Mrs. D Says: September 2010

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Monday, September 27, 2010

Lesson Theme of the Week- Native American Indians

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

This bedroom is at the end of the hall. It used to be my youngest daughters. She is 19 now and got her very first place this summer. She is having a blast living with a chickadee that has been like family to us since both girls were in Jr. High. We haven't decided what we are going to do with this room. I'll probably move 3 year old in here eventually. For now, Big Daddy likes playing on the HP computer. Both he and I have Mac's but he finds this one easier to print a lot of his Ebay overseas mailing labels, I think. I will need to spruce this up quite a bit as during the holiday season we get quite a few overnight guest and weekenders.

I didn't realize how many toys the Boy Child had til this little project. Here is a basket of Noddy toys that he used to play with constantly. Noddy is a puppet boy cartoon from England. There is also a train and tool banging set. A carousel and a doll chair I found for the girls when they were little.

19 year old took many of her belonging but left me a few things. I am NOT looking forward to going through a lot of things left behind. See that picture above the bed. She was 3.

3 year old's room.

I love this bed. It has 4 drawers at the base that hold a lot of his toys and a big space with a door to hold his oversized cars and trucks.

He is the office at the top of the stairs. Big Daddy does his business in here and 3 year old can almost always be found right next to his daddy. They are like peas and carrots. I don't go in here much because, well, Big Daddy has his own organizing system. This spring we will probably be switching up, sprucing up and rearranging rooms. It looks a lot worse than it really is here.

Master Bed and Bath

Tub and shower on the right of the room.

Sinks and toilet on the left. That door is to the master bedroom.

TV in the master bedroom. at the foot of the bed.

Dresser and small fridge.

Bed.

Monday, September 20, 2010

The Family Room

Taken earlier this morning from the kitchen.

The new play kitchen area. He is obsessed with machines. One of these days I'll line up the vacuums I have. The bread maker and the mixer are mine that he plays with. No, he doesn't actually plug them in. I got the coffee pot for a buck at a yard sale. Great place to find things for obsessed little boys on the cheap.

My bookcases. Yep, I have cookbooks in the family room! I'd like to get some shelves put up int he kitchen for the books but that's not happening until after football season is over.

Computer area. As you can see it's taking me awhile to get this all done. I had to retake a few pics in the middle of trying to post. Those are the dreaded curtains I'm gonna tackle one of these days.

Autumn coffee table Boy Child helped me with today. Looks weird because of the glass.

I love his toys. The girls seemed to have a lot more plastic stuff than he does. These are stored under the entertainment center.

One of my favorite pieces of furniture. Not the TV the entertainment center, silly.

I had a pic of the fireplace but it's a mess and wouldn't load right. You can see it at the top of this post. Notice the Christmas garland. Yeah, I keep that up to remind me that 2 weeks before I gave birth almost 4 years ago I decorated the entire house by myself while working full time. I haven't gone all out since. Nothing get's done during football season unless I go it alone.

Next up is the upstairs. It should be in the morning and not so much.

The Kitchen

From the family room. Right now I have peppers from my garden on the table. This was the first year I grew sweet peppers and they are so pretty. I pick them green and what doesn't get eaten right away turn beautiful oranges, yellows and red. Perfect for this time of year.

This door goes to the garage. It's also our calendar and the bag is for the library.

I love this little table I found at the Chineese Embassy (Walmart) for $20.00 a couple of years ago. It hold my cloth napkins. I use a lot of face cloths as everyday napkins the middle basket hold the more formal napkins.

I took this one a little while ago after rearranging things a bit. It's the catch all counter. I hope the placemats will stop crap from collecting.

From yesterday morning, I think. Just a typical kitchen.

I love that it's open to but not part of the family room. Gotta watch that step if there is a party goin' on though. The half divider is another catch all for things I want to laminate, library books and general little school things.

Next the family room.

Dining/School Room

Dining room turned school room.

Bookcase houses storage boxes, rice and beans for play, arts and craft materials on top. Also reference books, devotionals and Bibles, Bob Books and readers, games and my storage binders on the bottom.

Blurry pic of the Boy Child's school desk and chair.

There is a dresser under that tablecloth. It's great for storage but is pretty beat up. I hung these posters the beginning of summer but we don't use them so they will come down and his Bible board will go there. between the wall and the dresser is where I keep display boards (found at the dollar store sometimes), large cardboard and butcher paper for arts and crafts.

Morning Board

Mostly my planning station. Under the table is more storage. It's amazing, the materials we go through sometimes.

China cabinet used as storage

Lots of work needed in here.

Next post the kitchen.

Living Room

The Literacy Table: Just leap frog and a alphabet mat to match up.

Our Bible Board: sits on the couch for easy access and because I haven't gotten around to hanging it up.

The Science Table: microscope kit, planets in the tin bucket, magnifying glass, a lamp and some science books. I should move the map over to the geography table.

Geography Table: Globe and some books.

Foam number puzzles in the basket, water noodles cut up for various activities, foam shapes in the wooden basket, tools for sorting, rocks in the green bag, lots of puzzles on the bottom right shelf and alphabet pipe cleaner letters I made for tracing.

This DVD case used to be jam packed with DVD's but I'm slowly repurposing it.

I keep throws on the arms of the furniture because we have 3 cats.

Next post is the dinning room turned school room.

Home Tour-The Foyer, Entryway

I'll be taking all week to do this and breaking it up. I have been called a lot of things but a photographer is NOT one of them.

From the front door entrance.

To the left is the powder room.

Some of my favorite toys displayed for easy access.

I love these alphabet tiles. I found them at different flea markets. The larger one was $1.00 the smaller one was $3.00. The smaller is broken in this photo but I have since fixed it. I need to reinforce it with some wood glue, I guess.

The trucks hold crayons but I'm not crazy. These toys are to be played with and they are so I keep the crayons in a safer spot. I got the truck at a craft fair for $10.00 each and the little airplane was a buck at a flea market.

The box under the shape toy is a matching game made with wood tiles. I love the abacus but don't have a clue how to use it correctly. We just do different counting things with it.

A creative use of display space. The front door! It's magnetic.

Looking from the kitchenish.

To the right coming in the front door is the formal livingroom turned playroom. I'll show that in the next post.

State Flower Coloring Printables

State Flower Coloring Pages | Classroom Jr.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Teaching with God's Heart for the World Free One Year Curriculum

TWGHW: FREE One-Year Homeschool Curriculum! | Harvest Ministry

By Ann Dunagan – Illustrated by Brenda Whitmeyer
Publisher: Family Mission-Vision Enterprises

Ann wrote this two-volume world missions curriculum (with over 500 pages) several years ago to assist homeschooling families and Christian educators (in both church settings and in Christian schools) to impart a fervent heart for world missions into the next generation.

The curriculum includes 160 day-by-day teaching plans, missionary highlights, motivational mission stories, crafts, songs, prayer projects, and hundreds of ways to incorporate a passion for the lost into nearly every subject (including Bible Study, Family Devotions, Reading, Writing, Geography, History, Art, Science, and even highlights for Math).

The curriculum presents a “whirlwind tour” of God’s enduring passion for missions, all-the-way-through-history and all-across-the-globe. Using weekly unit-studies, this curriculum is created to be used over a one-year school year, although it can be easily adapted to be used throughout two years. It can be used as a core curriculum guide (for elementary children), or as a supplement to another curriculum. It is written especially for elementary grade levels, but it can also be used for the whole family to study missions together.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Geert Wilders 9/11 Ground Zero Speech

Geert Wilders 9/11 Ground Zero Speech

Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician under threat of death from radical Islamists, gave a speech last week at Ground Zero that all Americans should pay attention to. You can watch a video of it YouTube - Geert Wilders Speech at Ground Zero on September 11, 2010.
The text is as follows:

Dear friends,

May I ask you to be silent for ten seconds? Just be silent and listen. Ten seconds. And listen... What we hear are the sounds of life in the greatest city on earth. No place in the world, no place in human history, is as richly varied and vibrant and dynamic as New York City. You hear the cars, you hear the people, you hear them rushing to their various destinations, you hear the sounds of business and of pleasure, you hear the cheers, you hear the cries, the buzzing sounds of human activity. And that is how it should be. Always...

Now close your eyes - I know it's a beautiful day, but close your eyes. I have been told that this day nine years ago was just such a beautiful day -- and remember, or try to remember, or try to imagine the sounds which were heard here on this spot under this same blue sky exactly nine years ago. The sound of shock, the sound of destruction, the sound of panic, the sound of pain, the sound of terror.

Did New York deserve this? Did America deserve this? Did the West deserve this? What, my friends, would you say to people who argue that New York, that America, that the West had itself to blame for those horrible sounds? There are people in this city who argue this. And they are angry because we are gathered here today to commemorate, to make a stand, to draw the line.

My friends, I have come from the other side of the Atlantic to share your grief for those who died here nine years ago.I have not forgotten how I felt that day. The scenes are imprinted on my soul, as they are on yours. But our hearts were not broken in the same way as the hearts of the relatives and friends of those who lost their lives here. Many relatives of the victims are here in our midst today. I wish to take this opportunity to express my deepest and most heartfelt condolences to them and to all of the people of New York and America.

Darryl Worley - Have You Forgotten?

Humbly, I stand here before you as a Dutchman and a European. I, too, however, cannot forget. How can anyone forget? Let me remind you of the words from Darryl Worley's 9/11 song.

Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell.

Worley's response is our response: No, we will NEVER forget. We are here today because we have not forgotten all the loved ones that were lost and those left to carry on. And neither has the world. When the forces of Jihad attacked New York, they attacked the world.

Among those lost were people from 55 nations, people of every religion and every persuasion. No place on earth had a more multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and multi-lingual workforce than New York's proud towers. That is exactly why they were targeted. They constituted an insult to those who hold that there can be no peaceful cooperation among people and nations without submission to Sharia; to those who wish to impose the legal system of Islam on the rest of us. But New York and Sharia are incompatible.

New York stands for freedom, openness and tolerance. New York's Mayor recently said that New York is "rooted in Dutch tolerance". Those are true words. New York is not intolerant. How can it be? New York is open to the world. Suppose New York were intolerant. Suppose it only allowed people of one persuasion within its walls. Then it would be like Mecca, a city without freedom. Whatever your religion, persuasion or gender is, in New York you will find a home. In Mecca, if your religion isn't Islam, you are not welcome.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf claims the right to build a mosque, a house of Sharia here - on this hallowed ground. But, friends, I have not forgotten and neither have you. That is why we are here today. To draw the line. Here, on this sacred spot. We are here in the spirit of America's founding fathers. We are here in the spirit of freedom. We are here in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, the President who freed the slaves. President Lincoln said: "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves." These words are the key to our survival. The tolerance that is crucial to our freedom requires a line of defense.

Mayor Bloomberg uses tolerance as an argument to allow Imam Rauf and his sponsors to build their so-called Cordoba Mosque. Mayor Bloomberg forgets, however, that openness cannot be open-ended. A tolerant society is not a suicidal society. It must defend itself against the powers of darkness, the force of hatred and the blight of ignorance. It cannot tolerate the intolerant - and survive. This means that we must not give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us. An overwhelming majority of Americans is opposed to building this mosque. So is an overwhelming majority everywhere in the non-Islamic world. Because we all realize what is at stake here. We know what this so-called Cordoba mosque really means.

Imam Rauf maintains that American secular law and Sharia law are based on the same principles. He refuses to condemn terrorists because he says terrorism is "a very complex question". He says America is "an accessory to the crime that happened on 9/11." "In fact," he literally said, "in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA."He also says that "terrorism will only end when the West acknowledges the harm it has done to Muslims."

That is why this man should not play the game he has in mind here in Manhattan. His "Blame the West, Blame America"-message is an insult. Americans - and by extension, all of us whose civilization was also attacked on 9/11/2001 - are not to blame for what happened here nine years ago today.

Osama bin Laden is not made in the USA. The West never "harmed" Islam before it harmed us. Most Americans do not want this so-called Cordoba Mosque to be built here. They understand that it is both a provocation and a humiliation. They understand the triumphant narrative of a mosque named after the Great Mosque of Cordoba which was constructed where a Christian cathedral stood before the land was conquered by Islam.

An overwhelming majority of Americans is opposed to building an Islamic cultural center close to Ground Zero. There is no lack of mosques in New York. There are dozens of buildings in which Muslims can pray. It isn't about a lack of space for prayers. It's about the symbolic meaning.

We who have come to speak today, object to this mosque project because its promoter and his wealthy sponsors have never suggested building a center to promote tolerance and interfaith understanding where it is really needed: In Mecca - a town where non-Muslims are not even allowed to enter, let alone build churches, synagogues, temples or community centers. So why should we do that?

Ordinary Americans object to the mosque project because currently no fewer than ten major multi-million dollar mosque projects are being planned in the United States as well as dozens in Europe, while not a single church is allowed in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia,while Jews are not even allowed to move their lips in prayer on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem,while the oldest Christians in the world, the Copts, are not free to renovate their churches, let alone to build one in Egypt.

My friends, that is why we are here today. What happens in New York must be seen in the perspective of the world. The events nine years ago made an enormous impact everywhere. Most people shared your pain, but, unfortunately, some did not. Nine years ago, when the news of the terrible atrocity in New York reached Europe, Muslim youths danced in the streets.

In a poll, two thirds of the Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands expressed partial or full understanding for the 9/11 terrorists.If a mosque were built here on Ground Zero such people would feel triumphant. But we, we will not betray those who died on 9/11. For their sakes we cannot tolerate a mosque on or near Ground Zero. For their sakes loud and clear we say: No mosque here! For their sakes, we must draw the line. So that New York, rooted in Dutch tolerance, will never become New Mecca.

But, let us also express our gratitude for the heroes of 9/11, those who went down in that Pennsylvania field, those who were standing freedom's watch at the Pentagon, and those who were here in New York nine years ago to risk and lose their lives for the victims. Friends, in honor of these victims, these heroes and their families, I believe that the words of Ronald Reagan, spoken in Normandy on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, resonate with new purpose on this hallowed spot.

President Reagan said: "We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free." And, we, too, will always remember the victims of 9/11 and their loved ones who were left behind;We, too, will always be proud of the heroes;We will always defend liberty, democracy and human dignity;In the name of freedom: No mosque here!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Lesson Theme of the Week the U.S. Constitution

Mrs. D Says