Friday, March 23, 2012

A Taste of Spring

I'm sure summer isn't here to stay but last weekend we enjoyed a nice walk with the kiddos.


We attempted feeding the birds (they are known to land on your hands with the right food) but we were a bit too loud and only held stale sunflower seeds.


We had a snack on the mini boardwalk before turning around and heading back to the car.

Levi humored me with a picture in the little nook.

Matthew posed for me on a mossy rock.

And the perfect little picture seat for a nice pose.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Peas in a Pod

Dave hooked up a homemade hammock the other day as a distraction for all of us.


It was a huge hit for all...except Levi!
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Friday, March 9, 2012

This is How I Woke Up


I hate it when this is how I wake up because I know the day is going to be very difficult. I just want to stomp around and yell and be selfish and it just isn't an option.

Here's hoping and praying (been doing a lot of that) that the day exceeds how I'm feeling right now.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Giving It a Go

Registration for kindergarten has come and gone and Matthew is not registered. Its been on my heart the past little while to consider homeschooling as our mode of education. I really love the idea of having the boys at home and I think it could be a lot of fun for us all. I have been thinking realistically too though.

How does one focus on a child who needs guidance when there are two others who need attention?

This is where my experimentation has begun. I while back my sister in law told me about a alphabet curriculum she was going to try with my nephew. It focuses on one letter a week and requires a lot of extras too it (www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com).

Erica- the lady who makes the activities and has a blog (above)- always has a load of activities that the youngest child gets to do so they feel involved in school even when they are not doing the same things. This is where I thought I could start with my experiments.

I loaded a basket full of different activities that I thought would interest Levi so that when I sat down to work with Matthew he would be distracted.

Here's Ewan sitting down at the table loving being with us - see his top teeth coming in?

Here is Levi and Matty hard at work. Matthew is really enjoying writing and colouring and as you can see, we've only made it to the letter c. Levi is colouring and using his chalk board that he got from Aunty Jo and Uncle Aidan for his birthday. We also had some colour sorting bears that he had been playing with.



Once the table was boring, Ewan went to spend some time with his toy basket

and Matthew drew his people ( I love the face with legs) and wrote his name (can you spot all the letters?)

Levi later found a marble and a baby sock and was enjoying the ball with the sock and then finding it again. So odd.


As far as I can tell this system is a lot of work. It takes a lot of organizing and a lot of my mental energy but I think they really enjoy it. Matthew daily asks to do activities (still called tivafies) and Levi runs along behind him ready to do whatever I give him.

I give no guarantees that this is where we will remain. I have a few years yet to know for sure. I think this coming school year will give me a better idea of what to do and how to do it. It is only kindergarten after all which in many ways it just organized play time with a few educational moments attached. Would I love the few hours a day Matty free? Absolutely! But I think in the end I would miss how little time I had him around too.
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Monday, March 5, 2012

Birthdays!

This weekend was a busy one but so much fun.

I sent Matty to my sisters on Thursday and took my niece in his place. It was really fun to have a big girl as a child for a few days.

Since we needed to swap back, we decided to celebrate Dave's birthday with a dinner on Saturday and also make it a birthday dinner for my nephew who turned 4 that day. It was nice to have them all over finally. We used to so this sort of thing all the time but our house hasnt been ready for it until now.

You can see here that Dave set up this mini table for the kids. We only have the one and there were too many people to fit at it. So, use some buckets and an old table and voila, a perfect kids table. They sat under twinkling lights, had a candle (for a very short time) and each sat on pillow.

I went on a baking spree- actually i pretty much lived in the kitchen for two days- and prepared cupcakes for the birthday boy, a carrot cake for the birthday man and lasagna for dinner.

It was such a nice time. I love to host but since its been such a mess around here its been hard. Family is the best to come over since they know whats going on and wont judge the state of the house on my housekeeping (trust me, I try to keep it).

Sunday was my father in laws birthday celebration. Unfortunately, Matty was under the weather so I stayed home with him and Ewan and Dave and Levi went to party. I was sad to miss it and would have loved to drag the sicko along but it would have likely ruined the whole afternoon for us all.

Today we are back to normalcy except for incredibly snotty noses. Maybe we're on the home stretch?
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