OMG! A month - really???

A whole month has gone by without me updating! Shame on me. I really was trying to be better too. I hope everyone has not given up on me. I guess I should send out another email and let everyone know that I have not forgotten about my blog. I do have an excuse though - a lame one, BUT an excuse no less. LOL My computer crashed and I have been using a laptop that Brendon's Mom gave us. I am very grateful that I at least HAVE a computer (and that I don't have to go out right away and spend hundreds of dollars on a new one! - thank you Dea Jae) but it really stinks typing on a laptop keyboard. So I finally hooked up my regular keyboard to the laptop and - WAH-LA! - now I am posting! :)
So I guess a lot has happened in the past month. Brenna is still in karate and she is doing GREAT! I am so proud of her. She goes twice a week - sometimes three, depending on if she has Girl Scouts that week (Girl Scouts is three weeks out of the month). She loves it and really looks forward to going. Girl Scouts is going pretty good too. Being a Daisy scout is pretty boring though. I didn't start until 2nd grade so I was already a Brownie. Maybe her leader has something to do with that though?? Ok, I will NOT be ugly. Brendon met her the last meeting and totally understands what I have been telling him (read my last post if you haven't and you will understand).
Anyway, homeschooling is going great too. On out last Report Day for the Homeschool Group Brenna finally did a presentation on her tadpoles and it was a big hit. We brought about 5 tadpoles and also the four frogs that we had. All of our tadpoles that we have now came from that same egg sack but they are all different - it's really kinda weird. I guess it is kinda like 'survival of the fittest'. Maybe some get more food than others, I have no idea. At the present moment we have 8 frogs, about 4 in the tadpole tank that will be ready in the next couple days and many others that don't even have legs yet. We still have a plethora (oooo! good word to teach Brenna!!) of tadpoles and now I am at the point that I can not wait to get rid of them ALL! How long have we been doing this?? TOO LONG! I will have to look back on my blog and see when we started. I feel sorry for my next child because I don't think I will ever have tadpoles again. LOL!!
So I am not posting pictures this time because (getting back to my computer crashing) I don't have any on the current computer that I am using. I can download them onto my Mom's computer so I will have to do that next time and post pictures very soon.
As for the updating, I will try harder to update more often. Thanks for dealing with my 'sporadicness' (omg, is that even a word??? ).

Girl Scout Camp

So I must start off by saying that Brenna had a GREAT time at camp! I tell myself that's all that matters. Yes, by my tone you can see that I did NOT have a great time. LOL I am just being honest. (Ooooo! Some drama on the blog!! Finally! LOL!!)
First of all, Brenna and I are the only ones from the troop that went - besides her troop leader and her daughter. I really thought that more girls were going to go. I was stuck all day with a person that has absolutely no personality. Brenna's leader, I found out this weekend, is really not much of a 'kid person' (or much of a 'people person' either LOL). Why is she a troop leader, you ask? I have no idea!
So Brenna and I got there and there were lots of girls and their leaders/parents. It was an over-night thing so everyone was setting up their tents. We were told that the Daisy's (Kinder-1st) were NOT allowed to stay the night. After we got there we found out that they COULD stay the night after all. Her leader was pretty ticked (so was I) that we were not told before hand that they could. I would have LOVED to camp out with Brenna (we are campers so it would have been great!) BUT we did not have our stuff to do it and I am not a very good "last minute" person. So I dealt with the fact that we would just be there for the day and thought we would both have a wonderful time. Getting back to the fact that Brenna's leader is a 'crumb bum' ( a great word I picked up from my mother-in-law!) - for the first couple hours we just SAT THERE and she had no interest in socializing with other people. Why did I just sit there with her? Good question. I guess I just kept waiting for her to take some initiative (she IS the troop leader for goodness sakes!) but it never happened. I have never sat with someone in silence for so long as I did with her. It got to the point where it was uncomfortable conversation..."So what does your husband do?", "How old is your son again?"...blah, blah, blah.... I was trying to come up with anything that I could!! She would answer my question and that was that. The girls were playing real nice together though and Brenna wandered off and met quite a few new girls (my social little butterfly!).
Finally they started the 'organized events' (two hours later!) and split all the girls up into four different groups to do crafts. It really was fun and Brenna got to make some little wooden instruments, a cool little bird hat and some other things. Most of the time though I sat and listened to leaders, as well as Brenna's leader, get after the girls for doing this and that - seemed like boot camp!! Not the fun Girl Scout camp that I remembered as a kid. By this time I had quite a headache. After the craft things they had lunch and again, we sat by ourselves in our little spot and the two girls ate lunch with each other and I had to suffer through absolutely no conversation from Brenna's leader, AGAIN. After lunch all the girls played with all the toys they had (hoola hoops, baseball stuff, frisbies, horse shoes, ect...) By this time I was fed up with just sitting there, so I played with Brenna and the troop leaders' daughter. We threw frisbies, played sack races and kicked a soccer ball around. After a little while we had gathered quite a nice little group of girls and we were having so much fun! All the while Brenna's troop leader was just sitting there. I don't think that girl smiled so much as one time while we were there.
Brenna and I stayed until about 6:30 (we got there at 9:30am). I was going to wait until after we ate dinner but things were not going as planned and dinner was still a little ways off. Brenna was starting to get a little grumpy and I was so ready to go home. We had both been up at 6am that morning. It was about a 30 minute drive home so I figured it was a good time to leave.
I guess next time we have anything like that I will be prepared a little more and reliaze that Brenna's troop leader is NOT going to do much. Hopefully we will have more girls and more Moms go and have a little more fun.
After coming home and telling Brendon all about it, he is so for me starting my own Girl Scout troop. Maybe Brenna's leader will realize that she is not cut out for all this and then I will volunteer to take over. I think it would be a lot of fun. My Mom was my scout leader the whole time I was in scouts and we had such a great time!!
I guess we'll see what happens.
(BTW - no pics cuz my batteries were dead. UGH!)

New Poll

I have a new poll on the right. Don't worry - I can't tell who votes what, so pick what you want. :) I tried coming up with answers that everyone could pick from.
Thanks!

Karate!! (and a note from Miss Brenna)

Brenna did her first karate class last night! She said months ago that she wanted to try it but then changed her mind when I finally told her that we would go. I never could get it out of her as to why she didn't want to until a few nights ago. Poor thing was afraid that she was really going to have to fight people and get beat up! I explained to her that karate class is where you learn and that you really don't fight people. Her eyes lit up and she became very excited about it again and decided that she would do it.
She did great yesterday and really tried her best. A bigger kid even came up to her and said that she was doing good and even better than HE did on his first day. I thought that was real sweet. Her instructor is awesome and really made Brenna feel very comfortable. There were a couple times when she got a little nervous and was scared to try something but he was very good at recognizing that and helped her through it. He gave her a lot of praise and really built up her confidence. I think the discipline is going to be really good for her too. He is strict and does not allow any talking during stretching and any goofing around. Brenna asked him for a break and a drink of water after they finished doing the warm ups. She said that her throat was hurting and he told her that her and her throat will toughen up and then walked away. LOL! (He did give them a break about 15 minutes later.)
I will try to remember to take my camera next time so that I can post some pictures.

Tomorrow we have Girl Scout camp to go to. The older girls get to spend the night but since Brenna is a Daisy Scout we will just be there for the day. I'll post about that this weekend.

So Brenna is sitting right here and asked me what I was doing and after I told her she said that she wanted to write some things. So she will dictate while I type....

Hi! So I really love to do karate. If you have a child why don't you get them in karate. If your child likes karate bring them over to one of the karate classes. Hey and guess what? I know how to read and my Mom taught me! I really like that my Mom is my teacher because she's the best Mom ever and I like spending time with her. Mom and I love to play together because we are family.
I have lots of friends too. One of them is Rhiannon, she is going to be 4 soon. And I have a lot of friends in Girl Scouts. So if you have any girls maybe you should get them into Girl Scouts. I have some friends in karate too. Hi-YA! I love karate!
And I go to a place called the Homeschool Group where all the homeschoolers go. There are lots and lots of kids that are homeschooled. We did a homeschool class too with the other kids and we learned about Indians but now it's over but we're going to do it again. And one more thing about the homeschooling thing. Next Report Day I'm going to do a report on my tadpoles.
Well that's all for now. Hopefully my Mom will let me write again soon. Bye!
Love,
Brenna

Trip to the Firestation

Today we took a field trip with the homeschool group to one of the fire stations. It was so much fun and the kids had a great time! The firemen were wonderful and really showed them a lot of things and it was very 'hands-on'. I have posted quite a few pictures. Brenna got such a kick out of sitting up in the front seat of the truck as well as getting to spray the fire hose. In one picture she was the volunteer to show everyone how to 'get low and get out' when there is a fire. She also demonstrated the stop, drop and roll. I think Brenna and I might make some cookies and take them to the fire station this week as a 'thank you'.
Hope everyone remembered to change the batteries in their smoke alarms with the time change!

Real Life Lessons

Ok, so I guess I didn't go TOO long without posting. LOL I am trying to get on here more often and update. By the way - I have a poll on the right side of my blog if you want to vote real quick. Just something fun I thought I would do. I will change it up and have different things every so often, so make sure to look for it.

So things have been going pretty good. Report Day this past Wednesday was wonderful. Like I said in my last post, we had our local weatherman come and talk to the kids and it was very interesting. He was great with them and made it rather interesting (even to the parents!). He talked with all the kids for about 20 minutes and then the little ones went outside to play while he went into more detail with the older kids. At one point he asked the kids how far away the sun was from the Earth and everyone was shouting out all these numbers. All of a sudden I hear my little Brenna's voice, "One hundred million miles!!!" He looked at Brenna with a huge smile and said, "You are very close!" (the sun is actually 93 million miles away). She just beamed and I was so proud of her (ok, so maybe it was a total fluke that she got it pretty much right BUT we have read this book about space quite a few times so maybe she remembered?? who knows.....) Anyway, Brenna and the kids from her co-op class also got up and did a little song, "Ten Little Indians", with their headdresses and necklaces that they made. It was adorable. Brendon came and was able to see her do it and met some of the families. He said he was pretty impressed by the number of people there. I guess he pictured it as somewhat small. I think we have about 80 people (kids and Moms) in our homeschool group. I have made friends with quite a few of them but have really 'clicked' with one. We sit together at all the get togethers and today we met at the park with the kids (she has 3 kids - 8, 6 and 1). Brenna and her kids get along so good! I finally took my camera to Report Day so I have few pictures....

This Wedneday we are taking a field trip with the homeschool group to the firestation. When I worked at St. Alban's I went with the 4 year old class and had a GREAT time so I am looking forward to it. I think Brenna will have a good time. I'll post some pictures of it next time I get on here.

So as most of you know, I am my Grandpa's caretaker and work for a home health care agency. Brenna and I go to my Grandparent's house Monday through Friday for a few hours a day. About once a month a nurse from the agency comes to the house and updates Grandpa's records and makes sure that he is doing okay. The nurse that comes, Dan, is so nice and just wonderful with Brenna. Every time he comes Brenna gets her doctor stuff that my Grandma bought her and 'helps' Dan with Grandpa. So Dan came to the house today and Brenna was ready with all of her things. She pulls her little wooden chair right next to his and is so serious and listens to everything he says (I swear that she is going to grow up to become a doctor!). I really wish that I would have had my camera today. She helped Dan listen to Grandpa's chest, gave him a pretend shot and took his temperature. Dan even let Brenna check his blood sugar! He pricked his finger and she put the test strip up to the blood and held it there until it read it. She stood there so serious looking waiting until the results came up and told Dan what his blood sugar was. Whenever he talks to us about Grandpa she just sits there and really listens and pays attention to everything. I told Grandma today that THIS is the stuff that I love about homeschooling - the real life things. If she would be going to school everyday then she wouldn't be there for things like that. I just think it is awesome for my daughter to learn that way and to be so involved in things like that. I have read so much about how great it is for children to go to nursing homes and to spend time with people who need to be 'taken care of'. It teaches them empathy and caring. I really try to involve Brenna in things when I go over there. I fix my Grandpa's lunch everyday and she is in charge is taking Papa his insulin shot and his drink. It is minor things but it teaches her responsibilty and for helping and caring for somebody else. I really am so grateful that she gets to spend so much time with her Great Grandparents. And my Grandma spoils that heck out of her so she loves it too! LOL :)

Anyway, Brenna and I have been having a lot of fun with school too. Right now we are working on telling time. She is doing so great with it. We are just concentrating on the hours and half hours. She has pretty much mastered that so soon we will be starting on the quarters (4:15, 5:45, ect...). We have also been learning about putting things in alphabetical order. Today we went around the house and she made a list of things and then we sat at the table and put our list in alphabetical order. We talked about when you would use that (like doctors filing charts, the phone book, dictionary, ect...) and how important it is. She got a 'real life' lesson today (I LOVE those!!!) when Dan (Grandpa's nurse) was looking up a medication in his book. I asked her how she thought he would find it quickly and she said because they were all in alphabetical order. What a proud Mom I was! :)

I was talking to my friend, Michelle, today at the park (the Mom from my homeschool group) and she told me that the most thing that she loved about homeschooling was being the one to teach her kids things and seeing them retain that information and actually USE it. It really is the most rewarding thing in the whole world.

WARNING: Long Blog Ahead! (and lots of pictures)

So I guess I have not been as good at this blog thing as I had hoped when I started it. What did I say once.... that I would post a couple times a week??? HA! My apologies. I have been informed by my Mother though that I need to post more often. LOL :) I really am so busy that I don't have much time to sit at the computer and write. I am lucky if I get to check my email on a daily basis. My poor Grandma Carol too - I used to write to her almost everyday and now she is lucky to get an email from me once a month. Sorry Grandma!! I love you!

Anyway, I finally have time tonight to sit and write - and I better warn you, I have A LOT to write about!! So grab your tea or coffee or wine (depending on the time of day I guess) or whatever and be prepared to be here a while. LOL :)

I guess I will start with the Homeschool Co-op that we have been doing for the past month. Today was actually our last co-op day (for now). We have been going every Friday for the past four weeks. Brenna had a wonderful time and really enjoyed everything that we did. I ended up helping in Brenna's class (Kinder-1st) and all the things that they did revolved around Indians. They made books, head dresses, jewelry and practiced the "Ten Little Indians" song that they will do for Report Day next week. This was the first time that the Homeschool group has done this and it was a HUGE success and so much FUN. We will do it again starting in February but this time it will be for 8 weeks instead of 4 (with a one week break during Spring Break) and will go till noon instead of 11am. I never did get any pictures because, of course, I forgot to take my camera but I will snap some during Report Day next week when Brenna's group gets up and does their song and will post some. Tim Smith (our local weather man) will be there next week talking to the kids about the weather so we are excited about that. I have a few things that we are going to do Monday and Tuesday pertaining to weather to get ready for that. I will also have Brenna watch the news those days as well so she can see "the man on TV" that she's going to get to meet (maybe she'll pay attention more if she thinks he's a real 'TV star'? LOL)

Anyway, Brendon, Brenna and I went to a really cool place last Saturday (Oct. 27th). It was the corn maze that they do here every Fall and we had a BLAST!! I guess they have been doing it for a few years now but we have never gone, which I really regret now! I thought it was just the maze but when we got there they had a playground, hay stacks for the kids to play in, a pumpkin patch, hay ride, train ride, corn box (like a sand box but full of corn!), a farm animal petting place, and loads of great food (my favorite! hahaha!). The maze was so much fun! We were in it for about an hour and yes, we did get lost a couple times but thanks to Brendon's great directional skills we did just fine. I tell you what, if I had to get us through there we might STILL be there! :) This place is open until the end of December so we are planning to go back a couple more times. I have quite a few pictures......

So on to Halloween!!! Brenna was the cutest little witch that I have ever seen! Technically, I guess, she was a witch FAIRY but she was darn cute! We went to one of the church festivals that we go to every year with Nan and like always, we had a wonderful time. Brenna was all about trick-or-treating this year though so we did not stay as long as we usually do. After the festival we went on our hunt for candy with Nan and Kastine (Grandma and cousin) and went in Kastine's neighborhood and our neighborhood. Of course we went to see Grandma Dawn and Grandpa Kim too. Brenna got loads of candy and has been so generous to share it with Brendon and I. I have been having some chocolate for breakfast every morning. YUM! Here are some pictures of Brenna in her costume...........

Anyway, as you can see, we have been having such a wonderful time. I really do feel so blessed to be able to homeschool my wonderful, sweet, funny little girl. :) I just love being able to spend all day with her and to be the one who answers all of her questions and see the 'light bulb' click when she learns something. Besides all of the 'fun stuff' that I have posted about, she is learning how to write, is getting to be a FANTASTIC reader, doing so many fun crafts (we had a BLAST doing Halloween stuff!), mastering addition and subtraction as well as starting to understand the concept of fractions, and she has recently learned how to count to 100 by 10's and 5's. I try to incorporate learning in everything that we do - it is so hard to describe it all. She learns so much just by doing 'real life' things too - like cooking, helping me with yard work, going grocery shopping, ect. I guess I just really love being a Mom. To me it is the best job in the world (if only I got PAID for it!! LOL!!:)

Staying busy

I have not updated in a while because we have been so busy lately. Homeschool is going great and we are starting to 'find our groove' and I am beginning to have a lot more confidence. It has taken me a little over a month to figure out what works good for us. We started out one way and I realized it just was not working so I spent a lot of time thinking about what needed to change. Now we have our weekly schedule that is going great so far. I have also included a lot more art projects and try to incorporate what we are learning about. For example, last week we did the blend sound 'ch' so Friday we got out our huge stack of magazines (I am beginning to realize that when you homeschool you keep EVERYTHING because you WILL find a use for it!) and found lots of things that have the 'ch' sound and made a collage. I have also decorated a part of the wall in our computer room like a bulletin board and that is where I hang some of her work that she does. I put a picture of it at the bottom of the post. She loves it and I really think it gives her incentive to do her best because everyone who comes over sees it. I have also been utilizing the library soooo much more! They have rows and rows of educational videos that are so cool (even I like them!). So we make our weekly trip and stock up on videos and books.

We had Report Day a couple weeks ago with the homeschool group. Brenna got up and read a book all by herself in front of everyone. I was so proud of her and she did such a great job! A lot of the Moms came up to her afterwards and told her what a great job she did and gave me kudos too on what a wonderful reader she is. You could tell that she was very proud of herself. I think next Report Day she will talk about tadpoles and we will take a few of them that we have for the other kids to see. Yes, we STILL have tadpoles. The ones that we hatched from the eggs are starting to get their back legs FINALLY. The first batch we had did not take this long. I did read though that during certain times of the year they take longer to change. My sister-in-law told me that my little set up I have for them is so cool that they don't want to leave. LOL I think once these are gone I will not get anymore for a long, long while. We'll have to think of something else to reside in our tank.

We have also been spending a lot of time with my friend who homeschools and her daughter. Brenna and Rhiannon play so good and we get together about 2-3 times a week. We have taken the girls to the zoo and are planning some other field trips as well. It is nice having someone my age who homeschools and that I can get together with a few times a week and talk about things with.

So tomorrow morning we have our first co-op class for the homeschool group. A lot of the Moms have volunteered and are teaching classes. I have volunteered to help in the pre-school and Kinder-1st classes. We group the kids together by age (Kinder and 1st, 2nd and 3rd, ect...) and meet for about 2 1/2 hours. It will be for four consecutive Fridays. So we are really looking forward to that and Brenna is very excited. I really love this homeschool group - everyone is so nice and all the kids are GREAT!

Brenna started Girl Scouts as well and we meet every Tuesday night for an hour and a half. It is a small troop but the girls get along really good and have a lot of fun together. Next weekend Brenna and I are going to the Girl Scout camp and they are having a Mother/Daughter Day at the Spa. We get manicures, pedicures and the Moms get some facial stuff. I think we will have a really nice time together. I will take my camera and definitely post some pictures when we get back.

So now I guess you can see why I do not have much time to get on the computer. :) I really will try harder to post more. I have had quite a few people ask me when I was going to update. I really am glad that this blog gets read though. When I started it I wasn't sure who all would read it but by the hits on my counter at the bottom a lot of people do.
THANKS to everyone who supports us!! :)



*Brenna's Board*

Pictures

Brenna absolutely loves doing yoga! She has done it with me quite a few times and today when we went to the library she found a Yoga for Kids tape. You would have thought she struck gold! So now while I am cooking dinner, she is in the livingroom doing her yoga tape. I snapped a couple pictures of her. Too CUTE!

Updates

We went to the quilt show this past weekend that Brenna's quilt was entered in. She received Honorable Mention along with a nice big pink ribbon. She was very proud to see her quilt hanging with all the others. She was the youngest entered - the rest of the kids were anywhere between 9 and 14. Of course I forgot my camera but Aunt Lynnie let me use hers, so as soon as I get the pictures emailed to me from Dea Jae then I will post them.

So I completely forgot to post about our frogs that we released! The first set we had (nine total) finally turned into little frogs about 3 weeks ago - we kept them for about a week and then released them in the front yard. It had been raining almost everyday and everything was nice and wet so I thought it would be a good place. Besides, I have lots of frogs that live around my house so apparently they like it. I do water my plants frequently so things stay pretty moist most of the time. Now we have about 25 more that should be getting their legs pretty soon. I don't think I will release THAT many in my yard so those will have to go to the park lake. I will post some pictures of those soon.

We went on our first field trip with our Homeschool Group this morning. It was to the Water Treatment plant here in town. I found it pretty interesting but I guess it isn't necessarily something a 5 year old finds very fascinating. HAHA! I really should have known better. She did good though and only started complaining about the last 15 minutes. It was an outside tour and very hot and muggy.
One thing I did find out recently is that the Homeschool Group does a yearly camping trip! It will be in November and I am very excited about that. I think it will be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to it. Brenna will have so many kids to play with and Brendon and I will get to know the parents a lot better too.

Well other than that everything else is going great. :) I will post again soon.

Brenna's Quilt

Brenna and Grandma Shore finished the quilt that they have been working on! It came out so cute and Brenna did such a great job. She did most of the sewing on the machine with Grandma's help and guidance of course. She was a little apprehensive of the needle but did a wonderful job. She also knotted all the purple ties as well.

You can click on the picture and it will open another window with a bigger picture of it.

Lots has happened!!

Well it has been over a week since I posted and so much has happened since then. Where to start....

Well I will start with the most exciting news that I am sure everyone already knows about BUT I still have to tell you all about it! LOL My sister-in-law and brother have a brand new baby! Keira Elizabeth was born on September 3rd at 11:34pm and she weighs 5 pounds, 3 oz. - she is soooo tiny and soooo beautiful! Seriously, you could not find a prouder Aunt ANYWHERE! My poor brother has had to endure my many phone calls asking how they are doing and if she is nursing good...blah, blah, blah. If I had my way I would be over there all day, everyday because I just can't get enough of her. Brenna has been great with her and loves to hold her. She is so excited about being a "big cousin" now - she is not the baby anymore. When we went to the hospital to see her for the first time Brenna couldn't stay away from her and kept staring at her. She had the cutest little smile the entire time we were there. She told me in the car yesterday - "Mom, do you think it is possible for us to see Keira every day?" It was very cute. I feel the same way. :) Jenny says we are welcome there anytime but I don't think she quite knows what she got herself into when she said that. LOL
Anyway, homeschooling is going very well for us. I have decided to do unit studies. The first week we did the letter "a" and she practiced writing it and we also went to the library and got a lot of books on things that start with the letter "a". This week we are doing the letter "b" and are studying how the brain works, about blood, and the animal we are doing is the butterfly. So you see how the unit studies work - it is much easier for me that way to come up with things to do. She is getting so much better at writing her name correctly too. I will have to take a pictures of it and post it on here soon. She has also been doing great with her math and is doing addition and subtraction problems all by herself. I am so proud of her. :)
Yesterday we had our very first homeschool group get together. It was Report Day. The kids who want to get up in front of everyone and do some sort of short presentation. Brenna did not do anything yesterday but that is okay. We thought that next month she would go up and do a presentation on tadpoles. After the reports we all had pizza and then the smaller kids went outside on the playground and played for a while. It was so pleasant and they all got along GREAT! Brenna made so many new friends. All of the mom's are so nice and friendly too. I think this homeschool group is going to be a wonderful experience for us. They get together a lot for field trips, play dates and family get-togethers.
OH! I signed Brenna up for Girl Scouts!! We went and registered last Friday and are just waiting for the Troop Leader to call us. She is very excited about it and so am I. I was in Girl Scouts for about 7 or 8 years and had such a great time and made lots of good friends that I still talk to.
Anyway, I will post soon with updates as well as some new pictures. :)

Officially Started Homeschooling

Yes, we officially started homeschooling today. All of the public schools in our city started today so I figured it would be a good time. I told Brenna last night that we were going to and she was so excited! When we woke up this morning she had her breakfast, took the dishes to the sink when she was finished and then sat back down at the dining room table. She was there for the longest time before I realized it and I asked her what she was doing. She told me, "I am waiting to start homeschooling." I thought that was so cute! Now before you start thinking that she was just sitting there all alone I must say that you can see the TV from the table so she WAS watching cartoons while waiting. LOL
So our first day was successful. She really wanted to do what I call "table work" (yea, we'll see how long THAT lasts! LOL) so we practiced writing her letters and her name and played some fun math games to help her with addition. She started calling me Ms. Brandi but I put my foot down on that one. She giggled and thought it was funny. :)

Well I sure hope every day goes as well as today - probably not but I can HOPE! :)

So today's "priceless moments" that I wouldn't trade for the world and make all this completely worth it:
- Brenna gave me an apple from the fruit bowl this morning and told me that "all teachers need an apple!"
- Tonight before bed she came up and gave me a big hug and said, "You're my best friend Mom and I love you!" Now who wouldn't want to spend all day with someone as sweet as that??

Camping Was A Success!!

Wow, we had sooo much fun on our trip! We went to Garner State Park, which is in Hill Country just west of San Antonio. It is so beautiful and quite breathtaking - especially if you live where we do where the land is all flat. That picture above was the scenery from our camp site. What a sight to wake up to every morning.

Brenna was so good and loved every minute of it (well except when I MADE her take a cold shower cuz there was no hot water LOL). We played in the river every day and went tubing two miles the day after we got there. It was fun cooking on the fire and roasting marshmallows at night. The site we got was just about 30 yards from the bathrooms and showers, so that was nice, especially when I got woken up at 7am to a little voice saying, "Mommy, I have to go potty."

We also went hiking one morning and hiked to the very top of that hill in the picture above. Brenna did GREAT and we were both highly impressed with her. She was such a little trooper and never once complained. We were not going to go all the way but SHE is the one who insisted and kept pushing US to keep going. I told her that she was probably the very first five year old to ever go up there. That made her happy. :)

We are definitely going to make this a yearly thing. We got a State Park book and would like to take about two camping trips a year. I am so glad that Brenna likes it as much as we do.
I created an album with all the pictures from our trip so if you want to take a look then click on this link....
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v23/raving_butterfly/Garner%20State%20Park/
(hope it works! If not email me and I will send them to you!)

More on my tadpoles....

Ok, so yes, I am obsessed with these little guys, but it is so much fun to watch them grow and change! What other pet can you get that will completely change into a different animal?? All three of us are into it now and will look at them about ten times a day. It's fun to just sit there and watch them. The big ones (we have nine) are such fast swimmers now and I noticed today that a couple of them are starting to grow legs!! Very, very exciting for us. :) I took some pictures of them that I have posted below. The picture with the tadpole swimming vertically is a pretty good one of the tiny little legs - you can barely see them under the tail. The other picture with the tadpole on the floor of the tank is one of my big ones too. You can tell how big they are getting by comparing it with the 4 day old baby that is just to the right of it. I am not sure how many babies I put in there - maybe about 20 or so. I still have about 50 in a tupperware container that I can not put in the tank because that would just be too much. Not sure what I will do with those. Maybe I will use them for food for my new turtle. Yes, we got yet ANOTHER animal! It is my childhood all over again. We got him from my brother. I posted a picture of him as well. He is a red-eared turtle and spends most of his time in the water. His shell is about 5 inches from head to tail so he is a good size. He will go up on his dry spot a couple times a day and bask in the lamp I have for him. Right now the poor thing is in a 10 gallon aquarium but we are buying a 55 gallon one from a friend so he will have a bigger and better home VERY soon. I feel so bad for him right now so he has spent quite a bit of time in the bathtub (yes, I disinfect it every time!) and just swims around so gracefully and has a ball. I am looking forward to getting that tank set up too. He will be in turtle heaven! :)

HOLY TADPOLES!

So our tadpoles hatched - my goodness we have A LOT of them! Free shipping or delivery (and advise on raising them!) if anyone wants some! LOL I think there might be about 150 or so. Why, oh why, did I get so many?? When I got the egg sack from my Grandma it did not look like THAT many. I seriously have a TADPOLE FARM now. Brenna thinks it is the coolest thing tho. I guess in a couple days I will transfer some to the big tank. Maybe we will have to take a trip to our local park and let some go in the lake because I do not think my tank is big enough for them all.

Family Vacation

Brendon, Brenna and I are taking our family vacation the week of August 19th. We are going camping! I am so excited about it and am really looking forward to it. We are going to a pretty big, popular place about 5 hours away (not saying exactly where cuz this IS the Internet - I have my blog set as private but you never know...). We have been planning it for the last week and I have so many lists going - I like to be prepared! :) Brendon and I used to go camping a lot before Brenna was born and have not gone in so long. Brenna is finally old enough I think to where it won't be so stressful. She is so excited and can't wait to go. I will post with pictures when we get back!

Update on our Tadpoles

Well I gave away all my goldfish that we had in our fish tank (they are very messy fish and not good to have in an aquarium) - took them to Mom and Dad's pond where we got the tadpoles from. So now I have converted my 10 gallon aquarium into my tadpole/frog habitat. We only have 9 tadpoles left from the 30 we got. During my first water change I lost a lot of them but I now have it down to a science. The nine that we have are thriving in their new tank and it looks like they should be getting their back legs soon. After their back legs come in then the front ones develop and soon after that they get their lungs and become cute little frogs. :) The rock that is sticking out of the water in the tank is for the frogs to climb on once their gills are gone.

We have yet another tadpole project going on besides this one now too. My Grandma has a pond in her yard as well and she spotted a bunch of tadpole eggs the other day and asked if I wanted some. So now we are "hatching" them! It is pretty interesting to see the eggs change from perfect little circles into tadpoles. Right now they are tiny, squirmy and bean-shaped and they should hatch in a day or two. I will leave them in small containers for about a week or so and then transfer them to the aquarium. It is all really neat to watch and Brenna just loves having them and is learning a lot. Here is a picture of the eggs - it didn't come out very well but Brenna insisted that I post it anyways. You can see some of them pretty well.

Well I will post about them again when we have frogs!

Tadpoles!

Brenna and I are now the proud owners of about 30 tadpoles! My Mom and Dad have a nice pond in their front yard and every once in a while a frog will decide to litter it with eggs and then Dad is overwhelmed with hundreds of tadpoles. This time Brenna and I decided to 'save' some of them (most don't survive the doom of Dad's big net!) and raise them until they metamorphose into tiny frogs, and then of course we will release them into the yard. What am I going to do with 30 frogs!!?? :)
So this is officially our first science lesson about frogs and their metamorphosis. I will have to come up with some kind of chart or maybe even keep a daily journal that Brenna can dictate to me about about the changes they make. I have already looked up and printed some things off the Internet about taking care of tadpoles and it seems pretty simple. Right now we have them all in one container but since there are so many I will have to separate them into two or they will start to eat each other! Once they get all four of their legs you transfer them to another container that has rocks they can climb onto. And when their tail is gone that is when you release them. They eat all sorts of things too - fishfood, flies (time to clean my window sills! haha), and the best thing they say to feed them is lettuce. Who would have thought!

Brenna is so excited and says that she is their new Mommy. I reminded her today that we are not going to be able to keep them when they become frogs and she nodded and said that she knew. So we'll see when the time comes. Right now they are in her room on her dresser. She will be in charge of feeding them and help me change the water when needed as well. I will post pictures as they change. I think this is going to be a pretty cool project!

Making a Quilt

So Brenna has been entered in her first quilt show! It will be in September and her and Grandma are making a darling little quilt together.

Dea Jae came down last week with her sewing machine and her, Kastine and Brenna went shopping and picked out material (Kastine is making one as well). Brenna, of course, got all shades and patterns of purple. On five of the blocks (out of nine total) Brenna drew pictures with crayon on white material and then Grandma ironed it to set the colors. They sewed some of the blocks together but ran out of time before Grandma had to go back home. She will be back the end of August though and they will finish it then. I will definitely post a picture of the finished product.

Just an Update

We really haven't been doing anything really exciting lately. The library thing is over but we have still been going and checking out books about once a week. Actually we need to make it over there today at some point.
Brenna has had three playdates in a row this week. Tuesday and Wednesday she went over to Erica's house (her 2 year old teacher from pre-school) - she has two kids that are 5 and 9. Brenna has a great time playing with them. Yesterday she went over to Grandma Dawnie's and played with one of the little girl's that she tutors. I told Brenna that today she is ALL MINE. :) I really miss her when she's gone. Not sure what we are doing this weekend. I know that we will go to the beach Saturday or Sunday - that will make it five weeks in a row that we have gone.
Next week Grandma Shore will be in town and will be staying with us. I am seriously NOT saying this to kiss up to my mother-in-law (HAHA!) but I really look forward to her coming down. For those of you who don't know her, I am a very lucky girl to have a MIL like her. :)

So Brenna has been doing much better with reading and tries to read anything she can - signs, stuff on the computer, things on tv, ect... I found her in her room the other day reading one of Brendon's books, "Tiger Woods - How I Play Golf". She is all about learning to play golf and Brendon said that he is going to get her a couple clubs and start taking her. That will be nice for them to spend that time together. I have tried to play golf and I am just not that coordinated and I get very mad. :) So maybe I will go just to take pictures.

Well I hope everyone has a good Friday the 13th!

A couple passages from a book that I wanted to share....

I am reading this book right now called "Homeschooling - Take a Deep Breath, You Can Do This". It is a great book and is written by a Mom who home schooled her kids for many years. There is a chapter in it called, "The Good Stuff Most People Won't Tell You". It lists about fifteen wonderful things about homeschooling. One of them really stood out to me and I wanted to post some it for whoever is interested.

"Your children will grow up knowing you better than their traditionally schooled friends know their parents

We always know best those we spend the most meaningful time with. When my children were traditionally schooled, they had a very long bus ride in each direction. By the time they got home, rested, and did their homework and chores, there was barely time to play, much less have family quality time.... My children spent more time in school than they did at home with me doing what I wanted them to do each day.
I began to see that their teachers had more influence over their values and ideas than I did. Since I was responsible for the way they turned out, I was concerned. By the time my children came home from school, they were tired. They had been with other people all day long and just wanted time alone. They didn't want to think or have serious discussions. I began to feel I was losing control of our relationship simply because we didn't have any time together.
As your children get older they will begin to develop different ideas that don't always match your own and they will spend more time away from you. This is natural and healthy. However, removing your influence from your child too soon can be dangerous. The popular view is that children should develop their own beliefs, and this is true...eventually. However, a child needs some sort of foundation for the building of beliefs to be placed upon. ..... The best way to give a child values is to spend time with him and to let him see how you live your life. You act in a way that reflects what you believe, you talk to him about things that matter and you tell him about you, your life, and your choices. Your child will know you better because he has spent meaningful time with you, learning, serving and growing together. This builds a family that can last forever. That's a benefit that makes every minute worthwhile."

One more thing that I came across in this book was something that somebody once told me when they found out I was going to homeschool. They said that Brenna needed to experience the "real world" and deal with bullies and all that classic 'kid stuff'. Well I don't think this would have stood out if that had not been told to me and I just wanted to share this too.

"People will try to tell you that learning to cope with bullies is just part of life. So is teasing or name-calling. Think carefully about your adult life before accepting that. Do you intentionally put yourself into situations where you will be abused? When you are an adult, there are laws that protect you from being picked on in the workforce or anywhere else. Adults aren't supposed to take it - only children are. Does that make sense?"

Ok, I guess that's enough for one post. haha! I just think this book is great and wanted to share some things. Thanks.

At the Library

Geez, I don't post for about three weeks and then I post three days in a row! :) Hopefully people are keeping up with me and my sporadic blogs. :)

So I just had to share something funny that happened at the library on Monday. Brenna and I went for our tri-weekly library day and Monday they did not have the story time or anything (not sure why?). Well I didn't want to waste a trip to the library, since we were already there, so we turned in our books and proceeded to look for more to take home. With Brenna this is a very long process and takes forever! She is very picky about the books that she chooses. So we finally get a stack of about 15 books and make our way to a table to "decide which books are good enough to check out" *eye roll*. It's very cute...really. :) So we are there at the table and Brenna sees this baby who is smiling at her and making noises. Of course she wants to go say hi and asks me so I tell her that it is okay. I do not have a problem at all with her going up to people and making conversation as long as she is with me - and she knows this. She is a VERY friendly little girl. The baby is with her Mom and her other little girl. After introducing herself and talking with the older girl, the Mom asks her what grade she is in and of course she goes on to say that she will be in Kinder and that her Mom is going to homeschool her. The Mom looks at me with a big smile and tells me that she is going to homeschool her oldest as well and proceeds to gather her things and come over to our table. As this was going on I overhear the conversation between Brenna and the other little girl:

Brenna: "So how old are you?"
Girl: "I'm 5 years old."
Brenna: "Wow! What a coincidence! I'm 5 too!"
Girl looks at Brenna and then looks at her Mom with wide eyes: "Wow Mom! This girl is really smart!!!"

Oh my gosh, it was HILARIOUS! You really should have seen the look on that little girl's face when Brenna used her "big word". To be honest, I felt very proud. :) I guess me speaking to her like an adult and doing the 'word of the week' thing really pays off. :)
Anyway, it was nice though meeting another homeschool Mom. We talked a little and she asked me all kinds of things about homeschooling. She had not done much reading about it and had just decided to do it so all of my studying really paid off just in that one conversation. I think I might have over-whelmed her a bit. haha! We exchanged phone numbers though and will get the girls together to play and we can visit as well. It is so nice meeting other Moms who are going to homeschool. Someone told me not too long ago that the library is probably a really good place to meet other parents who homeschool - especially once school starts and you go during school hours. With Brenna being as friendly as she is I am sure that we will meet tons of new people. :)

Getting Prepared

Wow! It's already July! I am still getting my ideas and thoughts together for the upcoming homeschool year. I have come up with a lot of brainstorm ideas on things that I want to do with her and things that I need to purchase as well. I am not getting a whole lot this year - I can utilize so many materials that I already have. My Mom was a 2nd grade teacher for six years so you can imagine how many cool and useful things I am getting from her! :) The things that I really want to get is a year pass for the zoo and an endless supply of art supplies. Some of the things that I have written down as well are:

• learning to tell time (she's already learning the hours and can recognize when it is exactly 2 or 4 o'clock - just need to work on minutes)
• 
  
• work on writing letters correctly and then advance to words
• 
  
• choose an animal to study each week for science (can also lead into Social Studies with studying the country they are from)
• 
  
• plant a small garden for science including flowers and vegetables
• 
  
• addition, subtraction and simple measuring for math (she knows the concepts, just needs to practice more)
• 
  
• study holidays for history


• start learning and identifying States
• 
  
• creating a "Chore Chart" to learn more about responsibility and working together as a family (yes, that is the 'neat-freak' in me coming out! haha! But she has to learn at some point, right?)
• 
  
• play Mad Libs to learn what nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are
• 
  
• continue working on her reading


• start keeping her own journal - good for pre-writing skills and developing sentence structure (can tell me what to write until she learns to write herself)
• 
  
• start including her in cooking
  
• lots and lots of art projects!!

There are probably many other things that we will come across that I just have not thought about yet - but it's a start. Besides, she is so good at asking lots of questions so she will give me ideas as we go and take the lead with some things as well.

It was pretty cute last night - Brenna was watching some show with Brendon and one of the kids was speaking French. So then she proceeded to go around the house pretending to talk in French. I told her that if she really wanted to learn French then we could get her either a DVD or computer program that would teach her (kids this age pick up other languages a lot quicker then adults). Then Brendon went and got the globe and showed her where Europe was and then where France was. He went about it very well and first located Texas and then our city and showed her how far it was from here to France. He told her all about Grandma Shore living there for a year when she was younger and that led to showing her where Australia was because that is where Grandma is right now. So you see how that all happened? She learned something new at 9pm, right before bed because she instigated it by pretending to speak French. You just have to take advantages of opportunities like that when you are homeschooling. We could have elaborated on it but considering the time it had to be a very short lesson. Things like that happen all day long at our house though - that was just one example.

One thing that I am trying to decide on is how I am going to do our school calendar. Some homeschoolers follow the public school calendar, some do year round with 3 weeks on and 1 week off, others do school 4 days a week. I am not too concerned about it this year but next year when we start a structured curriculum I will need to decide how I want to do it.

There are just so many details that I still have to iron out. It is going to be a learning experience for the whole family - but one that I am really looking forward to!

Books, books and more books!

So I FINALLY got a library card a couple weeks ago and Brenna and I have been stocking the house with new books every week. They are everywhere and I love it! Mine, of course, are all homeschool related (I just can't get enough information!) and Brenna has been getting a combination of 'easy readers' and fun books for Mommy and Daddy to read to her. She is getting so much better at reading and is slowly finding a love for it. She is still somewhat stubborn, gets very frustrated and will only read when SHE wants to but I am not pushing her. Like I said before, I don't want to make her dislike reading or make it seem like a chore. She will, in time, discover the beauty of being able to pick up a book and curl up and get lost in the words. But until then I tell myself, she is only five. :) And for a five year old she is doing better than I could ever expect - I am very proud of her. When I see her reading I almost (ok, so I have!) get tears in my eyes. I really could sit and listen to her read all day long.

We are still going to the library a couple times a week for the Children's Reading Program and she gets to do crafts and watch puppet shows and listen to story time. She loves it and so do I. After all of that we will go and pick out our books and then she LOVES to sit at a table and we both quietly sit and read our books for about 20 minutes. She just thinks that is the coolest thing and she looks like such a 'big kid'. :) There are only a few more weeks left of activities there but we will definitely do it again next summer.

On to another subject... We went to the beach again yesterday for the third weekend in a row. This time Aunt Jenny and Uncle PJ went with us and we had so much fun. Brenna did some more boogie boarding and Daddy got brave and started taking her out further and further to some bigger waves (with me supervising and staying close to her). She could still touch of course - it stays pretty shallow the first 30 yards or so. That little girl held on so tight and rode them in all the way! She is getting to be a pro at it. We will be going to the beach again next weekend - we just have way too much fun to NOT go! Our goal is to try to go every weekend this summer and hopefully beyond that too. It is a very inexpensive way to have a good time. :)

Well I am off to read books with Brenna before it is time for bed. I will post again real soon. :)

My Little Girl is a Reader!

So Brenna and I went shopping with Grandma Dawn a couple days ago. Grandma likes to buy Brenna stuff whenever we go and this trip it was a new book. Brenna got to pick it out from about a dozen 'Easy Readers - Level 1' that they had and of course she fell in love with a SpongeBob book. She was so excited and asked if she could look at it while she was sitting in the shopping cart. So Mom and I are looking at stuff and all of a sudden I hear Brenna reading this book out loud. I glanced at it to see if she was making up words and was shocked to see that she was reading it word for word! I mean, I knew she could sound out a lot of words (and has many sight words memorized) and she has read a couple books with my help (pointing to each word helping her keep track of where she was) but never has she held a book and just READ! I was so proud of her! :)
For about the past 6 months or so I have been trying to make her read books at bed time to practice but she absolutely refuses most of the time. So I wasn't going to push it and just figured that she would start reading when she was ready. Well I guess all it takes is to let HER pick out a new book that SHE wants to read (why didn't I figure this out sooner??). So I guess what I will start doing is going and buying her a new book about once a week and letting her pick them and just telling her, "Okay, if you want to know what the story is about then YOU are going to have to read it to find out."

She was so proud of herself and received so much praise from Brendon and me.

WAY TO GO BRENNA!!! :)

Fun at the Beach

Today Brendon, Brenna and I went to the beach and we had such a blast! We had not been in quite some time - in fact the last time I think Brenna went was when she was three. That's pretty sad. Well after today though we are definitely going to start going more.

Brenna just loved the waves and actually learned how to boogie board today! I was so proud of her. Brendon would take her out to where the waves were breaking and wait for a nice big one and then give her a push. She would hold on to that board with her little hands as tight as she could and ride the wave the whole way in! She would go a good 30 feet and then fall off the board and yell, "Wipe out!" I tried a couple of times to do it but I just wasn't as good as Daddy at letting her go just at the right time. When I was out there with her though she would look behind her while she was waiting and tell me, "Mom, that wave has got my name written all over it!" Oh I laughed so hard! She is such a funny little girl. :) By the end of the summer she will probably be going out there and catching waves all by herself.

Homeschool Meeting Delivers Big Relief! :)

So my friend and I went to a homeschool meeting Tuesday night. The Homeschool group here in town organized it. It wasn't a huge turn out (it was their first year doing it) but I did get to meet and talk to a few people. I didn't really learn anything new that I already hadn't read in a book or on the Internet (people have no idea how much stuff I read!!!) but it was very reassuring to actually listen to a PERSON talk and tell me these things instead of reading about it.

I think the best thing I got out of that meeting was a one-on-one conversation that I had with a homeschool Mom of six years with four children. She came over to introduce herself and asked me how old Brenna was. We started talking about Kindergarten and I found out that she had a degree in Early Childhood Education so I proceeded to pick her brain. :) I told her about my plan of not getting a curriculum for Kinder and I thought she was going to tell me that I was crazy. After going on about my reasoning (Jenny just recently informed me that it seems like I am always trying to explain myself and that I have to stop - need to work on that I guess) she told me that what I was going to do was perfect. She said that Kindergartners need FUN stuff to do and pretty much validated my thinking on the whole issue. So I feel much better about that now and a lot more confident in my decision about curriculum. I came home and told Brendon what she had said and I think it made him feel a lot better as well and we are on the same page with things now.
One thing I did learn that I did not know (ok, so I lied about not learning anything new *haha!*)was that you really can't determine a child's learning style until they are about seven or eight. I just recently bought a book on different learning styles (The Way They Learn - How to discover and teach to your child's strengths) and have been struggling to identify what type Brenna is - auditory, visual or kinesthetic. So now that I know it will be a couple years before I am able to really determine I can relax a little.

So Brenna and I have been trying to stay pretty busy this summer. I ended up not enrolling her in summer gymnastics because it was outrageously expensive and had all sorts of fees involved. So we will wait until September and she will start with her combo class again. I am trying to get her to start karate - she's been talking about it for months. A couple weeks ago I told her that I would call the teacher and see if she could go that day (she can go once and try it before I sign her up) but all of a sudden she decided that "karate is for big kids" and she didn't want to go. I know she is a little apprehensive about it. She has always been that way - very afraid to try new things, but once she does it she loves it. I am a lot like that too - I wish she were more like Brendon when it came to things like that. So maybe I can see if we can go and just watch a class and she might feel better about it. She likes to take baby steps. :)
My Mom was so sweet and signed Brenna up for the library summer program. I had no idea they were doing it. So now we are going three days a week to the library and they do crafts and have story time and puppet shows. They show a movie every Thursday and we get to take our blankets and pillows and camp out in the auditorium with snacks and watch a movie, so that is pretty fun. They said that parents don't have to stay and that you can just drop the kids off but I have not felt very comfortable with that and have been staying with Brenna. There are just so many kids there and not very many adults. There are quite a few parents who stay though so I don't feel too much like Mrs.-Over-Protective. :) She likes that I am there with her too.
Brenna will also be taking private swimming lessons this summer for two weeks with one of my Mom's friends so I am excited about that. Again, she is unsure of it and doesn't seem too excited but I told her that it is something that she HAS to do and that it is very important to learn how to swim, especially since Grandpa Kim has a boat and we go out on it quite a bit and spend lots of time by the water (she ALWAYS wears a life vest on the boat though!).

Well I have been on the computer long enough. Brenna and I are going to play a couple board games and maybe attempt to go outside and play, depending on how bad the mosquitoes still are. They have been horrible since we got all that rain a couple weeks ago.
Till fingers and keyboard meet again.....

Pictures from our trip

Here are a couple pictures I wanted to share. We went to visit family last weekend and had a wonderful time. The first pictures are of Brenna with her Great Grandparents, GeeGee and Smitty. We also saw Great Grandma Carol, Great Grandpa John, Aunt Susie, Uncle George, Ashley, Aunt Barbara and David. I posted a picture of all of them as well. Ashley graduated from High School and we are all soooo proud of her!! This was the first time that Brenna met Uncle George and the first time I had seen him in about 7 years.

As you can see from the pictures, Brenna got a haircut. It looks so cute on her and is much more manageable for our hot summer weather.

Another day

Well I have not posted in a while but things here have been busy. We are going out of town this weekend because my baby cousin is graduating High School - I seriously can NOT believe that. I remember when she was just a little bitty baby. Yeah, we all say that about someone though. I guess it is just part of life - but it makes me feel so OLD! It makes me feel old too telling people that my daughter is five. Sometimes I just can not get over how big she is now. I will go in her room at night and check on her (about 15 times!) and she is more then half of the bed length now - I guess I just don't realize how tall she is until I see her laying in bed. Sometimes I will sit on her bed to say good night and I'll practically sit on her knees when I am thinking that I am closer to her FEET. I am so ready for another baby! My "baby" is growing up so I need another one. ha ha! She is very ready to be a big sister too and talks about it all the time. Brendon and I have been trying for a while so we'll see what happens. My brother and his wife are expecting their first baby and I am just so excited to be an Aunt! The baby (a GIRL!) is due in September and I just can not wait for her to come. It has been so fun seeing Jenny get big and pregnant - I think she looks beautiful and fabulous!

Anyway, I have still been doing so much reading on homeschooling and have purchased a couple more books on Amazon.com. One of them is very good and talks about different learning styles. I am finding it very useful and full of wonderful information. I tend to get a little over-whelmed sometimes though because of all the information I am trying to acquire. I am the type of person that needs to know so much in order to feel that I will succeed in something and make the right decisions. I will sit at the computer sometimes and just read things about homeschooling for hours. And if I don't have much time then I will search for things and just save it to my Favorites and come back to it another day. I really don't think that I have felt this passionate about something in quite sometime. It makes me feel pretty good but it also drives me crazy at the same time. ha ha! Maybe I am doing TOO much and I just need to go with my instincts. They say that every family is different when it comes to homeschooling and that you need to find your own style and way of doing things. The first year is usually the toughest and then you kinda figure out what works for you.
I am going to a homeschool conference on Tuesday with my good friend who is homeschooling too. I am looking forward to that. It will be at the church here in town that has the big homeschool group that I would like to join. It will be nice to meet other homeschool parents and find out what they do during the year (field trips, lunches, ect...).

Well I have got to start packing - we are leaving this afternoon and it takes me forever to get things done before we go out of town. It all starts with a list (actually many!) and then I have to pack and then my whole house has to be clean. I hate coming home to a messy house.
Until fingers and keyboard meet again........

Dance Recital

Brenna had her dance recital yesterday and I am sooooo proud of her! She did great! It was so cute seeing her up there on stage. My Mom and I have been going to these recitals for a very long time (we always know someone who is in them) and it was so weird having MY little girl up there. I did not burst into tears like I thought I would though. I did start to tear up a little when she came out the first time, and I probably would have started crying, but one of Brenna's little classmates lost her tap shoe as they were all coming out on stage so that took my mind of the whole crying thing. ha ha! I felt so bad for her but she recovered nicely and did the whole dance with one shoe on. Everyone clapped for her which was nice.

There were quite a few people who came to see Brenna - Grandma and Grandpa, PaPa and JoJo and Nanny and Kastine. She was so happy to see everyone after the recital and was just grinning from ear to ear. She received flowers from Brendon and me and also from Grandma and Grandpa. The big red rose in the picture was from her best friend in dance class. I thought that was real sweet. :) We all went out to dinner afterwards and had a nice time.

Brenna is a little disappointed that there is no dance class today (she went every Monday) but she is excited to start again this Fall. I am going this week to sign her up for Summer gymnastics so she'll have something to do in the mean time.

Again on Curriculum....

After reading my last post I came to the conclusion that some people might assume that just because I'm not buying a curriculum this year I will not be teaching Math and Language Arts. The reason I am not buying one for Kindergarten is because Brenna is ahead of the typical Kindergarten level (not MY opinion - I have researched the things they do in Kinder) and is doing a lot of 1st grade level things. I am not starting a 1st grade curriculum because I don't think she is completely ready for that right now and like I said before, it would be very stressful for both of us. So we are kind of 'in between' right now which is what made me decided to not get either one this year.

Even though I am not purchasing a math textbook, for example, with worksheets and tests, does not mean that she will not learn any math this year. There are sooo many ways to teach things without the help of a textbook. Just having her help me cook and measure things teaches fractions; going to the grocery store and weighing fruit and/or sticking to a budget teaches math concepts that are way above Kindergarten level. When it comes to Language Arts, MadLibs (story telling game) helps teach nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives in a fun way - some of the stories you create are a hoot!
She is doing well with her reading and I feel that right now just reading books together is sufficient enough for a 5 year old. No need to make reading a chore or force her to learn more with a curriculum. If reading is pushed and not enjoyable then that could really turn her off to reading and this family has lots of bookworms so that would just be unacceptable! ha ha! :) We will be taking many trips to the library and checking out educational books as well as easy-to-read ones for her to practice.

I actually found a web site that really describes what I am wanting to do. If you have time and if you are interested then check it out - it's not very long at all. http://www.leapingfromthebox.com/art/kmg/kindergarten.html

Like I mentioned before, this year we just want to have fun learning and make our first year of homeschooling an enjoyable one.

Mommy? What's a.....?

My goodness! I did not think that my daughter was capable of asking anymore questions then she already had been doing for about a year. It seems like since she turned 5 years old they have doubled! It's everywhere - in the car, outside playing, in the house, when we are shopping - non-stop. And of course I do not know ALL the answers so I told Brendon that I have to start carrying around a little notebook so that I can jot down her inquiries and we can look them up on the Internet when we are home. Most of her questions are fairly simple and I can answer them right then and there with no problem but some of them need the help of GOOGLE! She can come up with some pretty tough stuff! ha ha! Thank goodness for the Internet! I couldn't imagine homeschooling without it. :)
We have been doing a "word of the week" for quite some time now, which has really helped her vocabulary (kudos to Grandma Dawnie for starting that). Some of the words she has learned (and uses correctly!) are monstrosity, tabernacle, zone, inquisitive, abstract, nocturnal and gaggle. She loves words and we will sometimes sit with a dictionary and she will chose a word randomly and we'll learn it. I also talk to her like an adult and use big words in our daily conversations. She'll interrupt and ask what that word means and I'll tell her. You can imagine how long our chats last sometimes! :)
I really do love it that she has so many questions (ok, it does drive me crazy every once in a while - don't let me fool you!). With her being so inquisitive though it is going to make my job as her teacher THAT much easier.

Some people have been asking me what curriculum I am going to use - there are literally hundreds to choose from. I have researched Kindergarten as well as 1st grade and had really thought about starting with a 1st grade one but my good friend pointed out to me that I do not want to make our first year of homeschooling too difficult or she will start resisting and it will be stressful for both of us. I know she is capable of doing 1st grade curriculum but I don't want to push her too hard. I will probably not get a curriculum this year and do 'unschooling', which is child-led learning. You can read more about here if you are interested - http://www.unschooling.com/library/faq/index.shtml Basically if she asks me a simple question about something then that will be our 'lesson' for that day (or week!) and we will learn everything there is to learn on that subject. The example I used when I talked to Brendon about this was this (he was kinda iffy)--- If Brenna comes to me and asks me about Egypt, for example, then we would get on-line and/or go to the library and check out some books and learn all kinds of things about it - maybe even do an art project and make pyramids. It started with a simple question - but it was a question that SHE asked. I strongly believe that a child learns more and retains the information better if they initiate the learning. Now, would she learn a lot about Egypt and be excited about it if I sat her at the table and opened up a text book and said, "Ok, now let's read this and then we will do some worksheets and answer some questions about what you just read" ? Probably not. She might retain part of the information but she would not get as much out of it as she would in the example above.
Now some people do this for everything and they never even purchase a curriculum - ever. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think when it comes to things like math, reading and writing then a curriculum is necessary. Next year I will worry more about a structured curriculum for the things I just mentioned but for this year we are just going to have FUN. :) It's Kindergarten for goodness sakes! :)