More crafting

I have had a major surge of motivation and energy lately. My maternity clothes are all washed and hung in the closet. All my non-mat. clothes are in bins by season. I've organized 4 boxes of clothes to go to Goodwill and made diapers. Another fun thing I have finally done is paint the letters I got for a friend's son. It's a project that's been waiting a few months to be completed.

More diapers!!!

After adjusting the pattern on Thea's diaper, I made matching diapers for my girls. A medium for Thea and a newborn diaper for Baby Girl. The elastic is definately uneven, but it dosen;t seem to matter when it's on. I think they're pretty darn cute!

I made a diaper!

It's a fitted diaper so it will need a cover to go over it. I accidentally sewed the soaker pad onto the inner so I made the inner the outer and "embelished" it with some cute cotton fabric. It was super easy to make and I followed the "quick and easy fitted" tutorial. (you can google it if you're interested) It would have been even easier if I had a serger!

What homeschooling looks like...

during seatwork at our house...





Landon asked me to take a picture of his drawing...


Ashton's awesome "set". Daddy put together the indiana jones stuff and ashton made the rest...

It's a GIRL!!!

Thea dosen't know it, but she's really excited to be getting a sister. I'm excited to buy matching girl clothes and having another little pink bundle. Praise the Lord!

Tomorrow is our...

20 week ultrasound. I am so excited I'm not sure if i'll be able to sleep tonight!! I will definately update tomorrow!!

FIAR-ing Madeline

I have been looking forward to using Madeline for school this week. It was one of my favorite books growing up and we also used it with Quintin a few years ago and had a really good time.

Monday- We located Paris, France on the map, learned that France is in Europe and where the Seine River is located. We talked about being happy for good things and sad when bad things happen and how to cheer up those that are sick or old. I hope have the children bring a treat to our elderly neighbors next door this week to practice this.

Tuesday- We colored the French flag and traced "France" and their names on a paper (will have to get pictures later). We discussed literary repetition again (as we did in PING) and rhyming. We compared our daily routine with the one the little girls follow and discussed the benefits of having one. Our vocabulary for the week includes the words "appendix", "solemn" and "disaster". We made solemn faces and talked about different kinds of disasters. Before nap time we read a book about the Eiffel Tower. Now I want to visit Paris again :) I will have to get out the pictures from my trip to show the boys.

We have been doing some "seat work" daily also. Last week we did not do a FIAR story because Q was home for 1/2 of it and then starting school so we were busy getting ready. We did however, do seatwork. Landon uses a Bob the Builder preschool workbook. I was just letting him do puzzles and color while Ashton worked in his Rod and Staff workbooks, but Landon wanted to do seatwork, too so I found him this book at the dollar store. I was very happy to see how well he did with it (he finished the book today after working in it for a couple weeks). The pages would ask him to "color the small circle red and the big circle blue", "match the red machine to the red word", or "trace all the squares and color them red". He learned what it meant to color in the lines and his coloring looks much less like scribbling now. This is not something I push, but once I explained it he seemed to want to do it right. It was very rare that he needed me to correct his work or help him find answers. Go Landon!
Ashton's Rod and Staff preschool/kindergarten books have lots of tracing, coloring and cutting and pasting. He also will learn to write all his letters, numbers and some sight words. I only have him do a page or 2 a day or he gets super bored. He's quite happy to do the first couple, however.

Weekly Menu Plan

Perhaps blogging what my menu will be each week will encourage me to make sure I make a menu each week. If I don't make one, we end up eating tuna 3 nights or going out to eat.


Saturday-dinner at friend's B-day party
Sunday- Smoked sausage and corn chowder
Monday- Meatloaf, leftover bean soup and strawberry spinach salad
Tuesday-Burritos with ground beef, raw cheese,refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes. Chips and black bean dip w/corn, tomatoes, cilantro
Wednesday- split pea soup and crackers
Thursday- whole wheat blueberry/banana pancakes, sausage, and OJ
Friday-Mango Chicken, rice and frozen vegetables

Q's first day of school

Q started school on Wed. and seems to like it a lot. I keep asking him if he'd rather be homeschooling and he says no, so I suppose it must be going pretty well. He says that the other students are very quiet when the teacher is talking and respectful. That was nice to hear. However, I guess there are the usually antics on the playground. We talked about being wise in choosing who we are friends with and hanging out with the children that are behaving. There are other new students as well which is good.

Q outside our house with his new backpack and school supplies


With his escort, Daddy, who is finally able to take Q to a first day of school!

Q's jr. boot camp graduation

Q finished his camp weeks with a graduation. He also finished making his model car and train from wood. He had so much fun. I took a couple of pictures of him with his boot camp graduation certificate.

Landon's first class

This week Landon and Ashton went to "A Day at the Beach" class through the arts' center. It was a one time 1 1/2 hour class that they really liked. They listed to a book about going to the beach, played with beach balls, searched for shells in the sand (sand volleyball court), painted a sand dollar, decorated a sand pail and got to swim in the baby pool at the end. Landon did great. He didn't cry. I stayed at the pool, but the boys didn't know I was there. Every time I looked over at them I would see Ashton and Landon right next to each other. Ashton told me he had taken care of Landon...I had asked him too :) In the fall they will be taking a class together called Eewy Gooey Science once a week for an hour. They're really looking forward to it.

This isn't the best picture because I was far away and the boys are active! They are the ones wearing the colorful floppy hats. I think Landon is almost hidden behind another child.

Quintin goes to BOOT camp

Jr. Boot camp that is! Quintin has been taking summer camp and loving it. Last week he attended "all about space camp" in the morning and "kids 'n clay" in the afternoon. I will post pictures of his pottery creations in awhile. The teacher said it would take four weeks to glaze and fire them. He liked pottery the best, but really enjoyed space camp, too. He was teaching his little brothers all about stars and planets.

This week he is taking "jr. boot camp" in the morning and "model planes, trains, and automobiles" in the afternoon. I think he likes them both equally. We get to see him doing his boot camp thing sometimes because they are out on the green when they first start. The boys and I took these pictures from the park not too far away from where they were. Today they are going to McDonald's to discuss healthy food choices while eating out and having a mini graduation. Go Quintin! I asked him if he thought he would like to join the military and he said no, but then said that was a long time off and he didn't want to decide right now.

Doing Squats

Running a lap

I can't believe school starts next wed. already!!!

Ping finished.

We actually finished Ping awhile ago (obviously since I have been blogging about Lentil), but I wanted to blog about the rest of what we did before I forget!

The last 2 subjects were math and science which we did on Thursday and Friday. For math we used counting bears to represent ping and all his relatives and then counted them. I believe there was about 52 in total. Much higher than we are used to counting! For science we learned about ducks. We read, Ducks Don't Get Wet and learned about preening, the oil gland and how ducks cover themselves in oil so the water just rolls off them. We learned a lot of other interesting facts about them, too. We were lucky enough to see a mother and 5 ducklings at the park when we came out of the library. I was so excited, but upset that I didn't have my camera. Q ran to the car for some crackers and we fed them so that we could get a good luck at the ducks. We got to hear them quack and watch them swim.
Probably the boys' favorite part of this unit was going to a Chinese buffet restaurant. Although the food wasn't exactly authentic, we got to use chopsticks, listen to Chinese music, look at Chinese characters and see Chinese decorations. I tried to give Landon a fork to start eating, but he quickly reminded me that he had to use chopsticks like Chinese children do. Throughout the week we had read children's non-fiction books about China and that was one of the things we had learned. I also forgot my camera at the restaurant and was very upset with myself. Ashton actually asked the waitress to show him how to use the chopsticks and said hello to her in Chinese! On our table was a picture of the Great Wall and the boys were able to recognize it from the books we had read and were very excited to be sitting there.
The kids loved Ping and still get excited whenever they see anything Chinese or see ducks!

SALSA!!!

We have so many tomatoes. It's wonderful!! Dan decided to make and can some salsa last night. It tasted so good!! It was so sweet and perfect. I'm hoping he will do spaghetti sauce and ketchup next. He did hint to me that I should learn how to do it, which I should, but it's just cooler when he does it. Not to mention he really enjoyed it!


In the big bowl before it was canned.

FIAR, Lentil

Our new FIAR story is Lentil. It's written by the same author who wrote Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal. Because the story takes place in Ohio, we learned about that state and where it is located. The boys know the capital and state bird of Ohio, what state is next to it and where to find it on a US map. We did a US states puzzle and listed to our sing 'n learn geography CD with the state capitals. The boys enjoyed coloring Ohio on a US map and finding Cincy and Columbus within the state. I printed up an Ohio coloring sheet for Thea, too. She really likes being involved and at the table participating with the boys.

Ashton drew a neat picture of where the storms are in Ohio. He had me draw the outline of the state and then he drew storms in various locations and told me which ones were "moving towards Ohio".

Landon points out Ohio on our US puzzle.

Weekend farm visit!

Some highlights of our weekend trip to Anne and Nate's farm.

Quintin at the top of the um...i forgot what this is.


Ashton feeding the cows


Landon and his new friend Andrew.

We had so much fun. The boys got to ride in the combine while Nate planted and take turns on the 4 wheeler. Even Thea got a turn. Anne, Thea and I took a great trip to the outlet mall and let the boys work. We really enjoyed having fresh farm eggs for breakfast and the boys loved the brats and bacon from a "real pig".

Ultrasound date set!

I went to a new OB yesterday and loved it. The office staff was so nice and helpful and the nurses loved talking to the kids. Such a change from the other place I was going. I haven't met the doctor yet, but I heard lots of good things about him. The nurse practictioner saw me and she was so nice and helpful. I'm so glad I switched. It was awful at the other office. I was so uncomfortable all the time and I felt like all the staff was just annoyed that I was there and they had to deal with me.
Anyway, they scheduled my 20 week ultrasound for Aug. 27th. I can't wait...and it seems like such a long time away!