8/29/2008

Recent photos and stuff...

Here's a new pic of Alex without his tooth. I took one at Nelson Ledges, but I accidently deleted it. Nice.


And here's another one for my dad - with that lense he's letting me borrow... Trying to be artistic...

8/26/2008

What’s up?

Life has been crazy these past few days, just popping in for an update…
Over the weekend we had a fun outing. Our main reason for the outing was a car race at Nelson Ledges. This one was a fundraiser for Muscular Dystrophy that we agreed to help with. But the race didn’t start until the afternoon, so we had lots of time to kill. First we stopped by the Gilliland’s (the family with 7 kids). We hadn’t seen them in over a year, so it was time. It was good to reconnect with them. While we were there, Alex lost his first tooth in his sandwich at lunch. Yes I have a picture (somewhere), and No the tooth fairy hasn’t been to our house yet. Bad mom. I know. Don’t remind me.
After the Gilliland’s we went hiking at Nelson Ledges State Park. Which we had driven by several times this summer and never made the effort to stop. The ledges are a great place to hike, we went there several times while I was in college. However they really aren’t designed for children aged 4-6. As the name suggests, they are full of rather dangerous cliffs and rock formations that are just begging to be climbed on. Mix that with loose soil and kids in sandals. Eek. Even for these laid back parents. It was fun, but we’ll go back in 5 years when the kids are old enough to recognize danger a little better.
So after the (near fatal) hiking trip, we headed over to the racetrack to put in our time. (AKA socialize with our racing friends and eat cherry cobbler) Despite being completely exhausted, and confined to the tent we were working out of, the kids did rather well. Sure, they had no interest in playing with any of the toys I brought, no desire to watch the races, and had no little friends to play with this time; but they didn’t really complain, and they weren’t overly annoying either. They’re such troopers.
So those were our weekend highlights, yesterday my friend dropped her 9 year old off with us, so she go to work. It was kinda nice having a “big” kid around. He watched over my kids so I could do yard work. I took full advantage by diving headfirst into a patch of daffodils on our new property that have been very neglected over the years. I think at the end of the day I ended up with around 400 bulbs (which is just a fraction of what is there!) Now I just have to figure out where to put all these babies where I can see them…

8/18/2008

kid funny

Over breakfast this morning Alex bellows "Mom! Annie is naked with pants on!"

????

School starts this morning! Wish us luck!

8/15/2008

The end of summer

It’s official. Summer vacation is nearly over. I have my lesson plans written for Monday. Feels good to be able to meet my deadline this year instead of slacking off and pushing it back like I did last summer. Feeling slightly panicked that I don’t have enough lesson ideas to take me to May, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.
So what did we do with our last week of summer vacation? I’d like to say we went out and did all sorts of fun things like the water park or the zoo, but we didn’t. I have been working on my lessons, and cleaning up the property next door. We don’t know when we’ll be able to take the house down, but we’ve done a lot of weeding and mowing and making the ground look a little more presentable, found some flowers and plants that we need to transplant.
Oh, and we’re watching the Olympics. Well, Alex and I are. The girls prefer to watch a video for their 30 min of tv time. Too bad the gymnastics is on so late, I don’t even stay up to watch that.

8/08/2008

Winding down

Well our summer is winding down around here. The pressure of school is looming down on our little heads. Pretty gosh darned stoked to get back in the groove, and enjoy the learning process once again. Last year I opted to not purchase a boxed set of curriculum, and just used the resources available at our public library. Risky move I know, but it paid off pretty well. This year I have again opted not to buy curriculum in favor of the public library. It would be a lot easier to buy a bunch of workbooks and say, “here you go, have fun!” but the educator in me cringes at the sight of a pile of worksheets, so I go in search of authentic learning experiences (and a few worksheets). And searching, and searching. Lots of searching. But this year I understand just how much searching is involved, so I started early. I feel like I have a pretty good outline set up for the year, now it’s just a matter of filling in the blanks. Better than the pile of worksheets I started with last year. (eek! I know) So I’m excited about where we’re going.
Anyway. Life around these parts is good. Busy, but good. Working on curriculum, going on play dates, picking blackberries, sleeping in a tent, picking wildflowers (ahem – weeds). Squeezing the last little bit of fun out of our summer before it’s over.
Excited for the Olympics to start tonight. Looking for a schedule of events, trying to figure out age appropriate ways to incorporate the games into our learning.

8/01/2008

Welcome August

I’m not sure where July went, or even June for that matter, but August is here and there’s not much I can do about it, so I might as well celebrate it’s arrival right?
VBS has come and gone. Week two went by faster than the first. I ended up with seven preschoolers in my class, which was just the right amount. Seven super sweet, slightly wiggly little ones, three adult helpers, who complimented each other’s strengths (and weaknesses) amazingly. Very fun, but glad to be done. None of my own children seemed to mind the fact that they had to go to both weeks of VBS, which was a blessing.
Now that VBS is done I can contemplate the areas of my life that have been ignored for two weeks. A garden full of weeds, loaded blackberry vines, and enough cleaning to keep me busy for a while. Did I mention school? Oof. I have a general map in my head of where we’re going with 1st grade, but the details are pretty sketchy. I think my plan is to start on August 18th. We’ll just see how that deadline holds up to the craziness of August.

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