My Favorite Things

This time of year prompts me to think about my favorite things... as in, "these are a few of my favorite things..." Which is fitting because favorite thing #1 is:

• Christmas Music

I love Christmas music and have typically waited until after Emma's birthday to begin listening to my favorites. In fact, the year Emma was born I must have listened to "Mary Did You Know" (the version by Kenny Rogers and Wynona) 1000 times. I'm sure (at least I hope) it will be one of those irrevocable sight/sound/memories. This year I decided to start listening now. In part because I bought the Josh Groban Christmas CD last year. And it is still in the car CD player. I would make some joke about how that shows I am a 36 year old with the musical taste of a 60 year old... since I previously thought that the fan base for Josh was a significantly older group. However, the friend I just got off the phone with said that, no, I am right on target age wise. So.... I think that may really be just one more reminder about my increasing age... and that is fine because the CD that I have picked out to buy this year is "The Gift" by Susan Boyle. Which actually brings me to my second favorite thing:

• The video clip of Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent.

Seriously, it still makes me smile ear to ear when I watch it. If you haven't seen it, or even just haven't seen it lately.... check it out here. Wonderful. Everything about it.

And speaking of foreigners, another of my favorite things would be:

• J mis-using an English word.
  

He does this incredibly rarely. In fact, I can only think of one word that he still uses in a wrong format. I think there are two, but I cant think of the other one! I cant mention what they are because then he will stop and I will lose one of my favorite things. And to be fair, part of what is so great about it is that he usually can out speak or out spell me. I had to ask him last night how to spell gubernatorial. And he totally won our debate over the word, "unkempt". Why on earth is there an "m" in that word? "Not kept" should be spelled, "unkept". Anyway, speaking of the light years ago that I met j.... my next favorite thing is:

• The TV show Friends.
  

I know. At least I didn't say NKOTB. And no, I will not spell that out. If you don't know the abbreviation you don't need to know what it stands for. :) And I know Friends had it's flaws. But it still makes me smile... and downright laugh to think about some of the episodes. There is a show that is on currently that is very funny.... and it has it's flaws too.... But speaking of friends and family... one of my most favorite things is:

• Pictures of the kids.

You may have already noticed this. I love pictures of my kids. In fact, sometimes when I am walking down the hall I will stop just to look over the 18 pictures I have framed as the 2009 year in review. I really love some of those pictures. E grinning while shoveling garden dirt out of the truck in the Spring. L's arrival in the Summer. S gazing at his train birthday cake in the Fall. The whole family picking a Christmas tree in the Winter. So great. It's going to be time to update the frames for 2010. Which ones shall I chose?

Fall

Fall is beautiful here. We often are blessed with a reasonably dry, warm September and October. The leaves are changing colors and falling (and next week I will be able to tell you exactly why, as we will be doing a week on the study of L-Leaves). There are farm stands to visit, pumpkins to pick (or- if you are L- try and lift even though they are as heavy as you are) and hay bale mazes to navigate. The coast is often a fairly pleasant place to visit this time of year. Not Hawaii by any stretch of the imagination, and we laugh because we invariably forget that. Going to the beach? Fun! But don't forget your 10 layers of clothing and goggles to protect your eyes from the blowing wind and sand! This year, though, September went out on an unusually warm day. September 30th- ahem- anyone know the importance of this day? was in the 80's and the kids literally played in the sprinkler on top of the fallen leaves & then ate Popsicles.

Here are some pictures of our September and October:
(the picture of the kids on the pumpkins looking away? Just proof that they can all look in the same direction at once, just not at the camera!)

Teaching at Home

I don't have a concise explanation for my decision to teach the kids from home; "homeschool". Don't get me wrong, I have many reasons... but a nice buttoned down statement I am lacking. This last month of teaching E- the first month of hopefully many.... has been a good experience overall. Hair pulling at times, sure, mostly due to the smallest boy in the family :) And also overwhelming at times figuring out how to balance errands that are so disruptive to a day and still do household chores... and get the day's lessons done! The good moments prevail though!
E is an eager learner and often wants to do more than I have planned for a day or that I think she should push herself to do. We are using a very fun curriculum called My Fathers World that teaches in a very hands on approach and uses a "unit" style. That means we have spent a week studying the sun, a week on the moon and a week on apple. Each of those weeks incorporates a different letter of the alphabet (s, m, a), as well as math, literature, science and Bible all based on the topic of the week. For example, for the sun week we made sundials outside... for the moon we used flashlights and mirrors to talk about reflection and for apples we studied a book called How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.
One of my favorite things is seeing S work along side us doing similar things or working on activities out of his preschool box. Sometimes I will need to step away from them to help L, change a load of laundry or just go to the bathroom. E is wonderful about working with S, teaching him colors, counting, doing puzzles with him and encouraging him! It is pretty great.
I will confess though, to some funny missteps in the world of teaching on my part! Parts of my own education appear to have not adhered to my brain in any way. OK, the truth is I have HUGE gaps in my personal knowledge base! The kids and I were doing a puzzle of the United States of America and E noticed how large Texas is. She said, "Wow, Texas is the biggest state!" "That's right!", I said, "Good noticing!". J happened to be walking by and said, "Except for Alaska, right?" "Oh! Right. Of course. Alaska", I said. To be fair, the puzzle was mostly of the 48 contiguous states.... Alaska and Hawaii just got honorable mentions...
J's favorite, though, is my utter lack of any kind of astronomy knowledge. I, gulp, merrily taught E that the Moon is a planet. Again, not so much. In case you are wondering, the Moon is a.... moon. So that clears that up. My next question was, "So how is it again that the Moon is different shapes throughout the month?". J was incredulous. "Do you think the Moon emits its own light?", he asked. "Um, gee, I don't know. I haven't ever really thought about it". It's really hard to explain how little I care. Well, that's not true. Now that I know how it all works, you know, the whole Earth being between the Sun and Moon and shading it differently at different times and the Moon being a reflector of the Sun... OK, that is kind of interesting! My sister got in on the action when she reminded me about the saying they have in youth group, "Be the Moon. Reflect the Son". Oohhhh. That makes more sense now too....
Now J is working on teaching me about the Earth rotating on an axis which is what provides our different seasons.... I think I am getting it.... :) And E is very much learning each and every day... and she is doing so in an active, engaged style that is broad based and varied!

Sundials
Apple picking at our pasture apple tree
Cider pressing with Grandma

First Day of School

E is in Kindergarten! We started school the Monday after our return from the four-day camping trip. Unfortunately, that was also the week that had appointments scheduled on every single day. Doctors appointments, visits from caseworkers, necessary library trips and the new year of ballet class, to name a few. Not the smoothest week to start a homeschool routine!

One of our main appointments was a visit to a Vision Center with E. Last year I attended a talk on "vision" and how it differs from "eyesight". A person can have 20/20 eyesight and still have un-corrected issues with vision, such as tracking and focus. This is often missed at traditional optometrist offices. E has had her eyes checked at pediatric visits, no problems noticed. However, there were some thing I was noticing that I felt warranted a trip to this vision specialist. Sure enough, E is having trouble tracking. Her eyes do not work together at a single point on the page. She may see the sentence:
Paul played with his purple truck on the playground.
like this:
Pa ulplay edwith hispurp letru cko nthepla yg round.
You can see how that might make learning to read difficult!
So, the prescription was for her to try reading glasses. She and the friendly optician worked together (just the two of them, she is getting so big!) and picked out an adorable pair of purpley glasses with little flowers on the side. She really likes them! And they have made an amazing difference in her reading! She doesn't tire as easily, she recognizes words after she has read them a couple times previously and she doesn't try to "guess" as much at the story line instead of reading the words.
So here is a picture of E on Monday morning.... and a picture of her with her new reading glasses!

Camping

I am going to rewind a little here to catch up on some of the great memories we made last month. This blog, after all, is hopefully going to be translated into our family's yearly memory album. In early September we had the chance to borrow the folks’ RV and head over to a part of our state that most of us don't acknowledge exists. Desert? Here? Naahh..... But the husband loves it over there and the kids adore feeding the chipmunks- in fact chipmunks on our camping trips get nothing but the best- premium Costco trail mix! We had a wonderful time. For some reason, even though L was crawling as opposed to just being a newborn... this camping trip went so much better than last year when he was just a few weeks old and still on his neonatal abstinence protocol. Maybe we were more affected by that than we thought, but regardless, we were able to really enjoy this trip. L was of course completely dust covered the entire time from crawling through the sand and dirt but he had the time of his life! Our campground had an adorable little newly installed playground that was a great activity and the kids both brought their bikes and got lots of practice on smooth surfaces!

Sometimes it is so hard to wait for your hot dog to get done...

sometimes it is better to just skip to the smores....


I would like to introduce you to Flower Petal. She is a fairly constant companion to E.
And also to Cinderella, who would like to do all dishes under an outside faucet...
I still look cute covered in dust!

and if this look doesn't say "mischief" I don't know what does!