Washington DC

Well I am falling behind again but we have been out of town. We took
the three boys out to DC for 4 long days at the Smithsonian. It was fun, educational and made us very tired. Here is a quick rundown of all that we did.

Day 1 

Fords theater with a play about the day Lincoln was shot, White House,

Capital tour, library of congress (Thomas Jefferson's private library collection), a quick stroll at the botanical gardens (closed 10 minutes after we made it there) and a Looooong walk all of the way down to the Lincoln Memorial. This was Quincy's #1 place he wanted to see. On the way there Milton and I stopped to see a mother duck and her ducklings in the large reflection pool of the mall. We also stopped at the WWII Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial.

Day 2 

The Air and Space Museum. Yep, this is all that we did on this day. They had a great hands on area for the kids and we learned about propellers, rockets and jets during an interactive demonstration. Lost of great informative videos and a great puppet play about the write brothers and how they learned so much from books. Quincy loved all of the Apollo11 stuff and we all enjoyed all of the war themed rooms. Learned a lot about the write brothers and learned that the write brothers' fathers name was Milton. Cool!

Day 3 

National Archives where we learned about all of the information that is considered to be important to the USA's history. We also learned about the way the Declaration of Independence is kept safe and preserved. We viewed the precious documents of course and then we were off to the Natural History Museum. Oh My Gosh it is huge and we did not even go into anything that in depth. There are tons of people and there is soooo much. Highlights would be the collection of animal skeletons, bug room where we looked at some huge bugs, saw a tarantula eat and got to touch a tarantula exoskeleton (so soft), Kids discovery room (was nice to take a break and let Spike crawl around) and the Butterfly Pavilion where we all had a chance to hold a butterfly and one tried to hitch hike its way out on Johns hat.

Day 4 American History Museum where we got to see Ol' Glory American flag (its Huge), Ben Franklin's walking stick, Kermit the frog, Dorothy's red slippers, items from the funerals of the assassinated presidents, first lady room with their china and dresses, tech advancements, the sun stone from the Kirtland Temple, a piece of THE Plymouth rock and so much more. Then we took the kids to the Holocaust Museum to see the Kids exhibit and it was perfect and wonderful. Helped our war loving kids see how band the Nazi's really were. We stopped by the Smithsonian Castle (the original institute for free learning museum) and after a quick break on the grass we were off to the Art Museum. They had a great self lead tour with audio and it had a kids version. The boys (mostly Quincy) loved it. With the idea that we would only be in there for an hour or so we ended being pushed out with all of the other art lovers.

Wow, what a great 4 days. Don't want to even think about how much we spent but can you really put a price on a true experience and education?

But that is not all. On the way home we stopped at the Washington DC LDS Temple and took a few pics and went to the battle field of Antietam which was the location of the bloodiest days of the Civil War.

 Unfortunately my computer was freaking out and I am having trouble uploading all of the photos but here are just a couple of the day we traveled home.

What a great trip. So Whats next???

Cauliflower Crust Pizza

So we were very sad that pizza was no longer going to be a part of our life. So naturally we try to find a way. Here is a veggi full way to have our favorite toppings. We made one giant pizza and it had to be eaten with a fork. But we believe next time we will do individual pizzas and we may be able to ear with our finders. Now we called it Indian pizza (so not true) so our 4 year old would not wig out about the difference. Spike loved the crust (I avoided the melted cheese parts). We used tomato, mozzarella and peperoni for our toppings. All in all, quite yummy and we will so be trying this again. Instructions bellow or visit the site.

Image is not mine but taken from the site found at the link above.

Cauliflower Pizza Crust Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 small head of cauliflower, leaves and stems removed
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon parsley
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup Manchengo sheep milk cheese (or Mozzarella)
• 2 eggs
• cornmeal, to dust the pizza stone
for pizza
• 1 jar marinara or pizza sauce
• 1/2 cup sheep milk cheese
• 5-8 basil leaves

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Chop cauliflower florets into chunks. Pulse the cauliflower in a food processor until it resembles a fine grain, like rice or couscous. Pour cauliflower into a large bowl. Add herbs, and salt, then cheese and eggs.
3. Spread a tablespoon or so of cornmeal all over a pizza stone. Place the cauliflower mixture (note- this won't resemble a ball of dough) on the middle of the stone and use your hands to press it into a circle about 1/4 inch thick.
4. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 then an additional 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Crust will be done when it turns golden brown in color.
5. Remove crust from oven. Change oven temperature to 450 degrees. Add pizza sauce, cheese and whatever toppings you would like, then bake again for about 5 minutes or until cheese on top is melted.

WE LOVE LIFE OF FRED

So we just received our order of 6 Life of Fred books. We now have the entire Elementary set on hand. We are going to go back through the first 4 books over the summer and jump into the next book in September. We are very excites. I have even learned so much from FRED.

Do your kids hate math and wonder why they have to learn it? Fred will make math come to life in a funny but real way your children will enjoy and it is set up in a story form. No pages and pages of worksheets.

Life Cycle of the Butterfly

I had to share this video that I came across today. We just got our live painted lady larva a few days ago and wanted to show the boys what we were going to see happen. This shows EVERYTHING with great text explaining what you are seeing. Moms, you will need to read these to your slower readers. 

Word of warning, for some reason the person used this scary music for the beginning. I think he was trying to be funny. 

Butterfly Life Cycle Video

San Diego Trip

Check out all of the great fun and cheap thing we did on our one month San Diego trip on

 the Field trip Page.

Daily Was to Much

OK, as you have probably noticed doing a daily account of our goings on was do much. I have not done it for so long so now I am going t o try and do it once a week with not so much detail like my friend at fourfarming.blogspot.com

Spike just had a birthday and he is now 1 year old. We had cheesecake ad played with balloons. He would like to thank Aunt Andrea and Grandma Owens for his gifts. Spike is cruising around on the edge of the couch and any chairs he can find and always keeps an eye open for the baby gate to be left open so he can get a chance at climbing up the stairs. He becomes very excited when he gets caught. He has 6 teeth and a very very strong opinion about things. We think he is saying momma and dada and maybe buy but it is not confirmed.

Milo is reading so much more and he is getting faster. He read The Giving Tree the other day and if I was not sitting right at the couch I would not have believed him if he had told me that he had read the whole thing. He also jammed through Wacky Wednesday today. The other night he wanted to read so John let him come down stairs after Quincy was out and he picked out King Solomons Mine and read a whole chapter. Then he picked up a Disney classics book and read Casey up to bat. I cant remember who stated this but with 40 hours of trying to read a child can learn to read on their own. Us parents just have to be there to sit near then for when they have questions. I am a firm believer that this is true. Quincy is already interested in words and letters and is interested in reading. So exciting.

Milo is really into doing stuff outside and wanted a quiver to hold his "arrows" (sticks with a notch cut with a kitchen knife). We looked it up and there were many kinds but nothing I could fashion on such short notice. So with a little more looking and searching I found instructions for one using leather. Now I did not have leather but I did have lots of cloth so here they are. A quiver for Milton's arrows and one for Quincy's spears. Boys can be so much fun.



We read some more of Life of Fred Dog. Planning on finishing this one up soon so we can read through the first four books one more time before the summer is over and already ordered the last 5 in the first set. WE LOVE FRED! We are getting ready for a science fair that has been cancelled. That's right. It was cancelled but may be rescheduled. If anything we will do presentations for Daddy. Quincy wanted to learn about the phases of the moon and is learning about waxing and waining. Using plaster of Paris we created 5 moon surfaces and created craters in them. Then we painted the phases of the moon on them . They turned out pretty cool. Milo is doing his on the Human brain and how unique Savants are. I may do a short simple one about how trees bloom and grow.

After visiting the WGI World Championships the boys were all excited about drumming again and were pulling sticks out to play with. Milo wants to work on his paddy fla flas and Quincy is learning to play singles

Quincy's decorated music

with alternating Right and Left hands.

We are gearing up for a summer of fun. New York, Ohio and Washington DC seem to be in order and things that we find in between. So now we need to learn about the states and the Civil War. Hmmm, I wonder if my boys will be interested in the Civil War.

We  also received out butterfly larva and can not wait to learn more about them. They are safe in their little plastic cum and we are waiting for them to do their thing.

As for summer classes Milo will be taking swimming lesson and Quincy will be doing Gymnastics again. The weather is becoming so much nicer and I cant wait to get out side more once again.

I am currently reading The Lonesome Gods by Louis L'Amour's for my Abigail Adams class and have managed to keep my house clean for 2 weeks in a row (minus my own room. That's next on the list). I have finished reading Gaps and Physiology by Dr. Mc bride and plan on picking up Parenting a House United again by Nicholeen Pack. I am also reading Mothers of the Prophets. This one I read mostly on Sundays.

gaps one step closer

So we had our Gaps diet appointment and it looks like Milo and John will be going on the intro diet together, I will be on full gaps because I am breast feeding (YES!), and Quincy will be doing intro without the probiotics or cod liver oil for right now. I think I will have the most trouble staying away from sugar. We are testing Milton out on less carbs and no daytime shots and he seems to be doing pretty good. His pancreas is still working some and we have already had to reduce his units just from cutting out gluten.

Now to order all of the craziness we are going to need in order to get this all  rolling.