Another Week

Wow, another week has become another month.  How is this the last week of February?
 

Ben was so excited that the Nascar season started Sunday with the Daytona 500.  John's favorite driver, Denny Hamlin, won.

 Mollie Grace doing some pit crew work during the Daytona 500.  Mainly she hung out in her room and watched a Care Bears movie on her Kindle while we watched the race.

 Random picture of Annie taken by Mollie Grace.

 Ben was using pattern blocks during math one day.  He created this runner carrying the Olympic torch.

 His attempt at a selfie with his pattern block creation.

 This morning we attended an abbreviated version (30 minutes) of the Messiah for school children performed by the Memphis Symphony.  During the final 6 weeks of CC each year we study the orchestra so this was a great (free) opportunity to see and hear an actual performance.

I rewarded them with a visit to the children's museum this afternoon for their great behavior during the Messiah.

Fun Day

We had a fun, but educational day today.  We attended a show at the Orpheum Theater called Doktor Kaboom Live Wire.  It was a crazy scientist teaching you all about electricity.  Very funny, but also very educational.

Waiting for the show to start.  We were literally on the front row.  Annie was with us.  She just refused to be in the picture.

Since you weren't allowed to take pictures, I borrowed this image from the Orpheum Theater website.

This is random, but I had to take a picture of the bathroom sinks.  Those bars sticking out on both sides are hand dryers.

It was 70 degrees today so after we left the theater we spent the afternoon at the zoo. Annie loves the pandas.  Everyone got to choose their favorite area to visit today and Annie asked to see the pandas. We were very excited to see one outside today.  Normally, they stay inside in their "day rooms." The zoo has two giant pandas, Ya Ya and Le Le.  I think this is Le Le.

Both the polar bears were out today.

Ben, Mollie Grace, and some other kid in the underwater sea lion viewing bubble.

Mollie Grace used some of her money to buy this stuffed panda at the zoo.  I told her the bear's meal looked very American so she got it chop sticks to eat its hamburger and fries with.

Swing

Annie's baby swing broke so we replaced it with a regular swing.  

End of Indoor Soccer

Tonight was Ben's last indoor soccer game. They played the girl team and won 12-0.

 Nana and Grandaddy came to watch Ben play soccer tonight.

The team (Bottom left to right):  Tallan, Sebastian, David and Austin (Top left to right):  Gavin, Miles, Keeran, and Ben.  Baylen was not at the game.

Tea Party

Saturday Mollie Grace and her doll Rosie attended a tea party for her friend Lucy Kate's birthday.

 Girl tea party.

 Doll tea party.

 Making Fruit Loop bracelets.

Rock and Worship Roadshow

Thursday night we went to the Rock and Worship Roadshow.  This was the kids first concert and they were very excited about seeing Mandisa, Jeremy Camp, and the Newsboys.  Since we listen almost entirely to contemporary Christian music, we knew nearly all the songs.

 Mollie Grace playing with a light up wand thing.

 Annie wore John's shooting ear protection to muffle the loud music.

 Crowd.

 Jeremy Camp.

 Cool lights before Newsboys came out.

 Newsboys.

So Far

And  here are the first few days of this week.

While John, Ben and I watched the Super Bowl, Annie and Mollie Grace were playing Rainbow Fairies (something they made up).

 A normal face from Annie after John told her to quit smiling for the picture.

 It took a few days for the birds to find the suet, but once they did they flocked to it.  We enjoyed watching birds Monday morning.  We had as many as four birds on a suet feeder at once, plus birds eating from all three of our regular feeders.

 Today they learned about Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

 Presentations today were on a missionary or someone from church history.  Mollie Grace loved telling her class about Amy Carmichael and the "wonderful plan God had for her brown eyes."  Ben chose Billy Graham.

 Laundry day.  Annie said, "Take my picture."

Birds on one of our suet feeders.

Last Week

 This is what Annie does every morning while Ben and Mollie Grace do school work.  She loves Play-Doh.

 Ben took numerous pics of his cars.  The Lowe's car in the middle is his newest.  He's slowly spending the $15 gift card he got from Zac for Christmas as he finds the perfect cars to add to his collection.

 Ben has been building this cardboard box car for a while now.  He was stuck on wheels for a long time.  We came across these wooden peace signs at Wal-Mart that he's using as wheels.  The back axle broke as soon as he got in.  It wasn't strong enough.  We bought thick wooden dowel rods at Hobby Lobby and plan to try again soon.  This car is all about trial and error.

 Tuesday it was cold and rainy and none of us wanted to do anything so I decided we needed a project.  We had bought all the ingredients listed in our science text to make home-aid bird suet (fancy bird feed) but then hadn't done it.  Tuesday was the day that it got done.  Mollie Grace melted lard and peanut butter while Ben measured out oatmeal, raisins, bird seed, and cornmeal.  Mollie Grace is mixing it all together.  We put it in sandwich bags in the fridge to harden.  When the rain stopped Tuesday afternoon, we ran out and refilled out bird feeders and hung two new suet feeders.

 We spent Wednesday afternoon at the Children's Museum.  They had opened up this beautiful new kitchen area since our last visit.  Mollie Grace could have stayed in this area all day.

 They had also added this Lego racetrack.

They have piles of Lego car building pieces so you can build your own car to race.  Mine is on the left.  Ben's is on the right.  Ben's car was much faster than mine.

Two Weeks Ago

Somehow I've completely failed to post for the past two weeks.

Week 16 presentations were tell about a famous artist.  Since Mollie Grace loves birds, she told about John James Audubon, the famous bird painter.  Ben talked about Charles Schultz (Peanuts comics).  Jim Davis (who drew the Garfield comics) is included in the book Discovering Great Artists, which is the source text for our CC artist study, so Ben decided Charles Schultz met the criteria for famous artist

 The last week of January, we had beautiful warmer weather so we spent a lot of time outside and rode our bikes a couple of days.  Ben and his friends call this area "The Canyons."  It's an eroded area along the side of the rode in our neighborhood.

 Mollie Grace made great strides with her reading and read several "Bob" books by herself.  As a reward, we used a couple of Book It certificates and had lunch at Pizza Hut followed by a visit to the zoo on Friday.

 Ben is drawing his own comic strips.  This is Mike the dog.