Be Jealous.

While McH finishes up a Geography exam, I thought I'd post a few swimming pics.  Our little man swam all by himself on Friday.  We haven't swam all weekend because it's been windy, but one of these days we'll be back at it!  I couldn't believe he did it!  It was like walking ... we knew he could do it for a while, but he just needed time to gather his confidence.  And, when he was ready he didn't want to stop!

Anyway, I know my northern friends are jealous, but don't be!  In a couple of months it will be hotter than you know what!  No one will be jealous then!

This is bug showing off how he can put his head underwater.  Now, please tell me why he fights me pouring water on his head when I wash his hair!!

My beautiful water baby.

 My two most handsome men.  Love those two!

And ... just one of the many, many amazing sunsets.  Every night someone yells, "Wow, what a sunset".

On the precipice of Wk 2

It's Sunday here in the AZ (well, pretty much everywhere hee hee) and I've spent most of the day going over last week; how it went, how I'd planned it to go and what could or couldn't have been different.  One thing I realized was just how wonderful the flexibility is.  I knew that I was planning and expecting in a very rigid way, however, that is just me and how I am.  I fully expected and intended that every plan, thought and list would be changed.

On Tuesday and Thursdays, Monkey goes to my cousin's for a few hours.  Right now it's in the morning which isn't the best for us, so I'm sure (as it was last week) it'll be a hit or miss sort of event.  But, when he does go, he has a bunch of fun with his cousin's and the other little's that she takes care of.

Last Thursday it was just not happening.  He went to bed late and I found myself stressing out about him getting enough sleep and whether or not to wake him in time or let him sleep.  And then it occurred to me.  Keep him home!  He doesn't have to go.  My mom's not working anymore so if I really need some time to myself I can get it.  On Monday we tried out the schedule.  It worked fairly well, but when Wednesday rolled around, we all felt like going to a movie.  We saw Rio and had a blast! While the schedule was gone, we still fit some lessons in and it solidified for me the idea that we can learn and still fly by the seat of our pants (not my favorite thing!).

This coming week we'll be finishing up our Alphabet book in a quasi-lapbook format.  Looking good so far!  He's also really into mazes, so I printed off a few more for him, along with more letter recognition worksheets.  I want to make sure he's recognizing all of the letters.  We've started BOB books and, while he is ABLE to read them, he is lacking the confidence.  I'll probably pull Mat out once on Monday and see if he still freaks out.

So, we'll see where we are next week! :)

Our room and Earth Day projects

Okay, so hopefully I'll be able to update a little more timely from now on!  We had a great 1st week! Still waiting for the chalkboard to go up, but I'm keeping my finger's crossed for morning!  But, here are a few pictures ... we're all so proud of it!

P's desk area.

The chalkboard will go above the colored baskets.

Our reading are and fun new chair.

Alphabet wallies above the patio door.

Last week we made two Earth Day projects.  The first were watercolored bookmarks with a pressed flower.  Unfortunately our flowers didn't dry enough (who knew that was possible in the desert?!) and they are turning black.  Boo!  P watercolored on index cards and then we cut them in half.  I found a few cute Earth Day pictures that we taped on and then we laminated them.  Cute, but too bad about the flowers LOL

We also made a paper mache globe. We got super messy and had a blast!

P stirring up the "goop".

Finished for the night!

Day 2: painting lots and lots of blue.

Mommy painted (not very well) the continents, but P painted the Arctic Circle and Antarctica (well, he painted where Santa lives and where the penguins live LOL).  

 And, he finished product, hanging above our reading chair! =)

I'm really hoping that in the future I'll leave myself time to blog more ... still sharing pictures, but actually writing more about our experiences.  Anyway ... Happy Learning!

Easter fun!

Pictures are finally loaded!!  W00t! So, here are a few from our fun Easter Sunday at my aunt and uncle's house. Everyone had a blast in the pool.  The two boys were crazy, jumping over and over!  We tried to get them to jump at the same time, but they couldn't get the 1-2-3 JUMP concept LOL

Here Tia and her little "bittles".  Man that little chica can rock a bikini!

After pooltime, we were very crafty and lured the kiddos out of the pool with promises of an egg hung!  Too bad I couldn't get bug into more than undies!  (I was lucky to get him in those!)

Bittles finding an egg.

That face!!!  Oooo ... I love that girl!

The boys helped NeeNee put the finishing touches on the deserts.

The pretty princess getting her grub on.

Had a great time, hope everyone else did!

Picture issues, brief update!

I have been trying since Sunday to upload pictures and they JUST WON'T DO IT!  Argh!

We started up homeschooling on Monday and despite a few little rough spots, we had a lot of fun! The room is about 20 minutes away from being finished.  McH finished up the blackboard and I painted a border on it today.  He hung the curtain and we'll hang the blackboard and final wallies tomorrow.  If I have to take a picture and upload it from my phone, I will!

I'm also looking at a few additions to what we're doing over the summer.

Time4Learning is a website with different lessons ... haven't looked too much at it, but I know people who use it and it's on sale this month.  $5 for the month is enough incentive for me to try it LOL

Little Passports This looks like one of the coolest programs I've seen.  Each month two characters send the student a package filled with items from a country along with a letter about their visit.  Sounds like so much fun ... I'm wondering if I'll get a bigger kick out of it?  Think we'll try it for at least one country.

The Quirkles This I saw from a giveaway on The Secular Homeschool Community.  It mixes science and reading.  It looks absolutely adorable and I'm thinking it might be something to look at once the school year starts up.  You have until April 30th if you want to stop by and enter!

Spelling City Here is another AWESOME giveaway from The Secular Homeschool Community. Spelling and Vocab made fun ... who knew?!

Anyway, I am hoping that tomorrow I'll have some pictures to share! :)

Here's what we've been growing ... I mean, doing!

Turns out my kid loves to grow things!  We planted Sugar Baby Watermelons (of all things!) and surprise, surprise they sprouted in two days!  Aren't they adorable?

My gorgeous baby!

And ... the winds came, knocked our Sugar Babies to the curb and the poor things just couldn't pull through.  Sooooo, back to the beginning! We picked up some new supplies ... Taken' it to the next level!

Poor kid.  He has my grandpa's smile ... adorable.

We started all but one row in our seed starter, nothing popping through yet, but we remain hopeful.

Starting a garden isn't the easiest thing when you live in the desert.  So, we converted a turtle sand/water, uh, thing, for his garden.  We even got a little umbrella that might (probably won't) help with the scorching sun that shows up around now.  Either way, we're having fun getting dirty and learning about how things grow!

Homeschool room is ALMOST finished!  We have a chair being delivered tomorrow that will hopefully make a great spot for reading together and we are just finishing up our blackboard.  I had a few pictures, but for some reason the files didn't work ... so ... SOON!

Three weeks later ...

... and we are well on our way to officially being a homeschool family!  I honestly think that everyone here is pretty excited.  Watching Bug learn has reminded the grandparents of the awe they felt when my brother and I were young and McH and I are loving the first time around with all of this awe business.

I'm digging through the internet trying to find the right curriculum.  Not an easy thing to do, apparently.  These days there are a plethora of curriculum choices.  That might make my job of researching seem endless, but it's so amazing to see that we can really find something that works for us ... and, if we can't, then I am more than able with all of the options to create something that does.

Next time I'll post before and after pictures of our "homeschool" room, we are very nearly complete.  The last major items are to find a big, comfy reading chair and to make a blackboard - we have the items, just have to get it finished.  THEN, we get to decorate!  We have wall stickers with the alphabet, numbers, fishies and big, fun circles!

So, back to researching I go.  I have been settled two curricula over the past several weeks (ha!) and I'm thinking I'm close to settled for the third time!  Will it be the charm?

Here are the two I was previously enamored with:

Enki Education
Oak Meadow

Now I'm looking at:
Moving Beyond the Page

I'll add in foreign language (Spanish and maybe French or Latin??) and music.  I may also add math.  We're going to start out using Starfall and BOB books for phonics and see if we need to add Explode the Code.

So, there ya have it!  Funny, I read about a lot of people who have people around them being very harsh and critical about the choice to homeschool.  We just haven't had that!  It's like when we adopted and so many of my friends had such a difficult time with the mean and ignorant things people (even family!) would say and we were absolutely blessed to go through the process without that.  I'm SO thankful that we have such a supportive family!!

Wonder where we'll be in another three weeks!!