Thru the Eyes of a Friend

This week we attended the Dallas Jewish Community Center for the performance of Thru the Eyes of a Friend. It was a portrait of friendship and survival brought to life through the eyes of Anne Frank's best friend. Anne’s story is retold from the viewpoint of a composite character using actual historical images and photographs.

.It was an unbelievably sad production, but it allowed kids and parents to empathize with the pain, loss and hope of families during the Holocaust. It is horrifying to think people could be so cruel.

Mary Kay Manufacturing Tour

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You never know where those home school field trip will take us. We’ve toured everything from the ACME brick plant, Mrs. Baird’s Bread even the U.S. Treasury! Today’s tour was, drum roll please, the Mary Kay Manufacturing Plant. Very cool, we were permitted to see where products are measure, mixed, texted, and packaged. Our tour guide was one of their many scientists who answered multiple questions for the children. We had a large enough group of kids that we were able to tour in two separate groups. Believe it or not the boy’s tour ended almost a half hour before the girls!

Texas Hall of State

Our homeschool friends toured the Texas Hall of State, it is a beautiful home to Texas history. It was built in 1936 for the Centennial of the Republic of Texas and opened at the World’s Fair. It is a wonderful representation of art deco architecture in Texas. It is filled with art, artifacts and a wonderful library all dedicated to fascinating times in Texas history.

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The Great Hall is similar to a cathedral, we were told that when Elizabeth II, the Queen of England, visited the Hall of State in May 1991. In a speech, she recalled the old story of a West Texas rancher giving his son advice. "Son," said the man, "Never ask a man where he is from. If he is from Texas, he will tell you. If he's not, it isn't polite to embarrass him by asking."
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The Hall of State is the Hall of Heroes, which features six bronze statues of James Fannin, Mirabeau B. Lamar, Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, Thomas Jefferson Rusk and William B. Travis.
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If you live in the Dallas area, be sure to visit the Texas Hall of State!

Glorious Flakes

Lots of beautiful flakes! To the delight of the kids, we enjoyed lovely flakes! The kids were able to build a snow man, complete with coal eyes from the fire pit earlier this week. Usually in the afternoons we ride bikes for 3 miles, needless to say, we won't be breaking out the bikes today!

Family Time

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For Christmas this year, my Mom gave Jon this great fire pit. The other night I came home to find the Jon and the kiddos reading in the back yard around the fire.

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Every night Jon reads to the children for an hour or so, they are currently working on the Return of the King. It was cute, Jon had a flash light and they were having a great time.

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Later I broke out the marshmallows to their delight! Thanks Mom, we love it!

Happy New Year from Museum of Nature and Science

New Years Eve we stayed up playing boards games and ringing in the new year together. With the weather being too rough to head to Tulsa, we had to make other plans for today. There aren't many days that Jon is home with us for field trips so it is always a great treat to have him along. We visited the Museum of Nature and Science for their Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit. They have re-created life like animatronic dinosaurs. It was a good exhibit, however it was filled with evolution world views.

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The museums general exhibit it fantastic. They have wonderful exhibits including the human body, Understanding DNA and a thermal recognition exhibit. The museum is located in Fair Park and is just one of the great museums in that area.

Camo Girl

Several of Abigail's birthday gifts included camo shirts and pants. Her favorite color has always been green and she loves all things camo. Santa filled Abigail's stocking with several shades of green polish. With a little creativity I did my best to make her nails camo too! The picture on the right is my favorite picture of Abigail in camo, so sweet and with a bow in her hair, too!!!!

Lisa's Birthday

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Yesterday was Abigail's day and today is my birthday. Jon and the kids served me pancakes and presents in bed. Your day just can't be bad if it starts off with pancakes an presents!! Every card is read out loud and the kids delight in the silly games they play to disguise what is inside! For those of you who think opening presents at five in the morning is crazy, your probably right.

Abigail's Birthday

The baby turns 10! The kids birthday are always so sentimental. I love the fun of breakfast in bed while they open their gifts. With each year I am struck by how quickly time flies. Frankie was 16 when Abigail was born and now Abigail is ten years old! I remember while I was pregnant with Abigail I just could not imagine what a third child would bring to our family dynamics. And now I can't begin to imagine what the last 10 years would have been like without her!

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She looks so much like Jon and is very much my personality, (good an bad), but is also very uniquely herself. She knows who she is. She is not shy. She has a quick wit, and can find humor in virtually every situation. Happy Birthday baby girl, Mommy loves you and hopes you had a wonderful day!

Gnomeo & Juliet

The day after Christmas is usually 'movie night' for our extended family. This year we choose "The Last Dawn Treader," the most recent in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia movies. We were barely in the lobby when we saw our next movie selection, Gnomeo & Juliet!

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If you read the blog for anytime at all you have met Cedric, our traveling gnome. Then of course there have been random gnomes that have just appeared in our yard, luggage, and vacation spots, usually with the help of the Gungans and Uncle David! The movie will be a take off of Shakespeare classic tale. In this case, the embattled families are the blue hats and the red hats.

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The kids, including the large instigator, couldn't resist posing by the poster!