Fall Celebrations

So, last Thursday was the first day of Fall and I thought it would be fun to do a little celebration like we've done for Spring and Summer. One problem! Our Spring/Summer celebrations usually involve picnics and lots of outdoor activities. What do we do to celebrate this season without being out in the pouring rain that likes to sporadically grace us here in the PNW? Here is what I came up with (with some help from my facebook friends).... P.S this would have been posted sooner, but I was having the most difficult time with the new picture uploader. Anyone else, that uses blogger, have that problem?

We started our festivities at lunch, Tomato Soup with pumpkin and leaf shaped cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches. I really needed to go to the store, but challenged myself to use what I had on hand and I'm really pleased with the results.

While the boys cleaned up from school and lunch I whipped up these yummy pumpkin muffins. Find the recipe over here. Super easy recipe that used mostly Bisquick and a can of pumpkin.

The rain had cleared up a bit, so we headed out on a scavenger hunt walk around the neighborhood. I have them a list of things to find like, pretty flowers (in the pic above), different colored leaves, an apple tree, an animal and a few other things. Surprise, surprise our animals we found were our resident deer. Eating up all the fallen apples off a neighbors tree.

With our leaves we made these pictures. It's one of rubbing/tracing kind. The boys loved doing this and I guess I hadn't shown them how to do this technique. Now they want to do a rub tracing of everything. It's quite cute!

To bring an end to our special outing we had our muffins with some hot cocoa or in my case a homemade Carmel Macchiatto. YUM! Do you do anything to celebrate the seasons with your family? Got any ideas or suggestions on how to celebrate the first day of Winter that's coming up? Please share!

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; ... "   Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

It's not Texas, but it'll do...

Josh has found a JOB!!!!

Last Thursday Josh began working for a company called Blue Star Welding, in the Everson area. Through some friends of ours we found out that they were looking to hire a machinist and Josh went out with his resume in hand to talk with the owners. They had him start the very next morning! Apparently, the company has a good sized machine shop, but no machinists right now. So, they were very excited when Josh showed up. He is the machine shop manager, although right now there are no other machinist, so he manages himself. It's his dream come true, him and a bunch of metal and machines and no one there bothering him. LOL

And just because God likes to keep us on our toes and make things interesting he possibly might have another job in the works. Before our friends started helping us find him a job, Josh had applied at Intalco. Well, turns out that our friends have some connections there and put in a good word for Josh with the HR department. After his first day at Blue Star, Josh went out and took the Millwright testing at Intalco. He was sure he had failed, but he didn't! He did great and they want to interview him the week of the 20th!

So, here we are...praying and thinking about which to choose. Josh's dream job that could possibly include some profit sharing in the future. Or playing it safe and going with Intalco. Intalco is part of the Boeing machinist union and he would earn a bit more per hour and we would have full medical for the whole family. But, they work crazy shifts, he wouldn't be in charge and at some point he would "cap out" on the pay scale.

As you can read it's a tough decision, but with either one we will be staying in Whatcom County. So lots of people are pretty excited about that (us included)!

First Day of School

The Price Homeschooling Academy has opened for another year. I wanted to do something a little fun for our first day of school this year and judging by my tired kids, I think I succeeded.

Marshmallow Mateys and Hot Cocoa in their new Starbucks cups

We started our day off with a hearty breakfast of marshmallow mateys cereal and hot cocoa in their new starbucks mugs (I was going with a theme, I don't always serve up straight sugar for breakfast).

Next we did the fun little quiz I did with the kids last year again. I write out some grade appropriate math questions. Have them do some fill in the blank questions about themselves and then they draw a picture of themselves and write a story about it. Doesn't really mean anything, but as a parent it's fun to see the differences each year.

I set out all the books we will be working out of for this year and let the kids look through them. In addition to the basics, we will be doing some American History focusing on the Pioneer times and learning about animals only found in North America. So, look forward to posts on field trips to northwest trek, pioneer park, yellowstone and possibly Fort Langley. I'm sure we'll be playing lots of Oregon Trail and web rangers, too!

We took a break (recess!) and then after mommy was ready for the day, we headed off on our first field trip of the year! Has nothing to do with what we are studying, but it was still fun and educational. I packed our picnic lunch of what was supposed to be fish & chips (tuna buns and potato chips), but I was out of tuna! (Remember there was a theme going with the day) So...We had turkey sandwiches, chips and carrots on our picnic at the harbor. I had the kids try to guess where our field trip was to and said their food today was a clue. Only Joshua figured out where we were going. Everyone else guessed the aquarium in Seattle. LOL!

Zaccheaus in a bubble

At the Bellingham Harbor there is this fun little place called the marine life center. There are a few tanks of fish, crustaceans and other marine animals (the octopus tank was empty). A viewing pool of what one may find in the tide pools around Whatcom County and the touch tank which all the kids loved (pictured below).

The touch tank

All in all we had a great day. If you have any suggestion on fun activities or field trips we could do, please share! Plus... we have some other news to share, but that will be another post. And no, I'm not pregnant! It's something else! ;-)

Egg-celent!!!

We aren't failures as chicken farmers! And here is our proof...

Our First Egg Sept 3, 2010

We got our first egg today. We have three chickens, so we should start seeing three eggs a day real soon.

Store bought large egg for scale

The first eggs are supposed to be smaller and light in color to start. But, as you can see it's not much smaller than a store bought egg. We're guessing this is from our Rhode Island Red.

First pepper!

I picked our first pepper today too! I will probably be our only jalapeno, we have a bell growing too and have seen nothing on all our other pepper plants. I have one tomato growing as well...had two, but a hungry deer got to it. I would have a lot of produce right now if it weren't for those six deer who occasionally help themselves to my veggies. Anyone want some venison? LOL I'm joking ;-)

Stitches!!!

Well, it's finally happened...We had to take one of our boys in for stitches this past Friday. You think with 3 boys this would have happened already. But, (praise God) it hasn't. No broken bones either!

So, Friday Josh and the boys decided to try out the bike trailer and take it for a spin around the block. They bumped the curb a bit and since Zaccheaus wasn't wearing a belt he got launched out of the trailer. Josh wouldn't allow me to see the initial injury, due to what happened the last time someone was seriously hurt in our family. (i.e me fainting)

Goofing off in the ER

Obviously, other than being scraped up, it didn't effect him all that much.

Day 1

Josh was feeling bad that this happened when they were supposed to be having fun and Zaccheaus milked that for all it was worth. While they were at the ER, I finished up dinner and we ate when they returned, but I had made a bunch of stuff that was too hard for him to eat. So we gave him some Jello and said after dinner daddy would take him to get some mac and cheese at the grocery store deli. We finished eating and Josh said "ok, ready to get your mac and cheese". Zaccheaus replied "Uh-huh (yes) and a TOY"! LOL! Apparently Zaccheaus led Josh all over the grocery store picking out his dinner, some candy for everyone and a couple toy cars. He tried to keep that up all week, but it didn't last long. Hopefully he doesn't think this is a good way to get new stuff.

Day 2

"My stitch" will be a running joke in this family. Any time he was asked to do something, he just let out a little whimper, pointed at his head and said "my stitch".

Day 3

We made it to church Sunday and out to the picnic afterwards. Zaccheaus told a slightly different version of what happened, but enjoyed getting so much attention from all our curious friends.

Day 4

Sorry no day 5, had jury duty again and spent most of the rest of the day out.

Day 6

His stitches fell out today and we're not sure what happened to them. Just all of a sudden they were gone. (and no they weren't the dissolving kind) He's healing up really well and I want to thank everyone, who prayed for him. You're prayers were noticed! PTL!