Grasping, sorting, color

I t has been a while. Life has been VERY busy. Going to get back here with some updates soon. ;)

Out of town half of December and a crazy January... Promise updates soon!

                  



             Princess Party




Our little princess turned 4 last weekend. Since her birthday is so near Thanksgiving she usually just has a family dinner not too much of a big party or anything. This year though she began asking for a "princess cake" back in early May. Mommy couldn't just let that go so a princess party I started planning. There are so many ideas out there and many of them were WAY more than I had tine, energy, or money for. I don't think any of the kids left without having a good time though. (and maybe not any of the adults either ;) )We had a balloon valence that "floated" (fishing line), streamers, and Christmas lights. Everyone decorated crowns, or shields for boys, then put on their princess dresses or capes. Adorned with royal attire and carrying wands or swords, we had a lead out announcing each child. The idea of chasing bubbles with our wands/swords ended quickly as the bubbles I bought wouldn't blow. lol Dancing with ribbon rings was a hit for the girls and the boys tried their hand at sword fighting. (are we surprised) Crown shaped sandwiches and an amazing princess cake (from Gabriela Wages) were the highlights of the edible kind. Not to mention a new (basically) princess bike and HUGE doll house mansion plus pony castle to go along with it!A big thank you to Ms. Lena and LaLa for helping make it happen for her. As well as everyone who came to enjoy and bless our little girl! Above all I think Princess Aliyah will remember her 4th birthday for some time! :) 

I am still working on remembering what all was supposed to go into the other Fall update I promised a few weeks ago. I think I am just going to write a little summary and then add some favorite pictures. ;) 
I mentioned last time how the Fall is my favorite season, there are so many FUN 
things to do this time of year and how busy we had (nothing has changed) been. I know I posted pics of scout award night and camp out, pumpkin patch, and Fall festival. We also had a zoo trip, library tour, trip to Oak Mountain State Park, and Nocolula Falls park. (last two forgot cameras sadly) More recently we had a Thanksgiving feast with our home school group where Zion quoted the opening scripture! Zion also participated in his first Rain Gutter Regata with Cub Scouts with the model boat he and Daddy made. All of us had a lot of fun at that event and Mommy got to meet several other homeschooling moms with large families. ;) The week leading up to Thanksgiving we took a break from our regular curriculum to do a Thanksgiving unit for school which was a lot of fun. I may do a separate post of pics from that. We took a day to visit the McWane Center science center with our membership and Gabriel was VERY excited to see the model train exhibit was already up and running. I think he could have watched ALL day long! We had a Thanksgiving dinner with church and Zion participated in his first children's choir musical. Then we had Thanksgiving lunch with my Dad's family at a church gym where the kids got to run around with 2nd cousins (lots of little ones!) and Lia's birthday was the next day. On her birthday some friends came over so the Mommies could work on craft stuff for Christmas (but they ended up only working on party decorations for the Princess Party the next day) and the Daddies and kiddos could hang out. Then we had the big Princess Party and that leads us up to today. I am sure I am leaving out something but eventually I will get better about posting more often so there isn't so much to catch up on. Oh.... on Thanksgiving day Miss Selah Grace rolled over twice but hasn't seemed to watch to repeat the activity yet. ;) Also forgot how much we like the "after Halloween sales on great costumes!

Yummy cupcakes from Gabriella's kitchen

 I realized I never shared the pictures from Gabriel's birthday so here they are. We had a fight night with friends, family, and yummy cupcakes. :)

"The gang"

LaLa

"This is a BIG one!"

"WHAT?"

Daddy gets lots of help!

Wow, a lot has happened since the last post. We have just been super busy! I love the Fall and it brings so many fun opportunities. (Not to mention the several week drama of having yellow jackets coming in the house from the nest they built IN the wall!!) In looking through pictures I realize i am going to need to make this 2 posts. We'll get the first one now and hopefully the second one later today. ;)

Dan and Zion went on their first Cub Scout  
 camp out last month! They had a lot of fun (despite Dan getting VERY cold during the night since he had given his sleeping bag liner to Zi) but didn't take many pictures. Zion got to shoot a BB gun and do some archery. He loved it! After this experience he is even more decided he wants a bow and arrow. At the scout award night for the month he received a belt loop for both of those activities and 3 achievement beads! He also earned and received his first patch the bobcat in October. Way to go Zi!! He is loving scouts and I think it will be a beneficial activity for him throughout the years. Only thing is I can't seem to convince Lia that she will never be a cub scout! lol She doesn't understand it's for boys and that girls have something different. She just thinks she's not old enough.

We've been doing a lot with school as well. I am really happy we made the curriculum change for 1st grade. Zion is doing very well with the phonics in it as well as the rest of the program as well. He was already doing pretty good with his reading lessons but was stuck on JUST the reading book. He is now moving out and working on reading other things and doing well. We've also gotten pretty consistent with adding in some preschool (as well as "calendar time") time most days as well. Aliyah of course loves this and begs to "do more preschool"! Sometimes this meaning the actual lessons/activities out of a preschool book and other times just worksheets, writing or cutting practice, or other learning activities. Gabriel on the other hand is interested in taking part on occasion but much of the time wants to just wreck the place. He he!! He has found a new love in our wooden trains, however, and will play with them for hours a day. I have decided that while there are some things I want to work with him on some developmentally (like talking for example) I am not going to push him to take part in school time right now. If he isn't causing trouble he's ok. ;)

We've been able to have school outside several days enjoying the Fall weather which has been really nice. In fact, those days Gabe seemed to really focus in and be involved so he must have liked it. Recently we've talked about plants, their various parts and how they grow. We are watching some beans that should be sprouting roots but so far nothing has happened with that. It might be a lesson in how things doing always work how you want them to. Also we've talked about rain, evaporation, clouds, etc. For this lesson we made a model lake to monitor the evaporation. Unfortunately since our "lake" was outside it got rained in before we could check for changes. We also have a rain gauge outside measuring rainfall. Another fun thing that has happened with school is that our "cousin" (best friend's daughter) got to come join us one day. All the kiddos loved having her join the "class" for the day and we hope she can do it again! I think Aliyah especially was happy to have another preschooler. ;)

 

Please excuse the crazy pics. I can't get the formatting right! :(  It's just going to have to work for now... Need to do school!

So between Aunt LaLa's wedding (sorry didn't get any pics because I took a camera without batteries ;( ), field trips, other Fall activities and "normal" school/life our last few weeks have been EXTREMELY busy!!  We've visited a cookie factory and a library, the wedding, Pop Pop and Mom Mom Wanda visited from MD, a fishing trip with Cub Scouts, as well as Zoo day with Scounts. There are other activites we've done as well...... 

At the fishing trip we got to take turns trying to catch a fish (too slow a process for us) and see a bunch of deer being raised on the property. 
The cookie factory was a really neat 30 min! Very short but we got to see 2 types of cookies being made. The little flower looking butter cookies that go on your fingers and vanilla wafers. They let us eat the vanilla wafers HOT and take cookies home.
Selah and Mommy had lots of stuff going on for the wedding. Nails, hair, make-up, pictures, etc. The rest of us just got to watch them "pratice", go eat a yummy dinner, and watch the actual wedding. Adding to the fun of that weekend was our surprise visit (only Mommy, Daddy, and Granna knew) from Pop Pop and MomMom Wanda. They played games with us, went to the wedding, and to church with us. It was quick but are happy to see them again in December!

In other news, Aliyah has decided to go to the potty like a BIG girl and is doing GREAT!! Gabriel has also started going to the potty sometimes. Usually at least once a day. :) Mommy and Daddy are excited about this as we could possibly be from 3 in diapers to 1 in a few months!!

Gabriel turned 2 last week. He is "two years big" as Mommy keeps telling him.       
                             (MORE PICS TO COME)

Zion earned his first badge for Cub Scouts and will be presented with his Bobcat Badge on October 30th. He is very excited about Scouts and it looks to be a great experience. 

 
In school Lia has been studying letters A and B, practicing counting, patterns, and writing her name. She also joins Zion for science and sometimes "read aloud" and other activities  Gabriel likes to color, play sorting games, and various other busy activities. He is also adding to his vocabulary and we are ALWAYS encouraging him to talk. We have also still been watching tadpoles that we collected from our pool in July and made a "worm habbitat" that didn't work out very well. not to mention watching a HUGE spider who built a web on the porch.








We've been enjoying the Fall as much as we can. Today we did some school (we missed a few days during the typical week) out on the picnic table, had a picnic while fighting yellow jackets, played in the hose a little, played some games, and had some friends over for a bonfire with smores tonight after. :) 

Such a busy, fun time. Next time we will try our best not to take so long to leave an update!!