Clark's 3rd Birthday

We celebrated Clark's birthday on Monday.  He wanted a "cars" birthday.

He was a little excited about his birthday this year.  He's been eagerly anticipating its arrival since February.  When he came out of his room first thing and he saw the balloon and his special place setting I heard him whisper, "It's my birthday!"  He was excited to have a bagel for breakfast.

After breakfast he played outside for a little while and then watched an episode of "Chuck and Friends"  Then we loaded up the van and picked up Aunt Cathy and the cousins and headed to a local park to play.

After we went to the park we came home and fixed lunch.  Clark wanted leftover mac and cheese and everyone else had ham sandwiches.  After lunch they made scenes with stickers from the movie Cars.  Then I read a couple books to Clark and everyone went to their rooms for quiet time.  During quiet time I decorated Clark's cookie cake.  After quiet time Clark wanted to watch the movie Cars.  Daddy and Clark went to get pizza for supper and then we had cake and presents.  Clark was so excited about all of his gifts.  I really enjoy this age when the anticipation for a present is high and the excitement is catching and the joy upon the gift received is fun to watch.  Grammy came over with Riley (dog) and brought Clark a present too.  After her visit, when she was leaving he told her thank you for the present all by himself.

The Slow Pace

We've been taking it easy since school got out.  The week that we finished school I ended up sick.  So we I took about 10 days of just doing the necessities of the day.  Now, we've been doing our regular chores, playing, reading books, snuggling with little kids, keeping up with Clark and Quinn or watching a little TV.  We're doing the summer reading program through our library, so we go to the library at least once a week.  I've also been trying to tackle one other cleaning area each day that is either in desperate need of my attention or is something that doesn't get done often during the school year.  Staying home, checking my garden and not running around to different activities has been refreshing.  I like the slow pace.

Family Picture - 2014

Jeff, Quinn, and I found a beautiful patch of firewheels in a state park.  We went back the next day to get a family picture.

School's Out

We are done with school for the year.  Everyone passed their work and gets to move on to the next level.  Silly Katy told us after only one day of no school that she was bored without school and wanted someone to print some math worksheets for her.  I made a deal with the older kids.  If they do a good job on their responsibilities and chores they will have more time to play.  If they do a bad job, waste too much time, or complain too much they will get to work for me.  If they owe me work it gets completed at 9:00 in the morning or 4:00 in the afternoon unless I tell them otherwise.  So far I've gotten some doors, window sills and floors washed.  I had some help on a short cleaning project I was tackling and the bookshelf upstairs is on its way to having the books look like they belong on it again.  This morning Clark and Felicity were in the backyard at 7:30 picking yellow flowers for me.  They are so sweet.  Quinn has been up since sometime after 5 am and he even convinced me to give him some breakfast at 6:30.  He'll be ready for a nap soon.

Behind the Scenes During School

I heard lots of playing and giggling from Lissie and Clark one morning, but they weren't fighting, so it was a little while before I checked on them.  They were "going camping".

 While I was teaching math to one child, Kaomi who was waiting her turn with me styled my hair.  I guess that is how to do two things at the same time.

More of Clark's and Quinn's Fun Stuff

Clark told me he was getting a hair cut.

Quinn thinks its fun to play in this car.  He can get in and out all by himself.

Late night giggles and snuggles are worth it.  Even if the baby gets wound up and doesn't want to go to sleep until after Mommy's normal bedtime.

Clark was practicing his name.  I told him to put the letters in order and this is what he did ALL BY HIMSELF.  He didn't even look at the placemat on which he usually matches up his letters.

Yesterday, Clark was playing with this wrench and then he told me, "I have a holly-lop."

Other happenings:
Quinn is taking more steps and realizing it is kind of fun.  It is fun to hear all the kids exclamations of "Quinn just walked!".

Clark put a sticker on his "eyeball" this morning.  It was really on his elbow.

Kent's 10th Birthday

This weekend we celebrated Kent's birthday.  He is now 10.  He likes Ford mustangs, so we thought we would use that as his theme this year.

We started the weekend Friday night with a campfire and s'mores.

 Saturday was Kent's actual birthday.  He had waffles for breakfast.

Kent's 10th special place setting.

Happy 10th Birthday, Kent!

After breakfast Jeff, Kent and Kaomi went to help with a shift cooking briskets for their Christian Service Brigade fundraiser.  On their way home they stopped to visit at Dad-Dad and Grammy's house.  Kent was excited about the gift from their family.

Kent's gift from Dad-Dad and Grammy.

While they were gone the rest of us went grocery shopping and when we came out there was a mustang parked next to us.

Happy Birthday, Kent!  We found a mustang.

We ordered pizza for lunch and then we took Kent to a local Ford dealer so he could look at a real mustang.  It is Mustang's 50th anniversary, so the dealer gave Kent a poster of mustangs from every year.  He also got a book about the newest mustang available.

After we returned home Kent played an x-box game that he wanted to play.  After a supper of hambergers and watermelon we sang happy birthday, ate cake, and let him open his presents.

Kent's mustang cake.

He was excited to get his first pocket knife.

We wrapped up Saturday evening with hugs and kisses and going to bed a little bit later than usual.

Bridge

We had the opportunity to meet up with some friends and watch a bridge being put into place a few weeks ago.  The bridge is over 100 years old and was moved here so we could enjoy it in our park.

My Life is Full - Part 3

In part one I share how my younger children fill my life.  In part two I shared how my older children fill my life.  This time I'm going to share the other things in my life that make my life full.

Jeff - My spouse fills my life with support for me and our family.  He's there when I need him whether in person or by phone.  He is a great help around the house.  He builds things for our home and play.  He watches the kids so I can take a walk some evenings after dinner.  He's strong.  He wants to be a good leader in our family.  He eats ice cream with me.  We sit together on the couch to watch TV.  He plays board or card games with me occasionally, even though he doesn't prefer to play games.  He helps the kids with their math if they are struggling with a concept.  He gives me a day or several hours a month to work on projects or do something that I would like to do by myself.  He does so much to fill my life that I can't write everything here or even think of everything at the same time.


My life is also full of the things I do for my home and family.  I shop, cook, and plan meals and snacks.  I make sure that the mountains of clean laundry get folded, eventually.  I like folding laundry.  I delegate chores to the kids that they can help with in the laundry room, bathrooms, kitchen or just around the house.  Then I try to do the things they couldn't do.  I try to keep decluttering things that I find we don't use, so that they aren't in the way.  I try to encourage the kids to play outside and I go out with them to keep an eye on the little ones.  I teach our homeschool and try to make sure that I am ready to start school on Mondays because my preparation seems to help everything go fairly smoothly.  I'm hoping to get my garden planted soon and then there will also be garden maintenance and harvesting when the time comes.


My full life helps me stay content in my home doing the things I'm supposed to do.  It's plenty of fun, has plenty of craziness, and yes, can even have days of struggling to make it to bed at the end of the day without going crazy myself.  I thank God for giving me this full life and as long as I remember to keep everything in perspective I'm happy with it.

Linked with:
Raising Arrows     

In Celebration of Palm Sunday

Earlier this year during school Clark and Felicity were learning about Jesus riding the donkey into Jerusalem which has become known as The Triumphal Entry.  We acted the story out.  I thought you might enjoy the pictures.

Kent acted out the part of Jesus by dressing in a long white shirt and riding a stick horse. Clark and Felicity acted out the people by waving their palm branch crafts.

Tomato Sauce

About a month ago I had the opportunity to take home some tomatoes that were headed for the trash.

 They were starting to mold and had small bad spots.  I wouldn't have purchased them, but they were FREE to me.  I diced them up.

 That's almost twenty cups of diced tomatoes.  Did I mention I didn't buy them?

They turned into five pints of tomato sauce.  Which was on my shopping list to get and I got to cross it off without ever going to the store.  We've already used one pint and it was better than the canned stuff.  Yippee!!!

My Life is Full - Part 2

In part one I talked about how my three youngest children fill my life.  This time I'm going to share how the older three children also fill my life full.  They don't do all the fun little things that my littlest ones do, but there are plenty of fulfilling times that they add to my life in their own ways.

Kaomi - My quiet six year old keeps me guessing.  I often don't know what she is thinking.  She tends to be quiet and often doesn't speak up when she needs something.  She enjoys reading, which she used to struggle with.  She dislikes copywork so much that she will just sit and do it very slowly.  She likes to sit next to me when I am reading and she likes to have her back rubbed.  She likes to play dollhouse and set up scenes for me to look at.  She also likes to play pretend and help in the kitchen.  She likes babies, too.  She likes to try to get out of doing her chores by doing them very slowly or not doing them and hoping we don't notice.  She likes horses and got a chance to ride one a couple weeks ago and hopes she will get to do it again soon.

Katy - My competitive eight year old thinks like I do.  I understand her and can tell what she is thinking sometimes.  She likes help make lunch on the weekends.  She often fixes something for everyone to eat if she is given the chance.  Her independent streak shows when she wants to know how to do something, but as soon as she is shown she wants to do it by herself.  She enjoys embroidering and wants to learn how to sew.  She loves to help with Quinn and carry him around.  She likes horses and likes to read books about horses and really enjoyed getting to ride one a couple weeks ago with Kaomi and is looking forward to riding again.

Kent - My reluctant nine (almost ten) year old is beginning to show interest in doing things that show he is maturing.  He likes to help Jeff grill.  He thrives with structure for his day.  He struggles with change, but we work together to try and help him accept and adjust to it.  He tells every little detail about something he wants to talk about.  He likes to throw his football.  He enjoys visiting with our elderly neighbor.  I enjoy looking at his Lego designs from vehicles to sets for an action scene.  His ability to do a good job on his chores is improving and when he wants to do a good job there is little for me to have him finish.  He likes to go to CSB each week and is disappointed if something prevents him from getting to attend.  Kent also reads a lot.  Recently, he finished reading The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series by J.R. Tolkien.

Next time I'll finish up with other things that fill my life in Part 3.

Linked with"
Raising Arrows     

First Major Storm of the Season

Yesterday we had thunderstorms.  One of the storms just popped up suddenly without much warning.  Kent had gone outside to play and came in saying it just started thundering and he wanted to know if it was going to last long.  I looked online at the radar and as I watched the pictures were making me uneasy.  I kept watching the sky, too.  There was a wall cloud forming to the south that I was keeping an eye on from the front porch.   The tornado sirens started going off and I saw a funnel begin to form, it started hailing, and I headed in to get the kids to the closet under the stairs.  By the time I walked through the door ALL the kids were already in the closet on top of the vacuum and other boxes that were there.  They heard the siren go off and took off for the closet as fast as they could go and even took Quinn with them.  They made me a little bit proud to know that they knew where they should go and they shouldn''t wait.  I moved enough stuff out of the closet so we could all sit on the floor, added blankets and my computer and we closed the door.  I told the kids the electricity might go off and that if it did it was okay.  I opened a bucket of stuff I have set aside and gave the little kids each a toy and handed out a few books to be looked at.  That helped distract at least a few of the kids.  The hail pounded on the house and windows and it was very loud.  It seemed like a long time, but it was probably only several minutes.  After, the noise stopped I ventured out of the closet.  The yard was covered with hail.   We continued to have hail two more times before the storm ended.  Our electricity did go out for a minute or two towards the end of the storm, but since my computer was on there was still light in the closet.  I didn't have a flashlight with me.  It produced large hail up to ping-pong ball size and possibly a few pieces even larger than that.  The tornado I saw isn't reported to have touched the ground, but it was the beginning of a nasty storm that moved east and did form more tornadoes.  The van has dimples all over it now, but the windows stayed intact and there appears to be no other storm damage to our property.  Jeff was in Denton taking shelter where he was before returning home.

We are thanking God for his safety in the storm and hoping that when other storms come they don't have the threat of tornadoes with them.

My Life is Full - Part 1

My life is full of enjoying my children.  I thought I would share some of the ways my youngest children constantly fill my life.

Quinn -  My sweet one year old fills my life with giggles.  He likes to be tickled and to tickle others.  He still nurses several times a day and once or twice at night.  With nursing comes extra snuggles and holding a sleeping baby who is sometimes just too cute to put down right away.  He is learning that it is fun to play with cars, especially with Clark.  He also gives lots of hugs to anyone who is close enough to receive them.  He isn't walking independently yet, but I think as soon as he realizes how much fun it is he will run as fast as he can to wherever he wants to go.

Clark - My very busy two year old fills my life with cute actions and sayings.  He loves to help me in the kitchen.  Lately, he's been helping me make lunch and he's been rushing in to set the table for dinner, even though it is Felicity's job.  He loves playing with cars, trucks, and airplanes.  He likes to build garages for his fire truck and police cars with Duplo Legos.  He snuggles with me when he has just woken up and sits in my lap during the older kids storytime.  Occasionally, he'll fall asleep while I'm reading.  He seldom takes a nap and his afternoon quiet time is full of play.  I just encourage him to stay in his room and stay relatively quiet.  He enjoys preschool time.  He really enjoys playing outside and I have to watch him closely if we are in the front yard as he has quickly disappeared before we realize he had even moved.  He loves to ride the blue tricycle.  He runs his feet up and down the sidewalk as fast as he can and doesn't often use the pedals which are still a little hard to reach.  He is learning to put words into coherrent sentences, but likes to make up his own words and pretend he is saying something.  He loves to "play" football, just like his big brother, Kent.

Felicity - My gentle 4 year old enjoys life to the fullest.  She spends time playing pretend with her dolls, animals and other toys.  She has fun building puzzles and her excitement is catching as she shows me how she finished the puzzle she was working on.  She loves to play with Clark and they are so much fun to watch when they are playing together.  She enjoys making crafts and coloring, often giving her beautiful masterpieces to me to hang on the wall.  We also enjoy having a snuggle with a story.  When she eats something that she really likes she has a special look on her face and sucks her bottom lip in enjoyment.  She's done this since she was a baby and it is still precious.  She also likes to play outside and rides her red tricycle up and down the sidewalk.

As you can see there is so much to take in just with these children, that I will follow up with My Life is Full - Part 2 about my older three children.

Linked with:
Raising Arrows     

Clark's Sayings

Clark has been saying and doing lots of fun things lately. 

On Saturday morning when I was putting something in the van to leave on an errand Clark came outside and called to me from the front porch.  "Mommy, you didn't give me a hug and a kiss."  I said wait right there and I'll give you one in a minute.  When I started back towards him to give him his hug and kiss he took off running back into the house with a silly grin.  I finally caught up to him in the living room and delivered my hugs and kisses to my giggling boy.

March 7th:
I brought our airplane activity box downstairs.  I had put some foam airplanes in it that Jeff had gotten at the store and played with a few times.  Clark was so excited about the "new" airplanes in his box that he almost couldn't get the box open.

February 28th:
I'm in the kitchen and Clark comes in from the backyard.  Standing by the door he says,  "Look at this, Mommy."  I look up and he is looking at something in his hand.  I asked, "What do you have Clarky"   He replied, "A bu-ug."  I said, "Oh!  You should take it back outside.  Bugs don't come in the house."

February 27th:

Clark came in from the backyard and shoved some dandelions in my face.  "Here's flowers for you Mommy."  As soon as a took them he ran back out the door.  He's so sweet.


A Bonus from Felicity on February 17th:
We couldn't find Felicity's backpack.  I told her again to go look for and find her backpack.  She goes in the living room and I hear her say, "It's behind Mommy's blue chair."  I said, "Well, go get it and put it away."  She says, "It's heavy."  I say, "What's in it."  Lissie says, "Nothing."  Then she walks around the corning carrying her "heavy" backpack.  Her hand was empty.  She says, "It's invisible."

I did finally find it in the van.  The older child who was sent to look for it didn't look very well.

A Day at the Races

This entry to my blog is written by Jeff (my wonderful husband).


This past Saturday we ran our Shape-N-Race event (aka pinewood derby) for the Christian Service Brigade at Denton Bible Church. In CSB Shape-N-Race, we have 7 divisions, with three award categories and one overall trophy for each division.  Each division represents one of the age groups in Brigade plus one for the sisters of the boys and one for the dads.  The divisions are Tadpoles (pre-K - K), Treeclimbers (1st - 2nd), Builders (3rd - 4th), Sentinels (5th - 6th), Battalion (7th and up), Powder Puff (girls division), and Open Class (Dads and other family members).  The award categories include design, craftsmanship, and speed.  Design ranks cars based on the overall concept, looking for uniqueness and ingenuity.  Craftsmanship grades the car on how thoroughly the design is executed, looking for good construction, fit, and finish. Speed is determined by the track.  Our family entrants to the race had a very successful run Saturday with trophy finishes in all three divisions entered.

First we had Kent in the Builders division, who raced an orange and blue car dubbed 'the Bronco. His car took second place in the design category, first in the craftsmanship category, and first in speed. I should point out that the design was entirely thought up, sketched, and marked by Kent. I did the cutting, as I am not yet comfortable with him using the power tools. He sanded, painted, polished everything, and I helped him install the axles, since it is a bit tricky to get them set straight. At check in, he decided he wanted to add some more graphite to his wheels so I showed him how, and went about other things. He added graphite on his own and checked his car in. I am telling you all of this just to say how proud I am that Kent put the effort in to producing a winning entry. Yeah the paint job was a bit sloppy, and the car could have been sanded more, but the car was at least 90% his work, and he won the overall trophy definitively.  I had no expectations for that outcome and am still amazed.
The second surprise of the day was Felicity's entry. She just wanted a pink car, so I showed her some different designs and this was what she picked. Her class is allowed to weigh up to 32 ounces, but her car was around 8 ounces (if I remember correctly). She ended up first place in the design category, and first place in speed. Two blue ribbons were enough to win the trophy. Again, not the expected result...partly because she was competing against her sisters:

Katy is the resident artist in our household, so she came up with the idea of a duck car all on her own. She basically told me how she wanted to put it together, and I helped build it. She did all of the painting on her own including color choices. Her car ended up earning a third place ribbon for speed. I guess that duck had quite the doggy paddle skills, especially since it was the lightest car we entered.

I expected Kaomi's VW Van to be fastest, because it was the heaviest of the girls cars at just under one pound. It's obviously not only about weight, because her car wasn't the fastest.  She knew right from the start what she wanted to make, and we did have fun shaping and painting the car together.  She did get a third place ribbon for craftsmanship and she also placed fourth in speed, but there’s no ribbon for that.

Clarky had a football car. I suggested the idea, but since it was football season at the time, he really liked the idea at the time.  Since I was working with poplar hardwood, it was fairly challenging to make the football shape.  I had to borrow a belt sander from my dad in order to get it done.  Clark helped with some of the painting and Su did the rest.  It turned out well enough to earn Clark second place ribbons for both design and craftsmanship.

Lastly, I had been thinking of making a replica of our family van for an entry into the open class race for myself.  A few weeks ago, I found myself basically finished with all the other cars and I had a really nice Texas Saturday with temperatures in the upper 60s.  Since I didn’t need to work on the other cars, i decided to rough out my van concept.  I had it done and even detail shaping done that afternoon, so i was even able to finish the van in the next couple weeks before the race.  I carefully painted it to match the full size version as much as possible, and added weight to get it to 22 ounces.  My van was awarded first place for craftsmanship.  I have a friend that always enters a school bus in the race and every year, so my goal was to beat his bus.  Unfortunately, his 32 ounce bus was still just fast enough to edge me out, so I ended up getting second place in speed.  It was really close though, with the bus winning most heats by less than two-tenths of a second.  My first and second place finishes were just enough to edge Clarky’s football out for the overall win and the trophy.

So, we entered a total of 6 cars, and we walked away with eleven ribbons, and three division trophies.  Not ever going to be able to top this one!

Review of K5 Learning

Over the last 6 weeks Katy and Kaomi have been using K5 Learning as a supplement to their homeschool days.  They were excited to have a free trial for this program and to get to have some computer time for school.

They began by taking a placement assessment that would put them into the program at their own levels.  I found this valuable to make sure they were working toward their full potential in the program and not working on something that was too easy for them.


They enjoyed getting to use something different to help them learn and they looked forward to their computer time each day throughout the last several weeks.  They enjoyed working through the math and reading lessons at their own pace and I liked being able to keep tabs on how much they were doing.

I liked that I could choose a lesson for them to take that corresponded with something we were learning and give it to them as an assignment that they would complete.

I found that I could put Kaomi's spelling words into the spelling program and she could work on practicing them on my computer.  Even though she enjoyed practicing her words on the computer it did not improve her spelling test scores.  We still had to have plenty of time practicing writing the words on her own for practice.

They both enjoyed practicing math facts and playing the math games on their own time as well.

I liked that I could look at reports to see what lessons they had taken and the progress they were making from where they began to where they finished at the end of their six week free trial.

You can sign up for a free trial here or check out some sample lessons here.

The girls enjoyed trying out K5 Learning, but I didn't really see what they were learning online follow through in their classwork.  Maybe I would see that more if they used the program for a longer time.

K5 Learning isn't something we will subscribe to as the cost is more than we would spend on something like this for our homeschooling family.  I see where the subscription cost might be fair to someone who wants to supplement their child's learning in a way that the parent can monitor what is being learned.

*The only thing about the teaching on the program that I didn't care for was the strategy for reading tricky words that was being taught.  It said to look at the first or last sound of the word and use the context of the rest of the words to guess what the word might be.  All the words that I saw used in the lessons about this were words that have phonics rules (e.i. cloud) and if the child is being taught phonics they wouldn't have any trouble reading them.

**K5 Learning provided us with a 6 week free trial of this program for an honest review on my blog.  If you sign up through one of the links here you will be supporting my blog financially.