E's experiment goes ... mushy

I canned tomatoes earlier this summer and then I canned tomatoes again today!  Yaay!  I have about 10 pints of tomatoes for spaghetti and soups for the winter ... and we still have a dozen or so green tomatoes waiting to ripen on the vine!

What does this have to do with my daughter's experiment?  WELL ... she took a look at those beautiful tomatoes sitting on the counter-top yesterday and decided that she wanted to see what would happen to a tomato if she put it in the freezer.  She didn't tell anyone what was going on in her little head, she just went with her idea.  Chris opened up the freezer last night and thought - why is there a tomato in the freezer?  I opened up the fridge this morning and thought - why is there a tomato (& a very mushy one at that) in the fridge?

We got to the bottom of our mystery when we asked the kids and E sheepishly said, "It was me"!  We had fun talking about how she needs to run her experiments by us in the future and she got to see what happens to a tomato after it freezes (rock solid) and then defrosts (yuck).

The best part about it all is that the little experiment is totally unlike E and so it was fun to see her do something we would expect of ... her brother :)

Favorite morning pastime

It's the beginning of a new week!  I've been enjoying my morning cup of coffee along with my journal, Bible and book by N.T. Wright: Surprised by Hope.  The dog got "fixed" last week so I was hanging out with him on the kitchen floor and yesterday I sat outside on my front porch.  But wherever I am it's always good to start the day out this way!

There are how many continents?

To go along with our study of history from the beginning of time we've been also studying the continents for geography.  The kids ALMOST have them memorized in order of largest to smallest.  They have a hard time with all the "A" continents ... and Europe is a tough one for them to remember too ... but for a Kindergartner and First grader I would say they are doing rather well!

My attempt at cutting all the continents out of felt.  I didn't do so well w/ Europe!

"...let the dry land appear."  (Gen 1:9b)
E and J working diligently on the dry land "cookie"

They created one big land mass as well as mountains and a few Islands

All finished and boy are they ready to eat it!

E's song about butterflies!

E was so inspired by watching the butterflies grow that she made up her own song!

Butterflies!

We started out the school year by getting some caterpillars, watching them grow, form chrysalises and then turn into beautiful Painted Lady Butterflies.  The kiddos had a ton of fun reading books during that time about the life-cycle of a butterfly!  We even took our butterflies out with us one day to shop and hang out at the library.  There was only ONE cocoon left and we didn't want to miss it breaking free (like we had all the rest).  However, it seems like our butterflies like their privacy and the last butterfly came out in the middle of the night!  We were sad that we missed it but we had a lot of fun none-the-less!

 

Getting ready to let the butterflies go free in our backyard!
E even had a butterfly land on her before it flew away!

My journey with reading

I just finished listening to "Kisses From Katie" with my children.  We all loved it and were inspired and encouraged by the work that Katie is doing in Uganda.

Currently I am reading the following books:

Watership Down (audio cd) for enjoyment

Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay & Sally Clarkson

Trim, Healthy Mama by Serene Allison & Pearl Barrett

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright

The book of Matthew in the Bible
and
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis

With the kids I'm currently reading, "The Magicians Nephew" by C.S. Lewis

With all these books to read I've decided that it's time to do what I've known I need to do for a couple months now and take a break from "solo" movies!  My husband works late so sometimes I just want to "veg" and I end up watching a movie ... more nights in a row then is really good for me to be doing!  I have felt for awhile like I need to pull the plug, not ever watching movies again, BUT for this season in my life I need to not watch movies ALONE.  With all the reading material that I mentioned above it's obvious I really don't have time to waste on watching movies!  Therefore, coinciding with my facebook "fast", I will also be taking a "fast" from movies during this time!

Also, for those late nights I think an audio cd and sewing machine will go well together!  I'll let you know how it goes!

Middle of summer garden

These pictures were taken in late July.  We've harvested acorn squash, corn, carrots, pepper of all kinds, cantaloupe, tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini and lots of green beans.  I'll take an updated picture of our garden this month and write about it.  Gardening is so fun! I'm thankful to the Lord for all the produce he's given!

corn and sunflowers!

Green beans growing around the corn!

This one just fell off when it was ripe and ready!

harvest about 1 cup of black bean ... carrots are growing in between the plants

These cantaloupes have been so yummy!

we harvest potatoes from our tower last week ... going do a tower in straw next time!

We were able to can about 7 pint size jars ... looks like we'll have another harvest this month

Roma tomatoes that we grew from seed.  Not a whole lot harvested tho.

Our beautiful peppers!

huge caterpillars that were getting into our tomatoes - yuck!

A couple of the first carrots we planted!