Camera Ready Caroline

Todd had a good start to his week.  He earned his 5-gallon mug for his blood donations.  He typically donates plasma and/or platelets every couple of weeks, so he was pretty proud of his mug.  He got a free blanket, too, which he promptly took to his office where they keep the temperatures in the frigid zone.  

We arrived at church a little early for their mid-week activities.  The boys were able to go to the KSM because they give the teenagers a long hangout time before their lesson.  Caroline could not be dropped off early for her program, so we hung out in the parking lot and had a impromptu photoshoot.  Our camera has a cool portrait setting that blurs the background, so we used that to create the pictures.  She was having a lot of fun with all the poses, but her favorite by far was this first one:  

The following day we had CC.  Caroline is a creature of habit and she has worn her red Dude Perfect t-shirt to CC each week for over a year now.  Last week she presented on her moon light.  This week she read a paper about sloths to her class.  Always in red.  

At lunch we had a bit of commotion.  Kids were coming up to all the adults saying, "There's a snake.  There's a snake."  I looked and saw a group of kids circling around said snake.  That didn't seem like a good idea, so I walked over and quickly asked if it was venomous.  No one knew for certain, so we backed up and broke up the circle.  There was debate on what kind of snake it was, but the venomous cottonmouth and copperhead were high up in the list.  We watched it until it made its way under the curb.  If it was of the dangerous variety, that was the third venomous snake I've come in contact with in the past couple of years.  We had two coral snakes at Awana last year.   

At the end of the week, we hung out with friends at a new playground.  It was in a fancier neighborhood, so it was a pretty nice playground.  When these kids get together, they like to make obstacle courses and then time themselves to see whose can complete it the fastest.  They were a bit miffed when a group of teenagers came and hung out at the top of the slide making it impassable.  Our homeschool kids were wondering why those teenagers weren't in school.  Then, to change the whole situation, an afternoon storm blew in an hour earlier than expected.  Our friends graciously let us come over to play at their house for an hour and the kids had a lot of fun.  

The rain storm blew in much cooler weather.  By the weekend, it was cold.  Lows in the 30s, highs in the 50s.  To celebrate the cold, we had our first fire of the year.  And, because potty humor is still quite strong among the younger two, they warmed their lower cheeks by the fire. 

We had a warm night inside.  Todd introduced them to The Karate Kid.  Then Josiah beat us in a game of Clue.   

Caroline has had a busy weekend working on a few projects.  She bought and filled up all the things for her Operation Christmas Child Shoebox.  Then she spent much of this afternoon working on a project for Essentials.  She was tasked to display an Essentials chart and she chose to do the Preposition chart using an arcade game.  We made the shell, but now need to add the Mario Bros screen with all the prepositions added.  Mario hits the bricks above his head, he drops down the pipe, he jumps over the piranha plant, etc.  

Henry and Caroline have one last week of CC for the semester.  They're looking forward the cupcake party that awaits them.  Josiah is still going full speed in his program.  No rest for the 8th graders just yet.  His main goal is to complete all the work necessary to keep his Thanksgiving week free.