January School Stuff!

I like to have a blog every month with just a little of what is going on with the girls and their school experience. For whatever reason, I had a hard time getting these pictures to download so they may not be in the right order.

January has actually been a very fun month. The weather has been unseasonably warm so we have been outside a lot and we are loving that!

We also joined a new homeschool co-op. It is called Classical Conversations and their are many of these all over the country. That is great if we ever move. We go every Monday from 9am-1pm. The curriculum is very challenging, but we are really enjoying it. There is a lot of memory work. They also have art and science experiments each week. They also do presentations each week. Below is a picture of her doing geography!

We are still doing New Life Homeschool Co-op. Both of her teachers, were also public school teachers and she is learning so much there. Below is a vinn diagram she did on plants and animals.

Lily also started violin this month. We are enjoying it, but it is expensive and it is hard to get into the idea of practicing daily. I really do hope that it gets easier! lol

Below is a project that Lily did for me. For art, she copied the cover of a book that she had on Abraham Lincoln. Then she wrote what she learned about it him from the story. I think she did an excellent job!

This is one of her art projects from Classical Conversations. She is learning about a different artist each week and then trying her hand at their style of art! Isn't it beautiful!

Valerie enjoys both co-ops too. Here she is with some of her little friends, Addie and Josie, learning about shapes!

She also made a collage the other day at co-op. Her daddy was quick to ask her why she put a football player on her collage. She said, "For you Daddy!" Isn't that sweet! So I asked her what she put on there for me. She replied, "I guess Jack the Elf!" Sure, like I believe that! lol

Valerie really enjoys writing. That is her favorite thing to practice at. She wrote her abc's for the first time with no help from Mommy. Oh wait, she did copy it off her chart though! :)

Lastly, we had a fun field trip in January. Oh wait it is February 1st! Oh well, it was suppose to be the January field trip! We went to Noah's Art! They did story time art for our group. They read, "If you give a Mouse a Cookie!" Then the kids made mouse ears, cookies, little mice, and painted with water color to find hidden pictures. They also had stations set up for making bead necklaces and collages. It was very fun!

Here at the end is just a picture of Lily with her wonderful violin teacher!

Snow Day 2012

 So although snow is not my favorite thing, my girls love it!!!!!!!!!! They were so excited to play in the two inches we have and more snow is still coming down!

 Daphne wouldn't stop moving. She loved it out there and actually really enjoyed putting on all of her snow gear! She cried when I made her come back in after 20 minutes of playing in the freezing cold!

 Ofcourse, every little kid knows that you have to taste the snow. lol

 Lily was cold after making a snow angel!

Look on the bright side!

 Around this time of the year, Jason's job slows down. Since he is paid mainly commission, this is a stressful time! However, we are going to enjoy having Daddy home more with us while it lasts! So far, we have been to Chuck-E-Cheese, Silver Dollar City and the Springfield Nature Center!

 Lily said, "We are so blessed to have you as our Mommy and Daddy because you take us to fun places. We hadn't been to any of these places in a long time, but you love to make us happy!"

We had the greatest New Years Eve party. We spent it with Mandy Hanson and her sweet kids! We played games and studied the life of Jesus Christ. What a perfect way to bring in the new year. So thankful for that time with my friend!

Funny moments in the car

 Yesterday we went to Silver Dollar City! We had a great time. The weather was wonderful and we love when Jason gets to come with us! We have decided to take a year off from going though so we made sure to really enjoy this trip. We had just been getting a little burned out on going so often!

We really enjoyed the rides, but we also loved the Christmas decorations. The huge fontanini nativity set is one of our favorite decorations!

 The drive home had some funny moments. We hopped into the car and started handing out bags of popcorn to Lily and Valerie. Daphne yelled, "I bite! I bite!" I replied, "Daphne stop threatening me! I will get you a bag!" Oh wait, guess she meant that she wanted a bit of food! Aren't little ones cute with their words! :)

Valerie was even cuter on the drive home! She said, "I have to go to the bathroom." I replied, "Can you hold it?" She put her hands on her private and then took her hands off a minute later. She responded, "Mommy, I don't need to hold it because it can hold itself!" Ha Ha! I love how literal a three year old can be! I hadn't even realized what she was doing!

The Birth of a new Christmas Tradition

Most of our family traditions are based around the traditions that I grew up with. However, each family has different dynamics and I have learned that things are just not always the same.

One tradition I took from my parents was to always read the nativity story on Christmas Eve and to have the kids act out the story of Jesus' birth with our nativity. We also have chosen to keep Christmas day as being just our little family. We also take from the example of the three wise men and each child gets three presents on Christmas morning (we started that three years ago and love it).

So one tradition that changed was a part of Christmas Eve. Growing up, we didn't live near any relatives so on Christmas Eve we would open all of the relative presents. On Christmas morning we would open all of the Santa presents. Since, we now live near family, but not close enough to do Christmas Eve, it has left us with no presents on Christmas Eve. I really don't like to have too many presents anyway, but I missed the tradition of it.

So this year, we are starting a new tradition. We are going to do an ornament exchange with our girls each Christmas Eve. On Thanksgiving, we will draw out names and then each work on finding one special ornament for our chosen family member to open on Christmas Eve. This will help teach my girls about giving, but not just by buying little junk for each other. This will be something special to look at on our tree each year and to remember who we got it from. This year will be slightly different since we hadn't thought of this earlier! Jason and I will just buy each girl an ornament to open on Christmas Eve, but we will tell them about the new tradition then! I love this time of the year!

 Daphne is 17 months now and as fun as can be! We are really enjoying this age! She can repeat anything we say. She also has several two word combinations such as "thank you" and "all done". She really does say more words than I can count!  She even has one sentence that I have noticed..."I wan up"! :) If I ask if anyone wants food, she is the first to come running and shouting "me, me, me". She loves food and will sit at a table eating for hours! lol.

She is into everything and that is a challenge. If I walk out of the room, she will get a chair and push it to the kitchen counter. She loves going through the drawers. However, she is also very smart and a good listener. I told her "no" to touching the Christmas tree and after four weeks, she still hasn't bothered it or the presents underneath! Yay for that!

Daphne has such pretty green eyes! I love thema nd hope they stay green! I just had to throw that in there!

She got a new elmo doll. She says "Elmo". It is precious and she gives it kisses with a big "muah" sound! She loves being held. She can say most of her friend's names. My youngest is definitely a blessing to my heart!

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November School Stuff!

 November has been a really fun time for us with homeschooling. We started the month by letting Lily go to pizza hut to get her Book It pizza that she earned by reading 8 chapter books last month. Yesterday she completed this months goal so we will be going to pizza hut again in the next few days! :)

 We went to the library and got some great books on Indians and Christopher Columbus. Those helped us with our history. We did some fun projects at co-op to go with those books, but we are saving them as decorations for our co-op Christmas program!

 Valerie made this lion at mops!

 Valerie's writing is improving. "R" is a hard letter to write!

 Some more of Valerie's writing!

 This month we read three of the American Girl books. They were soo good. A mixture of history and things that Lily could relate to.
I love when you can see those light bulb moments. We were watching the Samantha movie after reading the book. Lily got up independently and started to journal about. Her paragraph was excellent. She wrote about each event that happened in the story and related it to herself. I love that she is starting to write so well on her own!

 Here she wrote about Kaya and did the same thing! Excellent!

Ofcourse, we also had fun in writing by making Thanksgiving cards for family and friends!