Christmas Spirit

He's back......

Eric, our elf on a shelf, has made his annual appearance.  I thought that he would do better than the tooth fairy, but not so much.  Oh how I wish this little elf could really fly.  Kristen woke up (extra early) on Monday completely puzzled because Eric was in the same exact place as he was the day before.  It just so happened that the kids were not good on Sunday.  In fact, Lauren said at bedtime that she didn't think Santa was going to bring her any presents this year.  I told Kristen that Eric was giving them a second chance to do better because he really liked them and wanted them to get presents.  Doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of an elf on a shelf?  But, I needed something so that is what I came up with.  She seemed satisfied.

We are definitely getting into the Christmas spirit.  We took the kids to go see Santa Claus.  I think they enjoyed it....

 

 

Well, not so much. Who doesn't like Santa?  He's a jolly old soul.  We also did the video from PNP where you upload a picture of each kid and Santa has a special message for them.  Of course the girls had been nice this year, but Santa said Dallas had been in between.  He didn't care.  He was busy running in circles in our living.  He probably knows it doesn't matter what he does Santa will still bring him toys.

 

Only 17 days left until Christmas.  Bring it on!

 

 

I can't believe it's...

December already!  Where did 2013 go?  Really.  I swear the days seem to last forever, but the years seem to fly by.  I'm still trying to figure that out.

This year was our first Thanksgiving with just us (Paul, Kristen, Lauren, Dallas and me) at our house.  I was excited to cook my first turkey...EVER...even though I hate everything about turkey.  The taste...the smell...gag.  I did eat two bites and it wasn't dry at all.  It turned out as good as turkey can turn out.  While I was preparing the turkey Kristen asked if it was a real turkey.  Why I would have a fake one I am not sure.  She then asked if we were Amish and at that moment I was pretty thankful we weren't. 

Our Thanksgiving feast consisted of turkey with gravy, cooked seasoned cabbage, stuffing, macaroni and cheese and a sweet potato casserole.

Of course...no meal is complete without dessert, which was made by my wonderful hubby...and it was delicious.  You can't go wrong with an apple cobbler. 

 

 

I also got to sleep in until 8:30 on Thanksgiving day, Paul made breakfast and I got to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving's Day parade from start to finish while perusing the black Friday sale papers.  It doesn't get any better than that!

 

I was one of those crazies that went black Friday shopping. It's usually me, my mom and my sister, but my sister bailed on us because she has a new puppy. It really wasn't bad at all and I was able to get most of the presents bought for the kids.  Paul and I went back out shopping on Saturday and got a little more. I think we will be finished this week.  We only have about 5 more things to get. Now we are broke...oh wait...we were broke before we started.

 

I came home and got a couple hours of shut eye to wake up on Friday and decorate for Christmas.  I always have this vision of us singing Christmas carols while drinking hot chocolate and hanging ornaments on the tree and it never happens quite like that.  This year our day started by lugging 569 bins out of the attic.  It was actually only 7 bins, a Christmas tree box and a wrapping paper box, but it felt like 569 bins.  Really....why do I need so many decorations?  And then with every trip I had to say "No" and "Get back".  I found myself saying this even if no one was around or if they were making a move in any direction.  It was like I was a broken record and I was annoying myself.  Once operation Christmas decoration retrieval was complete we started putting the Christmas tree up...and that is pretty much where it went down hill.

 

Now, if I were going to design a pre-lit Christmas tree, I would make sure that if one light went out the others did not.  In fact, I thought that was a given, but apparently not.  Instead of coming out with a new and better cell phone with 10,000 cooler apps, someone needs to work on a different design for Christmas tree lights.  Anyways, the top half and bottom half of our Christmas tree lit up, but the middle did not and after spending an hour figuring out nothing, we went ahead and threw some color lights on the tree and called it done.  This is where Paul goes outside to put up the outside lights and gets even more frustrated while I am stuck inside with three kids asking 800 questions all while trying to "help" unpack bins and put ornaments on the tree.  I would like to tell you that I let them put the ornaments wherever they wanted and we sang Christmas songs and drank hot chocolate, but that would be a lie.  My OCD kicked in and after about three ornaments being put on the same branch, 4 getting dropped on the floor and two broken ones I forbid anyone to touch another ornament. I kept trying to remind myself that we were making memories, but it really just felt like one big nightmare to me so I put in Happy Feet Two, gave them a snack and told them not to move from the couch.  They ended up running laps around the house, stepping on their snack and completely ignoring the movie.  Where is Eric the elf when you need him?  At one point I just needed a break and a snack so I hid sat down in the kitchen floor behind the cabinets praying I wouldn't be seen.  I was found by Dallas while eating my peanut butter crackers and that evening when I gave him his snack he went and sat down where I had been sitting earlier.  I guess he figured it was the new place to eat.

 

 



 

I did get everything decorated, except for the bathroom.  I just couldn't find the motivation to put up a shower curtain and take down and put up new pictures on the wall just to turn around and take it all back down in four weeks.  Our day ended with carrying the 7 bins and one Christmas tree box back up to the attic and wrapping some presents. 

 

 



 



Next year I am going to decorate when the kids aren't home and then when the come home we can sit back, drink our hot chocolate and sing some Christmas songs while admiring our beautiful tree.

This and That



I asked Kristen what I could do to make school fun for her and she replied, "Remember when we used to eat the special snacks that went with our lessons.  I want to do that again."  Who knew snacks could be so exciting and make all the difference.  Well, back when we were doing preschool we learned about a certain letter for a week and our snacks for that week would be things that went along with that letter.  It was easy then because I had to calm well behaved girls.  Now that Dallas has entered into our lives and we have started to homeschool, the girls are lucky to get a snack, much less anything special. I told her that I would try to plan a special day during the week where we would do some fun things and have something special for a snack, but she had to do good in school the rest of the week.  She agreed and this week went a  lot better than last week.  Every day, except for Monday, we were finished with school before lunch.  That's an awesome week!

 

 

This week in our reading the optional book to read was Horton Hears a Who.  I love Dr. Seuss and his books.  They are silly books that are easy to read.  My all time favorite Dr. Seuss book is Horton Hatches an Egg, but I really like all of his books.  I thought our fun day would be a Horton Hears a Who Day.  I printed off some fun connect the dot worksheets and coloring pages and I made elephant ears as our fun snack.  We also watched the movie Horton Hears a Who.  A person's a person, no matter how small.... I just love Horton.  Kristen and Lauren both had fun and I realized how important it is to do these fun things

 

Overall this week was a very good week in school.  I am really looking forward to only doing school three days this week.  I am also looking forward to a laid back Thanksgiving.  I think we usually have so much going on during the holidays that it is hard to enjoy them as a family.  I plan to relax this thanksgiving and just be thankful for all the things in my life, big and small.  There is so very much I have to be thankful for.

 

Oh...and before I go...Kristen lost another tooth today.  This makes a total of five so far.  I guess for Christmas all she is going to want is her front tooth.  She might just loose the other one before Christmas. 

 

 

 



Changes

To say this week was a bad week would be an understatement.  This was the first week that I was very seriously contemplating enrolling Kristen in school and wiping my hands clean of homeschooling.  Yep, I just wanted to quit and never look back. Wouldn't it be nice to go to work and have adult conversations and only be responsible for me?  Not to mention the extra income would be awesome!

I know you probably get sick of my moaning and groaning about it, but it is a lot tougher than I thought it would be when we started.  I know she is not going to catch on to everything easily and I am fully prepared to go the extra step and incorporate some new ideas to help her.  What I can't stand is the constant whining, crying, complaining and pouting about school....and the fact that it took her an hour and twenty-seven minutes to do one side of a spelling worksheet! Talk about reaching the end of my rope. 

I hand picked the curriculum that she is using this year because I wanted to make sure I got things that were challenging and fun...well, as fun as school can be.  If I'm honest, when she complains about school (which she does to everyone), it hurts my feelings.  It makes me feel like a failure.  I want school to be fun for her and for me, so I knew some changes needed to be made (not sure what those are, but I am praying and asking for guidance).  I decided...again...that instead of focusing on the negative things I will be positive and focus on the good things.  So this week we are going to have the best week EVER....we are going to do fun things....and we are going to learn.  Okay...I'll stop before I get carried away.  One thing we are going to do this week is wipe away the last eight weeks of spelling and start over at the beginning...now that's the joy of homeschooling.  See, I am focusing on the positives...and there were some from this past week.

Kristen did try to make my week better by writing both sentences down in her writing...and she surprised me with it. This was after it took her so long to do her spelling worksheet.  I was still glad she was trying.

We packed our boxes for the Operation Christmas Child for church.  These boxes are sent to children around the world to show them God's love through a shoebox filled with gifts.

Kristen really enjoyed filling her box and understood the meaning behind it.  She very carefully picked out each thing she wanted to buy and meticulously placed all of her things in the box.  Lauren...well....she threw it all in in no particular order.  I had to fix her box.  It is hard for my kids to imagine other kids not having things.  We are surrounded by toys and anything they ask for they usually eventually get.  It really makes me sad, so my goal for this year is to bring the meaning back to Christ and not so much on the gifts.  Now, if I can just get Meme on board with me.

Since we have been discussing Mercury (which we still have our final unit project to do this week....we are a little behind), we did an experiment of sorts with a bowl of flour and some different sized rocks....on one the coldest day of the week.

Mercury is a terrestrial planet, but it has no atmosphere so asteroids fall and crash into it's surface therefore making it very bumpy.  We were recreating what happens when asteroids slam into planets.  Makes me very thankful for our atmosphere.

We ended up taking Thursday and Friday off from school, which was a HUGE positive.  We needed the break and on Thursday enjoyed running some errands and eating lunch with my mom.  It was nice to get the grocery store shopping over with.  By the end of this week I probably looked a little like Lauren....who was in matching clothes when I dressed her that morning.

And felt a lot like Dallas.

New Things

I usually have a few ideas that I want to blog about prior to a post, but tonight I have nothing.  I guess my mind has already called it a night.  Maybe it's as tired as Dallas, who by the way is already in bed an hour before his bedtime.  I am not a fan of doing this because that just means he'll probably be up an hour earlier in the morning, but he was so very tired and so am I.

Speaking of Dallas....he is currently getting the remainder of his baby teeth in.  Four at one time. I'm not sure what excuse I will use for his fussiness once he has them all.  It surely can't be teething.  He will have reached all of those milestones that I thought for sure would be the cure for our whiny child.  Oh well, I will look back and miss these days.

Our week was good.  I started babysitting a little boy who is just a few months younger than Dallas.  Take my word....he is so cute and sweet and such a good eater.  I am in awe at his eating skills, since my three have pretty much been picky eaters since birth.  It's nice to be able to feed a child from a spoon and not have to pry their mouth open just to get them to taste something they have eaten before and liked.  We have enjoyed having a new little friend around the house and he fits in just perfectly to our days.

Speaking of new little friends....Lauren got to bring the Girl Scout bear, Audrey, home. She was so excited.

Our week of school was good.  In bible we learned about Noah and his ark and did some fun crafts to fill up our bulletin board.

 

(Oh, and acorns have nothing to do with Noah's ark.  I just wanted to do some fall crafts and these were the only pictures I snapped during craft time this week.)

And what happens when you give your almost 2 year old a crayon without a coloring page?

It was easy to wipe up and he had no idea he did anything wrong.  Actually, he was very impressed with his artwork and gave me the biggest, cutest grin.

I did forget to mention in my last post that the girls are doing an awesome job at their memory verses.  Last week they finished up learning Ephesians 6:1-3.  Both girls can say them all!  I was so proud.

Kristen did good with her spelling test this week.  She only missed two words!  This week is a review of past spelling words.  It will do her good. I have got to come up with something to help this girl with her spelling.  This week we are going to read some Dr. Seuss books. She is doing good in her reading, but needs some extra practice.  She did complete her Pocahontas report this week.  I am so glad to have that done.  She was very excited to complete it.

Lauren is doing good with her letters and math.  She has already completed letters a-h in her second hooked on phonics book.  I am actually very excited to start reading.  I think she will do better than I first thought.  She is doing good in math and knows things I didn't think she knew.  Her writing is coming along, although it still isn't anywhere near what it should be.  I am happy though.  She is making progress.

I am tired and really have no idea what I just wrote.  I am not even going to proof read, so hopefully there are no horrible grammatical errors and it accurately reflects our week and the pictures are put with the correct paragraphs. Good night to you all.

What does the fox say?

So, for those of you who have heard this song....I apologize.

For those of you who haven't....here it is....BUT only watch it if you want to have it stuck in your head for the next week.

 

 

 

I'm not really sure what a fox says, although I am quite certain it is none of the sounds in this video. I do, however, know what a fox sounds like when it looses it's tail because that is what happened on Halloween.

 

Our little fox lost her tail, so we had to retrace our steps to see if we could find it.  Do you know the odds of finding that tail...in the dark...on Halloween night...with all of the leaves on the ground?  I knew that loosing her tail would ruin Kristen's Halloween, but I also knew that the odds of us finding it would be pretty slim. Thankfully we did find it in the driveway at one of the last houses we went to. Talk about breathing a huge sigh of relief. 

 

 

I am glad Kristen and Lauren are at an age where they pick out their Halloween costumes.  It makes one less decision that I have to make.  I don't know why Kristen picked a fox.  We didn't know there was a fox craze until the day before Halloween when we heard the song.  I think she mostly picked it because of the leg thingies and because it was soft.  Kristen dresses for comfort, not to look good.  Lauren originally wanted to go as Word Girl.  I was actually kind of excited because I was going to have to create a costume.  Then she wanted to go as Doc McStuffin's and I was excited because I didn't have to create a costume.  I know...I have good intentions two months before Halloween...not so much when it is right around the corner. 

 

 

Lauren looked so cute in her little doctor costume and she was happy that she already had Doc Mcstuffin's tennis shoes, so we didn't have to buy them.  That's what she kept telling people and she came up with that all on her own.  She is going to be good with her money when she grows up since she is already looking for ways to save money.

 

Little Dallas went as an inmate since he spends a lot of his time in time out.  Actually, he probably doesn't spend as much time as he should in the time out chair.  I took it as a sign that this costume was meant for him since it was the last one they had and it was in his size.

 

 

He had a good time trick or treating.  He just followed everyone else like he was a pro.  It was such a great night for trick or treating too.  The weather was perfect!

 

This past week was pretty hectic and we don't do hectic very well.  We live a pretty laid back life, so we (Paul and I) do not look forward to a week where we have a lot of places to be and things to do. We had a family get together to carve pumpkins, growth group for church, Halloween, a birthday party and we were supposed to go to Build a Bear with the Girl Scout troop, but Kristen wasn't feeling well, so we stayed home.  The good part of being hectic is that I only had to cook dinner four nights this week and for someone who cooks dinner every night, that is something to look forward to.  I am glad, however, that the week is over and we get to resume our laid back routine this week.

 

 

 

Spelling....Spelling....Spelling.....it is not Kristen's strong subject.  Remember the reading woes?  Well, they have been replaced by the spelling woes.  I feel I have exhausted all avenues in what I can do to help her.  This week she missed NINE words on her test.  The problem is she sounds them out, but I keep reminding her she is just going to have to memorize them.  We do flashcards everyday, play games to help her with her words, write words down over and over, do the five worksheets that come with her spelling curriculum, write sentences and stories using her spelling words.  What else can I really do?  She can read them off of her flashcards by test day, but can't spell them. We will be doing summer school to focus on all of the spelling words she has missed.  I am hoping it will get easier like reading.

 

 

 

This section of the blog is brought to you by the letter B and the number one. 

 

  

Lauren started her math curriculum this week.  She still has trouble writing, but she is getting there.  She is doing really good with her letter sounds and I think we might even try to start reading before Christmas.  We'll see.

 

 

This week she has been very excited to do school, I just hope that this attitude change lasts longer than a week. 

 







Happy November!!!

 



It got better...

This week started off kinda rough.  We all had runny noses or stuffed up noses, thanks to the weather change.  Our sinus' were very confused.  We ended up leaving church early last Sunday because Kristen wasn't feeling too well.  Then Sunday night turned into a long night because Lauren was constipated (I know...TMI, but hey....it's our life and it's real). 

Lauren has suffered from constipation pretty much since birth (she is probably going to kill me when she is older and reads this).  She has been on milk of magnesia since her first visit to the pediatrician.  At her last check-up I talked with the doctor about her constipation.  My theory was that her body has gotten dependent on the milk of mag in order to go to the bathroom.  She agreed and wanted to switch her to Miralax. She didn't think Miralax would mess with her electrolytes (whatever those are) as much and the good news was that our insurance would cover it as a prescription.  I wanted to do a trial run to see if we could get her body going to the bathroom on it's own.  It was going pretty good...not ideal, but at least she was moving things without help.  Then Sunday night came.  After two agonizing hours in the bathroom and many efforts to speed things along, she finally fell asleep on the throne.  Poor girl.  I cried...she cried.  It was just horrible.  She finally went to the bathroom and is now on Miralax daily because that was just so emotionally draining on the both of us.  We are going to try some alternatives to her diet, but I am so glad that is over and I hope it never happens again.

Dallas lovin on Lauren after a rough night.  These two are best buds.

At some point during the bathroom drama Kristen tells me that her "bump" on her tooth is back.  To say I was frustrated would be an understatement.  I'll give you a little background.  Back in August I took Kristen and Lauren in for a cleaning.  Kristen had two cavities, but they were small cavities.  They did an x-ray to see if she was close to loosing these two teeth (they were molars), but she wasn't.  I had two options....I could leave it and see what they did.  If they got worse, filling them could require some sort of sedation.  Or I could go ahead and get them filled and they would be able to do it with very little to no numbing.  I decided to go ahead and get them filled since it would be a while until she lost the teeth.  The dental hygienist said I made the right choice, however I second guess this.  We made the follow up appointment and I took her back to get it filled.  She complained about the tooth afterwards and we ended up going back in to see the dentist two days later.  I thought, as well as the dentist, that her tooth was too high because she just complained it felt weird.  You know how your tooth feels really big and uneven after having it filled.  Well, they filed it down and she said it felt better and off we went.  Then over Labor Day weekend, yep of course it would happen on a holiday weekend, she started complaining about her tooth again and said there was a bump on it.  I didn't know what an abscess looked like or even what it was.  I had heard of them, but never had one. She started running a fever and felt pretty lousy and thankfully someone mentioned abscess to me. After I consulted google (thank you world wide web), I self diagnosed her with an abscess...and I was right.  I called the dentist and we started her on antibiotics.  She was seen first thing Tuesday morning and they took another x-ray, just of that tooth.  It wasn't ready to come out and they didn't want to pull it because the root system on the tooth coming in wasn't developed enough.  They did a root canal, and she did wonderful.  Over the next month she never complained about her tooth hurting, but that bump would come and go.  Then it got really big and I finally called and they said to bring her back in.  They wanted to try to save the tooth and cleaned it out again.  Well, then the bump came back and on Monday we went back in to the dentist to have that tooth pulled.  They numbed her as much as they could, but it still hurt when they pulled it.  I felt so bad for her and so did the dentist.  She did great and thanks to Meme and Papaw, the tooth fairy brought her $10, which she said the tooth fairy signed (not really, someone had written $500 on it and she assumed it was the tooth fairies signature.  I didn't tell her any different because she was so excited). 

She deserved it and guess what she bought with her money....another stuffed animal.

I had to buy Lauren something, so she wanted a little camera and she has been following me around taking pictures like a paparazzi.

So, our week started off a bit rocky, but it got better.  School went a lot better this week. 

We did a couple of projects for science and they actually worked!  We talked about what an eclipse was and recreated it using a flashlight and two balls. 

We also made a pinhole sun viewing box.  Although our sun was hidden behind trees, we did get to see it in the box, we just had to walk out to the road to do it.  I am sure the people driving by were wondering why we were looking into a box.  We are probably now officially known as "that crazy family".

That's our sun...that little bright dot.

The girls went to a Girl Scout campfire (no pictures because I didn't bring my camera). They roasted hot dogs (actually I did the roasting and they were still cold) and made s'mores.  We left before the campfire songs because I had inhaled enough smoke to give me a headache and all I wanted to do was go home and shower.  I know...that was very selfish of me. 

One of the best things that happened this week....

Not this, but I had to include a picture of Dallas and his mischief.  Excuse Lauren in the background on the toilet.  I guess Dallas figured he would entertain her a little since it was going to be a long night.

This is one of the best things that happened this week....

We got itty bitty eggs from our chickens.

Glad It's Over

That's pretty much how I feel about this past week.  I am glad it is over!  For once I was actually happy it was Friday and there would be two days off from school.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the worst week we have had, it just wasn't the greatest.

We had the "I don't want to do school" blues this week...myself included.  When Kristen doesn't want to do school it affects us all.  Lauren never wants to do school, but she isn't dramatic about it and will do it even if she doesn't want to.  But when Kristen doesn't want to do school it comes with A LOT of crying.  Sometimes I think things are going great....then the tears appear....for no reason at all.  That's when I do A LOT of mental eye rolling because it makes me feel better.  At one point I thought...Is this how men see women. Are we this emotional for no reason at all.  Surely not. Anyways, it is really frustrating, but we work through it with a lot of breaks, because that's just what we need to do to stay sane.  As a result of her lack of motivation this week, she didn't do good on her math test or spelling test, but we are going to retest when she is ready.  Which brings me to another frustrating topic...the English language.

If I could have I would have thrown our spelling book out of the window, just to make myself feel better.  Of course, I would have went and gotten it and resumed our spelling lesson, but that is how frustrated I was with the words this week and the English language in general.  Kristen has spent a year learning how to sound out words and now they are going to throw in words with letters that take on the sound of other letters, and just to make it more confusing, they are going to also throw in some letters that are just there, but you don't sound them out.  WHAT? I mean, how am I supposed to explain what to do when it doesn't even make sense to me!?!  For instance...gentle.  Kristen spelled it jentl.  Okay, this is actually really how you should spell gentle because it actually makes sense, but nooooo that is not how it's spelled.  City. Kristen spelled it site.  If you sound it out this is what is should be, but again we don't spell it like that.  Said.  Kristen spelled it sed.  Correct...but noooo we don't spell it like that.  I did a lot of non-mental eye rolling when it came to spelling this week because I was just so frustrated.  How could I tell her it was wrong when it actually was done right. Anyways, we are going to approach spelling a little different next week.  I googled (what in the world did I do without the internet?) some fun ways to learn spelling words, and we are going to try that approach this week.  I basically told Kristen she would have to memorize it because the person who came up with the English language obviously didn't know their letter sounds. She responded that they must have not done Kindergarten.  I told her I would have to agree and I am pretty sure they didn't have kindergarten way back then.

Okay, so enough about our crazy language.  I am sure it will come back up in future posts, so you have been forewarned.

Lauren did learn all of her letter sounds this week!  Well, not all in one week because that would be genius, but you get the point. So, YAY...for now...until she starts first grade spelling.

 

We also did a couple science "experiments" this week.  They didn't work.  For the first "experiment" I didn't have a magnifying glass.  Paul told me I could just use my glasses.  Not sure what he's trying to say about my eye sight.  Anyways, we are learning about the sun (I have learned some pretty interesting facts that I must have forgotten from school because Paul already knew them), and one activity had us using a magnifying glass to melt a chocolate bar.

 

 

 

This is as melted as it got.  It felt like I held my glasses for a good ten minutes trying to melt this chocolate bar, but it was probably more like four.  The kids were much more interested in cleaning the leaves off of the deck (can't complain about that) and eating the chocolate bar.  Maybe we will try it again with an actual magnifying glass.

 

 

We also did an "experiment" with a coffee filter and black marker. 

 

 

 

It was supposed to show that the color black contains all the colors of the rainbow, but our black just had black.  The only color it made was black that looked like it had been soaked in water.

 

 

 





Dallas was also feeling a little under the weather this week. 

He is feeling better, but I think he must have a little cold...without the cough. 

I will leave you with this picture of Kristen.  She reminded me so much of myself at her age.  She is cuddling with the pooh bear stuffed animal that I slept with up until I got married.  Well, I actually still slept with it after I got married, but not for long.  I used to tell Paul, "But he just fits so perfectly in my arms while I sleep." I love that bear.

Obedience

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

-Ephesians 6:1

 

 

This was our verse for the week and it sure did come in handy.  God knew we would need this verse.

 

Our week started off a little something like this... 

 

As I was giving Dallas a bath, Kristen came into the bathroom and said she was going to cut Dallas' hair.  I was not alarmed because surely my obedient Kristen wouldn't have real scissors in her hand and even if she did she wouldn't dare think about cutting someone's hair with them. Right? 

 

I had mentioned before Dallas' bath that I was going to give him a haircut, but changed my mind and decided not to do it that day.  I didn't pay Kristen much attention since I was making sure Dallas was squeaky clean, but I let her know that I had changed my mind. I heard Lauren say, "Here, cut my hair."  Then I heard Lauren belly laugh and her little hand came into my field of vision holding her hair in it. I was SHOCKED!  I mean, mouth gaping open SHOCKED!

 

When I turned around and saw Kristen's face I realized she was mouth gaping opened SHOCKED too.  When I asked her why she did it she said she didn't know, and I believe her. If you could have seen her face.  It's pretty funny now...after it all happened. 

 

So, when we sat down to do our bible lesson, our verse was about obeying your parents and we had an example to along with it.  I used that verse all week and I think we all had it memorized by Tuesday.  Now, if only Dallas could memorize it.

 

More school news...

 

 

 

We did complete Unit One in our bible curriculum and also put the finished pictures on our bulletin board. 

 

 

 

We learned all about creation, which was a review for the kids since we also learned about it at the beginning of last year.  It's always good to be reminded of all the things God created so we could enjoy them.

 

 

Kristen worked on her report of Christopher Columbus this week. 

 

 

 

 I actually learned a little something this week.  I had Christopher cruising up to Jamestown on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and sitting down eating a Thanksgiving meal with the Indians.  It didn't go down like that.  He actually discovered Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), not Jamestown. He was a Christian and set out to trade with Asia and one thing he had on his ship was bibles.  Way to go Christopher Columbus!  Of course he never made it to Asia, but at least he tried.

 

 

 

She presented her report to Dallas and Lauren, and then to Paul when he got home.  I thought Dallas was all into Christopher Columbus, but then I realized he had gotten a juice box off of the table and was squirting it all over the floor, his pants and socks during Kristen's presentation.  But at least he was quiet.

 



 

 

In other news....Lauren started Girls Scouts this week. 

 

 

 

We missed the first meeting because we were at the beach, but she was super excited about getting to participate in Girl Scouts.  She got to hold the flag during the pledges and cried because everyone was looking at her.  She did have fun and is so proud that she is a Girl Scout.  Kristen got to bring Audrey home.  She is the Koala bear that belongs to her daisy troop.  She has really enjoyed Audrey, but I knew she would since she is a stuffed animal addict.

 

 

 

 Next week we begin week 4 of school.  I'm excited!!