Our First 9 Weeks of School

Our first 9 weeks of school this year have FLOWN by! What a busy couple of months it has been.

We started a new curriculum this year: Tapestry of Grace Year 1. The jury is still out on whether it works for us or not. Personally, I like it. I'm just not too sure how much the boys are retaining from it, maybe I need to simplify it a bit. Or maybe we're just all a little burnt out and ready to take our fall break next week. :)

For history, we have studied the Ancient Egyptians and the Exodus, including the Tabernacle and the High Holy Days.  We had a big project, where we made a model tabernacle. This was a great *free* hands-on project I found online.

Last month was Sean's birthday, so we went out to the Renaissance Festival to celebrate. It was perfect fall weather for it!!

Elizabeth got her first pony ride!! She loved it!! A real cowgirl!

 Then we came home and had a triple chocolate cake that that girls and I made for Sean.

Oh yes, and Elizabeth started school this year too! She loves school!! She is working on learning her letter sounds, writing and cutting.  We do her school up in her room, which keeps Abby happy playing with all the toys. Sometimes Abby will stop playing for a moment to come over and sing songs with us.

 

 As I mentioned above, we are taking our fall break soon. All of us are looking forward to some down-time. We were supposed to spend our fall break taking a few days going to a few local National parks including Washington DC. Unfortunately for us the government has decided to shut down all of that so, unless things change, our plans are still up in the air. I'm sure we'll find something to do. :)

Summer, almost over?!

Wow! Where did the summer go?! It has been a very busy, yet very good summer for us! Last time I posted, our school year was coming to an end, now our school year is getting ready to begin again. In between this time, we have visited with old friends; my sister has moved close(er); and we have had one activity after another.

Best news first, both of our boys made a decision to get baptized! We are so proud of them!!

On July 4th, we enjoyed time spent with my sister and her husband. We had a BBQ and enjoyed some impromtu fireworks. Surprisingly, our neighbors put on a pretty good show, too. :)

At the end of July, we were very busy with Missions Conference and Vacation Bible School at church. It was a great time of Christian fellowship, and making new friends.

In August, we took a trip down to Virginia to visit with my sister and her husband. There was an agricultural fair with rides and plenty of animals to see and pet!

A busy summer, now is starting to come to a close. We hope to begin school this week is Mom can get the lead out and stop stalling. HAHA!

Spring Fever!!

Yep! Spring fever is going on full force in our household! We are counting the days until school is out. Believe it or not, we only have about 2 more weeks of school work left, then we are all done. YAY!

I have been busy getting all of our curriculum in order for next year. It's always exciting. I love reading through the new books. I always learn something new. Next year we will be beginning our history cycle over again; meaning, we are going back to the time of Creation and ending at the time of Christ. The "history cycle" just means that we cover a period of history chronologically. So, for instance, this year we studied from the Civil War to modern times; next year is Ancient History; the year after next we will be in the Middle ages; the next year Early American History again, and so on - a big cycle. Last time we studied Ancient History, the boys were only in 4th and 2nd grade. This next year we will be able to get into so much more - I'm excited!!

Last week we took an impromptu trip to the National Marine Corps Museum in Quantico. Daddy had to go down for a retirement ceremony so we thought, why not make it a field trip!! This was a great opportunity since we were right in the middle of reading about a lot of the wars featured at the museum: The World Wars, Korea, Vietnam.

This museum is highly interactive so even the little ones had a great time!! 

Here's Ryan and Elizabeth in the "boot camp experience"

Elizabeth's face!!Haha! She was trying to lift up the pack.

Sean didnt want his pictures taken, but I snuck this one in while he was practicing his pull ups. ;o)

This was a really neat exhibit. The boys and Elizabeth really enjoyed it. You were inside a tent (I think this was in the Spanish American War area) and the light shadows made it appear like there was a real patrol and someone tending the fire. Pretty neat!!

Elizabeth was so excited about going over to the "Pirates" area. haha! Here they had a stop to dress up like a revolutionary era Marine.  They got to go fishing, tie knots and read about interesting facts. This was one of the new play areas the museum has added since we visited last (about 5 years ago).

They had plenty of stops to dress up and pose for pictures.

The Korean war exhibit was a favorite though. We even went back a second time after we finished the museum. I love this picture of Sean - absorbing it all in.

We pretty much had the museum to ourselves. There was another school group there but we managed to stay away from them most of the time, so the boys got a few times to really enjoy and "interact" in the features.

Daddy caught up with us about half way through. 

The final area was tribute to 9/11. It's not a good picture, but if you look right next to Ryan, the big rusted metal beam is a section from the Twin Towers. There was also a section of the Pentagon there too (not pictured). 

Catch up!

Wow! Well it's been a long time since I've added anything to the blog. A lot has happened since January. One of the 'biggest' things is that we have a new member of the family!!!

Her name is Ginger, she's furry and she walks on 4 legs!! ;) She loves to sneak kisses, but never on your face. We adopted her from a great rescue that matched her personality to our needs. We just love her!!

She came to us with a pretty bad skin condition and not knowing how to walk on a leash or any commands. At first they thought her skin condition was allergies but come to find out she was infested with mange. Now, about 6 weeks later, her skin problems are mostly resolved; her fur is starting to fill out and grow in. AND she knows sit, stay, kennel, down and we're working on a few other things. She is starting to walk better on a leash. At least she knows not to walk on the opposite side of a pole than I am... haha!

This kids are all doing great. We are on Easter break right now and after that we'll be working on finishing up our school year! We hope to be done by the middle of May (yay!!).

Snowy Thursday!

We woke up this morning to a nice surprise!

SNOW!!

As soon as Elizabeth woke up and saw the white stuff, she wanted to go out and play in it.


Since daddy had a 2hr delay to go into work, I got her dressed real quick and took her out! :)

Christmas and Birthdays!!

I'm so far behind in posting on here but so this is just going to be a mass of pictures covering Ryan's birthday, Christmas and Elizabeth's Birthday! Enjoy!!

Ryan's 10th Birthday: 

We took him to the zoo and then home for cake and pressies!!

Christmas Program at church:

Decorating cookies and family time:

Christmas morning:

Elizabeth's 4th Birthday: