|
It really does feel like it was yesterday that we were in the hospital staring at our beautiful new baby girl. I look at her and wonder how 10 years have passed so quickly. I'm so proud of the young lady she is becoming but so sad to see her get older each and every year. This birthday has to be the hardest birthday. It's double digits from here on out. Happy Birthday Madeline! We love you!
|
|
Wow did we get a lot of snow today. It is beautiful! As we were heading home from gym and swim I thought it would be a perfect day to take school outside. Meike has been reading Snowflake Bentley and we had made a weather gage to track the amount of snow or rain fall. We were both excited to see how much snow had fallen today. We got 8 inches already today! One of our favorite things to do when there is snow is to put the slide up on the porch steps and slide down. How can we make this more interesting? We took a tape measure and measured how far we could slide. We all went down several times, myself included, to see how far we could go. It was also interesting to note that Zoe went the farthest on one of the last runs. After our fun time out side, there is nothing like a nice mug of hot chocolate. We dressed it up a little today with some whipped cream and the girls thought cinnamon would be awesome on it. I personally declined the cinnamon.   |
This week we made journal jars. The girls needed some added incentive to start writing in their journals. I did a little searching online and found these Journal Questions that were perfect. I printed off the questions and the girls cut them into strips. We took some mason jars and decorated them and put the journals question strips in the jars. Everyday they choose one strip for their journal entry. They turned out really cute and the girls were very excited to have their own jars and I was able to use some of my scrapbooking supplies that are just sitting around lately.    And here is a composition notebook I altered. I think I'm going to add my name to it to finish it off. I'm using this as a prayer journal.  |
|
Snow, snow, snow!!!! We might not be getting the most snow but we have a good amount. Daddy took all 3 girls outside to play and this is what they did while I stayed inside all nice and warm and Jaxon napped.      |
|
Madeline and Meike were given a special book on Thursday from their swim teacher. She presented all the kids with new books and the girls were given The Legend of the Candy Cane to share. Madeline was so excited she came running to show me. I hadn't had a chance to read the book yet and so today I thought it would be fun to make candy cane cookies and eat them while we read this beautiful book. Madeline always enjoys baking with me so I asked her if she would like to make them and together. We immediately went to work. They turned out really cute and tasted very good.
Candy Cane Cookies 1/3-cup finely crushed peppermint candy 1/3-cup sugar 1/2- cup shortening 1/2- cup butter or margarine, softened 1 cup sifted powdered sugar 1 egg, lightly beaten 1-teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon almond extract 2-1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1-teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon red food coloring Combine candy and 1/3 cup sugar in a small mixing bowl, mixing well. Set aside. Cream shortening and butter in a large mixing bowl; gradually add 1 cup sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg; beat well. Stir in flavoring. Add flour and salt; mix well. Divide dough in half; tint half of dough with food coloring. Shape tinted and plain dough by teaspoonfuls into 4-1/2-inch rolls on a lightly floured surface. Place a tinted and a plain roll side by side; carefully twist together. Curve one end down to resemble a cane. Repeat procedure with remaining dough. Place cookies on ungreased cookie sheets; bake 375 for 9 minutes or just until edges begin to brown. Remove cookies from cookie sheets while warm; immediately coat with reserved candy mixture. Cool completely on wire racks. yields about 4 dozen. (we only made about 2 dozen) |
|
The girls and I did Who Is Jesus? project pack the past 2 weeks to celebrate Christmas. It's amazing how many distractions we had every time we sat down to work on. The phone never rings but it did every time we worked on it. Zoe had more accidents when we first started that I can't even tell how many and Jaxon was either loud or crying for something. We finished it today and I have to say it was a rewarding experience. I have been going to church since I was very little and I have read the bible almost all the way through but reading it out loud to my children was a rewarding experience. I enjoyed reading about his birth to resurection in all the gospels. I know the girls got a lot out of it and even Zoe sat and listened to the stories. Here are a few pictures from our project.
Maddy's Meike's |
|
Maddy requested we decorate a gingerbread house so today we set some time aside. The girls had fun decorating it while the littly guy took his nap! Zoe was more interested in licking the icing. She wanted to eat the candy after it was decorated. Right now she is at the table staring at it and if I wasn't looking, she would probably try to eat one of the candies. It's just too much a temptation!
     |
|
My father watched the kids today so I could go Christmas shopping! I gave the girls their work for the day and this is how I found Maddy before we left!
As for the shopping, it was so nice to get out of the house and not have to deal with car seats, coats and trying to keep the kids safe in parking lots. I even parked as far away from the store just because I could! God really blessed me today and I thank God for my wonerful father that was willing to watch my kids for 8+ hours. |
| ||
|
I knew today would come but did it have to come so soon? It seems like just yesterday we were at the hospital gazing into J's beautiful eyes and enjoying the wonderment of having a little boy for the first time. Now he is walking and talking little words and getting into as much trouble as he can. I have even watched Zoe encourage him to help her get into trouble. Those two are going to keep me on my toes for sure.
   |
|
I have been leery about leaving our house during the day because I fear someone will stop us and ask why the girls are not in school. A silly think to keep us inside but it has. Finally on Friday I got up the courage and we finally went on our first nature walk and boy was it a cold, cold windy day. We decided to walk down the road to the pond to watch the geese and see the leaves that are changing. We all put our coats on and we put J in the double stroller, handed each girl a brown lunch size paper bag and took off. Z was immediately excited to put everything in her bag. She loved the leaves and we talked about the different colors. We watch the leaves move as the wind blew and noticed the different color leaves. Z started slowing down a bit too much with the cold wind that I picked her up and carried her. She looked at me and she had these tears streaming down her face from the wind. I told her she had tears in her eyes and she asked why. It was fascinating to her that her eyes would water even though she was not crying and she kept talking about it. Even today, if you ask her about what she saw, she will tell you her eyes were watering. We made it down to pond to see the geese. We didn't stay long because the older girls were a little afraid of the geese, especially when they were chasing one another. I personally was in awe. It was so cold and yet they were swimming or walking on the ground near the pond. It's just amazing to see how God created them. |
|
My husband and I share a love for fall. It is just our favorite season. Maybe it's the colors, the smell or perhaps even the memories of the time we shared at fall camp every year with our church. Either way, we want our children to share our love and to share their own memories as they grow up. A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to visit a farm with the local homeschool group. We spent a little time learning about the history of the farm, learning about different types of apples, and how to pick an apple before going on a hayride into the orchard to pick apples and pumpkins. It was so much fun to see the kids faces as they tried deciding which pumpkin they wanted to pick or which apples they wanted. We were each allowed to pick one pumpkin big enough to carry, 5 apples to take home and 1 to eat. I have never seen Z eat an entire apple but she did and then proceeded to eat another one. We bought more apples to bring home and make applesauce and apple crisp. There is nothing better than homemade applesauce or even apple crisp. I wanted to make a pie but I never did find the time. Hopefully soon we will be able to but I will need to buy more apples.   |
|
My baby realized today he is able to walk. It's amazing the emotions you feel as you watch your little one try to walk across the room. I was so excited and sad all at the same time. I watched him this morning in church watch the other children run, walk and dance. It almost looked like he was watching them more intensely as if he knew he could do the same. I love watching the excitement as he realizes that he could indeed walk but there was the sadness that this is the very last time I will watch any of my children walk for the first time. |
|
My oldest daughter was caught lying recently. It's not the first time. She is a perfectionist and it is so hard for her to admit when she has done something wrong. Since explaining why we shouldn't lie was not working, I knew we need to take a new approach. After talking to my husband and praying, I pulled out Creative Corrections. None of the suggestions seemed to be what I was looking for so I turned to the page with the list of scriptures. Immediately I had an idea. I jotted down the 5 scriptures and told my daughter she needed to look them up and copy them into her journal. I figured she would copy them and that would be it. She decided to go into my bedroom to copy them and all of a sudden I hear her sobbing in there. I go in and she just told me how terrible she felt because God did not want her to lie. We were able to talk about the scriptures and about God's forgiveness. I know God answered my prayers that day. Even tonight I noticed she was given a choice to lie and she choose to tell the truth. I was so proud of her for telling the truth even though she knew she did not want us to know. |
|
My oldest daughter has had a difficult transition from public school to home schooling. It has made it difficult at times, especially when she starts having an attitude or a melt down. We have told her that home schooling has its advantages but I don't think she knew what we were talking about until last week. My husband had training in PA last week. At first I was upset about him being away for a week but he suggested we go with him. It hadn't even occurred to me that we would be able to. With much prayer and little uncertainty we left for 6 days for the first time with our family of 6. There were a lot of what if's but it everything worked out perfectly. Well, almost. A little more sleep would have been nice but I won't complain. On our 5 day there my oldest daughter just said casually during breakfast that home schooling rocks. She was having so much fun being away and she never would have been able to if she were in public school. You will never know how much that meant for me to hear those words. |
|
It's funny how your day can change with a phone call at about 10am. I was hoping to take the kids to the park today and enjoy the record-breaking temperatures but instead I answered the phone. It was the Realtor's office calling to see if we can show the house between 2 pm and 3 pm. We have had our house on the market for 18 months, 13 of which we tried FSBO. Our family is growing out of our house and we really do need a bigger house. I dislike the process of selling our house. I pray every time that this will be the last time we have to rush around trying to cram things in the closets and make the house beautiful. I love my house, especially for the memories of brining each of our babies home from the hospital and all of their firsts' and I would hate to leave it behind but I know too that we need room. Our house is small and the clutter is hard to control. I knew we couldn't say no to this showing but I did not want to clean it. We leapt into action and immediately started cleaning as fast as we could. In the end we had 30 min or less before a sweet young woman looked at it. It ended up being one of the most relaxing showings we have had thus far. I have no idea if she will buy it but I do know it is in God's hands and if it doesn't, than he has a reason to keep us here longer. I just wish I knew. |
|
I have been having fun homeschooling the girls but I'm still fighting with attitudes from one of my daughters or the other on a daily basis. Thankfully, it hasn't been both at the same time or else we would certainly have a battle on our hands. I know it's an adjustment for all of us but I see the potential homeschooling can be in all of our lives. This morning Madeline asked if they could wear the pj's while we school today and after if they could have popcorn and a movie. How could I possible say no to her request? We started our morning off with prayer and bible and we sat around the kitchen table drinking Stash's pumpkin pie spice tea Today seemed like a good day to make our own Roxaboxen. I handed the girls a bunch of boxes and they went to work. Zoe was the mayor and their bedroom was jail. Madeline made flags for everyone and they set up the boxes the way they wanted their town. I'm hoping we will have an opportunity to expand upon this later this week or next. In the afternoon, the girls all watch the 1971 movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while enjoying a big bowl of popcorn. I hope today will be one of many fond memories of homeschooling. |
(yum) while I read a few more chapters of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. (I have to admit I have never read this book and since we love the movie, it was a perfect book to start our read aloud.) We then did math and spelling and then used Roxaboxen to talk about the physical elements of the four seasons.|
Maddy: Five in a Row Volume 4 Saxon Math 5/4 Explode the Code 8 Beyond the Code 1 Natural Speller Meike: Five in a Row Volume 4 Lifpac Math grade 2 Explode the Code 4 Beyond the Code 1 Natural Speller Five in a Row Schedule August: Cowboy Charlie by Jeanette Winter September: Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Diane Arnold October: The Raft by Jim LaMarche The Hatmaker’s Sign Retold by Candace Fleming November: The Hickory Chair by Lisa Rowe Fraustino December: Mailing May by Michael O. Tunnell January: Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin Hanna’s Cold Winter by Trish Marx February: Grass Sandals by Dawnine Spivak Albert by Donna Jo Napoli March: Angelo by David Macaulay Higgins Bend Song and Dance by Jacqueline Briggs Martin April: The Gullywasher by Joyce Rossi Arabella by Wendy Orr |
|
Last week we finished Cowboy Charlie Jeanette Winter. The girls learned about Missouri, Montana and where to find them on the map. We talked about the Wild West and what Charlie saw when he made it to Montana. They learned about biographies and we spent some time at the library; locating the section of biographies. We borrowed Songs of the Wild West with Commentary by Alan Axelrod and Arrangements by Dan Fox from the library and we were able to find some painting Charles Russell painted in the book. All three of the girls enjoyed using watercolors to paint. They painted on an envelope just like Cowboy Charlie did in the story. On another day we used clay to model figures of animals. We made Cowboy beans and biscuits and we made apple pandowdy instead of peach (since the girls preferred apple) for dinner one night. We spent time online looking up information about National Parks and found a website about Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. We talked about falling stars and I was a bit upset that we missed the meteor shower a few weeks ago. If I had realized it, we would have made sure to see it. Luckily, Maddy remembered watching a meteor shower a few years back. The favorite part of Cowboy Charlie was the art lessons. All three girls loved painting and modeling the clay. Zoe had to show Grammy the clay animals when she stopped by. Although Maddy said she didn't like the story, I think she really did enjoy the book. Our next book will be Roxaboxen.   |
|
We have started off on a new adventure in our family. The decision to homeschooling our children seemed like a hard decision but it really wasn't. Everything has fallen into place so far. |