China

China was the country we studied last week and it was as much fun to learn about as Egypt had been. The first day we watched a travel DVD which showed different places in China, one of which was this little restaurant in one of the villages. The tour lady was shown a table holding different edible items. She asked what the wiggling bag was and it happened to be a bag full of frogs. Right there on the video the Chinese guy takes out a live frog and then just slices it open. Then they brought out a snake for her and proceed to cut off its head. Both of these animals were made into a meal for her. Yeah, pretty gross! Savannah and Xander both said, "We don't want to eat that Chinese food." They're used to chicken lo mein and wantons...quite a difference! Anyway, after watching the video and looking at various books we did our normal routine of studying and crafts. We learned about the Chinese calendar and what Chinese year each child was born in: Savannah - horse, Xander - monkey (what a surprise!), me - ox, David - rat, and Noah - pig (no surprise there!) We studied some Chinese symbols, the panda bear, the emperor's clay army, and the Wall of China. The kids always enjoy coloring...


...we made paper lanterns...

...we made blossom trees with our fingerprints...


...we painted Chinese symbols on scrolls which was quite amusing (this is a picture of Savannah painting a panda bear first)...

...and Friday night we had our Chinese feast, minus the frog, snake, and dog. I thought about teaching the kids to cook a Chinese meal but the thought was only there for a second. We live about 10 minutes away from the best Chinese restaurant; why would I cook when I can buy from the experts? We hung up all the crafts the kids had made throughout the week for decoration and enjoyed our tasty food.

This week - Russia!

Yes, We Caved

Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Spongebob...somehow these cultural icons have made their way into our home, even without the TV being on. But one fad I SWORE I would never accept is those atrocious looking crocs. Sure, I know, I know, they're great for kids because they're easy for them to put on, they're easily cleaned, blah, blah, blah. But let's face it...they are extremely ugly! But we went on vacation with family and who just happened to have crocs? The cousins! So of course Savannah wanted a pair just like McKenna. So, because we as parents love our children and want to make them happy when we can, on Saturday we headed to Target to buy the knockoff crocs (I still refuse to pay anywhere near $20 for those things). Xander found a Cars pair that I couldn't talk him out of and Savannah got her hot pink pair.


At The Childrens Place I saw a pair of hideous stir-up leggings...remember those? Now that's definitely NOT happening no matter how much Savannah might beg.

Summer Education

I love the carefree days of summer...days filled with swimming, playing with friends, Popsicles, sleeping in, etc. The kids and I have really been enjoying this summer vacation. One thing I did not want to take a vacation from, however, was education. Savannah has continued working on her reading every day but I just wanted something a little more. So, the week after we got back from our family trip, I decided to put together weekly learning activities for the kids that would focus on a different country. Last week the kids learned about Egypt. We watched a couple of travel DVDs so the kids could see what Egypt looks like as well as see some of the ancient monuments and buildings that are there. We looked through lots of books where we learned about Pharaohs, the pyramids, the foods ancient Egyptians ate, animals that live there, the Nile River, and all that informational stuff. The kids also enjoyed doing some coloring pages.

One afternoon the kids and I made Egyptian items out of play dough and we all had to guess what the object was.

Here are Savannah's Queen Cleopatra and a pyramid.

I made a cobra and a crocodile.

And Xander made Yoda...no surprise there. We tried to explain to him that Yoda has absolutely NOTHING to do with Egypt but he was okay with that. Savannah told me that we should just pretend it was a Pharaoh.

Another afternoon the kids learned about Egyptian hieroglyphs and we made cartouches of their names. I helped Xander with his but Savannah did all the glyphs by herself and did an awesome job! We made them into huge necklaces for the kids to wear.

They also wrote out their names on pieces of paper and then decorated them with Egyptian pictures to hang in their rooms.

We also painted a huge Egypt banner.


I kept things really simple because I didn't want to overwhelm myself with preparation because, after all, it is summer. But we had a great time and I felt like the kids really enjoyed learning about Egypt. This week we're doing China and having just as much fun as last week.

Living in Tents

One of the best things I did this summer was hire a babysitter to watch the kids for a couple hours in the morning twice a week. Sydnee is such a wonderful young woman and the kids absolutely love her. One morning I came upstairs to see what they had been doing all morning and found them in the boys' room underneath a wonderful tent.

Savannah and Xander were so disappointed when I took the tent down later that day but thank goodness for daddy...David set up an even better tent in Savannah's room and the kids slept under it for several nights.

Lightning Bugs

The twinkling of the lightning bugs in the forest persuaded us to head outside and see if we could catch any of them. We love summer evenings when the air is cooler and the lightning bugs are out.


Savannah was very good at catching them.

Xander was a little rougher and unfortunately a few lightning bugs lost their lights this night.

Hill Cumorah Pageant

We spent a wonderful weekend up in Palymra, New York, for the Hill Cumorah Pageant. We arrived late Friday afternoon and after checking into our hotel and having some dinner, we headed to the Sacred Grove. This was definitely the best time to be there. The evening was beautiful and the hordes of people were gone. The tours were done for the day but that was okay with us because this is the third time we've come up here and we've already done all of that. But it's always wonderful to just take a quiet walk through this sacred grove of trees and think about the marvelous event that took place here.


The kids were so reverent as we strolled along and talked about Joseph Smith and the First Vision. What an amazing experience for us all to be in the place where Joseph actually saw the Father and the Son.


The Palmyra Temple in the background.

After spending time at the Grove and Joseph's family home, we headed over to the pageant. One of our favorite things to do at the pageant is to walk among the crowds before the pageant even starts and meet the men and women who sacrificed 3 weeks of their summer to come to Palmyra and put on this wonderful production. There are youth and families from all over the country and they do such a great job in the show. David and I have often talked about participating in this pageant when the kids are a little older.


Icky King Noah...always a favorite with the kids.

Xander loved this guy because he let Xander hold his sword.

We found Nephi and Savannah told me that she couldn't keep her eyes off of him.

These young men came up to us as we were sitting in our chairs, getting situated for the show. They were "Nephites" and great fun to talk to. Talking to these young men renewed my faith in our youth, that they ARE great and faithful and have such wonderful spirits. These young men were from Utah, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire and were so excited to be here doing this show.

Some of my favorite moments of the pageant are when we see the prophet Moroni burying the plates on the Hill Cumorah, knowing that this IS the actual hill; seeing Joseph kneeling on the hill, digging up the plates while the angel Moroni stands nearby; when the Savior appears; and at the end of the pageant, when the prophets are named one by one and they stand...it is such a spiritual event!

Saturday morning we drove to the top of the Hill Cumorah so we could see the staute of Moroni up there and take some pictures.


The rest of our Saturday was spent at Niagara Falls. I had been there about 15 years ago but this was the first time for David and the kids. It truly is an awesome sight to see 60-75,000 gallons of water flowing over the falls every second! The sounds, the power, the spray of the water...we loved it all!



Our kids are really good about us dragging them around to so many different spots but even they need a rest every once in awhile. (The promise of ice cream got them moving again.)


Getting our feet wet in the Niagara River.


Savannah loved this...a butterfly thought the flower on her shoe was the real thing and took a little rest there.

Ahhh!!!!! Ice cream on a hot day...what could be better?

Miniature Golfing

For our Family Home Evening Activity on Monday night we went miniature golfing. It was a beautiful evening and there weren't a lot of people there...a double bonus. The kids were VERY excited to play but it did take us a while to teach them how to hold the golf club correctly and how to hit the ball.



Savannah picked it up pretty quickly and was able to start getting the ball in the hole within 3-4 swings. Xander, on the other hand, struggled with the whole concept of hitting the ball and then letting it come to a complete stop before hitting it again. One thing we did learn from this whole outing is that Xander is going to make a GREAT hockey player. He held that club like a hockey stick and just kept moving that little ball along until it made it into the hole. I could totally envision him on the ice, moving that puck along...now he just needs to learn how to ice skate.

We gave Noah his own little golf club and he just held it the whole time we played. He was so good the entire evening until it was time to give up the stick...when we took it from him he screamed and screamed!