Science Museum

On Friday we met some friends at the science museum. The kids had so much fun. They played on the moon walk. When we went outside to see the trains and trolley the kids ran all over the place and even some places they should not have been. If mamma hen ain't watching then the little ones try new places to jump from. LOL All in all they had a great time and was sad when it was time to leave. We told them not to worry b/c we have a year membership and we can come back as many time as we want.

Abby and Clara head's on a platter of fruit.

Emily's head on a platter of fruit.

Kaityn is getting ready to walk on the moon.

Having Fun Surfing!!

Having Fun Before Bed

One night last week Kaitlyn decided to have a party for her squirmmel (sp). It is one of those fuzzy caterpillars that have an almost invisible string so it looks like it is moving by itself. She decided it was going to be beach party. By the way the party only lasted about 15 min because it was time for bed. Both the girls decided it was time to go surfing. I thought it was cute and they had music from the Beach Boys, Surfin' Safari. Me and Joel just kind of watched them and told them how well they knew how to surf!! It was fun and it is always interesting to watch the girls come up with their own ways to do things.

First Week of School

We started school last week. We only did three days. They went pretty good. It is a little overwhelming for me to do two children but I should get in a routine within a month or so. Emily likes school but is impatient at times and seems a little bored. I need to play around with her curriculum and see if I can't do a couple days at a time. She just needs a little more challenge! Kaitlyn started just fine. We started our read a loud from Sonlight and it is a bit slow but sometimes that is just how things are when you first start to read a book. We are hoping it gets better! I am glad to be back into more of a routine. I just feel we accomplish more during the day and things flow better. I am looking forward to a fun and exciting year.

Last Free Week

Well, this is our last free week before we start school next week. It has been quite busy this summer. Even though we won't go on vacation until November it has been a nice summer! We saw a lot of our friends, went swimming a couple of times and played at the park. This week has been pretty busy getting ready for our co-op to start. Tonight we have our meeting to sign up for co-op. I think we will lose a lot of the older members. We have several new families coming tonight. I am excited about this. The other two core members and I have planned a good year and are looking forward to it. New topics this year are sign language, earth science, the human body and a theatre course. Not sure how the theatre course will go, not quite ironed out all the details. We will be doing a latin course with a group at one of my friend's house. Kaitlyn is looking forward to this. I think she just likes hanging out with her friends. But that is typical for a child of any age!

We will hit the books hard next week to really get going. It will be interesting this year since I have two kiddos to teach. Emily is looking forward to it, at least she acts that way. I am hoping she will enjoy her first year. We have done math during summer and she has enjoyed doing her math book. We were able to complete about 1/3 of it this summer. I think we will slow down once we start the phonics and she has to learn the concept of adding. I am looking forward to this school year. Once we hit summer I felt kind of lost b/c we didn't have that much of a routine. It got better once we started doing things with our friends and it was nice when we didn't have anything to do some days! I think we all need days like this. It helps us appreciate the down time. Well, I will report back sometime next week to let you know how our first week of school went. Until then....

There is a kid in all of us!

Joel helping Kailtyn. She doesn't seem to sure about this.

The girls are discussing their biking strategies!!

Learning to Ride

Kaitlyn and Emily received bikes for both of their birthdays this year. We are trying to teach Kaitlyn how to ride a bike. She is very independent and doesn't want a lot of help. First she needs to learn to balance herself. It is very frustrating to me when trying to help and she doens't want any. Slowly, I am learning to let her try things her way. It is hard but as we know, our children have different ways of learning regardless of how WE want them to learn! She is coming along fine. The most she has peddled it two complete rotations of her tires. One day she will get tired of taking little steps and just jump on the bike and go. I have told her this but she still doesn't believe me. I guess I could compare it to growing in Christ. You have to take small steps sometimes when it comes to keeping faith in God. It is hard to just let go and let God as the saying goes. Or someone who has just recently come to receive the Lord. In order to listen to Him you need to understand what it is He wants you to do. A lot of the time you can't just have everything you ask for. For God, everthing has a time and place regardless of how fast we want things to happen. So for now I will just let Kaitlyn do her thing until she wants help.

Emily on the other hand has training wheels. She is just happy to have some wheels of her own. Thanks goodness she seems to control her steering unlike one of those motorized cars. She had an unfortunate event at my friend Laura's house. She was steering and ended up in a ditch upside down. She seems pretty confident so far on her bike and hasn't not had any accidents!!

Emily opening up her presents.

Behind Emily, her friends Kaitlyn and Kirsten are looking at the new talking cash register Emily received for a present.

Emily's 5th Birthday

My baby girl turned the big 5 last weekend. She will start school this year. I can't believe she is 5. Time goes so fast. Her party was a lot more subdued than Kaitlyn's. I learned to watch the number of children who are invited. Emily invited 5 kids, 4 from Sunday school and one from her preschool. We had three show up all together. It was fun. She wanted a Hello Kitty cake so I ordered her one from Ukrops. After looking at it I could have probably done it myself. I just didn't want to take the time and do it. For one of the activities the children drew pictures on a puzzle that was blank and already cut into pieces. They seemed to like that because it was there own puzzle and could put whatever design they wanted. We also played a game where the kiddos took turns opening a box with wrapping paper and the last box had a suprise in it. The kiddo really enjoyed it and wanted to play some more but I decided to cake and then presents. The noise level was very comfortable and the children got along very well. All in all in was a very successful party!!

Smores-Where's the Campfire

About a week ago Sunday Kaitlyn wanted to make smores. I really like them and the are one of my favorite things to make. We went to the store the night before and bought the items we needed. On Sunday for dessert in the evening we made smores. We have no fire place or chiminnea(sp). So we resorted to what we had around the house. We used votive candles. It took a little longer but still tasted just as good. It didn't really have the campfire taste and the marshmellow didn't melt the chocolate as well as I wanted it to. Kaitlyn had a ball putting her "sandwich" together and experimenting with two marshmellows on her graham cracker instead of one. Emily doesn't like smores. It is almost a sin not to like smores but she seems to be picky when it comes to sweets. So she just had a chocolate drumstick icecream cone. Those are also yummy. It is nice to spend time enjoying the splendors of your childhood and remembering back to when things were simpler.