Bastian's Wild Kratts Birthday

Bastian wanted a Wild Kratts birthday party, and as much as I despise character themed things (clothes, backpacks, parties) I decided to suck it up and give him what he wants!

We don't watch tv often anyhow and Wild Kratts is pretty much the only show they see regularly... and I may or may not be the president of the Kratt Brother's Fan Club myself!!!

We didn't do a massive party like I had originally planned.

We did have a Tasmanian Devil inspired Birthday Party though!

Chocolate Carcass Cupcakes- these were actually regular gluten free/dairy free cupcakes! No carcass- 

I promise!

I wish I could tell you how amazing this was... unfortunately it is chock full of gluten and dairy products! I heard that it was yummy though!

Carrion Cake Balls are a rough adaptation of this recipe they are free of every offending food and quite good too!  Gabriel and I love them!

We also had pizza!

We had the friends sign a book about T-Devils and then they signed a card for Hamfrey. He is the child that we sponsor through Compassion International. He is right around Bastian's age.

The dowels in the center of the table are for the walking sticks that we made. They doubled as a party activity and a party favor! 

Danielle is the only person that Azalea enjoys spending time with other than Tony and me! So she hung out with her for much of the party!

Another party activity was T-Devil mad libs! They were really funny because it was a group of mostly boys and they kept yelling out things like "explode" and "stinky"   

We also had a pop quiz about a few reptiles and on the back of it was a fact sheet about the animals that my mom brought for the reptile show! 

The kids all got to learn about a Bearded Dragon, a blue tongued skink, and a Columbian red-tailed Boa! (my camera battery died before this part of the party!) 

Bastian really had a blast at his party and it paid off to be a sell out for a while!

Bastian Quotes!

Here are a few of Bastian's Awesome Quotes that we have heard and written down. For every one we remember there are about 200 that we crack up at and forget to write down!

"Mom, girls are so whiney! Boys are calm, calm, calm!"

"We can't turn right and then right again! This GPS is a piece of junk!"

"Boys don't dance, girls dance... boys ROCK!"

"Mom, my tummy is hurting, I am pretty sure that my brain is sending messages that my tummy is too full!"

Bas- "Mom, can I have a permanent marker?"
Mommy- "Nope"
Bas- "I wanted to draw a skull on my dogs shirt so that everyone will know that she is a ROCKER!"

"Mom, we should change Mercury's name to Leprosy... I mean Cheetah!"

I really can't wait to hear the crazy things that Gabriel will come up with! Our kids are so cool!

Peace,
Team Whitehead

Preparing the Garden!

We had to give up a little early on our raised beds this year. Partly thanks to a little stinker called the Squash Beetle and partly thanks to a nasty little thing called Powdery Mildew.

We still had decent yields from our Garden this summer- quite a few squash and cucumbers, only a handful of green peppers and enough tomatoes to make sauce for 10 families! (not really- but we had a lot!) We also grew spinach- but I didn't plant enough to be worthwhile. We tried to grow melons, broccoli and potatoes, but had zero success there. Im not sure what went wrong, but we will try again next year.

Because our biggest failures were in our raised beds we decided to start the garden prep now so that next spring it will be good and nutrient-y!

Gabriel had a blast digging and Bastian loved looking for bugs!

Each time we found a worm Bastian would grab it and dig a hole for it... and then help him get cozy in his new home by burying him again!

Gman just likes to dig and throw dirt! He had fun just being outside!

Here's to a better garden next year!

Peace,

Nikki

Comunity Bible Study 2011-2012

Since CBS is pretty much the closest thing that we get to the first day of school- we take the day pretty seriously!

Here are the boys getting ready for the first day!

Bastian was more than excited and Gabriel had a rough time being left in his classroom. He is going through some serious attached to momma issues right now... so I have missed a few opening messages trying to get him to play so that I can attend my core group! Once he settles in he is good and each week is getting easier!

I love to see how much they learn from such an awesome program!  Bastian could talk your ear off about Moses right now!

Peace!

Nikki

Preschool Extravanganza!

Only not really an extravaganza... more like I haven't posted anything in a while so I am going to cram it all into this post!

We started our Preschool Homeschool the last week of August and it has been going really really well! Although,  I am not certain how people homeschooled before the internet... if I had to rely on myself to come up with project ideas and fun things to keep the little minds stimulated we would all be toast!

Here's a rundown of what we ar doing this year...

Five In a Row- This is an awesome little curriculum! We "row" a book for five days and explore different parts of it. The possibilities are endless! So far we have read; The Story about Ping, Lentil, Madeline and the Rag Coat. We are enjoying Madeline so we are going to spend another week on it! There are way to many cool projects to do in one week! The best part is that Gabriel can take part in just about everything that we do!

We are making a Passport for all of the Countries/States that we visit when we read books. Bastian and Gman are coloring the flag from China- which we visited when we read The Story about Ping. We have also visited Ohio,The Appalachian Mountians(no state was mentioned) and France!

Here Bastian and Gabriel are making a rag coat out of paper scraps for our book "The Rag Coat"

Bible Study/ Scripture Memorization- We are using My ABC Bible Verses for this as well as Big Truths for Little Kids. We use these scriptures often and it really helps. I can't tell you how many times I have had to remind Bastian about the being a peacemaker or having a joyful heart... the best part is that we can always bring it back to Jesus through these books!

Gospel Lights Kindegarten Puzzles- These are more of a post circle time fill in the spare time activity. But he loves them and we get to review scripture with each and every page! Instead of using th whole book and buying a new one later, I took all the pages out and put them in sleeves in a binder. we use dry erase markers to work through the books and then wipe it off for the next time/child! This was not my idea, I read it from a blog... but I am so excited! It is cheaper and cuts down on so much waste!!

Nature Study- We have pretty much decided to follow a Charlotte Mason style of learning/instruction. She recommends lots of outdoor play as well as journaling your experiences. Each day after our outdoor time we ask Bastian about his favorite thing and then I write a sentence in his journal, which he rewrites and then he gets to draw a picture! He still loves to draw so this works well for us right now!

Math- We have a few math workbooks, and we use them twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) but we are trying to focus our math time more on manipulatives and actual work... rather than a work book. We have been doing puzzles, tangrams and then lots of counting, sorting and measuring around the house. Next year we might dig a little deeper into math...

Devotions- Each day we begin our Circle Time with a prayer and a devotion. The devotional that we use right now is a Precious Moments one.. I cant remember the exact name.. but It works well for us.

Circle Time- We do our bible study, devotions and book reading during circle time each morning. We sit on the floor in the play room and we read and play.  After all of our "school work" is done we read more. I think our biggest goal this year is to help cultivate a love for reading in the boys!

Project Days- Twice a week we do a project related to our book from Five In a Row. (This is where the internet has saved my buns!!)  This is where I see the information stick the most with Bastian... it is also the most work but the most fun!  I would like to try to do a few more projects in the future that are more seasonal and not related to our books.. but that really depends on time.

During our first few days of Madeline we explore popular architecture in Paris. Afterwards we constructed an Eiffel Tower out of wafer cookies! The boys had a blast and then devoured it when Tony got home from work! Tony made fun of me when the boys went to bed about my pathetic 2D Tower! It was pretty pathetic, but Bastian can tell you all about the Eiffel Tower now! I am more than happy with that!

We try to squeeze in other fun projects too.. like painting!

We also froze some fruit in layers( with food coloring) and then we worked on excavating the ice to remove the fruit without damaging it. This was really fun.. although next time we will do more fruit and less ice!

Pretty much all of this flows like a normal non-school day. It is barely like we are doing school, except that I feel guilty if we forget to do something! I think this is a great first step toward school for all of us.

Peace,
Nikki

Bastian's Birthday and Party-ness

Bastian was sick sick sick on his birthday! Actually he was sick the day before and 4 days afterward! The poor guy had a headache, body aches, super high fever and he was vomiting! He was pretty pathetic and he made it even worse by asking me "Does everyone get sick when they turn 4?" He thought this was a normal part of the aging process!

Once he was finally feeling a little better we had some friends over for pizza and cake. I dont have any photos of that.. Sorry!

On Saturday we were finally able to celebrate his birthday! We have been wanting to go canoeing for quite some time so we finally went! It was so much fun!

Tony manned the back of the canoe and Bastian held down the middle!

Even though he almost fell in a few times, Gabriel had fun too! As long as he had a stick!

The best way to entertain kiddos in a canoe is to give them a stick and then let them play in the sludge!

Bastian kept pulling the stick out to check out the slime! This was not the cleanest water ever!

Whatta MAN!

The state park that we canoed at had an AWESOME water park! So we played there after canoeing, it was a great idea! We had so much fun!

Sweet baby Gman! I had a hard time getting photos of him, he never stopped moving!

Bastian enjoyed getting to hit people with water!

About 3 minutes into our drive home, this is what our back seat looked like! They were exhausted!

Bastian is 4!!!

It blows my mind that 4 years ago my Bassie Boy was born!

Not to sound like a nerd, but it seems like yesterday! Although so much has changed in our lives since then!

He is such a goof ball and such a fun guy! Bastian loves to have fun no matter where he is!
He is becoming such an amazing helper and he loves to help Gman do things... although Gabriel seems to be less enthusiastic about it!

He loves to spend time outside. He loves to garden with me.
We have 10 tomato plants planted this year and he can not wait to pick the tomatoes that he can already see on most of the plants!

He loves to look at and catch (and sometime squash) bugs. When I ask him not to squash bugs his defense is " but mom, I'm just a bug killer!"

He LOVES dinosaurs! He can name over 20 different species of dinosaurs and some he can tell you the time period that they lived during. He loves for us to describe a dinosaur and he will guess what kind it is. When we were playing and I was trying to get him to guess "Pliosaurus" he corrected me and said "excuse me, mom a pliosaurus is a marine reptile NOT a dinosaur!" 
His favorite kind of dinosaur is Lambeosaurus and of course the T-Rex!

His absolute favorite thing to do right now is draw! If I find an old notebook around the house, I can give it to him and he will have it loaded from cover to cover in less than a week. I have no idea how well kids his age should be able to draw, but I am pretty sure that Bastian is a future Monet. Not that he is drawing lillies in a field or anything, but he seems to be pretty good at it to me. His most recent drawings that we have thought were amazing were; A bunny (he wants one for his b-day!), A Chef with a birthday cake, A Stegosaurus, and a Lizard with a bag on his tongue that helps him catch flies! There are literally hundreds more!

He is still taking a 2 hour nap each day in addition to sleeping 11 hours each night! I don't want to curse it by writing it here... we know that we are some lucky folk to have a 4 year old who still takes a regular nap!

Here are some photos of my handsome 4 year old!

He is currently in a headband phase.. that we think is AWESOME! He likes to wear one every day and now he has discovered that it is cooler for them to match his clothes!

 The Aligator Snapping Turtle his favorite animal!

He still loves the beach and any water in general!

He still loves to be goofy!

Happy 4th Birthday my little Stud!

* Be prepared- Some of these pictures will show up again in the future in other blog posts.