Another week of rain...

I seriously have NEVER seen so much rain in my life! 

But school and activities go on just the same...

It was Michael's birthday week!

All kinds of new experiences--restringing his guitar for the first time, 

holding a snake,

and becoming a junior member at our gym.

 Pancakes and sausage for his special dinner.

Lots of fun building and showing off his guitar to a friend.

Tera and Daniel were busy this week!  Tera worked 5 shifts in addition to completing their honor society service project (and school). Daniel competed in the science bowl on top of that!   Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of just Tera and Daniel (so I don't want to share), but I did get pictures of some of their projects.  

WWI trenches model

 Infographics

Tera and Daniel's honor society collected over 1000 books for our local Boys and Girls Club!  

Donuts for soldiers...

WWI inspired poems by Daniel:

Peace and War

Thunder rolls into the night

Browning fire goes through the pits

The sun is rising with golden light

The flame throwers illuminate your fear

The birds are singing in the trees

The air raid sirens scream Run!

Horses gallop through fields of green

Cavalry with masks send spears through men

All is not quiet on the Western front

All is not quiet on the Eastern front

All is not quiet on the Southern front

All is not quiet on the Northern front

Peace and war together die

Voices

The fear of fear

Of being found afraid

Kept men of fear in their place

Once prisoners captured

Friends were made

Very thirsty

Lone wolf flies through the sky

The best of the best wedged in a cockpit

Mutiny

Come and do your duty

Red rosettes, a battle cry

We shall not fight

Officers are gentleman

Officers are snobs.

Fun Fridays: Owl Pellets and Game Day

Bible lesson:

We are doing a study on Psalm 23 and memorizing that passage over the next month.

Since our state has been experiencing a deluge of rain over the past month, our nature study had to be indoors.  Dissecting owl pellets was the perfect lesson.

We read a couple of library books and watched some youtube videos on different owl calls.

Ready for dissection...

Michael found a couple of skulls which was surprising for the size of owl pellets we were dissecting.  Jaw bones and tibia/fibula pieces were also quite common and easily identifiable.

Game day...Suspend, Uno and Life.

Family Birthday

While Michael had his friend party, Daniel was performing in the "Rock to Bach" festival with his flute choir.  After JP and he returned, we ate pizza and they had birthday party food.  Then, Michael got to open his presents from us.  I would have liked to have waited for his actual birthday, but we are all running in opposite directions that day.  So, we had two "parties" in one day.  

A couple of things happened before Michael's friend party.  We surprised him with this huge Lego Classic set (Thank you Walmart for having some leftover after Black Friday for such a steal of a deal) to use for building at his party.  He was quite happy with that set as you can tell!  

The second was this:

I opened the package that contained the "Lego" style "Happy Birthday" banner.  Just a little problem with it, but we went with it and laughed our heads off.  (Well, I had to be convinced to go with it, but I'm glad I did!)  I think we will say "Harpy Bipthday" to each other from now on!