I Heart Faces/Black

  When God created a United States Marine, it was into the sixth day of overtime. An angel appeared and said, "You're having a lot of trouble with this one. What's wrong with the standard model?"
    And the Lord replied, "Have you seen the specs on this order? It has to be able to think independently, yet be able to take orders; have the qualities of both a military mind and a compassionate heart; be a leader of junior Marines and learn from seniors; run on black coffee; handle critical ops without a Military Procedure Manual; be able to manage a difficult subordinate, an irate supervisor and a demanding OIC; have the patience of a saint and six pairs of hands, not to mention the strength of three its size." The angel shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands - no way!"
    And the Lord answered, "Don't worry, we'll make other Marines to help. Besides, it's not the hands which are causing the problem. It's the heart. It must swell with pride when other Marines do well, sustain the incredible hardship of combat, beat on soundly when it's too tired to do so, and be strong enough to continue to carry on when he's given all he's had."
    "Lord," said the angel touching the Lord's sleeve gently, "Come to bed!"
    "I can't," said the Lord. "I'm so close to creating something unique. Already I have one who can complete a 26-mile forced march with full pack, handle a 9mm and an M16 with astounding accuracy, conduct land navigation in the dark, and operate field communications."
    The angel circled the model of the Marine very slowly. "It's too serious," she sighed.
    "But tough," said the Lord excitedly, "You cannot imagine what this Marine can do or endure."
    "Can it feel?" asked the angel.
    "Can it feel!" replied the Lord. "It loves the Corps and country like no other!"
    Finally the angel bent over and ran her finger across the Marine's cheek. "There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told you you're trying to put too much into this model."
    "That's not a leak," said the Lord. "That's a tear."
    "What's it for?" asked the angel.
    "It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, frustration, pain, loneliness and pride."
    "You're a genius!" exclaimed the angel.
    The Lord looked at her somberly and replied, "I didn't put it there."
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Throughout the world on 10 November, U.S. Marines celebrate the birth of their Corps -- the most loyal, most feared, most revered, and most professional fighting force the world has ever known.  Happy Birthday Marines!! 


Go check out the other awesome entries over at iheartfaces.com this week. 

Homeschool Unit: Bats!!

We just finished up our very first unit study on the book Stellaluna! The kids had a lot of fun and we all learned some really cool things. The unit study I used was a free one from Home school share. We added a few things and took a few things out that we thought wouldn't work for us. We kicked off the first day by reading Stellaluna and talking a little about bats, and creating our lapbook outline. If you haven't read Stellaluna to your kids, I recommend it.

 

It's about a fruit bat that gets seperated from his mother and ends up in a birds nest and the mother bird takes care of it. Stellaluna spends several weeks (months?) in the birds nest with his siblings (birds) feeling like he doesn't belong, until one day he is reunited with his species. It has a few elementary facts about bats that we expanded upon using other books such as The Truth About Bats from the Magic Schoolbus Series, we also used a book entitled Creatures of the Night and a couple of Animal Planet and Discovery Channel specials on bats and nocturnal creatures. 

Throughout the unit we created a lapbook about bats and nocturnal creatures. And even had a field trip to watch bats in nature. Here is what Zoe's lapbook looked like. (Keep in mind, I let my children do their own work on projects I don't "fix" it or make it look pretty, that's undermining for the child). Also Zoe has several reading/writing disabilities (due to her SPD and APD, and ADD) so it's not really reflective of a normal 3rd graders work. But she ROCKED this unit and would continue on with it if I didn't force her to move on, lol! I am pretty sure that she learned the most out of all of us!

Front Cover

What you find when you open up the first page..Nocturnal and Diurnal Animals, Predetor and Prey, Which Bat's use Echo locations, Vocabulary Words, geography lesson in where fruitbats reside and a listing of Carnivore, herbavore and Omnivore animals, Also Bat Anatomy

A few more flip books of different facts, some bat jokes and some pictures Zoe colored.

A descriptive sentence of the bats we saw in Phoenix.

And finally, livened the unit up with a trip to the Bat Cave in Phoenix, where we saw Mexican free-tailed bats fly out into the night. We also got to watch the birds of prey circle overhead for a few minutes before they came out! 

Waiting very impatiently for the bats to come out!

I didn't manage to capture more than a few at a time on camera, they flew out in twos and threes, and sometimes 5's. 

We definitely had a fun time on bats!

MyMemories Scrapbooking Software Review and GIVEAWAY!!- CLOSED!!!!

Recently I was contacted by Liz from MyMemories to do a review and giveaway of the Mymemories Suite. (MyMemories is a digital scrapbooking program and so much more) At first I was hesitant to agree to do a review, while I love taking pictures, I have never really been a big fan of scrapbooking. But,I thought, what better time to try it out than right before the holidays? So, with that in mind I sat down and messed around with the software. It was a little daunting at first, and I was just attempting to use the pre-designed templates included with the program. I almost gave up, but then I discovered the Mymemories blog that has tons of helpful information including video and PDF tutorials and project information. After watching only the Get Started video, I was able to make a few pages using the free templates and a quick pages Christmas pack that I purchased. The three photos below are of my most recent projects.I am certainly glad that I did not give up, and I look forward to using this program for preserving my memories and family photos!

Made using Holiday Snows, one of the included scrapbook templates

Made using Holiday Snows, one of the included scrapbook templates.

Made from a purchased quickpage pack.

The website is easy to navigate, has lots of freebies including pages, elements and word clusters and fun packs to purchase at reasonable prices. The pack I purchased included 8 quickpages for $3.50. What I thought was cool about it was, as a photoshop user, I can download the pages and elements to use right in Photoshop if I wish (or any other photo editing program).


This is the perfect time to take a look at the program with the holidays coming up, here are a few of the seasonal packs available for purchase click on the thumbnails to check them out:)

As a special for all of my readers from MyMemories.com, Mimimakes6 has it's very own coupon code that provides a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value!) Use the Code -STMMMS89948, and feel free to share it with your friends and family!

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And are you ready for the BEST part?? Mymemories is giving YOU a chance to win this fabulous software, heres the fineprint:

To enter the Giveaway you must:
 Go to www.mymemories.com and choose your favorite layout, or digital paper pack, then leave a comment on the blog telling me which one is your favorite and why.

For Extra entries:
1. Follow MyMemories on facebook and leave a comment here letting me know you did. (they also have a freebie for fans).

2.Sign up for the MyMemories Mailing list on their blog and leave a comment here, letting me know you did.

3. Share the link to this post on your facebook account, and comment here letting me know you did.

So, that's a total of FOUR entries per person! Good Luck! Contest ends October 24th at midnight. Winner will be chosen by random.org on October 25th.


And the winner is...............

Number 19 Rachel!! Congrats! Send an email to mimimakes6@gmail.com to claim your prize:)

FIELD TRIP!

I had the pleasure of volunteering for Zoe's first field trip as a 3rd grader. The class was learning about nutrition, which coincidentally, so am I. I am taking a class for fun at AWC. The class walked to the local Fry's grocery store to meet the lady who has been teaching them nutrition in class every week. The walk across fourth avenue was not my idea of fun with 17 3rd graders, but we survived. The kids were super excited before we went in the store. They paused long enough for me to take a photo:)

Zoe is really into learning about food and nutrition and since she has been doing this unit in class, she refuses to bring any snack into school that isn't a fruit or vegetable. She listened intently to the presentation and raised her hand to answer every question that was asked, and was right every single time!

They learned that when you eat broccoli you eat the stem and the flower of the plant, we even learned something new...that if you leave broccoli to ripen a little more, it grows white flowers where the green part is..

Although we didn't learn much about beans, the kids in our group decided to play in the big bin of pinto beans...shhhhh.... don't tell, this my friends is why it's important to wash your produce before you eat it.

They sent the kids on a scavenger hunt to find different fruits and veggies and to look for the "Arizona Grown" sign, no one ever found it though... but we did find fruits and veggies grown from all over the world.

The other groups were way bigger than ours, I am not sure why we only had three kids, but we won the scavenger hunt :) There were no prizes unfortunately, lol..

Mrs. Corona showing the kids how to find where produce is grown.

Fruit:)

I showed the kids a "horned melon" and they were impressed, the spikes on that thing were so sharp!

Adrian, some other kid, and Zoe..lol. They were so much fun!

The next part of the field trip was to find a good versus bad choice, we got Hi C fruit punch and 100% fruit Punch.

Then the kids had to compare the labels and find out which one was healthier and tell the class why it was the better choice.

They got canned fruit...one in juice, and the other in heavy syrup.

Mrs Coronas group got frozen food

After we did our presentation, the kids got to have a little snack of broccoli, carrots, tomatoes and ranch dip.

This field trip made me feel fortunate to be able to stay home with my children so I don't miss out on moments like this:) I loved watching Zoe learn and have fun in a school environment.

How to make cookies (Oatmeal Chocolate chip)

(Moving my old blog over to this new one:)

Step 1: mix all ingredients in a large bowl:

Step 2: Sneak some cookie dough while you think Mom isn't looking:

Step 3: Notice the camera looking at you and say in the sweetest voice, "Sorry Mommy".:

Step 4: Your dough should resemble this....IF you are making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that is..

Step 5: Drop by rounded teaspoonfulls onto an ungreased cookie sheet and place in oven:

Step 6: Let cool and place on plate:

Step 7: Enjoy the first cookie because you were such a good helper!

YUMMY!!!!!

And finally...Share the recipe because it was soo yummy!

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies:

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups quick-cooking oats
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in the quick oats, walnuts, and chocolate chips. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.
3. Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I Heart Faces: Pet Week

It's pet week over at iheartfaces.com. I couldn't resist taking this photo of Percival, my daughters 5 week old gerbil in my 3 year olds shoes.  Head on over to iheartfaces and check out more pet's this week!!

I Heart Faces: Beautiful Eyes

I Hope You Know

To My Son,
I hope you know how much I love you so,
I might embarrass you from time to time
By giving lots of love and needless kisses,
But you need to know Mom loves you so,
Before you were born I didn't know
just how much I would love you so,
But when I looked into your eyes for the first time,
I felt my heart grow and grow,
A Mothers love is hard to explain,
Not everyone will feel the same,
Now that you are getting older I felt the need to tell you,
Just how much I love you so,
Time may pass day after day or year after year,
But the love I have for you grows
nearer and dearer to my heart each day and year,
To My Son I hope you know just how much I love you so.
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This weeks theme over at I Heart Faces is Beautiful Eyes. All of my children have beautiful eyes...three sets of blue and one set of brown, my girls have had a million photos taken of them, but my little man always seems to escape my lens, so I was very proud that I captured this photo as he only sat still for about 30 seconds. I could stare into those baby blues all day, if he would just sit still:)

Head on over to iheartfaces.com to check out other amazing entries.

I Heart Faces: Friendship

I, who have no sisters or brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends.  ~James Boswell

This is a rare occasion in my house, with all four kids are playing happily together. My oldest set up a surprise "Black Tie" tea party for the little ones to enjoy. It was a fun moment in our summer that we will remember forever:) 


Head on over to iheartfaces.com and check out the other fabulous entries.