Jack's Baptism- a new pic

A friend took this picture at Jack's baptism, and I played with it today with my new faaaavorite website, picnik.com. I thought it was a cool pictures. :-)

Lukey-Duke

You love blocks. You love tractors. You love weed whackers and mow mows.

The faces you make span the spectrum of silly to goofy to pouty to just plain mean. I love all of them.

The talents you have include building tall "toow" (towers) of blocks, making Jack Jack smile, reading countless "buh" (books), making a very good Sign of the Cross and always folding your hands in prayer, realizing that a stool will usually get you high enough to reach what you want off the kitchen counter, and catching, smooshing, and disposing of earwigs. I adore you.

Shape Sorting

One of our "lessons" today was sorting three different shapes of pasta, then counting how many pieces they each had. This is, by far, one of their favorite activities we've ever done! Though Luke kept trying to eat the uncooked pasta, he understood that different shapes went in different categories. Beth is working on 1:1 recognition with objects still, so counting the shapes was a bit challenging for her, but perfectly so! Today we also read a the creation story from a Children's Bible I checked out from the library, Beth summarized the story back to me, then we made a booklet filled with pictures that she drew from the story (sun, moon, Eve, flowers, butterfly, the sea, and a tree). Earlier this week she made a similar booklet for Goodnight Moon (cat, moon, house, little old lady on a rocking chair). She really loves drawing, she gets that from her daddy!


I'm looking for a good Children's Bible, something with a few paragraphs per story, beautiful pictures, and a lot of stories (not just Noah's Ark and Christmas, you know?). Please send me your recs!

Belated Birthday Celebration

This weekend I had two belated birthday celebrations, the first was a much-needed Mom's night out with four girlfriends. It was so nice to get out (with Jack, of course) to hang out at The Cheesecake Factory and enjoy a yummmmy mojito! Sunday morning, after mass, we all jumped in the car and drove to see Grandma and Grandpa for the day.

Last Soccer Tots

This past Saturday was our last Soccer Tots for Beth and Luke! They both really enjoyed it, although Luke hasn't been the best at paying attention to the coach, ha! Beth starts dance next week, and Luke won't be doing anything this semester. Maybe in the spring?

Home School

We've started! I kicked off our home school yesterday morning, we did about 45 minutes in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Today was about 30 minutes in the morning and 60 in the afternoon. The thing is, while I'm calling it school, it's definitely not real "school. " It's what I've been wanting to do with Beth for several months now! She craves structure and planned activities, which I've gotten away from since probably the end of my second trimester with Jack. She asks to have more school because to her, it's all just lots of fun!

Lesson one from Who Am I? The Trinity.

Luke's "tot trays" lined up on the bed. Maybe one day I'll have bookshelves, but for now this works! Each tray has a different activity for him, things we already have around our house but things he'd be more inclined to play with when it's offered to him on a simple tray. He played with the blocks for about 20 minutes because, unlike in the playroom, he wasn't distracted by other toys! I will change out the trays at least once a week, though I'm seriously lacking on activities for him beyond our typical playroom toys.

Luke spent time building blocks and going through his tot trays one by one. The goal for his learning time, on top of actually learning about the contents of the tray, is that we only play with one tray at a time, and that we clean up when we're done playing! I spend time working one-on-one with him while Beth is busy with an activity. My goal is to spend plenty of one-on-one time with both of them.

This is an idea I had but haven't really finished up yet because I'm having a hard time with Photoshop Elements. I've cropped pictures and typed names next to the photo, and planned on making these for all of our family members. Beth then copies the names with her letters.

This afternoon we made a "minit book." Beth colored, correctly placed, and glued, while I did the cutting. It's a rebus book for the rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle," where pictures replace certain words. I just learned what a rebus book was yesterday!

Jack Jack chilled in the bouncy chair...For a few minutes. :-)

Nothing like a little nature study thanks to the deer and hummingbirds in our backyard during our lessons!

Inspired

water play

After a lengthy discussion, Ryan and I have decided we're going to give a shot at homeschooling Beth for pre-kindergarten. It's going to be a trial period to see if it's something we both feel comfortable doing, and depending on how it goes we may or may not officially homeschool her next year (or the year after) for kindergarten. I am thrilled and excited to be giving this a real shot! I'm surrounded with friends who homeschool and a part of an excellent Catholic homeschooling group. We have been taking small steps on this journey for awhile now, attending activities with our homeschool group and learning from the more experienced mamas. :-)

As it turns out, the more I look into what's suggested for Beth's age group, the more I realize I'm already homeschooling her without even knowing it. I think most of my friends are doing these things with their toddlers and preschoolers naturally, helping them get started on the right foot. For example, daily reading, letter recognition, paraphrasing the stories, discussing the colors and meanings of the pictures in the book, and even coming up with supplemental activities. I did this with Dora television episodes a couple of times a long time ago to make myself feel less guilty for letting her watch tv- we made a "flute" and marched around the house, like in the music episode. ;-)

Everyone is telling me to take it easy with Beth and not overdo it. I can't help overdoing it though, it's in my nature! But really, I'm going to try to not go crazy. I am not buying an official curriculum for her, but I've spent a LOT of time devouring beautiful blogs with millions of wonderful ideas. In fact, it's slightly overwhelming, but I'm learning to look at things from a realistic perspective- what can I accomplish given my time and my circumstances?

I plan to try Who Am I? preschool and kindergarten work and activity book for our "religion" lessons, I picked it up pretty cheap at a recent consignment sale! It's full of simple lessons and activities on who we are as Christians- the first lesson is on the trinity. I'll do one, maybe two lessons a week. We'll see how it goes then adapt from there.

Probably everything else we do will just be things I make up as we go. I love the idea of picking a theme for the week and incorporating books, geography, colors and letters, and activities based on that theme. I also want to incorporate bibles verses and have them start memorizing verses, something I feel that's important to them as Catholic Christians.

I also want to have a little one-on-one "school" time with Luke, I love this blogger's "Tot School" and hope to follow along with some of her activities. She has some wonderful ideas, she's very inspiring! For Beth, I really like this blog and this blog. The idea for me is that I spend less time re-creating the wheel so to speak, and instead just copy everything else that these moms have done, hehehe.

All these grand ideas mean that I have a little bit of organizing to do! Yay! (I know I'm a dork, but you all knew that.) I have a huge mess in my pantry/utility room that I need to figure out. I just bought a laminator from Wal-Mart so that the materials I print off for Beth can be re-used for Luke in a couple of years, and I'm in the process of moving my "office" upstairs into our empty bedroom. A big problem right now is that Jack goes to sleep in our bedroom at night so I don't have access to my printer or other supplies, so I'm temporarily going to re-locate upstairs until it becomes his bedroom in a few months.

the bags below are full of manipulatives and other odds and ends i got from freecycle

While most of me is really excited about the prospect of homeschooling, another part of me is scared and the last tiny part thinks I must absolutely be insane. Most days my two oldest children drive me at least a little crazy, and I wonder if I "need" the break of sending them to school. But the idea of sending them to public school terrifies me, and I sincerely have the desire be the primary educator of my children. I have a desire in my heart, and I know the Lord will bless that. However, Ryan and I will definitely continue to pray for guidance and discernment as we move closer to kindergarten. Luckily we still have a little time!

2 Months

Jack Jack is 2 months old today!

He is one slobbery boy! I don't remember Beth and Luke being so slobbery at such a young age, but Jack drools constantly now. He's also starting to prefer to be held more often, which is presenting a new challenge to me during mealtimes especially, but we're making it work. He's still all smiles and seems so close to laughing! I love that he will give huge smiles to Beth and sometimes Luke, when they're talking sweetly with him. Seeing the three of them like that just about makes up for the times when the three of them are simultaneously screaming!

For comparison's sake, here's Beth at 2 months and Luke at 2 months! Luke was 11 lbs 8 oz at two months old, hehehe. Jack was 14 lbs 2 oz last week!

Birthday Weekend

Happy birthday Ryan! Thursday was Ryan's BIG 30TH BIRTHDAY. We had a small family gathering on Thursday night for him when he got home from work, complete with grilled ribs and fudge instead of a cake (at his request). Beth and Luke made him some homemade birthday cards, and I took pictures of him with my new camera- sort of his birthday present too!

home from work, time to party!

playing outside while daddy grilled the ribs

yummy!

Saturday was the big party! We had a good crowd! A friend Tam showed up first with a gift that became the hit of the party- a giant, red gummy bear. And I mean giant.

ryan, tam, and the nearly life-sized gummy bear

We grilled burgers, had some drinks, let the kids run wild and free with their snow cones, and ended the evening with several games of "cocktail party." We all sang happy birthday to Ryan and it might have been the loudest, most obnoxious rendition of "happy birthday" ever sung, but it was totally awesome! I think 14 kids (more or less) sang at the top of their lungs! Ryan was flattered!

beth and her party pig tails

josh, they saved you a seat!

me and my mommy. yes, i'm really that pale.

pawpaw and mawmaw with jack jack

after singing happy birthday, luke had already gone to bed!

We had a nice Sunday morning brunch before my family had to hit the road, but before they left Ryan and I were able to sneak off to mass with Jack and sit in the second pew. (Good grief, going somewhere with only one child is so easy! What did I ever think was so hard?!) We all had naps to recover from a long weekend, and spent the rest of the day trying to get the house back in order. Tomorrow is my 28th birthday! No big plans for me, in fact I'm not sure of any plans at all! Anyone want to take me out to lunch tomorrow?! ;-)

Last weekend

Last weekend we didn't have a huge project to tackle. Ryan and I went to Ikea with Jack to buy a loveseat for our playroom, where we had no real seating. I'd been looking at Craigslist hoping to find a deal, but the sofas we looked at were all too big for the space, and we would have wound up paying $100 anyways for an old, used sofa. I'd also been scoping out Freecycle, but those were all pretty gross! We decided to spent $150 on a brand new loveseat from Ikea that we knew would fit perfectly in the space, and it's absolutely perfect!


So now we have our playroom in pretty decent shape. I have an idea to hang pictures over the sofa, but it's going to take a little time before I get some that I like. I attempted to take some pictures of the kids the day after Ryan built the couch but it didn't go so well. When I put all three of them together, it was practically impossible to get a good one. I think I'm going to have to just get a really great candid picture, because the "posed" ones don't work out quite like I hope! Here are the three best ones, unfortunately I forgot the flash in Luke's picture and this is the best I could lighten it up using Photoshop. Beth is gorgeous as always, and Jack's picture just makes me laugh out loud!