Click on any picture to enlarge it

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Day 305: Happy Halloween!

October 31
From our Viking, Volcano, and "Alberta" Einstein.

Day 304: Spooky Statue

October 30
This is normally a statue of George Washington, but someone put a white sheet of plastic over it and hung a "Boo" sign from the base.  I love it.

Day 303: Jack o' Lanterns

October 29
From left to right: Ellie's, Lexi's (it's winking), and Vicki's (with a mustache).

Day 302: Sunday Evening Chill Time

October 28
Watching Mythbusters with the family.

Day 301: Group Piano Lesson

October 27
A couple of times a year Vicki's piano holds special group lessons.  Here, they were playing a game where the notes on the card spelled a word.  The kids had to figure out what notes they were and then what word they spelled.  Vicki struggled with that one (so do I), but her friend Kate was a whiz.

Day 300: Girl Scouts at the Corn Maze

October 26
The middle school had the day off, so we took Vicki's Girl Scout troop on their annual corn maze field trip.  We chose this particular maze because they were celebrating the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouting, but it turned out to be much more preschool-age appropriate (in other words, it wasn't a maze at all, just a pathway through the corn), so we quickly took a detour to another farm and enjoyed a much more challenging, though not Girl Scout themed, corn maze.

Day 299: Cookie Hat

October 25
I think these kind of hats are stupid looking, but Vicki was having fun trying them on.

Day 298: Spooky Story

October 24
Lexi led Ellie's Girl Scout meeting again today, and she read them a spooky story about "Poor Joe", whose body parts kept falling off.  She had the "body parts" in paper sacks for the girls to feel - carrots for toes, peeled grapes for eyeballs, spaghetti for brains.  Gross and fun all at the same time!

Day 297: The Brain

October 23
I have an exam coming up, so this is my life.  By the way, it's the visual association area.

Day 296: Cold-weather Comfort

October 22
The days are getting colder, and my willpower to resist the salted caramel hot cocoa is greatly reduced.

Day 295: Phone Art

October 21
This is a screenshot of a drawing Vicki made on an app I have on my phone.  Pretty cool, huh?

Day 294: The Great Pumpkin

October 20
We went to the Sauvie Island corn maze and pumpkin patch with our good friends this afternoon.  The rule was: if you can carry the pumpkin, you can have it.  Vicki chose this huge pumpkin, which we later learned weighed 33lbs, and she carried it.  It may have taken her 20 minutes longer than it took everyone else, but darn it, she carried it.

Day 293: Another Presentation

October 19
Inspired by Lexi's presentation, Ellie decided to do one herself.  She chose gas as her topic, and you can imagine where her first-grade brain went with that.

Day 292: Spiderweb

October 18
It was an especially misty morning.

Day 291: Self-portraits

October 17
We took Vicki's Girl Scout troop on a field trip to an art studio a few weeks ago, and they had the girls make these self-portraits (in the style of an artist whose name I've forgotten).  We took this picture to attach to a thank you card.

Day 290: Getting Ready

October 16
I got a job this year as a reading tutor for the Portland Reading Foundation.  I'll be working one-on-one three days a week with four 1st and 2nd graders at the girls' school.  I haven't started tutoring yet, but we've been busy getting our room ready.  This is my table, set out with a student notebook and my lesson plan binder.  I'm pretty proud of that bulletin board behind my chair.

Day 289: Fall Colors

October 15
Fall is my favorite season because of all the changing colors.  We walk past this tree on the way to school each day, and it's always been my favorite because of the bright red.  The house was for sale last year, and even though I've never really loved the look of it, I wanted so badly to buy it just so that tree could be mine!

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Day 288: A Play

October 14
One of Ellie's favorite things to do is to have her toys put on plays for the rest of the family.  There is never a script - we just get to watch her imagination at work.  She entertained us for quite a while this afternoon before we finally had to tell her it was time to be done.

Day 287: Dirt & Worms

October 13
Ellie wanted to have a bug theme for her birthday party, so this was her cake.

Day 286: Candidates

October 12
Aside from just being plain creepy, these masks provided quite a bit of entertainment for my politically interested daughters.

Day 285: PowerPoint Presentation

October 11
We told the older girls we'd pay them to do research projects outside of school.  Vicki wasn't all that thrilled at the prospect of extra work, but Lexi jumped at the chance and spent over a week researching her chosen topic, the changing states of matter.  With a little help from Chris, she put together a fantastic PowerPoint presentation and shared it with us tonight.

Day 284: Daisies

October 10
Lexi is trying to earn her Junior Aide award, so she led our Daisy meeting today.

Day 283: Sisters

October 9
This makes my heart smile.

Day 282: Anatomy

October 8
Study, study, study.

Day 281: Bug Hunt by the River

October 7
We rode our bikes down to the Columbia River this afternoon, and Ellie brought along the bug-catching gear she got for her birthday.  They caught one spider, who they named Leroy, and observed him for a while before returning him to his natural habitat.  Even with the bug jar, no one wanted to carry Leroy home in their backpack.

Day 280: Birthday Girl

October 6
Ellie turned seven years old today!

Day 279: Birthday Present

October 5
Grandma and Grandpa's birthday gift arrived a day early.  Ellie did not complain.

Day 278: School Hill on a Sunny Morning

October 4
This picture was a complete accident, but it's kind of cool.

Day 277: Self Portraits

October 3
We took Vicki's Girl Scout troop on a field trip today to a local art studio, where they made self portraits using chalk pastels, in the style of an artist whose name I can't remember.  It was really fun to see what each of the girls ended up with.  Vicki's is the blue one in the top left.

Day 276: Leader Meeting

October 2
Once a month there's a meeting for all the Girl Scout leaders in our area, where we get information about upcoming events and opportunities for our troops.

Day 275: Fall is Here

October 1
I love this walkway behind the girls' school, especially in the fall.