The Mystery of the Tossed Newspaper

The Mystery of the Tossed Newspaper
by Karli

     That afternoon while Teegan was doing her homework she heard a crash.  She hurried outside and saw Ms. Cupseye cleaning up some of her tea cup that spilled.  

"Good afternoon, Ms. Cupseye, what's the problem?  It happened again?  You spilled your cup?"

"Yes, but this time I didn't spill it and my newspaper's gone."

"Didn't you see it?"

"No, because I went inside."

"Oh. Ummmm.... why don't you make a new one?"

"I can't drink because I need my newspaper."

"Why can't you drink without it?"  Teegan asked.

"Because I need to see the news, so I can see if anybody put poison in my cup."

"Well...where did you put your cup when you went inside?"

She replied, " On the edge."

"Hey, did you let your cat out?"

"Yes."

"Where is his favorite spot to lay?"

"By the bushes."

She looks by the bushes and looks on the cat's tail.  Ahhhhhhh, that weded.

"Your cat knocked the cup over" Teegan said.

"How?" she said.

"You put your cup on the edge.  You went inside and your cat came out and knocked over the cup that made the newspaper fall."

Teegan handed Ms. Cupseye her newspaper and walked away with a smile.   

The TWINS that CAN'T stay together

So, I don't know about you, but we have two sets of twins in our house.  One set loves to run and play together and the other...let's just say they can't seem to get along...they want to get as far apart as possible!

The second pair is really a pair...a pair of socks!  We can't keep any of our socks together, well I should say the kids can't keep any of their socks together.  So, I started doing what my mom did for us when we were little.  I purchase a ton of baby safety pins and about two Christmas' ago I gave my son a bag full of blue ones, and each of my daughters their own colors with a bag of  brand new socks.  They had fun with it for a while.  But, as all creative kids do, they started using them for tents, making dresses out of blankets and using the baby pins to hold them in place.  Slowly, the pins kept disappearing.

Now, my  kids have all done their laundry since they were 7, so I figured they would love the fact that they didn't have to search for matching socks when putting their laundry away.  That it would make it easier.  NOPE.  I would find socks all over the place.  I would ask whose it was...never anyone in my house.  Strange, don't you think?

So, I realized I needed to come up with a different way for my family.  What my mom had taught me was not working.  So, this week I purchase some new socks.  Each one in my family got a package.  And I did this to them:

On each sock, for the girls on the bottom and for my son on the toes, I put their name in permanent marker.  Then on each pair I gave them a number.  So, they know what socks go together.  If I find one on the floor they can not claim that it is not theirs.  I know.  It says so.  They each got a set for the whole week.

So, they SHOULDN'T have any problems.  

We shall see how this process goes.  I even did my husband's so the kids' can't say that they are his.  And when my new pack of socks come in the mail I will do the same to mine, since my son and I where the same size now.  My husband and I can prove to the kids that they are the ones leaving their socks everywhere...not mom and dad.

Now to prove that we aren't the ones leaving the toilet paper holder empty...hmmmm....

The Monster by Karli Platt

Once there lived a monster, very hungry and smacky.  In the forest lived a pretty little girl named Saige who had brown hair.  She lived on a tree.  When it stormed she always had a shelter.  One day when she slept the monster crept to find food.  When he heard a yawn the monster ran toward the noise.  Saige heard the paws.  She was scared.  So she went away to the city.  She never, never knew how busy it was because her parents left her in the forest.  She hurried toward a High School.  When she entered everyone stared.  She looked around the corner and saw the monster.  AHHHHHHHH..........  She ran out of the High School, but the city was filled with monsters.
She woke up.  "Where am I?  Did I get swallowed up by the monsters?  I can fight him," she thought.  "Saige, it is time for school." She heard her mom yell.  "But what about the monsters," she thought.  "It was probably just a bad dream.  She actually lived in a house.  She got dressed and went to school.  And there were no monsters.  Just Saige.

Homeschool Literature Project

My daughter, Karli, wrote and illustrated this book.  We hope you enjoy.

Picture this!

The other day I found this great book at the library. So, on this fine summer morning I decided to do a small lesson on Impressionism. We discussed Camille Pissarro's painting entitled The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning. As seen here:

After discussing his techniques there was an opportunity and activity to try out one of the techniques he used in some of his paintings. So here are some of our pictures using oil pastels/crayons and watercolors. We had fun. I made the rule that the kids only had one sheet of paper to work with so they had to really focus on what they wanted to do. Here are our "Pissarro" paintings.

Something old, something new

When I was in college, my mom had a very handy gift made for me by my youth pastor, Mike Baumgardner. It was great. I used it in college for my letter writing "station". I was cleaning out some shelves today and came across it:

It has paper and envelopes to write letters, but I now have a desk for that. Wondering what I could use this for I decided to use it as a "Sick Desk". It is great for storing things and a hard surface on top for writing or coloring. So today I put together our SICK DESK. I filled it with crayons, paper, coloring and activity books, pencils, books and playdough. So, whenever the kids are sick and stuck on the couch they now have a nice box with fun things to do. I love finding old things that I can find new uses for! Here is a look at the final product:

With this fun box, my kids will almost want to get sick...ok, maybe it isn't THAT great!

Happy Creativity!

We love Halloween for the very fact that we get to celebrate creativity and use their imagination to be whatever they want to be!

We were so proud of John, he made his own costume (minus the helmet). He drew on some white long johns and then for Captain Rex's black "skirt" he tied a black t-shirt around his waist. He looked great!

Trick or treating at one of our favorite neighbor's house.

Yes, Jason and I were Bacon and Eggs! The perfect match!

Cinnamon went trick or treating himself and found some candy. (Don't worry you dog lovers out there we got it after this picture. No chocolate was consumed!)

Sadly, this is not all the candy we got...anyone want some?

Fun with friends!

If you have never thought of the pumpkin as a chance to remember what God has done, please keep reading.

1. First when you get the pumpkin you cut open the top. This is a great reminder that we need to open our minds to the things of the Lord, searching for Him.

2. Second, God takes all the crappy stuff out of our lives when we confess our sins and trust in Him alone to save us. (1 John 1:9)

3. Third, as you cut the eyes in the pumpkin we can be reminded to ask God to help us see more of Him. (Psalm 119:18)

4. Next, when you cut the mouth you can be reminded to share Jesus and all the things God has done for you with those you meet. (Psalm 118:17)

5. When you place the candle in your pumpkin it can be a reminder for our lives to shine for Him. (Matthew 5:16)

I know this is posted after Halloween, but I hope that you are able to look at pumpkins in a different light each fall. What another Great reminder of all God has done for us!

Grab my button and learn to make your own!

Ok, so I have gone to so many different blogs and love how they have buttons to link others to their site. Not that it is needed, but really wanted to learn how to do it. So where did I go?? My favorite place...google. It first took me to this blog, which is pretty cool, but she had a great link where she learned how to make her own button. So it took me to this blog. It could not have made it more clear how to make your own.

I think it took me a total of 20 minutes to complete. That included designing mine as well. She designed her logo in Photoshop 7.0, but I don't have that on my computer so I just tried Paint, and made it a smaller size and it worked.

I did use Photobucket to upload my photos and it was so easy! I am so excited and it was so simple if I want to change it and have a different design I can! Have fun and let me know in my comment box if you found this helpful and if you created one for your site so I can add it to my blog!

Sailing boats and serving food

So the weather warmed up this weekend and so since Jason had a meeting Saturday morning I thought it would be fun to do something out of the ordinary, so I took the old juice containers (that I had been saving up to make coin purses out of (see Family Fun Carton Wallet, but instead we took them and made boats. Boats to float on our new lake in the backyard. Yes, a lake. It was an ice rink, but now it has turned into a lake. So we went out and enjoyed the warmer weather and floated our boats.
Yesterday, my kids created their own resturant, Fruities, they served me breakfast and are working on learning the cleaning up aspect of running a business. I thought it was cute, they wanted to do lunch and dinner too. I thought it would be fun for the day. I thought it was cute, until this morning when I woke up and found out that Fruities was still in business and now they wanted ME to pay for their food and service. Hey wait a minute, I don't know how cute this is anymore! I like creativity, but I think we have gone a little too far. Now I have to convince them that maybe Fruities isn't such a good idea after all. Four to one, not sure I will win. Then they found out I was writing about Fruities on here...they are getting ready for you all to come...although since I am a good friend just to let you know I think that you need to go wash your hair and I see a pile of laundry over there. What have you been doing all day???? I guess you can't come, too bad. I will let the kids know. Maybe next time! (***Later Edit: So after school I went down to get lunch together...there were 20, yes 20, cups of milk and juice in the refrigerator. Apparently, they were quite excited to have customers. I made sure they realized that at a resturant they make the drink AFTER it is ordered, not before. Oh, my. I need to figure out how to channel this creative idea to something positive...think, think, think!***)