3 months

my dear baby girl,

have i told you how sweet you are? 

have i told you how i love having you nuzzled right next to me in bed and seeing your cute face when i wake up in the morning?

i love looking at your little fingers and toes.  this time next year they wont be so little anymore.

you are growing slowly but surely, weighing in at 8.1 lbs at your weight check last week.  you know your brother was about that much when he was born.  it's funny to think about it.

your smiles and coos are more frequent (unless you're hungry, sleepy or both), and i still can't stop smothering your sweet little face with kisses.

one of my most favorite things is watching the bond and love that grows between you and your siblings.  and your cash-cash would literally smother you with hugs, kisses and drool if he could.

i'm thankful for having you here with me.  i'm thankful that i have the opportunity to be your mama, and that you have a daddy, brothers and a sister that love you so, SO much.

kisses, love!

sandy's surprise

one week ago today was sandy's debut on the east coast.  it's weird to think that a week from that crazy storm day has passed already when so many parts of the east coast are still trying to recover from the wreckage and loss.

sandy even managed to reach us here in northeast ohio, though the mess she left behind was nothing compared to the devastation on the east coast.  there were huge pine trees uprooted, damage to roofs, and many neighborhoods lost power.

i wasn't prepared for our area to be so affected by it, especially after waiting for our power to return 24 hours after the storm came through.  we ended up losing power for 3 days (though there were others who lost power for almost a week).  the days were spent trying to generate heat from our gas stove and keeping the sink from overflowing with dirty dishes. 

emma made her own school activities during the outage.

the kids didn't seem overly affected by the loss of electricity, except for at night when they didn't have their white noise to lull the to sleep.  they spent the day doing many of the usual things, though we didn't do any of our school readings for the week since i needed the computer for it.  i tried to wear lani as much as i could so that she would stay warm, and i will say that i was SO thankful that all she needed for nourishment was my milk!

gibson completed another 24-piece puzzle.

 while the loss of power wasn't a pleasant experience, we weren't miserable.  make no mistake, 3 days without power with 4 young kids and no car during the day was no walk in the park, but we still managed to have fun and share a few laughs.  and here is the best part about losing our power: experiencing God's love.

enjoying some electricity and heat at the mall.

that's right. 

sometimes, it's easy for me to forget how much he truly cares for us.  he shows us he loves us (pursues us daily) in big and small ways, and sometimes i totally miss it!  when we lost power, we had friends and family that stepped up to help us and care for us.  homes for us to stay at were offered, freezers were made available to save our food, batteries were provided to charge our phones and the "can i get you anything?" messages were many.  clearly, we have some awesome people that love us.  but even more clear: God loves us.  there was no reason to be miserable during that time, because i was reminded every single day that he was with us.

learning together: W8Y01 review

week 8...let's get right to it, shall we?

literature:

we read 2 stories from the aesop for children: the gnat and the ox and the plane tree.  since both stories were quite short and emma was still engaged, we read both in one day instead of splitting them up over two days.  for the narration practice, i asked her to summarize the gnat story and whether or not the tree was indeed useful for the plane tree story.

this week, some of emma's books of choice for independent reading have been a tiara club series book, a junie b. jones series book, 100 things you should know about ancient rome, a nancy drew book, an angelina ballerina book, and big anthony and the magic ring by tomie depaola.

history:

on monday we read about cincinnatus from fifty famous stories retold.  the rest of the week was left open to start benjamin franklin by ingri d'aulaire, but wouldn't you know i didnt have the book ordered yet.  oops!  so we jumped ahead to week 9 and read about boadecia from our island story.

boadecia was a celtic warrior queen who fought against the roman invasion of britain.  the title of the story alone, the warrior queen, captured emma's attention.  ooooh!  a fighter queen!  the topics of revenge and suicide did come up during our reading, which caught me a bit off guard since i didn't read this story in advance.  but we had a great, in-depth discussion afterward about those subjects.

math:

we are in the second life of fred book (butterflies), and finished chapter 8 this week.  some of the topics covered in this chapter include counting by fives and ordinal numbers.  the practice problems were a mix of review from previous chapters and new topics introduced in chapter 8.

i didn't do a whole lot of supplementing this week since emma went through the practice problems easily.  the only thing we did was practice identifying u.s. coins and adding coins together.

bible:

right now we are going through 1 samuel.  this week we went through 1 samuel 3:1-20 (samuel is called) and 1 samuel 4:1-7:2 (the capture and return of the ark).  we use the curriculum from this site, but i don't always print out the activity sheets.  gibson likes to do the coloring sheet so sometimes i'll print that for him.  emma likes to alternate between the coloring sheet and the fill-in the blanks so we did that for this week.  other than that, we really just take some time after reading the scripture to simply talk about it.

for scripture memorization we currently use the weekly memory verse from the kids' sunday school.  it keeps things simple and streamlined that way.  this week's was from matthew 6:13.

language arts:

for daily copywork i used the memory verse emma needs to memorize for church.  not only is she practicing her handwriting, but it's also another way to help her memorize  the verse.  sometimes i'll add a few sentences from a poem we've read for variation, but i didn't get to that this week.

spelling words for this week were went, sent, spent, felt and melt.  by the third day of spelling review she had mastered the words so we bagged spelling practice for the remainder of the week.

we did lesson XXIX and XXX from mcguffey's first eclectic reader this week, and talked about how some words are spelled the same but pronounced differently (wind and wind) while other words sound the same but are spelled differently (fair and fare). the more i teach her about the english language, the more i see how difficult the language is to learn.  all those exceptions and grammatical rules...wow!

nature study:

we collected a few leaves and did some leaf rubbings.  gibson found a few sweet gum pods and took them home, while cash was quite content to gather a few leaves of his own.  the unseasonably warm weather was perfect for plenty of outside time, and the kids managed to return from our walk with some sort of leafy collection.

emma also managed to capture a moth while she was sweeping the leaves in the backyard.  the kids were enthralled by the little guy, and emma recorded her findings in her nature journal.

french:

we reviewed the phrases we've learned so far from this book (a great library find for us!) which included identifying family members, days of the week and simple greeting.

arty stuff:

in music we learned the hymn "for the beauty of the earth," and had fun singing it each day.  we discovered two different melodies for this hymn so we listened to both.

in visual art, we are still looking at camille pissaro's market at gisors rue de cappeville. we didn't get to using the oil pastels as i had originally planned but hopefully we can for week 9.  she did make a hot dog out of our leftover salt dough and she's waiting for it to dry before painting it.

ballet class has been coming right along.  she's learned first-third positions, demi plie and some basic stretches.  and of course her teacher also provides plenty of opportunities for creative dance.

that wraps up our week!

learning together: school round up

it's been 7 weeks since we started with ambleside's year 1 curriculum.  i have been meaning to post weekly summaries of what we've covered, but here we are in week 8 with no school updates until now.

better late than never, right?

the ambleside curriculum is divided into three 12 week terms.  obviously, we're in term 1 right now. we operate on a four day school schedule using this curriculum.  i had planned the 12 weeks to go through the second week of december, but it looks like we'll be done by mid-november.  sweet!

i try to limit the structured school stuff to about 2 hours max monday-thursday, with friday left a bit more "unplanned."  any daily table work that emma has to do is limited to 30-35 minutes.  that would include any copywork, spelling, oral reading, journaling, bible study, french and math.  of course we don't do all of that each day, with the exception of copywork.  we also have daily readings from the year 1 book list.  that's usually something all the kids like to do together.

realistically, any of our structured school stuff (including the readings) takes only about an hour.  but if you count some of the little "breaks" we have in between (like changing a diaper, putting dishes away, getting a snack, tending to the wee babe, etc.), some days the school stuff end up taking about 2 hours.  if it's nice outside, we usually end up doing some of the readings during lunch or as the "bedtime" story before naps so that we can enjoy some precious outside time.  then there are those "off" days where we just bag the day's plan and go with what works.

so to re-cap the past 7 weeks...

history:
we've learned a bit of early british history and ancient greece and rome through the books Our Island Story, Fifty Famous Stories Retold, and Trial and Triumph.  some of the people we've read about include cornelia, horatius the cocles, blandina, and leonidas and the 300.  the short stories presented in these books have been a great way to teach history.  next week, we'll be learning about benjamin franklin through the book benjamin franklin by ingri d'aulaire (i still need to buy this...it's a hot commodity at the library with 2 holds on this one particular book).

emma keeps a timeline folder which we fill with some information and a picture of each person we've read about thus far.  it has been a great way for her (and me) to visualize the order in which all these events have occurred in time.

literature:
we've got some great books we've been reading for literature.  literature reading is done almost daily and there's usually at least one reading a week from The Aesop for Children.  Other books we've used so far this term include Just So Stories (which was Aaron's book from when he was a kid), The Blue Fairy Book, Parables from Nature, Tales From Shakespeare and A Child's Garden of Verses.  one of emma's favorites is an Aesop story called The Boy And His Filberts, and all the kids like the Aesop stories so much that we've re-read some of the stories quite a few times.

geography:
we do a geography reading once a week from the book Paddle-To-The-Sea.  coincidentally, this book is about the geography of the great lakes, and we live right by one of them.  so cool!  a few field trips to lake erie are in order!

when we first got the book, the kids wanted to read it so we've already read through the whole thing.  but it's nice to go back and re-read it at a slower pace.  i've been meaning to do a big map of the great lakes region so we can map out Paddle's course, but i haven't quite found what i'm looking for.  i kind of want to just make my own...

reading, writing and arithmetic:
we use mcguffey's readers for her oral reading practice (upon a recommendation from my dad), although she can read quite well independently.  the "problem" (but i guess it's not really a problem) is that now she reads so fast that she'll skip words.  so the short, little lessons in the mcguffey reader is perfect to "slow" her down a bit.

we also use mcguffey's for her spelling words.  i just pick out five words on the list (e.g. went, sent, spent, felt, melt) and we do a quick daily run through of them on paper.

other writing stuff include her daily copywork and not-so-weekly-but-should-be journal writing.  but she writes enough in her free time that i'm not too worried about it.

math has been great with the life of fred series.  she LOVES it and has devoured these books in her free time.  the stories are funny and the practice exercises are short and sweet.  we do a fred reading once a week, and if needed i'll find activities during the rest of the week to reinforce some of the things she learned from the fred book.  i think after this term, we'll start reading fred twice a week.  although that means we'll blow through the rest of the book very quickly, but that's okay.  we'll just get the next one.

lapbooking:
my original plan was to do 3 lapbooks each term, but i think i was a bit ambitious in thinking we can complete 3 lapbooks in addition to our other school stuff.  and there's that whole just had a baby thing...yeah...

so, we've completed one and will most likely do one more before term 1 ends.  we FINALLY did a spider lapbook, which emma had been asking about doing since the beginning of summer.  and for gibson, we did a mini one for him since he seems to enjoy the whole lapbooking idea as well.

everything else:
i try to stick to charlotte mason's approach so "everything else" would include narration, art study, music study, language (french is what we're doing for now), scripture reading, nature study, handiwork and habit "training."

additionally, the kids have plenty of free time which has been used up with paper crafts, painting, drawing, dancing, clay art, making blanket forts, playing outside or going on walks (that counts as exercise time) and the occasional field trips here and there.

while i would love to expand on all these other topics, this post would end up very, very long if i continue. so hopefully by the end of this week i can post our week 8 school round up, which will be shorter but with a bit more detail.

wondering why we're on the road that we're on?  here's some background...

::part 1::      ::part 2::      ::part 3::

wordless wednesday::say cheese

practicing her smiles...

more wordless wednesday here, here and here.

wordless wednesday::autumn walk

more wordless wednesday here, here and here.

2 months

happy 2 months, my little dear.

you are truly the peanut in the family.  still so small, you just recently grew into your newborn clothes.

you've given us smiles and a few coos, and your short, quiet-alert moments usually turn into a time when your brothers and sister shower you with attention.  even baby cash (who i guess is not really a baby anymore), loves to cover you with kisses (and drool).

right now, your most favorite place is close to mama.  and i'm not complaining, because soon enough that will be a distant memory for you.
  

thinking about the fact that you are in our lives is still a bit surreal at times, since you were a sweet surprise to us all.  now, it's hard to imagine life without you.

i love you so much i could smother you with hugs and kisses and eat you all up.

this being a girl thing just became official

i knew my emma was no longer a baby a long time ago, but i can't help but still see her as my baby every once in a while.

she has gone through many first moments this past year that remind me without a doubt that she's growing up...taking showers by herself, tying her own shoe laces, reading chapter books, riding a two wheel bike, fixing herself and her brothers breakfast (when she wants to), ballet class.  she really is a full fledged independent girl (no more baby-ness on that face of hers).

and now she's lost her first tooth (and a second one is already loose).  she's ECSTATIC.  so much so that she readily headed upstairs for bedtime.

while i share in her excitement, a part of me is feeling a little like this:  waaaaaaahhhh!!! 

maybe you're thinking i'm a little worked up over something like a lost tooth...and yes, you're probably right.  but she's my first baby and she's doing all these "firsts" which are firsts for me too (though i'm not saying that "firsts" with the other kids won't be as special or meaningful). as i type this, my little girl is sleeping soundly, knowing that tomorrow will bring her a special surprise.  sweet dreams, my baby!

little dancer

my girl started her very first ballet class this past weekend. she was very excited, and so was i. actually, it's probably safe to assume that i was WAY more excited than she was.

as i was doing her hair and helping her get dressed for class i had flashbacks of my own childhood memories of ballet.  all those years and years and years and years of ballet, costumes, hairspray, blistery feet, rehearsals...the ballet studio was like my second home and i loved it.

we packed her mommy-made ballet bag with the essentials: spare tights, ballet slippers, extra bobby pins and extra hair clips.

her class was full of other little girls in black leotards and pink tights ready to dance.  we said our good-byes, and as i sat outside the classroom catching short glimpses of little girls fluttering and jumping around i couldn't help but feel excited for her again.

dance has been such a big part of my life that i can't help but hope that it will be the same for emma (and lani too).  i mean, i definitely don't want to be like a crazy dance mom or anything like that, but if she truly does want to be a ballerina when she grows up have a passion for it then i want to be there to support her.

wordless wednesday::impromptu

sometimes, all you need is a little impromptu dip in the river to turn a good day into a great day.

more wordless wednesday here, here and here