How fast a year goes by!

(October 11, 2012) A little less than six years ago a doctor told me that I'd never get pregnant with my own eggs. That statement of seemingly bad news led us on the most wonderful journey into parenthood that anyone can imagine. We adopted a beautiful baby girl who has blessed us in so many ways. Then, of course, feeling the call of trying IVF one more time gave us twin boys. I sort of thought that was it. I never imagined that less than a year after the birth of those beautiful boys that there would be a miracle inside of me. A little less than six years ago, I didn't know how God was going to give us the family that we so wanted and though the situation looked bleak at times, I did feel that we would be parents someday. I had no idea how fast and furious it would be!

Sweet little man popped into our lives a year ago. The first thing I heard was, "Look at that hair!" and then, "Look at those cheeks!" I wondered who he would be and who he would be like. The answer, of course, is that he's just like him! He's got a stubborn streak, but he's so very sweet. He has started talking and can call for his mama, dada and cat. He can tell us he wants milk and when he wants to eat. He is pulling up to standing. He's still nursing all night. I can tell you that looking back now (December) on these October pictures that I thought he'd never sleep through the night and now he's been doing it several weeks. Funny how parenting is like that sometimes.

For sweet little man's birthday we went to Red Robin for dinner. The kids and I made a cake for him and I did the number one and the kids did the rest of the decorating. We all enjoyed the cake!

It's an amazing thing to have children. We are so very blessed. I'm so thankful for the plan set out for me and that sweet little man was in it. (and how is he already one?!)

Homeschool Week 6

(October 9 & 10, 2012) We are really in a routine now. We are still working on handwriting, phonics (sort of, more about this later), sight words and literature. We love our Five in a Row curriculum for reading. Each book in the series (classic and contemporary children's literature) is read once a day for five days with enrichment activities each day. Often there is a big social studies component (usually geography and culture, but there are others in there too) and often opportunities for learning about different art techniques. It's wonderful! This week's book is "How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World" by Marjorie Priceman. There's a lot of social studies to this one, and we love it. Some days miss L wants to read it twice a day!

 

Here miss L is playing a word family game and I cannot remember where I found it! It was online, and was part of a printable kit. If someone knows, please let me know and I will give credit where it is due! Anyhow, it's a fun game. There are words on the apples and you put them in the correct box. Here's the thing... We are STRUGGLING with phonics. Miss L knows all the letter sounds but when you put them together and ask her to sound them out, you can see the look in her eyes that she has no idea what you are talking about. I chose an online program, "Explode The Code" as our phonics/learning to read program at the beginning of the school year. Miss L has trouble with visual and auditory processing skills and this program requires her to work both of those areas. Eventually, she would complete the level that she was working on, not because she learned to sound out the words, but because she'd memorized the words on the screen. I don't know if I mentioned this in an earlier post (but I'm doing it now :o), but I hadn't even heard of sight words (learning high frequency words by memorization) before this school year. Yes, I embarked on homeschooling my child and I hadn't. heard. of. sight. words. It's fine now though, because I have heard of them! AND starting in the third or fourth week of school we started using both sight words (which miss L ROCKS) and phonics (which, well, you know). This week was the week we quit phonics altogether. Miss L was frustrated. I was frustrated. I sent panicked emails to my teacher friends telling them I was thinking of quitting and enrolling her in public school because I felt like a failure and she would never learn to read from me (lucky to have friends who don't mind me being an eensy bit dramatic when it comes to such high stakes stuff!). However, quitting phonics was the best thing we did. Miss L stopped being so frustrated. I stopped being so frustrated and in the end our school district doesn't teach phonics in kindergarten either. One of the awesome things about homeschool is that we can take our time and do what we're ready to do and learn at our own pace. In early October, miss L wasn't ready for phonics and definitely wasn't ready for that program (though people just rave about it, so it's great for some!). We've been so much happier since and we'll revisit phonics in the new year!

 

This week we purchased some cards for ball yoga. We love doing heavy work activities between school subjects (and sometimes as often as between words in handwriting if it's needed) and yoga, because we don't need a lot of extra stuff and we have these handy cards with positions, is our favorite. However, six weeks in we needed something fresh. Enter the yoga deck for kids on the ball. :o) We're loving it and loving something new to do!

 

Here's miss L reading a book lent to us by our favorite reading specialist. It's fantastic!

While I Was Out

(October 8, 2012) I don't remember where I went this day only that I was out. It was Colombus Day and Brad was home, so I'm guessing I went someplace nice and calm on my own. Maybe it was the grocery store. Who knows?! Anyhow... I went out and when I plugged my camera in I found these photos. They are beautiful. They show my children playing with their daddy in their pajamas. What a great day! (and please don't judge me on the fact that my calendar is stuck at the beginning of September :o)
 

 

AND... it must have been good playing, because when I got home, I found this:

 

Hooray for days with Daddy! (and seriously, mister W is ALWAYS wearing his pajamas like that. All he needs is a little chest hair to really rock the look. :o)

Lego time!

Okay, I'll confess. Those pink toys annoy me. You know when they take some perfectly fine gender neutral thing like an airplane and then they make it pink to appeal to girls' parents. Ugh! When I first saw Lego Friends I had the same reaction. Ugh! They took a perfectly fine building toy and painted it pink and made it into dog shows and cupcake restaurants. Seriously? I just felt like there had to be something very wrong with the world.

Of course, toy companies do their research and as soon as miss L got her first taste of Disney Princesses, she was hooked. She can't get enough of pink (me either, really...). Now, I like to think that our ingenious parenting has enabled this girl to enjoy a multitude of toys designed for either sex because she does enjoy toys designed either way, but it's probably just a matter of exposure and personality.

The first Lego Friends set we received was a gift. Miss L and her daddy put it together and even I have to admit it was pretty awesome. There are so many good things about Legos. It's so great for visual processing and fine motor practice. There's a huge pretend play component when the set is complete AND miss L gets to spend some quality time with her father.

After that, we were hooked. She loves looking at the Lego Friends when we are at the store and I like them too. As a little girl, I loved Legos and I would have just died for a set of pink ones! Honestly, one of my complaints about Legos in general is that the "story" in the "boy" Legos seem to be so often violent. If there's a bank, then there is a robber. All of the Dino sets come with a guy with a machine gun. I just don't like that. So, for now, miss L loves her Lego Friends and we love them too. Mister W can't get enough of the RV that they put together after miss L's birthday!

Here they are building that RV Camper. What a fun set!

Homeschool Week Five

Those first couple of weeks of school were just plain hard. I had my moments, to be sure (and during which I frantically email my elementary school teacher friends and they talk me down :o). Now school is a welcome challenge for me. I love my second (third?) career as a teacher at home and though it still is hard (believe me) it's really fantastic too. I get to watch my baby develop these skills right before my eyes. It's just awesome and we're really hitting a groove and a routine.

I want to do this for every week of school, but it just hasn't happened yet. For this week though, here were some highlights.

We packed meals for the backpack meal program at our church. I'm LOVING the fact that I can teach my daughter whatever I want (which is true if she went to public school as well, but we have so much more time for it). We made a list, went to the store, added up the cost of the groceries, paid for them and then sorted and packed the bags. These bags will feed six kids who receive free or reduced lunches from community around our church. Good service and lots of lessons learned! Yay!

 

We continue to work hard on sight words. Miss L has declared that her favorite thing to do "at school" is to do yarn letters. It's just another way we can practice spelling without having to always be writing. Woop woop!

 

...and mister W just cannot be left out. On Sundays as I usually make my lesson plans I plan two or three things for him to do (and try to include him in our art projects too). He loves sitting and working and I love that he has something that makes him feel so big and proud.

We made trees using handprints as the stump and branches of the tree. Mister W is trying to make his hands fit the tree here.

 

Then we added leaves and colored them and then I put dots of glue and mister W glued pom pom "apples" on the trees for fine motor practice (and you can see we had apples on our minds and and our table!).

Sometimes...

...my life is so weird. I ran to the store one day and this is what I found when I returned. Hide and seek, anyone? (October 3, 2012)

A day of picking!

(September 29, 2012) If you know me (and if you are reading this, then you probably know me) you know that we like to visit the farm and do some pick your own. This year we made plans with good friends to meet at the pumpkin patch and grab a few pumpkins one lovely Saturday morning. We'd lent our camera to a friend and didn't have it but it was no matter we had a good time anyway (and I knew there'd be photos documenting the event). We picked pumpkins for each member of the family and then headed to a fun local hot dog place for lunch.

While we were eating we decided to just go out and pick apples. We wanted to be certain that there would be fujis left. I can't tell you how good a fresh from the tree fuji apple is, but it is so sweet. I had to have some of these apples. We snapped a few photos with my phone. There wasn't too much remarkable about the trip. We had a fantastic time and ended up with a bushel of apples. YUM!