In case you’re wondering…

Things have been pretty busy around here. We’ve been having a good time getting back into the swing of things.

 

I put together a Letter of the Week curriculum for Frankie, pulling resources from Confessions of a Homeschooler, Homeschool Creations, and Hubbard's Cupboard, with some of our own activities thrown in there, too. This week our Letter of the Week was M. We read If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, Muncha, muncha, muncha, and Moosetache. We practiced writing upper and lower case M’s on her dry erase board and in a dry erase book. We did many fun activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler, like M&M sorting (pictured above) and lots of Monkey activities. (Frankie is pictured practicing her A’s from last week. I didn’t get pics of her writing her M’s. She’s very good at them though. A natural, even)

This year I’ve decided to put together our own Science curriculum. To start the year we’re studying animals, so I’ve been trying to make our animals start with Frankie’s Letter of the Week. Last week we did Monkeys. It’s kind of nice to have all three girls learning together. I have worksheets and activities in varying degrees of difficulty for each of them, and we all work together drawing our animals each week in our Nature Journals. It is by far the most fun we’ve had doing Science. I’ve learned that one of the things that comes with experience is confidence. When we first started homeschooling I was terrified I would forget to teach them something critical, so I spent a fortune on curriculum and followed it exactly as directed. Now that we’re in our third year I’ve realized some things. First, learning is constantly taking place, not just during *official* school time. We’re outside and the kids see a cool bug or plant? Science time! Katie wants to know how many more silly bands she has then Frankie? Math lesson! Sam wants to know about Joan of Arc? History time! Also, who is to say when they “should” be learning something? I was so programmed by Sam’s time in public school that it’s taken me three years to realize that I say when it’s “time” to learn something!! And if I happen to overlook something? So what!! I’ll teach it to them when I realize I’ve forgotten! Homeschooling rocks!

We’ve started a new Character training study this year as well. Each week we have a new trait that God wants us to have. Last week was attentiveness. We read supporting bible stories from the story bible, verses from the Bible, and regular stories. For attentiveness we read about Samuel, and how he listened to God when He spoke to him. On the flip side of that story, we talked about what happened to Eli and his sons for not listening to God. We read a couple of stories, The Listening Walk, and Listen Buddy. Buddy is a rabbit who doesn’t listen very well. After we finished, we made listening bunny ears. The girls got a huge kick out of these ears. They wore them for days after we made them. It’s really great to be able to reinforce the lessons with fun crafts. And I love that this is another subject we can all work together on. (Sam wouldn’t let me photograph her with her bunny ears on. OK. If she had actually made bunny ears, she wouldn’t have let me photograph her with them on…)

In History we learned about the first forms of writing. Then we made clay tablets with our names on them in cuneiform writing. Sam is studying world history this year, and read A Murder for Her Majesty and The Kings Fifth. (Anyone else love Sonlight as much as we do?)

Frankie has also been enjoying making patterns with her magnetic color cubes. (These blocks are actually much smaller than I thought they would be, and we could probably could have made them ourselves, but we love them!) Katie has been working on adding doubles, and we recently started Awana at our church.

 Oh! And puzzles! Puzzles have been the life of the party around here lately. As you can see, Frankie enjoys doing puzzles in her evening wear. And Katie and Sam have been bonding over their shared puzzle love. Notice Sam’s shirt? It says “Jesus is my superhero” They were putting a puzzle together while singing along with Kari Jobe:

 

 

So, that’s what we’ve been up to lately. What about you?

Sunday Snapshot: First Day of School

 
I’ve been meaning to post first day of school pictures for weeks. Somehow the days just seem to get away from me. Who am I kidding? The weeks seem to get away from me around here. So here they are now. Do the peace signs give you any indicator that there is a teenage sister at work?  Speaking of teenagers, do you notice the absence of one in these first day of school shots? Well, maybe if she didn’t hide behind her book, or stick her tongue out at me, or make some other goofy face every single time she sees a camera (which, by the way, is a lot. I have my camera by my side most of the school day. Imagine how much time she spends hiding or with her face screwed up :) you would see more of her. Do you see how excited Frankie is? She can barely contain herself. Maybe her teenage sister needs to learn a thing or two from her…

Photohunt: Natural

Word Filled Wednesday-Colossians 3:2

This week for our character trait lesson I'm teaching my girls about attentiveness. Being attentive means "listening with your whole being; your hands still, mouth quiet, ears listening, eyes watching, and heart calm."

This week I am trying to work on being more attentive to my Lord.
Listening for Him with my whole being, loving Him with my whole heart.

The more I seek you, the more I find you.
The more I find you, the more I love you.
I want to sit at your feet, drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breathe, feel your heart beat.
This love is so deep, it's more than I can stand.
I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming.







To see more visit Internet Cafe Devotions

Spaghetti sauce-if I can do it, anyone can!

A few weeks ago we had a bunch of tomatoes my husband picked from the garden that I didn’t want to go to waste, so I decided to try my hand at homemade sauce.  I quartered the tomatoes and pureed them in the blender. (Some people peel and seed the tomatoes, I don’t mind the seeds so I just threw them in whole) Then I boiled them down on the stove for a couple of hours.  At that point I had the tomato sauce base.  (I decided to leave it plain so that I could use it for pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce-whatever I happen to be in the mood for)I poured it into containers to cool, and then stuck it in the freezer.

Today I wanted to make spaghetti, so I threw a container of frozen sauce in the Crockpot with freshly picked zucchini, carrots, green peppers, sugar, garlic and onion powder, oregano, salt, and pepper. I had some leftover frozen hamburger, so I threw that in, too. I let it all simmer for the afternoon, and voila! My very first batch of homemade spaghetti sauce!!

I needed this reminder

Laura, over at Heavenly Homemakers, had a post today that I thought needed to be shared. It's called "What matters is my kids" As wives and mothers (and teachers and housekeepers and cooks...) it is very easy for us to get caught up in all the "stuff" that needs to be done on a daily basis. I know I do all the time. Laura reminded me to focus on what's important, and it's certainly not the laundry waiting to be done or the dirty dishes piling up ;) Head on over and be inspired. You can find her at Heavenly Homemakers.

Word Filled Wednesday-John 15:12

It seems like all I ever say is "Be kind to each other" or "Speak kindly to your sisters". I know that when a family spends as much time together as mine does the days can't be all sunshine and happiness. Sometimes the bickering between my fourteen year old and the younger ones is worse than it is between the six and four year old. Sometimes they tease each other so mercilessly I wonder what on earth I'm doing wrong. Sometimes I want to give in to the urge to ship them all off to the orphanage.

But then there are days when Katie is so sick she can't keep even keep a sip of ginger ale down and Sam sits with her all day long, loving on her and comforting her. There are days when Frankie goes visiting somewhere for the day and Katie is bored and lonely without her, wandering around aimlessly with nothing to do. And they are so fiercely protective of each other-as awful as they can be to each other at times-they've got such an amazing bond sometimes it astounds me.

 So, I think they hear me. They hear me when I tell them to be kind, and they hear me when I tell them that God hand-picked each of us to be together as a family so He expects us to love each other the way He loves us. Even though they make me crazy on a regular basis, underneath it they love each other. Fiercely and unconditionally.  Just the way it should be.

To see more visit Internet Cafe Devotions.

Mmmm. Banana bread.

That is all :)

Summer recap, take II

 

This summer we enjoyed a variety of activities, starting with a trip to the Children’s Museum of Science for Francesca’s birthday.

Frankie’s favorite part was playing in the water tables. After about an hour we had to drag her out to visit the rest of the exhibits!

Katie climbing the rock wall.

Does this doorway look familiar?

Even though the museum is geared toward younger kids, Sam found ways to entertain herself.

Looks like someone else did, too!

During the summer we got the chance to visit with some of our favorite little people….

Katie and her cousin Autumn

Painting with Jazzy

Jeremy Jr., our favorite little love bug

Over the summer we played…

…the girls fished with their daddy,

…and we camped.

This summer I was a teacher at Vacation Bible School for the first time. Words cannot describe what an unbelievably amazing experience it was! The girls had such a blast, and they’ve been singing the VBS songs for weeks now.

Frankie took Sam’s MP3 player off the table and was dancing and singing “Jesus is my superhero”. It was off, by the way.

This summer we also got to celebrate our favorite little love bug’s first birthday.

But I’d have to say that the best thing about this summer was all the time we got to spend just loving each other!

(This is my person. I love her. That’s her “I love you, too” face)

There were also trips to the beach, peach picking at the orchard, trips to the movies when it was just too hot to be outside, and more. Even though it passed in the blink of an eye, we had our fun and are ready for fall. Winter, not so much. But we’re taking it one season at a time :)