Spring blooms

Some pretty plants around our yard

My front flower bed is in desperate need of weeding, but my tulips finally bloomed!

The giant lilac bush just started blooming, it must be decades old. I'll get another picture when it is all in bloom.

A big apple tree, I hope we get some apples this year!

Our little pear tree

Peach tree

I don't remember what this is but it is do pretty!

Rhododendron, my only surviving one :/

Vivi's 4th birthday!

Good morning, sunshine!

When she noticed the balloons all over her floor

Being bashful as we sang her first 'happy birthday' of the day




Vivi's favorite presents-princess dress, Hello Kitty backpack, and strawberry necklace that matches the one Journey got for her birthday.

For her birthday, Vivi asked if we could go to Jungle Java!


We surprised her by inviting her local cousins to come play too, she was so excited!

Another bashful picture-singing 'happy birthday' again





For her 'picks' she chose pancakes for breakfast, macaroni and cheese for lunch AND dinner-we used Annie's for lunch and I made crock pot mac 'n' cheese for dinner, and cinnamon rolls for dessert. She also picked Bolthouse Blue Goodness juice to drink, Better Made BBQ chips and brussels sprouts (her favorite veggie) to go with dinner, and Cascadian Farm chocolate o's for bedtime snack.

It was a very busy, very fun day!

Reading and writing

Jeb's favorite subject of 1st grade is still language arts. The first couple of days he much preferred reading over writing, but he is really catching on to writing and is even starting to sound out words and trying to write by himself.

Today he had his first spelling test from the words we have been working on all week. His reader has a short story for every day, and each week they are mostly made up of words with a similar ending. This week was -at words, with a couple of added sight words like the, and, is.

We are both really enjoying Sonlight's Core A, much more than the 4/5 curriculum. I love the way they tie the subjects together. When we read about Adam and Eve leaving the garden of Eden and having to work harder to support themselves, and the chores Cain and Abel did, we read in some history books about early civilization and how they learned to work the fields, find food in the wild, make clothing, etc. Jeb especially liked learning how people would hunt an animal, eat the meat, then use the skin to make clothes and the bones to make tools.

Here is his first spelling test, and his first short story about one of the characters in his reader.

Homeschooling today

Yesterday we started our new curriculum. We decided to stick with Sonlight, Jeb is doing Core A. Core A includes bible and memory verses, literature, cultures, biology, physics, and he's doing 1st grade reading and math. The math is Horizons, which is one of many options got math from Sonlight, but I didn't realize it was a Christian curriculum. Yesterday we read the creation story in the bible, and today in his math book he is writing the numbers to the corresponding day of creation. So far he is still really excited to do the work, he LOVES his reader and wants to just read the whole thing. He did not enjoy the copy work exercises, which work on handwriting and sentence structure. This morning he asked if be could only read and not write :) and he enjoyed science and math yesterday too.

The swingset project, phase 1

We finally found a swingset that we liked, and bought it right away, since the store only had 3 of them. Then it sat in our garage while we patiently awaited the end of winter in Michigan. We're actually still waiting, it's snowing outside right now, but we did have a few nice days last week to get started.

The kids posing by the boxes. The boxes behind the grill are all the heavy wood pieces, and the slide is to the left.


My dad, aunt, and uncle came over to help, and the kids were eager to help too. We started on a Thursday evening and worked until dark

The million lb bag of bolts and screws-very intimidating!




We didn't get very far that night and decided to keep working on it on the next warm day-Sunday. Vivi had the flu so I stayed inside with her all day, but they got a lot accomplished!



Hopefully it will only take one more day's worth of work and we'll be able to really enjoy it!

Hands On Museum Fun

The house that Journey built


Vivi and Jeb built this house all by themselves!



It took poor Journey forever to finally get her feet up on that bottom step, she was so proud!

Random happenings of March

Jeb's half birthday, we celebrated by singing 'happy half birthday to you' and the kids ate pear sauce (like applesauce, but pears) with sprinkles on top.



Even though it didn't go well last year, we still had some seeds left over so we decided to plant some inside and give it another shot.

Our new business venture/science lesson

We had these strange visitors in our yard, then they caused a scene crossing the street. My kids thought they were peacocks, the Jeb's friend across the street thought they were ostriches. I think they are some kind of crane, but you definitely don't see them around here! I hope they are making a nest in the woods behind our yard so we see them more often!