Friday Post

Well, yesterday was a long day and I didn't get to write. We got several inches of snow and I lost my internet connection for a while...but I'm back!

Today to finish up our "all about me Unit," we looked at some self portraits online and are working on doing our own. They are all armed with a mirror and colored pencils. Aiden looked at himself in the mirror and said "Well, I can't do a picture of me looking like this. I've got bed head." So he started after he spent some time primping. It took several attempts but he is happy with his work at this point.

Maverick went straight to work using the "trace around my own head technique" It was funny to watch but he did a good job.

Griffin did a good job naming his colors as he picked them up to "draw" his "self portrait." We are going to practice writing our names, address, and phone number next. And put together our lapbook from the week.

Shane is working from home today because of the weather. His boss told him yesterday to work from home because of the chance of drifting snow. He is currently "hiding out" in our bedroom so he can get somethign accomplished. If he gets his stuff done early we will have some extra family time. YEAH!!

I have recently decided, due to certain events in my life, that I need to be done with facebook. I will not log off entirely because I am connected with some distant family and international friends through it. But I will not be on each day. It has become an unhealthy part of my life and I am doing my best to simplify. I also "unfriended" several people with the intention of simplifying further so that when I do check there is less to deal with. I sincerely hope that no one was hurt by doing this but it needed done.

OK, well, that's all folks.

Day Two!

What is it about the New Year that makes us want to make changes...small-big and all at once. I try to do so much it is destined to fail really. Well, anyway...so far so good. I worked out on the Wii Fit Plus again this morning and did my Bible devotion. All before the kids got up. Now 2 of the three are up and watching some PBS before we really start the day.

Another day in the "All About Me" unit. The boys did a great job with it yesterday. We are working on address and phone number. Yesterday we counted teeth and measured height and weight. We also counted fingers, toes, eyes, nose, and hair. We learned about estimation with our hairs and that God really does know exactly how many there are.

Last night was the Biggest Loser premiere. Some friends came over and we all watched it together and weighed in on the Wii (so we all know each others weights-YIKES! that is power!) I made little tracking cards and we are going to get together and watch and weigh in every Tuesday. So much fun!

Cherish crocheted me the cutest beret style hat and gave it to me last night. I absolutely love it! It is cute and warm and it shouldnt' give me "hat head" If you wanna see it and order one for yourself you can check it out at www.etsy.com/shop/NannyandCo. Also listed are some other styles of crocheted hats and some custom bean bags. I will be listing a diaper clutch/changing pad in the next day or so and beaded jewelry as soon as I get materials and get started. I'm starting with little girls bracelets for Valentine's Day!!! Mom (the Nanny in the group) is going to be sewing some really cute aprons as soon as she can get to it.

Well, gotta start the day!

I'm a slacker!

Well, only in blogging. Over Christmas, thought, someone mentioned that they had been keeping up with us until I stopped blogging so I thought I'd ring in the new year with an effort. That's all.

I need to go start school in a few minutes but I thought I would try to start today and do a little note now and then. Maybe no big posts but little notes.

Just before Christmas, I decided that our curriculum wasn't working well for us and I decided to stop using it. I really still like it and wish that it worked but it wasn't so over Christmas break I started working out a new plan. I am writing (with free help from the internet) unit studies for each week. In a few minutes we are starting our "All About Me" unit. This is from homeschoolshare.com and a Dr. Suess book that I had as a kid (and is still on my overloaded bookshelves).

We had a great Christmas with our family despite some unexpected sadness. It was wonderful to see everyone and to catch up. We were able to visit with family that we haven't seen in 9 years except for funerals. Shane's brothers had never met our boys and we all got together for Christmas. It was wonderful.

Well, it is time for school to start so I'll be back tomorrow. (I hope)

Soccer!!!

The Soccer Season is well underway and Aiden is loving every minute of it. He still really wants to be goalie I think but that still makes me cringe. At his age, they take turns being goalie and no one wins any games. They are just out there having a great time.

He loves playing on the team with his "best buddy" Nathan and he has a crush on a little girl on his team (who is also in his AWANA class).

Aiden gives us a "thumbs up" before the game starts!!

Pregame stretches! That is Aiden doing the splits! WOW!

Aiden and Nathan (his best buddy) waiting for their game to start.

Game time! Aiden is ready to go and the little girl in pig tails in front of him is Emily, his "girlfriend" although she doesn't know that cause he is too scared to talk to her! HA!!

*MY* School Project

This week part of our studies include the importance of learning history. We starting with discussion of how God gives us the history of the world right in the Bible. He lists geneologies and tells us how long people lived. He tells us of important Historical events. So we looked at a simplified Biblical Timeline (they are only 6 and 4 after all) and found Creation Week, Flood, Tower of Babel, Birth of Christ, Crucifixion, etc. Today we were supposed to learn how even we have a history. To learn this I had this "totally cool" idea. It was gonna be SO much fun and they were gonna love it. Why, oh why, do we set ourselves up for such failure!?!?!

I found and had printed photos of our family history and the plan was the put them in order and glue them on a big sheet of roll paper and label what was happening in each photo and the year (or date for birthdays and such) that it happened. OK, these were all pictures of them when they were little except for a few. The "Cessna Family TimeLine" turned out as cool as I thought it would but they would not listen, colored on it where they weren't "supposed" to, and got a little crazy with the glue a few times. It is done but I'm afraid I did most of the work. :( Maybe they still learned something.

Here are some pictures. It wouldn't all fit in one shot so it starts on the top left and then continues in the second picture...

On a positive note, Aiden started addition in math this morning and did VERY well, both Aiden and Maverick did a great job reading me a story this morning, and they are doing a good job practicing their AWANA verses. So all in all it was successful morning I suppose!!!

Another Day in the Life...

I've been waiting to post till I could get some pictures uploaded but due to internet nightmares that isn't going to happen just yet...

So we've had one birthday and are having another tomorrow. Maverick is officially 4 and Aiden turns 6 tomorrow. They are getting so big. They also started AWANA and just love it! And I love that they love it! We've gone 2 Wednesday nights so far at a different church than we attend on Sundays (because our church doesn't have AWANA). Maverick didn't even cry last night. He still cries every Sunday when he goes back to class at our church. I am SO glad he likes AWANA! Aiden is learning memory verses and doing so well. There is a little girl in his class that is also on the same soccer team as he is. After the first night, I asked if he talked to her and he said "No mom! I just looked at her face. It is soooo pretty!" I laughed and thought oh my, he has his first crush. At least he is too shy to talk to her. HA HA!!

School is going alright although today is not going well due to the fact that the boys apparently are on speed. They've had to actually stick their noses in the corner today. And I'm about ready to lose my mind. However, the last 3 days have been simply wonderful. They were good listeners, did their homework well, and were just a pleasure. I should have been more ready for the crashing of that dream world.

But today something that made me LOL happened at lunch. It has shown me that even when the day is not going as I had planned God still does send little rays of sunshine (and I'm not talking about the real sun since it has been raining ALL morning). If we keep ours eyes and ears open, God is there to continually teach me how much fun it is to be a child with childlike ideas.

We were eating lunch and I was dreaming about naptime when Aiden said "Mom we should turn our house into a restarant."
Me: "Really, why do you say that?"
Aiden; (very excited) "Because then I could work in a restaurant!!!!" After this statement he told me where people could sit and how it would all work.
Me: "What job would you have?"
Aiden: "I'll take the money and put it in the bucket."
Maverick: "I'll bring people the food."
Me: "Who will cook the food"
Aiden: You
Me: We need someone to do the dishes and fill the drinks
Maverick: I'll do the dishes
Aiden: I'll bring the food AND take the money. What will we eat?
Me: You won't be eating. You will be working. You want to work at the restaurant.
Aiden: When do I get my day off?

I absolutely cracked up!!! I was laughing SO HARD! All the boys started laughing and we all just laughed till I cried. I think we will have a restaurant for one night and have Nanny and Pappy be the customers. Aiden is working on a menu which he wants on a chalk board by the door and not on paper. I've tried to encourage him to narrow it down to make it easier on the cook...but we still need to do some more "fine tuning." Right now I think it will be a "burger joint" since we can have hamburgers, hot dogs, and cheeseburgers without much difficulty. Gonna try to get this to work by the middle to end of next week. I'll let you know how it all goes! I wonder if he will still worry about his day off when the "restaurant" is only open for one meal!!! lol

Well, I have lacked horribly in the "blog update" area of life. It just doesn't occur to me most of the time. But when I looked and it has been nearly 2 months I thought...Man that is SAD!!!

So I'll give a bullet point rundown of the last few months/weeks.

• We had VBS at Scott Avenue and it was great!!! I love VBS!!!
• Shane, Maverick, and Aiden were picking blackberries and Maverick got into a nest of hornets. Eight stings, 1 ER visit, and a dose of steriods later, he was fine.
• Griffin got a mild dog bite on his face. Mild only because the dog didn't break the skin. It goes from the corner of his eye to the corner of his lip. He saw the dr during normal business hours. On antibiotics for a week.
• Maverick fell and put two teeth COMPLETELY through his bottom lip. Another ER visit, and x-rays later he is fine again. On antibiotics for a week.
• Aiden got his first 2 "big" teeth. Unfortunately, they came in behind his baby teeth and the baby teeth did not get loose. One trip to a oral surgeon and laughing gas later, he has 2 less baby teeth and $2 from the tooth fairy. We are praying those adult teeth move forward like the dr. said they would.
• We started Kindergarten. We are on week 4 now I think...I've kinda lost track in my mind. We are doing well and learning a lot and having fun! I am glad we didn't do public school. The very first week Aiden would have missed 2 days for this whole dentist thing.
• Aiden started playing soccer. Shane is assistant coaching the team with our youth minister. The first practice was last week and Aiden did well despite not having shin guards (shame on mommy) which he said he desperately needed. We have practice tonight where we will also have shin guards!!!
• Our garage is finally coming together. We are getting the roof going this week. I'm "hoping" by the end of labor day weekend it will be all enclosed. There will still be a lot of work to do but it will be weather safe and it shouldn't blow over.

So that is the excitement of the last few weeks/months. It is never dull around here which is maybe my excuse for not posting a note as often as I should. I kinda wonder if anyone is still looking in on my lonely little blog here.

For the next few weeks, the boys and I are continuing to study the Tower of Babel Story found in Genesis. From this perspective, we have studied cities, architecture and building (great with the garage project), and now we are studying languages of the world and hearing. Phonics and math are going well also. Well, off to read play snakes and ladders with Maverick, read some story books to Griffin and get ready for rest time before reading another chapter in "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" to the big boys.