9 Months!

I can't believe our little man is already 9 months old? he's just growing up way too fast! It seems like just a few weeks ago he was that tiny...okay not so tiny at 10 lbs...baby we brought home from the hospital! Why do babies have to grow so fast?? He now is gotten his little army crawl down to a tee and so much so that the little booger can fly across the floor on just his elbows and belly. He has also mastered getting up to his knees around the furniture. It seems that our little man has decided that he's going to take his own spin on the crawling method! The other day we walked into the bedroom to see his standing by himself in his crib! It won't be long now until he is pulling all the way up to his feet and then he'll be off! Little Man is also weighing in this month at just over 21 lbs, making him just in the 50th percentile. Kinda funny for a baby who started off at 10lbs at birth?? He is still just as much of a joy to be around as ever. He is just a peach and everywhere we go people are noticing how happy he is. We are truly blessed to have our sweet baby in our lives and can't wait to see what next month brings!!

Weekend Away

We had a pretty busy week last week with Em's appointment and then spending the weekend. Em's appointment went really well at the dermatologist. We found out that we are being referred to a plastic surgeon for the birthmark on her head. The doctor also treated the warts on her hands and said that when she has the surgery on her head that they will also take care of the little red spot on her cheek. It really dawned on us that day just how sensitive her skin really is! After our appointment in Columbus of course I had to run by my friend Amy's scrap store! She really does have the cutest store so if you're headed to Columbus email me and I will give you directions. I am hoping all the new scrap stuff will inspire me to get back into scrapbooking again. I feel like it is almost this long lost friend.

We then headed to Pennsylvania for the weekend to help celebrate my mother-in-laws birthday. We had a nice lunch together at an Amish restaurant. After the meal the guys all went to a sports bar to watch the Nebraska game (you can't get it on the local channels). Too sad that they got to watch their team lose in the last few seconds of the game. Nathan's sister and I went shopping with Emily for her bridal shower while the guys were watching the game. I think we've decided to go with a black and white theme with lime green accents. I'm so used to doing kid parties that it's hard to switch out of that pattern. Somehow I'm thinking pull string pinatas and goddie bags are not a norm for bridal showers??? Just kidding! Hopefully this will be a more grown up affair.

Nathan and I were able to sneak away for the night Saturday night without any kids. (HUGE thanks to the in-laws for kids sitting overnight!) We spent the night in Akron and the next morning went to the Yankee Peddler Festival in Canal Fulton. This is our third year going to the festival and we will definitely be back next year! It's a great time away for just the two of us and we also find some great items for the house. this year I picked some dried flower bundles to hang over our kitchen sink, in front of the window instead of a valance. I also picked up a tea pot cookie cutter for Em's tea party in a few weeks, a military family sign, and a few Christmas gifts. It was a very nice time away just remembering that we were best friends before we had children. It's amazing how easily we just get in the blur of raising kids and keeping life going that we forget why we even have this house and family to begin with. Sometimes it's just nice to be able to enjoy time with each other catching up on life. When your main conversations of the day are "The doctor said", "I've started noticing such and such with the kids," "So and so called", "When you're out can you stop and pick up whatever", you tend to kinda lose sight of the person you married and all the qualities about them that made you fall in love with them to begin with. We are truly blessed to have family to help out in watching the kids sometimes so we can take a few moments away by ourselves. We love our kids dearly but sometimes Mom and Dad just need time alone together.

Muffin Tin Monday 9/14

This Muffin Tin Monday meal was the one that the girls had helped us shop for on their grocery store field trip last week. We are working on the lapbook "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" with Maddelyn so I wanted to do a weather themed Muffin Tin Meal for them. It really was a whole family project sine the girls helped us at the store thinking of things that we could use for each weather theme. Nathan then helped us in preparing the tornados and lightening bolts. (I think he did a pretty awesome job at it!) We used bologna swirls for tornados, lightning bolts of cheese, orange slices for the sun, pumpkin seed raindrops, blue frosting rain puddles, marshmallows clouds, and topped it off with blue punch flood waters. the girls of course loved it and can't wait for the next Muffin Tin Meal!

I Don't Want To Get Shots At My Party!

We had a very nice day today just hanging out with the kids and doing things on the I-would-love-to-do-but-never-have-enough-time-to list. We made brownies (Gluten Free of course), played with daddy;s huge plastic tote of Lego's from his childhood, ate carmel apples, watched Dora, researched ideas for Emma's 5th Birthday Tea Party, (huge event in our house), made pizza on corn tortillas for dinner, and basically just had a good day. The girls seems really relaxed, I was pretty stress free and able to deal with things quite a bit easier, and I was able to get some things done that were beyond just the day to day necessities of life. I've been working on planning Emma's party as well as a bridal shower for Nathan's brother's fiance (Emily), and I even got some things made up/planned for my Fall craft shows!

While doing planning for the party I asked Emma what she thought of a Fancy Nancy Tea Party? Fancy Nancy is all the rage in our house right now. She is a character from a series of children's books who thinks life is better when you live it fancy. She calls everything by a fancier name and dresses to the nines in tutus, boas, and sunglasses. Basically the perfect book series for three little girls. Well I thought Emma would be beyond words excited when I mentioned it but instead she started crying? I was like Emma why are you crying about planning your birthday party? She said because I have to get a shot at my party! Well that is called being a younger sister. For the past year Maddelyn has been telling Emma that when she turns 5 and goes to kindergarten she will have to get shots. So you can only imagine how often Maddelyn reminds her sister that she had to and so will Emma. Yeah such a sweet big sister. So Emma is now correlating turning five means getting shots and not having the HUGE tea party?? In our family we have started with the girls that truning 5 means that you are no longer a little girl but you are growing into a big girl and we celebrate that with a real ladies tea with real tea cups, finger foods, and such. So Maddelyn being the wonderful big sister that she is has turned being 5 form the day of your 5 year old tea part yo the day you get shots. Thanks Maddelyn!

Busy Weekends

We were once again busy this weekend....but of course I really can't remember what kept us so busy?? Nathan had guard this weekend so it was just the kids and I keeping the fort down. There was a crop at our church this weekend that I was really wanting to go to but since it was just me and the kids I had a sitter come for the day. It was the first time with this new sitter but I think my children had more fun at the house than I did at my crop? They walked to the park, painted nails (with patterns and 3-D stars), played outside, watched a movie, just to mention a few things they did! They had a blast that day. Sunday after church and naps we went to Willard. There was a festival in town and the county's smoke trailer was there for children to learn about how to escape from a burning building. I took all three girls though and they really seemed to enjoy it. Maddelyn knew more about fire safety than I knew she did. Emma however didn't know that much. I guess Maddelyn picked it up somewhere...so sad that someone who's entire family is involved in some way with the local fire department and spent a large amount of her childhood at the fire station now has children who are out of the loop on fire safety. What a slacker mom! I guess we will be doing a fire safety lapbook during fire prevention week in October.

This week we have yet another busy week...now that I think about have I EVER had a week as a stay at home mom that wasn't busy??? We started working on our "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" lapbook today with Maddelyn. We were excited to find out that after we picked this lapbook to find out that the movie of the book comes to theaters this week as well! What a great way to end our study! We will be flying solo this week since Nathan is on a trip this week, which just makes each tiny errand and event so much more chaotic. 4 to 1 ration is quite a bit different from the normal 4 to 2 ratio. We are also scheduled to have Emma visit with her dermatologist at Children's Hospital in Columbus to look at the birth mark on her head. I think that we are ready to have it removed so we are going back in to see the doctor to get her opinion. the last time we were there she said that she would suggest we have it removed at some point to avoid any abnormal cell growth as well as her being self conscious about it later on and we could just let her know when we were ready. This past Summer Emma has been mentioning it quite a bit so I think it's time to go in and see about it.

So even thought it's not a major even week I'm sure it will fill up rather quickly. Even if it doesn't I'm positive the 4 little ones will beyond fill my extra time! They are really good at that?

Muffin Tin Monday 9-7-09

So while doing some research on homeschool ideas I stumbled upon this adorable idea http://michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com/2009/08/muffin-tin-monday.html and fell in love! What a fun way to have lunch one time a week. You can read all about it on her blog but the gist is that you have one meal a week served in a muffin tin. It can be following the theme that she suggests each week or you can do pretty much anything you want. We did our first one the other day which was totally not a theme but was just what I already had here at the house that I knew they would like. The kids were so excited and lunch was a hit. Maddelyn said it was just like at a real school where you get your lunch on a tray and carry them to your seat. I can't imagine how excited they will be when we do a themed muffin tin. This week we had rolled turkey with tooth picks, yogurt in muffin papers, gluten free pretzels, cheese cubes, applesauce in muffin papers, and chocolate covered nuts as a treat. I also want to pick up some of those cute rubber muffin pans that only have 6 cups in them like these do, but the tin ones worked short term. These will also work wonderfully with our themed units/lapbooks that we are doing for school. So since this week will are working on grocery stores in our lapbooks. So on our field trip to the grocery store later this week I will let the girls help me pick out items for their muffin tins for next Monday. They will also be comparing prices and hopefully using coupons!

8 Months

I can't believe that little is getting so big! I forgot to post these last month so here are his 8 month pictures. He's really changing his looks a lot lately with his hair lightening up and starting to get teeth now! As of this weekend while camping he now has his second tooth! Yeah it took 8 months but if he follows Maddelyn's footsteps he will now start getting them in like crazy. His 8th month he also FINALLY starting sitting independently. He's been sitting up for quite sometime but I could not trust him to sit alone because he would throw himself backwards and crash his head on our hardwood floors. So when he was sitting up I had to be with in arms reach to catch his head before he could throw it backwards. Crazy kid? It hit me the other day that we'd be throwing a first birthday party before long! Wow this year with our little peanut has just flown by. He is looking so much like a little man that it makes mommy sad!

Sick Day

So today by our surprise we all stayed home sick from church. I can't remember the last time we all missed Sunday service? I should have seen it coming though because Elijah has had some stomach bug all week and Emma said her tummy hurt last night. So this morning it hit Nathan and I and then in combination with the "after camping allergies" I was done in. So we all stayed in our PJ's today...yes sad to admit... and the girls played and watched some movies. Dad and I napped a bit and then did some work on our computers.

I was able to get some homeschool lesson planning done. Week one went rather well, besides our little no-focusing bit earlier in the week so on with week 2. I have done lots of research this past Summer on different methods and curriculum and I have decided to order Five in a Row (FIAR), which is also a theme/literature based program but it is pretty laid out for you. I will still have to do the "3 R's" on the side but everything I've read/seen on the program seems to be wonderful. I also have a friend who is using FIAR and she was so sweet to have a chat with me a while back about the benefits of the program. Another great thing is that we will be able to teach Maddie and Emma both with the same FIAR volume and just do their individual 3 R's. We still will be doing certain lapbooks here and there on themes we want to cover but FIAR will be our main program. We are also able to do our labooking with these FIAR stories as well. I'm pretty excited about it and now just have to wait for it to arrive in the mail. Until it arrives we have the "Grocery Store" lapbook to work on this week with the girls. It covers things such as the food groups, money, how different foods help you, categorizing, and such. Emma and Caroline will also be working on a "Color Yellow" mini lapbook. On top of these they have their regular phonics, math, and such lessons. It should be a fun week.

Finally Back at It!

So now that the new school year is here I am getting back to blogging on a regular schedule. I really do miss my regular posts and the whole reason I was bloggin was to keep a nice little online journal for the kids some day as well as to keep out of town friends and family updated with our lives. Well both of the reasons are why I need to get back at this again.

So on Monday we started our homeschool year. Maddelyn is now in 1st grade (oh my how did that happen??) and Miss Emma is a kindergartner! She is a bit young, not turning 5 until the second week of October, but we think she was ready. After all isn't that what homeschooling is about, taking things as your kids need them and setting your own pace? So far she's done pretty well.. just a bit wiggly but that's normal for this age. If we get past the wiggles she is learning a lot. Growing up my mom had a Rose of Sharon Bush in our yard and each year we took our first day of school picture in front of it. Well to my joy the pretty bush we had in our yard all Summer bloomed out to be a rose of Sharon in the same color! So our kids also get to take their first day of school pictures in front of the same type of bush that I did. Okay...sappy, but as Nathan says "Traditions!!!"

As I had posted before we totally re-did both our entire curriculum as well as our homeschool room. I thought I would few pictures of it. the girls are pretty excited about it and how much it looks like a real school room. We even have a real class pet... thanks to my parents and their goldfish. It still has no name because Emma calls it Dorthy (after Elmo's fish) and Maddelyn has named it Bubbles so officially it has not name. But..I guess after living it's entire life up to this point at my parents with no name it can survive a bit longer until we decide on a single name for the new fish.

These are the beautiful storage rods we picked up at Ikea for $1.99 a pole and $2.99 a basket! We also got a set to hang under the chalk board and 2 sets for our Master Bathroom. LOVE them!

All of these boxes are the girls workboxes, which I will be posting more details on very soon. I wanted to get some pictures of them using them before I did a big write up on them. All I can say is they have totally changed our method of homeschooling by making our day run much smoother! The girls might even like them more than me if that's possible??

I will post more about the workboxes soon but I need to call it a night since we have church in the morning. there is just never enough hours in the day.