It's that time...

The time has come to acknowledge the fact that I do indeed have a blog and I need to actually update it.  Things got so insane last year that I had to take something off my plate, and sadly the blog was the first to go.  While summer hasn't been super refreshing due to the fact that we've basically been going non-stop the entire time, it's definitely refreshed me in the much needed break from school and having to maintain a schedule every day.

In preparation for the upcoming year I've spent the summer slowly poking around for what I thought would fit our needs for the new year.  2 weeks ago the last of my curriculum came in the mail and the last two weeks have been spent putting together our schedule and planning notebook for the year.  We plan to start next week and I can't believe it's already here, but I'm excited for what's to come.

The girls will be in 1st grade and I know they are going to love what I have planned.  We're also thinking of joining a co-op this year.  I'm in the midst of gathering info and excited about the prospect of them making some friends they can see on a regular basis.  I'm also thinking of joining class days which will be great for Science and Art.

I can't say I'm ready for summer to end, but I can definitely say I'm slowly but surely getting ready for school to begin.  Here's to an awesome 1st grade year!

Let the Craziness Begin...

Our crazy fall schedule is officially in full swing with the start of this week.  My church Bible Study (which luckily has a wonderful kid's program... yay for it counting as a day of K) starts up again tomorrow.  This means almost every day and night of the week we have something going on.

On Monday nights handsome hubby and I do pre-marital mentoring for couples at our church. On Tuesday morning I take the girls to Bible Study, we go to the library, and then we go to Gama's house where we spend time with her and then have family night where the granparents, siblings, and kiddos get together for dinner and games or activities of some sort.  On Wednesday morning the girls have gymnastics and then we rush home to try to fit our school all in before lunch.  On Wednesday nights the girls go to Sparks, and for anyone else who does the same you know the rush and craziness of dinner's and the late nights that ensue on AWANA night.  On Thursday's Nana comes over in the afternoon and I either make a family dinner for all of us, or every other week hubby and I get a date night while she puts the girls to bed.  This leaves us Friday night for family movie time snuggled on the sofa, and the weekend to relax (or do any one of the myriad of things that needs to happen that weekend) as well as go to church and get all our errands run for the following week.

Phew!  We've had a nice few weeks getting used to our school schedule and adding in 1 thing at a time, but now it's all on the schedule and we're ready to rock!  Let's just hope it doesn't fly by as fast as the summer did... I'm not ready to think about Christmas yet.

Progression

I don't know about you, but one of the great rewards of homeschooling is watching your kids work through something they found difficult and coming out on the other side having made progress.  Handwriting for us isn't necessarily the most fun part of the day... but it's starting to be.  The girls are getting better by the day with holding their pencil correctly and having good control over what their tiny hands are doing.  It used to be a big area of frustration, but over the past week they each seemed to have flipped a switch in their brains and are doing so much better.  They also LOVE to color and draw on the animal picture on the back of each of their A Reason For Handwriting worksheets which has also helped. 

Aside from our handwriting lessons I've been working with the girls on writing their names and writing their numbers.  We usually do this at least once a week in their notebooks.  Poor Av just hadn't been able to write a good 3.  She always made an extra loop in the middle and felt like she would never get it right.  I worked with her to try to make 2 c's backwards and touching but she continued with her little extra loop.  Then a few days ago while doing her math worksheet she jumped out of her chair and proclaimed, "I did it mama, I did it!  I made the best 3 ever!  Take a picture, take a picture so we can show daddy!"  So here she is, my proud little peanut with her Best 3 EVER!  Her smile doesn't get more genuine than this and I will always treasure this image!

School Away From Home

The Wynn - our gorgeous school away from home.

For the past week we've lived, schooled, and worked away from home.  Every year handsome hubby has a trade-show in Las Vegas, and since it's close enough for us to all drive and his hotel expenses are covered by work we've always gone along.  My thinking a few years ago was that even though he was super busy with work and we hardly saw him... it was easier to be there doing something different with little ones than to just stay home and be alone for the week.  Now that they are older they enjoy going becuase we can swim, shop, and play during the day and they are much easier to handle regardless of where we are.  Daddy is still busy and going from morning until the wee hours of night, but us girls have fun girl time and enjoyed our week. 

 I brought along a mini white-board which was perfect for our lessons.

I brought our school stuff along and we just pounded through our work which took about an hour each morning and then we were off to enjoy our day.  I did our reading in the afternoon to give us something to do during the heat of the day and break things up a bit.  Poor peanuts came down with a cold the day before we left so we couldn't swim as much as I had wanted, but I'm glad we went because while they still had a cough they were feeling much better after a few days and really enjoyed the trip.  It's always nice to change up the routine a bit but now it's back the grind.  We're home now and I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend before it all starts again!

The Path to Clean Eating

For the past 2+ years our family has been moving in a direction towards healthier eating.  It started slowly by just trying to be more aware of what was in our food.  We believe strongly that what we eat and put into our bodies has a direct effect on our health and well being.  I had always shopped at Trader Joe's for a few things here and there, but knowing most of their food was preservative free, and that they cared about the ingredients that went into their food along with a great selection of organic ingredients... I fully made the switch and haven't looked back.

I began finding or developing recipes that used only TJ's ingredients and quickly got the point where I almost never went to the "regular" grocery store.  My shopping is done at TJ's, the farmer's market, and the health food store.  Like many people I also became aware of the amount of meat and dairy we were consuming and stared doing "Meatless Monday's" which led to mostly meatless or vegan cooking.  I'm at the point where almost all the meals I cook are now meatless, aside from the occasional fish or chicken dish about 1-2 times a month.

Despite the fact that we were eating really healthy I was noticing that my health wasn't very good.  I was having almost constant tummy issues and it didn't seem to matter what I ate, I'd almost constantly feel sick.  Just over a month ago I decided I'd had enough.  I decided to go on a 3 day juice fast to cleanse my system, and then move towards a super restricted diet so I could begin to rule out possible food sensitivities or intolerance.  Each day I drank about 48oz of "Mean Green Juice" from the Joe Cross documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead along with about 64oz of water.  After the 3 days of juicing I eliminated gluten, dairy, meat, grains, eggs, corn, processed foods, and sugar.  I ate only fruits, veggies, and nuts for the first 2 weeks and then slowly started adding in other things.  The goal was to feel good and then slowly add new foods to see how I felt and to help determine if they were safe foods or not.  Over the rest of the month I added rice, corn, some meat, and some sugars. 

I wasn't sure what this was going to look like for my family, and that was the most daunting part in the beginning.  I decided to keep their breakfasts and lunches normal and then make dinner for all of us based on my dietary restrictions so we could enjoy dinner as a family.  This meant transitioning to brown rice pasta's, lots of soups, salads, lentils, and mainly veggie based dinners.  Luckily the girls have been fine with everything and have even loved some of the new recipes!

I got a little over-excited at the end of the month when we went out for date night and tried dairy on my gluten free pizza which made me realize I'm definitely lactose intolerant. :-(  I'm hoping to try gluten soon and keeping everything crossed I'll find out that dairy is the source of my troubles and I'll be fine with gluten.  If not though I'll continue on doing the best I can to feed myself and my family so I'm healthy and happy and able to serve them better.  I feel so blessed to have already been on this path so the foods I'm having to make now don't at all seem weird like they would have a few years ago, and many of my standard recipes are already gluten or dairy free. 

I've been on the hunt for gluten free and diary free recipes and plan to post a few of my own as well.  Let me know in the comments if you have food restrictions in your family and how you've dealt with them.  Feel free to link me to any great recipes you love and check back soon for some recipes from me!

Overcoming Frustrations

For the past two weeks we've been working on lines for art class.  We learned about diagonal, vertical, and horizontal lines.  We discussed what parallel and perpendicular were and pointed out all the different types of lines around the room.  We also practiced making patters with the different types of lines using markers and colored pencils.



For our big art project last week I *thought* I picked the perfect line art project to combine our cutting and pasting practice with our knowledge of different types of lines.  The idea was to cut lines of different thicknesses out of construction paper and then cut and paste them into three different sections to make diagonal, vertical, and horizontal patterns.  This would have been great, and was just fine for Av, but the inner perfectionist in Brin reared it's ugly head again.

Once we implemented our star chart last year we didn't have any more perfection frustration.  The girls really embraced the idea that they just had to try their best and worked hard to get that sticker.  I haven't printed up any new start charts yet this year and I think without that reminder Brin is starting to get frustrated again when she feels something isn't done as good as she wants it.



When I walked over to see how they were doing and saw tears dripping onto her art project becuase she couldn't cut straight enough... I decided to just shelve it and move on.  We came back to it the next day and I reminded her of our virtue of the week "Self-Control" and told her that it was her choice how to react, and this is just something for fun and to learn how to cut so it doesn't have to be perfect.  With a day's break, and a little help from mommy cutting some straight less uneven lines, Brin was able to finish her project without any tears.



I'm glad we went back to it and I had her finish it away from the stress and frustration of the first day. Instead of using our star charts moving forward for the rest of our subjects I've decided to let them get a stamp for good attitudes without frustration. We've only done it for a few days, but so far they are LOVING the stamps and a quick reminder gets them focused on where their attitude should be.

Balancing Act

Now that we're back in the full swing of things and school is back in session, I'm having to make sure I plan and schedule my time much better than I did over the summer.  Over the summer I sort of let the housework get behind, didn't keep on top of the girls picking up their toys throughout the day, and often left my meals unplanned so I was having to make quick dinners that were thrown together at the last minute.  We had great, fun, lazy days... but it lacked the structure which led to the motivation I needed to get tasks completed.

Maybe it's just becuase it's still rather new, but I'm really loving having more structure and what feels like set times to get things accomplished.  I'm doing well keeping on top of my bible study/quiet time, the girls clean up, our school day/lesson plans, lunches, our extra-curricular activities, and even my photography/work schedule.  I haven't yet found the place or time to keep on top of the household cleaning.  I deep cleaned the week before starting school and I've been great about keeping everything neat and picked up, but I have yet to work the continual weekly deep cleaning into my routine.  Partially becuase I hate cleaning, but partially becuase my day is so full of staying on top of everything else that I don't really know where to put it.  I'm thinking it's time to pay a little visit to Fly Lady and work to get my house cleaning schedule back in order.

My goal for this next week is to work on a regular cleaning schedule for my week as well as make myself get back to monthly or at least weekly planning our meals.  If I can get those two things under control (and keep up with what I'm already doing) I think we'll be in for a great and organized year!

What are your tips and tricks for keeping your house clean?  Are there areas that you feel you fall short trying to balance being a wife, mother, and teacher? 

Twas the Night Before Kinder...

How did Kindergarten get here so quickly???  It seems that just yesterday we were enjoying our carefree summer days with school nowhere in sight and then suddenly the girls are school age and preparing for real school to start.  I can't believe my babies are 5 1/2 and starting Kindergarten tomorrow. 

I feel lucky that I don't have to have the big, sad sendoff moment that many mom's have.  I don't have to drive the girls to a strange new school and walk them to the gate where they'll stand and wave at me before walking into a new class full of strangers.  I don't have to turn away and hope and pray that they'll be okay and God will bless them with not only a great teacher, but nice kids to befriend them who will be good influences in their lives.  I instead get to serve them by being the example I should be and helping them to learn not only school subjects, but how to be the little people God wants them to be.  I don't have to be sad that I'll miss out on everything they are learning and experiencing and instead get to see it unfold first hand and I'll be the one rewarded when I watch it click.  I'm so very blessed to be able to homeschool these girls and I can't wait to watch this year unfold!

So tomorrow we'll wake up, have our breakfast, get dressed in our new first day of school clothes, take some back to school photos, and then start Kindergarten.  It's official... we're a homeschool family... and I couldn't be prouder!

A Look Back

I was just looking back and reading through some of my first blog posts here.  It's so fun to see where my head was a year ago versus where my head is now.  I went from feeling the waters with the tip of my toe, to jumping head first into the deep end.  But you know what?  God's got his arms around me so there is no way I'm going down!  This past year I have felt such peace about the decision to homeschool.  There has been confirmation after confirmation that it's not only the right thing, but the best thing for our family.  It's amazing how a topic that caused me stress to even think about (the girls schooling and what to do about it) now causes me joy and excitement about what our future holds.

I'm not going to lie though.  There are still many moments when I have no idea what the best choices are and get overwhelmed about it all.  I'm trying my best to do as much research as I can to make wise informed decisions that have our long term goal for homeschooling in mind.  I'm looking forward to being intentional about meeting other homeschooling moms over this next year so I have some support and relationships with people who are going through the same thing.  I'm still unsure about if we should join a co-op and if so... which one?  I feel like I have time to decide those things though as Kindergarten is about fun and learning to enjoy the process of learning.  I've heard from multiple people that K should be fun and you can't screw it up so I'm trying to take that and run with it.  Here's to an amazing new school year!

Rainy Days

I was given some great advice by a wise homeschool mom when I first started on this adventure. She said to make sure I enjoyed the little moments and to make time for special memories amongst our schooling. She said one of the things here girls still remember most from their early homeschool years was taking a break on a rainy day to cuddle together under a blanket with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book.

So today, when I woke up to the sound of rain on my window... I decided to do just that! I asked the girls to get everything cleaned up and then instead of heading into the school room I told them to go wait quietly on the couch for me. I warmed up some hot cocoa on the stove and brought it to them (with squeals of delight) in their new princess mugs they got for Christmas.

I downloaded The Wizard of Oz onto my Kindle Ap and we all snuggled under a blanket drinking our cocoa while I read for over an hour about the amazing adventures of Dorothy. It was everything I was promised and more! The girls were great and listened intently, and we got to just be us, together, making memories we will never forget! I can't wait for more rainy days in the years to come and am so thankful I listed to those wise words and let myself just stop and enjoy the moment!

Oh and as a bonus... my sweet little Brin lost her 2nd tooth today!

A good idea... gone bad

So I had this fabulous idea to have the girls help with their thank you notes this year. I made little forms that allow them to fill in who the card it to, what they got and are thankful for, and then their name at the bottom. I planned to cut these out and have them paste them into cards we make during craft time on Friday. It's obviously been awhile since we did school and I've forgotten how frustrated they get with free hand writing... especially with all lowercase... and on just a small line. So yesterday after the girls struggled and huffed and tried their best for over an hour to form words and leave spaces between them (which didn't happen.) They are barely legible and after each doing just 2 notes and almost 10 left to go... I called it a bust. I'm thinking I'll just write them this year and have them sign their names at the bottom. I'm sad it didn't work out, but I don't think I have the patience to sit through another few hour of this, nor do they. Waaaah Waaahhhhh!

Back in School

To say we missed a little school over the holiday's is a bit of an understatement. We had the girls birthday and week up at Disneyland the first week in December. The girls got really sick and were down for the count with ear infections, strep, pink eye, and colds for the entire 2nd week of December. Then we took off the week before Christmas and the week after was our annual family trip to Palm Springs. So if you're adding that up... it's an entire month off school. For that reason even though the local school wasn't starting until next week I decided to start back up today. We're easing in with a bit of review, catching up on our Cubbies since we missed the last 2 weeks and have this weeks lesson as well, and just trying to get used to having school every day again. I'm excited to be back to a routine and make up for lost time and I hope we find the groove we were just developing before the break.

Busy Busy

Well haven't we just had a busy few weeks. Last I wrote we were finishing up our school and trying to get ready for the girls big 5th Birthday Party. We had a great get together with all our family and the girls enjoyed celebrating their birthday Alice in Wonderland style. We had a Tea Party Brunch since breakfast foods are their favorite and the girls got to wear their costumes I made them for Halloween. Av was the Queen of Hearts, and Brin was Alice. They were both so excited and enjoyed every minute of it!

To decorate I had hanging lanterns and curly cues, a this way/that way/wrong way sign, I painted the roses red, had and Alice book out, and covered the table with playing cards and mini tea sets. I also enlarged some of the images I took of them in their costumes and had those around the room. For brunch we had hashbrowns, fruit salad, coffee cake, bagels and cream cheese, mini pancakes with eat me signs, egg strata, mini fruit and yogurt parfaits, drink me signs on the cups with a variety of juices, and the girls choose a donut tree instead of cake. It was fun, whimsical, and definitely Alice inspired!



The girls in their costumes blowing out candles, opening presents, and enjoying their sprinkle donuts. We have always sung to them separately so they can each enjoy their birthday as individuals. They love it and get excited for that bit of attention.



A few of the images I got at their costume photoshoot. They had so much fun and enjoyed posing and pretending to be the evil queen and sweet Cinderella.







More to come on what we've been up to!

Back to the Grind!

After getting really lax and taking almost all of last week off due to daddy being on vacation for 3 days for Thanksgiving... I'm now trying to get us back in the swing of things. I have to admit that over the last 2 weeks I've felt like I've hit a wall. The inner high school senior is me has reared it's ugly head and I'm wondering when the heck this year is going to be over because I'm ready for summer! I'm thinking that's not a good thing when it's not even December yet. I'm also thinking it means I need to restructure our curriculum a bit becuase if I'm getting this bored, then surely they aren't too far behind? Maybe I'm wrong, but this is Preschool after all and I think they need more fun in the mix. Then again, maybe it's just a case of the holiday antsy's? I also know that we'll be on vacation up to Disneyland for the girls birthday all next week, plus getting ready for their b-day party this weekend has me itching to just accomplish things without school in the mix. I know however that this is really good for them (and me) and if I'm more careful with how I prep and organize my time I wouldn't be feeling quite so much of a strain.

Today instead of following our usual curriculum I just grabbed random workbooks, games, and activities that fit into each category of our day: ie: Bible, Writing, Sight Words, Math, Reading, Language, and Art. I'm kinda thinking that's better and less monotonous than just doing the same type of worksheet every day. I will definitely still add those in, but maybe do a lot more mixing up to keep it fun. Because today was actually fun again (for me anyway) and they seemed to really enjoy it so that's a plus.

Finding our Groove

I really feel like the girls and I have found our groove with this whole homeschool thing. At times I feel like our curriculum is a bit repetitive... and I admit I get a bit lazy and don't always add in fun creative things to the daily schedule. The girls really love the bonus activities like workbooks, art, and hands on manipulatives and I really need to be better about including those in our weekly curriculum rather than just the standard worksheets we tend to do each week. The repetitiveness isn't too bad though becuase it really does help them to learn and grow.

I think most days they really enjoy everything we do and I've really enjoyed watching how far they've come in such a short amount of time.


- Our white board contains the letter of the week, and the sight words we're working on. This day we were working on addition. I would put up the magnets and then they would answer by putting the correct number magnets on their board as an answer. They enjoyed it becuase it was different than just writing the numbers like they usually do.
- I'm surprised how much better the girls have gotten with their word ladders in just a few short weeks. They still struggle a bit with blend ladders where they add an ending letter to create a word, but they do really well adding the letters to the beginning of the word family.
- We're still slowly but surely working on our cutting. They are getting much better and having an easier time controlling their cuts, but still have a ways to go to cut accurately.
- Still plugging away at our weekly Cubbies lesson's for Bible time. It's amazing how quickly they can memorize their verses. I just love that they are hiding God's work in their hearts!



- Getting better and better at their handwriting. We've started working on writing their names correctly with a capital and then lowercase... but they have quite loudly voiced that they don't want to do it that way. Hoping it's not too hard of a habit to break, and Brin is already doing better, but the little e gives her trouble almost every time.
- We've start putting together and reading their first sentences. Some days they have more patience than others but I'm amazed at how they can already sound out simple words. I try not to push it though and when I see them getting frustrated we just finish what we are on and move on.
- The girls are doing well with their sight words. It still hasn't quite clicked with them that the sight words are the same ones that are in sentences, but I'm sure it will happen soon. At least they are quick to sound them out if they get stumped.
- They really love these color by number workbooks. They have really found a love for coloring (especially Av) and it's fun to watch their creativity bloom through their artwork.

Life Lessons

Today our school was more of a life lesson... taught & learned by Mommy. That lesson was, "don't procrastinate on your housework or you'll find yourself using school time to clean becuase you forgot about the TV repairman who called and will be arriving in 2.5 hours." Whoops! So right when I found myself getting ready to start our day, and thinking the 4 days of dishes piling up from hubby being out of town, and the disaster downstairs becuase I haven't kept on top of things could just wait a few more hours until after school. I suddenly needed to get it done and school time was the only time left to finish. I spent 2 straight hours doing dishes, vacuuming, dusting, sweeping, washing the floors, scrubbing toilets, putting away laundry, de-cluttering, and cleaning the kitchen. The girls did their part by cleaning up their toys and putting all their shoes and clothes away.

With about 30 minutes of school time to spare we played with our plastic shapes to build pictures, and drew with markers. I plan to give them lunch and then read a few library books after the repairman comes. The bad news is we didn't get to do our lessons for the day, and we didn't do them yesterday becuase they stayed the night at Gama's... but the good news is I now have a clean house and an entire day to spend playing with my girls without any work hanging over my head. So I guess hooray for small blessings!

Giving Thanks!

For the next two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving we are spending time focusing on what we are thankful for. We are talking about giving thanks to God for all he has provided for us, thanking others for things they do, and having a kind and thankful heart. Here are some of the things the girls have been thankful for so far:

Avalyn - The Love her Mommy & Daddy give her, her bed, Nana

Brinley - Her House, Her Mommy, Daddy & Sister, Auntie Stacey & Uncle Matt

It's so fun watching them think really hard and then get excited about something they are thankful for. I truly hope we can ingrain in them from an early age how blessed we are and how thankful we should be for all that God has given us and the freedom he's allowed us to have.

Giving In

So this morning after forcing my bleary eyes open and doing my Bible Study I came downstairs to get breakfast. I stayed up way too late last night reading and was truly paying for it by being beyond tired. The girls were happily playing candy-land and my little ponies when I announced it was time to get dressed and pick up for school. They both looked at me and said, "Noooooo, please no school today mommy. We want to play our story and we just started." The tired in me just couldn't resist so I actually gave in and said, "okay... but know we can't do this next year for Kindergarten, we have to have school every day." They both jumped up and down and thanked me over and over so happy to continue playing. I on the other hand made myself some breakfast and then climbed back into my bed with my book. I only felt a liiitle bit guilty, but decided that I was too tired to care.

So yah, I'm a total loser homeschool mom and I know I should have just pushed through... but I took the easy road. I figure I won't be able to take advantage of "days off" next year so I might as well do it now. Booo! Oh well, I'm not gonna lie... it was really nice to just get laundry done, watch a movie with the girls, and relax with my book.

Unfocused

I'm kinda feeling all over the place this week. I pulled my upper back and neck really badly over the weekend and still wasn't able to situp for more than a few minutes at a time on Monday. I started the morning by putting on a leap frog educational video. After that I had the girls bring their Cubbies books as well as a few library books upstairs. While lying on my back we did their Cubbies lesson, Bible Reading, and then read a few books together. I felt so bad for missing yet another day of school, but was happy to have at least accomplished a little.

Aside from the bit of chaos in our school schedule... I'm having trouble keeping focused and using my time well. I feel like I keep starting things but not finishing them. I have a school schedule, but the rest of my day feels unorganized. I'm struggling to keep the house cleaned and orderly... I'm making meals at the last minute without much thought... and I have so many side projects going or needing to get started that I'm just not being productive.

I'm sure what I'm feeling is normal, and I'm focusing so much on school that I'm letting all the other areas slide... I just have to find a way to balance it all so I'm doing the other things well. I'm think I'm going to try to get through this month and then make a few changes come November!

Survived!

This past Sunday my sister, dad and I pulled off the ultimate surprise. It was my mom's 60th birthday and we were able to completely surprise her with a huge party of over 70 of her friends and family from all different parts of her life. She had absolutely NO idea and was in complete shock. You seriously couldn't have faked the look on her face. We weren't quite sure how to plan a party for the ultimate party planner... since my mom is her own Martha Stewart, but luckily my sister and I inherited her party planning genes and I think we did a pretty good job. We've been planning and working on all the details for months and it was so fun to see it all come together. As soon as we get the photos back I'll be sure to share some of what we did.

It's been absolutely crazy trying to get involved in our new church, doing school with the girls, having time with the family, cooking, cleaning, running my photography business, and trying to have a bit of a personal life all while planning a huge party that basically equates to a wedding without your mom's help. ;-) We did it though and it's now off my plate and I can breath again! Phew! But... not without a little break from school. We ended up taking Monday off since my sister was in town for the party from Ohio and I thought it was more important to spend the day with her rather than doing school. It was also Columbus day so I figured it was a holiday for some people anyway so why not us too? We go to Bible Study on Tuesday, so we didn't have school today and then we'll be taking Thursday off again to spend time with my mom for the day. I plan to cram 4 days of activities into Wed/Fri this week and we'll call it good.