Funny Face of the Day

This isn't the funniest face she's ever made...but it's pretty good!

School for 2

"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."

     ~C.S. Lewis

Before we even had children, Jesse and I decided that we would homeschool.  It seemed to both of us that God had blessed us with the ability, the knowledge, the patience, the time, and hopefully the discipline that it would take to homeschool our children.  As Grace grew, I knew more and more that our decision was the right one for our family.  There were so many reasons for us to homeschool.  We wanted to have the freedom to teach our children through our worldview and with our values; which is something that a local public school of course could not offer.  We have at times thought about Christian school, but even if tuition cost were not an object (it is!) we would still choose homeschooling as our most desired method of education.  I can't imagine not having Grace with me throughout the day, and I can't imagine separating my girls for the entire school day.  This may sound to some like a desire to "baby" my girls, or to somehow control them.  That isn't it at all.  My reasons are so much more about this: Who knows my daughter better than I do?  Who will be able to teach her and love her at the same time?  Who can feel out her moods, know her motives, read her body language, anticipate her frustrations, and cater to her skills in the way that I can?

This is not to say that I have it all figured out, or that I am the homeschooling mother that I want to be.  The television is on too often, lessons are shortened due to a crying baby or a load of laundry, and the "structure" of our day is often lacking.  Grace and I started going through the alphabet using "Sing Spell Read and Write" more than a year ago.  We are still working on it, (we only have "Z" left to do) but we have of course done a lot of other fun and interesting lessons along the way.  My goal for kindergarten was to have Grace sounding out words and reading by the end of the year, and she is already exceeding my expectations in that arena!  Now Evie is more and more interested in joining in our lessons, which can be challenging, but also gives me the opportunity to work on things with Evie that I did with Grace when she was little.  (It is much easier to find time to teach your first child shapes, numbers, letters, etc.)  We love to all read together, draw pictures, learn letters, and play educational games.

Working on our Phonics Alphabet

Baby Evie joins in...even though she doesn't quite know her ABC's yet! 

These pictures were taken in the beginning of our school year in September.

Writing letters has been the hardest part of school for Grace (and me too!).  She is not naturally gifted with her fine motor skills, but she has come such a long way and has very nice handwriting now!

She cracks me up when she uses scissors-she opens and closes her mouth along with them!

Watching Gracie learn to read has been so amazing.  She is naturally gifted with reading, and she loves books!  At this time she is reading Level 2 readers with ease.  

Working on patterns, colors and shapes.  (Evie is also finding out the texture and taste of this foam block.  =P)

I think she's making a rainbow.

3-D art of the beach, our favorite place!

I am determined that when life really settles down and we are living back in our own home again, I will do three days of structured school with the big girls, in addition to our Thursday homeschooling co-op with our good friends.  For now we are taking homeschooling day by day, or maybe minute by minute!  I take heart in the fact that kids learn by watching, doing, and living, and that God in His grace gives me so many opportunities to teach my children.  I want my children to have a love of learning, and to strive towards excellence in all of their endeavors.  What are your thoughts about educating your children?  Have you given thought to homeschooling, private school, or public school?  If you do homeschool, what does a typical day look like for your family?  I would love to hear your wisdom!

PS- I feel like it's important to note that it took me about 3 1/2 hours to write this post because it was written in little snippets in between chunks of our homeschooling day!

Funny Face of the Day

My kids make so many ridiculous faces, I thought I should feature a funny face regularly.  Here is our first funny little face (and possibly the child most likely to be seen in this feature!):

Crafty???

I have been very inspired recently to be a more crafty mom.  Once a week we do a homeschool Co-op with our good friends, and we always do a fun craft along with our lesson.  That is great, but I am trying to bring crafting into our daily lives, and not just for the big girls (who do LOVE doing crafts) but also for myself.  The only problem is, I'm not a very crafty person!  I really can't sew, I knit, but I can't find the time to finish any projects, and I am no artist!  However, I think it's important to try, and I do feel like there is a crafty person somewhere inside of me, I just have to give her some skill to go along with her crafty spirit!  So, this is an homage to my very rough start as a crafty mama...

The girls and I did some sketching together.  It was really fun to just sit and draw with them!

This is my silly little sketch...I'm a writer, not an artist ;).  My girls were not happy about not having eyes!

Gracie drew a picture of Joshua and Caleb.  They are eating tangerine sized grapes and sipping on milk and honey!  We read this Bible story and sang a song from VBS about the spies Moses sent to the promised land this morning.

Evie's picture is very colorful.  It features a "big horn," and, if you look carefully, a very impressive number "7" in the top left corner!

I am also itching to try my hand at sewing.  I have decided to make the girls bubble skirts as my first project, but I need to get my hands on my sewing machine (a dear friend has been borrowing it) and find some great fabric!  In the meantime, Grace was sick on Sunday so Adelaide and I stayed home to take care of her.  To pass the time while we missed Jesse, Evie and our wonderful church family, I took some old scraps of fabric from Grace's nursery and turned them into a babydoll for Addy.

I really love these buttons that I found in my mom's sewing box!  Grace was very unhappy that the baby didn't have a smile, but I think I needed some different tools for that (an embroidery needle?).  My mom suggested we name her "Ina," since she just has eyes, and we love Ina Garten!  So, although she is a bit lopsided and funky, Ina is the first baby I have ever made...well, without the help of my hubby, that is! ;)

I don't think Adelaide notices how funny her baby is.  She loves her!

I hope to have more fun crafts and doodles to post soon!

Evangeline's Rainbow Party!

In honor of Evie's third birthday, we had a fabulous rainbow party!  After some coaxing (she wanted a Tinker Bell party; I promised her a Tinker Bell present instead!) we started researching the rainbow theme, and came up with tons of ideas!  I just love planning parties, and this one was definitely one of my favorites!

The whole idea started with a cake.  I found this cake online and I was just dying to try it!  I was sure mine wouldn't turn out quite so beautifully, but I was willing to give it a shot, especially since I wouldn't need to decorate the outside of the cake. (I love to bake, but I don't have the steadiest hand when it comes to detailed decorations.)

I began by doubling this recipe (it was delicious and easy!).  Then I separated the batter into six bowls and used Wilton concentrated gel food coloring to get those vibrant colors.

I also made cupcakes, just from a box mix (Funfetti, of course)!  To ice 24 cupcakes and a double-sized cake, I made 4 batches of Wilton's buttercream icing.  This is my go-to icing for my kids' birthday cakes, because it is really yummy and colors beautifully!  (I always add a pinch of salt to taste to cut the sweetness just a bit!)

The sugar rainbows on top of the cupcakes came from a local candy shop.  

They were great about helping me out with little touches for the theme, 

and they gave me these at a really good price.  It never hurts to ask for a deal!

Always test your icing bag for air pockets before you start decorating!  

The girls loved eating these little dollops as a pre-party treat!

Grace was bummed that she couldn't eat the batter.  

I always tell them Grandma would be mad at me if I let them eat raw eggs!

The rest of my ideas for the party came from a bunch of different blogs, and a few of my own original ideas.  

My dear friend Alicia helped me make Evie a beautiful rainbow ruffle skirt...ok, she totally made it, I just can't sew at all!

I asked the guests to dress in their favorite color of the rainbow, and most people obliged with a brightly colored shirt.  One excellent family, however, brought the concept to a higher level...

The fabulously rainbowed Harrs.  

  I always do a "Pin the...on the..." game, so we pinned clouds onto a rainbow!  We also played a game with different colored mats on the floor (sheets of foam paper).  The kids chose to stand on a color, I picked a colored candy from a bowl, and whoever was standing on that color won  a prize.  In my experience, you want to have plenty of prizes and quick, easy games that even the youngest friends can play (our kid guests ranged in age from just one to eight!).  We also made a craft, a multi-media rainbow.  Each color was made out of a different medium, including red pom-poms, yellow feathers, etc.  The biggest mistakes were the green pipe cleaners (they just don't glue down well) and purple puff paint (INDELIBLE FABRIC PAINT???  What was I THINKING???), but in all the craft was cute and fun.  We did the craft in shifts, since we had about 15 kids and not quite enough helpers for each kid!  

The food was also, of course, rainbow themed, which was only possible because of the "perfect party time" of 2-4 pm.  People eat lunch before they come and leave in plenty of time for dinner, so snacks and cake is enough!  We had a big rainbow salad, rainbow fruit salad, veggie chips, tortilla chips, and rainbow gold fish!  On the dessert table were mixed rainbow popcorn, rainbow candies, rainbow lollipops, and of course the cake!

Add some balloons, streamers, and a house full of beloved family and friends and we had ourselves a party!  

I have always wanted to try these "Martha Stewart Pom-poms." 

 I wouldn't call them super easy, but practice definitely helped!

This rainbow wreath was a bit time consuming, but fun to make, 

and we might just keep it up as a decoration in the playroom!

I bought these over-sized flowers at JoAnn Fabrics, and stuffed 

the vase with the left-over fabric from Evie's skirt.  (I told you I can't sew!)

Hair accessories courtesy of NoodleKnots!

My beautiful and talented sister Emily did the face painting!

Evie waving to her adoring fans during 'Happy Birthday."

This perfect shot is courtesy of Jessica Barakat.  I want to hire her as my life photographer.  

I was so pleased with the way the cake turned out!  I definitely want to try different variations of this idea!

Our totally gorgeous nephews!

The Aftermath...

I'm so grateful to my generous mother for letting me host this party at her house just a week after we moved in!  Jesse was such a huge help the day of the party, I couldn't have finished everything in time without him!  We are so thankful to God for blessing us with our intensely wonderful Evangeline!