Children and Cousins and Nephews oh my!

I just noticed that I haven't posted in about a week. Things have been kind of busy lately and I thought it would be nice to tell you a little about what I've been up to.

Yesterday Charlie was in what is called Sparksorama. It is a competition between different Churches AWANA clubs in the same kind of games they play at AWANA. Charlie and his team of other K-2nd graders had been practicing for over a month for the games. We drove over to a community college near our church in the snow to get to the games.

3 0r 4 teams (called a circle) squared off against each other at a time in different events like this one.



Charlie's team came in first place in their circle. We all had a fantastic time cheering him on.



After the games we went home for a few hours and then we drove to Oak Park to seem Amy's cousins who are near Emma and Charlie's age in a play. The play was Seusical the Musical. One of the cousins had a really good role as a trouble making Ape. The other played a who and a seusslike circus animal. The play was put on by Christian Youth Theatre (CYT) and it was very enjoyable. Amy's aunt caught me crying at the end of the play. But hey I'm a sensitive guy!



Today we were going to just relax and enjoy Sunday after church at home relaxing. However when Amy's sister invited us to visit her new baby Connor, we jumped at the chance.


I got to hold Connor for quite a while. I gave him up for a little while so the kids could get a photo op with him . . .












Amy's mom made some fantastic Chicken and everybody had a good visit. This week is going to be another busy one but I promise I'll post again before next Sunday!

Next Time: Looking for Calvin and Hobbes

A School by Any Other Name

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at About Homeschooling with the theme Celebrating Life. I am celebrating our home school by telling you a little about the genesis of it's name.

I am not sure if I ever told you people out there in blog world why our home school is named the Izola Becker Home School.


My Grandma's name was Izola Roller. Her maiden name was Becker. Now, no one called her Izola. She was "Mom" to her kids, "Grandma" to her grandkids and great grand kids and "Babe" to everyone else. My grandma was a wonderful woman and when she died a few years ago we decided to honor her by naming the homeschool after her. Even though she had 30 grandchildren, and over 40 great grandchildren, she remembered everything! A few weeks before she died, she told Amy to make sure that even though Emma is homeschooled, that she's involved in some type of art class because that was her major area of interest. How did she KNOW that, with all of those kids in the family? Even on her deathbed at 97, she was trying to remember a poem, and I called home and had Amy read me the lines after she googled it, and Grandma said, "I need to memorize that poem." I am not sure we would have named it at all, otherwise.

I got to wondering the other day what else we might call this school.


Here are some ideas:


Izola Becker Home School & Grill.

The Izola Becker Institute for Conduct Unbecoming an Officer.

The "Please settle down, I'm trying to blog about home schooling, Home School."

The "Your Mileage may Vary" School of Cartography.

Hansel and Gretel's Edible Home School.

International Home School of Pancakes.

The Socialization, Smotialization Academy.

McHome School: Over 2 Taught.

Roller Coasters Home School Theme Park.


I also thought of a few slogans for our school:



Need a home schooler, take a home schooler. Have a home schooler, leave a home schooler.


Students may look closer than they appear.


Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from Star Trek.


Look where your tax dollars aren't going.



Well that's enough craziness for one day. If you have any home school name or slogan ideas let me know.



Next Time: C&H

Baker's Half Dozen

Six Word Saturday time again. Here are mine:

Baked my first cake from scratch.

I am teaching a class in our home school co-op this semester called "Let's go to the store." It is a pre-school class featuring stories and crafts about groceries and grocery shopping.

Last week I took my students and their families on a field trip to Meijer. Why Meijer? They give out cookies to children 11 and under. Some call it bribery, I call it incentive to behave.

This coming Monday we will be talking about deserts. I decided that I would bake a cake for the class, and since the class is about shopping, I thought it would be good to talk about all the ingredients needed for a cake. I have been baking cakes using box mixes since I was in the single digits. I had never made a cake from scratch before.

So today at our test kitchen/house Lulu and I baked a cake from scratch. On Sunday we will bake one for the class. I used a recipe for chocolate cake I found at Suite 101.com.

I had hoped to include a full tutorial on how to make the cake but preparing a cake , shepherding a 4 year old and photographing each segment turned out to be too much for me.

Here are the few pictures I did take . . .

The ingredients.

Mixing.


























The cake turned out pretty well. Yes, I forgot to preheat the oven. Yes I accidentally turned the oven off when I was checking to see if it was done. I also had a few other kinks that I think we can work out on Sunday.

Here are a few reasons why baking a cake from scratch works for me:

1. Baking a cake from scratch is not difficult at all. I had to melt chocolate for ours, which I had never done. A lot of cakes take far less preparation than that.


2. Teaching my children how to make a cake from scratch is a useful educational tool. I would have never envisioned myself as a Home Ec. teacher. But as long as I wear the home school pants int he family, I guess that's what I'll be.


3. My 4 year old is an excellent helper. She often helps my wife mix biscuits and other things. She has been wanting to bake this cake for two weeks since I announced the idea to the class. She really did most of the work: beating the eggs, pouring the butter milk, measuring and sifting the dry ingredients, and decorating the cake.



So those are my six words and why baking a cake from scratch works for me.


For more Six Word Saturday head on over to Show my Face dot com. To see what works for others head over to We are That Family for more WFMW.


Next Time: A School by any other name.