Happy Birthday To Me!!!

This time last year, I was holding the BEST birthday present ever. Ruthie Mae was a mere 7 days old when I turned 30. It wasn't the big 30th birthday part I had imagined in my twenties, but my heart was full of gratitude. 

Looking over the last year, I am in awe of God's goodness and faithfulness to our family. It hasn't all been happy times. I've barely slept at all the last year, I've shouted at my children more than I care to admit and I've stayed up far too late arguing my point of view. In spite of all my failures during the last year, God has grown me! In His amazing ways, I've become more patient, loving and devoted in my roles as wife, mother, doula, sister, friend and home school teacher. Having another baby has brought me to an even deeper level of self sacrifice and service. Yes, it's been hard, but I am SO thankful for these lessons!!

 My birthday weekend was surprisingly filled with multiple celebrations. Friday night, I went out for dessert with a group of friends. I am so thankful for my growing community here in Bellingham!

Saturday was a normal day of donuts and art projects at home. Only, I was completely surprised when my two girls from Seattle showed up at my house to take me out to dinner!!! I had NO idea how much I needed a night with my best friends. Food for the soul.

Sunday night was date night with my main man. We've been ship passing in the night lately and we needed a night of fun. Thai food and bowling did the trick!

And because we're dorky planners, We finished the night off with fancy cocktails and drafting a 5 year plan.

Today, on my actual birthday, the sun came out!!! The kids and I went for a hike and soaked up the extra light and beauty. These boys are a true gift to me.

After dinner tonight, the Robbins clan enjoyed each other's company at a gelato bar. 10 years ago, I could NEVER have dreamed up my current life. I am so thankful for all the life and love I've experienced in all of my 31 years. Looking forward to what the next 12 months will bring.

Happy First Birthday Ruthie Mae!!!

It was a busy Sunday for Daniel. He had a baptism at work and meetings after the service. I stayed home from church after a long night of pre-labor. My mom and I walked the neighborhood and I took some herbs. After church, we all had lunch and things started picking up. By 3pm, the boys were taken to their friends' house and I was in active labor. It was hard work. I had an incredible team. 

After 5 short hours, Ruth Mae Reine was brought gently into the world at my home in Bellingham. What a glorious day!!!

Ruth comes from the Hebrew word meaning 'friend' or 'companion'. My prayer for Ruth is that she will always be a friend to others. I pray she will be a friend to the widow, the orphaned and the oppressed. I pray she will have an open hand towards those in need. I pray she will open her home to anyone seeking love and comfort.

We had a great time celebrating this little girl's 1st year of life. The birthday girl was shocked to see such a pretty cupcake on her tray.

Happy birthday sweetness cutie muffin sparkle cakes!!!!

(just a few of her nick names :)

BLOOPERS!

I love me some bloopers. They absolutely crack me up. We even have our own bloopers photo book and "read" it often with the kids. Bloopers are real life. It's the surprise, the ugly, the raw moments of life that happen TO you when you're least expecting. It's the opposite of "stop. pose. look perfect and happy." It's real life and it's hilarious.

That Moment When.....

....your baby poops in the bath. I'm just thankful she almost made it year before it happened!

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....your baby escapes from a tight swaddle AND being zipped up in her sleep sack AND is very proud about it.

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...you fall asleep with the babies and wake up in a panic. Where is your 6 year old? Oh, he's just been outside pulling weeds for the last hour. Good boy.

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....the usual hand washing routine turns into washing your hair with hand soap.

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...you're at a birth all night so you take your 2 children and the resident ninja to the children's museum for school.

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....you invite your entire congregation to your house for lunch THE DAY before your first walk through for your fostering license. Really though, lunch was awesome and the walk through went great!

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....your 6 year old decides to teach himself Hebrew.

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....your middle child climbs into the hammock with you on a beautiful fall day and says sweetly "I wanna cuddle".

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 ....your 6 year old keeps losing his teeth. Literally. We can't find them!

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....your find a mini ninja sword in your freezer.

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....you cannot find your child then realize he IS the blanket pile.

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 ....your parents send your children fake earrings. 

Unit Study-Outer Space

Before our school year started, I came across this life changing blog post about planning your year of learning. I was feeling overwhelmed. I didn't know what style of teacher I was and felt guilty for not joining a co-op or a part time school program. On top of that, I still had NO idea what curriculum to choose for which subjects. We are homeschooling to have fun, to grow in our relationships as a family, for flexibility and to save money. We are NOT homeschooling so that I would go crazy by week 1! 

"I was doing it ALL WRONG.  I was trying to juggle all these different balls called “school” and “home” and “work” and “mom,” not realizing that they are in fact the same ball.  I work from home.  I school from home.  This is where we live.  This is what we do.  This is our life now.  School is who we are."

Obviously, the blog post spoke to me. My boys love to read so I knew our learning would be literacy heavy. They also love art and hands on learning (doesn't every young kid!?) so we needed very few workbooks. Unit studies give you so much freedom to build your lessons around your child's specific needs, skills and interests. I let go of guilt, stress and threw caution to the wind and followed the unit study approach.

How to plan your homeschool year via unit studies!

First, I thought about  our schedule for the year (traveling, vacations, holidays, birthdays, work priorities, etc.). You could easily build unit studies around moving (people in your neighborhood/vocation, maps, climates) or other life changes happening during your school year. After loosely figuring out our life schedule, I sat down and made a list of subjects I thought my boys would like learning about. I had to take into consideration that Elijah is doing 1st/2nd grade course work while Lazzy is very much in pre-kindergarten.

I laid out all of my books (the collection grows weekly!) and organized them into piles according to subject. If a stack was particularly tall, I would give that subject a good 1-2 months to explore. Then, I started plugging them into the loose calendar that Ruth (!) provides in her blog post. 

I started filling in the specific subjects with book titles and even page numbers if needed. Our first and second unit studies overlapped which gave us more time and flexibility to explore: The moon, stars and constellations, the solar system and space exploration.

We began with The Magic Tree House Book #8 : Midnight on the Moon. We read it with it's companion non-fiction called Space. It was the perfect introduction to our unit study since the boys are familiar with that series. From there, I scoured thrift stores for anything on the moon, stars, space exploration, rockets, planets, etc. You'd be amazing at how quickly a great unit study book collection can grow! We checked out stories like Baby Brains: The Smartest Baby in the Whole World or There's No Place Like Space:All About Our Solar System, perfect stories to add to the more scientific books you might use. My all time favorite book to put "space" in perspective is "Where Do I Live?".

We found multiple in depth books on space and the planets. Don't worry if you feel like you're reading the same stuff every day. It's good for them to hear the same information and soak it in over the span of 2 months. Just make sure to add some non-fiction for fun!

Videos/Shows/Movies about outer space and planets:

Amazon Streaming:

The Jetsons  (or watch full length episodes on youtube)
Apollo 13

On Netflix:

The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space : Season 1 Episode 1

The Magic School Bus Goes Out of this World : Season 2 Episode 11 

The Magic School Bus Sees Stars : Season 4 Episode 7

Space Dogs

Leap Frog: Math Adventure to the Moon

We don't typically watch tv/movies except for Saturdays, vacation or when daddy has back to back night meetings. Let's just say it was a busy season for Dan.

You can also check Nasa.gov for upcoming space walks which you can watch live! 

Stardate is another great website to track the moon phases throughout the month.

Hands on Activities:

You can make your own Moon dough by mixing equal parts corn starch and cheap shaving cream! We've been doing that for a while, but I just recently bought some from Amazon. This way, we always have it ready and it never dries out! I bought these space action figures, added some marbles for planets and stars and the kids went wild. We bring this out about 3 afternoons a week. The boys will easily spend 45 minutes playing. I love hearing them use the correct terminology and acting out all the information they've taken in. Also notice our PLANETS poster-from the dollar store!

On a whim (meaning-this was NOT in the lesson plans), we used some recyclables to make the International Space Station.

We can't leave the house without our space helmets!!


Visit a planetarium. Almost every Science museum has one and most Universities do, too.


Okay, so how do we connect math, art and writing with our space unit study?

Math:
Counting Games: We look at our PLANETS chart in the kitchen knook. The boys choose a planet, then I tell them to travel to the right 3 planets. Now travel left 2 planets. Go right 4 more planets. Where are you now?
Gravity: converting our weight depending on which planet we're on and using weights to actually feel the "pull" of the planets.
Measuring: learning about distance in inches, feet, yards and miles. Then using THIS cool site to get a feel of how BIG our galaxy is!

Art:
We create the solar system, moon phases and stars with a handful of mediums-paint, play dough, crayons, tissue paper and glitter glue. We also studied Van Gogh's Starry Night painting and tried to recreate it a few times. Pinterest is a great resource for art projects.

Writing:
Elijah has been working on a book called "Where I Live" since our last unit study about Maps and Travel. It's a book that starts in his bedroom and slowly zooms out to the universe. We are working on the last few pages about his planet, his solar system, galaxy and the universe, all with writing prompts. For spelling, you could just use words that you've seen in all of your reading. Random workbooks with writing activities will get the job done, but it's so much more interesting when you child is writing about things they are currently studying!

With each unit study, I pick out a few character traits I want my boys to be working on and praying about. Diligence, focus, patience and team work are the qualities we've been talking about most. I've found books, games and even projects to help me in teaching them these things. Next month, we'll be focusing on service, sacrifice and thankfulness. We still read one French book a day, but I don't stress about whether or not it connects with what we're doing. 

One last thing!!

Chris Hadfield is our favorite Astronaut. He was the first Canadian to walk in space and served as the commander of the International Space Station. He has multiple short videos demonstrating different tasks you perform in space. Thanks to Chris, the boys got to see how astronauts eat, sleep, wash their hair and even how they go to the bathroom! The video below is just plain cool.

Our favorite Solar System Song:


And this is just a great way to see just how small the Earth is in regards to the universe!


A few more visuals to BLOW YOUR MIND:
 Sit down with the kids for 10 minutes and consider this, if the moon was a pixel.
Click through these images to see what it would be like if the other planets orbited our Earth like the moon.

For November, we'll be studying Native Americans, their customs, beliefs, history and where they are now. I am really excited about this unit study, especially since we live in a place with such rich Native American history!
To see a different example of moms using unit studies to direct their homeschooling, read this blog post.

Mega Chopped Birthday Party

This is the second year we've been invited to a Chopped birthday party. This year, our dear friend was turning 40 which turned the usual laid back Chopped party into a competitive Mega Chopped celebration! 

Chopped is a cooking show. Three chefs compete to make a 3 course meal, one round at a time. The twist: at the beginning of each round, the chefs each get a basket with the same mystery ingredients inside. They have access to a full pantry with fresh fruits and vegetables, herbs, grains, sauces and breads. You must use all 3 mystery ingredients in your dish and you only have 30 minutes to do so. You're judged on creativity, use of mystery items and presentation.

This was our pantry for the party:

Last year, I was an appetizer chef, but it wasn't my favorite. This year, I opted to be a dishwasher. I do much better when I'm working behind the scenes. Dan competed against two other chefs who had to make an appetizer with raw tuna. He actually won for his round!! He made a raw tuna and eggs Benedict with avocado spread on crostini drizzled with orange ginger gastrique.

Plating the appetizer round.

Chefs, sous chefs and choppers working together to make magic.

 Mmmmmm.....such great food!

Here we all relaxing after one of the courses, voting on our favs.

 The beautiful hostess, cleaning up from a round of cooking. She knows how to throw a great party!!

You definitely need to have a large-ish kitchen and a group of friends who are great cooks. The perfect way to spend a Saturday celebrating a birthday!