Pretending to be Mommy

C was playing and realized with the help of a ball under her dress she could pretend to be me :P
"Mommy! I look like you!"......Thanks C lolAnd waving her "belly" back and forth lol

An Aw Moment

E is definitely another wild child and has now earned the nickname all my kids have bore at some point(in the sweetest way possible of course :P) "Trouble". For some reason I thought my third would be quieter with the first and second to contend with HA. Ya as a third child myself you'd think I would've know better :P E is definitely my loudest yet and a drama queen through and through. She wants her presence known. When she's sweet she is as sweet as can be but when she's upset she'll throw the funniest all out fake crying tantrum.....for all of a minute or two while Mommy and Daddy laugh and then when she realizes her act isn't working she quickly flips her switch back to troublemaking sweetheart and moves on.

This is one of her sweeter moments. Big Brother was laying on the floor and E came up and was petting his hair and giving him kisses. Whether in her drama mode or sweetheart mode she always loves any chance to play with her big siblings and shower love on them....though it might often be mid-tackle :P

29 weeks with K :)

I'm not doing as well on keeping up the belly pics but still getting them in when I can. I haven't really gotten bigger in the last 3 weeks which is a good thing since I definitely popped more quickly since this is #4 and seem to be plateuing now. Though I'm still huge of course lol. Hoping to keep up this trend and that this little one gets in a good position. I can't believe we're into the 3rd trimester and approaching the final stretch :) I can't wait to welcome this new precious blessing to our family very soon :)

Project Fridays and Tie Dye (Sorta)

Today was our first "Project/Fun Friday" as I've named our Homeschooling Fridays for C and J's curriculum. Pretty much instead of the normal 1 or 2 projects with lots of reading and written work Fridays are all about hands on learning, making a mess, and as always having fun.

Today we did cooking, building letters with our Handwriting without Tears, Mat Man, Baking cookies, making playdough maps and drawing maps outside in the dirt, and Tie Dye with Permanent markers as shared by a friend and explained here
http://sunscholars.blogspot.com/2011/01/sharpie-tie-dying.html

Overall it was a good first Project Day and lots of fun.

Tomorrow will be more of an off day though I'm still planning some Math Review and our 100 Reading Lessons daily work. I guess we can say the first week of homeschool is done for the most part and so far we're all loving it :)

Here's some pics from our Tie Dye projects in progress :) Yes Mommy made one for E too :P

Sweet Moments with Daddy

Recently E has been more of a Daddy's girl. She loves her games with him. She'll go to his door and knock for him. She loves to give him kisses and hugs especially after Mommy gives him a hug like it's a funny game to see who will give the better hug and her kisses often include blowing raspberries on our cheeks. She'll even sit still for him and lift her legs up on the rare times he changes her making it easier for him! A big difference to the wiggle contests she does with me and just flipping over and walking off pantless if Ami is attempting to change her lol.

I love to watch her get into the toddler stage and her get closer to Daddy especially with K arriving in a couple months and my previous concerns E might be a bit overly clingy with me. It's a nice balance right now. She still loves her Mommy snuggle time and her Daddy rough and tumble games. And every mood, milestone, and test of Mommy and Daddy is pretty fun (though don't tell her that lol).

Here's one of those sweet moments. Daddy kept putting J's hat on E and she thought it was the funniest thing to pull it off and laugh and him put it back on. When I was trying to get a pic C and J wanted in on the fun and came up and attacked Daddy's legs with hugs for a pic. Caught him off guard but still very cute :)

First Day of School 2011!

So today marked our first day of school (at least with our new more structured homeschool curriculum) for C and J and it went wonderfully! What I was a little nervous might be a bit much for them (Kindergarten level for J 1st for C with a bit of overlap and Unit Studies for 1st/2nd) we flew through and *knock on wood* the material for J stopped right as his 3 year old attention span needed a break and C with her love of learning seemed to want more though I want to make sure she doesn't overdo it either. I'll go more into our lesson plans later but today was a great mix of interactive hands on stuff with the independent studies.

We built a spider web on the deck which the kids loved while finding real spider web examples in our back yard too. My only complaint would be the ridiculous heat which had C and J ready to go inside a lot sooner than normal. Hopefully it will cool down soon and we'll be to work in more outside study time and adventures.

I'll add pics later. Since it was the kids' 1st day they had new school clothes and thanks to a friend's inspiration we celebrated at the end of our lessons with cupcakes! Now if only the temperature would cool down I'd call it a perfect school day :)

First Day Pics

A few pictures from our first day of School for C and J 2011

Even if your school is at home, the kids still need special clothing for the day. These were the new outfits they picked out for the occasion
Our Reading and Science Lessons both talked about spiders so we went outside and made a web afterward. Mommy pointed to where and C and J tied it off.
With the heat they were proud and thankful when it was done. Here's a cheer for the web and for going inside for water and popsicles :P