get on with my Saturday and prepare for a new one!

Appaloosy Books (A REVIEW)

Horses are amazing creatures that attract the attention of both children and adults, so to find this Mattie Richardson's Horses in History Series is so cool. I love a good story that includes horses in any way, and my children do too, so I was excited to give these books from Author Mattie Richardson/Appaloosy Books a try! I was very impressed with how history could come alive through the eyes of a horse. What an awesome way to teach children about important parts of history!

Four books in the Appaloosy Books horse history series.

For this review, we received all four books in the series (signed by the author), as well as a digital copy of the enrichment guide for one of the books (which I'll talk about later). The books are softcover with beautiful hand-drawn covers. Physically, they are about the size of a typical chapter book for kids. Their length varies, but all are less than 150 pages in length. We also received a bookmark!

A glimpse of the inside of the book, and the bookmark we received as a fun little token.

These books are fun to read and make me want to go out and start riding horses, or at least learn more about them. I feel like I was able to understand a little more about the true nature of horses, some of which I've seen in my few interactions with them. So, not only are these books good for learning history, I think they could be a great way to learn about horses too! Great for any horse unit study as well.

Each book in the series has a focus on some point in history. We'll start with Appaloosy. This is the book we started with because I assumed it was the first, but upon looking more at all the books I don't think they have any particular order, and could probably be read stand-alone. Appaloosy is the story of an Appaloosa horse who finds himself in the middle of a battle as the Native Americans (Nez Perce tribe) are fighting the white man for their land. He finds some humans he likes, and some humans he really doesn't like. He finds hope in a young girl named Faith.

Book: Appaloosy by Mattie Richardson ~Takes place in the Nez Perce tribe

The next book Day and Night takes place during the Civil War. It's a story through the eyes of Tucker (A horse in the U.S. Infantry) and Shiloh ( a horse in the Confederate volunteer Cavalry). I have not personally read this one, but I am excited to see what all the talk is about. This book is praised for its historical accuracy. There is a video book trailer and more information at the Appaloosy books website.

Book: Day and Night by Mattie Richardson~Takes place during the civil war

The book Golden Sunrise is about a Palomino raised in Northern Texas and travels with her owner to fight battles in the Famous Fort Alamo against Mexican forces. I did not read this book yet either, but this is a part of history I don't know much about, so I'm excited to get to it.

Book: Golden Sunrise by Mattie Richardson ~Battle of Fort Alamo

The book Dusty's Trail is the story of the Pony Express mail delivery system and the horses and their owners who risked their lives each day. Another part of history I'm excited to learn about when I read this one with my kids.

Book: Dusty's Trail by Mattie Richardson ~The Pony Express mail system

Who read these books in our house? We chose read them aloud together, so we are still working through them. I have been reading them to my boys ages 8 and 11, and these books are really geared toward that age. They've enjoyed the horse aspect, and listening to the story. I think even kids a little younger and older could enjoy them as well. I know I am excited to finish them now.

Day and Night Enrichment guide available on Amazon

There is also an enrichment guide to go along with the book Day and Night that digs deeper into the Civil War. We did not get a chance to use this yet, but it looks packed with so much good stuff. When we get to reading the Day and Night book I am planning to use it. Especially since we are studying American History this year.

If you'd like to see what the other crew review members had to say about these books you can click on the image below.

Amazing Name Video (A REVIEW)

A name is a pretty amazing thing to have, but I wonder if we sometimes don't think about how special our names are, especially our children. Do they know how special their name is, what it means, how they got it? I never thought about these questions until this review came up, and I realized that I'd never really told my youngest about his name, and why we named him that. For this review, we received a fun little video from CrossTimber - Name Meaning Gifts that explains all about my son Alex's name in a fun interactive way. It had us both smiling and laughing with fun characters like a pencil, an owl, some stars, and more.

The opening to "Alex's Amazing Name Story" video.

After I sent in all my son's information about his name, I was sent a personalized digital copy of Your Amazing Name - Personalized Adventures for EVERY name! via e-mail for my son to watch. It also came with some fun pages featuring his name that I could print up. That was a fun addition to an already fun video.
 

Printables with my son's name on them with different activities like mazes, and coloring pages.

For CrossTimber to make the video I needed to submit some personalized information about my son including his full name, a picture, and a piece of artwork that he created to be used throughout the video. My son loved seeing all these things pop up throughout the video. Especially his artwork. That is so fun. What's even better is that it is shown all throughout the video. I like how it was weaved into the story.

A piece of my son's artwork popped up in the video and he loved it.

Throughout the video, the child learns the origin and meaning of their name as well as why names are important. They follow along with a pencil as he talks to different friends (animals) and tries to uncover the truth about the child's name. There is also a personalized letter read to the child about how and why their parents picked the name they did. It's a short letter that the parent submits when ordering the video. I really enjoyed thinking about, writing, and seeing that come to life in the video. My son did too.

This is the origins of my son's name. He also received a separate letter about how his name was picked and why.

My son, whom this video was personalized for, is 8-years-old. He is on the upper end of the age range for this video, and he enjoyed it even though it is geared for younger children. I think a good age range for this product would be up to 8 or 9 years old. Much after that, and they might think it's too cheesy. I guess it depends on the kiddo, but that's my recommendation. Still a great video for that age range.

Alex watching his video. He had his pages to look at as well.

This is a very educational, personal, and fun video. The animations are great, the story is cute, and there are even some puns/jokes that made both of us laugh. If you'd like a fun gift for your child that's different from the usual toys this Christmas, this might be a fun and meaningful thing to give them. There are scriptures and references to God all throughout, so it is a very meaningful way to help your child learn the spiritual ties to their names too.

If you'd like to see what others had to say about this product, you can click on the image below.