Coolest Science Experiment EVER!

We are loving Evan's 9th grade Apologia Biology course!  

Yes, it's HARD and yes, he has a TON of very difficult 

vocabulary words & concepts to learn.  

But the experiments are AMAZING!

He finished his experiment on OSMOSIS this week, and it was so

 fascinating that I have to share his summary report with you!

 We put an egg inside of a mug filled with vinegar for 24 hours.  That made the shell of the egg come off. 

 

 After the 24 hours, we took it out of the mug, and put it inside of a mug filled with Karo syrup. 

 

 It made the egg sink in because the syrup drew out the water portion of the egg white material.  

 

 This process of particles passing through a semi-permeable membrane is called OSMOSIS.   

 After soaking the egg in Karo Syrup for 24 hours, we placed the egg into a mug filled with distilled water. 

 

 This made the egg swell back up!  It filled the egg with water through osmosis again! 

 

 It actually made the egg expand 14% larger than its original size. (The green ribbon was the length of the original circumference of the egg!  It gained some weight!)

  The original circumference of the egg was 14.5 cm and the circumference of the egg after the distilled water was 16.5 cm. 

 

 It felt like a water balloon!  (So he just had to throw it to see what was inside!)

This experiment taught us the principle of osmosis!

First Winter Snow

We had the threat of a really bad ice storm this weekend, but instead we got a bunch of cold wet rain!  

But last night, right before we went to bed, it started snowing!

 We didn't get much...but it was so pretty! 

 My camera captured Eric's cold breath!

 Although it's still in the low 30's, the snow started melting this morning!  

 Poor Eli is shivering!

 And Ethan slept so late that most of the snow was melted before he got up this morning!

He kept saying, "Please don't melt!"

Reindeer Painting

Ethan got to experience his first painting class at Atlanta Local Color today.  

We're so thankful that Aunt Shellye invited him to go!  

He painted a Rudolph!

He enjoyed drying the paint at "the beauty shop!"

Although he was "a little nervous" at first, he amazed himself ...

and by the end of class,  

he informed me that he never wants to miss another class!

So proud of you, Ethan Daniel!

Thanksgiving Turkey Treat

Ethan & I had fun creating a festive Thanksgiving treat for breakfast today.  

This was a Pinterest find that turned out well!

 We simply used a can of cinnamon rolls for the bodies...

  and a can of crescent rolls to create the feathers, beaks, and feet.

 We baked them and then decorated them with the icing and sprinkles that we had on hand.

Delicious!

You're A Grande Ole Flag

Today was such a fun church day!  In addition to it being "Friend Day," we also had a salute to our Veterans.  Then we had a wonderful sermon about "Real Men" and a fabulous church-wide luncheon!

For Friend Day, our church had a goal of 250 in Sunday School, but God exceeded our goals!  We had 271 in Sunday which was about 100 more than last week!  And in our Sunday School class, we had TWENTY!  We were thrilled!  We've been averaging 7!  We are praying that everyone will continue to come EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY!

This was Ethan's first time to sing with the JAM (Jesus And Me) Choir.  He had so much fun singing "You're a Grand Ole Flag!"  The pictures are little blurry but the expressions on his face are priceless!

Ethan's Poems

This morning, this little man amazed me.  He does this quite often actually!

Each morning, after the boys and I do our Bible, History, and Literature together, they each go to their rooms to do their other assignments.  Ethan's first task is to complete his Daily Agenda.  We got this idea from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  He enjoys each activity, but he especially likes reading his "Family Ways" and his poems.  Honestly, since we recently moved, I have been trusting that he is completing his Daily Agenda on his own.  It gives me a few minutes to change out laundry, clean up the kitchen, or print out lesson materials.

Last year, we used the kindergarten curriculum from the Institute of Excellence in Writing.  In their Primary Arts of Language curriculum, they introduce a new poem each week.  At first, honestly, I thought this was a little silly.  But as we progressed through the year, I noticed how much Ethan enjoyed reading, illustrating, & reciting the poems.  They also used the poems to teach phonetic rules.  Each day, he would circle or underline different rhyming words, certain words using short vowels, "squealy e's," etc.

When I was planning his curriculum for this year, I wanted to be able to introduce more poems to him.  After some research, I found how helpful memorizing poetry is for language development.  I found a list of poems appropriate for first graders to learn, so we've added one each week to his Daily Agenda.

So...this morning, when I heard him RECITING some of the poems I've placed in his binder, I was amazed! It just shows that REPETITION is KEY!  He reads every single poem every single morning.  And now he knows several poems by heart!

He was quite happy to make a video reciting two of the poems.  He used the little space heater as his "microphone" and he even decided to make a grand entrance on the second poem. :)  He's quite the entertainer!

God's Beautiful Handiwork

After school today, we took a little drive to Beavers Bend State Park outside of Broken Bow...just a few miles north of where we now live!  We wanted to check out the fall colors and the beautiful scenery. 

Although it was either sprinkling or raining the whole time, we still stopped and took a few pictures.  It's hard to believe we live so close to this beautiful area!  Ethan said we have to come back ALOT to visit! 

So today I'm thankful for God's beautiful creation and 

these three "E" boys that I get to share my life with.

 We even saw a momma deer and her 2 babies!

Transformations

It's amazing what a little paint and new flooring can do to a house!  

Because our "new to us" home is actually a church parsonage, they renovated the house before we moved in.  We are so amazed at how much they invested in us before they really even knew us!  We feel truly blessed and are so thankful for all of the work so many of the church members did for us!  

From painting to ripping out old carpet to clearing brush in the backyard to mowing to helping us load and unload furniture to giving us an old fashioned food pounding...we have felt such a warm welcome!  

Thank you, Bro, Andy & Renie and members of Idabel FBC!  

You are living out the Acts 2 church!

Here are a few BEFORE and AFTER pictures of our new home.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

Living Room looking at entry way & master bedroom

BEFORE

Living Room looking from the entry way

 AFTER

(Living Room next to entry way)

AFTER

Living Room & Dining & Kitchen

(They removed half of the wall between the living room & kitchen.  

It opened up the whole living area!  

You can stand at the fireplace & see all the way to the boys' bathroom and vice versa!)

AFTER 

(Entry way.  On the other side of the wall where the entry table is, they built a wall for the refrigerator.)

AFTER

(Master Bedroom.  I guess I didn't get a before picture of this room.)

 BEFORE

(Kitchen.  They removed half of the blue wall to open up into the living room.

Then they built a space for the refrigerator on the right and added cabinets and

prep space next to the oven/stove.)  

BEFORE

(Kitchen.  And the most obvious difference...they changed EVERYTHING that was

BROWN to WHITE.  Lightened up the whole house!)

BEFORE

(Family Room/School Room)

BEFORE

(Family Room/School Room looking into kitchen)

AFTER

Family Room/School Room...what a difference!

BEFORE

Standing in the kitchen looking into the family room

BEFORE

(4th bedroom that they turned into a laundry room/craft room.

The washer & dryer were outside in the garage on the opposite side of the 

right wall, so they changed the pipes to work INSIDE!)

BEFORE

Laundry Room

AFTER

(Laudnry Room/Craft Room...LOVE being able to have 

washer & dryer inside the house!)

 BEFORE

Boys' Bathroom

AFTER

Boys' Bathroom

BEFORE

Evan's Room

AFTER

Evan's Room

BEFORE

Ethan's Room

AFTER

Ethan's Room

So...what do you think of the transformation?  

As for us, we walk around the house with a big smile on our face daily!