Sunday, October 31, 2010

Uncle Jeff and Aunt Tiffini's visit +Halloween!!

Natasha dressed as Ariel.

Rachel dressed as Cinderella.

Samuel dressed as a duck.  (Natasha and Rachel wore this when it fit them!)

Nehemiah as Obi One Kenobi

Uncle Jeff, Aunt Tiffini, Grandmomma, and Papa came for a visit!  We had a wonderful time and were constantly on the go.  One of the great things about homeschooling is that when we have company we can just take the day off, but even better is when we have company and we go and do cool things!  While everyone was here visiting we went to Hearst CastleAlcatraz, Pier 39 in San Francisco, got dressed up and visited the neighbors while trick-or-treating, and Celebrated Rachel's 3rd Birthday (all in a 4 day time frame!!!) !  Unfortunately the only time I had the camera was for Halloween and Rachel's Birthday (later post).

Uncle Jeff talking to his Mom :)

Aunt Tiffini helping Samuel get candy, notice how her hand is in the bucket  :)

Aunt Tiffini, Samuel and I 

Grandmomma and Rachel (Rachel is Grandmomma's girl)

Papa chasing after the girls as they run on to the next house.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Exciting News!!


That's right, Samuel is going to be a BIG BROTHER!!  Another beautiful blessing will be making his or her appearance around June 19th, 2011.  ( Hopefully sooner rather than later!)

Monday, October 11, 2010

Fall Fun (warning picture overload!)



The kids play area.
We visited Swank Farms this weekend to start off our fall learning and adventures! The farm offers lots of things to do: feed goats, jump on bounce pillow, crack corn, corn maze, corn cannon, pig racing, tractor peddlers for the kids, a train ride (relay a track pull), go cart rides, and pumpkin sling shot.
Mathieu driving Rachel on the pedal go-carts.


Nehemiah peddling Rachel.



Here Rachel and Natasha are cracking corn.  Rachel had to put all her weight into turning the handle!




 Fishing for goats with corn stalks.  This was one of the kids favorite things to do.  Who would have thought that putting corn stalks through a fence just to have goats rip them out of your hands was so much fun!

Mathieu jumping with Nehemiah, Natasha and Rachel on the bounce pillow.  If you look closely you can see Nehemiah behind Mathieu.

Petting the rabbits at the petting zoo.

Nehemiah and Mathieu shooting the corn cannon.  

Part of the story that helped us get through the corn maze.
Walking through the corn maze.






Wednesday, October 6, 2010

1 Month of Homeschooling!!

Our first month of homeschooling has been great!  Nehemiah is loving the fact that he gets to play almost the whole day while everyone else is still in school.  Nehemiah has completed the first book in "Developmental Math" and is well into the 2nd book.  He completed the first book and took the test at the end and didn't miss any.  He's very happy to have "100 percent".  He is a little over half way through the "Handwriting without Tears preK" book and is enjoying being able to count down the pages till he can start book 2.  We have taken a little break with "100 Easy Lessons", he was becoming frustrated with himself and the pace of the book because it wasn't going fast enough for him that he would end up crying before we were even half way through the lessons.  In replace of "100 Easy Lessons"  we have been watching "Word Why" and continuing to work on the "Bob Books" and the flash cards.  He also carries a notebook around with him (his idea) and writes down any words he wants to remember and draws a picture of it.  He's completely filled up one small spiral notebook and is working on his second.

Natasha is loving her worksheets and the variety it has in it.  She is about half way through book one of "Developmental Math" and about a third the way through the "Handwriting without Tears prek" book.  She is enjoying math much more than she was in the beginning.  I think mainly because there is a lot of coloring and you can't go wrong with her if she gets to color.

Rachel still spends most of the school time at the table with us.  She does a lot of expressive coloring and play dough time.  We are working on her colors and counting right now too.


Samuel spends some time at the table with us, he really enjoys reading "Touch and Feel" books.  He could spend hours sometimes just looking at his books.  When he isn't at the table he's busy pushing his dump truck around the house.  He's a pro at hoarding and at getting around with it.  If you can't find something it's best to go and dump his truck out, because 9 times out of 10 he's picked it up and has been pushing it around. :)