How Tall This Fall?

                                                            












To help make today special and memorable we ended our day with "How Tall This Fall?" I set up a measuring strip in the dining room and measured each child one-by-one.

Emily is 46-1/2 inches tall









Alyssa is 44-1/2 inches tall








Michael is 40-1/2 inches tall





All of the kids, excpet AJ of course, are over 40 inches tall - YEAH! That should make Disneyland very fun for all of them.

AJ just had his 4-month well-child check and he measured in at 24 inches tall. They are all growing SO fast!

We Survived the First Day!

After months of fretting and stressing about how I was going to facilitate educating the children at home this year, I am please report that it went well! WOW! We are through our very first day and the only tears that were shed were mine. Tears of joy of course.
Sweet Emily was struggling with her math today; she had to spell out several large numbers. Though her first attempt was a good one, there were many misspelled numbers. She was not happy about having to redo them. With a little encouragement she agreed to try one more time. When I came back down to check on her, to my delight, it was perfect! She did it!!! And, her handwriting was beautiful too. I could not have asked for a better effort. She literally brought tears to her mother's eyes. What a journey this year is going to be. Emily's thoughts about her first day of homeshool, "How FUN this is going to be - I am so excited!"
Miss Alyssa finished her first day of school with ease. She had no trouble with kindergarten what so ever. She is spending time in our reading corner enjoying a book from Mrs. Darbie "The Night Before Kindergarten."  Alyssa's thoughts about homeschool are "I love it!"

What is Michael doing through all of this?  He spent his morning at the table with girls working on his lacing letters.  He is learning the letter Ss and all about the sun and creation of earth.  He has a much shorter day than the girls, so he gets a lot more hang out time.  Michael says, "I like playin' trains!" Well, not really school-related but at least he does keep busy and has fun while the rest of us work on school.  




Thankfully, our newest addition AJ spent a good part of the morning enjoying his morning nap.  He is such an easy-going guy.  I could never get through the day if he was fussy and irritable.  Thankfully, he had a wonderful day, even with teething.  If every day goes as well as today we will be just fine

Homeschool Chronicles

Temperatures are slowly dropping, the sun sets just a little earlier each evening, summer is slipping away.  The children continue to play, laugh, and terrorize each other not realizing how fast the time is going.  We are about to wrap up yet another season as we gather school supplies and prepare for our new adventure. 
The dining room that was once clutter free with open spaces is quickly closing in us.  The walls are lined with bookshelves and stuffed full of school books, literature, binders, and supplies.  The decorations are slowly transforming from elegant family portraits to cork tiles lined with ribbon displaying the upcoming school schedule, the infamous white board and the classic ABC banner.  Yes, our dining room is becoming a classroom. 
Homeschool is about to begin! We are all excited to see what this next year will bring. There are a lot of unanswered questions just as with anything new and uncharted.  Our plan is to stay positive, keep our expectations reasonable and be flexible.  Our motivation for homeschool is more quality time as a family to make memories and enjoy each other.  With smiles on our faces, Jesus in our hearts, a fun spirit, if nothing else we will enjoy the year ahead. 
My hope is to document our first year with lots of pictures and stories of our adventure.  The good times, the funny times, the sad times and the bad times.  There will be struggles along the way, but if we keep a cheerful attitude through it all, I have hope that we will make it to next summer. 
Stay tuned...