Field Trip to D.C.

Lunch break in front of the G.W. Memorial

We recently took a field trip with our homeschool coop to D.C. The kids and I took the metro and got off at the Archives station, where Eric got to see the originals of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, all of which he has been studying about in his Social Studies Curriculum. We then met up with our group for a tour of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Most interesting fact from that tour: The Bureau prints about $700 mil a day, 95% of which replaces worn currency that is out of circulation! We then made the long trek back past the archives and spent a little bit of time in the Gallery of Art. Why did we want to go there? Well, since the kids are such big fans of Little Einsteins, they wanted to see some of the art that they are familiar with from their favorite cartoon :) Although it was a cloudy and rain-threatining day, we really enjoyed ourselves, wore out our feet, and learned a lot! I am including Eric's journal entry from his field trip journal. If I can get my hands on my mom's scanner, then maybe you'll see a scanned image of his artwork he drew from the day.

In his own words: "Yesterday, me, Mom, Bay and Leah went to Washington D.C. We drove up to the Metro station and rode for half an hour! When we got off the Metro, we walked across the street to the Archives. We saw the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and lots of others. I liked it a lot. Then we walked to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and saw them make money! Then we walked to the National Gallery of Art. My favorite one was a boy and a shark. We saw the presiden't motorcade go by and then we went back to where we started, the Metro! I think I had a great time at Washington D.C. I hope I can go there again."

Outside the Archives building

In the National Gallery of Art

Snack while waiting for the train

68 Pints of Salsa!!!

My mom and I just finished making and canning 68 pints of salsa from our garden tomatoes this summer. We have found that it is easier to cut up and freeze the tomatoes as they come off the vines, and then turn them into salsa and spaghetti sauce in the fall, when it is more conducive to heating up the house with the canner. We had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, and this is only 12 gallon bags worth, there are at least that many left to turn into spaghetti sauce next week. I am including our recipe, it started out as a family fun magazine recipe, and has been tweaked over the years to make it more like we enjoy.

Salsa

4 large tomatoes
1 diced jalapeno pepper (I use my own pickled variety, but fresh works too)
1 4 oz. can tomato paste
1 cup fresh chopped cilantro, or 2 T. dried
1 diced onion
2 T. lime juice
1 t. cumin
1 t. salt

Chop tomatoes, onions and jalapeno. Combine all ingredients. Serve fresh or process in pint jars at 10 lbs. pressure for 25 minutes. 1 recipe makes approx. 2 pints.

Leah's Striped Dress

Here is Leah's latest outfit. I think it turned out pretty good, it went even faster than the last one since I was familiar with the pattern. I made the little headband with some extra fabric. Another change I made was adding the loop and button on the back instead of a hook and eye.

I have a friend who asked me if you can sew with knit without having a serger; it seems that you can. Although I would say the the places where I had the most difficutly with it being a knit was at the beginning of each seam, the fabric wanted to bunch up and despite my feed dogs being all the way up, it didn't want to feed. I usually had to start sewing a little further down the seam and then backstitch to catch the beginning. Trial and error. I think the other advantage was that this is a pretty heavy duty knit, meaning it is fairly thick, like a heavyweight t-shirt.

Well, she sure is cute and I sure am enjoying sewing for her!!!

Halloween

Here are the jack-o-lanterns we carved this year. See if you can guess who carved which one? The three carvers were Heather, Dennis and Eric. Eric and Bay also each painted a smaller pumpkin as well.

Here's the crew, ready to go out on the neighborhood tractor ride. We have started a tradition on our street, last year was the first, this year was even better and actually a little organized! We invited all of the kids on the street to join us in their costumes for a hay ride on a trailer pulled behind a tractor to do their trick-or-treating. With this being such a rural area, and the houses so far apart, it makes it much easier and not as much walking, as well as it is a great time for the neighbors on our street who don't normally see little ones coming around very often. We enjoyed getting to know some neighbors and their children who we don't normally see. Dennis drove the tractor and pulled behind a friend's trailer complete with hay bales and little pumpkin lights. Everybody piled on and off and eventually their buckets were so full that the little ones couldn't even carry them! Anyways, it was a great time. Heather's mom dressed up as a real hayseed, rotten teeth included, daddy went as Cowboy Dennis, and Heather even dressed up this year, however it really scared Dennis and Leah to see her that way! You'll have to see the rest of the pictures in webshots to see if you can pick her out! Dennis' mom even felt good enough to come over for the evening to see all the kids dressed up and have some dinner and candy.

Field Trip to the Zoo

Our home school group just took a field trip to the Baltimore Zoo. We carpooled with some friends and although it was bitter cold and we ended early due to the rain that moved in, we had a good time! Eric's favorites were the cheetahs and the penguins. Leah's favorite was the elephants, and Bay's were the penguins and the Polar Creeper at the polar bear exhibit. Our group has lots of field trips planned for this year and has already gone on several (though this is our first with the group).

Camping at Kerr Lake

We went on our final camping trip of the season recently to Kerr Lake, NC. We had a beautiful site as you can see above, and there were hardly any other campers, so it was very quiet. Of course our crew makes plenty of noise for the whole campground all by themselves!!!! The foliage was perfect, the weather was beautiful and once the wind died down, we even got to canoe and the boys spent plenty of time fishing on the lake. Our lakefront site was great for the boys because they had all that beach and forest to play in which kept them very busy. We also spent a lot of time walking around and at the playground. No real big adventures, just a break from our busy weeks and lots of relaxation. Dennis and I commented that because we all went to bed around 9:30 and every one slept till about 7:00 that we got more sleep on this camping trip than we have at home in a long time! There are more pictures on our webshots album from the trip of you care to browse :) The camper is closed up and winterized for now and waiting for spring to come before we take it out again. Oh, and we found that a mouse had eaten his way through the canvas in the side of the camper and shredded a blanket we had in there, so we had do de-mouse the place and now we have patched the canvas and installed sonic mouse-deterrents in the camper so none set up house over the winter! That was not a fun surprise.

Leah's New Dress

I just finished making Leah a new dress, it is one of a few more that will soon follow. I decided to try and make the bulk of her winter wardrobe if I could be successful and find a pattern I liked that was easy enough to use over and over again. So this is it, I really like it and it was very easy. It is McCall's # 4908. I got this pink fabric which is a fleecy chenille with an embossed star pattern. It is very cozy and warm. I also got some other knit prints and a purple printed fleece. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to make it, not including time cutting out the initial pattern. That is about the quickest I've ever been able to make a dress I think. It called for a zipper in the back, but I really didn't want to go through all of that, so I just sewed the back skirt completely together and sewed the back bodice together halfway up. Then I finished the edge at the back of the bodice and added a hook/eye to secure the top. It fits easily enough over her head. I also considered using a bit of velcro at the top, but the hook/eye worked just fine. Although this dress looks pretty "dressy", I intend for them to be play dresses for her. I'd like to find a pattern for some tight fitting leggins so I can make some coordinating and so she doesn't have to wear tights all the time! Anyways, there are a couple more pics of the dress on my webshots album if you care to see! Happy sewing!