Another annual trip to Scottish Rite

Many of you know that our oldest daughter Rachael was an inch from death for about three weeks in December 2005/January 2006. She was in the ICU at Scottish Rite with a sudden and severe case of a rare blood disease called Hemolytic Anemia.

Many of you also know that 1) She is completely back to normal now; and 2) Every year in January we go back to visit the ICU, to bring lunch and talk with other families in the waiting room.

We went a few weeks ago, and here are the latest photos.

This is Rachael and Rebecca in the hallway between the actual PICU and the PICU waiting room. The big doors behind them lead to the "sleep room," where we spent many nights -- and, often, parts of the day, because we were up half the night.



This is the ICU, taken from the hallway. Her old room was the glass doors looking straight ahead.

I don't have much to say about this other than what I've already said here and here. So please go read those as well.

World of Coca-Cola trip

About a week ago I decided we needed to break out of our routine and do something fun and different.

When you're homeschooling, the term used for that is a "Field Trip."

The local children's museum was having a Curious George exhibit, and we decided to go first thing Friday morning.

I printed out directions. I packed a lunch. I got the kids excited.

Then on Friday morning, Robert said, "I just realized ... it's flu season ... the children's musuem is going to be a huge germfest. I don't think you should go."

And so much sobbing and shrieking and sulking and angry faces were heard and seen over breakfast.

However, I had a Good Mom Moment, and was able to think on my feet and come up with a Plan B:

We would visit the World of Coca-Cola Museum.

Even better -- we would ride MARTA to get there!




It turned out to be quite fun. Embarrassingly, I have only ridden MARTA once or twice before, and I rarely go downtown, so it was an experience for me as well. We arrived at one station, and then went home via a different station, so we got to pretend we were City People and did a fair amount of walking. We ate our lunch in the Olympic Park, near the fountain. It was fun.

Oh yeah, and then there was the Coke Museum ...

It was not bad. The kids enjoyed things like seeing the Coke Bear, the 4-D movie (well, it scared Benjamin, but the girls liked it), and the gift shop ... oh, and of course tasting all the different Cokes.

My favorite part (what a surprise) was watching all the commercials. Rebecca eventually -- and literally -- dragged me out of there.

And when flu season is over, we'll make plans to go to the children's museum.

Coupon Code for The Six O'Clock Scramble

I've already written in detail about The Six O'Clock Scramble here and here.

In about twenty minutes we're going to head to the grocery store and get ingredients for this week's meal plan, which includes Baked Flounder with Fruit Kabobs; Crunchy Chicken Fingers with Carrots and Dip; and Rigatoni with Tomato-Artichoke Sauce.

I just realized, however that if you subscribe to Six O'Clock Scramble and use coupon code GLJEN10773, you get $3 off your subscription. (And, I believe I get a free month added to my subscription.)

All the more reason to try it!

Benjamin, the red-nosed Tigger

The girls were putting on one of their shows, and made red noses for themselves while singing "Rudolph."

When they were done, Rebecca put the red nose on Benjamin, and Robert was smart enough to go get the camera.






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Sleeping kids

On Saturday, Robert and I went to a Christmas Party with people from Robert's office. We were out til about midnight, which is late for us!

When we got home, Robert went into the kids' bedrooms and took pictures of them.


Here's Rebecca, fast asleep ...



... and a sleeping Rachael ....



... and here's ... well, Benjamin not sleeping!

Homemade igloos

Remember when I said my goal was to do something "hands on" for every Five in a Row unit we do?

Well, we are just finished up The Very Last First Time, about an Inuit girl in the Arctic, and we made igloos!


Here's 6 year old Rebecca starting hers ...

This was pretty cool in its simplicity. We used those "Magic Nuudles," I think they're called. If I had planned ahead or was more of a packrat, we could have used regular packing peanuts. All you do is press each one against a wet paper towel, and then they stick together.



Even three year old Benjamin got in on it (although he had trouble making an actual igloo).


Here's 8 year old Rachael working intently ...


And the girls with their finished products!

Popcorn Letters!

Both girls have been enjoying doing some activities from a book I got called Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye.



Most of them are pencil and paper activities. For example, Rebecca likes doing one called "A Race of Words," where you have a category and she and I each make our own list, and then compare the two lists when we're finished. (The scoring works so that she will almost always win.)

When the list was "Things You See at Christmastime," Rebecca wrote:

SNOW
TREY
MAGR
GESUS
AGL
HRMONICA

When I asked her about the last one, she said, "Harmonica ... you know, what the Jewish people have."

Anyway, today we did something a little different and made "Popcorn Letters." Rebecca liked this a lot.

First I had her write the letters and numbers on a piece of paper. Then I circled the ones that she wrote backwards and wrote them on a piece of construction paper. She put glue on the letter, then popcorn.


She made both letters ...



... and numbers ...