Trac!

We went up to my parents house to see and play on the logging tractors (AKA- tracs) and celebrate Siah and Uncle Jake's birthdays. He loved it!

Fieldtrip

We went on our first home school field trip with our local Christian Home School group on Tuesday. It was soooo much fun! We had a picnic, rode a tractor to pick pumpkins from the patch, shucked Indian corn, fed animals, played on tractors and enjoy the beautiful farm.
A special thanks to our friend Pear (Kari) who helped make it happen. 3 kids would have been too much on my own but it was a lot of fun with Pear (Siah named her and it has stuck).

Have I mentioned how much I love homeschooling... I do! We're having so much fun and learning a ton. Today Siah started telling me what letters were on the flashcards and what sounds they make... I haven't been working with him but he's been watching. I was really surprise. Tori is now able to read short sentences and she only started her reading curriculum last week. It's so fun to watch them learn.

*baby girl's face has been blocked so I can share these pictures. If you want to see how cute she is, let me know and I'll give you access to our private blog.

Another Airshow

We braved the crowds in San Francisco to see the Blue Angels this past Saturday. Prior to going we watched a documentary about them so the kids were really excited... actually we were all excited! They were really loud and fast and put on a great show with 6 jets flying in formation and doing all sorts of tricks. Siah said his favorite part of the show was the "Mama plane"... the Blue Angels Cargo plane that started the show off. Love that he called it the Mama plane. :)

We were happy that we went but seriously we were a little crazy thinking it was a good idea to take 3 kids under the age of 5 to the city. Traffic was insane! Parking was $25 and that was in the bargain lot. Navigating our double-wide stroller through mass amounts of people was nearly impossible. Thankfully BOB (our stroller) was able to hold all three kids which made it manageable.

The big city experience was really exciting for them since they'd never been before. They loved the tall buildings, tractors, ships, trains, trollys, house boats, apartments, fire trucks, men & women in military uniform and all the planes.

3!!!!!!

Siah Turned 3!  We started off the celebration with all his favorite foods- popcorn and smoothies for breakfast and followed it up with pizza and strawberries for dinner.  We made a tractor cake together that he's been talking about for weeks and watched Handy Manny's Big Dig. It was a true Siah style celebration with tractors and Spiderman. We also did the Great Paci Exchange. Here he is turning them in and taking one last hit.  It was tramatic but he knows a 3 year old Siperman does not sleep with a paci so he traded them in for his super special tractor cake.  We love you little man!!!!  Next weekend we'll have a party with family.  Mom and Dad are logging so there will be tons of big rigs and tractors for him to play on.  A little boys dream come true.

Hungry Caterpillar

Home schooling has been many things-  challenging  I'm still figuring out my teaching style while trying to determine Tori's learning style and how to make it all work together with some sort of schedule so we are not all exhausted.  It's been enlightening- I had know idea there were so many different educational philosophies.  I'd never really thought about it before and now I'm constantly researching and figuring out what I agree with and what I want to implement in our school.  There are some wonderful ideas and I know Tori is going to greatly benefit from this school experience.  Most importantly- it's fun-I didn't know I was going to enjoy this so much.  Tori loves to learn this way and Siah is picking up on a lot of things too.  I usually set aside the morning hours while baby girl takes her am nap.  We read together everday on the hammock or trampoline. Bake. Do tons of art projects.  Learn letters.  Math. social studies. Science and nature study.

Hungry Caterpillar week.  Lessons learned from this simple book- numbers 1 to 5, days of the week, healthy food choices, metamophisis and plenty of art projects.



We even made him a caterpillar.



Getting messy!

They had sooooo much fun painting on paper, themselves, and finally the table.



Blue man



Walk For Life update



Tori kitty!



We had a great time walking and raising $ for the Pregnancy Resource Center.  They had a BBQ and bounce house after to celebrate.



Sleepy girl




I saw this flower during the walk- it represented life to me.