I kept telling baby Tert to stop pulling down the curtains (or else...). When he tugged them again and realized that punishment was imminent, he clasped his hands together (curtains in between them) and exclaimed, "I just praying..." Then, closing his eyes, he proceeded with the most heartfelt prayer he could muster. What am I going to do with this kid?!
Another time Tert was making us laugh with his breakfast antics. I said, "Where did you come from?" His answer after a thoughtful pause, "I don't know his name." ;)
During out study of the solar system, Tert proudly announced that he had drawn a picture of the planets. We praised his efforts; then he took a closer look and said, "I no draw the planets. I draw (Uncle) ADAM!"
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Ocean Pictures By: Stella
We saved one vacation day for our trip to the ocean! We go at least once a year. We always have so much fun! Here are some pictures so you can join in! :)
Playing in the sand with Daddy! :)
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Rus!
Stella!
Stella, Leo, Rus, and Tert
Stella and Leo
We had an awesome ocean trip and look forward to next year!
By: Stella
Playing in the sand with Daddy! :)
Rus!
Stella!
Stella, Leo, Rus, and Tert
Stella and Leo
We had an awesome ocean trip and look forward to next year!
By: Stella
Fishing with Dad By: Stella
We have a little spot about five minutes away from us that is a boat dock and has a nice sandy beach. The little boys can play in it and we went fishing with Dad while Mom got some things done! The beach goes off into the Merrimack River. We love fishing now and are thankful for our beach to fish.
Stella loves to fish.
Leo loves to fish too!
Nice seaweed-I mean catch Stella! ;)
The boys love the sand and playing in it!
We love fishing and will get a picture if we make any REAL catch!
By: Stella
Stella loves to fish.
Leo loves to fish too!
Nice seaweed-I mean catch Stella! ;)
The boys love the sand and playing in it!
We love fishing and will get a picture if we make any REAL catch!
By: Stella
Our Garden By: Stella
We have received so much produce from our garden that we can give a good supply to people who need it. We have many cherry tomatoes, tomatoes too, they were probably the best crop, we have cilantro, dill, rosemary, and other types of herbs, lettuce, zucchini (a lot of that) cucumbers, summer squash (not as much now, same with zuchinni and cucumbers) we got a lot earlier though, we have two pumpkins on the way, green beans galore now, and I might be forgetting some other stuff, oh and butternut squashes! Also we have peppers. Yum, YUM!
YUM! Pickles!
We were really thankful for our garden this year!
By: Stella
Our Pretty Cora By: Stella Age: 10
Hi Cora!
This picture made us laugh and laugh. She has such a big tongue that she totally like can't fit it into her mouth, unless she tries to! :)
We love you Cora!
By: Stella
School Pics! By: Stella Age: 10
Here are the promised school pics... (mixed in with some other cute pics.... :)
Here are some pictures of our back to school presents that we received and handed out... :)
Cool! A plastic butterfly-thanks Leo!
SWEET! A horn for my bike! (He was very excited and had been asking for this for ages! He loves honking it!) Thanks Mom and Dad! Beep-beep! Make way for the Rus Express!!! :)
Awesome- silly puddy and a teddy bear-COOL!!!!!!!!
Awesome! Girls and their Dogs-woohoo!
Monopoly-we've wanted this for like-FOREVER! (So far we've played it like 1,000,000 times!)
Thanks everybody- that was awesome!
Rus has really surprised us with his awesome Kindergarten year. This is our fourth week, and we've had lots of fun seeing his little brain grow!
Here are some pictures-
Here he is, busy at work with his stuff. He loves doing Phonics Museum every day, and singing the 'Percival Song'!
Here is a little bird that he made with me, Stella in Literature Pockets! He is also saying his rhyme that goes with it:
Once I saw a little bird go hop, hop, hop, and I cried, "Little Bird will you stop, stop, stop?" I was going to the window to say 'how do y' do?-when he shook his little tail and away he flew.
A favorite project with all of us kids has been writing letters in pudding. Of course you get your finger messy when you write in the pudding with it, so of COURSE you HAVE to ah-clean it. :)
UH-OH, sleeping through class! :)
This is me with a tablet that we made out of clay from the Bible Passage in Luke where Zecharias writes on the tablet, "His name is John!"
Here is a puzzle that all of us kids put together!
This is a solar system mobile which Leo and I (Stella) made. :) (We are studying the solar system this year in science.)
Tert, busy at work!
This was a science experiment that we did. It showed that all the colors mixed together in the rainbow make black. We put a black line with a marker on a coffee filter, and sure enough all colors came out-NEAT!
Rus did apple prints by taking apples that were cut in half, dipping them in paint and then pressing them on the paper!! Cool huh?!
It's been an awesome school year so far! We hope yours is too!
By: Stella
Age: 10
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Back to the Books...
Our days have been jam-packed since we started school on August 2! Most days I'm in fight or flight mode from about 6:30-4:00. No sooner do we clean up our books than the dinner and/or soccer routines begin. As delightful as summer was and as crazy as the fall routine can feel, I must say that it is a relief to be back into our familiar schedule again. I am so blessed by the kids’ diligence and enthusiasm for their schoolwork. The first week was a bit bumpy, but Stella kept me going with the encouraging notes she left on her math pages about how much she LOVES doing school and what a great teacher I am. I was inspired by their positive attitudes and tried to view our days of learning with as much optimism as possible. Baby Tert is my biggest challenge. He is slowly but surely learning that eating play dough and throwing toys at siblings is not an acceptable way to earn our attention. I try to copy all of his big brother's Kindergarten projects so he can feel included as much as possible. He will proudly announce, "I'm yearnin' my yetters!"
We have been enjoying the fruits of our garden SO MUCH this summer! (Tert pointed out the window today and exclaimed, "Yook at that GORGEOUS garden!") I couldn't agree more... Thanks to our friends' generous contribution of chicken poop, this is the most bountiful crop we've ever had. I literally have to harvest every day in order to keep up with the tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini/summer squash! And the fresh herbs, winter squash, green beans, mesclun, and peppers lend some nice variety. Mom taught me how to make zucchini relish (which I canned and set aside for Christmas gifts along with the blueberry and "four generational strawberry jam" we made when Grandma Z. visited). A friend of mine gave me some recipes for creamy garden tomato basil soup and a delicious cilantro soup with fresh veggie “salsa.” I've also expanded my cooking repertoire by experimenting with zucchini and sweet potato muffins. My family is loving these culinary nesting urges, and my kids have become total veggie snobs. They turn up their noses at the grocery store's produce and feel so badly for the underprivileged people who PAY to eat THAT STUFF while we feast on our abundance of fresh, free veggies.
Even though we've had to save most of Stephen's vacation time for Baby's arrival, we have enjoyed more quality time with dear friends and extended family and more special day trips than any other summer I remember. Our school break began with a field trip to York's Wild Kingdom and ended with a delightful afternoon at the lake where the kids led us on a beautiful trail walk they discovered. (Having just reached week 34 of this pregnancy, I was pleased to discover that I could still keep pace with my youngsters as they hiked and scaled their "cliffs" in the woods!). In just over two months, we celebrated a few high school graduations and birthday parties with family, spent several fun-filled days with Great Grandma Z., fed ducks at the park, picnicked and swam, camped in our friends' backyard, ate and laughed with several dear friends who stopped at our home on the way to their family vacations, completed two weeks of swimming lessons and VBS with cousins, played in the waves at the ocean, read mountains of books for our local library program, and spent countless afternoons and evenings walking our trains with Cora and cooling off in our own backyard swimming pool. I’d say without a doubt that we managed to squeeze every ounce of fun from our abbreviated summer break.
The kids are approaching their fourth week of school, excited about all that we have to look forward to in the next month or two (not the least of which is two weeks with Daddy and the arrival of their new baby sister)...
We have been enjoying the fruits of our garden SO MUCH this summer! (Tert pointed out the window today and exclaimed, "Yook at that GORGEOUS garden!") I couldn't agree more... Thanks to our friends' generous contribution of chicken poop, this is the most bountiful crop we've ever had. I literally have to harvest every day in order to keep up with the tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini/summer squash! And the fresh herbs, winter squash, green beans, mesclun, and peppers lend some nice variety. Mom taught me how to make zucchini relish (which I canned and set aside for Christmas gifts along with the blueberry and "four generational strawberry jam" we made when Grandma Z. visited). A friend of mine gave me some recipes for creamy garden tomato basil soup and a delicious cilantro soup with fresh veggie “salsa.” I've also expanded my cooking repertoire by experimenting with zucchini and sweet potato muffins. My family is loving these culinary nesting urges, and my kids have become total veggie snobs. They turn up their noses at the grocery store's produce and feel so badly for the underprivileged people who PAY to eat THAT STUFF while we feast on our abundance of fresh, free veggies.
Even though we've had to save most of Stephen's vacation time for Baby's arrival, we have enjoyed more quality time with dear friends and extended family and more special day trips than any other summer I remember. Our school break began with a field trip to York's Wild Kingdom and ended with a delightful afternoon at the lake where the kids led us on a beautiful trail walk they discovered. (Having just reached week 34 of this pregnancy, I was pleased to discover that I could still keep pace with my youngsters as they hiked and scaled their "cliffs" in the woods!). In just over two months, we celebrated a few high school graduations and birthday parties with family, spent several fun-filled days with Great Grandma Z., fed ducks at the park, picnicked and swam, camped in our friends' backyard, ate and laughed with several dear friends who stopped at our home on the way to their family vacations, completed two weeks of swimming lessons and VBS with cousins, played in the waves at the ocean, read mountains of books for our local library program, and spent countless afternoons and evenings walking our trains with Cora and cooling off in our own backyard swimming pool. I’d say without a doubt that we managed to squeeze every ounce of fun from our abbreviated summer break.
The kids are approaching their fourth week of school, excited about all that we have to look forward to in the next month or two (not the least of which is two weeks with Daddy and the arrival of their new baby sister)...
Baby Sisser is Growing and Growing
Here she is at about the 6 month point of my pregnancy. Stay tuned for more belly pics...
Some Quotes from the Young Ones...
I realize that Rus has earned the reputation of "family comedian" around here; however, most of my recent quotes come from his younger brother, Tert. It makes me sad to see my Rus growing up (he's almost 5!) and to be developing a more thoughtful side as he loses some of his goofiness. He still makes us smile with the cute things he comes out with...
Today he explained that, when he is cool enough during his nap, he just presses the F-O button on his fan. I realized that he meant the O-F button (as in O-F-F).
The other day Rus was in tears over some wrongdoing he had suffered. He blurted out, "Leo is NOT making my day brighter!" Later he added, "The kids are NOT making me make a joyful noise!"
Leo was mentioning to Rus that, someday, he (Leo) would pass down his great big bike to his younger brother. Rus thought about this for a minute and then replied, "I have a backup plan...instead of getting your old bike, I could get a NEW one."
Rus said, "Mom, at Planet Fitness they have these neat screens where you can watch shows of all the planets!" I realized that he meant to say "the PLANETARIUM."
Marveling over the anticipated lifespan of our new vehicle, Leo pointed out, "Stella will be drinking wine by the time we need to get a new car!"
Now for little Tert...
Daddy told him the other day that he was looking pretty DAPPER in his church clothes. Tert responded, "Daddy, I not a DIAPER!"
Tert will frequently lift my shirt over my huge tummy to kiss it and to "see if baby sisser is ready to be held yet."
Tert ran through the house, exclaiming, "I'm pooping! I'm freaking out!"
We recently enjoyed a birthday party at the lake with some friends from church. When we told Tert who would be at the lake, he became confused, wondering how all of these people from church would be showing up there. He turned to me and asked if the Holy Spirit would be there as well.
When I ask Tert to tell me who he had fun playing with after church, he answers, "Maybe God??"
Today he explained that, when he is cool enough during his nap, he just presses the F-O button on his fan. I realized that he meant the O-F button (as in O-F-F).
The other day Rus was in tears over some wrongdoing he had suffered. He blurted out, "Leo is NOT making my day brighter!" Later he added, "The kids are NOT making me make a joyful noise!"
Leo was mentioning to Rus that, someday, he (Leo) would pass down his great big bike to his younger brother. Rus thought about this for a minute and then replied, "I have a backup plan...instead of getting your old bike, I could get a NEW one."
Rus said, "Mom, at Planet Fitness they have these neat screens where you can watch shows of all the planets!" I realized that he meant to say "the PLANETARIUM."
Marveling over the anticipated lifespan of our new vehicle, Leo pointed out, "Stella will be drinking wine by the time we need to get a new car!"
Now for little Tert...
Daddy told him the other day that he was looking pretty DAPPER in his church clothes. Tert responded, "Daddy, I not a DIAPER!"
Tert will frequently lift my shirt over my huge tummy to kiss it and to "see if baby sisser is ready to be held yet."
Tert ran through the house, exclaiming, "I'm pooping! I'm freaking out!"
We recently enjoyed a birthday party at the lake with some friends from church. When we told Tert who would be at the lake, he became confused, wondering how all of these people from church would be showing up there. He turned to me and asked if the Holy Spirit would be there as well.
When I ask Tert to tell me who he had fun playing with after church, he answers, "Maybe God??"
Friday, August 6, 2010
Back to School By: Stella Age: 10
Hello All!
You might wonder why I put this post up so 'early'! Well, for us, it isn't! I am in the middle of the last day of my first week of school as I type this.
Why? Well, it's pretty simple, the BABY!!!! :)
We have had a wonderful beginning week, and I'll tell you all about it:
Our System:
Let me explain what we do for our school. Mater is now teaching three grades, Kindergarten to Rus, 4th Grade to Leo, and 6th Grade to me (Stella)!
We all have a schedule. I'll explain it briefly. We all start school after doing breakfast and chores, at 7:45 a.m. We group together at 8:00, have Bible time, prayer, and the pledge till 8:30. (Even little Tert joins in!) Then Tert takes a nap, Rus plays, and we read till about 9:30ish or 10:00ish. Then we do independent work and Mater teaches Rus until lunch. Then we finish up school. I'm done at about 2:30 and Leo soon after. (He works with Mater after me.)
It works well.
Our Books:
We switched over to Veritas Press this year from Sonlight. We have really enjoyed it a lot. Sonlight worked for the first couple years, but then we stopped it.
We have a lot more independent reading time this year. We have one big book though that we read as a group in our time in the morning before independent work.
Right now we are reading Swiss Family Robinson as our big book. It is really fun!
Leo is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! I am reading Elsie Dinsmore books!
Science:
We are studying the Solar System this year and we are going through a really fun course! We are learning all about the Solar System and we also are going to make a mobile of the Solar System with Pater!
Independent Work:
For our independent work, we have a HUGE binder and then a couple little binders. We have files where I keep spelling and my journal, Shurley English 6 Notebook, and thing like that! We have our Math Notebook in the binder too, along with a schedule and list of independent work to be done.
Quick Overview of Kindergarten:
Mater does the main teaching with Rus. Mater does the Phonics Museum, which is a cool thing that is based on a little boy going to a museum, (he doesn't want to) but he is led by a Knight (Percival) and along the way learns his letters! Rus loves it and is doing great with it. It has little books along the way too.
Leo does a big number book with Rus that has a lot of activities in it for him.
I do a cool thing called Literature Pockets. It is based on Nursery Rhymes that he learns along the way. What I do, is I make pockets for him out of construction paper and staples and a hole punch. Then we have activities throughout the week. I'll give you a sample week:
Little Bird Nursery Rhyme and Pocket
Day 1:
Make Pocket, and a Little Folding Book, Coloring Sheet, Start Learning Rhyme
Day 2:
Make Little Bird out of Construction Paper, Glue or Tape, Markers, Googly Eyes if wanted,Say Rhyme With Bird
Day 3:
Fill in Worksheet about a Little ------, have him think of an animal that hops, and have him draw it (Rus did a Spider) Finish Memorizing Rhyme
Day 4:
Prepare for Next Week, Make Photocopies
It is really fun, he loves it!
Well, that's pretty much all that we do! We love it and are looking forward to a great year!
Pictures will be posted soon!
By: Stella
Grade: 6
Age: 10
You might wonder why I put this post up so 'early'! Well, for us, it isn't! I am in the middle of the last day of my first week of school as I type this.
Why? Well, it's pretty simple, the BABY!!!! :)
We have had a wonderful beginning week, and I'll tell you all about it:
Our System:
Let me explain what we do for our school. Mater is now teaching three grades, Kindergarten to Rus, 4th Grade to Leo, and 6th Grade to me (Stella)!
We all have a schedule. I'll explain it briefly. We all start school after doing breakfast and chores, at 7:45 a.m. We group together at 8:00, have Bible time, prayer, and the pledge till 8:30. (Even little Tert joins in!) Then Tert takes a nap, Rus plays, and we read till about 9:30ish or 10:00ish. Then we do independent work and Mater teaches Rus until lunch. Then we finish up school. I'm done at about 2:30 and Leo soon after. (He works with Mater after me.)
It works well.
Our Books:
We switched over to Veritas Press this year from Sonlight. We have really enjoyed it a lot. Sonlight worked for the first couple years, but then we stopped it.
We have a lot more independent reading time this year. We have one big book though that we read as a group in our time in the morning before independent work.
Right now we are reading Swiss Family Robinson as our big book. It is really fun!
Leo is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! I am reading Elsie Dinsmore books!
Science:
We are studying the Solar System this year and we are going through a really fun course! We are learning all about the Solar System and we also are going to make a mobile of the Solar System with Pater!
Independent Work:
For our independent work, we have a HUGE binder and then a couple little binders. We have files where I keep spelling and my journal, Shurley English 6 Notebook, and thing like that! We have our Math Notebook in the binder too, along with a schedule and list of independent work to be done.
Quick Overview of Kindergarten:
Mater does the main teaching with Rus. Mater does the Phonics Museum, which is a cool thing that is based on a little boy going to a museum, (he doesn't want to) but he is led by a Knight (Percival) and along the way learns his letters! Rus loves it and is doing great with it. It has little books along the way too.
Leo does a big number book with Rus that has a lot of activities in it for him.
I do a cool thing called Literature Pockets. It is based on Nursery Rhymes that he learns along the way. What I do, is I make pockets for him out of construction paper and staples and a hole punch. Then we have activities throughout the week. I'll give you a sample week:
Little Bird Nursery Rhyme and Pocket
Day 1:
Make Pocket, and a Little Folding Book, Coloring Sheet, Start Learning Rhyme
Day 2:
Make Little Bird out of Construction Paper, Glue or Tape, Markers, Googly Eyes if wanted,Say Rhyme With Bird
Day 3:
Fill in Worksheet about a Little ------, have him think of an animal that hops, and have him draw it (Rus did a Spider) Finish Memorizing Rhyme
Day 4:
Prepare for Next Week, Make Photocopies
It is really fun, he loves it!
Well, that's pretty much all that we do! We love it and are looking forward to a great year!
Pictures will be posted soon!
By: Stella
Grade: 6
Age: 10
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