Week 2 of Homeschool & Potty Training

I am happy to say that we have completed week 2 of homeschooling.  Everything is continuing to go along very well.  Cooper had his first Phonics test today.  He scored a 100.  Woo Hoo!  He was very proud!

He is very good at school.  Last year, he typically scored 100 or only missed one or two questions on all of his tests.  It is very important to him that he does his best on all of his tests.  He is still mostly reviewing things he learned last year and practicing his writing.  We are also working on getting faster with his addition facts (2+2=4, 3+3=6, etc).  He is memorizing a poem and started his new spelling word list today.

Kindle continues to work on her phonics.  We are currently talking about all of the vowels and trying to figure out which vowel is in single vowel words (example: dig, dug, met, mitt, mutt).  She is doing very good and recognizing the sounds even better than I expected.  On the paper below, she had to circle the vowel that was in each word.  She got all of them correct!

She is also doing more cursive writing.  She can now write the letters "i, u and e".  She is very proud of herself!  She also is doing great at Arithmetic.  She already recognized all of the numbers 1-10 from Pre-K, so a lot of her Arithmetic has been review so far.  We found her Tinkerbell watch that she bought with her money last week, so that has also been great review of her numbers.

In other news, Celeste has decided that she is going to potty train herself.  She has been taking her diaper off daily and going to the potty on her own.  She is actually going both number one and two all on her own.  She is so proud!  The main thing I am having trouble with is convincing her that she doesn't have to go potty every 2 minutes.  Because it is such a fun adventure to her, she wants to go "try" whether she really needs to go or not.  She typically manages to go a couple of drops so that she can use the toilet paper (ooo), flush the potty (ahhh) and wash her hands (wahoo).  These activities are super fun to her!  Today, she only wore a diaper for naptime (which she ended up taking off).  I told her that she could wear her big girl panties that I got her for her birthday.  They are Minnie Mouse (her favorite).  She has been asking to wear them since June when she got them.  I have told her no in the past and that she had to wait till she could go potty.  I guess that was all the motivation she needed.

I definitely would not go as far as to call her officially "potty trained".  She didn't have any accidents today so she is doing really well.  I think that she should be totally trained very soon.

And lastly, I wanted to give you the conclusion to Grant's stitches.  It has been 10 days since the "incident" so Nathan took him today to have his stitches removed.  Everything has healed up nicely.  Grant, of course, thought it was a fun adventure going to the doctor today and did really great.  He is super happy because he can go swimming at Nana and Grandpa's pool this weekend.  I tried to get a photo of him when he got home from getting his stitches removed, but he was not interested at all.  Ha ha!  So here is a bonus picture of him from soccer yesterday.  I love the mini goal that had.  Just the right size for 3 year olds!

And since I am just throwing in a random photo of Grant, why not throw in a random picture of Gunnar (just to complete the set).  He is really into sucking on his bottom lip right now.  That is what he is doing in this photo.

Tomorrow begins Labor Day weekend.  Anyone got any exciting plans?

Cherokee Indians & Another Birthday Celebration

My parents went at the end of last week to see the Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, NC.  My great, great grandmother on my Dad's side was a Cherokee Indian so they took my sister and her family to go check it all out.  We hope to go one day as well.  I think the kids would really like it.

My parents brought back gifts for the kids from their trip.  Cooper and Grant got tomahawks (don't worry they are made of rubber).  Cooper keeps calling it his ax despite the fact that I have explained to him that it is called a tomahawk.  I told him he can remember because it is like when we go to the Braves game and we do the "Tomahawk Chop" :)  Kindle and Celeste got bead Indian necklaces.  Here is a close up.  They really love them!

And Gunnar got a wooden hand drum.  He actually held and shook it a bit which was cute.  I am going to save it for him till he is a little bigger since he is starting to want to put things in his mouth.  My parents also bought them a book for me to read to everyone to teach them about the Cherokee Indians for school.

I am looking forward to teaching them more about their Indian heritage!


Tonight, I went out with my friend, Alanna.  We went to dinner at Rafferty's.  It was very yummy!  We both ordered the same thing, chicken salad croissants & cream of potato soup :)  The waitress brought us a bowl of ice cream with whip cream and a cherry on top for our birthday.  We also got the waitress to take a photo of us since our last photo together was way too long ago to even mention.

After dinner, we went to see  Dinner for Schmucks.  We are both big fans of The Office and like Steve Carrell so it was a great choice.  The movie was really funny.  I laughed out loud which I don't do very often.  I would definitely recommend it.  (Disclaimer: It is rated PG-13.  There is a bit of bad language & some adult content, but it wasn't too bad.)  I am very glad we had the opportunity to celebrate our 30th birthdays together!

Kindle's First Cursive Writings

If you are familiar with Abeka, you know that they start children off with cursive writing in Kindergarten.  (You can go to their website to read more about why if you are interested.)  I started Cooper with writing in Kindergarten as well.  He has done great with it.  Today, Kindle learned how to write the letter "i" in cursive.  She was a little nervous since this was brand new to her, but she did really good.  

She wanted to show her Daddy when he got home from his meeting because she was so proud!

Cooper also made a really big deal out of it.  He is such a sweet brother (most of the time :).

We started learning about the letter "u" today.  We did a game where I would say a word with either a "u" sound or an "i" sound and she would have to tell me which letter was in the word.  Example: bug & big  She got all of them correct!  She is making such huge progress.  When we did Pre-K, I was not too sure what to do because she was still confusing her colors, numbers, letters, etc.  She is a lot like Nathan when it comes to learning unlike Cooper who learns the same way I do.  I was always asking Nathan for suggestions to help it all to come together for her.  Then, it all clicked after Christmas break.  She knew all of her colors, shapes, numbers and she started recognizing letters.  She is so eager to do school which is great!  She also really wants to learn how to read.  I am excited to continue seeing her progress.

Cooper is still reviewing.  The great thing about him is that if you show him something once, he can pretty much pick it up.  That is how I know when he is paying attention or not.  He has also been doing lots of cursive writing.  Here is one of his papers from today.

In other news, Grant's head is healing really well.  He continues to be such a trooper.  He said it isn't hurting at all anymore.  I have been having him take it easy so that it can heal up properly.  I am thankful that he likes playing Wii.  It has helped keep a busy 3 year old still!  Celeste keeps talking about when Grant hit his head.  She is being a really sweet sister.

A Broken Camera, Stitches & the 2nd Day of School

These past couple of days have been quite interesting.  Yesterday, Nathan was on a photo shoot for work taking pictures of a hotel in Tennessee.  His camera was on a tripod.  While he was moving an item to take another photo, the general manager of the hotel says, "Your camera is falling over."  Nathan doesn't know what happened and the general manager said she didn't either.  All we know is that the camera dropped on a tile floor.  Unfortunately, the eye hole you look through shattered.  Also, the lens got cracked on the side so it will no longer turn or focus.  He had to leave the photo shoot before he could get the night shot he needed. This morning he took it to the camera repair shop.  They are supposed to be taking a look at it and letting us know what the diagnosis is.  

The upside to this story is that a friend from church that has a professional camera as well, is allowing Nathan to borrow his to do the photo shoots he has this week.  What a blessing!

While the kids were playing today, Grant ran into the corner of the wall.  He busted his head open and blood was gushing out.  At Christmastime, he fell into the edge of the futon and busted his forehead open so luckily I was pretty calm about the whole thing.  Grant handled it like a champ.  He only cried for a couple of minutes.  Since it was in his hair, we knew it needed stitches.  Nathan took Grant to the Urgent Care.  They gave him 2 stitches.  

The doctor said he was the best kid they have ever had :)  He sat completely still and had a great attitude the whole time.  They gave him a lollipop and some stickers.  He was very excited!  The doctor was so wonderful.  He is a Christian Dad of 5 kids.  His wife also homeschools them.  He got along really well with Nathan and he decided to give him a discount.  Yay!

Kindle and Cooper were definitely WAY more upset about the whole thing than Grant.  They just cried and cried.  None of my children have had to have stitches before so they weren't really familiar with what was going to happen.  They were definitely thinking about a worst case scenario.  I explained everything to them and got them to calm down.  They went on to tell me all the wonderful things that they love about Grant.  For example, He is so nice and he is great with a lightsaber :)  It was very sweet. I told them that should tell Grant the things that they love about him when he got home.  So they did.  

Grant wanted to pose with Gunnar too.  Gunnar, however, was more interested in the fan than looking at the camera.

Sometimes bad things do happen, but in the end it all worked out.  Candra sent me this verse today that really encouraged me.  I hope it will encourage some of you too.

"Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." Colossians 3:2

On a completely different subject, the 2nd day of school went really great.  We are still mostly reviewing for Cooper.  It makes the school day pretty short for him by comparison to the end of the school year last year.  So tonight, he left me this note.

"I want to do more school"

I was pretty happy to see that he wants to do more!  I must be doing something right.  He also left this note for Nathan so he could see what we are doing in school.

"I'm reading my Bible in school"

With his school work, he has verses to memorize.  Currently, he is memorizing Genesis 1:1-5.  On his own, he decided to read the whole book of Genesis during vacation.  He is now reading the book of Exodus.  I am very proud of him.  

Kindle did a great job today as well.  She is reviewing what we learned in Pre-K with her colors and numbers.  We are also continuing to work on the letter "I".  

1 Down 179 To Go

Today was a very busy and productive day.  As mentioned in my previous post, it was the first day of school for Cooper and Kindle.  Nathan had a photo shoot in Tennessee so everyone was up nice and early.  The kids all got baths.  We ate breakfast and I put Gunnar down for his morning nap.  Grant played a few video games.  Celeste sat down with us and colored a paper.  Cooper and Kindle were so excited to start school.

Kindle is now officially in Kindergarten!

Cooper showing us that he is in 2nd grade.

The school day went really well.  We use the Abeka curriculum for both of their school.  For Cooper, it was all reviewing what he had learned previously so he did it very quickly.  I made sure to let him know that they are easing him back into school and he will have a lot more school work soon.  Kindle had lots of fun and felt so big.  I did homeschool her in Pre-K last year, but it was a lot more casual.  She did really well too.  Cooper kept telling her, I remember learning that 2 years ago.  It was sweet :)  Day one of homeschool for the 2010-2011 school year is complete.  Only 179 more days to go!

We learned about the letter "I" today.

Cooper reviewed his vowels & their sounds.  He also colored this picture.

After school, the kids did their jobs on their chore chart (see previous post).  Then, we ate lunch and got Kindle ready for ballet.  We ran some errands while Kindle was in her class.  We headed home and ate dinner.  We tidied up once again and I managed to get them in bed 20 minutes earlier than normal (since they missed their naps due to Kindle's ballet).  I was able to work out and get a shower (a luxury item as any Mom will tell you).  I am also happy to say I did really good as well with making healthy eating choices.  Hurray!  I can't wait to see my hard work paying off on the scale!  

Now I am off to conquer Mt. Laundry.  I washed everything since vacation, but I have just been grabbing clothes out of the basket instead of sorting it.  I am sure you all never do that...

Any other homeschool parents out there?  If so, what curriculum do you use?

(sings) Back to Life, Back to Reality...

Today was your typical Sunday.  We all got ready for church and I wanted to get a photo of Celeste in her new Elmo dress.

Note the Cinderella dress up heels she wanted to wear today.

Of course, everyone wanted to get their photo taken before we could leave the house. 

Which turned into, them asking if they could get a picture individually too.

Which turned into, them asking to take a photo holding a toy.

Which turned into, them asking if they could take a photo one on one with their siblings.

All the while, Gunnar was happy and content in his swing.

I decided that if we wanted to get to church before it was over, we had to stop taking pictures and leave. 

Tonight I am happy to say, I used my new treadmill for the first time.  I really like having it in the house. It is so much more convenient.  Plus, it is in our bedroom so it pretty much stares at me in the face willing me to get off my lazy behind and use it :)  I have also started using the Livestrong app on my iPhone to help keep track of my calories and exercise.  I like it because almost all food and items at restaurants are listed.

Tomorrow starts the new school year for Cooper and Kindle.  Cooper will be in 2nd grade and Kindle will be in Kindergarten.  Kindle is sooo excited to be starting school back, Cooper not so much. Ha ha.  I chose the title for tonight's blog to be "Back to Life, Back to Reality"(from the song "Back to Reality" by Soul II Soul) because we start into our new routine tomorrow with school and kid's activities.  I managed to finish the school year last year when Gunnar was born (May 20), so I have had a nice long break.  Plus, we have still been in vacation mode a bit.  We get back to our new "reality" tomorrow.  

I spent the rest of the evening preparing for the school day tomorrow.  We should be all ready to go.

Our school room

I am really looking forward to this school year.  I can not wait to see all that the kid's accomplish!  

Cheeseburgers in Paradise

Okay, so maybe not a cheeseburger, but how about a grilled cheese sandwich!  The song Cheeseburger in Paradise has been running through my head today.  And when I say song, I mean the only lyrics I know which are "Cheeseburger in Paradise"  Ha ha!  I guess it because we had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and we are at the beach.  Who knows!

Nathan and I have come to the conclusion that I am the queen of useless information.  I can remember things like my elementary school friend's phone numbers or names of actors or movies that I have only seen once, but ask me to remember to buy toilet paper at the grocery store or remember how to get somewhere I have been before, you can forget it.  I don't *think* it is selective hearing, but I guess I can't really prove that :)  Speaking of remembering how to get places, I am thankful Nathan has a good sense of direction.  I am ashamed to admit that even though I have lived in Marietta, GA or surrounding suburbs my entire life, I still get confused when I get off at the North Marietta Pkwy Exit #265.  I always have to ask Nathan which way to turn. I think it is that darn White Water sign that confuses me.  But I digress...

We are still enjoying life in St. Simons.  We spent the morning running errands and cleaning for my parent's arrival.  Nathan took the kids to see Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.  They were really excited to see this movie because they really liked the first Cats & Dogs movie.  Tonight, we plan on grilling out again.  I love when Nathan is able to grill.  It tastes so yummy!  We have been so busy with kid's activities & Nathan has been so busy with work (which I thank God for), that we have eaten a lot of super quick, easy meals lately(Chick fil A).  I look forward to things slowing down a bit...on second thought, when I get back I start back to school with the kids.  Oh well, hopefully we will still get to grill out :)

Gunnar is 12 weeks old today.  Nathan took this photo of him the night before we left for the beach.  He is so smiley and cute.

Can you see Facebook pulled up on my laptop behind him? ha ha