Painting

Kristen had the opportunity to join other local homeschoolers and participate in a painting class. I knew she would enjoy it, since she is very creative and loves drawing and painting. However, I didn't know she would fall in love with painting. 

She had to mix colors and use different brushes. She was so proud of herself and had such an amazing time. 

Her final product was better than what I would be able to do.

And we found the perfect spot for it on the wall.

After she did her class she was so excited and wanted to teach an art painting class during school. Lauren, Dallas and I were her students and we all followed her directions.

Here is our finished products. 

Kristen also watched a Bob Ross show and got inspired. I guess during our next painting class we will be painting "happy little trees".

September

It's hard to believe that September has come and gone. The beach seems like a distant memory and school has started back up once again.  We started September reading one of our favorite books.

Kristen was our reader for the day. She did an excellent job. 

Before reading the book we made little mouse finger puppets. No one wanted to wear them for the story, but they were still super cute.

We also talked about cause and effect. My all time favorite cause and effect....if you don't listen to your Mom you get in trouble. Kristen focused on doing a cause and effect worksheet.

Dallas got to count the mouse's cookies and had to match the number with the number of cookies. He has 1-10 down, so we will be moving on. 

Lauren worked on her spelling. Oh the fun times of learning to spell words in the English language. Look at her concentration!

This month we learned about apples. Who knew there were so many different apples in the world. I only buy the ones that are on sale and never pay attention to the name of the apple. We did a comparison of four different apples: Braburn, Granny Smith, Yellow Delicious and Gala. 

Mine and Kristen's favorite was the Braburn. It was crisp and juicy and delicious. We are going to make some candy and caramel apples on sticks and we'll be using Braburn apples. I will be buying these when they are on sale again. The Granny Smith, while being very tart, was the most refreshing one.

We also did an apple rotting experiment, which is still going on. We will compare our predictions to what really happened this week. In the world of seven and eight year olds, rotting apples are so exciting. 

They also worked on their "Seasons of an Apple Tree" book.

We did some painting with apples. Dallas only wanted to use "his mustard" for his picture. The boy loves mustard...and no, it wasn't really mustard.

Kristen wrote a story about a magical apple. One day her teacher ate an apple and she disappeared. She had to finish the story and did a wonderful job being creative. 

We played a fun apple game and Lauren won!

We also planted some apple seeds just like Johnny Appleseed and drank some apple cider with caramel that tasted just like a caramel apple.

Overall our September was a very productive fun school month.

Outer Banks

We spent last week with our toes in the sand, enjoying the sunny skies of Salvo. Which means I've spent this week trying to tackle the mounds of laundry left over from our beach trip. I've not conquered it yet. And now it's built back up after this week. The story of my life.

Our trip started with some excited kiddos. We only heard "When will we be there" eight hundred times...at least. It was a good trip though. There was no arguing. They all played together and shared everything. The drive home was a different story though.

We did get to see an actual draw bridge on our way there. Driving up to it Paul and I were so confused. We didn't know why we were driving directly into a wall blocking the road. 

The kids were not as excited as I was about seeing this. I think they would have been more excited if it was a wall in the middle of the road. Oh well. 

The house was right on the sound, so our sunsets were awesome to watch. I'm sure the sunrises were too, but I was never up early enough to see them. It was so peaceful. 

I was hoping my little OCD mini me would like the beach this year. While he was better than last year, as in he actually played in the sand and got in the water, he still didn't like the beach and said he wasn't going to go on the days we went. He would have been perfectly happy staying by himself at the beach house. Kristen stayed in the water, while Lauren played in the sand.  Both enjoyed jumping in the waves. 

They did get to fly a kite, which they were interested in for all of two minutes. 

We celebrated my dads birthday while at the beach.

I'm so thankful for my mom and dad and all they do for me and my family. I have great role models and hope my kids feel as loved by me as I do by my parents. 

On my dads birthday we went to the sound instead of the ocean. Lauren made Papaw a birthday cake.

Kristen (with the help of a new friend) made him a birthday castle. 

We made him a birthday low country boil.

Kristen loved her some crab legs. She really needed some safety goggles though.

That night the ice cream truck came by just for Papaw's birthday. It was Lauren and Dallas' first time getting ice cream from an ice cream truck. It was pretty exciting....and expensive.

We also had some donuts from Duck Donuts. They were good, but it's hard to beat a fresh Krispy Kreme.

We visited the Bodie Island Lighthouse. 

Dallas was so excited about climbing the lighthouse, but when we got there he wasn't tall enough. Talk about an unhappy little boy. 

So, he and I had to sit in the car while Paul and the girls trekked to the top. I was not unhappy in the least. Why would I pay $8 to climb a bunch of steps.

The kids spent the most time in the pool and hot tub. Mostly going back and forth. 

One of the highlights of our week were the go carts. I had never drove one on my own. It was so much fun. Like a mini car made just for me. I wish I could've captured Lauren's face. It was pure bliss. Kristen was able to drive by herself, although it was a little hard for her to reach the pedal and she couldn't see over the steering wheel all that well. She still did great and didn't hit anything. She preferred to ride with someone though. 

We were sad to see our week come to an end. But, reality always comes knocking.