Lifesong

3:17 pm

{Christian's first guitar lesson.}

Heading Towards Summer

We are enjoying our carefree summer days, even though it's technically not summer yet. I enjoy having no schedule and more freedom to head out and do fun things. I know the kids enjoy it, too. I debate each year whether we would benefit from year round school with more breaks during the year, but right now I crave the break so much I don't think I could do it. Maybe when the kids are older.

This week:

We met a new friend at a park, which was lots of fun. I really enjoyed getting to know her, and the kids played great together!

We have spent lots of time outside.

Ansley is continuing on with her math lessons, and earning rewards for having completed a certain number.

Christian accidentally stepped on Goofy, Ansley's baby bird. It was quite devastating to her, and a very sad evening for everyone. We had all grown pretty attached to that bird!

I took this picture this evening and really love it!

I have come down with an annoying cold. I hate it when germs carry on past winter!

We enjoyed lots of sugar peas and lettuce from our garden.

What have you done this week?

The First Pool of the Season

Every summer, there is a First Pool of the Season.

Every summer, the pools get smaller.

Or, perhaps, my children get bigger. I never know if it will still be as fun as it was when they were a year younger, but today proved that it's still fun, no matter how little the pool.

And, because it's what I do, I have to say that it's crazy how much changes in a year. Remember this baby just last summer, in the First Pool of the Season?

And here she is now.

Isn't it such a heart-tugging journey to be a Mama? It feels like I'm always in this limbo-land, wanting my kids to stay all little and chunky like this, but then daydreaming of when they are older and all the I wonders that come with that. I wonder if she will keep her curly hair? I wonder if I'll be able to make a meal without her pulling on my leg when she's older? I wonder if my house will be cleaner when my kids are older? But then when they are older, those little baby thighs and shoulder blades will be gone.

And I will miss them.

But we spend these sweet summer days together.

Avery loved the pool. She warmed up pretty quickly and was laughing and splashing in no time.

Wouldn't you agree?

Ansley is really good at slowly leading Avery to be comfortable with a situation. That's what big sisters are for, right?

Christian is really good at it, too, when he wants to be. But today, he didn't want to be. He was cold, so he wanted to warm himself in the sun. And he looked so cute getting warm, I had to take a picture.

I had to come inside to get dinner ready, but with Sun Boy and Mini Mama, I felt comfortable letting them all splash and play while I got dinner prepared.

Plus, now that I can open my windows, I can keep an eye (and ear) on them from the kitchen.

After dinner, everyone was outside while I was cleaning up. Christian comes running in to tell me that Ansley had found a bird. I grabbed my camera, of course, and then went running outside. Sure enough, the boy doesn't lie.

This girl has such a heart for animals. But not an overly sensitive heart, like her Mama. Just a caring, nurturing heart, like her Daddy. Our neighbors girls had come over at this point, so the kids were digging for worms.

And we all actually witnessed the baby bird eat two whole, fat worms. It was fascinating and disgusting. Well, for me. Ansley just found it fascinating.

She named him Goofy.

And now Goofy is sleeping in a little box lined with paper towels in our garage.

We will see how he is doing in the morning. (Ummm, anyone know how to care for a baby bird?)

An exciting start to summer!

Last Day in the Third Grade.....And Preschool

I love doing end of the year wrap ups. It just makes it so official and all we're done-like.

And, we are.

Ansley is no longer a third grader. Christian is no longer in preschool (for the second or third? year in a row).

I'm going to get all detaily (I think it has a nice ring to it, don't you?) because I enjoy going back and looking at the end of each year and reading about it. Heaven knows I can't leave anything up to my memory. That's why I have to document so much. So mostly, this is for me, and if you find it interesting, then we are probably good friends.

(If you would like to see the end of second grade, you can go here.)

This year I stepped out in faith and changed curriculum. In previous years, I liked the all encompassing curriculum in a box so to speak, where it comes with everything and there is no guessing. So for first and second grade, I used A Beka. I finally just got so bored with it, I had to do something different. I've spoken on this before, but it is worth mentioning again: A Beka is a great and SUPER thorough curriculum. It's just geared more for the classroom setting, so it becomes a little repetitive and repetitive and starts to repeat the same things over and over repetitively. Anyway, so this year we used Winter Promise. I went with the Animals and Their Worlds curriculum because my kids love animals, and it seemed like a very engaging and fun program. I had originally purchased Saxon math, but halfway through the year I switched to Teaching Textbooks because ...... well I was in over my head. I'm not a great math teacher. I'm really not even a good one. I'm probably not even a mediocre.....you get the point. I have been VERY happy with Teaching Textbooks and we will use it again next year. This year I used Winter Promise as well for Language Arts, Spelling and Vocabulary (more on that later).

We started off most days reading the devotional Long Story Short, which I highly recommend. It was great in capturing their attention! I'm contemplating an Apologia study for them next year.

This is my new tradition - to take first day and last day of school pictures. I think it will be so cool when Ansley is fifteen and I have this huge collage of photos.....while I'm crying on the couch, of course, because she's fifteen. I can't even imagine.

Christian asked me if he could start Kindergarten tomorrow. Oh, sweet boy.

We really enjoyed the Winter Promise curriculum. It is very fun and engaging, which is what I was hoping for. The kids both loved learning about animals and all sorts of fun and interesting facts. By far their favorite part was the animal chart that we did every week.

We measured both of them and had a square for them on the chart, and then each week as we studied a new animal, they would guess how tall that animal was. They had a blast with this!

We read a LOT. Which I love, of course!

These are all the books we read this year. We read most of them aloud, but sometimes when the noise level was a bit too much, I asked Ansley to read a chapter quietly, then I'd read it and we would discuss. Ansley and I both really enjoy the reading part. Christian would usually quietly play while we read - these books are a bit much for a five year old.

Christian had his own curriculum though, also from Winter Promise. We used Animals and Their Worlds for both of them, just adjusted to the preschool level and the third grade level.

Christian went through the Explode the Code workbooks, and did very well. He is very quick and efficient at his work, so of course he would finish well before Ansley. But he is an eager learner, and I have found that he has picked up so much from listening to me teach Ansley. (For instance, he knows how to multiply because he has heard me explain it to Ansley so many times.)

Christian can write his own name without any help, and he LOVES to draw and write letters and numbers. He is VERY anxious to read, and if I was a better Mama, I would probably work with him on that over the summer. But, I'm not. I need a break! He is eagerly anticipating Kindergarten, because he wants to learn how to read. (This photo is actually from when we were visiting my Grandma, and he was showing her how he could write her name.)

We enjoyed many art projects, notebooking, experiments, and games together.

I did not love the Language Arts curriculum through Winter Promise. I thought it was rather skimpy, and didn't include things like personal reading or improving her writing skills.

For the first time this year, we started Ansley in a co-op through our church. It is an enrichment co-op (as opposed to one where you go two or three days a week and learn all the subjects, then homeschool the remaining days) so we could choose what classes we wanted her to take. Her co-op is on Tuesdays, which really worked out great for our family and for Ansley. The first semester she took art and writing, and the second semester was science and writing. The co-op was from 11 am to 2 pm, and she always looked forward to Tuesdays. It was a great introduction to a classroom environment, learning responsibility, having homework and remembering to bring certain things back the next week.

Ansley has beautiful cursive handwriting. (A Beka teaches cursive early; you can read why here. I am a big believer in this!) I should add, Ansley has beautiful cursive handwriting when she wants to. She can be sloppy, but when I make her re-do something, it is very neat. This is an assignment from her writing class where she had to write a letter to the upcoming class.

Today was Ansley's last co-op class, which coincided perfectly since our last day of school at home was yesterday. I made these teacher's gifts for Ansley's two teachers.

I love the way they turned out. If I ever sent my kids to public school, it would only be so I could have an excuse to make lots of teacher's gifts. So fun! Ansley wrote a sweet note to each of them, and we tucked it in the back of the berry basket. But, keeping them this way made it a little difficult to transport.....

...so I wrapped them up in plastic so they would be a little easier to hand off.

Ansley's co-op has gone so, so well and I'm so pleased with how her year there went. This morning her writing teacher did a little presentation of all their hard work this year, which was very cute!

This is the writing class with Mrs. Crooks in the middle.

And Ansley beside her writing display. She had some really cute stories and illustrations!

I have learned over the years, sometimes the hard way, that when things aren't working, they must change. I have also learned that when things are going well and really working out, then keep at it. I feel after my four years experience in homeschooling that there isn't one curriculum out there that I am going to love everything about. Next year, we will be doing a different curriculum for each subject, and I am excited about it! I know, it's strange to be so thrilled to be done with a year and get a break, yet so looking forward to the new school year. I suppose that it always the homeschoolers dilemma, huh?

The bummer about switching curriculums halfway through the year is that Ansley still has three weeks left of Math. She is not happy about it, but I'm working on some incentive programs for her to get it finished. I can't just stop and call it done - I take the no curriculum left behind approach. When we finish what we were supposed to finish for the year, then we are done. We are not done just because the calendar says we should be. Ansley will also be working on her multiplication tables this summer, with some incentives as well.

I did an end of the year review with some questions for the kids (thanks to my sweet friend Alison for the great idea!), which is where I learned that the animal chart was their favorite part of the year. If Ansley could, she would get rid of math in a heartbeat. (Oh how I can relate. Can we just rid math from the world?) Her favorite subjects are reading and writing. She would like to learn more about the stars and planets. Christian's favorite subject is math. He doesn't have a least favorite (Ansley says I need to add 'yet'.) He would also love to learn about the stars.

For this Mama, some summer lovin' is in order. Oh how I love relaxing days, swimming, playing, running, reading.....ahhh it does my heart good.

But my mind is never far from what I will be teaching my kids, and looking to the next year. For the next school year, we have the co-op again to look forward to, where Ansley will be taking three classes and.....Christian will be taking one! I can't wait to see how he does - it will be his first experience with a classroom outside the home, but it will be his second love (I'm his first, of course)....an art class. We will be doing Winter Promise again, using their Children Around the World program (which I am super excited about!). Ansley will be learning about Astronomy from Apologia, Language Arts with A Beka and math is Teaching Textbooks. Christian's Kindergarten curriculum will be all A Beka. I know what I said earlier about A Beka, but I do believe that it gives a good, solid foundation for learning, and I will be adding to it to appeal to what he loves to do as well. I can also branch out when he gets older. We will also include him in the Astronomy study as well.

I love teaching my kids. I love having them home with me, because these days go by SO fast, and I know they would go by so much faster if they were gone most of the day. Of course there are days when I'm ready to throw in the towel, but I have to focus on what God has called me to do. And I know that this is what I am meant to do. My main struggle these days is having a one year old. And a fiesty one year old at that. She can be very disruptive to our days, and it's possible that next year, I will have to sell her. Oh, I kid! It's possible that next year, we may have to do some of our more focused learning in the afternoon when she is napping. But I know this is just a season, and it too will pass quickly.

But for now, here's to a fun summer!

1:23 pm

{Mama and Avery}

Twelve on Twelve: May

May's version of Twelve on Twelve was very special because it is Mimi's birthday! JonJon and Missy came in town to celebrate, and it was a full day of fun! I definitely had WAY more than twelve photos to choose from for this day!

I'm still enjoying the unique documentation of choosing twelve photos once a month to capture an entire day. Nothing special - it could be a day we did absolutely nothing; it could be a day we took a special outing - but whatever happens to fall on the twelfth of each month, I document it by making a collage of twelve photos. I'm enjoying going back and seeing them anyway! (You can see April's version here.)

So on to May!

1. John smoked a bunch of chickens for Mimi's birthday dinner. Several years ago, he made beer can chicken and Mimi has gone on and on about it for years. So we decided to make it for a special birthday celebration!

2. JonJon and Missy brought a new Wii Mario game for the kids. They were VERY excited to try it out!

3. JonJon, Ansley and Christian on the trampoline. These two can constantly be heard yelling "JonJon come here!" "JonJon look!" "JonJon let's go....!"

4. Ansley "waited" on Mimi for dinner. She took her order, got her drink and delivered her meal to her. She has such a servant's heart!

5. Mimi's birthday dinner - beer can chicken, roasted fingerling potatoes and grilled veggies. Yum!

6. We all sang happy birthday and Mimi blew out her candles.

7. I made strawberry shortcake (biscuit style) for dessert.

8. This photo cracks me up.

9. JonJon, Missy and the kids having fun playing outside.

10. JonJon working with Christian on his tennis skills. (He is really enjoying his tennis lessons!)

11. Avery's not happy that JonJon isn't paying attention to her. Just kidding - some day I'm sure that will be the case, but not just yet. She was just very tired and ready to go to bed!

12. JonJon playing a game with Ansley and Christian to help them with their tennis skills.

We had a great day together celebrating Mimi's first birthday in Knoxville! We are so thankful for all that she is to our family. The kids absolutely love having her so close and getting to spend so much time with her - and so do I! And we always enjoy the extra fun that JonJon and Missy bring!

A very fun May 12!

The Last Born

A mother's body remembers her babies - the folds of soft flesh, the soft scalp against her nose. Each child has its own entreaties to body and soul. It's the last one, though, that overtakes you. A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world.

But the last one; the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after—oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.

Life These Days

A little peek into our daily life. This season is full of laughter, surprises, challenges and sweet times. I will never again have a summer with an 8 year old, 5 year old and 1 year old.

Our garden is doing really well! We enjoye watching it grow and have enjoyed a few things from it. Our lettuce is finally growing, so we enjoyed a salad from our garden.

Avery likes to make messes. She entertains herself in cabinets while we get school done, but it works for now. And we have three days of school left, so WOHOOOOOOO! That makes messy cabinets doable.

On the really tough days, these help.

A fun day trip with lots of playtime for these six!

Birthday in the Mountains

Since John's birthday was on a Saturday this year, we made plans to go to the mountains as a family and spend the day in our favorite spot. I think it's absolutely my favorite place to go. It is so beautiful, and the kids are entertained for hours in nature. There is no technology (mostly because there's no service, but still.....), just fresh mountain air, bazillions of butterflies, and lots and lots of laughter and exploring. It's my favorite way to spend a day. Or days. Except I couldn't sleep there, what with the bugs and all.

The kids jump right in. They don't care that the water is pretty icy cold, they love playing in the stream.

See how happy Ansley is? And Christian said "I just love this. It suits me!" I love that they love these mountains so much - especially because we live in them but mostly because my Dad loved them so much, too.

There were butterflies EVERYWHERE. I mean, seriously, tons of them. So of course the kids, but especially Ansley, loved that.

There was exploring time with Daddy. The kids can be heard calling "Daddy! Look!" or "Daddy! Come here!" It's so cute how excited they are about exploring everything. (And they found a snake and a huge millipede today. Which is the part of the mountains I don't love as much, but I take it because the rest is so beautiful.)

Look at that face! She can certainly be sassy. She enjoyed walking around (on land) for the first half of the day, picking up rocks and staying right where we were. We enjoyed a yummy picnic lunch - hotdogs on the grill, fruit, chips and key lime pie. Avery enjoyed sitting in her perfectly sized chair.

Then after lunch we headed to the perfect spot to play in and everyone joined in. Avery kept wanting to get in the water (determining she has more Ansley's personality instead of Christian's) so we took her to this spot. It's surrounded by rocks so there's shallow water in the middle, which is perfect for Avery to play in. She had such a great time, but unfortunately I didn't bring my camera out there, so I don't have any pictures. You have to rock hop a little to get to it. The kids built a dam, searched for rocks, hopped all along the rocks and splashed in the water. So fun!

Christian showing me his favorite rock. "Take a picture Mom!" he yelled.

We came back to find another butterfly on Ansley's shoes. (Well, they are really mine but Ansley wears them. Crazy, I know.) She was thrilled!

A sweet shot of Mimi and Avery while we were packing everything back up and getting the kids changed into dry clothes. I love that Avery is so familiar with Mimi so she doesn't fuss or put up a fight - she loves for Mimi to pick her up and hold her.

I got Avery some sunglasses because she's constantly grabbing at mine and trying to put them on. She actually wears them. This picture cracks me up - this one is sure to be trouble in her toddler years! But she's awfully cute.

We got home around dinner time, but we totally skipped dinner and went straight to the birthday brownies. You can do that when it's your birthday. I got these super expensive way overpriced brownies from Williams-Sonoma (the kids picked them out, so how could I refuse?) so I made those when we got home. They were really good! We made them more into sundaes, of course, since John loves nothing more than chocolate, ice cream, and more chocolate.

A great celebration of John and the wonderful husband and daddy that he is. A day in the mountains with family, and wrapping it up with chocolate with family. What could be better?

 

 

Instagram Friday

I can't believe it's been a week since I've posted. We are keeping busy here with trying to wrap up the school year, running to various appointments and practices, and we were out of town this past weekend. Here are my Instagram photos over the past week or so. Most of them are from Atlanta, since that's where we were last weekend!

ETA: So it's been way over a week. I was never very good at math.

This is the only one that wasn't taken in Atlanta. The kids were asking for some ice cream, so we all went and got some. Avery is sitting on our table eating ice cream. It kept her happy.

Yeehaw! Heading to Atlanta to visit good friends!

On Saturday all the boys (Dads + kids) headed off to something fun so Ashley was thoughtful to book Ansley an appointment at Sweet and Sassy. All smiles getting her pedi!

Then getting her hair done.

Meanwhile, Avery got her nails done. It was so cute how she was watching!

On Sunday we all headed to Legoland before we headed back out of town.

It kinda looks like we are way up and she's pointing to the parking lot, doesn't it? But this is the miniland section of Legoland, where everything is made out of Legos. It was very cool!

My Lego lover taking it all in.

It was a very fun weekend! Hopefully I'll get another update in before the week is up.