Letters C & M (my favortie week so far!!!)

First of all let me say a BIG thanks to ALL the AAHHH-MAZING mommy bloggers out there who dedicate so much time into sharing their ideas for the rest of us!!! Because of these ladies I'm able to do so many fun learning activities with my boys & they inspire me to create some things on my own!

We began last week reviewing the letter C. I took this time to introduce Brady to the CH sound as well because we are about to cover that in our reading lessons. We also talked about how the letter C can also make a "S" sound like in the words City, Celery, & Cereal. Brady thinks the letter C is a tricky Cat! (dont ask)

Last year I read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to the boys & ever since then it has been a BIG hit in our household! Both big boys can quote it word for word! So they were pretty ecstatic when we read it during "school" time & made Caterpillar C's!

Rylan was incredibly impressed by the little fuzzy Craft balls we used. So I came up with a "Tot School" activity that I'll post tomorrow! :)

We also made Chocolate Chip Cookies in the shape of the letter C. This was quite messy, but of course that made the boys love it even more! Rylan sang the Cookie Monster song, "C is for Cookie, it's good enough for me" the whole time :) I wish I would've gotten it on Camera, but my hands were covered in gooey dough!

While our Cookies were baking we read the book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie." I HIGHLY recommend all the "If You Give A..." books!!! We also took time to talk about their Cousins & named all of the ones whose names started with a C: Caleb, Connor, Cameron, Christian, & Cody; Brady was a little upset that his Cousin Kaelin's name started with a K & not a C.

We also discussed how Jesus is the Christ & though I know the deep meaning of Christ is above his lil head, I still enjoy planting the seed in him & sowing it, because one day he will understand & that is the ultimate goal!

Our other C activities included lots Counting with our addition, playing with Cards, eating lots of C foods: Cookies, Carrots, Chips, Celery, Chicken, Corn...bet you can guess which food was Brady's favorite!

The boys even had a lunch of Chicken, Chips, & Corn while they watched Cars. I was informed this day that I was "The Best Mom EVER!!!" :D

Brady couldn't have been more thrilled to begin the letter M when he saw we would be doing our Math lesson with M & M's!!! He sorted them by colors & counted them, did his addition with them, made patterns & shapes with them & we even brought the M &M's into our language lesson & traced our M's with M & M's.

I used to have a M & M Math book from when I taught 4th grade, but have seen it since then :( I will have to purchase it again because my students LOVED it!

We spent that afternoon reading "If You Take A Mouse To The Movies" & which led us to watching the Movie "A Mickey Mouse Christmas" while we ate some popcorn & M &M's with Chocolate Milk. (Notice the Mixing of C's & M's??? ;P) We also purposely Made a Mess so we could Clean it up. For dinner we had a special M Meal of Mini Meatloaf Muffins & Mashed potatoes. We also played ALL of their Musical instruments & made up silly songs together.

We focused our Bible story to Moses & the 10 Commandments & made our Mt. Sinai out of the letter M, added some clouds & of course Moses too!

We reviewed the Commandments & gave examples of each (with the exception of adultery) & I explained to my best ability what Mercy was & that even though we often make Mistakes, God shows us Mercy & He forgives us; which is why we should show Mercy to others.

Letters O & T with addition

Last week we reviewed the letter O & made some super cute Owls! Rylan joined in the fun this time!

They painted their O's added a triangle with 2 green circles for the eyes. This was also an opportunity to teach Rylan some colors & shapes, though he didn't care for it as much as he did the painting! I had to pry the paint brush out of his hand!

Our O food was an orange of course! Brady wasn't too keen on trying an Olive! We talked a lot about the Ocean & our vacation to the beach when saw a lot of different sea creatures up close! Too close for me! A baby shark swam 5 feet away from were we were! We also looked in books & talked about the different animals that live in the Ocean. After we made our Owls we learned a new word: NOCTURNAL because most Owls sleep in the day & hunt for food at night. Another new word was OAR. It was in his dictionary & he couldn't understand why they put a paddle under the O because paddle starts with P! He cracks me up sometimes with his simple logical sense of things.



Brady also reviewed the letter T & made a cute Tree in the shape of a T.

He colored the Trunk & branches, then used a sponge to paint green leaves on it & before the paint could dry, he added fake grass we bought a while back to add some Texture!

Brady came up with a Ton of T words! As you can see by his list some of his VERY favorite Things start with T. Trains Thomas & Toby made the list & Brady wasn't too happy I ran out of room to write Tow Mater from Disney's Cars :) Our story came from the Bible, we Talked about the Trees in the Garden of Eden & the 1st sin. Brady remembered most of it which makes me happy! We also Talked a lot about Trust & Telling the Truth. Our T food was his favorite vegetable, a Tomato! I had considered working on Telling Time for math, but I didn't want to interrupt our addition that we had already started.

As you can see he did VERY well on his on. I like to buy the $1 workbooks to assist with our Singapore book we typically use. Brady likes it too because as he says, "I get to work with my friends." Meaning his favorite characters. :)

He also uses his Cuisinaire Rods to help count the numbers & then add them all together. I'm amazed at how quick he caught on. I'm hoping he's good at math & likes it. I never did! One of my main goals in homeschooling is to make learning fun so here's to praying I can find fun ways to teach the stuff I don't like so much.

A Gift from God & some Kari Jobe!

As a new mommy again I find myself being very busy with the same stuff, never getting it all done. My days are full of breastfeeding & caring for an infant, potting training & wrangling a toddler, & homeschooling an almost 6 year old who is very smart & always has a million questions or things he wants to tell me. Then there's my house with one problem after another, still waiting to be fixed, the never ending laundry & dishes on top of other house duties, caring for a dog I could live without but my kids can't. Trying to be a parent & a friend to my 20 year old niece who lives with us & I assure trying to find a balance in letting her make her own decisions, good or bad, & trying to guide her isn't an easy task! Then there's being a wife to a busy husband trying to further his career & being a mentor/leader to teen moms, & most importantly my relationship with Jesus! Oh wait, I forgot about the ongoing battle of food I have & trying to lose weight.

I'm sure I've left some things out :)

Now please know I am NO WAY COMPLAINING!!! I LOVE my life! I have 3 amazing boys, a wonderful niece who is a GODSEND! A husband whom I love &that works hard for his family, a ministry I'm proud to be a part of, & a roof over our heads that WILL be fixed...eventually. All are great blessings, but sometimes Momma just needs a BREAK!!!!

Well here's God's special lil gift for me...my niece, Britany, offered to watch ALL 3 boys Friday so I could go shopping with my friend Karen. That's 2 gifts right there! The weather...well it was a BEAUTIFUL spring day in JANUARY!!! That should count as 3 gifts right there :) Our day was going great! I was out of the house, with a good friend, shopping & actually finding some things for myself, good conversation; couldn't have planned a better outing for myself!

So we decided to eat outside at Corner Bakery because the day was just getting more beautiful by the minute! As we sit down we notice a group of about 10 people eating next to us. They dressed pretty eclectic/rockish & I told Karen the girl in the headband looked REEEEEAAAALLLLLYYY familiar! For the life of me I couldn't figure out who she was or how I knew her. Karen checked her phone then looked at me with widen eyes & asked if I thought the girl was Kari Jobe. To our utter surprise & great delight IT WAS!!!!

Kari had really Tweeted that she was in Jackson & that's how we knew without a doubt that one of our FAVE worship leaders was eating right next to us. We were like giddy lil girls :) Kari was incredibly sweet, took pics with us & autographed my CD that just so happened to be listening to in my car! God-thing...ABSOLUTELY!



As if my day wasn't already wonderful, a nice gift from God to give this momma a break, He goes & puts a GIANT bow on top of the gift in the form of KARI JOBE!!!! How amazing is He!? I was also happy when my friend Marie showed up too! She sings a lot of Kari Jobe & I was thankful she was able to meet her as well.

I so wish I wouldn't have been such a "fan" & actually told Kari how much her songs mean to me! But I have a great sense that I'm going to get to meet her again one day & then I will actually tell her. Sunday night I was able to see her perform at a local church & it was an incredible night of worship! She has such a pure heart for the Lord; it's incredibly refreshing!

So now it's Monday & back to the usual chaotic busyness of Mommyhood, but with a great big smile on my face, feeling renewed & refreshed! All thanks to God, my Father, my loving Bridegroom who knows just what I need when I need it & throws in something special unexpectedly just for me....

Letters N & L

I know I'm late on this post but last was CRAZY! I had my 1st sinus migraine and I pray it was my last! :/

On the home school front we reviewed the letters N & L.

For the letter in our focus was Numbers. We went on a number hunt at Walmart and Brady wrote down all the Numbers he saw in his little Notebook. We worked on skip counting by 10s and 5s and worked on some early addition skills too. Our N food was Nachos (my favorite) and we talked about different ways we can be Nice to others and Not be Naughty.

The Letter L represented Letters. Brady is almost finished with his Kindergarten reading book! So we've used the last couple of weeks to review. Our verse was Luke 10:27 "Jesus answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Which also tied into our "Nice" lesson. His L food was a Lollipop, but thought it was "SO COOL" to eat ABC's & 123's because it had Letters and Numbers in it. :) The Little things that kids Like LoL...and speaking of LoL...we also talked about things that make us Laugh...my favorite was my kiddos, Brady's was Tom & Jerry.

For our craft I cut many Numbers and Letters out of newspaper and Brady had to sort them and glue the Numbers to the Letter N and the Letters on the L.



Pictures were taken on my phone so the quality isnt too great. This week we're taking off to the great state of Texas to visit my mom & sister! have a blessed week!!!

A FUN Dr. Visit

I love being a mom! Scratch that! I LOVE LOVE LOVE being a MOMMY! :)

Today K-Dawg had his 1st set of vaccinations and against my better judgement I took ALL 3 boys with me ALONE!!! Not sure what my thinking was, though I'm pretty sure I wasn't thinking due to the lack of sleep and the constant caring of 3 small children. But I have to admit I'm glad I did! We had a good time surprisingly.

I was COMPLETELY terrified of the bigs touching things sick kids had touched and bringing home strep or the flu. So I said to ask my prayer warriors to say a special prayer for that! We actually made it early and the bigs stayed in the infant room with me and didn't complain that I didn't let them out to see the fish or play with the germy kids on the other side of the waiting area. They played very well together in our little, secluded area.

Keller weighed in at 12.7 lbs and measured 24 inches long and is in the 75th percentile :) He smiled and cooed at his dr and the dr said Keller was perfect in every way....but I already knew that :)

While we waited for the nurse to come in we read 3 books and sang songs. the bigs, especially Rylan, started to get antsy which led us to the video below. I love my kiddos! All their lil sillies too!

Letters Y & Q

Well we are the home stretch of Kindergarten and of course I have VERY mixed emotions! Happy to see how much Brady is learning, but a little bit sad because he's growing up so fast! Even though he's known all of his letters and their sounds for a long time I have decided to review him on them and use this as a way to get Rylan involved and to have some learning fun with Brady. We are doing this on top of our regular reading and math lessons and using the weekly letters to learn new words, play games, do science, and some social studies type projects. So check back every week to see what we've come up with :)

The boys glued Yarn to a Yellow Y. Rylan's is on the left & Brady's on the right. Brady & I also discussed words that start with Y & we talked about the one's he didn't know & looked for pictures of them in his 1st Dictionary. I purposely made lunch or dinner with something that began with a Y, but it took him a bit to guess Yellow corn :) Momma doesn't do Yams! And of course he had Yogurt at lunch one day. Brady was also extremely happy that Yoshi from Super Mario starts with a Y too and reminds me of this whenever he plays :)

Rylan coloring a letter Y from his book. you can also see textured Y we trace with our fingers & a ball of Yarn we used for our art & to play a game of toss with.

Brady using Cuisinare Rods to make Ys. This book also helps with colors & counting & many other fun activities.

Brady tossing Quarters onto the letter Q.

After practicing his printing we put the Quarters under the paper so he could rub the imprint of the Quarter.

The boys also painted Qs with Q-tips & happy for me, they didn't even make a mess!!

Their final products with our list of Q words.

After school was over today we went out to lunch and ate some Quesadillas! MMMMM MMMM MMMMM!!!!

Communcation or lack there of

To say the least the last month or say has been crazy! I wasnt too busy just simply too tired and too pregnant too emotional LoL! Lovely hormones! Well 1st let me say my sweet baby K is here and is perfect! I had a sweet shower and was completely overwhelmed by love! I will post more on these later when I can sit down and upload photos to share with them. Hopefully this wont take another month!

My pregnancy went by incredibly fast to me. I was lying on the table getting prepped for my c-section and it hit me just how fast it went by. It didnt seem like it was time to have Keller yet, like some how it all rushed up on me, 9 months are gone and boy #3 was here. This of course lead me to a lot of alone time to rest, but of course with the ever changing hormones it led me to a lot of thinking about a lot of things and probably a lot of over-analyzing as well.

It's no surprise to anyone who knows me that I wear my heart on sleeve. If I'm sad, happy, angry, silly, etc etc it's typically not hard to tell. I used to keep all of my feelings locked in side never expressing what I was going through which ultimately led to a lot of depression. Then I went through a stage where I let my emotions control me and that was absolutely ignorant and no good either. So I've had to find a balance and sometimes that's easier said than done.

I try to be a open book. If I'm in a bad mood, I always let my husband, niece, anyone near me know so they dont take my bad attitude personally. Communication has changed so much in the last decade thanks to text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, blogs, etc. Sometimes it's easier to just shoot someone a text message when you just have a simple question than to call someone and have actual conversation that may last longer than needed. And let's face it, sending someone a birthday card is a thing of the past it seems. It's not official unless you post on Facebook for everyone else to see.

Somehow with all this technological communication has allowed people to keep in touch with more people, but it also seems as if it has driven a wedge and built walls between others. Now Im not saying any of these things are bad. Facebook alone has saved my scrap booking by allowing me to immediately upload pics and things my kids do as they do them. It has also helped my mom who we dont get to see often feel like she's very involved in our lives and can witness all of her grandkids growing up without leaving her home.

Then of course there's the aging process. As we grow and our lives change the things around us change. Our views, morals, beliefs, friends, kids, jobs, and so on. Sometimes it's hard for me personally to let go of things. I like things to be nice, simple, non-confrontational, drama-free, and easy as possible. Especially my relationships with others. But what Ive learned this past year is that they more often than not dont really go that way. People are different. As we each change our relationships change.

So friends come and go whether there is a reason for it or not. I for one, have got to learn to let go try not to take it personally. Maybe in the cycle of change the good Lord will bring those relationships back full circle. He's done it before so I'm certain He'll do it again.

And in the midst of the change He also brings forth new relationships. So in the end it's all good. Everything in life has the ability to make or break us, but we are the determining factors in that. When have to to choose to lean on Him and let Him guide us through, showing us more mercy and grace when we fail, helping us to admit failure and apologize when necessary.

In the midst of all the communication or lack there of, God is always there, just a prayer away. So in hopes to be more like Christ I hope I can be the same for others. That I can be just a phone call, text message, Facebook post or Tweet away when someone wants me :)