LA County Fair 9/2009

Okay, I know that September is way past and October is almost over but I wanted to get these fun events documented. So, bear with me as I play catch up in the next few blog posts. I will start putting in recent stuff, I promise!!!

Anyway, every year the girls love to go to the LA County Fair. And because we are homeschoolers we get a chance to get in FREE! What can be better than that?

This year the day that we were going just happened to be the day after my parents and 3 youngest brothers got here to visit. So, they got to come too.

Erik made fun of me saying that he was sure that they flew all the way from small town PA just to visit a fair that's main attraction is farm animals. I told him that they flew all the way from small town PA to see us!

The girls love the farm animals and all the displays. We even got some pictures of the boys, though I had to be sneaky as some of the boys don't like to have their pictures taken. But hey I'm the oldest of 9 kids, I grew up being sneaky! ;)

As part of the Fair's promotions for school kids if they read 6 books they get 9 tickets for rides. So the girls go to ride some rides as well. And all they had to do was read some books and do a book report on it. Easy-peasy, as we are always reading for school!

Here are some pictures of everyone just having fun!

Mia riding the bumper boats!

Emma riding the bumper boats.

The girls doing an obstacle course

The spinning dragon ride--think teacups at Disneyland! I feel slightly sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

The girls got to pet an alligator.

Inside the animatronic dinosaur exhibit.

This is a live parrot they are looking at. It was just sitting there all day, no cage.

And it didn't fly away

Riding the dragon roller coaster. Emma saw this ride when we first got there and told us she wanted to ride it. Once the rides opened and she heard roller coaster she said she didn't want to anymore. But, I kind of talked her into it, and told her that it didn't go really fast and she could always scream when she was on it. So, she decided to go on to "face her fears." Once the ride started she started to scream, and she screamed the whole time. At first we thought she was having fun but she had a look of pure terror on her face. Then I started to worry that someday she would be talking to court appointed psychologist about this day. They got off and both of them had huge smiles on their faces. I asked them if they had fun and they both said yes, and the then Emma added "I gave myself a headache screaming so much!"

Petting the Big White Goat.

Petting the Little Black Calf.

The 3 Little Pigs--Jordan, Wesley, and Austin

One of my sneaky pics of everyone. Jordan is trying to get ahead of the camera, he saw me at the last second but I was faster! Mia walking along looking at things, Wesley and Austin talking to Erik about who knows what. And Emma reading the map getting us to where we need to go.

Granny, Erik, and Wesley sitting down while listening to Jordan and Austin relate some tall tale!

Our Homeschool Blog

I just started a new blog about our homeschool. If you would like to see what we are doing in school go check it out at: http://busy-bees-academy.blogspot.com/

Valentine's Party

Every year one of our home school groups, IEAH, has a Valentine's Party at Chuck E Cheese. Besides having the Valentine's Party we meet together weekly at a local park. We also have a yahoo support group, and whenever one of us needs advice, reassurance, or hears of a great educational idea we contact the rest of the group and let everyone know.

A lot of friendships have been made and solidified at our home school park day! The girls have a ton of friends that they love to see each week. Yeah, we don't have any worry about our kids having enough socialization. Between, park days, dance classes, activities, having friends over, and church we get enough socialization!

Anyway, back to Chuck E Cheese (where a kid can be a kid). To prepare for the day we have to get together our Valentines, this year 61 kids signed up to attend! WOW!!! So, in theme with the Boy Scout motto of always being prepared, we made up about 72 Valentines. I also made up a dessert. (I had had Activity Girls the day before and only had two girls show up. I had made a 9 X 13 pan of Brownies, so I just cut up the rest and took those.

You can get coupons for Chuck E Cheese at their website or in the coupons that come with your Sunday paper. Make sure to also print out a reward chart for each child-that's 10 FREE tokens each! You all know how much I LOVE a good deal!

So, the kids get to spend the day at Chuck E Cheese with their friends and mom gets to hang out with her friends and play some games as well. What can I say, I love Chuck E Cheese! I know, you all are thinking that I am crazy! If the shoe fits wear it, and I wear my crazy shoes proudly!

Here are some pictures from the festivities!

Mia playing a shoot 'em up game. She is definitely her parents' daughter!

Emma playing the catch the bee game!

Mia driving, just a few more years and it will be in a real car! Yikes! Where did the time go?

Emma playing stomp the spider. You can bet I would be stomping a lot harder if they were real spiders, while Emma would be gathering them up as pets. Emma and her animal friends!

Everyone passing out their Valentines--organized chaos!

Mia passing out Valentines!

Emma passing out her Valentines!

Girls Ballet/Tap Class!

The girls have a Ballet/Tap class every Friday in Rancho Cucamonga. It counts towards their PE curriculum for home school, and the Charter school pays for it! They go to Valverde School of Performing Arts for both dance classes. We love Valverde! The teachers are great, the staff super kind, and the girls learn a ton!

Valverde is across the street from the Victoria Gardens, so if anyone in the area is interested go check them out. They give you 1 FREE lesson so your child can try it out and see if it's a good fit or not. They also use that FREE lesson to make sure that class is not too hard or easy for your child. Did I mention that we love them?

Unfortunately their Holiday recital is on a Sunday this year so we will be unable to attend. Both girls were great about it though. When I told them that it was on Sunday they both looked at me and said, "Oh, so we won't be able to go because that's not a Sunday activity."

Don't you love it when something that you've taught them comes out? I always get so excited and think "Wow! You really were listening!" Don't ask me why I still get so excited. It must be a mom thing!

The girls doing tap with their Ballet/Tap teacher, Miss Yesenia. Her and her husband own Valverde.

Here they are in class practicing their piece for the Holiday recital.

And practicing some more! I got to go in and watch the whole piece they are going to be doing fro the recital! Lucky me! I love it!

At the barre doing their ballet warm-ups.

More warming-up. . .

And more!

Art On Exhibit

The girls are so super-dee-duper excited about this! They have a picture from their art class hanging up in the museum.

Granted the pictures are hanging up outside their art classroom, but it still inside the museum and anyone who goes in can see the pictures!

They were talking about symmetrical and asymmetrical paintings. They had to paint either a symmetrical or asymmetrical face!

They are pointing to their painting!

Art Class

This fall the girls have been taking an art class. They attend the art class at the Riverside Art Museum, and their Charter School pays for it!

The art class that they attend is called Kids Open Studio. They go to class each Thursday evening for 1 1/2 hours. The first part the teacher introduces a new painting and concept. She talks about it and then does a real quick demonstration. Then the kids make something using that technique or concept taught.

After they complete that project the kids are then free to use whatever supplies they have to create whatever they want. They have paper, markers, paints, crayons, colored pencils, clay, all kinds of stuff!

The girls love it!

Mia working on a project using markers and paper

Emma made a bowling ball out of clay, they leave the clay there to dry
and then paint them the next week.

Mia's project, she's using the shape markers to make shape designs.

Emma making her bowling set.

Hip Hop Dance Class

The girls have been wanting to take dance classes forever! Because we decided to go through a charter school this year for our home school, the girls get to take their dance class. We opted to use part of our funds for them to take a few classes.

They are taking a Hip Hop Dance class, a Ballet/Tap Combo class, and an Art Class this semester. When it gets close to the end of the semester we will sit down with the girls and decide what they want to keep doing and what they don't and what else they might want to try.

Anyway, the girls have been to two Hip Hop classes and they are loving it! They are learning a routine to Natasha Bedingfield's Pocket Full Of Sunshine. It is so fun to watch all the girls in class as they are learning new steps and practicing old ones.







When they get home from class, Erik and I get a private viewing of what they learned that day. Anytime they show us anything from dance they have to warm-up first. Their teachers must have put enough emphasis on warming-up because won't even show you one step without warming-up!



Their dance teachers both say that the girls are doing very well for this being their first time ever! Lucky girls, guess they didn't get my sense of rhythm. ;)


Next time you see the girls ask them to show you some of their dance moves!

FREE Museum Day!

This past Saturday was FREE museum day at certain museums across the country. And it was Growing Up Californian at the San Bernardino County Museum. Erik and I had already decided to take the girls to the museum and then we found out about the FREE museum day and lucky for us the San Bernardino County Museum was one on the list! Yay! We are so determined to get out of debt in 6 months so this was an added bonus for us, we ended up saving about $30!

We got to see everything in the few hours that we had to spend there, I had to get back to catch my ride to the Relief Society Broadcast later that evening!

We saw all the stuffed animals, real stuffed animals not toys! We saw all the eggs, Erik and I though that the eggs would be the kind of boring to the girls but, Emma was begging to go see the eggs! Go figure.

We got to see the display on local architecture through the ages, really really interesting to Erik and I, not so much to the girls. Luckily they had blocks for the girls to build their own buildings and pictures to color.

We also got to see the live animals. The girls got to pet the rabbit and see all the different lizards, bugs, and snakes! Have I mentioned how much the girls love animals, any kind of animals?

We also got to attend the Growing Up Californian for FREE! The girls got to learn how it was to grow up as a child when California was first being settled.

They got to take a turn at washing, rinsing, wringing, drying, and ironing clothes. They got to beat rugs and make candles. They got to see and play with some toys from that time period. They made butter and ground up corn into cornmeal.

We all learned alot and had a great time doing it!

Mia washing clothes

Emma wringing out the clothes

Emma hanging up clothes to dry

Mia ironing

Emma beating the rug

Girls making candles

Girls grinding corn into cornmeal

Mia playing with the cup and ball

Emma playing with the hoop and stick

Mia playing with the hoop and stick

Fun Day At The Fair

Wow, it's been awhile since we updated the blog! Things have been super crazy busy here!

Anyway, on the 19th of September we went to the LA County Fair with Greg, Beronica, and their kids. Erik was even able to take the day off and come with us! Yay!!! The girls love doing anything, but they love it even more when dad is able to be part of it.

I was able to get us FREE parking passes and FREE admission to the fair through one of the home school groups we belong to. We were able to cover Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, PE, we even managed to squeeze in some Math! I love homeschooling!

We had a great day at the fair walking around with Greg, Beronica and the kids. We visited so many things. I think that the kids favorite part was the the Big Red Barn, not a favorite for the dads who were busy fighting allergies. But they were troopers, there wasn't even any whining!

Dads watching on while the moms and kids play in the petting area!

Petting the goats. . .

and the sheep!

There was even a dress up place at the fair! Of course the kids loved it! What kids don't love to dress up and pretend to be something?

Emma cooking dinner for Daddy.

Notice that she has broccoli and chicken, her favorites!

Cowgirl Mia!

Chase and Savannah playing with the cars.

There were so many fun things for the kids to do and see and touch! They even got to pet a horse at the 4-H booth and pet a snake! The girls love animals so this was quite a treat for them. They would love to live on a farm, though I don't think Erik could handle it with his allergies. I'm sure the girls would rather keep Daddy around than live on a farm!

Petting the snake. The girls have no fear!

The girls petting the horse!

Cousins "riding the range"

New this year for school aged kids was a chance to get FREE ride tickets. They had to read 6 books and do a short book report on each book read and they would get 9 FREE tickets! The girls worked hard and diligently reading and writing! They got their tickets and were so excited. We bought a couple extra tickets so they could each ride two ride. They chose. . .

The carousel and. . .

the tilt a whirl!

All in all we had a great day with tons of fun! But the fun did not end there, the girls went to a friends house for a sleepover and Erik and I had a night to ourselves.