Happy Passion/Holy Week!!!

As you may know, it's Holy Week (or Passion Week, whatever you want to call it) and this year the Lord has really put it on my heart to study the way Jesus spent His last week before the Resurrection!  Thankfully my awesomely, awesome friend, Heidi (who happens to be a fellow blogger at: Everyday-Cookies) shared her study of Jesus' last week from last year and I've really been enjoying it!  I can't get enough of it and my notebook is getting crammed full of all my notes!  I've had fun sharing with my kids too!  I never really realized the importance or significance of Palm Sunday and Good Friday and the rest of the week.  The focus has always been on Easter day.  So sharing with the kids about all the things Jesus did has been such a blessing! 

On Sunday the kids & I went to church in the morning and then just enjoyed a mellow family day at home with my hubby!  We worked on Palm Sunday crafts (see picture below)!  We colored palm trees, donkeys and palm branches and talked about what they all signified! 

On Monday we learned that Jesus spent the day inside the temple, throwing tables over of the people selling things and ripping people off and then healed the sick & the lame.  We also learned about the curse of the fig tree.  We talked about how Jesus is the "Bread of Life" and made dough for Braided Easter Bread .  (Click the name to be taken to the recipe.)  I was having issues with the dough rising...ummm, it wouldn't rise!  LOL  I kept it overnight and it finally rose a little bit so I figured we'd bake it anyway and see how it turned out.  The kids had fun dyeing the eggs and braiding the bread.

This was SO yummy!!!  We all loved it!!

How are you spending this special week?

Oobleck

If you've never made Oobleck, you are sadly missing out on some FUN! :) To celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday (March 2nd) I decided to make some Oobleck (read the book Bartholemew and the Oobleck) with my Prek/K homeschool co-op kiddos. They not only liked it...they LOVED it! All the squeals and ohhhhs and aaahhhhs and eewwwwws were priceless! Since it's a gray, wet and dreary day here on the Oregon Coast, my son, Keegan and I decided to make a batch.

All you need is 2 cups of Cornstarch (you can get a Walmart brand for $0.88), around 1 cup of water (you don't want it too watery so add it slowly because you might not need the whole cup) and some food coloring to make it look more interesting!


This stuff is awesome! When you apply pressure it acts as a solid. Try punching it, poking it, etc. It gets hard. Now try gently pushing your hand into it or letting it slide off your hand...it's like liquid! FUN, huh?! Keegan and I played in it for a LONG time and plan on playing with it when my hubby gets home! Keegan asked if we could make it with our Tiger Cubs at the next den meeting! Oh, and this stuff is SUPER easy to clean up! If it dries on your hand or on the counter, it flakes right off or just use water and it rinses right off! Can't beat that! HAVE FUN!

Creepy Crawler Treat

My 7 year old said the dreaded "B" word today...BORED! Yikes, the thing a mom hates to hear! LOL I looked online at my FAVORITE site: Family Fun to find something for us to create. I just LOVE pipe cleaners, they are so great for so many crafts and I happen to have an abundance of these on hand so I decided to try out the lollipop spider. It was under the Halloween crafts (ick...hate Halloween) but I thought it would be fun anytime of the year and even contemplated making some for Valentines Day for the boys in our homeschool co-op.

These are so quick and easy to make and even my 18 month old daughter was ohhing and ahhing over this! LOL

All you need is 4 black pipe cleaners, a lollipop, googley eyes and glue.

Holding all 4 pipe cleaners in your hand, place the base of the lollipop in the center of the pipe cleaners and wrap the pipe cleaners around the stick once, just to secure it on there and you should have 4 "legs" on each side of the stick. Bend the pipe cleaners near the bottom to form feet and in the middle to form knees. Use glue to attach the googley eyes onto the top of the lollipop and viola...a creepy crawly lollipop spider! Easy, huh?! HAVE FUN!!

Oh and before I go...had to add a quick pic of my little basketball player! Today was his 1st game of the season and although his team didn't do that well, he had a BLAST!!!

Christmas Snowflakes

I finally got off my lazy bum and did some crafts with the kids today! I've been working at my out-of-the-home job more frequently this month and it's thrown me all off. I was introduced to a fantastic blog today:

Confessions of a Homeschooler
And that got the fire lit for me to bust out the supplies and work on some Christmas crafts! Since I have to work tonight I couldn't get started on anything that would take too much time so we opted to make snowflakes!

Keegan had made one in our homeschool co-op and proudly pulled it out for me to see and he had to help me re-learn how to even make one! Let me just say, thank goodness for the internet, they have how-to videos for everything! :)

Here are some of our snowflakes:


Even Tatym got in on the action more as an onlooker but still, she didn't seem to mind!


Here's Keegan proudly showing off his snowflake:


I decided to add glitter to mine (of course!)...you can't ever go wrong with glitter I mean geez! :) Keegan attempted to dress his snowflake up a bit and here is his end product! Glitter glue and googly eyes! LOL


Here are 2 of mine:


This one is my favorite! Keegan drew the star that pointed the way to baby Jesus, some chinese people "because I like karate" (LOL) and Santa on his sleigh with the reindeer!