Festival of Trees

The Festival of Trees at the Pearson Air Museum was a winning combination! Old airplanes, check. Flight simulators the kids could try, check. A talking tree, check. Santa and Mrs. Clause, check. Beautifully decorated Christmas trees, check. A scavenger hunt for words hidden in the Christmas trees, check (what a great idea!). Vote for your favorite tree, check. A small plane to sit in, check. Grandpa, Grandma & Auntie with us, check! AND... it just so happens we showed up a half hour before a local Dance company was putting on a performance! The girls enjoyed that (there was no hip hop, so the boys were just not interested).  

 

 

 

 

 

Santa

We went to the Festival of Trees at the Pearson Air Museum. The kids talked to Santa there. Only one child resorted to tears (can you guess who?).
 

 

Thanksgiving

We are so thankful that Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie Chanda and Auntie Marjie joined us for Thankgiving this year! What a wonderful time we had together (with lots of scrumptious food)!
 

New Thanksgiving Traditions

I remember many traditions as a child. Birthdays, especially. We had our pictures up on a wall for our birthday (all of the snapshots and K-Mart and school pics my parents owned). We picked our meals for our birthdays. Certain birthdays always got certain presents. We went to a bakery on Christmas Eve and got to pick anything we wanted, as long as we could eat it all there. We had people over to read the Christmas story and light the final Advent candle on Christmas Eve. The list could go on and on...

Traditions are important to me, and Travis has thankfully not only jumped in alongside my hopes for traditions, but created many new traditions for our Armstrong family as well. Most (so far) revolve around birthdays and Christmas.

Well, this year, I wanted to do something for Thanksgiving... after a week of fun crafts with the kids (see previous post), we had some Thanksgiving decorations. Then, for Thanksgiving, everyone used fabric paint to fabric paint their handprint. These were placed on our tablecloth with each person's name and the year. Then each person wrote (or dictated) what they were thankful for and this was written by their handprint.

I also finished the turkeys that were put on our Thanksgiving table! Below are the kids' handprints, thankfulness quotes and turkeys:


I'm thankful we have food and aren't starving. - Katiree

I'm thankful that Jesus made the whole world for us to live on. - Tate

I'm thankful Aunt Chanda came. - Zane

Kezia - not enough words to dictate, but I assume she's thankful for (in no particular order) doggies, Elmo, Tee-tee, Z, Tate, Boppa, Maama, Papa, Nana, Miss... Anna, Baby, Mama, Dada, Dog-dog, and Nana (how she says Auntie - for Auntie Marjie and Auntie Chanda).

Thanksgiving Crafts

We made turkey handprints and glued them onto a huge card that was supposed to be for grandparents, but I never got them mailed in time. So they graced our wall instead. I may have gotten crafts done this year, but I still am lacking in the US Postal Service realm. Sigh... I keep hoping I'll be better at this sending things off in time idea!

The arm/hand was each child's traced on brown paper, cut out and glued to white paper. Then they finger painted their leaves.

Each child's handprints made into Pilgrim men on the Mayflower. The kids (not Kezia) drew hats on the Pilgrim mens' heads.

And our turkeys from last year...

All these crafts made wonderful decorations for our dining room!

Children and Paint

We did not have school (formally) the week of Thanksgiving. However, what they didn't know was that they were getting "school" in anyway! We read books about the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving. We watched video clips about the Mayflower. We did art projects.

And art projects... so... starting with the bases of what would be our turkeys... the kids painted egg carton pieces brown. Then they painted their hands brown just for the fun of it (I just don't have a picture of Katiree, but she did too!)

brown egg carton pieces

Kezia painted her own hand.

Tate painting his hand.

Zane painting his hand.

Notice the tongue sticking out when she's concentrating... too cute!

Great Family Pictures

Our friends at Photo Macy took our family pictures this September. They turned out beautifully!

http://photomacy.com/blog/2012/11/01/travis-beth-the-fab-four/

Halloween 2012

October is over as of tonight and we've had a fun last few days... carving pumpkin faces, getting dressed up and rounding up candy in the neighborhood with our friends, Jackson and Henry. It didn't even rain but a few sprinkles all evening! So, costumes were not drenched and we didn't break out any umbrellas or raincoats!

 This year Zane chose to go as a basketball player. Katiree was our beautiful ballerina. Kezia was a fabulous chicken (bock, bock). And Hotdog Tate went as a hotdog (he calls Auntie Chanda, "Hotdog" and she calls him "Hotdog" - so it's very fitting).

 

Happy end of October!

"Little a, b and c" by Katiree Armstrong

Following is a story written completely by Katiree. In school, she's wanted to write imaginative stories. We've been working on making sure she has a problem and a solution. This is what she wrote one day. I typed it exactly as she wrote it in her writing journal:

 Little a, b and c

by Katiree Armstrong

Once upon a time in letter kingdom little a, b and c lived with mothers upper case A, B and C. The kingdom is garded by 1 throw 26. Sooper V and S helped too. Dad letters were youshley at work. Even little a, b and c Dads. Little letters go to school 2 days a week and some times go nacher walking. Little a, b and c went to alfabit forist and walked and soon went home. Two letter thevs were in the forist. Little a called the dateckivs and cot them. "Mothers," cride Little a, b and c, "We're pretending we're dragins. Stomp stomp raaarr!" "It is dinner time little a, b and c!" said there mothers. They had chicken noodle soup for dinner. Little a, b and c love chicken noodle soup. For dezert they had puting. They went to there bed. Mom and Dad went to bed. Little a, b and c got out of bed and went to big alfabit forist and got lost. When mothers A, B and C wock up they looked but they could not find them. They asked Sooper V and S to find them. They looked every where then went to big alfabit forist and looked. Finally they found little a, b and c in a tree house in a coconut tree. Sooper V toled there mothers. They ate lunch in the tree house. They lived happly ever after.

The Pumpkin Patch

We procrastinated on going to a pumpkin patch this year. It seems like every weekend was busy with other things. Travis teased the kids that we'd just go to Albertsons and pick up pumpkins (nothing wrong with that, but our kids are sort of used to this little tradition). Anyway, we finally made it on Sunday - rain and all! Welcome to the Pacific Northwest! We are thankful we live where we can get pumpkins from a farm that grows them (we have tried, but they take over our garden)... but it also means we live in the unpredictably rainy northwest.

The Armstrong kids at the pumpkin patch - and Kezia's fabulous "OH" face! Notice Kezia's dirty pants. She just had to run...and topple a number of times in the mud.

 Zane and Tate in the corn teepee.

 Katiree in the corn teepee and Kezia in the straw maze. Unfortuntately, due to the weather, I didn't get as many pictures as I'd have hoped... plus some of the ones I did get ended up blurry (sorry for the not-so-great pictures) as I rushed to get the camera in-and-out of the rain.

Tate's Gecko Report

We are just finishing up learning about reptiles in our home school. Katiree and Tate both researched a reptile of their choice, wrote facts, made a report and made a diorama of the reptile's habitat. Here is Tate's report  below:

Geckos

researched and dictated (to Mama)

by Tate Armstrong

 

Do you want to learn about geckos? There are lots of different geckos.

Tate's green gecko habitat diorama (these geckos live in rainforests).

Geckos are lizards. Some geckos are green. Some are dark brown, and some have a lot of different colors on them. Some are mixed with blue and brown. Some have spots on them too. Geckos have four feet. They have little hairs on their toes that help them climb. They can climb upside down. Geckos are small lizards.

 

Geckos eat insects. They also eat eggs and small birds. Sometimes they eat small animals. They like to hunt a lot at night. They can see really well at night.

 

Snakes are the worst enemy of geckos. If something bites a gecko's tail, it can lose its tail and grow another tail.

Geckos can live anywhere. They can live in rainforests, in deserts and in grassy places. Different types of geckos live in different places. They usually live where there are things around them that are the same color as they are. So, for example, green geckos live in rainforests, in grassy places or in marshes. Darker geckos and brown geckos live in the desert.

 

Geckos don't have eyelids. If they need to clean their eyes, they lick their eyes with their tongues. Geckos are the only lizard that can make noise. They make squeaks or clicks.

Now you know about geckos!

 

Katiree's Komodo Dragon Report

We are just finishing up learning about reptiles in our home school. Katiree and Tate both researched a reptile of their choice, wrote facts, made a report and made a diorama of the reptile's habitat. Here is Katiree's report (typed by Katiree!) below:

The Komodo Dragon

researched and written

by Katiree Armstrong 

Katiree's Komodo dragon habitat diorama

Have you ever wondered if there is a really large lizard alive today? I can tell you about the Komodo dragon, the largest lizard.

The Komodo dragon is a lizard with scales. It has a longer tongue than a snake, but it is forked like a snake. It has claws for gripping meat and climbing trees. The Komodo dragon has four legs and feet to help it swim and walk. A Komodo dragon can be as long as a small car. It has saliva to help it hurt its prey.

The Komodo dragon eats birds, wild boar, water buffalo, deer and snakes. It likes dead animals more than attacking animals to get food. Sometimes it will bite an animal and then wait up to two days for the animal to die so it can eat it.

The Komodo dragon lives on three islands of Indonesia. There are some hills. It is dry on the island. The plants are dry because there is not much rain there. They live near sea water, but cannot drink it. There are trees and bushes on the islands.

To protect itself, the Komodo dragon has claws. It has saliva that helps kill animals and enemies. The Komodo dragon has strong jaws.

The Komodo dragon is big enough and powerful enough to kill a person. It can swim.

Do you like Komodo dragons? Now you have learned a lot about them!

Soccer Weekend part 2

Amber Young (AKA "Auntie" Amber) loves, yes... LOVES soccer. Actually, her whole family does. So when she proposed coming up to watch Katiree play soccer, it just so happened that Katiree's soccer club offered discounted tickets to the Seattle Sounders vs. Portland Timbers game in Seattle. It was the icing on the cake. Kezia stayed with our friends, the Blickenstaffs, while the rest of us drove up to Seattle, met Amber's brother and sister-in-law (and later her mom, too), went to Ivars and fed the seagulls (I don't know if my children ate their food or threw it to the seagulls, but it was just so much fun!).

 

Then we were off to the Seattle Sounders game. It was a record breaking night - there were 66 thousand people at the game. Our children haven't ever seen a professional soccer game, but Amber soon had Zane and Tate pointing out Freddy and Eddie and cheering for the Sounders. Zane didn't leave Amber's lap the entire game!

Now, because we live so close to Portland, it is often expected that we would root for the Timbers, but we actually live in Washington state - the home of the Sounders... PLUS... the Armstrongs have always rooted for Seattle teams... and this is just the way it will be. It doesn't help that the kids think that everything Amber says about soccer is golden! So she says "Seattle Sounders" then Seattle Sounders fans they will be!
 

And the Sounders beat the Timbers 3-0.

Amber and the Armstrongs

Amber with her mom, brother and sister-in-law (all avid Sounder fans).