Malachi loves his sister (and walker) from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.
AND
Malachi’s crawl at five months from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.
He’s now moved on to the full on commando crawl. He can get it up on all fours but then plops down to go where he needs to.
I can not believe this little man is now six months old! He continues to be the fun one. He laughs at everything. The dog walks by. He laughs. He yanks my hair and I tell him no. He laughs. Any number of siblings walk through a room. He laughs. If you look at him. He laughs. But when he is teething or has a present in his diaper. Well. He can get cranky. He started wanting to go to sleep on his own. I mean fussing and fighting if we try to rock him some times. This started the week we closed on our house. And yes, I miss the rocking cuddles. I always do. Sometimes, every now and then, he’ll cuddle up and let me rock him to sleep but that is getting few and far between since he can do this:
And, he’s now mobile. He started a belly crawl/slither at the end of his fifth month and continues to improve (meaning go faster). He’s also getting up on all fours but he can’t figure out how to actually make him self go forward in that position so he’ll plop back on the floor and take off again.
I’ll post videos tomorrow of his amazing feats. For now. The stats:
17 lbs 12 oz (50%)
28 inches long (92%)
Josiah’s stats at this age still make him the winner for chunkiest. Malachi is continuing with our trend of babies slimming down around six months.
Finally some house pictures! We’re starting with the kitchen because that is where I started this:
When we started this whole moving thing, a dear friend from church sent me a link from A Bowl Full of Lemons about moving and how to organize. It was awesome. And it totally worked. As long as I remembered to label the boxes with the right stuff! But, I loved and still love my moving binder.
Anyway, I started this 14 week challenge two weeks late. I figured I would catch the other two rooms/areas at the end. Actually, we started on Week 2, the garage, but had to stop because the yard tools needed a home. That home is sitting in our back yard waiting to be built by Super-Husband.
Oh, you guys want to see my house, huh? Well, here are some more pictures of the kitchen. Here’s what we love about it:
1. It’s open to the great room. It’s so nice to be able to see the kids, talk to others who are lounging around, and in general just be a part of the action.
2. The bar area-While it was too high for our bar stools from the old house, it is a perfect height and length to have a buffet line. Already tested that out with our “thank you for helping us move in the monsoon*” party.
3. The sink faucet has the sprayer attached to the main nozzle. So awesome and easily accessible. It’s the little things people.
4. There’s a pantry and the cabinets are way deep! Storage. It’s all about the storage.
5. The color. That’s all mine. The whole house was done in flat paint. Please tell me you all know what a house with flat paint and seven children, two dogs, and a rabbit looks like. Anyway, we decided to paint a few of the rooms. I’m still trying to decide on colors for some of the other rooms. The pain color is Royal Palm from the Olympic line. Sometimes it looks really green and others it looks more blue. But what is best about it is that it took only one coat. I fought with the kids’ bathroom color and after four coats and complete coverage was no where in sight, gave up. So, by the time I got to the kitchen, I was done. I was giddy though when it only took one coat.
That dog’s not dead. We took Sunny on a walk the day we took these pictures and wore her slap out. Actually, the kids took turns taking her on a run.
And yes, my stove does not match the rest of the appliances. That is our stove from the old house. There was no way I could part with my super large oven, five heating elements, and convection no less. We were willing to compromise some and asked the builder if he could swap out for a convection oven but he said no. So, we swapped instead. I’m so glad we did. That oven so deserved a new kitchen and use by our large family.
We decided to put one of our computers in here. It gives the kids a get away from the regular school bustle, if needed.
On to the pantry. Ya’ll I have never had a pantry since our second apartment. I was so excited to get it too! I didn’t realize how nice it would be. So, without further adeiu…
This is the “before” shot. I already had some baskets up and a shelf stadium for my cans. But, this organizing challenge made me push to finish the rest of the pantry.
Here’s the after:
Mark hung hooks up for the kids aprons and for mine.
I studied all the week of the challenge and learned a lot from the Organizational Challenge Facebook page. With knowledge in hand, we headed to a dollar store. All the baskets you see before you were purchased there! I believe I spent about $16. Add in another $7 stadium shelf (of course I used my 20% off coupon) and the room was near done. I used my handy dandy labeler to make labels for the solid containers. Someone had suggested using 2x4s for the shelves. We happened to have four or so laying around the house so I tried it out. They worked great on these wire shelves. They gave stability and more height to the canned goods. We’re going to add another two shelves above our top shelf to keep emergency supplies but that was not top priority this week.
I basically just groupeed like things together and threw them in baskets or beside each other. A friends said that baskets can some times take up more space than actually putting them on the shelves. I found that to be totally true. But for bags and a few things here and there they work great! And they look cute too!
We took a long break this year due to the moving thing. But, we were able to get settled in and actually have a start date in August!
So, here’s our curriculum for this year.
Everyone
Bible-Foundations 1. I wish I had had time last week to write about this because Currclick was offering this free (they still are as of tonight)! All three years! I’m not sure if they still are but if so, get on over there and grab it. Basically, Foundations provides a bare bones foundation to studying the Bible. It outlines weekly lessons that start in Genesis and, by the time you finish Foundations 3, will end in Revelation. Basically, studying the Bible in three years. I really like this because it is just a jumping off point of studying and we can take it as far as we want. There are suggestions for coloring sheets for the younger non-readers, however, these do not correspond with the Scripture reading, so I spend an extra 20 minutes grabbing coloring sheets off of various sites. Not a big deal. This study is also great because everyone is working on the same scripture at the same time. They are also learning the Books of the Bible and doing Bible (Sword) drills. Here are the Currclick links for Foundations 2 and Foundations 3.
Mystery of History Volume III-We’re studying Renaissance and Reformation. I love both of these subjects with all my heart. There is so much to learn and seeing it from a Biblical worldview is even better.
Apologia Science Exploring Creation with Astronomy-This is where having and knowing people using the same curriculum helps. Kristina used it last year and since she had it we are doing it this year. We used the Journals last year and I really liked that reinforcement of what we are reading, so we’re doing them this year.
Hey Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek-That’s right. Greek. We’ve focused so much on reading, writing, and arithmetic that I decided now was the time to throw in some foreign language. Why Greek? Well, because it’s the language of the New Testament. What better way to study God’s word than by using the actual language it was written in. Hey Andrew! is very child friendly and Christ centered. Love it! Right now we’re learning how to write each of the letters of the Greek alphabet, what their names are and what they say.
Grammar
First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4. Zoe is in Volume 4, Ace is in Volume 3 and Liam started out in Volume 1. This is where my classical education views combine with Charlotte Mason. While this is more classical it is also a very easy approach to grammar and writing and speaking and all that. So far, I love the material and how it’s covered and the kids love that it takes less than 20 minutes a day (around twenty minutes for the older ones if needed).
Math
Life of Fred-We’re still in the elementary series. We figured out this year that it goes in alphabetical order and increases in difficulty (but it still doesn’t mean you have to go in order if you don’t want to). Life of Fred is great at taking practical math and teaching it to children. It helps the kids think critically. Case in point, Zoe had a critical thinking problem on one of her chapters and I answered it and she just stared at me and then had to explain how my answer was wrong. My brain was not “thinking” when I answered, but it eventually caught up.
Khan Academy-This *free* program is pretty wonderful. This drives home the drill and directions they need for every day math. And did I mention it’s free? The kids are enjoying it because they earn badges for watching videos and getting problems correct. I love it because it’s really helping them grasp basic math concepts (for free). If you are a home school parent, you can register a certain way to be the coach and the parent. That’s great for checking the kids scores etc. Also, if they are under 13 you can’t sign them up for a email account, so you can keep everyone under the same email but with different user names. Make sense? If not, go here to figure it all out. By the way, Khan does not just have math, they have Science (it’s not creationist though. Be warned), art history, computer programming as well as other subjects.
Writing
We’re sticking with Institutes for Excellence in Writing. We’ve had such amazing success with this program so far. Zoe is doing Fables, Myths and Fairytales and thus far has been a big review of everything she learned last year. Ace is finishing up Student Writing Intensive Level A. I’m using the concepts taught in Primary Arts of Language (PAL) to reinforce Liam’s writing skills which are still mostly verbal.
Reading
Veritas Press Comprehension Guides-I picked out several books for Zoe and Ace to read this year and have purchased Comprehension Guides from Veritas Press to go with them. When they finish two chapters, we sit down and discuss the chapters and if a project is included either they work on it independently or we work on it together. Liam is doing the same things only with shorter books. Liam is going through the book First Favorites Volume 1 which is basically like the other comprehension guides only with shorter books.
Here’s their reading lists:
Zoe: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Hobbit, From the Mixed Up File sof Mrs. Basil E. Frankwerler, Robin Hood, The Dangerous Journey, Mary Poppins, The Twenty One Balloons, and The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 (that last one doesn’t have a comprehension guide but I felt it was important enough that she needed to read it)
Ace: Alice in Wonderland, Charlotte’s Web, Misty of Chiconteague, Homer Price, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Story of the Treasure Seekers, Black Shops Before Troy and Stuart Little
Liam: Caps for Sale, Blueberries for Sal, Floss, A Chair for Mother, Harry the Dirty Dog, Billy Blaze, Bread and Jam for Francis, Dr. DeSoto, Curious George, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Frog and Toad are Friends, Frog and Toad All Year Long.
Phonics
Josiah is our only phonics guy and we had such great success with PAL that we’re using that again. He’s learning reading as well as writing.
**Update**After struggling through PAL Reading for several lessons, I decided to go back to Abeka Phonics until Josiah gets a good grasp on his letter sounds and blends. He’s been struggling to get through the lessons in phonics but has been super awesome with his hand writing. So, we’re returning to Abeka. Once I see he’s picking up on it, we’ll go back to PAL.
This is in addition to home school gymnastics, park days, golf clinics (Ace and Josiah) and sewing lessons (not counting church). So, we can check off exercise and socialization!
I’m so excited about this year and the kids have already learned so much in the short amount of time they’ve been “schooling.”
I’m working on our curriculum post for the year, but since it’s not done yet, here are our first day of school pictures.
And, you can get a glimpse of our dining room/school room. Don’t worry. I think I’ve joined a Home Organization in 14 Weeks thing so I’ll be posting pictures of our home throughout those 14 weeks. Well, more like 12 because I missed the first two and will do those last. Okay, so I guess it is 14.
Aren’t they cute?!
Since I spent most of August searching for…well, for everything (our life packed in boxes), my phone served as my camera. And here’s what I got…
No, it’s not a zombie hand. But paint. As in, I was up to my eyeballs in paint for a full week. We took the week after we closed to move in small boxes (the kitchen mainly), and paint rooms something other than flat paint. Not many people could understand this but those with small children and those who have visited and seen my stairway (which is still flat paint because I can’t decide on a color and there is no way I’m paying a painter to come paint until I know for sure that I want the wall that color for at least ten years, okay, five. Why would I pay someone to paint? Well, because it’s a two story stairway. I digress) will understand the need for at least a semi-gloss.
So, the kids had boxes of toys, I had my paint and Malachi had his playpen. We were happy. I (along with Mark and a few other friends) painted the kids’ bathroom, the boys’ room, the girls’ room, the schoolroom/dining room and the kitchen. Needless to say, I was covered in paint all week. But it got done.
Our house has a fence. Yeah, you probably figured that with the amount of kids and animals we have. Well, behind the fence is greenspace. And the kids love it! That was one of the main reasons we choose the house. We wanted them to be able to explore and pick up ticks and other various bugs and do kid things.
While I may have spent our entire summer looking for a house, Zoe got an invitation from a special friend to have an American Girl Club. She and her friends met together weekly and planned all sorts of fun things. This culminated in a craft sale/performance of an American Girl play. They had a wonderful time and Zoe’s friend (and mom) were so gracious to host the events all summer! Nevermind me talking about it, here is Zoe’s perspective along with pictures.
In American Girl Club, we made projects each week. Some of the projects we did were Samantha’s hair bows, Felicity’s candied nuts, and a Forever binder which holds photos and important things we did. At the last meeting we did a craft sale and a play. The play was about a Spanish girl named Josephina and second chances. The play was set in the 1800s in New Mexico. In the play, the part I played was Tia Magdelena. Tia Magdelena was a godmother to Josephina and also a healer. A healer is someone who used spices and herbs to make people feel better. After that we had a sleepover. My friends and I had a fun time.
Because I temporarily lost brain functioning during our move, I decided it was time to introduce Malachi to food. I had packed up our hand blender (okay all blenders for that matter), so I had to squish up the not quite ripe avocado with a fork. Primitive times, I tell ya.
Any way, it was a fun time had by all and after watching him gnaw on the
piece we gave him for over two hours, we decided to wait a week or two
(well, almost a month…I had to find that blender first).
So, after being in the house for a week, I decided the rest of the avocados needed to be eaten or thrown out. With previous babes, I’ve gone the cereal route first but since our babies tend to thin out around six months or so, I thought the high fat content of the avocado would do his body good.
After thoroughly blending and watering down the avocados, he loved them! Especially when I started adding things to them like applesauce, bananas, squash, zucchini.
He also likes to help!
If you’re my friend on Facebook, bear with me, this is a photo dump for the non-facebooking grandparents.
Mark’s birthday is July 3rd. That means everyone forgets and celebrates a day later with fireworks and cookouts. He’s okay with that. Our local army base gets it right though. They have a huge festival for Mark’s birthday complete with carnival rides, games, live entertainment and a pretty amazing fireworks display. What? Oh, it’s to celebrate Independence day, oh, sorry. Well, either way, we made it out to the celebration this year despite the threat of rain and everyone had a wonderful time. Especially piling on Mark.
Ge gave Mark these stick figures for the back of the van. I was so scared I’d pack them and we’d lose them forever. No fear. I stuck them on the van before the move. We’re all there with room to spare. Instagram wouldn’t let me take a big enough picture. Roll Tide Roll!
Is why I’ve been so neglectful of the blog! Chances are, whoever reads this is a friend of mine on facebook and knew we were “upgrading.” We are thrilled. And here’s the story that led to this house.
Over two years ago, Mark and I began to earnestly seek and pray about where God was leading our family. We felt He wanted us to serve in a ministry type position but we had no clue where or how. We settled on that we wanted to be able to serve as a family and we started discussing what our passion was. It quickly led to us realizing we had a heart for families. We are sad to see so many families not seeking the Lord together and we felt that we might be able to do that.
We even went so far as applying for and attending a missionary conference with a world-wide missions agency. God closed that door (but not before we were able to meet some wonderful men and women who are serving God all over the world now), and were left, again, wondering exactly what God wanted for us.
This past May, we were reading a book on parenting, and I looked at Mark and said, “Maybe we should open our home up to families for Bible studies, fellowship, etc.” He looked at me and said, “You know, I was thinking that would be a great place for us to start.” We quickly realized that we had the resources available where we live now to do that but we did not have the space. Our home was great for us as a family, but once you added even one more family it quickly became crowded.
And thus, the search began. Our blessed real estate agent put up with a lot from us and worked so hard to get us in a home. She was amazing at looking and giving us insight in to homes we stepped in to. She had a sharp eye. We knew her from our previous church, so not only was she our realtor, she is also a great friend. And ya’ll, we stepped in to some doozy of houses (Let me just say if you have your house for sale you need to clean it before you have people over). However, we also stepped in to some really, really nice ones as well. What I’m saying is, if you’re in the area and are looking for a house, there are some awesome ones with the bedroom on the main level which is not something we need right now. Late night trips to the ER because a child had a bad dream and was coming down the steps. No thank you. Anyway, my June and July was full of house hunting and by the end, I told Mark I didn’t want to look at another home. Mark said he would start to look online for a house and then call me and I would tell him where it was and why or why not it wouldn’t work for us. It’s safe to say I looked at every. single. home in our area that fit our size and price range. I am not kidding ya’ll. I think our realtor counted over thirty homes we went in. At the start of the summer, there were a lot but we live in a military/fort area and when folks started PCSing here (permanent change of station, my best friend is an army wife so I can sound like I know what I’m talking about), houses started getting snapped up before we could make a decision.
We found what we thought was a great re-sale home and even had a contract on it. However, we soon found out that the foundation had some issues and that was not something we wanted to deal with. We canceled that contract and began the search again. Two days after canceling it, we found what you see on this post. It was in a great neighborhood and the layout was exactly what we were looking for and it was from a builder that we could trust.
And, and, and…it goes on and on. In short, we closed on this house August 4th and painted the following week and then moved in on the 11th. I know, I know. You all are wondering why in the world we painted a brand new house. Well, flat paint, seven sets of little hands, beige walls…all added up to my desire to put some color in the house and paint the most used (and abused) areas.
We’re still moving in, getting settled, starting up school…so be patient but I will post pictures of the new house as soon as I can. Better yet, if you live in the area, just come by for a visit (and step over some boxes…even though most are unpacked there is still stuff everywhere).
We can’t wait to see how God will use us and this house to bless and serve others around us. We have a big ultimate vision of starting a family camp. This house is just the jumping off place as we learn to serve Him with our whole heart.
Stay tuned. Life around here is going to be very interesting. Because it never was before!
