The Spunkettes

Hey all!  It’s been awhile since I posted and I just wanted to let you know that I started this blog…

Knitting Girlie 

For all of you who don’t know…I love knitting!  So…go check it out today!

Elizabeth

Cucumbers we picked

Cherry Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Wild tomato plant 1

The Flower garden where more wild tomato plants are growing.

Some sort of another tomato plant

Some sort of another tomato plant

Some sort of another tomato plant

Cucumbers

Cherry Tomatoes

I hope you enjoyed all the pic’s
Fyi: we are still getting lots of vegetables from our garden.

Katie

Happy Birthday to the Princess Elaina!

Elaina turned 4 on September 19! I will post pictures as soon as i get them uploaded.

Happy Birthday Elaina

Katie

” The hour is fas approaching, on which the Honor an Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are freemen, fighting for the blessing of Liberty–that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men.”–George Washington

Katie

My talk today will be about Charles Martel. He lived from 686-741 and lived in the Frankish territory. To understand why Charles is significant in Medieval history we have to look a generation back and talk about his father Pepin the Great.

Charles Martel’s father Pepin was Mayor of the Palace to the King (also know as Kings of Do nothing) The “do nothing Kings” were kings who sat around all day and partied and got drunk. they would take the name as a King but were not like really Kings they would have a Mayor of the palace make all the decisions for them and all the battle planning.Every year Pepin would parade the King through the streets but that was only once a year for the rest of the year the people would not see the king.

During that time Charles was born on August 23 686 AD. When Pepin died in 714 AD, Charles took the Pepin place. While he was Mayor he fought many wars including the most famous one which most of us know about, Called the War between the Saracens. The Saracens are a group of people who are Muslims. They became Muslims When Mohammad the Great created the Religion Islam because he did not fully agree with Christianity nor Judaism. Who came across the Pyrenees from Spain and invaded the land of the Franks intending to establish Islam there. Their army was led by Abd-er-Rahman the Saracen Governor of Spain. In October of 732 for six day there were only little skirmishes but on the seventh day there was a huge battle, during the battle Abd-er-Rahman was killed that ended the battle, but the Franks came out to the field the next day thy found that the Saracens had fled and left all their plunder (their riches). It was decided that after the battle that was declared that Christianity was the main Religion of Western Europe not Islam. Though the Saracens fled from the battlefield of Tours, they did not leave the land of the Franks. Charles had to fight other battles with them before the were finally defeated. After the Battle with the Saracens Charles was looked upon as the Great Champion of History. Charles did not actually start out with the last name Martel, the last name Martel was given to Charles after the battle of the Tours. The last name Martel (of in French pronounced Mar-to) means “Hammer” and that is how Charles got the name
Hammer. To the day of his death, in 741, he was in reality, though not in name, the King of the Franks.

After Charles Martel died on October 22, 741 his son Pepin (also know as Pepin the Short) succeeded him. Pepin the Short took Charles place as place mayor, just as Charles did to his father Pepin the first. After being mayor for a few years, Pepin asked several of his fellow men to go to the Pope in Italy and ask him who should be the King? The person with the name of the person with all the power and authority? The Pope said why the person with all the power and authority. So Pepin was crowed King on Christmas Day 751 and anointed with oil by the Pope in 754.

Pepin died in 768. And Charlemagne the Great succeeded him.

I will also be posting more of theese as the weeks and months go on.

Katie

Video Games that Keep Kids in Shape

Intro: Video games and their use are controversial in many different homes. They’re most commonly used for exercise, education and entertainment. The idea of using video game as exercise caught my attention while reading Time Magazine this past week. This article title caught my eye “Video games help keep kids in shape.” According to the article, 17% of US children are overweight. Can video games help keep kids in from becoming obese which ?

According to Dr. John Ratey, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of Spark, an upcoming book about exercise said, “Physical education used to be a joke, That has changed simply because we are catching up with the gamer generation.” Video games are not just for the home anymore. Gym teachers are using them to help teach in the public schools. Some of the games being used are bike racing, weight lifting, bench press and leg lifts. For example, Kim Mason, a phys-ed director in Rogers, Ark persuaded her public-school district to invest $35,000 in brand-new video-game equipment. Mason is not alone, 35 states and over 2000 school have set up fitness centers where the children use not just their thumbs but their whole bodies in exercise while playing the games. Many people believe that the games trick children into the exercises habit, hopefully life long helping to curb obesity.

“Alasdair Thin, a researcher of human physiology at Heroit-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, found that college students burned twice as many calories playing an active video game in which they dodged and kicked for 30 minutes as they did walking on a treadmill. Studies have not yet shown how the new games measure up against a real session of, say, soccer.
But while gym teachers claim that it is effective, there are critics who believe there is a downside to children using video games for exercise.

Namely, that the children will become bored and the games are expensive.

“Video games are not the answer,” says Warren Gendel, founder of Fitwize 4 Kids, a chain of traditional children’s gyms. “Kids will get bored and be back on the couch.”

The cost for a video game system in the school is 4,000 per unit or you could spend $5 per unit for a traditional kick ball. Further, the video game has only one use, the kick ball can be used for many different sports and exercise activities.

I would rater go outside and ride my bike then sit in front of a TV and play Video games. And while there might be short term benefits but long term it will not fix obesity.

I will be posting more of thees as the months go no.

Katie