Day 143: Making a Cake

One of my favorite memories of summers with my aunt are baking lots of cakes and being allowed to lick the batter. Of course, back in the day, nobody worried about us eating the batter full of raw eggs and such. So today, the girls got to help their grandma making a cake. She had baked it last night, so the only thing left was making the frosting and decorate the cake with it. Of course, if you can't eat the batter, you've got to try the frosting.
Munchkin liked it but she said it was too sweet. Now the frosting on the cake was only half as sweet as she thought, but she sure enjoyed stirring that mixer around and around making the pink frosting that she had requested. I love making memories for them.

Day 142: Water Fun

We are spending some time with Grandma and Grandpa, and today, we hit a local water park. Coqui just spent most of his time waiting in line for the big, tall water slides. He had no fears. Peanut was brave enough to go down a few times with Daddy. Just little Munchkin was too scared and spent her time on the lazy river with Mami and Grandma.

All together, we lasted for four hours before heading to the ice cream store to cool down. We made tons of memories and the kids want to go back already. Summer is here and we are having fun. We are not having formal school right now, but we are still learning something new every day. Today's motto was 'conquering your fears'.

Day 139: Happy Father's Day

 

Happy Father's Day to our Daddy.

Day 111: Top Secret Adventures

Coqui has been collecting the Top Secret Adventure countries for a while now. It comes as a monthly magazine, and it teaches them about a country at a time through solving mysteries. He loves it.

When we went to a homeschool book sale and he saw this game, he had to get it. And so did Mami! We played it right away the next day, but today, Daddy joined us for a big round. It was so much fun going around the board, swapping suspects, items, and countries, in order to fulfill our missions. I won the first round, and Coqui won the second. The girls played, too, rolling the dice, moving the little people, and trying to answer the quiz questions. It is such a great game for the entire family.

Day 105: "Read me a story."

It's the end of the day and I am tired after having eight kids in the house today. But there is just one more thing before we call for lights out. One thing that even Mami is looking forward to. Good night stories. Many nights, we come home late and there is not enough time to read. So we cherish the nights that we can read. Our bedtime routine can take over an hour with taking baths and showers, getting their PJs on, brushing teeth, and READING.

I love to read to them. I know it will too soon be over. Coqui already prefers to read on his own and only seldom joins us for the book fun. But the girls still love me reading - they can't get enough, and usually it doesn't stop at just two or three books. Eventually, I do have to stop.

There are tons of researches that proof how important it is to read to the kids. For us, it is a nice way to calm down from the business of the day. We spend quality and quantity time with each other in enjoyment over the stories we read. Many times, when I ask my Peanut what her favorite part of the day was, she answers with "This right here." - she loves me being there with her, reading, talking, cuddling. Good night. Gute Nacht.

Day 76: A day trip with my parents

I mentioned yesterday that my parents are in town, so we took off today on a road trip. The kids had a blast discovering and rediscovering new and old places. It was a very warm day, but you can see that Munchkin kept cool on Mama's back with a big hat....

Day 75: Games Galore

Rain kept us indoors most of the day, so we had to play a lot of board games. Here is Munchkin with Daddy playing Connect Four.

Day 47: Busytown Game

Another rainy day, so we just continued from yesterday. There was a big breakfast, and lots of board games all day long, until it was time to go back home.

If you have never heard of Busytown, you and your kids have been missing out. As mentioned in the link, it is an imaginary town invented by the authors Richard Scary. The people living there are all talking animals. He wrote a bunch of books, like Busy, Busy Town or What Do People Do All Day?  We got introduced to these books by a friend of mine when Coqui was just a tiny baby. Growing up, he loved me reading from the books. They are entertaining and educational at the same time. Then we heard about the movies called Busytown Mysteries and Coqui was hooked for a long time. He passed it down to his sisters and we still watch an episode once in a while.

So their aunt got this game, Busytown Eye found it!, a few years ago and whenever we visit, the kids just have to play it with her. The ultimate goal is for the players to reach the other side of the town for a picnic before the pigs eat the entire lunch away. Turning the wheel will advance the players, will send them on a hunt for items found on the six foot long board, or has the pigs eat an item from the picnic. It totally encourages team work, instead of having the players play against each other - so Mami loves this game. And so do the kids.

Day 46: Visiting Family

We drove to the kids' aunt's house today, and the grandparents were there also. It was nasty cold and rainy outside, so we had a great afternoon of playing all kinds of games at home. The kids did tons of puzzles, played board games, and just ran around the house. It was nice to see them enjoying all the company - it builds great relationships. Thankful for travel mercies and blessed with family.

Day 24: Family Quality Time

We had a day filled with lots of activities: doctor appointments, PE class, Karate, and shopping. But after dinner, we just all spend some much needed quality time together. The Hubby is a huge boxing fan, so last Christmas (2013), the kids got boxing gloves and training punch gloves (or whatever they are called!). They love to pull those out and 'train' with their Daddy. Well, at least the oldest and the youngest. My princess is not much into boxing.

Homeschooling is a life style - we are not trying to create school at home. So days like today are a bit crazy. but then again, they teach the children that life can be chaotic and we need to know how to deal with it. We always make sure that after a hectic day like today, we spend some family quality time together in the evening. I am so blessed with my family.

Day 19: Ticket To Ride

It was raining all day, as a matter of fact, the rain and wind are still going strong outside. What better way could we spend this day playing board games. Now we do play quite a bit, but I am always trying to squeeze in a little education. Lol. The kids are playing "Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries". I have gotten this game many years ago and taught Coqui to play over the past few months. Today, Peanut wanted to join in.

The game takes place in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. So we are learning Geography. Pronouncing the names can be a bit challenging, even for me. The players are to travel by train from city to city, taking a journey mostly over the countryside, but also through tunnels and with boats. They are doing so by collecting colorful wagons that add up to a train which is placed on the board and gains points. Once you complete an entire trip, you gain some more points.

It is a fun and easy game. The kids hear the foreign names over and over and learn where they are located on the map. Now it says that the game is targeted to ages 10-14, but really my five year old understood the purpose of the game and could follow along. It can take up to an hour though. So afterwards, we did some dancing to get the wiggles out.

The 'Yellow Car Game'

With the Hubby being home for the last six weeks, we got alot of family quality time. So when we went for a drive over the weekend, we played our 'Yellow Car Game'. I know, I got your interest now, haven't I!? Well, this Mama is very unwilling to have her kids grow up thinking, the only entertainment comes from electronics. Sorry. So we do NOT have a DVD player in the car - we have to come up with ways to make it fun without. And fun it is! - a simple act of being together as a family.

Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of cars in black, white, blue, and gray, and then there are just a few with 'brighter' colors? Well, yellow is pretty rare, though it has become more popular these days. For the kids, it sticks out and is pretty easy to find. So we play 'find the yellow cars'.

Now of course, there are some rules to this! One yellow car, jeep, pickup truck, etc... gets you ONE point, and one point only! One yellow hummer gets fifty points. Yep, you heard it right, 50 solid points. Then you get two points for a yellow school bus on off-days only! This means, driving Monday through Friday, they don't count - you will get one point deducted from your total for each bus called out mistakenly. Now when you call the yellow transportation vehicle out, you also have to tap the ceiling of the car - otherwise, it won't count! Here is the tricky part: commercial cars (and truck trailers) do NOT count! So if you call out a yellow taxi by accident (because the front looked like a normal yellow car), and you tapped the ceiling, then you need to subtract one point. Sorry. Also, only the person who calls it out FIRST will get the point.... that's why it can get so wild!

On the first drive, we got the following results:
Daddy - 68 points
Mami - 45 points
Coqui - 39 points
Peanut - 6 points (yep, she plays, too)

Now on the way back, it was even wilder:
Coqui - 102 points (he got a hummer and a bunch of school buses!)
Daddy - 97 points
Mami - 73 points
Peanut - 2 points (she was just tired and maybe even getting sick already)

Now if you add all those numbers together, we got to see quite a few yellow vehicles on our drive. (Tip: driving down the highway with lots of dealerships helps - they all have at least one yellow car on display.)
And yes, it can get pretty loud in the car doing this, but it's so much fun! The kids love it. It makes them look outside, trains their eyes, and keeps their minds sharp. It also helps with addition and subtraction.

Try it out, see what happens to your family. We laughed so much......