School is in Session

We are back at it this school year! Our first official day was last Monday, 08/22/16. I had the kids fill out these sheets, which were fun to read! Jase's favorite food to eat is nachos...with a diary allergy! Ha!

Can I tell you I love that her favorite shows are still Disney Junior shows!! Stay young at heart my little Ally! And she has only had sopapillas a couple of times and I don't even think she eats honey with it, but they must have made a big impression to be her favorite food!

And oh little Finn! His best friends are still his imaginary ones! It was the sweetest thing when he told me their names to write down! And y'all this is no joke on his favorite TV show...Pioneer Woman. He requests to watch it a couple of times per week! He loves to watch her cook and see what's happening on their ranch! And I love watching it with him!

Here is the crew, day-in and day-out!

This is what I walked upstairs to when we were about to get started. All 3 older kids were in costume and Maebry quickly picked up a free light saber and joined in the fun! Can you say "homeschool"? LOL!

I'm not pushing Finn to do any work at all, but he is so eager to learn and love his little workbooks. Even today he asked me to make him a craft to work on. I could not resist.

The girls!

Finn gave us a devotion on the first day of school!

In addition to homeschool, we are part of a Classical Conversations Community. We meet together one day each week and learn new grammar on 6 different subjects {which we use throughout the week at home to memorize}, give presentations, do a fun art project, have a science experiment or two, and have a grammar review time. It is the same program we participated in last year, but this year we are at a different campus.

And this year I signed up to tutor the younger group. I lead them for 2.5 hours and I really enjoy it. It is very fast-paced environment, but the kids are doing great!

Here is Jase this week reading a paper he wrote. Since he is in 4th grade this year, he has an additional 2 hour class after lunch to learn a wealth of knowledge about writing and grammar. We are only in week 2 and it has already been intense. And if I'm being completely honest I don't think I learned a fraction of what he is being exposed to. With that being said, I am learning right along with him!

Here is Ally giving her presentation this week. Another mom sent it to me since I am tutoring and am unable to be in her class. She was reciting Psalm 100 from memory.

Fresh picture from today. Allyson walked out of her room this morning and announced it was "Disney Day". Jase got all excited and went and changed shirts and got Finn dressed as well. Mae even picked out her favorite outfit these days! And I threw on a Mickey shirt too. Only thing is that little Finn thought we were going to Disney World when Shawn got home. After a minute or two of me explaining it was just a theme at home, he understood. But poor little guy, he was a little upset that we weren't actually going! Other than us having "Hot Dogs" {from Mickey Mouse clubhouse} for lunch, it was a normal homeschool day, which means it had some highs and lows. I'm thankful for God's grace and mercy and we are able to start each day anew.

Here are a couple of clips from today. The first one is Jase and one chart he has to memorize on Sentence Classification. Ally won't be needing it for a while, but since it has such a fun beat, she just about has it down.

We are in the Medieval period and this week we're learning about feudalism and how it got started. Finn has our history sentence down. This is only after introducing it yesterday in class and practicing it today. Super proud of him!

I started reading Because of Winn-Dixie last week and finished it today. I had a good cry fest last week while reading it to the kids. They all stared at me like a deer in the headlights. Ha! Well today, as the end of the book was coming to a close, we hit another climax and the water works came on again! This time Allyson joined me and we just could not stop! Super good book, but man we did some crying!

Locks of Love

For the past week or so Allyson has told us that she wanted a haircut. And to be completely honest, the tangles have been out of control lately. So being that I am last minute spontaneous, I called a hair salon Saturday afternoon and they could work us in 30 minutes later! Perfect! Before we left I took a picture of her hair. Now this is just brushed, and definitely not styled, so it does look a little rough. But it was super long.

 We walked in and she said "oooh, this is fancy!"

One last shot before the cutting begins! And it has been quite a while since her last haircut, nearly 2 1/2 years ago. {You can read all about that here and how it went down, because that is a story in itself!} We are not against haircuts, but she has never really wanted one, so we just let it grow. We will not wait that long next time! {I need to get one too, it's been over a year for me!}

This is what happens when I ask her to look at the camera!!

The hair dresser was super nice and was excited to have the opportunity to cut Ally's hair. She cut over a foot off her hair. We already have her hair packed up to be mailed off to Locks of Love. Allyson was very proud that her hair would help make a wig for another little girl to wear.

Before and after!

 And a pic later that day with sister!

This is today. She absolutely loves it! It is so light and airy and she can actually brush through it herself. WIN! Tonight when we washed it, we did not even use conditioner and it brushed through just fine.

Just keep swimming

This year we decided to do something a little different. We had a big birthday party for Finn and Ally. Finn's birthday is July 23rd and Ally's is September 1st, so we met in the middle on August 16th. Looking back, I think it worked out great! We rented out a pool in Denton, ordered pizza and the kids swam for 2 hours.

Since the party was for a boy and a girl, Star Wars or Shopkins didn't really work out. It didn't take long to agree upon a party theme since we had just watched Finding Dory at the movies not that long ago. What a FUN theme for the pool! I made these invites in Picasa {which I need to retire since it is no longer being supported, boo} and printed them at Costco on photo paper.

I ordered a cake from a friend of ours {Katrina Campbell} and it turned out super cute!! The inside was blue as well, everyone loved it! And my mom and I made some sweets {cupcakes, Finding Dory marshmallow treats} to add to the selection.

I think all of the pictures I am posting is all I took that evening. One cute thing I saw on Pinterest that I did was a bowl full of Goldfish {I bought the Finding Dory Goldfish at Target} and used a mesh fish scooper to get them out. I thought it was cute!

Here are a few of our friends that celebrated with us. It was so nice to have that big pool to ourselves. The big kids had racing competitions {thank you Olympics}, the little ones had a splash area and there were slides and obstacles as well.

Small clip of the Olympic Swimming Races.

Ok, I am a sucker for party favors. I honestly love putting them together and I think our little guests love going home with a small treasure. I found some fun Finding Dory items at Dollar Tree and Target {$1} and then made some little tags and taped them on with themed tape {thank you again Dollar Tree!}. I also made the toppers for the cupcakes. I used bright colored plastic straws as the sticks and it worked out great and the colors were a match too.

I spoke to the kids about having so much and they agreed. We are so blessed. So while I was making the invitations I asked them about presents and what they thought about asking our guests to bring school supplies instead of a present, and we could donate those items to kids who really needed them! Finn and Ally agreed, so we included this card below in each invite.

Our guests brought TONS and TONS of school supplies. It blessed my heart so much. While sorting through the supplies, I took a small inventory of a few items:

Boxes of Crayons: 27

Glue {bottles & sticks}: 56

Spirals: 68

Scissors: 15

Pencils: 316

Packs of Map Pencils: 14

And that is only a portion of what was donated. We had boxes of tissue, binders, packs of paper, antibacterial wipes, etc. Here is the back of my Suburban after sorting it all. Everything was to be donated, except the blue cart folded up in the bottom right-hand corner.

Yesterday we drove into Denton and donated all of the school supplies. Vision Ministries was very thankful for the donation and we hope it blesses other families.

Deer Park Fun

The days are happening so fast these days, it is hard to keep up with the blog. I love doing it, but finding the time is the issue. Anyhow, we took a trip down to Deer Park earlier this month and visited family and a couple of friends.  

We stayed at Shawn's parents' house and the kids thoroughly enjoyed it. Plenty of toys {and grandparents} to play with. And Hank LOVED the backyard; he was reliving his youth in all of the plants and shrubs.

We also met up with the Marquez Family. It was great to see them and catch up! All of the kiddos loved playing together and they are all getting so big! {Side note: I had to borrow Rachel's IG pic, because I didn't take one. And I just found out tonight that my photo editing software I have used for several years now is no longer being supported. #tear Importing photos has been a pain the last 5 months and now I know why. And I cannot even crop this image in the software. Technology. I think I can do more on my iPhone these days than my PC. Ok, rant is over!}

We continue to follow the Astros pretty close, even from the Dallas area. So, when in Houston we had to watch a game! The kids enjoyed it too, but they were bummed that the Minute Maid Squeeze Play area was shut down due to a waiting on a part. Safety first! The kids ate pizza, nachos and ice cream! Standard ops every time.

Maw-Maw and Aunt Carole Ann drove in from Louisiana, so it was great to spend some time with them. We played Farkle a few times, shared many laughs, ate some Italian food...it was a great day!

Kids Praise Choir Camp

The last week of July the kids participated in a choir camp at church. It was Mon-Fri from 9 am to noon, so I decided to go ahead and volunteer all week and we would all be together. Since I was helping out, Finn was able to be in the preschool choir camp, so that was fun. 

The kids had a blast doing crafts and games all week and don't forget about snacks! The snacks were top notch and very involved. I was actually a helper with the snack crew and it was fun to work alongside other ladies and see the kiddos during snack time. 

Friday evening the kids performed for us on stage. They worked so hard all week long and you could tell, it was great!! Super proud of them! 

Here is a clip of Finn performing on of his songs. He is probably one of the youngest up there and he did so so good!! Super proud of you getting up there and singing for Jesus!

Jase and Ally did great singing for the Lord too! You can find Ally front and center on this song; she had a dancing role. And Jase is on the back row.

"Lord, help me, we need you" - great words to this song!