Long-lost relative

http://youtu.be/3A2C0FIdgKY

k j and c commercial #2  :{D

kt

Turtles

Boy, are my subject titles getting boring.  Maybe I should hire Eric.  :)  While doing a little weeding in the flowerbed a few days ago, I came across a turtle.  Kids had great fun putting it in a box and supplying it with food.  Jenna looked up on the internet what she should feed it, etc.  Then the next day, we found another one-- actually caught in the trap we have set up to hopefully catch our friendly groundhog.  The kids really would have loved to keep those turtles for pets forever, but we decided against it.

. 

 I think this is probably BEFORE Micah dropped the poor turtle...

End of the School Year Activities

Claire's end of the year class party-- they decorated and assembled little wooden airplanes.  Then we went outside to fly them.  We also played several other games, had snacks, and ended with a treasure hunt.

 Jenna's Enrichment Fair project-- a powerpoint presentation on the history of the Olympics.  Plus a cool Olympic flag she made.

 Claire's beloved 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Swacina.

 Another powerpoint presentation-- this one made by Jenna and 2 of her friends-- with pics from their school year.  Neat to see these presentations on the smart boards.

 Jenna's beloved 3rd and 4th grade teacher, Miss Murphy.  Sadly, Miss Murphy is not planning to switch to 5th grade next year. :)  

Also, on the last day, Katie's music teacher asked her to sing a solo for the awards assembly.  She only had 2 days to prepare, and one of those days was totally spent at Hershey Park. :)  We figured out we could download the accompaniment track from iTunes and she took it on her iPod into school.  It was a beautiful song-- Angel by my Side.  I was so proud of her!  She sings with great pitch and dynamics.  I hope she gets more chances to sing next year.  She should, since she'll be in HIGH SCHOOL.  Whoa!  She's going to be on the high school worship team that sings for chapels, etc. so she should have plenty of chances to be in front of people.

Jenna's State Luncheon

One of Jenna's social studies projects this year was to research a state.  She chose Iowa because of all the fond memories she has of visiting Aunt Kathy and Uncle Ron and their bakery in 2010.  She made a great powerpoint presentation which she presented to the class and parents.  We had a luncheon in the lobby of the school-- all the kids brought something from their state.  Some of the items were a little hokey... like apple pies from McDonalds.  What state does that come from?  Any of the 50, I suppose.  But others were fun like cajun chicken.  For Jenna's contribution, we had emailed Aunt Kathy to see about ordering something from Casey's Bakery; and she offered to be Jenna's "corporate sponsor"-- sending a ton of goodies!  We very much enjoyed the almond patties and rusk buns.  Sure wish I could buy those rusk buns more regularly! 

Claire's Literature Fair

For Claire's 2nd grade lit fair, her class did a couple plays.  Claire had the title role in the "Ugly Woodpecker"-- even tho she wasn't ugly OR a woodpecker.  Turned out she was a turtle.  :)  Sorry, you can't see her shell too well in these pictures-- just the egg she cracked out of and her cute feet.

Chad's Reckless Driving

http://youtu.be/A2d1qOy24IY

Children's Choir clip

http://youtu.be/KnUHWXUKMgI


Children's Choir clip from a couple months ago.  We just figured out how to put videos online again.  Let me know if this doesn't work.

Children's Village

A couple weeks ago when Claire was so sick, she missed 2 field trips with her class.  Both to the Children's Village in Hagerstown-- they do a lot to teach safety.  Fortunately, there was an open house at Children's Village this past weekend.  Chad took Claire to it, and they had a great time.  She got to drive a police car...

 Pet a fire dog...

 Walk thru the burned out house...

 See a medivac helicopter land.

Bike

Micah tries a big bike a friend got for him.  I think it's a little beyond him still.  Maybe in a few months.  It was fun to try, tho.

Antietam Rec

Grace kids up to 8th grade went to Antietam Rec last week, if they had good behavior for the year.  All 3 of our girls got to go. : ) Here's Jenna on the zipline.

 Last year, Claire got up to the zipline and then was too scared to go.  This year, she had already decided she was going to do it, so that was the first thing we headed for in the morning.  Of course, when she got up there, it was hard to step off... She took at least a full minute, maybe more, while everyone watched and the line behind her waited.  Finally the girl running it sort of picked Claire up and sent her off.  She LOVED IT.  I think she did it 7 or 8 times during the day.

 She liked this man who caught everyone at the end.  He often had something funny to say.  Really got a kick out of how Claire was so hesitant at first but then loved it-- called her the Zipline Queen and their Number One Fan.  He really got a workout when some adults tried it, because he had to catch/slow down the person at the end every time.

 This is what Katie did with her friend Elizabeth a large chunk of the day. :) 

 While we all ate lunch, an illusionist did a magic show.

 Boys were allowed to swim in the morning; girls in the afternoon.  Pool was nice and warm and it was lovely out.  Claire swam for about an hour, but there were too many other fun things to do to swim all day. 

Jenna's Field Trip

For Jenna's field trip last week, we went to Renfrew Institute in Waynesboro, PA.  It was a beautiful day and beautiful place!  In this first pic, her class is getting their "community assignments" from the Mayor and the Judge.  Jenna was a "small furry seed-reducer".  All the kids were plants or animals with similar fun names.  They had to learn about what kind of environment they needed; then we walked around the park to some different environments to learn more about each.  The 2 ladies did a fantastic job of creatively teaching and keeping order, etc.

 Antietam Creek runs thru the park

 The barn we walked up to-- a Pennsylvania Bank Barn.  The man who gave our tour helped restore the barn in 1989, so he knew EVERYTHING about it.  I found it very interesting, but I think the kids were fairly bored.  A lot of his language went over their heads.  I'm sure my dad would like to talk to him. :)

 Here Uncle Tietam was showing us a joint from the old barn.  Fascinating how they fit it together and used wooden pegs.

 The first time I ever climbed over a stile, at least that I remember.

Our twins

Magic flying machine

http://youtu.be/G2QonPwkg1o

katie jenna claire made our first commercial movie haha....arent we amazing :)

katie  <3

Mother's Day

The whole weekend was lovely-- gorgeous spring weather and lots of time together.  Saturday, Chad stained the playset and the rest of us were in and out enjoying being home ALL day.  We've been extremely busy lately, so it was very needed.  I tried out some coconut pancakes (not my favorite) and we taste-tested some coconut popsicles (wonderful).  We played games and the girls did some crafting.  Watched a video in the evening. 

Sunday morning Chad got the kids' breakfast and dressed Micah-- that starts things out right. :)  Then we had to be at church early for children's choir to sing (our last of the year).  We tried a 2-part song with the piano.  Went pretty well.  Next year, I'm hoping to have just my 1st-3rd grade group again.  We won't attempt many 2-part things, but it'll be more manageable for me.

We all changed clothes at church, picked up lunch (Chinese McDonalds), and went to War Memorial.  Lovely weather.  Very pretty park.  Enjoyed our lunch then Chad took C and M to the playground.  K and J and sat on the blanket and read books-- and listened to the ice cream truck that parked right behind us for a bit.  Provoked some comments about how miserable it would be to drive that thing and have to listen to that same song all day.

Stayed home for the rest of the day.  Read, napped, watched home videos.

Chad and the kids all had very nice cards and notes for me.  I'm pretty sure Micah didn't know he was writing "You are a very nice mommy", but it was cute to see it in his handwriting. :)  Micah's teachers at church had also helped him make a colorful bracelet for me and they gave him a rose to give me.  He was pretty proud of both!

Chad's Saturday project

Marble Run

Very cool marble creation Chad and Micah made.  Connects our colorful plastic marble run pieces with the blocks. 

Best yard sale find of the year so far.  $2 for this set of pieces that put together kinda like k'nex.  You can assemble them in different ways.  Chad and Micah esp had fun with this.

Claire's poem

My Wish by Claire Wingert

I never want to be a rainbow fish.
I not want to eat off Abby dish.
I not want to be good friend with Robby Rish, not Tabby Lish.
I not want to eat licorice.
Oh pish, I do want Carl Tish to speak no broken English!

Jenna's Essay

For school Jenna had to write a paragraph on any topic.  She chose sign language.  Because she was so enjoying learning about ASL, on her own, she expanded it into an essay.  Because it's FANTASTIC, esp the first paragraph, I thought I'd let you read it, too! 

THE POWER OF



SIGN LANGUAGE


By Jenna Marie Wingert

 Imagine you are deaf. What can you hear? Nothing. You are trapped in a noiseless, silent, boring world. You can watch as people sing along at concerts. You can watch children laughing and clapping along. You can watch the choir sing and the orchestra play their instruments. You can watch the cast members perform their lines in a play. You can watch the action in a movie such as “Lord of the Rings” or “Star Wars”. You can watch anything you want. But there are no sound effects in your world. A concert or play or movie has no meaning to you. If you suddenly lose your sense of hearing overnight, you can go to school and watch people talk on and on and on, but you hear absolutely no words. That is what life is like for deaf people. They can go to Washington DC and hear nothing at all, which seems impossible for a place like that. But silent Washington DC probably is not very exciting. We don’t normally think about this, but a busy and noiseless capital of the country does not seem right at all. A noiseless anything does not seem right.

 This is why ASL (American Sign Language) was invented. ASL changed everything. ASL started being used in the early 1800’s and is now one of the most commonly used languages in the USA. There are different sign languages in different countries, such as BSL (British Sign Language). ASL speaking people will not understand most of their signs, just like we do not clearly understand other languages such as Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French, and so on. There were other sign languages before ASL. There was LSF (Langue des Signes Francaise) and some others. The signs before ASL were mixed together to create ASL. Though ASL partially comes from other sign languages, it cannot be understood by other Sign Language users.


Deaf people cannot just read lips. Not all words can be read from lip movement. Deaf people need something more obvious than lip reading. Since your sense of hearing does not work at all, you pay more attention to your other senses, mostly sight. Deaf people want to make sure they get a good view of the world around them. They must be very observant. Actually, they probably depend on their sight for a lot of things. Their eyes are very important to them. They use them to read, write, and, of course, for Sign Language.


Since you cannot hear people signing, there needs to be some way to let people know what kind of sentences you are using. When speaking a question, we raise our voice toward the end of the sentence. When signing a question, obviously, this cannot be done. ASL users tilt forward, raise their eyebrows, and widen their eyes.


Here in Maryland/West Virginia, we think that people down south have accents. We also think people in England, Australia, and several other places have accents, too. All around the world people say words differently. This is the same way with ASL. All over America people use ASL differently. For instance, the signs can be a little different for the same words. The rhythm can also be different.


In a lot of ways ASL is the same as spoken language. It is almost like another world with a completely different way of speaking anything. In this ASL “world”, there are different languages, just as in the speaking “world”. Sign Language is so interesting to learn about as a normal person, and so important to deaf people. Without Sign Language, deaf people would be trapped in a boring and silent world, and they wouldn’t see any importance in their life. Everyone needs to know that they are special and that God has a special purpose for them.

Claire's Rough Week

Last week was a rough one for Claire... On Sunday evening, at Children's Choir, she started acting VERY tired.  Decided to let her sleep in Mon morning, but she wasn't feeling well enough to go to school at all that day.  She got up and got dressed to go to school on Tues, but still wasn't feeling well enough.  Not BAD, just not well.  Wed she actually threw up once, but felt pretty good later.  Same thing Thursday.  Friday, I took her to the dr because she was having some bathroom issues-- wanted to make sure there wasn't an infection.  Nope.  Just a virus, that caused some bathroom issues along with the general yucky feeling.

Weird part is that some days she ate almost normally for part of the day, and she acted fairly normal part of the day.  Even this morning, she felt good and ate breakfast-- not as much as usual-- but then her stomach hurt for a little while.  Nice today is a snow day.

Biggest bummer of the week for Claire-- besides missing 5 days of school (and she really misses her teacher and friends!)-- she missed 2 field trips!  Boy, were we disappointed.

Jer and Dani's visit

Jer and Dani came out East for a week-- mostly stayed in PA, but we got a few little pieces of them. :)  On Tuesday, they came down here.  Went out to supper and stayed the night.  We played a large game of Dutch Blitz with 8 of us-- very fun.  Wed morning Chad took off work and went on a bike ride (gorgeous weather) with Jer and their dad.  We women dropped the girls off at school and then took Micah to IHOP.  He was totally happy with the pancakes he ate there.  He was not quite as happy about the thrift shops we visited after that, but I enjoyed them and got some fun things-- mostly books and a few mystery plants.

 On Friday after school, Chad took Claire and Micah up to PA.  Many of the Wingert/Hess/Lehman clan met at Hoss' where they'd reserved a separate room.  Had fun catching up with the cousins-- most of which we haven't seen since Gma W died in Dec 2010, I think.  Katie had a school program she had to be in, so Jenna and I stayed to watch that, then the 3 of us drove up to PA.

 We spent the day Saturday there.  A bunch of us went tennising.  Watched some good home video.  Played several rounds of Balderdash (fun now that the girls are all old enough to join in).  Ate too much good food.