Saturday, November 21, 2009

Thanksgiving Feast

For those of you concerned that my children will not have enough socialization, being a homeschooling family, here is the proof that they will be just fine.

Every other Thursday we get together for a science day with other homeschool kids. We actually meet every Thursday. The mothers meet for prayer time and the kids get to play with each other. Then every other Thursday my friend Shannon leads a science day. She is a former teacher and does such a fabulous job teaching the kids! We usually have between 8-12 kids. This week we had a Thanksgiving feast! Shannon read to the kids about Squanto.



Then they had a relay race where they had to balance a cranberry on a spoon across the yard without dropping it.








The kids all had a fabulous time!



Carter did a great job, even though he did have to hold his spoon a little bit! Shhh, don't tell!




Then they made their own little "pumpkin pies."






Their final activity was to put pretzel sticks around the perimeter of a house. Carter loved this, because it was just like putting together his puzzles!




Then they put pretzels on the inside of the house to show the "area."







Sydney had fun too with the little boy who is just a few months younger than her! Soon enough, she'll be our little scientist too!



















Monday, November 2, 2009

Fall Festival

First of all, we are not against Halloween or Trick or Treating. We just haven't actually taken our kids yet. Our church every year has a Fall Festival that is huge. Thousands of kids from the community come to the Festival where they have bounce houses and different games set up with candy at every game. It really is like trick or treating minus the walking from house to house and actually saying trick or treat! Carter doesn't know any different yet, and we figure as long as he is having fun with this, we'll stick with it for now. Maybe in a couple of years we'll venture off to our neighborhood as well, but the Festival really is a great time. Plus he also gets to see all of his friends there.

This year Carter was a pirate and he sure was the cutest pirate I have ever seen! One of Carter's favorite things on Dora are the Pirate Piggies, so I thought it would be fun for him to be a Pirate.

Sydney was a cute little pink ladybug. And of course she was the cutest ladybug I have ever seen!

And together... well you know... I'm a little biased!



I love this picture. They seem to be looking at each other saying, "What are you??"





This is our best pal Alex. He absolutely adores Sydney. And the feeling is mutual!



He and Carter are best pals too!



Daddy's little girl!


Sydney wasn't too happy after about 30 minutes of being there. She was ready to go home!


But once Daddy let her out of the stroller to play a little, she was happier.

This was the first year that Carter really got to enjoy the games. He loved playing baseball just like he does with Daddy!

We had a great time but were exhausted by the end of the evening. Thank goodness for the extra hour of sleep that night!














Camping is not my friend

I know many people who love to camp. I am not one of them. It goes back to my high school years with several "bad experiences" I'd like to call them. My best friend Tiana and I tried to "camp" in her back yard a couple of times and had bad experiences both times. Enough to scare us away from camping forever! The first night we had a "visitor" in a drunk man who wobbled down her street just feet away from us which led to a 3 am visit from the cops... the second time we heard a coyote outside our tent and then spent the rest of the night in search of Tiana's cat for fear he had escaped and had been eaten by the coyote. We found the cat safe and sound inside. Then a couple of years later I was camping with my youth group and a friend and I were up late talking and had an unexpected visit from pepe le pue himself! But it's been about 7 years since I have camped and I figured I could handle it this time. After all, I've lived in Africa with snakes and other critters. I can handle the outdoors! It was a beautiful October weekend, the perfect camping weather in Texas.


We found this caterpillar after it either stung or bit one of the kids camping with us. It was a rather interesting little thing and of course we had to take a picture.

Sydney isn't actually walking yet, but oh so close. Poor thing didn't have furniture to cruise around while we were there. So she was confined to her Mommy and Daddy the whole time. I think she still had a fun time!



Carter of course enjoyed himself as any three year old would!








Here was our tent, courtesy of the Murrays. Okay, so we didn't rough it too much on this trip. We had running water AND electricity! We also got to park right at our campsite. The woman were thrilled with this, but the men grumbled that it just wasn't quite camping enough for them! Oh well, the women won out on this one! We actually had a space heater at night which worked out quite nicely for us!



It was an okay camping experince for me over all. No major camping catastrophes. I didn't sleep much at all. I lay awake hearing every single noise around me: coyotes in the distance, a raccoon rummaging through our trash, the wind blowing up against the tent. Reminded me of the days long ago...
Just thankful my husband doesn't want to camp all the time!









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I am a homeschooling mom to four. I just had a VBAC after 3 c-sections this year after I was told I no longer had the choice by my first Doctor. I am a childbirth instructor for Birth Boot Camp. My first class starts January of 2013!