She did it!

Sweet-Pea has wanted her ears pierced for a while now, but has been too scared to get it done. Finally, the other day she said "I'm going to do it Mom, whether I feel like it or not!" That's what I call courage!!!

So, we took her to the mall to Claire's Boutique. She sat in the chair, arms folded, and waited...


She was nervous but would never have admitted it at this point! Here she is, getting her ears cleaned and ready to be pierced...


Getting them marked at just the right spot.


By this time, her nerves were getting the best of her...


Here goes the first hole...


OK, that wasn't so bad...was it?!?


Nevermind...the 2nd one is going to hurt just as much...


See?!?


But...she got through it and is now smiling once again!!!


See the pretty 14k gold Tanzanite earrings she picked out? They match her sparkly personality! =)


She looked around at all the pretty earrings she'll be able to wear in 6 weeks. Hmm, now I know what to buy her for Christmas this year!!!!


I'm so proud of her. She was such a brave girl and I'm glad she got it over with. She's been wanting them for a year now and just needed to work up the courage. I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 13, so she's a LOT braver than I ever was!!!!

Choo Choo!!

To say our son loves trains is a major understatement! He has loved them since he was very young. He started with Thomas the Tank Engine and quickly grew into the big-boy trains...LIONEL...where his nickname came from. His first train set was given to him when he turned 2 years old by Edward and I. Since then, he's collected set after set after set...not to mention the single boxcar, hopper, engine and tons of accessories here and there. Some of his trains are pretty cool!

We promised him that when we moved into our new home, he and Daddy would begin to create their layout in the basement. He is in the process of planning the layout on paper...the way the professional toy train collectors do it. So far the plan measures approx. 28' in length by 4' in some places and by 8' in other places. It's not built yet, but I promise that once the layout has begun, I'll post it all on here. Until the area of the basement has been cleared out (hopefully within the next few weeks) they can't begin. For now, he's having fun setting up mini layouts on the floor. Here are some photos...

Command Central! He wants to set up one area with all the controls on one large transformer.


Simple layout where he can run 4 trains at once.


See the smoke coming from the engine? Pretty cool! This is his NY Central passenger set, one of my favorites! He's got tons of trees, cars, signs and even electronic accessories that will be added to his layout once it's built.


The engineer hard at work. See that pile behind him? That's where his layout will be...most of the boxes will be emptied and gone, so once we go through them, he'll have plenty of space.


The train station




Sweet-Pea helped him with the accessories on this layout...thus the zebra next to the track! I believe it's from his circus set. =)


Someone just missed the train!


I think I'm just as excited about this layout as Lionel is. I tried running the layout with 4 trains going at once and it wasn't easy! It sure was fun though!

For those of you who know us and live nearby, feel free to stop over once in a while to help run the trains. Lionel sure would love to share his passion with you!

"All aboard!!!"

It was a Sweet-Pea weekend...

It was quite a weekend for our little Sweet-Pea. She turned 8 back in July, but due to our move, she didn't get to celebrate with her friends until this weekend. She was beside herself with excitement all week. We not only got to celebrate her 'birth'day, we also got to celebrate her spiritual birthday! 5 years ago on August 7th, she prayed and asked Jesus to come into her heart...a day that I'll never forget!!

We celebrated in a big way! Sweet-Pea invited 11 friends to her outside water-themed birthday party on Saturday afternoon. We figured that some may not be able to attend being that it's the summer, but every one of them responded with a 'yes', so she was thrilled. Here they are...a bunch of cuties!

Sweet-Pea is in the front (3rd from left) in the polka-dotted bathing suit.


The girls came ready to get wet. Before bringing out the water balloons, the girls did a fun sand-art craft. Once that was done, they let loose in the backyard!! It took us two evenings to fill all the balloons, and the girls 30 minutes to pop them all. Our yard looks like a confetti bomb went off on it...too funny. (Anyone want to come help us pick up the pieces?!? All 10 gazillion of them!) They had a great time though...throwing water balloons, playing on the Slip 'n Slides, dodging the water gun that Lionel attacked them with etc. It doesn't take much to please a bunch of 7-10 year old girls. =)





Sweet-Pea on the Slip 'n Slide


After they got soaked and played a while, we had a cook-out complete with hamburgs and hot dogs. Yum!


The cake? Well...let's just say that Sweet-Pea had a particular design in mind, and I tried to execute it. She wanted a waterfall cake. Yup, you read it right...a waterfall. My husband is the one who went to culinary school, not me, but I did attempt to make it and I suppose it came out OK.


The kids enjoyed the cake as did the other parents who stuck around for the fun. It was gone within 10 minutes!!


After dessert the girls gathered around while Sweet-Pea opened her gifts. She had no idea that the other kids were going to bring her gifts. I guess she forgot about that part, so when it came time to open them, she was overwhelmed. She had a blast, and I know she was grateful for all her friends and their generosity!

After the party was over and most of the people went home, two of her friends stayed around for a couple more hours to play.


The two girls Sweet-Pea recently befriended are from Holland, and have been here visiting their grandmother - our neighbor. They all seemed to hit if off so well, but I'm sad for Sweet-Pea that they will be heading home this coming Saturday.

Why can't my children find friends who actually live near us?!? This next week is a tough one for both kids. Not only is Sweet-Pea going to say goodbye to her new friends, but Lionel is going to have to say goodbye to his best friend of 14 years!!! I'm not happy about having to pick up the pieces when this week is over. I'm sure there will be lots of tears shed.

My prayer is that God will bless both of my children with friends...friends with Godly morals and values, friends who will be there for them when they need a friend...friends who will love them for who they are. Will you pray with me for them? Pray for God's blessings to be evident in their lives during the next few weeks and months. I truly want my children to see God working in their lives. I tell them over and over that good friends are a gift from God. I know He will bless them, but not until the time is right. Thanks everyone!!!

Classification - the fun way!

Sweet-Pea is learning all about Taxonomy in Botany. She's learning how to classify flowers through this process. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about...plants can be broken down like this:

Kingdom --> Phylum --> Class --> Order --> Family --> Genus --> Species

Does any of that ring a bell from your school days?!? It should!

Anyhow, we decided to use shoes to learn about classifying - the simple way. What better way is there for a girl to learn science than with shoes?!? Sweet-Pea gathered 15 shoes from my closet and once I got her to stop trying on all my shoes, we got our school work done! hee hee



Here's the result of our study...

KINGDOM: SHOE


She broke them down into 4 different phylums...

PHYLA: Daily Shoes, Slippers, Flip Flops, Sunday Shoes


She then broke those 4 phylums into various classes...

CLASS:
Daily Shoes -->White and Brown


Slippers -->Girls and Boys


Flip Flops -->Blue and Black


Sunday Shoes -->Dark and Light


ORDER:
Daily Shoes -->White and Brown --> White boys/white girls/brown 1 strap/brown multi strap


Slippers -->Girls and Boys -->blue and pink


Flip Flops -->Blue and Black -->Blue boys/blue girls/black girls


Sunday Shoes -->Dark and Light -->Dark boys/dark girls/light closed/light open


So there you have it! Science made simple!! Smelly...but simple! =)

Now...if I can get her to remember what binomial nomenclature is by the end of the week, we'll be all set. It sounds like a big word, but it's actually the formal way they name species...in Latin. They take the name of the genus and the species and put them together to form the Latin name for each plant. It's pretty cool. Capitalize the Genus and put them both in italics and you're good to go. Next time you go to the local nursery for some plants, why not ask for them in their Latin botanical names and impress the salesman! Here are a few:

Acer rubrum...Red Maple
Papaver rhoeas...Common Poppy
Acer saccharinum...Silver Maple
Cornus florida...Flowering Dogwood
Centaurea cyanus ...Cornflower

First day of school

We did it! We completed our first day of the new school year!!! It was an easy day since we just started, but we still got a lot done.

First things first...a couple photos of our classroom, as promised...

Lionel's desk:


Sweet-Pea's desk:

My desk is an 'L' shaped desk and we have it coming out into the middle of the room. It looks overbearing, but it's actually quite practical that way. I need to work more one on one with Sweet-Pea, and with my desk positioned this way, all she needs to do is swing her chair around and we have a great work space.

Lionel LOVES history. Here he is with his new Bob Jones World History book. He's is thrilled to try this new curriculum out. We used Beautiful Feet for many years, but it was time for a change. The topics in this book cover everything Lionel loves reading about. His favorite? Anything to do with wwi and wwii. He will be teaching me when we get to that section!! Right now Lionel says he wants to be an Historian. We'll see...


Sweet-Pea doing what she loves....typing on the computer! She's got a great new program this year, so she should be able to type with more than a couple fingers in no time. She too changed curriculum in some subjects this year and the changes are quite refreshing, even just after 1 day. Notice her pink floral chair and pink mouse! She cracks me up. We were at Staples the other day, she spotted that chair across the store and practically begged me to get it for her. Fortunately it was on sale for just $19.00, so I got it. She LOVES it!


Today we began school at 9:00 a.m. The kids were up at 8:00, ate breakfast, got dressed, cleaned up and were ready for the new school day right on time. We did our pledges (American flag, Christian flag, Bible) and then began our day.

It took me a bit to juggle their subjects around. They do not do the same subjects at the same time, it simply cannot be done. Because they are 7 grades apart (he's in 10th, she's in 3rd) I can't combine their work. So, while he did his Bible, she did Writing Tales, while she did her spelling online, I did history with Lionel, and while he was working on his seatwork part, I did science with Sweet-Pea...etc. etc. It was a bit crazy at first, but I think I found what works best. I'll do the same tomorrow to see if I'm right. It's all about trial and error with more than one child. I honestly don't know how parents of 5, 6, 7 or more kids do it. Unit studies I suppose!

While doing their work...this is what was going on outside...


This is one of the new houses on our street. There will be 2 more built after this one. The noise wasn't quite so bad today. The generator was humming, but we had music playing during school, so we were fine. I heard that playing Baroque music while studying is calming and helps you study better. It works for my kids!!! I use Pandora Radio and play the songs we enjoy most...check it out if you've never used it. Free music to listen to in the styles you enjoy, or of the artists you like best....simply create your own station.

Tomorrow is another day. My prayer is that each day will bring new surprises and challenges, but that none will be filled with things we can't get through. Learning is so much fun, especially when you get excited about it. It's very contagious, so I pray that God will give me the get-up-and-go, the desire, the passion and the wisdom I need to teach my children each day.

Blessings,

Is it that time already?!?

Bright and early Monday morning we will start the new school year! Yup, it's that time already!!! I have to say that I don't feel quite ready for it this year because of our move, but I know that once we start, I'll feel better. Our school room is MUCH smaller than our previous one, but since the kids are getting older, we don't really need the extra space. We have 4 desks and an Ikea shelf unit crammed into a 12'x11' space. It doesn't sound that bad, but my desk is a very large 'L' shaped desk, so it consumes the room! We purchased it for the first home we were going to buy...the house was smaller, but it had a much bigger school room. Since I scrapbook and 'need' the desk space, we decided to still set it up here. The room works, but it's tight. (Photos coming soon).

Despite the furniture, my biggest problem is that I am a huge fan of books. I love to read, love to explore and love to collect books. School books, research books, novels, you name it. The one thing I've had to do in moving into this house was downsize, but books are one thing I haven't gotten rid of yet. My husband and I will go through them together, and hopefully I'll have the will-power to get rid of some. We'll see. Our basement may end up looking like this...



So...when Edward comes home, we will complete our school room, get the kids desks, supplies and books ready, and then we'll be all ready for Monday morning...I hope. This year, instead of using the Homeschool Tracker software I purchased a few years ago to keep track of our school records, I have opted to use the printable planner put out by TOS (The Old Schoolhouse). I love electronics and modern technology, but there's something about seeing everything laid out on paper that eases my mind about our school records. The Homeschool Tracker was confusing, difficult to work with and if you missed one day of school, the entire software was thrown out of whack! I didn't like that...it made me feel trapped. One of the reasons we love to homeschool is that we have the freedom to change things around if we want to. With the Homeschool Tracker, we didn't have that freedom, and that wasn't a good thing! Now, with the TOS Planner, I can print out the pages I want. There are 375 printable pages, not to mention the awesome monthly modules they create to go along with it - just for some extras. The best part about it...I got it free for being the president of our homeschool group! The planner may be purchased by anyone though for $39.00, which is definitely worth it. The planner gives you the option of printing it out 'as is' so you can fill it out on your own, or you can type it out on the computer first, then print it. It's pretty cool and I'm excited to try something new. Click on the photo and it'll take you right to the TOS order page for the planner if you're interested.

Well...it's time to get cleaning....Edward should be home from work any minute now.

Holy Macro!

A few more macros from my collection...











I'm still hoping to get that professional camera for either my birthday or Christmas, but in the mean time, my Canon PowerShot will have to do.

If you care to donate your life savings, feel free to email me and send me a check. I'll even take cash.

Birthday Wishes

Today is Sweet-Pea's 8th birthday!! The years are flying by already! I am so proud to be her Mom and feel blessed that she is my beautiful daughter.



8 things I love about Sweet-Pea: (Just the tip of the iceberg!)

1. She loves the Lord and desires to grow in her Christian walk!!
   
2. She is sweet, patient and considerate of others
   
3. Her passion for learning is incredible
   
4. She adores her big brother
   
5. She finds joy in the simple things of life
   
6. She loves to do fun girly things with me...crafts, shop, nails etc.
   
7. Her ability to skate well and play the flute amazes me
8. She is beautiful both inside and out!!
   

"My dear Sweet-Pea. I am so very proud of you. You are such a sweet girl, full of life, full of love and you bring so much joy to my heart. I love you dearly and am so proud to be your Mom. Always keep Christ first in all you do and serve him all your days. Love, Mommy"