End of Summer

It's sad to see summer winding to a close, but we had a lot of fun over the summer and we're looking forward to fall. I'm hoping to spend a lot of time swimming this weekend while it's still hot and the pools are still open.

Lydia is now back in her big girl bed at night, but still in the crib for nap. She's doing a great job.

Clae rode is bike half way to town yesterday. He was determined to ride all the way to Grandpa Bob's but got too hot and tired to make it all the way. I was very impressed considering the fact that a couple of weeks ago he couldn't pedal more that 3 or 4 pedals at a time.

I watched to 1st graders for the last several weeks. They went back to school on Monday and it has seemed very quiet around here with only 3 or 4 kids here during the day. But it's very much a welcome quiet!

They are playing in our little hand-me-down playhouse we were given in the pictures below. Kirby hopes to make them a real playhouse one day, but for now they are just as happy with this one.

You can see all of Lydia's "home" accessories, her pack and play, stroller, car seat, and ironing board. They had fun playing house most days. Lydia was always the mom, Payton was the "sister", her age ranged anywhere from an infant to a teenager, depending on what she felt like being that day. And the girls pretty much just told the boys what they were going to be on any given day. One day I heard Clae say, "Get in the truck, we're goin' ta church!"

Clae getting his hair cut. Kirby has always cut Clae's hair since his very first haircut. He does a great job.

One of their favorite things to do lately, go fishin' at Nanny and Papa's pond.

Lydia is totally fearless when to comes to touching animals, no matter how slimy.

Papa caught a bullfrog for them.

Lydia with her pink Barbie fishin' pole. Most of the fish she caught were almost as long as the pole! Love it!

We are starting preschool next month! I am so excited. A friend from church and I ordered curriculum from FunShine Express. The materials came last week and I've been having a blast getting everything organized.

My friend, Evanica, has a daycare in her home has well, and two of her kids are three year olds. I have Clae, who is three and Keagan, who is also three. We are going to try to get together once a week and let the kids do preschool together. I'm so thankful that God has put these other kids Clae's age in our life so he can have some interaction with his peers. I've had my doubts about homeschooling, but God keeps showing me that if I am obedient He will provide, and He has, every step of the way.

We've had this antique wardrobe ever since we got married, I bought this shelf, a long time ago, to go in it so I could use it as storage. When I started collecting homeschool materials I converted it into my homeschool cabinet.

Themes for September:

Back to School

Apples

Dinosaurs

Letters: A,B,C

Numbers: 1,2,3

Color: Red

Shape: Circle

Bible Verse: "Obey God with all your heart" Deuteronomy 30:2

(This is the verse that they recommended, but when I looked up in the Bible this is really just a paraphrase of the verse, so I might look for a different one. If they are going to memorize scripture I would like for it to be word for word, not a paraphrase.)

We will observe the weather every day and do a weather chart.

I'm hoping to go on a field trip to my in-laws apple orchard since one of the themes is apples.

I love the FunShine Express materials. They provide a very detailed daily lesson plan and they provide most of the material for the crafts and special projects. I'm really looking forward to getting started and I hope the kids enjoy it.

Bed Time Updates

I posted earlier that we were going to try to put Lydia in a big girl bed. She did well for a few nights, but on night #4 I found her roaming around the house int he middle of the night, that made me a little nervous, so she is back in the crib for now. And with four other kids here for naptime I really needed to be able to put her in her bed and know that she was going to stay there. She's perfectly content to be in her crib so I'm fine with it for now.

I also mentioned that Clae is going through a "scared" phase. Which meant we would stay in his room with him until he fell asleep and then he would wake up multiple times in the night and we would sit in his room until he went back to sleep, or he would end up in our bed. Obviously, this was not working, so we decided we had to make some changes.

We told him that if he slept in his bed, by himself, for 5 nights he could pick out a toy. He said he wanted a car like Evan's with a ladder on the back. It took us a while to figure out what he was talking about, but we finally figured out he meant this Wingo from the movie Cars.


Night #1 went ok. He would randomly burst out crying, I would go check on him and ask him what was wrong. His response was "I'm just cryin'. " It was a little rough but he ended up falling asleep on his own, without us in there. Tonight will be night #4 and things seem to be going better, the Wingo is on order from amazon (you can't buy it in stores anymore because now all of the Cars 2 stuff is out). So, it's going pretty well and we hope he keeps it up!

Big Girl Bed

I had decided a while ago that I would not be putting Lydia into a big girl bed until she was like... I don't know...seven. I mean, why put yourself through that before it is absolutely necessary?? BUT yesterday my mother-in-law had the kids for the day and I guess I had too much time on my hands or something, because I set up her toddler bed.

My reason is, Clae is going through a "scared" phase right now, so we end up staying in their room with them until they fall asleep anyway. So, I thought it would actually be a good time to start trying with her, since we are in the room anyway we can work with her while we're in there.

I'm still quite uncertain that she's ready (you can see that the crib is still set up right next to the bed, not ready to take that down quite yet) but we'll try it for a few nights and see how it goes.

Last night (night #1) she did really well BUT we got home late from grocery shopping, so she was really tired. Today at naptime she didn't do as well. We'll see, I may not have the patience to stick with it when I know kids are coming the next morning and I have to get up early, so I may give up if she doesn't catch on quickly.