Playing at the Playground

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Abbie

Yes, we’re still here. It seems that having six kids and trying to teach them has slowed me down a bit on my blogging. I’ve declared that we are going to have a boring week and weekend this week so I can catch up on our adventures the past few weeks!

While visiting in Kentucky, we went to a beautiful park with the intention of feeding the ducks. However, we didn’t actually get to feed the ducks, but we did see a house that Abraham Lincoln’s father helped build!

Okay, less talk…more pictures…here they come:

The house that was mentioned above. It’s being restored due to a fire. Arson seems to be a theme in that town as a pretty neat kids park we wanted to go to was destroyed due to arson…hmmm.

Who’s cute kids are these???

We found a tree just begging to be climbed…however, the older kids chickened out! But the younger ones let Mark put them up there.

Zoe spotted a large beetle and Josiah wasn’t too keen on the idea of one being so close to him.

Mark loved climbing too!

Sometimes I do take cool pictures!

Megan and Ceili Rain were so cute but on this rare occasion when I turned around with the camera Ceili Rain refused to pose.

Anywhere we went, you could hear Kristina or me yelling, “James, this way! Come back James!!!”

Ant Trap

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Abbie

Last week, I came down to our bonus room to the announcement: I’m building an ant trap.

And build he did. I was pretty impress with his ingenuity and initiative to invent an ant trap.

We’ve had an ant problem at church and this past Sunday they were coming into the nursery area. We were getting ready to leave and Liam was taking things off the shelf…building an ant trap! If they keep up with this inventiveness, they might just be able to support us in our old age!

It’s off to Ge & Granddaddy’s

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Abbie

A couple weekends ago, we headed to Ge & Granddaddy’s house. They had not gotten to hold Bryant since he was born…so he’d grown a little…

but he’s still cuddly.

We got to go to a high school game where Granddaddy used to coach. Liam used Granddaddy as a chair while we watched the game. I think he had the best seat in the house.

Granddaddy put Mark to work cleaning out the fish pond. Ceili Rain was a bit in awe of the fish.

Mark got a nice little workout in the 90 degree fall weather!

Taking a break from football to blow bubbles.

Again, the best seat in the house!

What We Did…

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Abbie

When Papa and Grandmere came up a couple of weekends ago…guess what we did???

Zoe is getting super better at balancing! She’s also being pretty patient about it. Liam really, really, really needs to have his training wheels either off or moved up and it looks like Josiah’s close to needing a “real” bike soon too. Even Ace is getting brave at riding his bike.

Now if we could just have a little bit cooler weather (going on over 100 days with it being over 90 degrees) then they can get in more practice.

What our week was like…

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Abbie

And that about sums it up!

Ace started on Saturday throwing up. Twenty four hours went by and no one else was sick but he was still puny. Forty eight hours passed and still no one else was sick but he still felt puny. But the, Monday afternoon Liam started moping and then decided to throw up. As we finished singing during family worship Monday evening, Ceili Rain decided to throw up. At that point, Mark and I converted beds to towels and passed around the buckets. We’re thinking Zoe had a mild form of the bug on Tuesday because she didn’t eat anything. Josiah, who loves to touch and hug everyone (including his baby sister) and then stick his fingers in his mouth has not gotten it. I’m not quite sure how he escaped it but he has.

And then Wednesday, sitting in Zoe’s debate club with ten minutes to go (she’s too young for debate but they offer a public speaking and apologetics course for her age. I kid you not! I jumped on that as fast as I could…anyway), I went down. Thankfully, I did not reveal what I had for lunch to the entire crowd but we high tailed it out of there asap and I made it home and curled up in bed with some horrible stomach cramps.

So now, we are praying we’re all on the mend! Until the next round of illnesses…

Say Hello to My Little Friend

Posted on September 7, 2010 by Abbie

In our morning chores last week, I sent Zoe out to put some cards in the mail. Upon her return, she did what she always does, left the front door open (the screen door was closed). I walked into the living room, saw the door open, and started to ask her to please close it but stopped when I noticed something big and brown on the floor.

Hmmm, I thought, that is a huge leaf she brought in. I took a few steps closer and realized it wasn’t a leaf but a frog. I know frogs aren’t yucky. I know they are just one of God’s creatures and can’t hurt. But for some reason, I also knew I wasn’t about to try and pick it up.

So, I called the boys to see if they would pick it up and take it out. Nary a one volunteered (this is the time I miss living out in the country and near a creek where they can do country boy things). So, I took Zoe out the back door and towards the front with the intentions of shooing it out of the house.

By the time she got to the front door, the frog had jumped under our shoe bench. The bench is too long to pick up and shoo him out (especially since my brave knights wouldn’t fight for me), so I did the sensible thing. I called Mark.

He laughed and told me to move the bench away from the door and put a bucket on top of him. I put the phone on speaker so Mark could laugh at our adventure and found the necessary supplies. Since I couldn’t move the bench and place the bucket at the same time, I handed the bucket to Ace and asked him to put it over the frog.

It’s at this point that all children who are capable of walking (that’s five if you’ve lost count), were gathered around the bench awaiting the viewing of “the frog.” I moved the bench and as I did so Ceili Rain plopped down next to the frog. She had no clue what was going on and just sat there. Ace froze and wouldn’t drop the bucket. Even after much encouragement, he wouldn’t move. I grabbed the bucket and plopped it on him.

Then, after talking to Mark, I grabbed a file folder and pushed it under the bucket while “the frog” hopped on top of it. And then I (all alone but with five little followers) carried the folder, bucket and frog outside to where his home should be.

After lifting the bucket, it was at this time that Liam bucked up and got the courage to touch the frog. He touched it several times but never picked it up. My poor, sheltered, posh little boys. Next summer we shall spend every day in the woods chasing and identifying different creatures of various sizes. Yeah right…it’s too hot for mama to do that! Oh Mark…


Our Little Friend

Liam got brave after the frog made it out of our house. He decided to touch it. Several times.

Character Ed

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Abbie

This labor day marks the start of our new school curriculum. Over the course of the summer we studied Pilgrim’s Progress and continued with Math but now we’re about to embark on the nitty gritty.

Where the kids “do” school…This came after they almost took each others lives while sitting at the six foot table (okay,not really but it did get pretty violent)

I know you’re just aching to know what we’re doing in school this year so let’s get right to it!

We’re starting up a Circle Time which I learned about at Preschoolers and Peace. In our Circle Time we’ll

discuss a character trait and what God has to say about it via a recorded message from Dad.
go over Awana verses for the week.
learn about one of the 21 Rules of Our House by Gregg Harris.
read a book (we’re currently reading Big Truths for Little Kids by Susan Hunt
learn a catechism (no, we’re not catholic…Catechisms are questions and answers about what we believe…more on that later).
handbells
Spanish
History
and Science.

In the afternoons, I’ll do individual instruction in Math and Phonics (all the kids are working on different levels, so it’ll be better to do it when younger ones are sleeping).

I’m pumped about Circle Time because it includes all the children and I get to spend time with all of them. This saves us a lot of headache trying to focus on what they are learning individually and trying to keep the younger ones from stealing crayons or pencils or just talking.

My curriculum hub. Aka, the former entertainment center. It’s been converted thanks to a little help from my handy man Mark!

So here’s what we’re using for all our curriculum:

History: We’re going full force in to Mystery of History Volume 1, Creation to the Resurrection. I am so pumped about this. There are tons of things to do and LESSON PLANS, which my over organized brain craves. Get ready to see a lot of crafts and folderbooks!

Science: We’re still using the God’s Design series and this year we’re focusing on Heaven and Earth.

Spanish: I was able to purchase Power-Glide Spanish and think it’ll be a great introduction into Spanish and not too much teaching on my part (because I don’t know a lot of Spanish). Once we finish it, we hope to prove to Mark that we’re ready for Rosetta Stone…wish us luck!

Maths:

Zoe and Ace are working through Saxon Math 2 and Liam is doing extremely well in Saxon Math K. I was going to wait with him until next year and just do it with Liam and Josiah at the same time, however, Liam is more than ready for math so we’re going with it.

Phonics:

Liam really is starting K4 Phonics with a little bit of Letter of the Week (from Confessions of a Homeschooler) thrown in. As I did with Zoe and Ace, I’m using Abeka.

Ace is in 1st grade Phonics. Although he reads and comprehends at a higher level, he still needs to learn a few special rules and a lot of grammar (like not capitalizing in the middle of a sentence). Again, it’s Abeka.

Language Arts:

Zoe is now in to Language Arts. I began looking a week and half ago at some Language Arts curriculum, not feeling satisfied with what we had. It was either too advanced in some areas or too easy in others. And we both were getting frustrated with it. So, I went to My Father’s World’s website (because I’ve been eyeing their curriculum for a long time) and looked at their suggestions for Language Arts. After a little more research, I decided to go with it. We’re also going to attempt to work through a book a month. I wanted to start with Chronicles of Narnia: TheVoyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis (it’s coming out in movie form ya know), but our study guide is backordered. Not sure what we’ll start with now.

So, Zoe is using Primary Language Lessons by Emma Serl, Writing Strands 2 by Dave Marks, and Spelling Power. And get this, it’s all non-consummable (my heart just skipped a beat)! That means that I can use and reuse and co-use with all of my kids. I’m buckling down on her handwriting this year because I know she can write neat if she takes her time. She’s none too thrilled with this idea, but she’ll get used to it.

Handwriting:

Zoe, Ace, and Liam are all working through A Handwriting for a Reason (Zoe at B, Ace at A and Liam at K). Since Liam taught himself to write his name, we thought he could do well with learning how to write other letters of the alphabet!

And thus begins our schooling for the year. I’m so excited about the curriculum but even more excited to see how much the kids are going to learn throughout the year!

Future Engineers

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Abbie

We bought a bouncy seat for Bryant at a consignment sale..however, when you put him in it, he was laying down. So, I found another seat on line that was cheap and met my decor requirement of either elephants or spaceships. This one had elephants.

When it came in, Mark had some helpers putting it together.

Sometimes you need a college degree to put these things together.

Family Visits

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Abbie

While I should be working on lesson plans, I decided the wait was long enough and here are the pictures from our weekend a couple of weeks ago to honor and say goodbye to Mark’s grandmother. As previously, there were 13 children and six adults in one house. And the ages of the kids this time were 10, 7, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 2 mths, 1 mth. I may have been the only one who felt this way but at one point I looked at all the kids gathered together and wondered where the rest were. It just didn’t look like that many kids all together.

Bryant & K meet

Book time with Grandmere is always a must!

Miss G was my shadow for a couple of events and so enjoyed watching Bryant.

Papa got some good Bry lovin’ in.

I’m probably getting this wrong but I think this is TJ. If not, it’s N. I’m still not good at telling them apart.

Now, I really don’t know who it is 🙂

He, I know. This is H. And behind him, a very small Ace man. We enjoyed watching videos from a looong time ago.

So if that was TJ above this would be N and if that was N above, this would be TJ.

Watching the videos.

J loved holding little Bry.

They almost look like Siamese twins they’re so close…and both have spit up cloths over them.

Brotherly love!

Cousin love

And lots more cousin love. Zoe got a quick hold of K before they headed out.

Party Time!

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Abbie

Party Day arrived and after five days of telling Ace that he turned six on his birthday, he finally believed us (he thought he was going to be six at his party).

Lots of pictures less talk!

This year’s cake request: Blue dinosaur with red polka dot sprinkles (hey, it could’ve happened…have you ever seen a dinosaur with skin on???). Made by using a cake that fell apart and cream cheese icing smushed together and molded to look like a dino, covered in blue dyed buttercream icing…verdict: Adults thought it was yummy. Kids tolerated it and quickly took off to play the Wii.

Look what we installed in our house just for Ace’s party!!! Nah, we actually went off location (which is a big first time for us…didn’t think I could plan and get ready for a party at my house after just having a baby). This is our Family Y (YMCA). They just moved into a new facility without a big play gym and I was iffy as to whether it would go well. The kids loved it. As a friend said, “They make their own fun!” The above is actually the toddler nursery room.