Tri weekend

Things have finally been slowing down in our house ( YAY!!). I have been become some version of Zombie mom running on coffee and soda. This weekend was the Triathlons, yes I meant for that to be plural not because I would ever do it, but because Yasser did it!!!

I have to say I am extremely proud of my little girl who I am noticing is not so little anymore. Yesterday it was in the 60s and just pouring rain and it was horrible, yet she keep going and never quit.

Justin ran beside her and cheered her the entire way she was the only kid to actually swim and was in last place most of the way ( she is insistent she was in 11th) but she was proud of the fact she finished and she should be. Today was not any better and it was colder but Justin did his run and although his time was not as good as last years he finished.  He did it with a flat tire for 7 miles and in the freezing cold temperature ( it was in the 50s today).

So as I sit here sniffing and coughing from a lovely cold I caught standing on the side lines taking picture I can't help but to think how amazing my life has become. I married a man that even if I get pissy he is there. I have kids who never give up no matter how hard things get. All I can do is try to keep calm and remember that cheering is all I can do.

Hidden gems: Canandaigua Lagoon

Canandaigua once had a theme park and hid many things in the ground. Over the last several years they have been going through some huge cleaning project and creating a space that is just amazing to visit. 

One of my favorite places to walk is right behind Wegmans. It is a beautiful secluded areas that you do not expect to turn out as amazing it is. 

 Justin and I went for a walk after dropping the kids off at a sleep over. We walked these paths on our dates and still after all this time we still find really cool and interesting things.

 I am pretty sure Justin was annoyed with my need to take a hundred pictures of the snails trying to get that perfect shot. 

This is a perfect place to fish if you are into that kind of thing. 

This was the first time we have ever seen a beaver and we had no clue there were beavers in that area. I spent 15 minutes chasing the beaver before it slapped its tail and scared me because I was not expecting it.

Marble Maze!!!!

So we have a pack we are starting up this fall. I have been on the hunt for inexpensive ideas for our recruitment events that are still fun and captivating. I was reading a book on Stem learning and decided this was the right direction. We spent less than $5 in supplies. 

You will need a small thick chunk of wood

nails

paint

rubber bands 

a marble

We used a scrap piece of wood and not realizing it the wood was bowed which honestly just adds to it. 

The longest I took was measuring out the boarder and marking my squares. 

Then I started painting my squares

The center is all done and drying right now.

Starting my boarders.

Then I painted the trim and back.

I painted a white trim to help break it up a tad.

 I decided I wanted a sealer to help protect the board in the upcoming years. This is not required but will help protect the tracks.

 Each corner needs to be nailed so you can change the tracks as often as you want.

Then add the rubber bands. Feel free to make it as easy or as difficult as you would like. Gill-G quickly attached himself to this game and has us feeling like we should make more for home. Check out the kids blogs about making each their own.

Starting a school portfolio

Yasser starts second grade and Gill-G is officially Kindergarden this year (he is starting at 4) while Hulk man hides in the shadows destroying things. We have decided instead of having a paper hard copy portfolio, we are doing personal blogs. Yasser came up with Yasser Adventure and Gill-G has Gill-G's School. As a group our goal is to document our school work daily through their eyes in the blogs. They plan on doing videos as well. So keep an eye out and check out their personal blogs.

A lesson in paper air planes

I can not take full credit for the air plane launcher. I saw a picture on pintrest and thought it would be so much fun to do with our Cub Scout Pack. But I am not good at keeping things simple and went all out, it is a normal thing around here. After making the launcher and realizing I am not good at making paper airplanes I ended up looking for patterns and decided this would be an amazing lesson for our classroom. So we looked up aerodynamics of paper airplanes. Who knew there was such a science to it all.  This turned into hours of fun. We did not color our airplanes because we were way to busy testing our planes to see if they would fly.

Let us start with the launcher
First you need a piece of scrap wood. (We used a small piece of pallet wood because I am obsessed with pallet projects.) 2 screws and a rubber band and tape. I choose to paint ours so I needed paint.

Just screw the screws in evenly in a straight line. 

We used screws because the nail did not want to go in the pallet.
If you do that you are going to want to tape it really well. 

I painted it blue since this was for Cubscouts. 

Then I painted a runway. 

After our Launcher was completed we took a giant cardboard and cut out openings. But we decided we want to redo it using wood so it really last. (I will post pictures after we make it.)

Standing the cardboard up was tricky but it was worth it in the end. I did not take pictures of our folding because I was folding. 

 This turned into an all day project. Our neighbors even joined in on the fun. 

It has been way to long...

Things were all over the place for awhile and it got overwhelming but we are back and we are more organized and in a better place. 

                                                     

I want to start with we completed our first year homeschooling with Yasser and it was a long crazy year. We combined first grade with kindergarden because she was comfortable with kindergarden before the year even started. We are starting second grade this year. She is also bridging into Brownies with our girl scout troop. I am very proud of my little lady because she worked hard to earn all of the pins and patches she could. We are also in to works of losing our first two teeth!!! I really have no clue how I feel because it does not feel that long ago she was depending on me for everything.

                                                                        

Gill-G had huge changes in his life. For starters we have the official Autism diagnose but he also has apraxia with anxiety and horrible allergies. The good news to it all we were able to start putting together plans to help him work around stuff. Now we are in a much better place and starting to see the unusual child emerging. It is honestly nice to see. We finally got rid of our gross green blanket and don't spend day and night upset. We are starting Kindergarden this year after catching him doing his sisters school work for her ( he just turned 4 so I didn't want to push but he can do math in his head and basic reading). Lessons were learned and now we are in for a really great year. 

                                                                          

Hulk man well he is just Hulk man with more mysteries than answers but we have either been learning how to accept and deal with more or he is getting better. I really have no clue anymore. But we love him and plan on another great year except this time we with be keeping up with our blog. Even Justin agreed to start typing and writing more. My weekly schedule has a blog typing section blocked off every week :) Thank you everyone for not giving up on me and checking every so often.