Lifesong

First Day Photos

I totally forgot to do our first day photos yesterday, so I did them today. I'm always amazed at how much changes in a year.

Here is Ansley at the beginning of 5th grade.

And now here she is at the beginning of 6th grade.

And one that was her idea, just for fun. I thought it was cute though!

Here is Christian on the first day of 1st grade.

And on the second day of Second Grade. It's almost like I did that on purpose.

Obviously my first photo had much better lighting, but you get the point.

And the funny pose, all Christian's idea.

Here is my silly preschooler last year, when she was two.

She wouldn't even cooperate for a picture. And here is three year old Avery.

You can see she has one thing in mind, can't you? She is determined to erase that P. And she does.

Look how pleased my little reschooler is. Stinker.

We are off to a good start so far, and looking forward to a fun year!

Back to School

Today we started back to school around here. We have had a good two and a half months off, and the kids were very excited to start back. It's nice to be able to start a little earlier since we take a vacation in September, and also to enjoy more days off when the weather is cooler.

I always get school supplies for the kids and set them up the night before. They get so excited about this! It's really cute. They each got crayons, colored pencils, markers, pencils, new notebooks, folders, and pencil holders.

This is the school table the night before, when everything is very neat and organized.

I set up our kitchen table all fun and back to school like for the morning. It's fun to me to make everyday moments special. I had donuts and milk for the kids to eat, and they each had a place setting with their name and grade, plus a special toy sitting on their plate. That's what they are all playing with in this photo. When Avery saw all this today she said "MAMA!! Is today my berfday?!" That girl makes me laugh!

Avery does some fun preschool activities, including letter and number recognition. She loves Do-A-Dots, so this was a fun activity for her. She kept herself very occupied with her activities and her new school supplies. She loved drawing in her notebook!

While she was busy, we started on our My Father's World US History curriculum. This is mostly for Christian, but Ansley will participate as well, and there are many fun activities for both of them. Today we did some map work, read some stories and discussed a Bible verse. This might be my favorite thing about this year because there are so many fun activities that I am looking forward to!

Ansley read her Science, which is Apologia Zoology. She can do this mostly on her own, so she was able to get this done while Christian and I continued on.

Christian is using Handwriting Without Tears to practice handwriting. He can do this mostly on his own, but I do watch so I can make corrections if I need to. We are using All About Reading and All About Spelling for him as well. I really love both of these, and we have attached some magnetic dry erase boards to the wall in the schoolroom for these subjects. There are lots of word tiles that you use to spell words and review, so it's very hands on, which is good for Christian. It's a great curriculum!

Moky really loves it too! He will be reading in no time. Or, he'll just continue to bat at the letter tiles.

Avery is still very happy, and she loves building letters from this wooden set. She got a big kick out of this!

We won't start math with Christian until next week.

Ansley has it easy for a little bit. We are doing a co-op starting in September, Classical Conversations, and that is our grammar, spelling, and writing curriculum. So Ansley is just doing history with Christian, reading her Science, practicing handwriting, reading books, and doing math. She has it pretty easy right now.

Mimi stopped by for lunch, and the kids enjoyed showing her all the work they had done. Here Christian is showing her his map work.

After lunch, I made a deep dish cookie pie that everyone enjoyed to celebrate the first day of school.

Then Ansley did her math. We use Math U See.

And then we called it a day!

It was a really great first day, with lots of smiles and laughter. I do love these days together, learning and having fun together.

And I'm pretty sure these guys think I put this blanket on the table just for them. They are ever present in our school day, and so curious about everything we are doing. But after a long day of school, they were worn out!

Here's hoping tomorrow will go just as well as today!

Summer Means......

Summer definitely means ice cream with friends. Summer always means lots of friends.

Summer means hanging with friends and going on road trips. (This photo was in Virginia.)

Summer means running through the sprinklers and lots of time in bathing suits. (On a sidenote, summer also means endless pool towel laundry.)

Summer means spending lots of time outside.

Summer means trips to the park.

Summer means evenings on the lake with friends.

Summer means getting the mail. Okay, so we do get the mail in other seasons of couse, but not in summery flowy dresses with the baby back showing. So cute! She can barely reach, but she loves to get the mail for me.

And, of course, summer means baking with fresh fruit. I made this blueberry skillet the other night, and it was delicious.

What does summer mean to you?

Summer Weekend

It seems that Ansley has friends over pretty often, or has various activities or sleepovers with her friends. It isn't too often that Christian has friends over and Ansley doesn't. But this weekend we had a friend of Christian's, also named Christian, and they had such a great time of boy fun!

The boys built this car (with John's help, of course) and had a blast pulling each other, having Ansley pull them, and especially having John pull them because he was fast and crazy. They decided to enjoy an ice cream treat on it after dinner on Saturday evening.

It was really fun for Christian to have an opportunity to have some boy fun for a change!

July Fourth Outtake

Here's a photo from our quick little session on July 4th. It makes me smile.

Avery beelines to dresses in a store like most kids head for the toy section. She found this dress and just had to have it. She was very excited to wear it!

We have started a July 4th tradition of buying fireworks and enjoying our own little show in the backyard. The kids get so excited, and we invited some friends over and Mimi for smoked ribs and then we all enjoyed the fireworks after. Well, much after, since it doesn't get dark until pretty late nowadays! But it was a very fun Fourth! We hope you all had a happy Fourth as well!

Summer of No Updates

Obviously I am not doing very well at keeping up with my blog. I'm still debating what to do, but I figure I'll at least wait until school starts back and see if I'm any better at keeping up with it then. Honestly, the kids are probably ready for school to start back so they can sleep in and not be rushing around everywhere! We have had a really busy summer, but it's been fun. If you don't follow me on Instagram, you really should. That's where I am updating most often these days. I'm kinda over Facebook and obviously struggling with my blog, but I really enjoy snapping a quick shot of our day and posting it there.

So far this summer, Ansley has done a Chemistry Camp, Cooking Camp, Zoo Camp, decided to join our neighborhood swim team, Dance Camp, and Round Two of Cooking Camp. She has been really busy, but honestly it's been so good for her. Sometimes summer days get so hot and the lack of routine makes everyone bored, but not this summer! She has been so busy she hasn't had time to be bored. She has had a camp almost every week, has swim practice every day, and also gets together with friends, has sleepovers, and we've continued our mama/daughter book club.

Christian did Survival Camp and loved it, which was really great for him. He is not quite as adventurous as Ansley, and that's okay, so we started him off slowly. His big news this summer is he has learned to swim, and he's very excited. We have spent lots of time at the pool, where he is going underwater, jumping into the pool, and swimming away.

Avery has been my little shadow this summer, which has been fun for both of us. We have been able to spend a lot of time together that we don't usually have when all three are here. She also loves to play in the pool and has been at the pool a lot, and is enjoying making new friends wherever we go.

She takes watching her sister very seriously.

Ansley and her sweet friend Rebekah at Ansley's first swim meet.

She got third and fifth place, so she was pretty excited. Ansley has lots of energy, so it's been a lot of fun to see her put all that energy to use!

I can't believe that it's July already, and summer (as far as a break goes) is almost over and school is thinking about cranking back up. Crazy!

But it's been a very fun summer, even if I haven't talked about it at all.