Homeschool Adventures

Some more adventures we've been on as we've been up to this homeschooling thing: 

(This is the best life I can possibly imagine.) 

Alice in Wonderland at Kingsbury Hall (University of Utah). 

This is our fourth theater adventure this year. (1-Annie Get Your Gun, 2-Frozen, 3-Velveteen Rabbit, 4-Alice) We went with our little neighbor Lilly who lives next door to us and is also homeschooled. I'm so glad that Lydia has friends who have chosen the same educational path and that there are so many resources and opportunities available - like this production specifically targeted to school-aged kids! So many neat things we can be involved in. 

Spring Break Day! 

So, we didn't take a very legit Spring Break this year. Technically Spring Break was the week that the Haderlies were in Morgan when we went to stay and spend time with them - but I still had Lydia do a good portion of her school work, only taking a day or so off. I kind of felt like we didn't need a Spring Break and I was happy to keep working through our stuff. But towards the end of the month, I decided that we DID need a break so when the kids woke up I surprised them with a Spring Break Day! We headed to the mountains to go on a hike. We didn't make it all the way to the top because ... I realized about halfway that I'm 31 weeks pregnant and carrying a two year old up a shouldn't-have-been-classified-as-an-easy-spring-hike-becauseitwasactually-really-steep wasn't really on my game-plan for the day. Even though we didn't make it to the top, we made it to this beautiful river with a fun bridge. We ate a little picnic lunch right by the river and then headed back down. It was beautiful!

Spring Break Day Part 2

After our hike through the mountains we stopped at the store and picked a box of fun popcicles and took them to a fun park in Sandy that we'd never been to before. There were 12 popcicles in the box and I let them eat them until they were all gone. We played at this park for 3-4 hours. I just sat and watched while they climbed and played and laughed. We played hide and seek together and I pushed them on the swings. I wasn't expecting to stay so long, but I wasn't in a rush. It was exactly the spring break day that we needed. As the grand finale, we picked up a Little Caesars pizza on the way home and their lives were made. So glad my kids are easy to impress!

Onion Research Project

This may be one of my favorite projects that we've done all year. Lydia found an onion that had sprouted in our basement, left over from last September when we picked onions at the USU extension in Kaysville. (When I say sprouted, I mean, it had 18 inches worth of growth.) Lydia thought it was so cool and asked to learn about onions. I found a couple of YouTube videos and a website about onions (plus a couple of fun songs about onions) and we learned all about onions together. Then we spent about an hour cutting up the onion. We counted the layers and just explored the vegetable with no particular end goal in mind. At the end I had Lydia write a page about what she had learned. It was a huge homeschool success. Totally unprompted but ended up being engaging and interesting!

Reading

That's all this girl does these days. 

Planting Seeds

We did a unit on seeds and prepared to plant a garden. We planted peas, carrots, watermelon, zucchini, and corn. Lydia bought a strawberry plant with her family economy money (and I bought a tomato that I'm hoping survives until I can plant it outside). We learned about lots of different kinds of seeds and what things seeds need to grow. We will watch them grow inside until it's warm enough to transplant them outside. I have grand plans for a garden this summer with pictures of me happily weeding while the kids play outside and my baby sleeps in her bouncer next to me. I know it probably won't be so dreamy and already I'm thinking my garden eyes were bigger than my garden stomach (meaning I bought all the things but maybe should have just focused on a few things). But it's been so fun to watch our peas sprout and know that the rest of the seeds aren't far behind. 

Summer Fun: Bees and the Park

Lydia loves to "bee" outside during the summer. She most likely gets that from Shantel who is the same way. One day she kept telling Shantel that she wanted to go to the park with Daddy. So as soon as I got home from work, Lydia told me, "go to park with Daddy." So we made a special trip to the park and had so much fun. 

Lydia loves the swing.  

 She is really adventurous and loves climbing up the ladder (or anything else on the playground).

 She went down the slide.

 We love being at the park together and having some good family time together.

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For my work this year our summer party was at the Salt Lake Bees game. They fed us some delicious food and were were able to relax and enjoy the game. Lydia mostly just loved climbing onto and off of the fold up seats. The weather was perfect (especially since our seats happened to be shaded by the upper deck above us) and it was a great time. Lydia's favorite part by far was the "bee". The mascot came over to our section for a while and Lydia kept pointing and saying, "the bee, the bee." She really loved it. So on our way out, we could not help but take a few pictures next to the bee. 

We are glad to have so much fun over the summer!

Park Time

We have been absolutely loving the nice warm weather lately. We've had several little park dates and have enjoyed soaking up the sun. One day I finally remembered to bring my camera and I caught a few fun shots. Lydia and I met up with Ashley, Carson, and Elsie AND Bekah, Adaliah, and Elizabeth. I loved being with two great ladies, and although I had hoped that Carson and Adaliah would hit it off a little bit more and play together - we still had a nice time. 

Lydia practiced her standing pretty much the whole time. I love these little shots of Lydia as the focus, with Ashley and Elsie hanging out in the background. I couldn't choose which one was best, so I just kept both of them. (I love Lydia's face in the first one, but I love that the second one shows that she is hanging out on my leg.) 

After a little while, Ashley and her kids had to go - but luckily Bekah and her girls were able to stay and play some more. We spent quite a while on the swings - which Lydia absolutely LOVED! We've only tried it once before, but I think that this girl is definitely like her mama and loves to swing. Adaliah sat in the big girl swing to the right of these pictures and Lydia and Zizzy had some fun swinging back and forth. I'm dying over these pictures. (If you look closely at Lydia's face, you can see how much fun she was having.) 

After we were done swinging, we headed back to our blankets to finish our little lunch. (Of course that meant lots of little orange pieces for Lydia.) 

We had a great time at the park, and I'm so glad that I was able to spend time with Bekah and Ashley. It's so nice to know that even though I don't go to work everyday, I'm still surrounded by people who like me and are willing to give me that adult interaction that I need sometimes. I love that we all have little girls right around the same age - and I am hoping that we can get together again sometime soon when Adaliah and Carson can become good little friends so they can play together. 

As I was getting Lydia ready for bed later that evening, I noticed this: 

Somebody got a little sun! I feel so bad, because I didn't even think about putting sunscreen on her. It wasn't super sunny, and she was wearing long sleeves and long pants. But turns out that no hair = no natural sun block. I'm going to have to be much more careful until this little ladies gets a little more hair up top. (It's a good reminder to make sure that all of her tender little skin gets covered with sunblock when we go out.) 

Today was a chilly day, and so looking at these pictures already has me excited for the weather to warm up so that we can get to the park again. I can't wait for summer, lots of park dates, and cute summer clothes. (I'm in the process of changing out Lydia's winter 6-9 month clothes for her summer 12-18 month clothes. I'm so excited!)  Yay for fun days in the sun with good friends.