Thea is 3!!!

I was so wrong to be worried about Thea's birthday. It turned out to be a fun day full of meaningful presents, cake and balloons. Exactly what she had asked for! We all so much fun and enjoyed celebrating the life of our special little Thea. I am so thankful for her. She is such a caring, nurturing little one! She loves to help me and be with me wherever I go. This evening she came to me and said, "Thea want mama's lap" and sat with me as long as I was sitting. She does not like to be away from me and i call her my "little shadow" as she follows me around most of the time. I can't complain. It's nice to be loved!
We continue to worry a bit about her speech. While she is ahead cognitively, her speech is quite behind and her last test showed her in the bottom 2 percentile for her age. She does communicate quite well with us. However, we're still looking forward to her starting speech and being able to be more clear about her needs.
For her birthday Thea received...
Two soaps handmade by Ashton

Ashton making soaps

Her apron made by mama

A beautiful wooden doll schoolhouse that Quintin painted for her (great $5 thrift store find!)


People and furniture for the schoolhouse from Landon


A wonderful kitchen Daddy put together for her. It was quite the project! We were joking that putting together a kitchen until midnight is a rite of passage for fathers of little girls!



Her birthday was a Hawaiian theme and daddy got out the old ukulele and played a song for her. Ashton picked it up and did pretty well! It was amazing to see him trying to play it using his piano books.

Decorations

Presents and cake

And what happened at the end of the big birthday day.

I was wrong...

and very happy about it! I did have time to make an apron for Thea. It's only a 1/2 apron, which is not very practical, but that's alright since she will be using it with a PLAY kitchen. Hopefully I can make her a full apron one day for when she helps me in our real kitchen.
Here it is. Next time I'd make the sash more thin.


And here it is on my very unwilling model. I will not release his name and promised not to show his face. LOL

Full Armor

Our children are quite creative. After checking out a book of Knight's hands on activities, Ashton was inspired to make a knight's helmet. That was fun, but apparently full armor is what it's all about...

Thea's first class

Thea was thrilled to be able to go with her big brothers to Cooking and Story class today. They visited mexico by playing a mexican game and eating quesadillas and corn chips. Apparently we need to work on getting undressed IN the bathroom and not on the way there! Ashton was there to help her get her pants up though...she still has trouble when she's wearing jeans. He was such a good big brother to her. She was so excited about the picture she colored and would not let go of it for anything! I can't believe she'll be 3 on Saturday. The time goes so fast.

Thea showing off her picture and class schedule. She kept telling me, "Got two, got two".

15b bean soup

A lot of people ask me what I make with dried beans. We had this recipe last night and I really enjoyed it. It's one of my (and Quintin's) favorites. Super easy, super cheap, super healthy.

15 Bean Soup

1 package dried 15 bean soup (found with dried beans in grocery stores)
1 lb. smoked sausage sliced into 1 inch pieces
1 can diced tomatoes with Italian spices
1 onion diced
1 green pepper diced
3 stalks of celery diced
handful of baby carrots diced
2 cloves of pressed garlic

1. put beans in crock pot and cover with 2 quarts of water. Let soak overnight
2. In the morning, drain the water and add 6 cups of water to crock pot
3. Add sausage, canned tomatoes and veggies to crock pot
4. cook all day (about 8ish hours) on low
5. serve as soup or over rice and enjoy! Goes great with cornbread.

You could put about any kind of dried beans in place of the 15 bean soup if you wanted to. I've used kidney beans and black eyed pes and they both turn out well.

Beautiful Garden!!!

Today we visited a beautiful greenhouse in the city. It was totally free and we were able to see plants from all over the world. There was even a special exhibit on different kinds of forests in the Americas. This was wonderful as we have been learning about this in homeschool.

Mareea dosen't look too happy about Daddy trying to get some good pictures of the mei tai for my Etsy store.

Thea reflects...







Orchids...my favorite! I really like how the picture came out, too.

The view as we're walking through.





I'd never seen a bonsai tree with flowers on it and thought this was pretty.

My little lactavist...

Here is Thea stopping to nurse her baby at the "mall". As you can see, she was pushing her baby in the stroller, but she got hungry and needed to nurse. Thankfully, this little mama had a boppy nearby to use!

intentions and reality...

Next weekend is Thea's birthday. My baby girl is going to be 3. It's so hard to believe that she is about to be a preschooler! Every year at every child's birthday I decide that I'm going to do something really special, but unfortunately, it doesn't really happen. Take for instance Thea's birthday. She has asked for a play kitchen. Thea doesn't say too many things, but she has made it clear that she would like a kitchen and we're planning on getting her one. My idea was to make her an apron and hot pads and possibly some felt food to go along with it. Unfortunately, I'm almost positive it won't get done. With homeschooling 5 and only 1 that naps regularly I find myself with very little time for anything other than children. But what better use of my time than to be training them? However, I would by lying if I didn't admit that I really would like to sew more. Dan and I try and spend time together every night after the kids go to bed, and so I no longer have time to sew in the evenings. Fine...I'd rather spend time with my husband anyway. So I tell myself that it's more important to make my husband a priority and spend the time to raise my children well, but I still feel terrible that Thea won't have her apron from her mama. Oh well...she'd rather have time with mama than an apron I'm sure. One day I will have all the time in the world to sew and my babies will be grown. And I will miss these days so much.
And who knows...maybe some time will magically appear and i'll be able to make my girl an apron.

Learning/Teaching Geography

I was terrible at geography. I don't think I ever took a class or learned about it in school so that probably explains it. However, it is super embarrassing when your husband refers to a country (or countries) that you didn't even know existed! Not to mention I feel very ignorant knowing so little about the rest of the world. While talking to a friend about homeschooling, he told me to make sure that I taught them geography and that "Americans have no concept of it". So I decided to do just that. Geography has been a priority in our homeschool and I have learned so much myself. My 4 year old can name and point out all the countries in South America, most of the US states and several countries in Africa. He's quite smart, but I had a lot of help in teaching him. Here are some of the resources I've used...

The Continent Song - We heard this on an Ella Jenkins CD from the library. It goes to the tune of the Are you Sleeping Brother John song...
There are seven, there are 7, continents, continents, Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, Australia, Antartica. If you can't get it call me and I"ll sing it to you LOL. I had the kids point to each continent on a blank world map while singing. I'm ashamed to say I didn't know the 7 continents until this song...although I imagine I could have named them...i just didn't know there were 7 and for sure which ones were continents. How embarassing.

Geopuzzles! I heard about these on a homeschooling blog and have ordered 3 so far. Each country is its own piece and the children learn where they go as they put the puzzle together. http://www.geotoystore.com/ I ordered mine on Amazon for the cheap price and free super saver shipping.

Sing 'n Learn geography CDs - We listened to these in the car and in the house while doing chores or coloring. Each song sings through the countries in certain areas of the world. After we learn the song, we learn where the countries are located on the map and the kids sing and point out the country. http://www.singnlearn.com/

Most recently, we've found great map puzzles online. Because they aren't ever allowed on the computer, this is a huge treat for them. www.yourchildlearns.com/geography.htm (go down to "map puzzles"). I can choose whatever continent or country I want them to work on.

In progress crafting...

My current crafting obsession is newborn fitted diapers. They are so cute, so tiny, so soft...
Here are a few I am making for my friend Jamie who just had her little lady today :) When I started these, she did not know if she was having a boy or girl so I was safe and went with gender neutral prints.



These have a special snap down in the middle to help keep the diaper from irritating the umbilical scar. I was excited to use my snap pliers also...no more velcro dipes!

Picture fun

Landon helping Mareea with her first playdoh fun day.

Landon really wanted to take a picture of me...it's a good thing. I'm not sure there would ever be a picture of me if the kids didn't grab the camera every once in awhile!

Miss Mareea

I wanted to stop in and update on our beautiful Mareea. Last month she turned one year and is doing so many new things. The big one is walking. She is walking all over the place, has been saying new words (quack, amen, alleluia, mama), and getting molars! I have never had a child get molars so early, but as I have learned, they are all very different and develop at their own speed. We've also never have a child say a 4 syllable word at 12 months. We sing a hymn with "hallelujah" in it a lot and when she says it you can definitely tell she is "singing" it. Mareea can also point to her nose and show me her belly.

Family pictures!!!

Every year we have family pictures taken around Christmas. This year we missed it (for whatever reason) and we also did not even get out Christmas cards. However, I was determined to get a picture taken this year and made an appointment at the Picture People. Unfortunately, my family does not share my excitement of having pictures done and then walking the mall, so I made a deal with Dan that if we could get a good picture with our camera on the delay timer, we didn't' have to go to the Picture People. The morning of our appointment we got up, dressed and bribed with children with Chick Fil A and no mall trip if they took a good picture. Everyone was wonderful! We set up the tripod and figured out the delay timer and were able to get several good pictures. It only took a few minutes and it was free...not to mention much less stressful than going to a studio. Here's how they turned out!




y was quite une

Where I have been...

In case anyone noticed, I haven't blogged in forever. Instead...I've been doing a lot of sewing! I recently asked for some "testers" for my mei tais on diaper swappers and got a great response. I made 5 mei tais and sent them out to people to test out. They paid for materials and shipping and filled out a survey on how they liked the carrier. It worked out well. Originally I had planned to sell mei tais and baby accessories once I was finished with the testing, but have since decided that I'm just too busy at this season of my life to have such a big commitment other than my children. So I think I'm just going to continue to sew for fun and occasionally for friends who would like something. Recently, i have found some wonderful free patterns online for super cute little girls summer dresses and want to get started on those ASAP.

Another big change has been that we started to home school Quintin this semester. It's been quite a transition, but I am really starting to enjoy it. Learning is so much more fun the way we do it at home. Reading, discussing, hands-on projects, etc. Quintin seems to like it also. We've already noticed a big change in his attitude overall.