Birthday Week....And honest Abe...

Pikachu Cake...lol.. the Homemade kind.

The girls have spent this week anxiously awaiting their 8th Birthdays. Its been interesting getting any work done... Luckily, Daddy helped us out last weekend by taking the kids of a field trip to the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History. He was dreading this but had resigned himself to it. He actually enjoyed it, and was pleasantly surprised. He was amazed at what the kids could tell him about things in the museum, and once they got the hands on "education center" he was home free. The kids showed him a cotton gin, and explained what it did. Then they found a working telegraph, and spent a long time writing messages. They watched the 20 min movie about " The Great Locomotive Chase" and The General. This is all leading up to our study of the Civil war. Where we live the Civil War is everywhere. We pass monuments daily. "We" as in the state still debate the Stars and Bars annually. Our neighboring church still bears bullet holes in the old sanctuary. So, we are probably going to spend more time and depth in this area the MFW ever intends.

   The question I've heard a lot from friends not living in the south is "how will you introduce/handle the issue of slavery?" Well, the public school system has already introduced that for me. Slavery is introduced in K here. It's called "Black History Month" & Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. My K'ers learned about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, and were read Dr. King's "I Have a Dream". In 1st grade it was George Washington Carver and the Tuskegee Institute. When the girls first asked "Why would people keep slaves?", we went back to the bible. Why did Pharaoh want the Israelites as slaves? It was priceless to see their little minds connecting a bible story they knew so well with the realities of modern life. We will keep it maturity appropriate but you can't ignore the history here.

Moving on.... We celebrated the girls birthday @ the American Girl Bistro. We had lunch with their dolls and each one got to pick out a new outfit/accessory for their "girl". Ying is patiently waiting to cut her girls hair off. Told we had to wait until Mommy made an appt with Miss Amanda who does her hair.

Ying with her doll "Mayson".

Yang with "Anna"

The night before their birthday they celebrate with friend from church at our monthly "Celebrate Family" Event. It was a great time of fellowship and roller skating and laser tag.Hubby and I got in on the action and managed not to fall.

Hulk Flying like a mad man with his Helper.

If only she could figure out the stopper....

Everyone also finally got some cold soccer in but they had a blast. We lucked into a great coach who keeps them moving continually. They much prefer this to softball and all the standing around waiting. You could see how much running club had helped as they were still going strong after an hour when others were fading. Luckily running starts back up very soon after the time change. 

Ok... on to the academics of the week...

Bible- Continue memorizing Matthew 28:20. But the girls also got bibles on their Nooks. So they have decided to start reading the Bible from the beginning. They are up to Genesis 6 right now.

History/Geography- OR and MN, Abe Lincoln's early years. Yeah it was dry.

Math- Algebraic thinking... lots of find the missing part of the equation problems. after they got good at solving them they had to make up word problems to represent the problem. This was a little tricky. they could easily make up problems for the equation solution but making the one with a missing piece was more difficult.

Reading- Book 4- Tales from the Odyssey : The Grey Eyed Goddess by Mary Pope Osborne.

LA- Minimal Time4Learning and some dictionary work. The preformed their play "Trouble on the Farm" in co-op.

Sci-Left this to Co-op this week. They did an experiment about the digestive system that lead to me hearing "That's so disgusting, but really really cool!" all week. They built measuring car again in Lego and worked on measurement.

This is one of those weekends.....

This is one of those weekends where I pay the piper so to speak... So many fun things that I am missing out on due to work and sleep on the weekends. I am BLESSED to get to be home for so much of their childhoods and daily life; weekends like this just make me a little sad but thankful for all HE does give me. Last night the pack and hubby attended VeggieTales Live at our church, and in the morning when I came home the house was full of silly songs. I LOVE that my girls aren't too jaded/cool to enjoy something like that with the little guys. Our culture tries to make them grow up so fast and then leaves them in this weird suspended adolescence. Don't get me wrong, I know they all grow up eventually, but I would rather is happen as designed and not in hyper drive, but I digress...

Saturday afternoon I helped get everyone dressed and ready for our family Halloween party. Again, I missed it. Ying was Peter Pan, Yang channeled Cleopatra, DH husband was the 11th Doctor and Hulk was the TARDIS. The latter 2 costumes you either understand or have no clue depending on your Whovianism...lol. Great time was had by all who attended...

Came home Sunday morning to tales of cousins and costumes as I passed out. I routinely miss Sunday morning services. I can't keep my eyes open, and the Lord knows where I was. Even He healed on the Sabbath because it often can't wait. I got up in time to again dress everyone in costume for the Children's Choir costume event. Oh the controversy! For our church, Halloween divides  like nothing else every year. The vast majority of our families in some way participate in the holiday. We do not do a fall festival/trunk or treat, etc, because there are sooooo many in our area. Our church instead puts on a 2 day community Christmas festival. This year we gave the kids the opportunity within certain guidelines to come dressed up to choir, but this offended some of our families, who then kept their children home because we were "promoting Halloween in the church". For a few of these families this was pretty hypocritical ( IMO... but my opinion is just that) because their children dress-up on a very regular basis, come to choir in costume, etc. They only made it an issue for themselves. Next week, their kids will be back to dressing up.

Anyway, we all missed out on one event this weekend. The Kilometer Kids were the cheering section for the 25th mile of the Atlanta marathon on Sunday morning. We couldn't make it due to it being on Sunday morning. Sunday is the Lord's day, and we focus on His word and work (work as in service at church). Sunday for us is morning service for DH and kids @ either 9:15 or 11, home for lunch and naps, then back to church for Children's activities from 3:30-8pm. I currently serve as the 1st-3rd grade Sunday School curriculum coordinator, choir volunteer, co-lead a girls bible study. DH rotates in the toddler room in the mornings. It's a full day of service and fellowship.