Camp 2009

We got to go up to Camp for the first time in 8 years and bring Olivia and Gabe for their first visits. For those of y'all who don't know, my (Jeremy's) mother's family owns a cabin on a lake in way upstate NY. If you want go somewhere remote, this is the place. No cell phones (except for Jeff's for some reason...), no TV, no internet. you have to take a boat to the house because there aren't any roads around the lake. Our power is primarily solar cells and car batteries. Heat (which is necessary in the summer sometimes) is a wood burning stove. I can't think of a more relaxing place to go on vacation. You just have to decide whether you want to fish, hike, nap, read a book, play cards or do a puzzle. There's really nothing else to do. For a satellite photo, click here.

Here are some pics of the trip.

Fenton's Camp

Foggy Morning

Aunt Joan Welch
my godmother and the matriarch of the Fenton clan

Daddy and Olivia spending some quality time fishing.

Climbing Owl's Head Mountain

The climb even tuckered out Gabe.

"Hmm... I know I put that lid around here somewhere..."

Gabe trying on hats.

Nana taking the girls out for a canoe ride.

Olivia and her cousin, Kira, feeding the ducks. By the end of the week we had learned that we were not supposed to be feeding them, as it could make them sick.

Gabe being his usual happy self. He wouldn't sit still for long on that toy. The kid has a wild urge to move all over.

Olivia doing her best Elvis impersonation. She was a dancing fool all over the boat.

Gabe seemed to spend most of the trip strapped to mommy. When he saw the Baby Bjorn, he went nuts.

It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Olivia contemplating the waves.

Olivia's Big Show

Olivia Had her Little Gym Big Show a couple of weeks ago. She has such a great time going to dance class and gymnastics. They practice a routine all season and show off on the last day. Here are the highlights from this last season.


The Tap Routine

The Ballet Routine



The Uneven Bars



The Balance Beam



The Medal Ceremony

Spring is here! lapbook

We finally finished Olivia's spring lapbook. To talk about Spring we started taking walks outside and looking at the signs of spring time. She came to really enjoy our walks especially when we went back into the woods. We used our senses to tell us that it was spring time, like hearing birds, seeing leaves on the trees, and feeling the warmer air and the wind. Then we checked out tons of books from the library. I don't remember where I got all the little books and such for this lapbook. I know that a lot of them came from enchanted learning. We covered the months that are considered spring, our Bible verse (Gensis 1:11-12), strawberries (since we went strawberry picking), the basic parts of a tree and a flowering plant, sequencing how a seed grows, weather, frogs, and a little about birds. This lapbook included a second folder making a pocket on the back to hold our extra worksheets.

Singing in the Rain

We have been getting a lot of rain. Olivia wanted to "splash in the puddles" so we put on her rain gear and went outside. She mostly stood there twirling her umbrella.

Strawberry Picking

I remember going Strawberry picking every May as a youth. It was a really fun and yummy experience as we got to eat and then pick a bucket to take home. This year I took Olivia strawberry picking for the first time. She was definitely more into eating them than looking for the really red ones to pick.

Gabe eating

Spring Time

Spring is such an amazing time of year for new growth, new life, and new beginnings. Our new home has an amazing backyard. One of my favorite trees is the Dogwood with its blooms. Also I really like tulips and there are some of those growing right by my driveway. It will be really fun to watch this next year to see all the things that Ester had planted in the yard. Thank you God for this beautiful earth that sings your praises and points me back to a God who cares for me so much. Indescribable by Chris Tomlin.

Gabe sitting up

Well, almost...he fell over right after we snapped the picture. :)

Gabe "reading"

Gabe is enjoying anything he can touch. Of course, its the best if he can put it in his mouth too. :) The book makes scrunchy noises and has all kinds of textures. He enjoys it a lot. He also has a book of other baby's faces that he loves to squeal at.

Easter Activities

This is Olivia with Resurrection Eggs. We used these all week to learn the Easter Story. She got to make her own set too.

Olivia is coloring her Lent Tree. This was an activity that my friend found online. It had suggested activities for each day of Lent. For example, we did some lamb and butterfly crafts, sang hymns or praise songs, made cards and meal for others, baked hot cross buns, read books and watched a video, burned white candles, and then some of the harder ones were giving up something or doing something hard. Each day after we did the activities, she go to color the fruit on her tree.


We had Easter dinner with our friends, the Sorgius family. Before dinner was an easter egg hunt. This was lots more fun than the one we did last week. I think we will stick to this size hunt for a few years to come.

Olivia and I had a great time dyeing her easter eggs. I didn't get any pictures of the process as I was too busy helping her so we didn't make a mess. We did some glitter eggs and then she drew on others with a crayon before we dyed them.

Easter Egg hunt or "Mayhem"

Can you find Olivia?

Upside down

Orchestra Lapbook

This was our lapbook for our study of the orchestra. Mrs. Kim, at our homeschool co-op, did a lesson on the orchestra about a month ago. At home, Olivia and I expanded on it. The instruments on the front were some of her favorites. She got to see a violin and a flute, i believe, at the co-op, she wants to play the harp (oh boy, could she have picked a larger, more expense and more complicated instrument?), she got to buzz on the mouthpiece of daddy's french horn (otherwise it doesn't work), and of course, she likes the drums.

This was our bible verse that we memorized. A nice side effect of teaching Olivia memory verses and saying them over and over has been that I am also learning them. I was never good at or very disciplined in this before. God gave us music and the reason we have music is to give praise to God. The pictures below are some of the books we read as well as a DVD we watched. We also used the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Kids website a lot because you can listen to most of the instruments individually.

We talked about what an orchestra was, who the conductor was and what he did.


We talked about how a composer creates music. We listened to Saint-Saens' "The Carnival of the Animals". We talked about the particular instruments used to represent each animal. Jeremy joined in to lead this part of our study. Olivia really enjoyed this activity. We also listened to parts of Handel's Messiah. This was done not only as a part of the orchestra study but also as a part of our lent activities. My friend referred me to a great website that had activities to do for each day of lent. Each day Olivia opens an Easter egg with an activity in it. I may post more about that later. One of them was to listen to Handel's Messiah. So I rigged it so that she would draw that activity around the same time we were doing this lapbook.


We identified the families of instruments in the orchestra. This is where we listened to each instrument individually. There are flash cards for the instruments we talked about in these pockets.

Here is the animals and instruments for "The Carnival of the Animals".

We talked about how the musicians sit with their instruments in an orchestra. This chart was from co-op where the exercise was to color the instrument group as it was heard. When we are riding in the car and listening to music, Olivia will often tell us what instruments she hears playing or ask if she doesn't know. We heard a fiddle song in the car tonight and she said it sounded like a violin. We also went to see the "Word of Life German Brass ensemble" at church tonight. They were playing trumpets and trombones. There was so much more we could have done with this study. I can't wait to build on it at a later time. Some instruments we always have with us like our hands and our voices. We have also been learning some musical terms like adagio (slow), allegro (fast), piano (soft), and forte (loud) as she plays her toy instruments at home. We use all kinds of music for this including some of the Kindermusik CDs we have from when we took those classes together last year. Jeremy is also starting to work on some finger exercises with her in hopes of teaching her piano before long. We will be learning right along with her if we are able to do this.

Here is the Sarine garage band! Olivia is holding her homemade drum and string instrument. She made this at co-op. Gabe has his drum that he is learning how to bang on. He uses both hands and feet. Olivia has a great time "making music" with her brother. She also likes to assign me an instrument to play with them.