Oh vacation, how I miss you!

Our vacation was exactly what we needed!!!

Leaving on an adventure!!!

Relaxing in a hotel room! (No need to wake up early, clean, or think about anything!)
Playing on the beach as a family! I love playing with these girls!

Going on a "fun" date with my husband and getting to act like kids!

Hanging with my childhood friends!!!

Relaxing in the pool with my favorite girls!

Watching my girls experience the happiest place on Earth! Disneyland is the best place for watching your child light up with excitement!

I think coming home from a vacation is always a difficult situation. At first you are happy to get back to your home. Then reality sets in and you miss the relaxing and the excitement of vacation! We also made that leap even bigger by taking a foster child in on the day that we got back. That was crazy!!! We made the best memories on our vacation and I can't wait for the next one! Yes, everyday life is great, but vacation is the best! :)

Proud Mommy Moment

Some morning are just wonderful!!! Lily woke up early and came in and asked if she could get up. I said, "What time is it? She looked at the clock and said, " the short hand is on the 6 and the long hand is on the 10." I said, "okay!" But then a second went by and Lily said, "That means it is 6:50!" I was still pretty asleep, but I was saying, "Yay"...in my head! Yesterday, we were working on telling time and I just didn't think she was getting it! I love waking up to a wonderful surprise! The best thing ever is seeing it click for your own child! I even went and tested her with a pretend clock when I got up and she really has got it! Yay! There really is nothing like seeing your child doing well and knowing that you have helped them get there! I love homeschooling, especially today! Also yesterday, she was successfully counting pennies and nickels together! Love it! Math is not her strongest area so it is great to watch her accomplishing hard tasks!

Just thought I would share a proud mommy moment!

The Perfect Life!!!

Lately I have noticed how much people compare themselves to others. Maybe it is impossible to not compare a little, but we (especially women) seem to do it way more than we should.

I think possibly the Internet has only made it worse. If you are around other mothers in person than you see the parts of their lives that are great and the parts that they struggle with. You also see and can talk with them to find out how they juggle their schedules and what things they sacrifice. Things like facebook only allow you to see part of a person's life. I have noticed that some people are very honest and share everything about their lives: good or bad and sometimes it is tmi! ;) Others like myself probably share the fun parts. I like to dwell on the good parts of my day and stay busy....now you probably don't see the part where I hate cleaning bathrooms (that would be boring) or the part where I struggle with missing out on playdates (I absolutely want to be at every single event and I beat myself up when I miss one). Others probably use it as a bragging tool...you know who you are. JK! And others seem so worn down and like they are struggling all the time. Facebook is an interesting place. I really do enjoy it simply b/c I love people!

So mainly what I am trying to get around to saying is that I wish that everyone would stop comparing themselves and really be happy with the great parts of their lives and accept the parts that aren't perfect as just that and it is okay!

"Make a careful explanation of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that....Don't compare yourself with others." Galations 6:4 MSG
Well I have to add a few pictures from my perfect life! :) Here are my beautiful kids all cuddled in bed! Don't they look perfect! You can tell that they never fight! Oh just ignore the claw marks on Valerie's pretty little face...no clue how those got there!

Oh and I only feed my girls healthy food...I would never give sweets before they turn one.....Oh wait, what happened to Daphne's face! I think that Lily and Valerie were very proud of giving her some FUDGESICLE! The first or second child never would have gotten this, but Daphne is very lucky to have big sisters! ;)

From one perfect mother to another, have a fun filled day!

January School stuff

I know that I still have a few more weeks of January, but here are my January highlights in our homeschooling life. I have to say that I really love this as my main way of documenting what we have done. It is so easy to look back through!

We had Martin Luther King Jr. day. Lily loved learning about him. We also did a cooperative learning assignment. I would cut pieces of construction paper and she would copy me. She had to listen well to the steps and then she made this picture of Martin Luther King Jr. It turned out great! Then she did some writing about him. We are working at getting her print to be neater. I was very happy with her taking her time on this!

We also went to Juanita Q. Hammons hall to see the play "Strega Nona". It wasn't my favorite. I think it was a little old for Lily, but she still enjoyed it and we had some great worksheets to go with the story. This first one was a comprehension page. We took turns reading and then she answered the questions with no problems at all.

This page was all word problems to go with the story. We haven't done very many word problems so I was very happy with how well Lily listened. Only one of them tricked her a little.

In reading, I had been pushing her more with chapter books that were in the second grade level. The bad thing was that she was getting tired of all the reading and stopped enjoying reading. The main goal in reading is to LOVE reading so we found some first grade chapter books. This first page is easier than the rest of the book, but it is a very easy read and Lily is loving the stories about the kittens. It is called Three to Get Ready by Betty Boegehold and it is only four chapters!

For science, I found a Walt Disney All About Animals book at my parents house. We are learning lots of fun facts about animals and she is loving every minute of it!

Can't leave Valerie out! She is loving school right now. She loves to write. She is working on writing her letters and doing great! She also is very good at circling the words that start with that letter!

My Napping Husband

I titled this my napping husband only because he is napping right now as are two of our children. So I have time to blog! I like to blog on and on about our three children. I love being a mommy, but I also love being a wife!

Over the last 6 weeks, Jason's schedule has completely changed which always brings with it new challenges and sometimes new rewards. This is Jason's slow season managing Oxifresh so normally our poor time of the year! ;) This year Jason didn't want to make me have to struggle with the budget as hard so he took on a second job. Now on a selfish note, I had sort of been looking forward to all the extra time I would have with Jason. Last year he helped with homeschooling and the house work. It was great!! Even if we were poor!

So his new job is working doing a newspaper route! Strange hours have made for napping during the day. So Jason is staying busy between his two jobs plus now needing a nap or to sleep in. I admit the first week of this was AWFUL. I felt frustrated having him sleeping while I was doing all of the parenting and house work and he was gone just as much as before. Oh and to top it all off, I bought him P90X for Christmas. Several of his friends had it and he wanted to get in shape. This program takes up almost an hour and a half of each day!!!!!!!!!!! But he is looking great! ;)

The funny thing about life is that every stage of it teaches me more about myself. I have gained patience and with in a week or so we had a new routine and we have all learned to love it. The best part is that I appreciate my husband so much. I am soooo lucky to have a hard working husband who always puts his family first! He makes it possible for me to be a stay at home mom and to give my girls the attention that they deserve and to give them meaningful memories each day!

Another brag on my husband is that he signed Lily up for karate and he takes her twice a week. I love them having special bonding time and I love hearing how proud he is of her. He is such a great dad! Some bible verses that made me think of my husband:

1 Peter 3:7 "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers."

Titus 2:2 "Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance."

1 Timothy 5:8 "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."

It's Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas! We are so excited. It has been a great month. We have had parties to attend and going to Silver Dollar City to look at lights and see the parade. I love the whole month of December. We even added some Christmas fun to our school time. Lily has spent all month writing a Christmas book! She did such a great and independent job. She also took her time with drawing and coloring the pictures. Here it is for all to see! Oh and she will be bringing this to read to all of our family tomorrow on Christmas Day!

Didn't she do a great job! She found a word for every letter of the alphabet! This is Daphne's first Christmas and she gave me the best gift. She started crawling at just 5 months old. She had been army crawling, but now she is really crawling!

We are excited to do more baking today and to have Daddy home with us for three days! Tonight we want to go to a Christmas Eve church service, but it looks like the winter weather might make it not very safe. The girls are going to use the nativity characters to act out the Christmas story as Daddy reads the story. I love Christmas Eve.

Tomorrow will also be great as we celebrate with all of our family and yes the girls are excited for their three presents each under the tree! :)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just a weight and height check

Daphne has her 6 month weight and height check, but thinking about it made me curious about the older two. Today we weighed and measured them.

Lily:
44lbs- 61st percentile for weight
48 inches- 97th percentile for height

Wow! She is still staying tall!

Valerie:
29lbs- 38th percentile
38 in- 75th percentile

Valerie is totally a skinny, tall girl!

From the best I could see...
Daphne is about 14 lbs
about 24 inches
If I am right on those it says below 5th percentile for both......she might be just like her mommy!