November Wrap up

Our November highlights that we did not pick up anywhere else.

Lydia was so cute, after her basketball games she loved to go outside and roll down the hill or do races with me down the hill by the school.

Cute Lucy!

The kids waiving goodbye to me from the Homeschool room while I head off to work. I love that the kids wave goodbye to me (almost every day).

The kids have really enjoyed "dance parties" in the dark. They like to turn off the lights and use glowsticks to dance in the dark. It is so fun.

Austin is so kind. Pulling Lydia around while she reads a book.

Austin and Caleb in a ship of some sort.

Lydia decided that she wanted to build a real life library. Sometimes Lydia's dreams are just so big it is hard to rein them in, but she went and built this by herself. She wanted to make sure the books would be safe and stay dry. Then she asked me to just put in a few nails to hold everything together. She was planning to have the "Grand Opening" of her library a few days later, but then we had to take down the library so the sheetrockers could bring back the sheetrock.

Lucy- still so cute.

Shan and Austin.

Cuddling to watch a show together.

Lydia and Lucy.

This- this is evidence of how much Shan loves our little family. One of the kids (probably trying to help do some laundry) accidentally knocked over the laundry detergent. Unfortunately, no one reported this to Shantel. By the time she found it, this is how it looked. I wish I could insert Shantel's Marco Polo to Jenna. Right as this happened she messaged Jenna and was speechless on how to clean it up. How, do you clean up the laundry soap. If you try to use water....you'll just end up with a lot of bubbles.  Fortunately, Jenna had a great idea and told her to use a bunch of washcloths to soak it up and then to throw those one at a time in with a load of laundry to still use the soap. It would be easy for Shantel to be upset, but instead, she just cleaned up the mess without any fuss and did not even worry about finding out which child was responsible. I am grateful for all the loads of laundry she does and for the many times she deals with things at home and I never know about her service.

Family Home evening. We made sock monkey's for our activity. It came straight out of the friend and Lydia was so excited for it. After we made them, we shared what we made with someone else.

Kids playing out in the snow.

Building domino's together. Lydia and Austin and I all worked on building some great domino strings.

Me and the kids playing out the the snow after a big snowstorm. We actually went out in the early afternoon and they wanted to stay outside until well after dark. We started by building a snow hill and doing some sledding. Then they decided they wanted to build an ice cave. We worked for 2 hours on their ice cave. Lydia and Austin took turns using a snowman's plastic hat to make snow blocks. Then the other one would carry the snow block over to the ice cave and put it on top. Then I would smash it down. We had a great time and the kids worked so hard. In the end we had a snow cave big enough for them to fit in and they were so happy.

Happy November!

Homeschooling through November

A quick glimpse at some of our homeschooling adventures in November. It's kind of funny, because these pieces of homeschool are not really the biggest pieces. Not the parts that I love the most. But these are the photo-ops of some of the extra things we do. I keep thinking that I want to do a "Day in the Life" homeschool post when I show the little pieces we do on a regular basis.

I'll be honest. Homeschool has been a little tough this month. I thought that after we hit our stride in October things would be easier and get better. But with all of the holidays and working on our basement and having a tiny baby and just EVERYTHING. It's been hard to keep a good routine and to have the same joyful moments that we had last year. But I just keep telling myself that it will be worth it. And even if we send the kids to school for the next school year - I have THIS year. I have this year to love and enjoy my time with them and I want to give it the effort and justice that it deserves.

Liberty Girls Retreat - Be a Pilgrim for a Day
A local charter school hosted a small retreat for girls 7+ where they learned about pilgrims and what their life was like. They learned about the founding of America and lots of other cool things. I have heard of this charter school and I really loved seeing their classrooms. Maybe if we send the kids back to school next year, this could be a good option. They would go 1-2 days a week and stay home the other 3-4. I can see that being a good balance for us. 

The Loveland Living Aquarium

We went to the aquarium for our field trip of the week and had SUCH a nice time. Lydia had an indepth conversation with one of the workers at the Stingray exhibit. I loved hearing her asking questions and having such a meaningful conversation with the mueseum staff. I think that he enjoyed the conversation, too, and after we left and made our way to the shark tunnel he met up with us again there to tell us all about the stingrays in the big tank. He was one of the people who gets to feed the stingray each week and he showed us the big feeding platform. He also cleaned the tank and he told us all about the process for that. He talked about the turtles and lots of different insider-info into the aquarium. It was the ZAAP free day at the aquarium and there were SO many people there, and I was just so grateful that he took the time to visit with and teach us.

Also, the picture of Austin and Caleb looking at the crocodile makes my heart melt. Caleb has been having nightmares about alligators for months now and Austin made sure he was right by Caleb taking care of him and telling him that it was a nice alligator and that he didn't need to be scared.




Austin's speech class has been going well. This year we decided to forgo the "Talking Time" preschool class and instead just have Austin meet with the speech pathologist at Fox Hollow. I was worried that it wouldn't be as engaging to him, but I couldn't bring Lucy to the Talking Time option - so this was really the only option I felt okay about. It's been amazing. He likes the teacher and she works really well with him. The other day she started him on CH words. She was asking him to make the sound and I was thinking "He can't make that sound yet, you need to teach him!" She realized that he couldn't make the sound and so she backed up and started from the very beginning. Starting with a T sound and making it harder and longer and louder until it sounded like a CH sound. By the end of the class time he was saying it both alone and in words and I left with tears in my eyes. It didn't seem like such a big deal to Mrs. Crandall but it was a HUGE deal to me. I'm just so proud of Austin and how hard he works even when it's hard.




Lydia's been playing on a basketball reg leauge for PE and she's really been enjoying it. I love when she's so excited that she skips every now and then as she's running.



-We love building things, but we love it even more when Grandpa Walker and Grandpa Great are helping! We picked up some free building kits at home depot to do for "Tech Tuesday" and then finagled our way into having my dad and grandpa help the kids build them.


Also during the same trip: Art class- kid pancake style. (Also PE - jumping from the bunkbed style)



We love the library and frequently have 50+ books checked out. We've only had to pay for two books this year. (One lost and one water damage, eek). Austin's favorite books are Magic Treehouse books and Dragon Masters books. Lydia's favorite books are Puppy Place books and anything else she can get her hands on.

Even though homeschool is hard somedays, and I'm certainly not a perfect teacher (or mother) - I'm just so incredibly grateful for the time I have to spend with my children. To learn and grow together.