First Week of School Done!

So we started school this week - I now have a First Grader, a Kindergartner, and a Preschooler! Yikes! Things are busy to say the least! I have decided to do Math and Language Arts with G and R's preschool things in the morning. Then when the little boys go down for a nap, I do the other subjects with G and E.

They were very excited to start. I somewhat made a spur of the moment decision to start when I did. I usually start in July, however, since I committed to be the VBS Director at our church, I thought maybe I would start in Aug after VBS was over. I like having the flexibility of taking a day or week off here and there instead of a whole summer - too much information is lost in the heat of the summer months! :)

G has started several new things this year which include:
-Creative Writing with writing prompts. He needs some assistance in the creative department, so I thought this would be good for him to do 3 times a week!
-Spelling words weekly and Spelling Tests on Fridays. He started spelling last year at the tail end of K, so he is somewhat familiar with the format.
-Writing stories (well, paragraphs right now - moving into stories by the end of the year!). We are going through the writing process of generating ideas, prewriting, editing, revising, and final drafts, etc. Then on Fridays, I thought it would be nice for him to read his final writing piece "to the class". Well, G wanted his Daddy to hear his paragraph, so we decided to read it last night instead of today during school. I must admit, I teared up when G was standing in front of the "audience" on the couch. He was so proud of himself and all that he accomplished through the week. He read it with great feeling and was beaming by the end! He even wanted to read it again! We all clapped at the end and he took a bow! The tears were rolling by then!! :)

So that was our week in a nut shell! G has come out of his box a little by trying new things. E wants to read so badly - we are rushing through her letter sounds to get there! And R is just happy to finally have a spot at our school table! You all are welcome to come and see our school room whenever you want. The kids love to bring guests to school when they stay with us! I am soooo lucky that God has given me this chance to homeschool the crew so far! I truly enjoy doing school with them and seeing them learn is just amazing!

Pure Yumminess!

I haven't update on A for awhile. He is now into EVERYTHING!!! He is crawling and gaining speed each day! The other kids laugh when I have to run after him to keep him from something! Little buger! Those 2 teeth and still the loners in the mouth! All A wants to eat is table food - he hates bottles and baby food! He does a good job of gumming everything to death, but he still needs his bottles!

Just yesterday he found out how to climb stairs! Uh-Oh! Time to move to a house with no stairs!

Into more mischief....
The face says it all! Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Anybody for Some Strawberry Pickin'?

Another bright idea of Jenny's - let's take the kids strawberry picking! Actually we had a blast and this was Ryan's first time picking strawberries as well! Wow - what an adventure with 5 small children!
G was quite excited to jump in there and pick everything he saw. We had to teach him which rows to pick on and a little discernment about when to pick and when to leave them!

Now there's a team - R and H!

H did a good job of spotting and squealing at EVERY strawberry he saw. Yes, he is directing E as to which one to pick!
Ready to weigh and take our strawberries home!

This is a great little farm where they have things for the kids to look at after picking berries. Here are the oldest 4 in a tractor! Later we got to see a tractor bailing hay! The boys were in heaven!

This was probably the funniest part of the farm! The animals. I had told the kids there were goats, but apparentely they had never seen a goat up close and personal! E and H were petrified. H wanted to run away at any kind of movement. The goats were VERY loud and apparently hungry! There were also rabbits in a cage and roosters all around! H was frightened at those as well!

Cousin Fun!

Here are a few highlights from our numerous trips to Indianapolis due to R's arm. The kids truly enjoyed playing with their cousins and getting to know them. I don't think I saw my daughter the whole time we were there - she was in pure heaven playing with the girls!








The Tea Party that Nana hosted was just wonderful for all the girlies to enjoy! E is still talking about the "real tea" that she drank! Thanks Nana!

And to end with a little bit of cuteness!