weekly wrap up 1/26/18 Sweet Sixteen, ancient China, and loom knitting

Happy Sweet Sixteen to our amazing daughter!  Can't believe how fast time flies and the thought of you growing up is bitter sweet.  We adore you and love you tremendously.

My beautiful girl:)

This year Firedrake wanted to go to the Melting Pot for her Birthday dinner!  We don't have birthday parties (haven't since the kids were very little)  Instead the kids get to choose a family outing such as going to a fancy dinner, a play, a concert or other event.  We usually keep it to just family but this year we surprised Firedrake by inviting her friend and mother to join us for dinner.  Then the girls had a sleep over.

Don't worry she got a bigger cake at home:)--Red velvet her favorite!

MarioFan is working on Ancient China in our history lessons.  My parents went to China several years ago and were able to tour the great emperors tomb.  I brought out the items my parents gave us and we took a look at the various terra cotta soldiers .

tried to identify what was what based on the book we have

information provided in the box in Chinese and English

we read a tourist guide about the site and everything that was found on the site. 

Emperor Shi was great ruler in that he brought China into one empire and made many great changes to the country.  However he was a ruthless ruler and was quite cruel to the Chinese people.  MarioFan and I like to discuss these situations.  Should a person in history be remember only for the good they do or should people also remember that they were flawed individuals and sometimes cruel.  Most history books only discuss their greatness forgetting to mentioning the flawed characteristics.  We also found a great documentary on Nova about the terra cotta warriors that we watched:)  Next up to learn about the Great Wall and why that was built and how it was built.  If you know of a good documentary on this topic, let me know as I am looking for one now.



I have been learning how to loom knit and made my first mitten and learned how to pearl knit on a round loom.  Next up is to learn how to loom knit socks and then I will be a step closer to my goal of being able to knit hat, scarves, gloves and socks to donate to the homeless shelters.

There are a few mistakes but I am pleased with how it turned out and it is very warm.  Just need to keep practicing :)  the blue mitten shows pearl knitting whereas the red below is just your standard loom knit. 

I am still not great on gauging the thumb it is either too big or too small:)  

Seems like not much going on this week but I can assure you I am running around like crazy and we are all working hard on our lessons:)