Master Homeschool Schedule-3rd grade
(with links at the bottom)

Monday

Bible: Rod & Staff: God Chooses a Family
Bible Memory : Awana
Grammar: Rod & Staff English (supplement as needed with Easy Grammar and T4L)
Handwriting: Beginning Cursive
Math: Singapore (supplement with math games and T4L)
History: Biblioplan for Ancient History
Music: The Story of the Orchestra/composer of the month study
Vision Therapy: vision therapy cards and Building Thinking Skills software
Keyboarding: Individualized Keyboarding
Read Aloud: go along with Biblioplan History
Independent Reading: 30 minutes a day

Tuesday

Apologetics: Answers in Genesis: Answers for Kids series
Bible Memory: Awana
Grammar: Rod & Staff English (supplement as needed with Easy Grammar and T4L)
Spelling/Vocabulary: Sequential Spelling or Wordly Wise (alternate weeks)
Creative Writing: Writing Strands
Math: Singapore (supplement with math games and T4L)
History: Bibliplan for Ancient History
Science: God's Design series: Our Planet Earth, Human Body, Astronomy
Spanish: The Easy Spanish, The Fun Spanish
Vision Therapy: vision therapy cards and Visual Perceptual Skill Building book
Read Aloud: go along with Biblioplan History
Independent Reading: 30 minutes a day

Wednesday

Bible: Rod & Staff: God Chooses a Family
Bible Memory : Awana
Grammar: Rod & Staff: English (supplement as needed with Easy Grammar and T4L)
Handwriting: Beginning Cursive
Math: Singapore (supplement with math games and T4L)
Spelling/Vocabulary: Sequential Spelling or Wordly Wise (alternate weeks)
Vision Therapy: vision therapy cards and Building Thinking Skills software
Read Aloud: go along with Biblioplan History
Independent Reading: 30 minutes a day
Co-op/Playgroup: alternate every other week

Thursday

Apologetics: Answers in Genesis: Answers for Kids series
Bible Memory : Awana
Grammar: Rod & Staff English (supplement as needed with Easy Grammar and T4L)
Spelling/Vocabulary: Sequential Spelling or Wordly Wise (alternate weeks)
Creative Writing: Writing Strands
Math: Singapore (supplement with math games and T4L)
Spelling/Vocabulary: Sequential Spelling or Wordly Wise (alternate weeks)
History: Biblioplan for Ancient History
Spanish: Easy Spanish, The Fun Spanish
Vision Therapy: vision therapy cards and Visual Perceptual Skill Building book
Read Aloud: go along with Biblioplan History
Independent Reading: 30 minutes a day

Friday

Bible: Rod & Staff: God Chooses a Family
Bible Memory : Awana
Grammar: Rod & Staff: English (supplement as needed with Easy Grammar and T4L)
Handwriting: Beginning Cursive
Math: Singpore (supplement with math games and T4L)
Science: God's Design series: Our Planet Earth, Human Body, Astronomy
Art: Lamb's Book of Art/Artist of the month study
Keyboarding: Individualized Keyboarding
Spanish: The Easy Spanish, The Fun Spanish
Vison Therapy: vision therapy cards and Building Thinking Skills software
Read Aloud: go along with Biblioplan History
Independent Reading: 30 minutes a day
Sports: swim lessons year round, fall soccer

Ben and began what I think will be a fun summer nature observation study.  The idea came from Amanda over at Hearts and Trees.  If you haven't seen Amanda's blog, you'll want to take some time to peruse.  She has so many fun nature and art studies, very Charlotte Masonish!

Anyway, we have put together tabletop garden, using root vegetables.  You'll need a few supplies, incuding several jars (we used everything from a baby food jar to salsa jars and one bowl, because the veggie was too large for any of our jars), toothpicks, veggies, water, and a tray of some sort.  You'll also need an area in your home that gets some light.  Our kitchen table works perfectly for this. 

We went to our local grocery store and bought one of each root vegetable we could find.

From left to right, we have a carrot, sweet potato, beet, turnip, parsnip, radish, and rutabaga.  Now the rutabaga had its top sliced off, so we aren't going to try and grow it (the veggies need to still have a bit of the green stem on top in order to grow).  But since we plan to roast all of the veggies and do a taste test, we thought it would be fun to try it as well.

You'll need to slice the top off of each veggie, about 2 inches down from the top stem, and then poke 3-4 toothpicks around it in order to set it on the mouth of your jar.

Then fill your jars with water to a level that will allow the bottoms of the veggies to touch the water.

 This is how the turnip looks up close.

Here's the finished tray.  We will observe the veggies daily, add water as needed and record our findings (on paper and in photos) every 1-2 weeks.  We can't wait to see what happens!  So check back in a couple of weeks, hopefully we'll have some fun pictures to share!

Ben's first observation was that the water in the beet bowl immediately turned pinkish purple.  That led to a quick discussion about natural dyes vs. artificial food coloring.  We eliminated artificial colors from our diets several months ago.  And although Ben had read the labels on things like his vitamins and favorite lollipops, which both mention being colored with beet juice, he had never put the 2 together.  Very cool.

We'll let you know how the test taste goes tonight!

ETA:  ick!  the taste test was not a hit :(

Every year I find myself rather impatiently waiting for its arrival.  What new things will I discover?  Where will I carve out an afternoon to peruse?  When I can I fit it into my budget to place an order for at least $150 to get that free shipping?!?!

Yep, you guessed it, it's the RAINBOW RESOURCE catalog and mine arrived today!!  And let me tell you friends, it is humongous!!

What?  You've never seen the Rainbow Resource catalog?  Well let me tell you, you are missing a gem.  Not only will you find almost anything you will need to homeschool, you'll find prices that are hard to beat, and little nuggets of product reviews that will inspire and thrill even the calmest of homeschoolers.

So be sure and order your catalog as soon as possible and then carve out some time to enjoy it!  The best thing?.......it's FREE!!

I've compiled Ben's summer reading choice list and thought I would share it here.  He is a rising 3rd grader, and a good reader, so these are all chapter books.  He'll also read quite a few of our favorite picture books (mostly for the summer reading program at the library).  I don't expect him to read all of these books this summer.  Whatever he doesn't read will carry over into our 3rd-grade school year.  There are several books listed here which are apart of a series.  My hope is that reading the first book in the series will spark an interest in the entire series. Of course there is a chance that by reading the first book, he'll find he doesn't care for the series.  Either way is fine. I think this list could work for an advanced 2nd or 3rd grade reader, or an average 4th or 5th grade reader.  Ben has already chose the first 4 books he wants to read.  They are the first 4 on the list.

Owls in the Family

Einstein Anderson, Science Detective

Henry Huggins

Robin Hood

Encyclopedia Brown

Stuart Little

Homer Price

Centerburg Tales

Mr. Popper’s Penguins

The Cricket in Times Square

Rabbit Hill

Grandma’s Attic

The Midnight Fox

Indian in the Cupboard

The Borrowers

The Railway Children

Pinocchio

Sign of the Beaver

James and the Giant Peach

The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle

My Father’s Dragon

Little House in the Big Woods

Little House on the Prairie

Farmer Boy

The Story of Dr. Doolittle

We have one more week of 2nd grade!  Wow!  I'm planning 3rd grade already! 

This will be our first year we haven't just taken the month of June off from school and then started our next grade level in July.  Instead, we're going to do "summer school."  How is that different, you ask?

Well, first of all, we're not really taking any time "off" and yet we're not really doing a full schedule of "school."  We will continue with 3R's kinds of things, mostly using Time 4 Learning and Ben will have a summer reading list.  We've already begun compiling his reading lists (yes, 2 lists...his and mine!).  Actually he's already begun reading from "his" list.  As I type this he's reading a book entitled, True Life Treaure Hunts. 

A great resource we are using for summer reading is Book Adventures.  If you are not familiar with Book Adventures, you may enjoy checking it out, especially if you have relunctant readers.  Within the website are book lists, by grade level.  Your child (or his mom) can choose a book to read from the list, complete the comprehension questions online, and earn points.  The points can be accumulated and traded in for prizes.  Using incentives such as this works well for Ben.  He LOVES being rewarded!!

Our backyard bird study will continue for the next few weeks.  It's pretty low key.  We're bird watching and learning bit and pieces about some of the birds we commonly see, adding minit books to our animal notebook.  I can see this going on most of the summer!

We'll begin 3rd grade in August.  I'll be posting those plans soon!  But we are going to have an exciting year!!

We began a unit on birdwatching today.  We're working on some pages in our Animals Around the World notebook with the our friends, the Veals.  Today was our first day.

We began by reading this sweet little book.  Sort of an introduction to the idea of birdwatching.

Afterwards, we glued a birdwatching graph into our notebooks.  This will be a place for the kids to record their observations whenever they see a bird outside.  They will be able to jot dot a description of the bird, along with a note about what the bird was doing.  I'm also encouraging them to draw a picture of at least one bird a week.

Along with birdwatching, we are also spending some time learning about different birds.  Today our focus was on the American Robin.  The children learned about the markings, nests, eggs, and diet of this bird, filling out a few minit books for their notebooks.  The minit books came from Homeschool Share's Animal Studies' unit on Backyard Birds and Enchanted Learning.  After adding the minits to their notebooks, we spent some time listening to the robin's song, using the CD from the book, Music of the Birds.  This book has wonderful information about the songs of birds, and the CD has little snippets of information along with a couple of minutes of "bird music."  For example, did you know the robin's song sounds like "cheery, cheerio?"

A few other books we'll be using for this unit include the following:

Other plans during our unit include making a birdhouse, a couple of different birdfeeders, and a trip to our local Nature Center, where they have a birdwatching program!  I think this will be the perfect way to wrap up our school year!

I love that we have a day set aside each year to appreciate the world God created for us!  It's kind of like Christmas and Easter.  We should be appreciating our world every day, but we get busy with life and forget. 

We have been spending some time talking about caring for our earth.  Ben is intrigued by the idea.  I think even he understands how we take things for granted.  Today we spent some time doing a scavenger hunt around our home, finding things that we could reduce, reuse or recycle.  I'll be the first to admit that we, as a family, have not focused enough time and energy to thinking about these 3 Rs.  I wanted to share a few of the items Ben found.

Reduce:  this one was difficult, but with a little prompting (and a discussion about the length of his showers) he came up with water, electricity, heat/air conditioning, paper plates.

Reuse:  ziplock baggies, bath towels, newspapers and magazines (arts and craft projects), clothes, dishes, silverware, milk jugs, aluminum foil.

Recycle:  newspapers, magazines, plastic bottles.

Tomorrow, we'll be reading about the loss of rainforests and other habitats and the effects on animals and the environment in general.  We'll also be going to see the new movie, Earth.  It's opening day!

I wanted to share a few really nice resources for learning more about Earth Day and ways we can all help Save Our Planet.

Books to Read

Websites to Visit

Kaboose  crafts, games, projects, foods, coloring pages, and other fun fun fun!!

EarthDay.gov   For kids.  This page provides links to federal government Web sites for kids related to Earth Day and the environment.

ABCTeach  here, you'll find an Earth Day theme unit.

Evan Moor Theme Pocket  the April Theme Pocket has several fun and hands-on Earth Day activities.

Happy Earth Day!!

Our homeschool has been revolutionized!  If you haven't heard about Sue Patrick's Workbox System  yet, then please, allow me to share this wonderful system that is making our homeschool so much more pleasant, organized, and efficient.

Sue Patrick's Workbox System , is an organizational system that can be used with any homeschool curriculum.  It's simple to implement, though it does take a bit of time to gather together the supplies you'll need.  You will want to begin by purchasing Sue's book, available in both print and ebook form.  Once you've read the book and understand the concept, along with the reasoning behind each step, you'll be ready to go shopping.  What's on the shopping list, you ask?  You'll need the following for each student:

~a $15 shoe rack (I found mine at Target)

~approximately 12 clear plastic shoeboxes ($1 each at most dollar store--mine came from The Dollar Tree)

~colorful printer paper or cardstock

~lots of velcro dots

~a book ring

Basically, you'll be setting up the shoe rack with the shoeboxes (workboxes).  The shoeboxes are labeled 1-12, and you'll make a schedule strip, on which you will place the numbers 1-12 and maybe a few other cards for breaks, lunch, outdoor play, computer time, etc.  In each workbox, you'll place one assignment, along with everything needed to complete that assignment.  For example, if you place a Draw Write Now book in a box, you will also include the paper for the writing and drawing, a pencil, and colored pencils.

The child will work through the workboxes sequentially, following the schedule strip for breaks, lunch, computer time, etc.....you decide what your child will be doing.  Some of the workbox assignments can hopefully be completed independently, while other will be labeled with a 'work with Mom" card.

The benefits of this system are numerous.  On a personal level, it has created more organization (both for me and Ben), more independence for Ben, and no questions about what we'll be doing each day or what comes next.  It has created more organization for me as his teacher.  Each night, I am required to fill the boxes, and thus plan (at least one day ahead) what we'll be doing.  I can also arrange Ben's schedule with enticing "fun" projects and assignments that will spur him on through the tougher assignments. 

Developed for a child with autism, this system is also recommended for children with ADHD, those who need to move toward more independence, and for larger families.  But trust me when I say, this system can work for anyone!

I have several friends who are also using the Workbox System.  Some of us are using it pretty much as it was designed, but many are tweaking it to fit their homes, lifestyles, or children's needs.  I've seen gallon-sized ziplock bags, manilla folders, decorated cereal boxes, and plastic drawers used.

Here are a few links to some blogs of friends of mine who are using the system, so that you read more about how others are using the system.

Ami's blog  if you look over on the right, Ami has a category for workboxes, including some free helps!

Heather's blog  check out the lefthand sidebar of Heather's blog for lots of Workbox fun!

Jessica's blog  Jessica has 8 kiddos and is adapting the system using manilla envelopes.

Leslie's blog  Leslie introduced most of us to the system, see how she uses it with her 6 children.

Candace's blog  Candace is adapting the system with ziplock bags

Ginger's blog  check out Ginger's blog for how to use drawers with the system.

Lynn's blog Lynn beautifully decorated cereal boxes to use.

So after 3 weeks of using this system, I heartily recommend it.  I wish I had learned about it a long time ago, but am very grateful to know about it now.  I am more organized, and we are getting so much more accomplished than we ever did before.  Our day is more fun, since I'm spending time actually thinking about what fun things to include.  Ben loves it because he knows what to expect and enjoys watching the boxes disappear off the shelves.  It give him such a since of accomplishment!

2 inches of snow, topped with 1 inch of ice, topped with another 2 inches of snow that is.

School is out this week.  We're taking some snow days!!  Over the course of 2 days, we rec'd a total of 5 inches of snow then ice then more snow.  Ben is the most snow-loving kid ever, so he's spent a lot of time outdoors this week.  He literally bundles up, plays for a couple of ours, comes in to change into warm, dry clothes and then heads back out.  We've had the fireplace going almost every day, and I should have bought stock in Swiss Miss.  It's been a great week for him!

Hundreds of thousands of people in our state, most of which are in our city, are without power, and thus heat today.  We have been very fortunate not to have lost power so far.  Hopefully, it will stay that way.  Please pray for those without heat and power right now.  I know they would appreciate that.

Here's a quick slideshow of pics I took this morning.

We are taking a break from the middle ages (and the snow!) to look at the life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr. today.  Nothing major, just reading a couple of books and listening to the "I have a dream" speech on www.youtube.com.

Here are the books we are reading, in case you want to check them out.  (I know I should have posted them sooner so you would have had time to get them from the library, but hey, you can always read them, you don't to wait until the federal holiday).

And if you are interested in listening to the speech, here's the You Tube video (tip:  if you have young kids and just want to hear the "I have a dream" part of the speech, it begins at about minute 12):

As we continue our study into the Middle Ages, our book for this week is Castle Diary by Richard Platt.  This lovely book is written as the journal of an 11-year-old boy who has been sent to live with his uncle to work as a page, in order to learn how to be a knight.

Some of our activities of the week include building the cardboard 3D castle from Dover Publications, while we learn about how and why castles were built, labeling a knight's armor and a castle, as well as  completing other minit books for our lap-n-notebook.

An accidental joy that occured today was a trip out with Nana to see the movie,
The Tale of Despereaux.  We have been planning to see this movie since the week after Christmas, but as it worked out, we went today.  We read the book last summer, so I should have thought of the connection, but for some reason, it just never occured to me.  Of course, like most movies based on books, creative liberties abound.  But what  a perfect movie it turned out to be, since the story is set in a castle and the main character exhibits wonderful knight-like character.  Born a castle-mouse, Despereaux learns about chivalry, truth, and courage from reading books (rather than eating them!), and finds himself using his character (and wits) to save the princess.  It was just perfect.  And gets 2 thumbs up from Ben, me and Nana!

As I type this entry into my blog, Ben and I are listening to Jim Weiss tell the story of King Arthur and His Knights.  Ben is happily coloring a page of King Arthur and his sword, Excalibur, from the Dover coloring book, History of the Sword.  Ben has never been one to enjoy coloring, but I think the tide may be turning with this coloring book. 

If you haven't looked at the Dover coloring books, please do.  They are so much more than coloring books.  There's a lot of great information on each page as well.  For example, the page that Ben is coloring gives a brief synopsis of the story of King Arthur and his sword.  You can't beat the price on these books either......$3.95 each.    For our Middle Ages study, I also purchased 2 other coloring books,Life in a Medival Castle and Village and Knights and Armor.  Not a coloring book, but one other fun thing I purchased from Dover is the Easy to Make Castle.  It has cardbard cut-outs that will fit together to make a castle.  We'll have a blast with this!  I think it was $6.95.

We did another super fun activity today.  We created a family crest using the website:  Make Your Coat of Arms.  On this website you can make a coat of arms for your family and then print it off.  You can even order products with your crest if you'd like.  Ben and I each created a coat of arms.  We'll take his and make a banner with construction paper to add to our notebook.  We're also going to take the basic premise from the one he created to make a shield.  We  added a couple of minit books from the Knights Lapbook at HSS to our Medieval Times Notebook.  Pictures coming soon.

So far, we're having a great time in the Middle Ages!  And we've only just begun to scratch the surface.

Today, we began what will probably be a 3 month long unit on the Middle Ages.  We'll be using several literature-based unit studies from Homeschool Share and one from Five in a Row.  Today, we began with Saint George and the Dragon. 

This book is a Caldecott medal winner, and we immediately could see why.  In fact in the midst of reading it, Ben asked, "Momma, did this book win a Caldecott because the illustrations are beautiful!"  Using FIAR for 4 years has taught him well.

We also read several pages from an Usborne book entitled, Medieval World.  I'm a lover of Usborne books in general, and this book did not disappoint.  We read a bit about the timeline of the Middle Ages, what part of the world we would learning more about, and a little about knights.  Then we read another picture book, written by Jane Yolen, entitled, Merlin and the Dragons.  Ben really enjoyed this story about King Arthur.  We're awaiting a Jim Weiss CD from the library entitled, King Arthur and His Knights.  One other book I'll be using for these units is the DK book, Medieval Life.

We usually have 2 read-alouds going at once.   Ben reads one of them aloud to me during our school time, I read from the other at bedtime.  During this unit, Ben's read-aloud is My Father's Dragon and my read-aloud is The Dragon's Boy: A Tale of Young King Arthur.

We'll be making a lap-n-notebook, using my favorite spiral bound book from Bare Books once again.  Homeschool Share has a Knights Lapbook and a Plague Lapbook that we'll use parts of, plus several of the units have lapbooking or notebooking components to go along.  I don't think I'll have to create many minit books myself at all, which is so nice.  We put together about 6 minits today, so  a very good start to the study I think.  Ben will also be memorizing Ephesians 6:11-17 about putting on the Armor of God.  He began today by learning the first 2 verses.  As we get things glued down into our notebook, I'll add some pictures to the blog for you to see.

Curious about what other HSS and FIAR units we'll be using?  Well, here's a list:

Castle Diary (HSS)

The Duchess Bakes a Cake (FIAR)

The Valentine Cat (HSS)

Robin Hood (HSS)

Crossing the New Bridge (HSS)

Marguerite Makes a Book (HSS)

The Sir Cumference Series (HSS-math lessons only)

We'll be in lots of hands on activities to our lessons as well.  Some of those include:  creating a coat of arms, making a shield, building a castle, illuminated letter writing, and at the end cooking a medieval feast and attending a Renaissance festival.  I hope Ben enjoys this study as much as I think he will.  I know I will!

Have you ever loved so poorly, made so many mistakes in your marriage, with your children, with your friends, that you don't even know where to begin to fix it?  You want to love God and your neighbor (and your husband and your children), but where does that love begin when you've been doing it all wrong for so long?  This is where my 2009 begins.  As I shared earlier, I have adopted the word LOVE as my goal to strive for in 2009.  And now, since I take this very seriously, I have been awake for hours tonight trying to figure out where I begin with this.  Where does love begin? 

It doesn't seem that it should be that hard to figure out.  It would be natural to begin with the Love Chapter in the Bible, 1Corinthians 13, right?  We used that scripture in our wedding, I memorized it when I was 12, the words are the truth about love, right? But what happens when you've done such a poor job of living out that definition that you can't even imagine getting there?  What happens when you realize that you've been doing the total opposite of patience and kindness and you have been self-seeking and easily angered.  And even worse, it seems you haven't protected, trusted, hoped or perservered.  And what if, all along, you weren't able to admit that it was you who made these grave errors, not the other person.  Where do you begin?

Well, I think I've decided 1 John is a good place to start.

5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all^[b] sin.

 8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

I'm gonna need to ponder on this scripture for awhile, but can I just say, "WOW!"  It's been so easy to believe I was the one without sin.  But look at the damage that does.  Not only does our sin affect our relationships here on earth, look what it does to our relationship with God.  How can we possibly live in truth, in the light, in relationship with God, when not only do we not love well, we cannot even admit we don't love well.  And now, because we can't make that admission, we are calling God a liar?!!?  Oh. my. goodness.  But the good news is, when you do finally realize your mistakes, your sin, and are willing to confess, to repent, to change,  God is faithful, forgiveness is promised and his mercy is new every morning.  For that I am very grateful.  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

And now, I think I know where love begins, where I begin.  I have a feeling this is going to be a painful journey, but so worth it.  I'm really looking forward to the new year, a brand new beginning.  I just hope my tired, arthritic knees can take it.

It's hard to believe another year has come and gone.  It has flown by.  2008 has been a fun, though sometimes challenging year for our family.  We have enjoyed some fun times like a beach vacation to Gulf Shores and a "working" vacation to Miami.  Ben has learned a lot about the Everglades, The American Revolution, The Constitution, the US Elections Process, and the Olympics. I've struggled a bit with my health, culminating in major surgery,  from which I still battle some complications.  Tom has continued steadfastly in his job, as have I.  Ben switched from TaeKwonDo to soccer and swimming.  Overall, it's been a successful year.  But I do look forward to this next year being even better (and healthier!).

A homeschool group that I am apart of began a tradition last year of choosing a word to exemplify those changes we wanted to make within ourselves for the new year.  So rather than making empty New Year's Resolutions that none of us keep, we think and pray about what word we can focus on.  For 2009, I have chosen the word, LOVE.

We have been working on a family/homeschool mission statement based on the scripture from Matthew 22:37-40.

Jesus replied: " Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself".

As we work out what this will look like for our family (for me!), I will come back and share.  What I do know is that I do not do a good job of loving in this manner.  Reading that this is THE greatest commandment is quite humbling and overwhelming for me.  You would think that as a Christian, a wife, a mom, I could get this one right.

I'm not sure I'll ever get it "right," but I will strive to work toward that goal this year.  I hope we all will.  What better New Year's resolution could there be, than to love each other.

Not surprisingly, Ben's very favorite birthday gift was this voice-disguising Clone Trooper helmet.  I'm happy to have this picture to look at, since I may not see his actual face for a very long time.

.....a tiny little black-haired, grey-eyed preemie made me a mommy.  I had been waiting for him since I was a little girl.  I had prayed diligently for him for 4 years after getting married.  I had spent thousands of dollars in infertility treatments trying to get him here.  Then one cold, snowy, December day, the phone rang and I heard the words I had been waiting to hear for what seemed like forever, "Marcy and Tom, there's a baby boy that needs a Mommy and Daddy."

That little preemie baby is now a strapping 8-year-old.... bright, energetic, cuddly, always smiling, always has a joke to tell.  He enjoys Star Wars, Legos, and Food Network.  He's a proud Cub Scout and swims like a fish.  He loves and is loved by so many.  I am very proud of the little person he is becoming.  He makes me smile, laugh, cry, pray, hope, wish, and love more than I ever did in the years before he was born.  I am the most blessed mommy in the world.

Happy 8th Birthday Ben.  Mommy loves you so much!