M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

We are lucky to live close enough to have season passes to Disneyland. We try to go a couple times a month to make our passes worth it, and these trips usually fall on Sunday's since our passes are blacked out on Saturdays. (Good thing our church has Saturday night service so we don't miss out each time we go!) A few times a year we get a hotel for a night or two to make a mini vacation out of it rather than just going up for the day. It's great becuase it changes the entire feel of Disneyland and allows us to stay late for the night shows. (fireworks, world of color, etc.)

We almost forgot we had a free night at Marriott that expired the end of this month and we wanted to utilize the less busy weekdays since we normally go on busy weekends. We decided last minute to go up Thursday and stayed overnight doing the park again Friday. This meant a second break from our school schedule just a few weeks into the year. We had an amazing time though and I suppose that's the perk of Pre-K... no need to feel like you HAVE to do school everyday! We made some amazing family memories and I'm so glad we are able to take advantage of these moments while they are still little and find the magic in everything!

My cute girls cheezin it up!


Believe it or not in our almost 3 years of going to Disneyland we've never taken a picture in front of the huge flower Mickey at the front gate. He's in a mask because the whole park is already decorated for Halloween.


The girls got to meet Rapunzel and Flynn for the second time. It's the same Rapunzel as before and amazingly she remembered the girls from the first time almost a year ago. The girls were the very last ones to get to meet them before they closed for the day and they had the entire room laughing when Avalyn exclaimed that "Guess what Rapunzel, we have you at home on Netflix!" They made jokes about that for the entire rest of our visit!


This morning we started out in Fantasyland and got to enjoy one of the girls favorite rides... Dumbo! The girls both wanted purple and they both got lucky enough to get the two purples that were in a row.


I almost teared up here... the girls are big enough that they can ride alone together in the same row. We went on this ride as a family for the first time on their first birthday... and they had to sit on our laps. This was the first time they ever rode together alone, on one of their other favorite rides Alice in Wonderland! *sniff sniff*


This was the sweetest Aurora ever! She spent a good 6 minutes with the girls and the entire room was already cleared out before they moved on. They were so happy and I will never get tired of seeing the sheer joy and excitement they get EVERY SINGLE TIME they meet these princesses!


Belle is Av's favorite princess so she's always so excited when she gets to meet her. She spends more time hugging her than anything else. So cute!


Mulan was amazing and also spent a ton of time with the girls. She even spent a few minutes showing them an awesome Chinese dance that they did along with her.


We were heading along our way when we saw Minnie Mouse. We don't always stop for every character, but they were so excited and the line was short so we hopped in and they were beyond excited to meet Minnie. The girls kept hugging and kissing her so she danced around with them and twirled them around.


Random story... We were headed back to the car and waiting for the tram... and we had to wait for three different ones until we finally got one with an open row. (We were waiting for the front row so we didn't have to collapse the stroller but it was already filled on the few trams that came by.) We didn't think we were going to get on the next tram but the first row was only half full so we ended up getting on. Then 2 minutes into the ride with perfectly sunny skies it just started to rain... big drops. It was so out of the blue and we were SO GLAD we were on that tram! As soon as the tram stopped the rain had lifted and we were able to get to our car without a drop of rain on us. Pretty crazy!

Game of the Week

For our last Friday Funday we played a great game Sequence for Kids. This is a game that uses a bit of strategy to try to get 4 of your tokens in a row while also blocking your opponent from getting 4 in a row. The girls loved playing it and did really well. I love that it can be played as a strategy game if you take the time to think through your cards and moves, or just more for fun if you don't care to think about it as much.

It's fun to watch the girls individual personalities in the different ways they play games. Avalyn was all about playing defense and trying to block all our moves where Brin was more into the offensive trying to make 4 in a row of her own. Brinley was definitely strategizing and looking at her cards to try to make the best move, and Av... well she was just throwing cards down without a care... but they both had fun and that's what matters!

Monday Musings

I always thought "having" to spend the day teaching my girls would make us butt heads and possibly cause me to be slightly resentful of not having as much "me time." I know it's only been a few weeks, but if anything I feel the opposite. I can honestly say I feel closer to the girls just having set a few quality hours to spend together. I've never really been one to follow a schedule even though I know it will make my life easier. For some reason when I HAVE to do something at a specified time I start to feel stifled by it and begin to rebel against said schedule. But... I'm finding that scheduling a few hours actually helps our day go smoother and the girls play so much better since they have already had a bit of my undivided attention.

Once I changed my mindset from being selfish and wanting time to myself... to thinking about how I could truly serve my children best in the short time I have with them, my thinking was totally reset. We only have 18 out of a hopefully 80+ year life with which we can directly influence and shape our kids. If I'm careful about how I schedule my time I not only get great one on one time with both the girls, but time together where we can play and do activities we never did before. Believe it or not, I also get time to myself where I don't feel guilty becuase I've already given of myself to them first. It's really turning out to be a win win for everyone! So glad God "pushed me" to go in this direction becuase He definitely knows best!

Week 2 Letter Review

This week we focused on the letter E and did another week of letter review. Since I didn't do a year of letters before this I felt they needed one more week of review on the full alphabet before we moved on to other activities. We will continue to focus on a letter each week so they can get better at writing, understanding the sound each letter makes, and learn the Spanish and Sign Language vocab for each letter. We had another great week, and here are some of the activities we did.

We worked on tracing our full alphabet as well as numbers 1-9. We worked on our numbers and making patterns with our colored wooden beads. We practiced cutting as well as gluing when we did our art project of the week. We worked a lot on letter recognition, especially our lowercase letters. I called out letter and the girls had to find them on their alphabet tree. This was great for me as well because it pointed out the letters they need extra attention on. We also worked a lot on phonics and finding letters that matched pictures by sounding out the picture word.




The girls feel much more comfortable tracing their letters, but they need to begin working on writing them as well. While they are willing to happily write their uppercase letters, they are a bit more reluctant and have a harder time with lowercase. Luckily the star chart was a good reminder to try and do their best and we didn't have any meltdowns this week! Lowercase E is a hard one though so they will need lots more practice on those small curves. I wanted to get their vowels done first though for phonics and reading so I didn't focus so much on the lowercase letters not being very good. They'll get better as they learn to write more letters and time goes on.




We worked more on number recognition, writing lowercase E's with dry erase, making letters out of play-dough, duplicating patters with our shape blocks, and more phonics letter recognition matching letters to pictures.



We ended the week once again with Friday Funday. After our usual pledge, day's of the week, weather, and song time we went straight into games and then reading. It was another great week and things went really smoothly. They have already learned so much and gotten better at their letters and I'm excited to see how much they grow as the weeks unfold!

The Letter E

This week we are focusing on the letter E. We've talked about the fact that E is a vowel, that it makes two different sounds and we've identified words with both short and long E sounds. We've written our E's, learned a few Spanish E words as well as sign language E words. All that was left was to do our letter E craft. I found great alphabet craft ideas over at Totally Tots. They turned out so cute and I'm excited to get our big cork-board hung so we can start displaying our crafts!

Star Chart

I've been thinking long and hard about what to do with poor little Brin and the difficulty she has trying to be perfect. It seems like no matter what I say it doesn't get through and she's still so very hard on herself when what she's capable of doesn't meet up with her standards. After having a frustrating morning again on Monday before school even started I decided I had to come up with something to help her. I want her to realize that all I care about is that she tries her best. I don't care if what she does is right or wrong, or even good/bad/perfect, I just want her to try it and not get frustrated when it doesn't come out right.

We talked through the fact that everyone has to make mistakes in order to learn and get better. The best ballerinas didn't just walk onto stage and dance perfectly. They had to try, fall, mess up, and fail but with lots of hard work and practice they eventually got better and didn't mess up as often. But even with all the hard work even the best dancers still make mistakes. She understands... but still couldn't be content with that principle applied to her even after we prayed about it together and gave it over to God. I'm hoping if we continue to talk about it and pray about it, that she'll begin to change her thinking.

It seems that drawing, art, and writing are her hot buttons which really cause her to melt down. I came up with a sticker chart to try to help keep her focus in the right place. The idea is that you don't have to do something perfect or even right... you just have to try your best and have a good attitude and not get frustrated. If you can do that then you get a star for each activity of the day. When the start chart is filled there will be a special surprise at the end!



So far it seems to be working well. Whenever she started to get frustrated she would say, "Mommy, I was going to get upset but then I saw my chart and remembered to be calm and try so I could get a star! Praise the Lord and lets hope this continues to help her do well and get through her day without those frustrations pulling her down!

Favorite Day!

I'm was so excited this morning to wake up and head to church for the women's Bible Study. Sadly, I missed the first week last week because of our trip so I was really looking forward to today. The study starts at 8:45 and goes until 11:30. They have a kids program, so I've decided to just do that as our school for Tuesday since they have a story, craft, song time, etc. It works out great and they had so much fun today. The study we are doing is on the book of Hebrews and I'm so loving digging in and seeing what God has to reveal with all these amazing women. I was shocked today to walk into the sanctuary and see a couple hundred women filling the seats. There are 18 women (that were there at least) in our group and it will be great to get to know them over the course of the study.

On our way home we stopped by the library. I was originally planning on going to the library on Monday's, but seeing as how it's on the way home from church and we're already out each week I decided we would do our weekly library run on Tuesday's. The girls were thrilled to drop their books into the slot and pick out new ones for the week. It's so fun picking books out with them and even more fun reading the little gems we often find amongst their stack. I think Tuesday is going to be one of my new favorite days!

Vacation... Kinda

So after a week of school... we totally need a break! Kidding Kidding

Every year the hubby has to go to a tradeshow in Vegas for a week at this time of year. Rather than stay home alone for a week we've always opted to drive out with him and enjoy Vegas for the week. Each year that the girls have gotten older has been easier and easier. This year should be lots of fun since they have learned to swim a bit and we'll be spending lots of time at the pool.

I figure since this is only Preschool and it's the last year we really have the freedom to miss school I would be okay with us missing a week of school. I plan to bring along a few activities, crafts, and some books... and we'd call it good. Can't wait for a fun week out of town. See you all next week!

Friday Funday

Yesterday at around 3:30pm we had a huge blackout. Not only did our little city lose all power, but the entire county of San Diego stretching down to Baja CA, across to AZ, and up to Orange County... all lost power as well. With no explanation and no return of power in site we enjoyed a dinner of PB&J, fruit, and veggie sticks and sent the girls to bed early. The house was quickly heating up and at 80 degrees outside at 8pm it wasn't cooling off the 85* house very quickly. We eventually went to bed early which is something I haven't done in weeks and I definitely regretted not hanging on a bit longer when we were awakened by the power returning at 1:30am making it really hard for me to get back to sleep.

The entire county cancelled school today and the girls were in a funk this morning after not having slept well due to the heat and noises outside. I decided to make it a Friday Funday so I let them play a bit into school time and then they cleaned up and we played a few games together and then read library books for about 40 minutes instead of our usual 20. It was so much fun and something I'll definitely have to schedule from time to time.

I wanted to take a minute to highlight one of the books we read today which ended up being such a sweet story. It was a random library checkout that I knew nothing about, but both the girls and I ended up really liking the story and it led to a good discussion afterwards. The book was called Pete & Pickles by Berkeley Breathed and was a wonderful story of the adventures of a perfectly predictable pig and his new friend Pickles. Definitely a story worth checking out!

Perfection

Poor little B has been dealing with a frustrating case of perfectionism. I have no idea where she get's it from. I mean, she isn't like her mama at all... (ahem *cough*) no not at all *eye roll*. One of the reasons (or excuses) I originally made as to why I would never homeschool was because I was a perfectionist and I didn't want to bring that at all into the classroom. I didn't want the girls to pick up on my bad habits and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to calmly and patiently deal with their mistakes.

You know what though? I think putting voice to that was more than half the battle. Since I am conscious of what I DON'T want to do it makes it so much easier to be intentional about watching myself and my attitude and making sure my head stays in the right place. I start each day with prayer that God will help me in the specific areas I worry about and I find that throughout our school day my mind is where it needs to be and I can be careful about each response I have.

Brin doesn't like to do something unless she can do it right. We have been working on writing, and before school, other than writing our their names (in all caps) or little notes from time to time it's something brand new for the girls. Poor Brin get's upset so quickly and breaks down in tears the minute she feels one of her letters didn't turn out perfectly. It breaks my heart, but makes me so glad that I'm the one who gets to help her through this. I keep reassuring her that it doesn't have to be perfect, and we are just learning and it's okay to try and make mistakes. We won't learn unless we do our best and keep practicing. She just couldn't shake it though so we decided that for now it would be less frustrating for her if she traces letters. She feels more confident doing that, and I'm more than okay with it.



The last thing I want to do is make school a frustrating experience, especially before they are even in Kindergarten. I love that I have the flexibility to help her through her frustrations and change things up so that she's doing what's best for her. I want to make sure I'm continually remembering to use our schedule as a guide, but that it's perfectly okay to deviate from that if it's what the girls or I need. Today after a bit of frustration I flipped around our schedule, and cut an extra writing activity and we started our reading time a bit early and read an extra book. They ended the day happy and hopefully we can work to give Brin the confidence she needs to make mistakes and know it's more than okay.

1st Day of Pre-K

Yesterday was our first day of school, and I'd have to say it was a success! I loved that the slight formality and structure of it made them very willing to switch modes, sit still, and be good listeners. I didn't want them to look back and feel like they were cheated by being homeschooled so they got a back to school outfit and we took pictures of their first day which we'll do every year.

Avalyn

Brinley

We started with the pledge, prayer, calendar time and weather. After that we had song time which they absolutely LOVED! We sang the alphabet, days/months, and then a Sunday School song which we danced and did movements to. We would normally go into Bible after this, and we'll be using their Awana Cubbies lesson each week and learning their verse during this time. Since they don't have a verse this week we just went into the rest of our day.



I got my curriculum from an awesome blog I found http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/ She came up with a great Letter of the Week and K4 curriculum that you can purchase on her site. It's super affordable and very easy to use. Since the girls are ready for writing and phonics I decided to go with the K4 curriculum and then focus on a letter each week since they didn't have a whole year of that previously and they could use a bit of extra focus along with the overall alphabet learning they will be doing.

I decided to start us with A so we talked about and wrote our upper and lowercase A's. We talked about the long and short sounds A makes and sang the vowel song. I mixed up the curriculum a bit to fit our needs and tried to focus at least 1 activity each day in the following areas (Bible/Letter Activity/Writing/Numbers/Motor Skills/Phonics/Language(Spanish & Sign since their uncle Josh is deaf)/Art/Reading (I read their library books to them for 20 minutes) It all fits into 2 hours and then we have lunch and go about the rest of our day.



I can't even tell you how many times they exclaimed "Mommy, this is so fun I LOVE having school at home. Does it have to end?" Makes my heart sing! I'm so excited about this and thrilled that I get to play such a huge role in their education. I think this is going to be great for our family and I can't wait to see how it unfolds!

The Schoolroom

The past few weeks have been filled with Ikea, Amazon purchases, and a myriad of homeschooling blogs. I've gone from feeling nervous, to excited, to... what the heck am I doing??? There is SO much information out there that it's easy to get overwhelmed, especially when you have never before looked into homeschooling (becuase ya know, it wasn't an option.) So now I'm trying not to sink as I tread the waters of all things preschool. I feel really blessed and lucky in a way, that we have made this decision now while I can't really screw anything up. I mean, preschool isn't even required so I have no doubt I'll do okay and worst case have them overly ready for Kinder. Best case though, we'll find our groove over the course of the year and work out the kinks so we can have a great Kinder year next year. But baby steps... one year at a time!

The front room of our house which should be a dining/living room has always been a sort of multi-purpose room. It started out as a playroom for the girls, becuase that was way more practical moving in with 2 babies than a formal dining room. The playroom has changed as the girls toys and needs have changed. This is the playroom after we ripped out the carpet and added the wood floors to match the rest of the downstairs a year ago.





The schoolroom/playroom is still a work in progress, but I'm so excited that it's coming along. We added bookcases to the back wall and a desk for each of us. It still needs to double as a playroom until they are older so I tried to make sure I accommodated both needs. I'll definitely be updating with details once things are a bit closer to being done, but it's on it's way!

Say WHAT???

The inevitable has been around the corner for awhile now, and as much as I didn't want to acknowledge it... over the past few months I've had to. The girls are going to start school in a year and we have to decide what to do about that. I've known Preschool wouldn't be in the cards for us for a few years. With having two at the same age there was no way we would be able to afford to send them to Preschool. Pair that with the fact that their Dec. 6th birthday causes them to miss the Kindergarten cutoff by a day and I figured they would learn all they needed being at home with me for that extra year. I've figured all along that we would send them off to the local public school when it was time to start K, but have always felt a sense of unease about it. I can't exactly tell you why, but it never felt like the right thing to do.

Over the summer as their PreK year was approaching and they were showing a true desire to learn I knew it was time to think and pray more seriously about their schooling. I asked God to give me peace about their schooling, but for the first time ever I told Him I was 100% open to what he wanted and to guide me and show me what the right thing was. I wanted to make the best decision for my girls and their education and I wanted to be open to what he had for them. This is where things get a bit sticky... becuase God didn't exactly answer how I thought he would. I figured he would just give me peace about sending them to public school and that would be the end of it.

But no, God has a sense of humor. It started with little nudges here and there, and then doors began opening, conversations were initiated by people I respect... and before I knew it I was on the path to... dun dun dun... homeschooling my girls. A year ago I would have laughed at you if you told me I was going to homeschool, but after giving the girls education to God, praying about it, and truly evaluating the pros and cons I can say I have complete peace about this decision. It's funny how God can do a 360 on your heart in a matter of months.

We've decided to make this a year by year decision. The girls are more than ready to learn, so I'll do a structured preschool program this year to test the waters and then we'll evaluate how things went at the end of the year and make a decision for Kindergarten. For now though, this is the right path and I'm excited to see where it leads us.