Vacation Part 2

You can read the first part of our vacation here.

After spending some time with my grandparents, we went down to the "club" to spend the week with my family. The club is a private waterski club that my parents belong to. We grew up their and spend many weekends camping and enjoying all things waterskiing.

I am just going to share pictures basically. They speak for themselves. I am really proud of both my kids for wanting to try waterskiing on the water tube. They were not scared and loved it! Ari also enjoyed tubing. I had some sort of neck injury and am still not feeling the best with it so I did not do much. I was probably being a baby, but I did not want to re injure my neck or make it worse. Anthony wake boarded too. My favorite thing was riding around in the "princess car" aka the Razr. Our week in pictures...........

 

Ari and Lilliana ended up falling asleep on this next tube ride. They were so tired. 

  

 

 

We took some time and went to the Perrine Bridge so the kids could see it and also went to my parent's house. The last time we visited we also spent the week at the club. Since then Eli has been confused that they lived at the club. So we took him to show him that they have a house. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also celebrated my Dad's birthday early. The kids had so much fun doing that. My kids live for birthday parties. 

 

 

 

 

Here is a video of Eli crashing. 

 

 The last night we spent having smores and the kids had razr rides just around the club from Aunt Holli. They went around and around and around and would have done it all night had it not been time for everybody to either go to bed or begin their trip home. 

We had an uneventful good flight home. Once again some fun photos from the Chicago airport. 

Little Memories

Yes, I finished vacation pictures! It was a huge thing but I stayed up late last night to finish. So providing everything goes as planned tomorrow (aka kids stay on schedule and play quietly during their respected quiet time....haha who am I kidding?) I should get those blogged.

This week has been great! School is going so well and both kids are loving it. Ari is not loving it so much as he is confined and not allowed to pull everything off the shelves. Regardless I LOVE LOVE LOVE having a space just for school and nothing else. A few exciting and just simple memories I want to remember. 

When we got back from vacation our blue recliner broke. It probably can be fixed. It was just the foot stool part came loose and needed a screw. Well, God always takes care of us. As we went to go get the shelf  from Anthony's mom's house on Monday night we saw a perfectly good chair sitting out by the side of the road. We stopped, and Anthony asked if it was free and if anything was wrong with it. Lucky for us it was and it was in perfect condition. So we have a brand new to us FREE chair and it is nice and big and comfy. God is good! It doesn't recline or rock, but I don't care it doesn't need fixed and was free. Ari tested it for us the first night. Silly kid was cracking me up with his little crossed legs.  

 

Then there is Miss Lilliana. Since she stopped nursing her security things are tags or anything soft like that and she rubs them on her lips. If she doesn't have her blanket she will grab a pair of underwear out of her drawer and do it with the tag. If she sees anything that is silky like that she stops what she is doing to feel it. I have no idea while. If she can't find something she will use her  nail. I assume it is soft and smooth. Yesterday, she asked to use my head wrap for her hair. I let her and she looked adorable. While I would have preferred she not have her hands by her face while I took her picture I was reminded of her security thing...I am sure there is a better word. So, I realized I like these pictures just for that reason. 

 

Yesterday we also went for a nature walk. It was very profitable. I honestly was hoping to collect some rocks for a project. Well, we discovered some seeds and Eli didn't know what they were. The ones on the ground were dry so I picked one off the tree to bring home and show him in today's lesson  Not only did we get seeds but we also brought home a baby stick insect. I was so surprised to see it. It was a double bonus. I ended up releasing it after I took these pictures. The kids were all really excited about it. 

 

This was one day I wish I had a macro lens. I am sure I will have many more opportunities though. A very wonderful first week to school! I can't have asked for anything better. 

First Day of School 2013

Last year  homeschooling went so well, I knew we would continue. I really loved the idea behind the Charlotte Mason method, but I needed something a little more structured. I considered switching to Abeka curriculum and a few others. Unfortunately I just was not thrilled with it. I decided to stick with Charlotte Mason and then a wonderful friend who has helped me so much with home school gave me another resource. It was EXACTLY what we needed. It was perfect. So the past few weeks I have been knee deep in lesson plans, book ordering, and school supply shopping.

I also realized the kitchen table was not going to work anymore. I wanted to hang the kids artwork and had a map I wanted to use. I also hated that the bright blue calendar was in my dining room. I have visions of a huge canvas or print of the kids hung there. First, I needed to get rid of the bright blue calendar. After a bit of brainstorming we decided to take the room we eventually will turn into an upstairs bathroom and make it the homeschool room for now. It had all of Anthony's tools and house fixing supplies in it along with panel doors and some old wood. The entire upstairs is plaster. Let me just preface this entire thing by saying old houses have LOTS of character only because when you try to do anything it always takes 3 times as long. Also, plaster is not forgiving in the least bit and sometimes just any movement gives cracks in the walls. I had grand plans of using some chalkboard paint on the walls. After realizing that was not going to work, that project will have to wait. Regardless we love our house. 

The kids helped us clean out the room......

 

The best thing about finishing this room is we spent a total of $16 on the actual fixing of the room. The perks sometimes of Anthony's job is working in schools and he was able to bring home the table and chairs probably a year ago. The map was also recovered from a school as was the carpet. We had the paint already. The shelf was given to us from Anthony's mom. All we needed was glue for the floor and we have a simple room makeover. I have visions of an Ikea organization one day. For now this works!! I am proud of it and I know the kids love it. 

We didn't let the kids see the finished room until yesterday morning. They were so excited to go up and see it.

I of course went out and took their photos. 

 

They picked out their own clothes and of course wanted their backpacks. I laugh because I know they won't use them but this one day. 

 

Of course Ari is crying in the above picture....figures!! I also need to work on Lilliana's putting her knees together. Although I should just be glad she has underware on. LOL 

Here is the video of seeing the room for the first time (don't mind Ari screaming in the background, I had to move him to his crib as he was pulling things off shelves and being Ari).........

Here is a bit of our morning.......... 

 

While Lilliana may be sitting there she is not expected to do what Eli does. Each month they get a calender to color and fill out. I have printed one for her too. She is working on coloring in the lines. She also has a sketch pad like Eli but just scribbles. She loves it. Many times I have her sitting on the floor playing quietly with Ari or reading books. What you don't see is the master of disaster wrecking everything below my feet....AKA Ari. 

I do love this curriculum as if focuses on God, Character training, and Art appreciation. Of course we don't leave out reading, writing, math, history, and science. I just love that the others are just as important. 

All in all it was an excellent first day. As we speak the kids are getting dressed and headed upstairs to begin day two. Although I won't be publishing this until after as I am waiting on videos to upload.

One day I will get to that vacation post:) I am almost done with the rest of the pictures!