At Home

While I do post a lot of pics of us out and about, we are at home quite a bit too. There are several days where my car does not leave the driveway. Here is a glimpse while at home over this past week.

This girly is so strong willed. She has been picking out her shoes months before turning 2 years old. She now picks out her outfits and doesn't usually budge on it! One day last week she picked out her Cinderella dress to wear. She is going to be a handful...oh wait, she already is!

Mr. Geography! He loves to look at maps and study them. Just like his Daddy.

Ally working on fractions and quoting an English Grammar song.

Finn loves his Hankie. Hank will be 14 this summer and has literally become a couch potato! He spends probably 22-23 hours on the couch these days.

When someone is in the bath, Mae wants to join them. Luckily Finn allowed her to get in this weekend, as he normally likes to bathe alone. Today she took 3 baths, not even kidding. She does squeal at the beginning; you've been warned.

Here is Ally working on the hundreds place value today. Math is day to day for her. Focus is definitely the key for her and patience is the key for me.

We have enjoyed this home for the past two and a half years. I look back and still can't believe we've been here this long. The plan is to close on both homes (new and old) this Friday and move-in and start demo on our new home next week! Busy and crazy days ahead, but we are super excited about what is in store. God is good.

Minnie Mouse Party

You know I am a sucker for a fun party!! Well, we attended one this past weekend so I thought I would share a few pics. It was a super cute Minnie Mouse party, so Maebry and Ally loved it of course! And me too!

A little photo booth fun!

The kids had fun with the piñata out back. Once the kids choked up on the broom handle all was well, but there initially we feared for our lives! Ha! Looks like Jase still has his baseball swing in tact, even though he will be sitting out this season; he opted to play flag football.

Me and the blondies!! What a fun evening playing with the kids, visiting with sweet friends and meeting some new ones.

Weekend Wrap-up

We had a productive weekend. It was a good balance between work and play.

Friday, the kids and I drove into Denton and we rode the train into Dallas with our Classical Conversations group. The ride wasn't bad at all and it was nice to be on there with friends. It took a solid hour and a half on the train. I made sure I did not have a lot of water prior to our ride!

Here are some of the older kids while waiting to connect to the Dallas train. Not sure what Ally was doing!!

When we arrived in downtown Dallas it was too early to get into the Dallas Museum of Arts (DMA), so we walked over to Klyde Warren Park for a few minutes.

We walked back to the DMA and went to the hands-on section (C-3 Space) where the kids got to create their own art. Jase is tracing some Dallas architecture.

Maebry is practicing her Old English!

Allyson has started becoming interested in learning cursive lately. She can write her own name, but that's about it. We will start working on it more this spring. 

Ally's drawing of the dress on display.

Another one of Jase's creations.

Kids making objects out of cardboard, tape, twist ties, popsicle sticks and their imagination!

Allyson and Mae with Nina.

He was focused!

Allyson has told us on numerous occasions that she wants to be an artist when she grows up. Her mind works completely different then mind. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for her.

Her creations: basket and something with wings! I forgot what that was, but I did remember it had wings!

Our group with our director, Mrs. Frankie!

 Mae and Moana! Yes, Moana went everywhere with us on Friday!!

Checking out some of the ancient instruments.

Water Lilies by Claude Monet. A few weeks ago we studies Monet and the kids did replica of this painting, so it was super cool to see it on display.

Here is Finn working on his Water Lilies painting in January!

The artists we have been studying this 6 six weeks have been Impressionists!

The girls wanted their picture taken under this cool painting by Henri Jean Guillaume Martin, "Corner of a House" circa 1930s. 

Just like big sis!

After the DMA, we headed back over to Klyde Warren Park for lunch. Most of us pitched in and order pizza from a local pizza parlor. 

When Shawn found out where we would be all day, he told me about an office close by that has a cool pendulum inside and that we should check it out. Lo and behold it was literally across the street!

We gathered around and watched the bob swing back and forth and back and forth.

This was right next to the pendulum and is a great explanation of how it all works! Pretty interesting!

After about 15-20 minutes, one of the pegs finally got knocked over! And the crowd went wild! I'm sure the people working in the lobby were ready for us to go! HA!

We walked back to the train station to head home.

She really did a great job all day long. I didn't bring the stroller, so she walked most of the day, but she didn't last very long once we got situated on the train! Do you see Moana creeping in our picture? LOL!

Saturday morning we woke up, loaded up our vehicles and trailer and headed to the storage for our first drop-off.

Putting the first few items in the storage building.

We came home and walked across the street to a birthday party. Our sweet neighbor turned 1! We have had the privilege to watch Cale a couple of times recently and the kids just love him. Cute sports theme party!

 Cale digging in!

Ally had to get a closer look!

Ahhh!! He had it everywhere! SO cute! Even today Maebry told me "Cale blue nose" meaning he had it up his nose! I remember these days! It sure does fly by!

Later that evening, we dropped the kids off at church for DATE NIGHT! We didn't do anything too crazy or fancy, but it was nice being together. We ran some errands, ate at Chuy's and might have had a scoop of ice cream!

Sunday morning Shawn ran another load over to the storage before church, making that our 3rd trip this weekend. Progress! Here are our excited kids when Mama asked for a group photo at church. Little Finn was NOT having it.

At lunch Ally told us all about Jesus' family tree, which she learned about in Sunday school. Here is a little clip of her! Pretty impressive!

We ate at McAlister's Deli. If you are reading this and have kids, do you know about this place?!? $.99 kid meals when you dine-in. Our whole family can eat for under $20, which is amazing. We usually all get water, which keeps the bill low too. There is one right by our new house, super excited about that.

And let me leave you with a family picture that Allyson drew today in Sunday school. I guess since they were talking about Jesus' family tree, they encouraged them to draw their own. See her name in cursive, love it! Shawn asked her what was going on with his mouth and she told him that was his teeth!! Hilarious. And his hair too, so funny. She told Finn "I gave you a mohawk!" Great weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day

What a fun-filled day we had today. Our Valentine's fun did not start today though, let me back up to this past weekend and show you what all we did.

I sat down with the kids at the computer a week ago and asked them what type of Valentine's they wanted to give their friends at our homeschool group. I showed them a few options and also told them we could buy them at the store too. They all opted to make Valentine's to give our friends and then we brainstormed ideas and finalized plans.

First, we started on Finn's. Shawn's parents were in town, so Shawn's mom was a big help and we had  an assembly line going. The conversation hearts I bought were a big let down. The quality of the printing was terrible on them and half of the sayings I did not care for at all. After about 20 hearts I decided to just turn them around and "glue" them onto the bears with the blank side showing. Before starting I knew that my surface are was super small on the bears and hearts, so using a spoon was a no go. I happened to think of using this syringe and it worked perfectly. I simply heated up white almond bark and glued the hearts on the bears. It was pretty simple and straightforward.

Now this was the tough part: getting Finn to sign all 24 of them! He was a trooper and I ended up paying him with m&ms. Hey, a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do! He did well over half of them and I chalked it up as a win! Here's Mae helping herself too!

I like you BEARY much! I added some m&ms and mini marshmallows as filler and they turned out cute.

A few rounds of Tenzi were played while making Valentines!

Next, we worked on Jase's Valentine's. I thought these turned out cute! A {square} Stacker Mallow, two graham cracker squares and a mini Hersey's chocolate bar.

I saw someone on IG with these glasses and they mentioned they got them from Walmart, so when I went there to buy our supplies for the Valentine's, I scoped it out and found them. These glasses came in a 4 pack for $0.98, so pretty cheap. I bought a few packs and when I came home I tied up the loose ends on what the tie-in would be for the Valentine's: I only have EYES for you!

I was waiting on part of our supplies for Ally's to come in the mail, so when they did on Sunday, we knocked them out.

Valentine, you're the BOMB, I mean BALM! She loved them!!

Of course I had all the scrapbook paper and washing tape. #hoarder

We also made some fun treats for our party.  Strawberry creme wafer dipped in almond bark.

Homemade snack mix drizzled with almond bark. {are you catching onto my almond bark theme? I mean, you can't go wrong!} In this mix I have: Corn Chex Cereal, Chocolate Chex Cereal, Honey Nut Cheerios, Pretzel Sticks {broke in half}, and m&ms. There was no precise measuring going on. I tried to use equal amounts of all the cereal I had {maybe 2 cups each}. I had very little pretzels and I might have used half to a whole bag of m&ms. I mixed all of these dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and heated up {maybe} 6 squares of almond bark in the microwave. Once melted, I poured it into the bowl and mixed it all up. After it was all coated, I poured it out onto foil, sprinkled some fun red sugar sprinkles and let it set/dry. {I was out of wax paper and parchment paper, so this was the next best thing and it did not stick at all, so yay!} Once dry I broke up the mix in pieces in various sizes. This filled up my largest round Rubbermaid container that I own. It is pretty tasty; that sweet and salty combo does not disappoint.

So, I was in charge of Valentine's Day party. Does that surprise you!? Ha! Our director said to keep it pretty low key, no big activities, just food and fellowship. Instead of big group activities, I decided to print up some Valentine's Day related sheets {on half pieces of paper}: word search, coloring pages, mad libs {great for our middle school kids learning all about English grammar}.

And I knew I wanted a Bible verse visible, but I wasn't exactly sure how I would do that. Then over the weekend it hit me to simply write it on the table cloths. I looked up verses that dealt with LOVE and wrote them on there with a Marks-A-Lot marker.

I really like how it turned out. Simple, but profound.

We had pizza delivered and we all pitched in and brought goodies and drinks. It really was a fun time and the kids LOVED it! Can you tell what Valentine's of ours was a big hit?? Mae's glasses were a favorite for sure!

Ha! This is the only picture I took of her and of course she would be licking her lips and not looking. She did look super cute today!

Another funny one!! I snapped this right after Allyson tried to put chapstick {BALM} on Finn!! He did not want "Girl lipstick" on him! They were sitting down, going through their Valentine's!

The plan was to give some of our neighborhood friends a Valentine that we had made from this weekend, but somehow we ran out at our party. #badmath #sorrykids No need to worry, we had plenty of Almond Bark Snack Mix left, so we {I} decided to make up some Cupid Crunch bags for our friends! Thankful for a printer with ink!

I'm only showing you this selfie I took today because I thought my leggings were super fun! I bought them last month at a "party". They are LuLaRoe leggings. I heard about them last year from a friend who started selling them, but I am just getting around to jumping on the bandwagon! I own 2 pair and they are super comfy. Definitely a win in the legging department.

Look how fun!

Still with me? Yes, I know, long post. Well, it was a busy and long day! But a good one! Daddy and the girls went to a Daddy/Daughter Sock Hop Dance tonight. This was organized by her AHG troop. We do not own a poodle skirt and with our tight schedule, I really did not have time to make one, nor did I want to buy one for this one event. So, we improvised and it worked out perfect!

Look at this girl!! Do they come any cuter!? She is so full of life; I love her to bits! Can you tell that she was looking forward to this night with her Daddy?

Daddy and his girls. Mae did put her shoes and bow on before the dance! This little girl is a pistol when trying to talk her into wearing something she did not pick out. She has been doing this for quite some time now. You literally have to make her think the outfit is her idea. Crazy!

Here is Maebry looking on as Allyson participates in the limbo.

Watch a short clip of Ally doing the limbo! She loved it!

While the girls were with Daddy, Jase started asking me about my favorite restaurant and where I liked to eat! I knew where this was going. Then he told me that he wanted to buy me dinner! He said that Dad gave him the idea along with $20! So sweet. We decided on Rosa's Cafe, a fast-food Mexican restaurant, but it is yummy! Our meal ended up costing over $20, so Jase used the his own money to pay the balance. {He doesn't know, but I put that money back in his wallet tonight.} I caught the tail end of him paying for dinner tonight.

Did you catch what he said at the beginning? "Keep the change!" What a good guy he is. I'm sure he has heard his daddy say that on occasion. What is funny is that the change was $0.02. It was perfect though, he was so sure of himself and confident. Makes me think of Proverbs 22:6: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." I think this verse can be applied in several ways, with the main one being the Christian faith, but I think manners, kindness, etc can easily be inferred.

Oh Finn, he has a love for Mario Kart 8 on the Wii! And he is getting pretty good too. I'm surprised at how well he can maneuver the remote at 4 years old! Here is a clip from this past month of him beating Jase!

Here is another 1 minute clip of Finn telling me all about the new Raccoon Suit for Mario tonight! He can go on and on about it and in this video I let him! I wish I could bottle up this 4 year old!

What a fun day with my crew today! I'm so thankful for them and the LOVE that we share.