Our Maggie is TWO

In some ways, this seems like so long ago! The 6 week early surprise arrival of our sweet baby Margaret Anne, and then the two week stay in the NICU...

Then I blinked and she was one! To be honest, that first year was ROUGH. Between all the normal newborn stuff, living in a 3 bedroom rental with four kids, and my thyroid deciding to not work properly, it was a long year. But it still seemed to have flown by and we were celebrating a year of this little lady:

And now here we are again, where has that little baby gone? She has turned into this crazy little lady now. The one who loves to push her stroller and, unfortunately, write on the walls with anything she can get her hands on. She also adores her brothers. And while she may have let me paint her toenails for the first time a couple weeks ago, she isn't all girly. She loves to "tackle" and to push the trucks and play cars and legos. She really doesn't have a lot of choice there. ;) She loves her babies and dolls. She's not a great eater, but would eat vitamins and mints all day long if I let her!

I love seeing her play with Will more and more these days. It makes my heart happy. 

Just a few other things I want to remember. This girl loves to accessorize. She picked out the necklace she wore for our family pictures herself. And she loves shoes. She just recently became much more vocal and opinionated. Until recently she didn't care to watch t.v. for more than a few minutes at a time. Now she requests George or Daniel Tiger or occasionally Thomas and Friends. For the sake of her brothers, she doesn't know that princesses and fairies exist YET. ;) She has gotten very good at saying thank you and your welcome. She doesn't always remember the please, but she will always say "God bless you!" if you sneeze! If I call for her brothers, she often responds with a "coming!" before they do. She is growing up so fast. I don't want to think about what's going to happen if I blink again. I better not! 

Happy birthday Maggie! I love you so!

Alabama

Pete's grandma and her husband live in Alabama, near Gulf Shores. Last year, we decided to combine a family vacation with a visit with them and we had a great time. Well, it was a great time with the exception of crazy sinus infections for both Pete and I that led to separate trips to local urgent cares. But I digress... We decided then to try to make it a yearly tradition. This year, praise God, we all stayed healthy and were able to enjoy a really beautiful week in Alabama. Pete got to golf with Granny and Ken a couple times, and we went to the beach, and the pool, we played mini-golf, and went go-karting. Each night we'd eat dinner with Grandma Gloria and Ken, and then usually the kids would want to play games with her. The weather was great. All in all, it was a fabulous trip!

Here's a pictorial summary of our time there. A few pics of Granny and the kids and then some snapshots of us at the beach.

Our trip was more fun this year than last, and I suspect that as the kids get older, it will just keep getting more and more fun. The beach and family, two of the best things in life in my opinion! <3

Sam is Seven (better late than never!)

It seems that I have neglected this space for quiet some time. The day after Jon's birthday, which is the last thing I blogged about, we started school. Sam's birthday was just a little over two weeks later. The week of Sam's birthday we had family pictures, I began a cellular nutritional cleansing program (that I love, please ask me questions if you're interested), and we left for vacation. While on vacation, my grandmother went into hospice care. When we got back home I went up to visit her, within a few days, she passed away. All of those things led to me shooting quick picture updates on Facebook and Instagram, but no blog posts. I am hoping to catch up a bit in the next few days. Before I fill you in on our school year thus far or our family trip to Alabama or on my grandma's life, let's take a moment to celebrate my second son and his seventh birthday! :)

Sam is such a fun kid. He is friendly and funny and smart and sweet. He can often be helpful and considerate and is quick to compliment a meal. He's practical and yet can be impulsive. He's seven. I am loving seeing his personality emerge more and more each year.

We started his birthday celebration with our traditional pancakes in the number of your new age.

Then the opening of presents before Dad leaves for work. Sam requested a new bike, because his bike was getting too small for him. He is growing a bit faster than Jon and Jon isn't ready to hand his bike down yet, so it sent us on the look out. Being the practical kid that he is, he told us he'd rather get a used bike and more presents than a brand new bike and less presents. His daddy's boy for sure! He was quite excited to get his "new" bike and a Lego set. Jon got him some Pokemon cards.

And here's the birthday survey:

~What is your name? Sam
~And how old are you? 7
~Does being 7 make you feel? Good
~What do you want to learn this year? Swim two laps completely
~What was the best thing about being 6? no more naps on Sundays!
~What did you do on your birthday? Played outside, slip n' slide, played with presents, rode my new bike
~What was your favorite gift that you received? Legos
~What is your favorite color? red
~What is your favorite food? brownies
~Who is your favorite person? family (could he be any sweeter?)
~What grade are you in? 2nd
~What is your favorite thing to do at school? reading
~What is your favorite game to play? Minecraft
~What do you like to do with Daddy? Have him chase us around the house
~What do you like to do with Mommy? when you read to me
~What do you like to do with Jon? play Pokemon, and Wii, and well, lots of stuff!
~What do you like to do with Will? play cars, ride bikes
~What do you like to do with Maggie? tickle her and snuggle with her
~What’s your favorite thing to do with the whole family? play outside
~What’s your favorite store? Target
~What’s your favorite place to eat? Bob Evans
~What’s your favorite book? King Arthur (an Arthur chapter book)
~What’s your favorite song? don't really have one right now
~What’s your favorite Bible verse or Bible story? David and Goliath
~What do you want to be when you grow up? the person who makes sure the people on trains are alright

Hopefully next year Sam will get his post in his birth month! ha! :)

Did I Hear a Niner?

My oldest turned nine yesterday. The funny thing about his birthday being at the end of the summer is that all summer I have told people, "He'll be nine at the end of the summer," when they ask the ages of the kids. Now, the end of the summer is here and it's actually happened. He's nine.

Jon is a fun kid. Sometimes he drives me crazy, but most of the time I count my blessings that I get to be his mom. Here are some of the things I love about this nine year old boy: his sensitive and giving nature, he is a peacemaker, his passion for reading, his honesty, his zeal for life and excitement over new ideas and adventures, his creativity, his unique outlook on things, that he still likes to sit and snuggle with his mama.

We make a big deal about birthdays around here. I think my mom did a good job of making birthdays special for me growing up and I try to do the same with my kids. We don't go overboard with spending tons of money or anything, but we do have a few fun traditions. Some of them are very intentional, and some we have just sort of stumbled into, but all of them are fun in my book. :)

First there's the birthday pancakes in the shape of your new age:

Opening presents from the immediate family before Daddy leaves for work. (I'm pretty sure this one was stumbled into by a birthday that fell on a night Daddy had to work late)

 Jon and Sam hugging after Jon opened his gift from Sam

 Jon's new drum set. Free from friends at church. 

Jon has been asking for drums for about two years now. He has faithfully been taking, and will continue to take, piano lessons, so we are allowing this new addition. We might be crazy, but we are going to get him drum lessons. The drum set will find it's home in a room of the basement, which will get some additional sound proofing SOON. 

On birthdays, our typical rules about screen time and video game time are thrown out the window. Jon got the WipeOut Create and Crash game for Wii and spent several hours creating and playing courses with Sam. 

The birthday kid gets to pick, within reason, what we do for the day and what we eat for dinner. Jon recently realized that you can play WiiU at Target and asked to there on his birthday about a week ago. It cracked me up that playing a game a Target made his list of most fun things to do, but hey, easy enough! He also requested getting a icee/slushy at Target and I decided we could all get them. Funny side note, I specifically remember telling the nurse at Jon's 2 year check up that he had not had lollipops yet, we'd prefer a sticker...and yet here we are with Maggie, not 2 until November, getting to split a slushy with Mom. Funny how things have changed...and the things you will do to keep a little one happy while the bigger ones do their thing. 

 Maggie sipping her slushy at Target

 Jon playing WiiU at Target

We came home for naptime and the bigger boys played Wii at their friend/our neighbor's house for about an hour, then we headed to the pool. Pete met us their with Jon's requested dinner: pizza AND cheesy bread. The cheesy bread was the kicker. We rarely get it, so it was a special treat! :) It turned out to be a pretty nice night, a little cool, but not too bad. My brother, Matt, met us there and we had a lot of fun-so much fun, that I forgot to take any pictures. Speaking of forgetting, I also forgot to bring candles to the pool, so we sang Happy Birthday and ate cupcakes and are going to try to do the candle part tonight.

All in all, it was a pretty fun day for my birthday boy. We ended it with the birthday survey. Last year, I forgot to do it, but we both remembered this year. I love his idea for the last question. Here are his answers:

~What is your name? Jon
~And how old are you? 9
~Does being 9 make you feel? Really, really awesome! (said to the tune of the Lego Movie Song)
~What do you want to learn this year? To play the drums
~What was the best thing about being 8? Riding the Banshee and going to church camp
~What did you do today? Opened presents, played with presents, went to Target, went to the pool and had pizza, cheesy bread and cupcakes
~What was your favorite gift that you received? Drum Set!!
~What is your favorite color? Scarlet Red
~What is your favorite food? Pizza and Ravioli
~Who is your favorite person? Sam
~What grade are you in? Fourth
~What is your favorite thing to do at school? Cursive Handwriting
~What is your favorite game to play? Wipeout on the Wii
~What do you like to do with Daddy? Play with him in the pool
~What do you like to do with Mommy? Snuggle on the couch and read or watch a movie/show
~What do you like to do with Sam? Play Wii
~What do you like to do with Will? Play the game where he chases me and Sam
~What do you like to do with Maggie? Try to get her to smile and carry her around and throw her on the couch
~What’s your favorite thing to do with the whole family? Have a movie night
~What’s your favorite store? Target
~What’s your favorite place to eat? Olive Garden
~What’s your favorite book? hard to narrow it down, Time Warp Trio books
~What’s your favorite song? Speak Life by Toby Mac
~What’s your favorite Bible verse or story? John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
~What do you want to be when you grow up? A website creator who can work from a mobile home and travel all over the country
I love this kid!

A Work in Progress

My husband and my oldest, Jon, recently went to church time where the focus was on making your life count. Ironically, while they were gone I was incredibly lazy and watched more t.v. than I'm willing to admit. Towards the end of the week, God grabbed my heart and reminded me that my moments make up my days which make up my life...is this the life I want to live? One of watching this series on Netflix followed by that series on Amazon Prime? I was reading a blog that talked about reading quality books with our kids and how we model for them with our actions. I was reminded that I will never be the kind of woman that I hope to be unless I start making better decisions now. Most of the summer I have spent my kids' nap times watching television. Meanwhile, I have a list of books that I want to read. I have a list of projects I want to complete. I have a list of things I want to do with my kids. We're over half way through July...time to get going.

This week, I determined to use nap time for working on projects or reading books. It was great. Honestly, I did not miss that time in front of the t.v. at all. I read two books in a series that I have been wanting to read and can't wait to start the last one. I accomplished several projects for school in the fall, and I even took the older boys to Kings Island one afternoon while my mom graciously watched the littler two. I still have many projects left on my list, but the feeling of progress is priceless.

I'm realizing the truth in sayings I've heard millions of times before: If you don't have goals, what are you working toward? I am thinking and praying through specific goals for our home and my life. Friends of mine have shared that they talk through family goals with their spouse. I like that idea. I'd also love to sit down with my older two boys individually and set some goals for the school year-not just academic goals but all aspects.

Also, as I realize that I am far from perfect and will most likely stumble again as I travel this path, I love the saying that, "God doesn't call us to perfection, he calls us to obedience." We will fail. Our children will also fail. Am I modeling how to fail graciously? I am I sharing with them my mistakes and how I am trying to overcome them in His strength? Or do I hide those mistakes from them and try to act like I've got it all together? Hopefully, we can graciously grow together as we walk through our days in His grace, mercy and love.

Great, Not Great

My crazy three year old, Will, is constantly cracking me up. One of the things he says when I'm smiling and talking about something enthusiastically is, "Is it great, Mom?" And, on the other side, when he knows that I am upset, he'll say, "Is it not great?" Cracks me up. I wish you could hear him. Anyway, in the past I had a post or two about things that work for us, and things that don't. Many of you chimed in and shared great ideas or testimonials that helped me out a ton. So, I thought we'd try again, but this time I've renamed it, a la Will. :)

What's Great:

A system for drying our wet stuff after the pool:

My oldest is on the swim team this year, which is wonderful, but that means daily wet suits and towels. Plus, we go to our neighborhood pool often, and with a family of six that means more wet swimsuits and towels. I saw this idea on Pinterest and implemented it almost immediately. It is simple-a tension shower rod, and some S hooks. I bought the shower rod at Walmart and the hooks from Amazon. In total, it cost me $16, but it was worth every penny. The kids, with the exception of my daughter, who is one, know to hang their stuff up right away, and we sort and put them away whenever we need to use the shower. Typically, I fold the towels (if they've only been used a time or two) and hand the swimsuits to their owners to put back in their drawers. Maybe next summer I will get the boys to fold the towels and distribute the suits on their own. For now, I am just thrilled that I am not finding wet bathing suits on the floor of their rooms! 

~Doing laundry on one day from start to finish.

        In the morning, or sometimes the night before, I have the older two boys bring down their laundry. I gather the rest, and Pete and I bring it downstairs. If I am on top of changing the loads around, I can have most of the laundry ready to fold by our nap/quiet time. Then I sit and turn on a show on Netflix, currently Call the Midwife, and fold, fold, fold. Typically, I can have it all folded by the time the little ones are up. The putting away part is sometimes tricky. Jon and Sam are responsible for putting their own away now. I usually put away Will and Maggie's clothes as soon as I can after they wake up. That just leaves the grown up clothes...sadly, this is a NOT GREAT. Often I stick our basket in our room, and get back to the kiddos or dinner, etc. and plan to put ours away before bed. It continually gets pushed off. Even as I type, a basket sits in our bedroom waiting. I spend so little time in our room, besides the obvious sleeping time, that it is the farthest thing from my mind. Does anyone have a tried and true method of getting all the laundry put away? Or do I just need to be more disciplined...

~The Treehouse 

My amazing hubby decided to build our kids a treehouse. It has been quite the project. Many of the kids, our own and several neighborhood friends, have gotten in on the action of building it. Overall, it has been really fun to see it come together. My only complaint is that it has taken many Saturdays to build. All in all though, it has been worth the time and effort to see them playing up there! :)

What's NOT Great:

~Remembering to have my kids practice piano

This picture is from the spring...back when I would remember to tell my kids to practice piano. The consistency of our schedule during the school year made it much easier to remember to have the kids practice daily. Thankfully, our piano teacher is gracious and says as long as they play even once or twice a week during the summer they can just tread water and not lose ground over these summer months. 

~My ability to put things on the wall and get them to stay

My attempts at hanging our dry erase board in our school room! Much to my husband's dismay, I tried to hang our huge dry erase board on the wall without drywall screws. It fell right off. Yikes. I have am now waiting for him to help me find the studs or something like that...apparently I need an education on hanging heavy items. 

Those holes above are where our curtains used to hang in our living room. Ignore the lower set, they were supposed to be covered by the curtains I hung up on the higher set. Then one of my kiddos wrapped himself if the curtains and fell over, pulling the whole thing out of the wall. :( Anyone want to come help me patch the drywall and rehang them? For now we are enjoying the extra sunlight?!?

~Conserving Water

Conserving water is great, but my kids apparently are not great at doing it. They had been playing in the sprinkler with a neighbor, I went in to put my littler two down for naps, they came in and went off to read. THIRTY minutes later I realized the sprinkler was still on in our backyard! *shaking my head* 

So, what's great and not great in your corner of the world?

CC Cycle 3 Science match ups with Apologia

One of the beautiful things about Classical Conversations is that you don't need to add much to it to give your child a well-rounded, excellent classical and Christian education. You really only need to add a math curriculum and language arts to the memory work. That said, this will be both of my boys, ages 7 and 9 (well, by the time we start in the fall they will both have had birthdays), second trip through cycle 3. With that in mind, and several trustworthy recommendations, I purchased the Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology textbook to supplement our first semester science. I love that the book has Scripture throughout and points to our Creator time and again. Also, one friend spoke very highly of the simple science experiments that are included and said they were easy to do with supplies most of us have at home. Since this mama is still learning to love science, and my boys are science fanatics, I thought this might be a good addition to our learning this year.

I am planning to drill the memory work daily, and then add reading the following portions of the book with my boys one or two days of the week. Here is how I will be using the Apologia Exploring Creation book with Classical Conversations this year*:

Week 1: Lesson 1, page 32

Week 2: Lesson 2, pages 46-49

Week 3: Lesson 3, pages 57, 65, 66

Week 4: Lesson 9a, 10, page 150

Week 5: Lesson 11

Week 6: Lesson 4 (part of week 6 is covered in Lesson 4, see below)

Week 7:  Urinary Tract-part of Lesson 4, p. 80

                Lungs-Lesson 6, pages 110-113 (most of Lesson 6 applies more to week 10)

                Skin-Lesson 12, pages 195-203

                Intestines-part of Lesson 4

Week 8: Lesson 7 (this week covers the parts of this lesson, week 12 covers the purposes)

Week 9: Lesson 13

Week 10: Lesson 6

Week 11: Lesson 9b, pages 158-159

Week 12: Lesson 7, pages 119-124 (see week 8)

The goal would be to read the complete lesson, unless specified, focusing on the pages mentioned if applicable. For example, during week 1 we would read all of Lesson 1, focusing on page 32. During week 11, we would read the second half of Lesson 9, focusing on pages 158-159.

Based on the above, the following chapters, or lessons, would not be covered completely by Cycle 3: Lesson 5, Health and Nutrition, Lesson 14, Growth and Development. These chapters would be great to work through with your child(ren) during the time between semesters. Lesson 14, is a great chapter that emphasizes God and His role in creation, although that is done throughout the book. 

I hope that this is helpful! :)

*I will upload this information, complete with the actual science questions to CC Connected once the upload function is enabled again.

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If you want to read more:

If you are interested in learning how we review CC memory work at home, check out this blog post. you might enjoy reading Getting Started with Classical Conversations, Why We Choose to Homeschool or a post about our schedule, What This Homeschooling Thing Looks Like for our Family.

Here are some of my favorite CC blogs to visit: A Stick and Sand, And Here We Go, Classical Conversations at Home, Half-a-hundred Acre Wood, Homegrown Learners, Mt. Hope Chronicles, and Running with Team Hogan are the ones that I have bookmarked at home, but there are many more. In fact, if you blog about CC, please let me know! I'd love to glean wisdom from others on this journey!