Cookies and The 12 Days of Christmas

8 Maid's A Milking, 9 Ladies Dancing...

This weekend we were invited to a cookie exchange party with our Lifegroup friends (a small couples group that meets once a week from our church). It was for the mommies and children to come with cookies to trade and decorate sugar cookies while we were there. The daddies all got together and went bowling. My girlfriend who planned this shindig also planned for the kids to perform the 12 Days of Christmas with each child being assigned a "day". What a cute and fun idea!

This was a focused group. They take their cookie decorating very seriously!

The big girls hard at work.

The participants were 2 1/2 to 7 years old. I was amazed at how all of the children were so polite, using "please pass the..." and "thank you.." regularly. Also, no one had to be reminded to use their inside voices. What an awesome group!

Being a part of this small group has blessed us richly. I am so thankful that God saw fit to put us all together with our unique giftings, abilities, and experiences to share with each other. Not only do we get to hang out and do a lot of fun things together (the Fondue party, Operation Christmas Child, summer vacations, movie nights, trunk or treating and many others), we also have an opportunity to grow spiritually, discuss God's word, and lift each other up through real life challenges and celebrations. Our children are growing up with friends who love the Lord.

How awesome is that?

Thank you Jesus!

Halfway there!

We just finished week 13 and I realized we are halfway through our school year already! It feels really good to see all that Ava and Sophia have accomplished in such a short time. At this rate we will be finished with Kindergarten by the first part of April. I'm not sure what we will do when we finish up. Maybe get a head start on first grade? Rob and I will be praying for God's direction for our girls and school for next year.

I feel the Lord nudging me to move Ava along faster through the worksheet portion of the curriculum. She just really wants to do more. So, I am going to let her work at her own pace with my supervision for a while. I will be watching carefully to make sure she is doing quality work and that we aren't skipping over anything and that she is having fun. Lord willing, my work schedule will be one day less this next session starting in January and I will be working in the afternoons instead of the mornings. The plan is to switch to a morning K program because that is when I feel at my best, and I want to give the best of me to my kids, not my job.

Sophia has suddenly taken an interest in reading. She is sounding out the short words like "sun", "can" "cut" "mom" "dad" etc. She's been sounding them out over Ava's shoulder for weeks, but hasn't wanted to do any of the worksheets until the last couple of days. What fun it is to watch her eyes light up when she realizes that she is reading!

Here are a few pictures from some of our latest projects. Blessings to you this Christmas season.

During week 12 we learn that Jesus Died for our Sins. One way for the girls to remember this is to remember that in the Old Testament people used to sacrifice animals like goats to recieve forgiveness for their sins. One of the activities for the week was to try goat milk. We did. Sophia loved it. Ava- not so much:-) Rob didn't want to try it so, sneaky me, I slipped him some when he thought it was cow's milk. He wasn't a fan either:-)

Week 13 we were back to cow's milk again as we learned that God's Word Helps Us Grow!

One of the activities was to make butter from whipping cream.


We poured 1 pint of whipping cream into a mason jar. Screwed the lid on tight and started shaking! It was supposed to only take about 20 minutes, however it was more like 40 minutes before it became butter.
We then drained off the whey and what was left was yummy sweet butter.


We toasted some amazing Trader Joe's organic whole grain bread and went to work spreading our soft butter and some raspberry preserves.

Yum! It tastes great and we all took part in making it. What a great lesson for the girls!


Also this week the girls spent some time counting buttons and writing the number 13. They found that it took a lot more than 13 buttons to cover up the number 13 that they had written.


In other family news this week: Big sister Paige had her Christmas piano performance. She looked so pretty in her new dress and sounded great playing her Christmas music for the retirement home nearby. It was a lovely day.

It's Thanksgiving already!

We are about 12 weeks into our school year and loving every minute of it!

School has been a complete success. We have had good days and not so good days, but all work has been completed, the girls are learning, and we have fun (most of the time). I am constantly in awe of all that God can accomplish when I am willing to follow His lead. The Littles have bonded and have become friends. Pooh now takes the initiative to help teach Tigger when she needs extra help.

We are learning about God's Creation. What a fun 2 weeks that was! Here are a couple of pictures of the end result:

Also, during our first week of school the girls made plaster casts of their handprints and painted them.
Week 1: We moved on to learning about seeds and the Sun and how Jesus is the Light of the world.
Week 2: Then we learned about the Moon and how We are the Light of the world. We studied the phases of the moon and discussed reflecting light.


Week 3: We found out that I Will Live and Grow in Jesus. We went outside and took a good look at a huge tree in our front yard and discussed how the leaves on the tree grow and stay healthy because they remain part of the tree. Then we picked a leaf off of the tree, brought it into the house to see how it would do apart from the tree. Over the next few days we watched that leaf whither and die. What a wonderful picture of what happens to us spiritually when we choose to be apart from Jesus.


Week 4: If I Stay in Jesus I will have much fruit. This was a difficult concept for them to understand. How do people produce fruit? What does it look like? What a wonderful opportunity for the girls to learn about the Fruit of the Spirit! God provided many opportunities for all of us to practice "Bearing fruit" too. Amen!



Week 5: God Takes Good Care of Me. We studied birds and their different types of nests. We tried to make our own nests, we spotted nests on a nature walk and drew pictures of nests.

Week 6: I don't quit I persevere. This was a big turning point for us. It seems that this week the girls and I got our rhythm going. What fun we had learning about turtles and reading the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. Since this week, the girls have both been able to remember all of the their memory verses and have done a much better job of applying them to every day life.

Week 7: God Made Us Wonderful! We spent this time reading stories about our 5 senses and friendship.
Week 8: Big and small God made us all. Dinosaurs! We went out and measured the length from the biggest dinosaur's head to it's tail out in the field by our house. Wow it sure was big! I had a hard time getting both girls in on the picture. It was also a lot of fun to read about dinosaurs from a biblical perspective.

Week 9: Even the Octopus praises the Lord. They were fascinated by the octopus and all the other ocean animals and how special each one is and how they praise the Lord merely by doing what he created them to do.

Week 10: Jesus Gives My Spirit Living Water to Drink. What a fun week! The girls have learned about the water cycle. They've learned a wonderful song that incorporates all the key components of the water cycle: Evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. We also discuss collection of water into rivers, lakes and oceans.

Our water week provided us with many different science experiments. We learned about surface tension, how water takes on the shape of the container it is in, and how to make a paper boat move across the water using dish soap. They are learning the difference between solids, liquids, and gases.

Along with all of these fun activities the girls are learning to read, write, add and subtract. They are learning the months or the year and days of the week in both English and Spanish. We have gone on many field trips including a tour of Trader Joe's, a trip to the pumpkin patch, and a trip to a gymnastics studio.

So, that is what we have been up to the past 12 weeks or so. I am so thankful for the opportunity we have to be together this year for school. I don't know how many years the Lord has planned for us to do this, so I am doing my best to enjoy and appreciate every moment of this time together.

Getting ready for Fall

In a few weeks we will begin our latest journey. Homeschooling the Littles! We are all excited to start and have been preparing for a long time. Little steps along the way so as not to overwhelm or over do. Lord willing, we will be all ready to go by our first day.

After much thought and prayer, we chose My Father's World for our curriculum this year. It is such a sweet Christian curriculum. You can check it out here.

This will by my first year teaching Kindergarden. I have been really excited to teach it to Pooh (5 1/2) . She is looking forward to starting school and asks about it often. She has been helping me set up our school area, organize books and supplies and move furniture around.

Tigger will be following along doing K with us, but at her own pace. I am following MFW's recommendations about how to do school with a 4 year old and a K child. One of the many wonderful things about this program is that it adapts so well to teaching multiple children. Tigger is not really sure what school is going to look like, but as I have been preparing she has been watching with interest and has started doing some writing and more "school type" of play. It's so cute.

Praying for a smooth start to a new year!

Pictures!

Ok, I know it's taken me months to get these on here, but for those of you who care or wanted to know, here are some of the pictures of the painting we did inside.