A Rosary Giveaway!

The Clay Rosary Girl is having a giveaway!  If you haven't seen her rosaries, go there now.  

These rosaries are sooooo neat!  My favorite is the Red Rose Rosary with Immaculate Hearts.

You can have four chances to enter the giveaway if you go to Catholic Icing!

First Day of School - 2010

Today was our first official day of school for the new year.  It didn't go too bad.  We were working until about 2:00 only because we aren't that efficient with our new books and plans yet.  Plus, with Boyson being in 6th grade this year, I think the days of 2-3 hours of school are long gone.

We started off with Schultütes.  We started this last year and the kids really love it.  The tradition is to fill these with school supplies, but my kids are less than thrilled with school supplies and we don't usually need much in that regard, so I mostly put treats and goodies in them.   They did, however, really like the little highlighters I found.  They used them in most of their subjects today.

 

 

When you are finished opening your Schultüte, it can double as a dunce cap. 

 

(Sorry baby - I couldn't resist!)  And, no, my husband is not a student in our homeschool, but he does like to come and see the kids open their cones on the first day (well, and there is candy in them so he likes to get in on that, too).

Before and After

Before:

After:

I actually have two of these lamps, and one of them has been in Lil Guhl's room.  She saved the little felt flowers from the favors from the Mother Daughter Social for our Little Flowers group back in May (did you get all that??)  

Anyways, we were cleaning her room yesterday and she started sticking the little flowers to this lamp shade, and I thought it looked so cute.  Plus they match the bright color theme that I have going in her room.

She has been bugging me for months for one of those lamps with a fancy shade (they are very expensive!).  When I saw her sticking the flowers on the shade, I got out my hot glue gun and went to work.  I added little rhinestones to each flower.

I am not crazy about the maribou on the top edge, but it is what it is, and it's too late to take it off without ruining the shade.  But isn't it cute??

Wordless Wednesday - Altered Purse Notebook

Hers:

Altered Purse Notebook

Mine:

Shhh!  It's a surprise for Lil Guhl on the first day of school!

My Daybook - August 10th

Outside my window... It's been nice and mild - in the low 70's.

I am thinking... that reading The Well Trained Mind makes me feel extremely inadequate and incompetent as a homeschool mom.  I am thinking that I will return it to the library before it makes me feel worse.

I am thankful for... the nice mild weather we have had.  It is so much easier to keep up with the yard when isn't so darn hot.


From the kitchen... burgers tonight.  Something with chicken tomorrow.

I am wearing... jeans, a lightweight, striped sweater, and socks.

I am creating... these St. Nicholas ornaments as gifts for St. Nicholas Day (December 6th) Yes, I know December is a long way off, but I have to get an early start  . . . I can be a terrible procrastinator on stuff like this.  Plus, when you homeschool your kids and the only time you can work on stuff for them is after they go to bed, it takes a long time to finish a project.

I am reading... Henry's Sisters

I am hoping... that everything for the Little Flowers Girls' Club comes together this year.  It has been quite a bit more work this year since I am helping plan and coordinate the crafts (last year we had a mom who did most of it herself).  I am also hoping that our numbers stay low.  This year we only have 48 girls enrolled vs. 90+ in the past several years.  The smaller number is so much more manageable.

I am hearing... nothing but the neighbor's dog yapping. I am home alone.


Around the house... chores, chores, chores.

One of my favorite things... a quiet house


A few plans for the rest of the week: not much - just Lego Robotics club for Boyson.  And a little bit of school (Math, English) - to get our feet wet and a jump start before our official first full day on August 23rd.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

Lil Guhl showing her chicken for the first time at the fair last weekend.

 

For more daybooks, head on over to Peggy's

Rooster or Hen?

This past spring we got four more chicks to add to our flock of four grown hens.  A few weeks ago, we managed to integrate the now grown chicks (now called pullets) into the flock.  This takes a bit of time and extra watching because the hens will pick on the pullets, sometimes to death.

Anyways, my big buff orpington hen didn't seem to accept the pullets as well as the others (remember her:  she's the one who has never laid eggs and is also a calendar girl).  She was being quite mean to them, so we decided to separate her from the flock, at least for the time being. 

Yesterday morning as I was enjoying my cup of coffee on my patio swing before church, "Big Penny" (as I often call her) woke up and came out of the roost.  She stood at the top of the ramp to the roost and - CROWED!!!   She (he?) did it six or seven times.  Now it wasn't a full blown crow, but it was definitely some sort of crow.  My husband heard it too.  We just sat there and laughed.

So this morning we got up and set up the camera.  I'll let you decide if this is a rooster or a hen:

So I have to add that young male chickens will usually start crowing between about 4- 8 months of age.  You will know if you have a rooster well before they are a year old.

We have had Penny for 3 years, and have never heard her do anything like this.  The other peculiar things about her are that she has a very large comb and wattle (the red skin thing on her head and below her beak) for a hen, she is very large and heavy, she has a very deep sounding cluck, and she has never laid eggs.  She has been sort of an anomaly in our flock over the years, but we just figured that something didn't develop right in her for her to be able to lay eggs.

Now we have to figure out what to do with her (him??).  First, we are going to change her name to "Pat."

Geez, these chickens really keep things interesting for us.

Wordless Wednesday - learning to weld!