Community Helpers Field Trip

Friday we took a field trip to the Trenton Airport to learn about our community helpers. We got to see a life light helicopter, firetruck, police car and ambulance. The preschool and Parents As Teachers  had sent me a letter a couple weeks ago notifying me of this field trip and I knew it was going to be something that Elisha was really going to enjoy. Of course he already knew all there was to know about firetrucks.

 

Got to take a look inside the ambulance.

Waiting patiently in line to get a turn to sit inside the helicopter.

He thought it was pretty cool to sit inside the helicopter.

Elisha loved the cop car! He got to run the sirens and speak over the vehicular public address system.

 

Firetruck! 

I thought this field trip was very informative not only for the kids but for the parents as well. My favorite part was the car seat checks that our community Health Department performed on site as well. I was happy to know that our car seats were properly installed and they were able to tighten Eisley's seat more for me since I had done all I could and it actually required a section of a foam pool noodle wedged under her seat to do the trick.

Also this week, we started our unit on leaves! We are learning what leaves do, how they do it and why they turn colors. I even noticed a few leaves changing color on some of our neighbor's trees. We visited Crowder Park to collect some leaves of various size, shape and color  for some of our activities for this unit. We sorted them, counted them, did leaf rubbings, and started making a leaf book that we will finish up this week. Our Biblical concept that goes with this unit is living and growing in Jesus. :)

Our next unit starts Wednesday and it will be  on apples! I'm loving the fall themes! :)

September Bustle

    Today we are only half way through September (which has gone super fast by the way!) and I feel like we have been going non-stop!

    We kicked off September by going to the Renaissance Festival in KC over Labor Day Weekend. We had never been before and my sweet friends Micah and Maerissa invited us to go for my birthday! It was pretty neat and Elisha loved every bit of it: the swords, the jousting, the pirates, the swords, the Children's Realm, the swords. Seriously, we could not leave until he had a sword of his very own.

It was a pirate themed weekend at Ren Fest and so Elisha had to wear his pirate hat.

Elisha on the "Throne of Swords"

I couldn't resist, I had to put Matt in the stocks.

 The day after Ren Fest, we remembered the The Great Pershing Balloon Derby was going on that weekend. Elisha and I had gone 4 years ago, but Matt had never gone so we decided to go. It was beautiful day, however the wind made it very dangerous for the hot air balloons to actually go up. They cold inflated a few but none of them actually went up. It wasn't all a waste though, Elisha's name got drawn to go play in one of those bouncy houses for free for 20 min and we got to eat walking tacos. When it got kind of dark out they did light up the baskets without the balloons on them so we could see that. And then the kids got some fun glow in dark stuff and we had fun running into people we haven't seen in awhile along with hanging out with great friends.

 I spent my birthday with family and friends. Elisha made me the cutest card. Matt brought home wild flowers, cheesecake and got me the movie, "Mom's Nigh Out". It was a good day with sweet people.

 We are a whole month into are homeschool-ing, which is going great. Elisha is learning to read, which is really cool to watch. So far we have learned about the 7 days of creation, we have done a unit study on the sun and we are getting to wrap up a unit study on the moon tomorrow. Then we will start on leaves- which I think will be fun considering Fall has decided to show up a little early around here as far as the temps go (now if the leaves will get the memo and start changing colors that would be great!).

Speaking of Fall, its that time of year when things are starting back up again - school, AWANA, MOPS, etc (I know there are others like t.v. shows, football, blah, blah, blah, but when do you have time for such things when there is school, AWANA and MOPS???) Anyway, I'm so excited about MOPS starting back up! I have made a lot of good mama friends through this program and its a great ministry too! Our theme this year is Be You Bravely and I have found it to be a very challenging and inspiring theme as I seek out ways to be brave as a mom, a wife and  a friend.

This Fall I am also taking on the role as Commander of our church's AWANA program. I guess you can say this is one of my "brave challenges". I'm still learning the ropes and hopefully will be able to get the rhythm of things over the next few weeks. Elisha is a Sparky this year and is very excited about this.

With all this busy-ness going on it has been a priority for our family to set aside times each week just for our family. Helping out with ministries at our church is great and important, having fellowship with other mamas is also important to me, but time with JUST our family is so precious. Time is fleeting, there is never enough time. Even as a stay at home mom, time flies. I remember being my son's age and the afternoons seemed to be never ending (having very little concept of time helps with that I suppose). I wish I could get lost in long afternoons with my kids, but housework and responsibilities pile up. I have been working on this though. It means I get up early and go to bed sort of late, but it helps tackle the to-do list. I get up at 5 am to make breakfast for my husband and we do devotions together before he leaves for work. I also get started on my laundry (with this system I usually only need to do one load a day to stay caught up, except Mondays- I usually have 2-3 depending on how busy the weekend was). I try to get everything done before my kids wake up and then it's time for them- breakfast, getting dressed, brushing teeth, Bible and school work with Elisha. I still have a few things to do through out the day and try to use Eisley's nap time to do something for myself (which usually ends up being snuggling up with Elisha and a reading a book together or taking a nap with Eisley). I can't help it, sometimes, time for me ends up being just more time with my kids. I love it when our family time ideas come from my husband and both of the last two have been all his ideas! We did a picnic dinner last week as well as a pizza night where we all pitched in to help make the pizza- so fun! No interruptions, no to-dos, just us having fun and spending time together. 

    

Eisley has kind of ensured that I slow down a little this week, poor girl just hasn't been feeling well :(

One last thing: Look at how handsome my boy is! We go his "Kindergarten" Pictures taken (Murphy's Studio in Chillicothe) and they turned out SO cute!!

Week 1: Kindergarten

We started our home-school journey one week ago! Elisha started Kindergarten! I've known we would home-school since before we had children. It was something Matt and I both agreed on. Although, last summer when I was pregnant with Eisely we realized we had a year before Elisha would be Kindergarten bound, and we started to consider public school. I thought I would be too overwhelmed, I had lot of self doubt and honestly I was starting to chicken out. I had one year to make up my mind and the decision was was making me ill. I didn't want to make the wrong choice and ruin my kid. I know it's just Kindergarten, but I kind of want us to stick with whatever decision we make and not have our kids weaving in and out of public school and homeschool. I realize some families face that situation and it works for them, but I wanted to avoid it as much as possible. I prayed about it and I consulted family and friends to gain some insight and wisdom on what to do. Finally I decided we would send him to public school...but I had no peace with the decision! So, my husband works with a man who home-schools his children with his wife. They invited us over to talk and look at their curriculum. That really helped me to reconsider our decision. When I changed my mind to home-school again the peace was there again. I let doubting myself and fear of the unknown influence my decision! Little did I know at the time that bravery would be a huge theme in my life this year (more on that later). Anyway, I'm really glad we made this decision!


  We use My Father's World for Kindergarten. It's a Biblical based curriculum with Charlotte Mason philosophies on education. LOTS of nature study. We supplement with other materials if I feel that Elisha needs more of a challenge. So far, I have supplemented the Language Arts with a program called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. So far it's going well. Just the right amount of challenge that Elisha needed and I'm confident he will be a good reader in just a few months!

Our lessons that come with the curriculum only take us a little over an hour to complete and I add in a few other activities. But we still have a lot of the day left to play and explore other things. I also make sure that screen time is very limited so he must play with toys, blocks, board games/card games, go outside or read together for entertainment. Sometimes a few of our education resources are on the iPad and I don't usually count that against his recreational screen time.

 

 On our first day of lessons we finished up our work in time for me to work a MOPS booth at the Organizational Fair at the college in town. This firetruck was parked right in front of our booth so and the friendly firemen gladly let Elisha take a tour and try on different gear. Elisha was intrigued. Then on Wednesday while visiting Matt at work a firetruck was parked out front because of a fire safety class taking place that morning. A fireman saw Elisha and asked if he wanted to take a ride in the firetruck and of course Elisha agreed. I really thinking that things like this will be one of my favorite parts of homeschooling- all of the spontaneous learning moments and explorations that can come about because we aren't stuck in a classroom and we are learning while living our daily lives.

Eisley is pretty good about entertaining herself for the most part while Elisha and I go over his lessons. I make sure she has plenty of board books, puzzles and of course things that are not toys like broken remotes and wooden spoons.

 Elisha is getting SO good at using scissors! I didn't realize how much progress he was making with scissors until this week. Earlier this year he was still using the scissor as a way to rip the paper, he couldn't quite get it to cut right. I did have him practice with play doh scissors and play doh to help build those fine motor skills/muscles, but had no idea I would being seeing this kind of progress right now.                                                                             This week we started going over the beginning of Creation. This theme is incorporated into our math, reading/ language arts, science, art/music and of course Bible study. After the 7 days of creation we will move on to other themes that will be incorporated into all of our subjects and it will always have a Bible lesson to go along with it as well. Getting to learn more about Christ along with his educational studies is just another perk to home-schooling!

We made a parking garage out of old boxes. He loved it!

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is watching Elisha learn things and see a new concept click. If we had put Elisha in public school I knew I would get so jealous of his teachers being the ones to watch the initial turning of the gears and the pride he would feel when he finally mastered something. I didn't want to hear about it second hand, I wanted to be a part of his experience.  I also like that I am with him all day. Don't get me wrong sometimes I would like a little break, but I always think about how I only have these little people in my home for a short while, then they will be grown and my break will come sooner than I'm ready for. I know there is a stigma with homeschooling and socialization, but I'm not at all concerned about it. Elisha is extremely social!

 In fact, between MOPS, church/AWANA and the library Elisha has made quite a few friends with whom we take a few times each week to play with whether it be in a church class, a play date, MOPS meetings or story hour. We also joined a local home school group, which I'm SO excited about! It's up there on my list of happy places which includes MOPS. Last week was also our first home school group play date in the park. Elisha saw old friends and made new ones. He had a lot of fun and  didn't even care that it was 90 degrees outside.

And for the record I have no problem with public school in general or people that send their kids to public school. There are some things that have changed since I was in school that I don't necessarily agree with. I do appreciate people in the education field so much, I have several friends that are excellent teachers. It's a thankless job and can be very stressful. Families have to make these decisions based on what works for their family, and I really do not think one way is better than another, however I think this is best for US.  I think our town has good public schools, but this was just a personal choice for our family. After weighing the pros and cons, shadowing home-school families, researching  and accepting the huge commitment of it we made this decision and it wasn't made lightly.  Anyway, I just thought I would throw that out there just in case my enthusiasm for our home-school journey is mistaken for educational snobby-ness ;)

Well, that pretty much wraps up our first week of Kindergarten! :)

So, What's New?

It's been a while. Like, well over a year since I have posted anything. I mean, I was still growing a tiny human inside me the last time I posted. That tiny human is now a 19 lb, 9 month old! The reason for the unintentional  hiatus started out by being busy getting everything ready for the new baby. And then she was here! And man, no one prepared me for how difficult it would be to adjust to having two kids. There is 4.5 years between my kids, but I hadn't had a baby in the house in 4 years and I was used to taking care of ONE child, whom at this point is pretty independent. I got a touch of the baby blues and my spare time was spent nursing and napping. I'm not sure exactly why I was having a hard time adjusting. Eisley's birth was absolutely perfect and natural (unlike the terrifying experience of her big bro's birth). She had no problem getting the breastfeeding thing down. When we brought her home she only woke up 2 times max in the night to eat; I was easily getting 4 consecutive hours of sleep between feedings (most moms are lucky to get 2 hours!). The "catch" was she would scream every night between 9pm and 1am. She was inconsolable. I would usually end up crying as well. That all finally ended when she was about 4 months old. I kind of feel like I'm getting the hang of it all now.

I have found our local MOPS group to be a major help. When Eisley was 3 weeks old I started attending MOPS. It took me a few meetings to make new mom friends, and once I did I really started looking forward to our meetings and being able to get out of the house and chat with other moms. This summer I ended up joining the MOPS leadership, helping with publicity- so on that note, if your a mom of preschool age kids or pregnant, I want to invite you to MOPS of Green Hills (if you're in our neck of the woods, if not, try to find a group near you-you'll love it!). I will include some more info on that below that you can click on. :)

 Let's see...what else is new? Oh, in February I signed up with Young Living Essential Oils. If you know me, I am excited about this stuff. I'm always looking for healthy and natural alternatives for health. It's been another good outlet for me also. Not only do I love using the oils and have a lot of success with using them, I also have enjoyed working the business aspect as well.

So, between MOPS, Young Living, trying to keep our house in order, enjoying my babies,  and getting ready to home school our 5 year old son this year, I've been keeping pretty busy-- and it's not about to slow down. AWANA will be starting up at our church soon and I'm looking forward to helping out with that. Hopefully, I will be able to keep up with posting on here as well... :)

It's a...

Our 25 week check up was today and they ended up doing another anatomy scan since they didn't get all the info they wanted the first time a month ago. Our little GIRL finally decided to reveal her gender to us! She was curled up in a little ball with her hands and feet covering her face most of the time. When we told Elisha we were having a girl, he asked, "does that mean it's a sister?!" He is very proud to be the big brother to a little sister and Matt and I are thrilled to add a daughter to our family! :)

A Busy May and Our Gender Reveal!

I know I always say this, but I really am NOT the best as keeping up with my blog. I post so much on my Instagram that I just forget to document anything here. Well, this post is a playing- catch -up -type of post from May. It didn't feel like May was too busy until I started going through some of my Instagram photos- I almost forgot about all the stuff we did!

First of all, May 1st my little man turned 4! Time has just flown! I can't believe my little boy is growing so fast! We had a nice little party with close family and friends. It was a combo Mario and Lego theme- two of his fave things right now!

The weekend following his birthday, we took Elisha to Legoland! It was really cool and Elisha had a blast! Of course we met up with my cousin and her family and they came with us!

We got to watch a cool 4D Lego show. We actually got sprayed with water during water scenes and could feel fans blowing on us during windy scenes. The kiddos LOVED it!

Matty had a great time too!

Lego replica of KC-really neat!

Lego Wizard of Oz was awesome!

Of course you can't leave Crown Center without stopping at Sheridan's for some yummy custard:)

 Later that evening after Legoland we attended a Royals game! I love going to baseball games and the Royals actually won!!

It was a bit chilly, but a super good time!

The kids loved hanging with Slugger:)

Our friends Maerissa and Micah paid us a visit one weekend too!

 Last week my cousin's kids came to stay for the week! They are some of Elisha's most favorite people on earth. He just loves playing with these kids, so he was ecstatic to have them stay over for a few days!

So May was pretty busy and fun for us, except for all the rain. I could have done without so much of that. And the one day it snowed-that was weird. It's June now! I'm looking forward to warmth and sunshine!
Also, I just recently reached my 20th week of pregnancy with baby Arthaud #2! Half way mark! I'm starting to feel little kicks and flutters--my absolute favorite part of pregnancy! I'm glad that the morning sickness and most of the fatigue has subsided. I'm thankful for another normal and healthy pregnancy thus far. I am just so excited about our growing family. I just feel so blessed and overjoyed to have another little person to love on.

Today was my 20 week check up plus our anatomy scan ultrasound! So, this was the scan where they can tell us what gender our baby is. Matt and I had decided that we wanted to know what we were having. We had found out with Elisha too. We decided that if it was a girl this time, then maybe we won't mind being surprised with our third child (Lord willing we have a third) since we will have a stash of boy stuff and girl stuff by then. Well, here is what we found out!:

We still don't know!!! The little person had it's legs crossed. Even after the ultrasound tech was finished we gave it about half and hour, drank some sweet tea and had my OB take a look and the baby was even more pretzled up with the umbilical cord between it's legs! SO, we have decided that if we happen to find out next month, then we find out, and if we don't, we don't! In fact the surprise thing is kind of sounding more and more appealing. I think I am just going to pull out a few of the newborn things Elisha had that were more gender neutral and just be ready to go shopping if we need to after our little bundle arrives. I know I am going to be super thrilled with whatever the Lord gives us anyway!