A day in the life..

I just thought you might like a peek into a day in the life... at my Coop.  We love getting to learn together with our friends...


Marine Biology - photosynthesis experiment with aquatic plants -

Brain training with Balls -

Chocolate Creating with our Literature study -

Measuring out the real size of a giraffe for Science - 

Renaissance art class - with a personal twist - 

Learning about our personal strengths with our Honor Society!

And all that happened on the SAME day!  

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

We're back for another semester of learning!

My sweet literature class is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - of course, we HAD to make chocolate creations!

I finally found another use for those silicon cupcake holders - they make great chocolate holders too!

 I put out a variety of yummy "fillings" - marshmallows, chocolate chips, peanuts, M &M's and craisens.  My chocolate designers did the rest!

Next, we used my leftover chocolate bark from Christmas baking and poured it over the top.

 Once it hardened, we could easily pop them out and we had our very own - Wonka-style creations!

One of our yummest classes yet!

My favorite gift

I love my new birdhouses!

My dad took my license plates (yes, I kept them all...don't you?)  and turned them into adorable birdhouses!

Exactly what my fence needed...

Texas - I was super bummed that someone had stolen my license plate, until I realized that left me with one for my birdhouse...and I didn't have to move!

Arkansas- we spent 5 years in this beautiful state!  Even their license plates are natural!

Minnesota - the first 40 years of our lives!  I learned to drive on those frozen lakes!

On Pointe - again!

She's back on Pointe!  After taking a 2 year break to pursue other interests (like riding), she's back to her first love.

We are delighted to have found a serious dance studio, that also makes it possible for girls who love dance to do it, without needing to devote every.waking.moment to dance. Ballet moms, you know what I'm taking about.


The pointe shoe fitting comeback...

I love watching her dance!

Tacos and Trees

Tacos and trees, another Bentz tradition!

I just took the two college kids back after a wonderful break.  So, I'm feeling lonely and started looking through our pictures.

Have I told you about our family tradition of picking our our Christmas Tree, after going out for Tacos?  What else do you do in South Texas?

Here we are - my favorites all at one table!  The college boys do NOT let us get the tree until we get them home...I think it's more about the tacos for them!

They humor me every year....

NYE 2019

We are ready for 2018 to go... and we had the best surprise to begin 2019!

Our dear friends came from AR to help us celebrate, and our dear friends here in TX joined us!  It was a perfect blending of our worlds. 

The best way to start this brand new year...

These girls have grown up together - and distance doesn't make a difference!

Puzzle time... Jerry is our pro!

Goodwill shopping, of course!

Music Making together!

These boys!

New friends that feel like old friends!

The NYE bags had some surprizes this year...

This is how we roll....

The Mouse and The Motorcycle

One of my favorite books this year - The Mouse and the Motorcycle, by Beverly Cleary.  My sweet class of all girls loves crafts, so I always need a fun project to go with our book.  However, I realized this the night before class... I did not have a project ready!

After a quick search, I found some ideas that were fun, but didn't need many supplies or prep work.


We made adorable, and  super easy paper mice, and learned to draw with a YouTube video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSt_XSrQIFo

For the mice:

Just cut our a heart, fold in half, add a twine tail, some eyes and ears and you're done!  So easy to do, if you wait for the last minute...like me!

 It was so easy, and they loved it!