Sew Mommy Sew

Snuggle Babies

2011-11-08T08:19:00.000-08:00

This weekend we went down to Eagle Pass to visit Juan's grandparents. We took my 11 year old niece, Arrieanna with us on the trip to help with the kids and have fun. Jovi and Arrieanna shared a bed in our hotel room. This is a conversation Juan and I overheard in the early morning hours:

Arrieanna, very sleepy says, "Jovi, move over to your side of the bed.".
Jovi says, "But I like to snuggle.".
Arrieanna replies, slightly annoyed, "Just move to your side.".
Jovi says, "Ok... I know, you can come on my side of the bed to snuggle.".
Arrieanna ignored the offer.

My children love to snuggle with someone while they sleep. We have finally gotten them out of our room at night, but it took till last month. Corbin was always crawling into bed with us and Jovi would try to do the same. Our answer at the time that was only marginally successful was setting up blankets on the floor beside our bed for them to sleep on. Corbin still climbed into our bed most nights and I was often too tired to move him back down to the floor. We finally decided last month that the blankets had to go and the kids HAD to stay in their beds. Or compromise was that if the woke up at night and needed someone they could go and sleep in each other's rooms. This has worked really well for us, we rarely get a child coming into our room at night and the kids seem happy. They are usually in Jovi's room when we wake up. I wondered about this till Juan told me what he saw one night. Jovi had woken up, gone into Corbin's room, woken him up and she was prodding a very sleepy Corbin through the hall to her room so he could sleep in there with her. I guess Jovi prefers her room to Corbin's room.

Jovi's Reading Journey

2011-11-06T16:07:00.000-08:00

I wrote this as a post on a forum and wanted to remember it.

We did ETC last year and on the days I had dd do it, we did NOT do handwriting. I, personally did not find that ETC was enough for dd's phonics instruction. I have tried a LOT of phonics programs. Reading does not come naturally to dd, but she wants to learn so here is what I've tried, hopefully you will see something you can use:

Bob Books: dd could memorize them, but I learned that she couldn't hear separate sounds within a word so I looked for something to help with ponemic awareness.

Phonemic Awareness In Young Children has tons of easy to play games that help children hear beginning, middle and ending sounds in words, they play with rhyming and sylables too. A lot of the games require a larger group as it is a classroom program, but some can be done with just one student and some of the games are fun enough that the whole family can enjoy playing. We did not use the whole program, but I know what we did helped dd. *This is NOT a reading program, there is no written component, but it is an EXCELLENT listening program*

Next, dd could hear specific sounds in words, but couldn't blend them, the above program works with that, but I also started using Phonics Pathways. The book stats out VERY simply, we drilled her short vowel sounds and played their blending game over and over. Then she stated doing the "lessons", reading a page a day. We stopped after all the CVC pages were read because even though she could read short vowel words, she lacked fluency. Every word was laborusly sounded out no matter how many times she saw it.

We stopped phonics pathways and switched to www.starfall.com. I had the books and student workbook and I used that along with the online books and games. I had her read a book a week and by the end she was reading each one fluently and it was transfering to other things she read and best of all she loved reading time each day. BUT once we started into the vowel combo books it wasn't enough practice for her, she was getting confused and the rules were not transfering to other things she read.

We switched to The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. We skipped the beginning and got through digraphs, she was progressing, slowly, but she hated it. Reading was no longer fun and now a chore.

A little bit after I started using OPGTR, I got All About Spelling. I really like this program. It includes phonemic awareness, it teaches ALL the sounds for every letter, alphabetical order and dd enjoyed it. I know others have used it to teach reading and could see how it would be very effective doing so. I was using it for spelling, but saw dd's reading ability increase too. But I wanted a reading program to complement my spelling program, I didn't want to use it as the reading program too.

This year we have started using PAL: Reading. I LOVE this program. I warn you, it is teacher intensive, but it is SO effective. Supposedly you are able to take a total non reader to reader with this program except there is an underlying assumption that your child knows their letter sounds and there is no direct instruction on blending, but it is perfect for where my dd is now. It really focuses on vowel combos, it introduces them through poetry and there are LOTS of folder games. By the end of the program, I have confidence that dd will be able to read most children's books and early chapter books. She will also have been introduced to a lot of poetry, new vocabulary and some grammar. I highly reccomend this program if your child can't seem to get past reading short voewl words, it is great!

Kerchina

2011-10-02T19:28:00.000-07:00

My mom has been waiting to get Jovi an American Girl doll since she was born. We both felt that at 6 years old, Jovi could both appreciate and take care of the doll. For her birthday, my mom took her to the American Girl Doll store and let her pick out her doll. Jovi didn't want one of the historical dolls, but choose one of the dolls in the My American girl doll series. Jovi named her doll Kerchina (said Kercheena) and she looks a lot like Jovi, but with straight brown hair. After she chose the doll, My mom, Jovi and I went and had "tea" (aka hot chocolate) upstairs and the American Girl restaurant. They even sang to her and she got to blow out candles.

Monks

2011-10-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

At the end of August, for history we were studying the movement of Christianity from Rome to England and the creation of the monestaries there. I made somewhat authentic Monk habits for Jovi and Corbin and brought them to co-op for the kids to try on. They really enjoyed them and it made for some great pictures. That same day everyone got to try writing with quill pens. Writing with quills and ink is NOT easy. I can understand why copying books took so long. It was a fun co-op day.

Flashback to 2009

2011-09-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not yet done with my summer updates, but I was uploading these to youtube and wanted to share a few videos.

First Day of School Co-op

2011-09-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken August 15th right before we left for our first day of co-op. We are part of Denton Classical Co-op this year. It is a group of 15 amazing ladies who all homeschool their children and meet together on Mondays for classes that go along with what we learn at home durring the week. It is extremely acedimically minded, every subject is covered except Math. History and science have hands on projects that go with what was read the week before. They also cover reading, writing, art, unit studies, PE and latin (although we are not following up with this at home). We also meet for occasional field trips during the week. They have classes for every age group, so Corbin is in preschool and Jovi is in kindergarten. We have so much fun at co-op and I know the kids enjoy it. As the name "co-op" suggests, each mom gets to teach some of the classes. This year I am teaching History for preschool-2nd grade and the letter of the week/ reading program to the preschoolers and kindergarteners. I was really happy when I found out what they wanted me to teach because those are two subjects I feel comfortable with (I was not looking forward to teaching something for the high schoolers). I think all the kids have been enjoying the lessons, at least I hope they have. I know Jovi and Corbin really like being part of the group and so do I.

Homeschooling Curriculum

2011-09-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

We are choosing to homeschool Jovi and this is her second official year, but since it is the first year she could go to public school we are calling it her kindergarten year. I figure I should call it what everyone else will and then do whatever work is on her level, so she is doing first grade math and simi first grade reading, her history and science aren't leveled and then I am adding in stuff as it seems appropriate. Here is a list of the curriculum I am using and what I think of it since we've been using it for 6 weeks now.

I am following most of the recommendations from The Well Trained Mind. It is a classical education model and I really like it. I especially like the four year history rotation. History is broken up into 4 time periods, Ancient History, Middle Ages, Early Modern Times, and the Modern Age and you study one per year, studying more in depth through each rotation. We are studying The Middle Ages using The Story of the World and I truly love these books. They make history so accessible and I have personally learned a lot that I probably should have already known.

We are reading the church's Book of Mormon Stories this year for scripture study. I am loosely following this study guide to help with songs, activities and memory verses.

At our co-op (I will talk about co-op in my next post) there is a memory club that promotes memorization of all sorts of facts. We use this memory system and for far more than scripture verses. Jovi also memorizes poems, science facts, math facts and virtue definitions. Jovi likes passing off her memory work at school to someone other than me and I like that she is motivated to practice. Sometimes Corbin even wants to practice. I especially like that we continue to review everything even after it is passed off so Jovi doesn't forget what she has learned, it is a great system.

I have tried MANY reading programs in the past year and a half and I am happy to say that I have found a truly awesome one that I am going to stick with. It is called Primary Arts of Language Reading and I cannot recommend it enough. Reading doesn't come naturally to Jovi. It is work for her, but she actually enjoys lessons with this program. This program does take a lot of time to teach, it is not a 10-15 minute lesson that any mom can easily do at home with her child, but it is an extremely effective and fun program. Each day we read a poem and then look for a specific phonetic grouping and/ or another language arts lesson like, vocabulary, homophones or syllable counting using the poem. We do this during calendar time. Then, later in the day we have reading games time where we make and play folder games that help Jovi practice her phonics lessons. This includes a card game that allows her to practice sight word fluency on words that she could sound out (all rules are taught), but she needs to be able to read on sight. After games, she has a homework sheet with words she has already practiced and she must complete on her own. Then, as our very last activity she gets to put her phonics sticker on her "Phonetic Farm" and practice her reading with her reading practice page. The Phonetic Farm is such a neat way to review phonics rules, it is hard to describe unless you see it, but Jovi loves it. You are supposed to be able to take a non reader who doesn't even know their alphabet sounds and get them reading with this program. I would NOT suggest using it that way. I think this program would be very confusing if a child didn't have a firm grasp of at least the very basic alphabet sounds (at the very least short vowel sounds) and the ability to blend them into words. Alphabet sounds are covered, but not intensely and blending is not touched. There is an assumption that this has already been grasped by the student. When I talk about phonics rules I am almost exclusively talking about vowel combos and vowel/consonant combos that are not easily decodable without rules being taught such as ue, ay, ow (both ways to say it), er, ee. In my opinion, these are not what you teach a child without them already able to read short vowel words, BUT it is exactly what Jovi needs. I am SO happy with this program and the progress I see Jovi making. It is wonderful.

We are using Mr.Q Classic Science, Earth Science for our science curriculum. I like it, I don't love it, but I kick myself regularly that I didn't get all the worksheets that went with the program printed and spiral bound for free when I had the chance. It is easy for me to do which is nice. We read a chapter a week, Jovi does narration and that is it at home. Narration is done for all history and science chapters and sometimes for scriptures to. Narration means that Jovi must tell me three things she remembers from the chapter in complete sentences and I write it down. This has helped SO much with her retention of material. By the end of the year she will be copying what I write in her own handwriting in preparation for writing her narrations herself in the future.

For handwriting, I am using Handwriting Without Tears. Jovi still prefers to write in all capital letters when she writes things on her own. She does not grasp her pencil correctly and takes off the corrective pencil grippers whenever I am not looking. Her handwriting is very juvenile. The curse of the mom (I hope you have a child just like you) is at work in this because I remember doing all those things as a child. I hated handwriting and gripped my pencil wrong, but was sure it was the better way than what my teacher was trying to get me to do. We will continue to practice and Jovi doesn't fight me on it because I told her she has to finish the book before I will teach her cursive which she is very interested in learning. I want her to have a firm grasp of printing first before we move onto cursive.

I bought Math Mammoth when it was on sale and was going to use it this year. It is a good program. I like it and I think Jovi will like it. But I already had an old 1st grade math book that I bought from Half Price Books for $1. It is in color, covers alll the basics and is ready to go. So, we are going through the math book first before we switch to Math Mammoth. So far it is going well. Jovi is just starting to memorize her addition math facts, it's exciting.

I am using First Language Lessons very sporadically with Jovi. It is an early grammar program and very easy to implement, I just find it hard to get to with all the other things I want to cover. I plan on doing better in the future.

I use Writing With Ease with the workbook for Jovi's writing program. I am not totally sold on her method mainly because I find it extremely lacking in creative writing, something Jovi enjoys, but I figure we can add creative writing in and I know doing the copywork and narrations is good for Jovi so we do it.

We will be adding All About Spelling as Jovi gets further along in her reading program. It is a program we used some last year and I already know I like.

We have been doing a little of this book for geography, but Jovi get a lot of geography in history so I'm not doing as much as I planned. We also listen to a classical music piece each week.

My one failure this year so far is Spanish. I got La Classe Divertida (I really dislike their website) and it has not been the hit I thought it would be. The plan is to watch the DVD during lunch each day, but we are just SO busy it doesn't seem we get to it and it isn't Jovi's favorite thing to watch. We cover some Spanish each day during calendar time, but not nearly as much as I would like. I will continue working on it. This is something the whole family wants to learn, we will find a way to do it.

I teach an art class on Tuesday afternoons to Jovi and two other children using Artistic Pursuits. So far, the class is going well and the kids are having fun. I like the program, but am adding some to it to help the kids create better compositions.

The Frisco Rough Riders

2011-09-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

In August, we won four tickets from a drawing at our chiropractor's office to watch a Frisco Rough Riders' game that not only included some really great seats, but an all you can eat dinner of concession stand staples (hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, nachos, popcorn...). We had a really good time despite the 100 degree heat and we stayed till the seventh inning when we were planning on leaving by the third inning. The Frisco Rough Riders' is a double A team and I learned what that means. It means LOTS of foul balls, some strikes and very, very few hits. It was fun to watch though and there was lots of "extra" stuff for entertainment too, like several contests and little girl dancers who I was happy to see did not try to dance provocatively and were actually quite cute. The food was...free, so I can't complain. I wouldn't mind buying tickets for a game next year, but we will definitely be choosing a different food package.

My Birthday

2011-09-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, I got a whole year older. We had some yummy cake and I got some nice presents making it all worthwhile. The next day I got 12+ inches of my hair chopped off. I am planning on sending it to Locks of Love, it's only been two and a half months that I've been planning on doing it. It will happen, right?

Father's Day For Grandpa

2011-09-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

For Father's Day my kids gave my dad a World's Greatest Grandpa shirt and hat. He loved it.

My Garden at it's Best

2011-09-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

I came to realize something this summer. I really dislike perpetually high temperatures. I really, really dislike being outside in them. And since this was the second hottest summer on record, I tried very hard to stay inside most of the time. This is NOT good for a garden. These pictures were taken at the end of June and it was the best my garden looked the whole summer. Soon after this the garden became neglected, extremely overgrown and not very productive. We got lots of cucumbers, but once the heat really started, everything else withered.

We will be planting my first fall garden ever today and since I actually enjoy being outside now I hope that it will be well cared for and productive.

Serious Catching Up In Progress

2011-09-23T19:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I took a summer vacation from blogging. I am back and catching up on many of the important events that happened this summer. I will make one new post a day till I catch up so watch for many future installments.

Our Vacation

2011-06-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

Last week we left on vacation for Minnesota where our niece was graduating high school. We drove the 16 hours, but about 20 hours with bathroom breaks, in two days. On the way up we got to take our niece, Arianna with us. She was great to have in the car and helped to keep Jovi entertained most of the way up. The kids actually did far better than I expected. My mom made them travel journals with a map of every state we traveled through. We stopped at all the visitor centers we passed and the kids were able to get a map and a few pamphlets for every state. It was a lot of fun, I highly recommend it especially for older children. Corbin was too young, he liked taking the pamphlets, but didn't care about them afterwards.

Once we got to the house, the kids were surrounded by their cousins and taken outside to jump on the trampoline. The adults stayed in the house talking. Thirty-ish minutes later Corbin was brought inside crying, holding his leg. He had fallen off the trampoline and yes, he broke his leg. One ER visit later Corbin had his right leg in a splint, got a popsicle and stickers for being such a good patient and was feeling better.  I was not. The splint went up his thigh and couldn't get wet.   The ER doctor said he probably wouldn't be able to walk for 4-6 weeks. How in the world was I supposed to keep an active three year old from walking for 6 weeks!?!?! What can you do outside in a Texas summer (100+ degree weather) that doesn't involve getting wet?!?! These were the thoughts I was left with that night. The next day was the graduation. Juan took a "facebook" shot and a group photo.

Unfortunately it was drizzling the whole graduation and since we had to keep Corbin's splint dry, we didn't get to see Kayla walk, but we heard it was great. The next day was the backyard graduation party and the weather was wonderful, sunny and breezy. Juan and his brother, Ruben grilled for 200 people. Ruben grilled chicken and some of the best ribs I've ever had. Juan grilled the veggies; corn, zucchini, peppers, onions and mushrooms. The party was lots of fun and had great food, of course. Corbin spent a lot of the time on the couch watching movies inside, but he got to go outside a couple of times. Jovi spent the whole day happily playing with her cousins.

When we got back home, we took Corbin to the Orthopedist who put him in a cast under his knee (yes!), that can get wet (yes!) and he can walk in (once it stops hurting), and he should be out of it in 4 weeks (yes!). Once I told him about how people can write their names on his cast he had all of us write on it, including directing me to write his own name on it.  He asks anyone who comes over to our home to sign it. It was a memorable vacation with some interesting souvenirs.

Laura Visits and a Summertime Birthday Bash

2011-06-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

Laura came home for vacation and to attend a friend's wedding. She flew in the weekend before Memorial Day and stayed for a week and a half. It was a lot of fun having her at our house again. On Memorial Day we decided to have a Summertime Birthday Bash for all four of our family birthdays that are in the summer. We had a very nice dinner and some yummy desserts. We all got to blow a candle out.

We had a nice group picture, but then Corbin insisted we needed to make silly faces too. It's his new thing, every "nice" picture needs an accompanying silly face picture.

We gave Emma and my mom their birthday gifts since we would be out of town during their birthdays. Jovi picked out a doll just for Emma and Corbin picked out Connect 4 for him to play with Ganna, there were other presents given as well, but those were the cutest.

We got to spend some time with Laura and played lots of games of Lost Cities. One of our last outings was to the local snow cone shop, yummy. Thanks for coming to stay Laura, we love you!

Last Day of History Class

2011-06-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of this school year we joined a homeschool co-op. Every Friday Jovi got to go to a history class that did map work and activities based on our weekly history reading from The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor (Revised Second Edition) (Vol. 1) (Story of the World) (we love this history book by they way). Then she had PE and sign language classes. We had a lot of fun as part of the co-op, but we lost our building and the co-op fell apart in December. The PE and sign language classes were fun, but extra in my opinion. I felt the History class was important, Jovi was enjoying it and I really wanted her to finish it in preparation for the upcoming school year. I could have just bought the activity book and done the map work and activities on our own, but many of the activities are more fun with more kids, SO I started a history class on my own. We met every other Friday for an hour and a half with three other children (we had two more for a month and a half before their family moved). We had so much fun and the families we came to know are great! Some of the kids' favorite projects were, practicing Chinese calligraphy, acting out the story of Remus and Romulus, making a crown like the Roman emperor Nero (the first to have a heavy gold crown with points) and enjoying a Celtic feast. We had our last class the first week of June and ended with the fall of the Roman Empire and a swim party, very appropriate since the Romans invented swimming pools (aka Roman baths). Here the kids are working on making barbarian heavy bracelets before we went swimming.

I learned a lot about ancient world history as we read and did activities, hopefully Jovi and the other children learned just as much and had fun doing it. Next school year we will be part of a new co-op and I get to teach history for Preschool-2nd grade (not all at the same time). I'll also be teaching an art class at my home and the kids I taught this year will hopefully be part of it. There are lots of fun things to look forward to this coming school year.

Magic Tricks

2011-05-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

As you can see, the kids love magic. Juan has a very appreciative audience for all his amateur magic tricks and the kids try to copy them. Jovi is always asking, "Is that REALLY magic Daddy?". We always tell her it's a trick, but it's fun to see her eyes light up as something "disappears" out of Juan's hand.

Corbin has started asking Juan to rock him before he goes to lay down in bed. It only lasts a few minutes, but is SO cute. They go into our bedroom and Corbin sits in Juan's lap and asks, "Daddy, can we talk?". Juan replies, "Sure, what do you want to talk about." He chooses different topics, but one recent conversation went this way.
"Lets talk about dinosaurs, Daddy."
"Ok, what's your favorite dinosaur?"
"Tiny ones."
"Tiny ones?"
"Yes, ones this small," and he holds out his thumb and pointer finger to show the size of some of his dinosaur toys, "they are so cutee (pronounced cute-ee)!"
I think Corbin is so cutee.

Our Growing Garden

2011-05-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

Our garden has been growing and we've been having lots of fun taking care of it We've harvested lots of radishes, but only I like to eat them. We had a very nice salad tonight from our garden. In the next few months we should have lots of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers (for pickles) and green beans. I planted two eggplant starters and each one has one nice looking eggplant growing on them. I have to say that it isn't very cost effective to grow eggplant from starters if you only get one per plant, but I'm excited to have super fresh eggplant. I even have one pepper growing on my one pepper plant.

Corbin Update

2011-04-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

So, this video needs a little explanation. We were having family home evening and each of the kids wanted to sing their own song. Corbin chose to sing the ABC song, he sang it the traditional way (not the ending he used in the video) and then bowed and said "Thank you, thank you." . It was so cute and funny we wanted to record it, but when we finally did (I think this is the third time he sang it) we got this "alternate" ending to the delight of his sister and, well, Juan and I couldn't help laughing too.

Corbin is such a little boy. He loves cars and trains and playing monster or dinosaur. His latest obsession is his clothing. He only wants to wear "workout clothes" and "cool" shirts. Workout clothes means shorts or pants with stripes on the side. Cool shirts are a little more nebulous, if they have stripes on the sleeves they are cool, but rather than that I haven't figured out Corbin's definition of cool. I did try to have him wear his Toy Story shirt the other day telling him it was cool, his answer, "Mom, that's not cool, that's funny." and not worth wearing apparently. He currently has a limited number of workout clothes and cool shirts and doesn't understand why he cant wear the same set of clothes day after day. He does love bubbles and bubble baths, but dirty clothes are just fine with him. He is a perfectionist and gets upset if thing don't work the way they are supposed to, like eating with a fork, life is just terrible if food doesn't stay on your fork. He is an extremely loving little boy and gives lots of hugs, kisses and snuggles. He is definitely into testing boundaries and is extremely determined, willing to throw 30 minute or more tantrums in an attempt to get his way (don't worry, it doesn't work). Corbin is sleeping better than ever before, on an average night he only wakes up once or twice for a drink of water and a quick tuck back in bed. This is lightyears better than it has ever been and so exciting for us. Corbin is wonderful little boy and I am so glad he is part of our family.

Our Garden and Bunnies

2011-04-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

We added two new 4ftx4ft garden boxes to our back yard this year. While we were building them we found a small bunny (not a baby) hiding arround our soil bags. Everyone got a chance to pet him before we let him go.

Here is a picture of us in the process of making the garden.

And here is our finished and planted garden.

I love having a garden again. Look for more pictures in the future.

Abuelo y Abuela Flores

2011-04-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago Juan's grandparents came up from Eagle pass and we were able to go to his aunt's house and visit them. Juan's grandparents are wonderful people and wonderful cooks. His grandpa makes the BEST BBQ chicken I have ever eaten and anything else he grills is delicious. His grandma makes wonderful beans, rice and tortillas to accompany the meat. Anytime we visit there is good food and good conversation, well kind of. Juan's grandparents only speak Spanish so we haltingly try to communicate, but there are good feelings. You can't help but appreciate such nice caring people and they love our kids. Jovi and Corbin are currently the youngest great grandchildren and very loved. The kids loved that their cousins were there (aka: Corbin's friends) and spent almost the whole time playing outside with them. We did get them in for a few family pictures. I love the one of Corbin holding Abuelo's hand, so sweet!

Jovi's First Sewing Project

2011-04-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

Jovi has wanted to learn how to sew for about a year now. First I told her she had to wait till she was five, then she turned five and was still asking for lessons. I kept meaning to teach her, but something always came up. Three Sundays ago we finally sat down and did it. She made a simple doll pillow from some scrap material. She did a great job and was very proud of her finished product.

Jovi is growing up. In the past three weeks she has lost three teeth, including her two front teet. Her smile is adorable. I've been trying to get her to sing "All I want for Easter is My Two Front Teeth", but so far she just laughs when I try to teach her. Jovi loves to play with friends and makes new ones wherever we go. I think she is getting a bit burnt out on school, but she is reading, writing, spelling and adding pretty well now. I'm working on seeing if we can finish our current program by June. Jovi will be starting swimming lessons with my mom this week. She is SO excited about learning to swim. Jovi loves to play pretend with a Fisher Price castle and her disney princesses. Jovi and Corbin have been clashing a bit lately since Corbin is less likely to want to go along with the Jovi agenda, but they are still best buddies and usually love playing together. Jovi is very creative and I love seeing the art and and stories she comes up with. Jovi has an imaginary friend named Dori. She is a fairy and has been playing with Jovi for about two weeks now. Juan and I have fond memories of our childhood imaginary friends and are glad Jovi will have memories too. Jovi is a sweet thoughtful little girl and her prayers at night are wonderful to listen to. She really cares about people and is learning to love and trust in God. I'm so glad Jovi is part of our family.

Camping

2011-04-19T06:54:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago we went on our first family only camping trip. We've gone camping twice before, but with friends. This time it was just us to see if we could camp alone. I think it went pretty well for our first time and we learned a lot for our next trip. We went to Lake Ray Robberts, only a 30 minute drive from us. They have some great camping spots. Jovi has loved camping every time we've gone so she was super excited about the trip and so, of course, Corbin was just as excited. We brought way too much food for an overnight camp out and not enough games for the kids. We ended up making up our own wilderness style game.

There was a burn ban in effect which we weren't expecting, but after a quick trip to the nearest convenience store and paying 2xs the usual price for charcoal, we were able to cook dinner. We had the classic, but always good, hot dogs chips and smores for dessert.

That night Juan brought out headlights (flashlights you wear on your head) and I think it was one of the kids favorite parts of the trip. They LOVED walking around looking at stuff with their headlights. They weren't as fond of the giant beetles that were attracted to the lights, but after assuring them that the beetles wouldn't hurt them they at least stopped screaming and trying to step on all of them (yuck!).

The next morning Jovi wanted to take some pictures by herself and since we forgot her camera, I reluctantly let her use mine. She was actually very responsible and I'm sure I'll let her take pictures with my camera again. Here are a few of her pictures.

We also tried to go fishing while we were there. Both the kids desperately wanted to catch a fish. Unfortunately, the saying "the early bird catches the worm" is totally true when trying to buy worms for bait. We went mid morning and the bait shop was all sold out. We were forced to fish with fake lures which means we didn't catch anything. We told the kids it was just practice for our next camping/ fishing trip. Jovi and Corbin were surprisingly patient while fishing. They were more than willing to just sit and wait if it meant the chance of catching a fish.

We had a good time camping and plan on going again, maybe even next month to take advantage of the weather before it gets too hot.

A Family Get Together

2011-04-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we were able to spend a Saturday with some of Juan's family. Mari was visiting from Minnesota and Juan's Aunt Virginia and mom came up and we met them all at Alyssia and Ariana's soccer game. It was really fun watching the game, but Jovi and Corbin were more interested in playing with their other cousins than watching soccer. The girls won the game, and then we went to a little Mexican restraunt with delicious food. The kids love playing with their cousins. It was a really fun day.

Valentines day: Happy Birthday Juan!!

2011-04-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

Please excuse my lateness on the following posts. I'm trying to catch up. Jovi looks forward to making valentines for Valentines Day all year long. It is just about the only time I let her use glitter for crafts. This year Juan was able to help us make our Valentines.

Juan's birthday is on Valentines Day. We didn't do anything super exciting, but had a fun family party. The kids were excited all day. They made cards for him and we decorated the house. They loved helping him open his presents. We love you Juan!

Jokes

2011-02-08T05:59:00.000-08:00

Jovi and Corbin currently love telling jokes. I don't remember how he came up with it, I think Jovi made up a joke and Corbin added a variation, but Corbin's favorite joke is about his stuffed hamster, Squeaky. "What does Squeaky do when he's bored?" "He goes ice skating!" Hilarious laughter ensues. Sometimes he changes the punchline, aparently Squeaky has lots of options when he is bored, but ice skating is his favorite. Corbin has never been ice skating, I'm not sure why Squeaky likes it so much.

Jovi's favorite joke was told to her by Laura.
"Knock, knock"
"Who's there?"
"Interrupting cow."
Interrupting co-"
"MOOOOOO!" (obviously intterupting the previous statement)
There are now many variations on this joke, the interrupting pig, the interrupting duck, the interrupting cheese (introuduced by Juan, the cheese says "Cheese, cheese, cheese!"). They both love any jokes, but those are their favorites. Jovi is old enough now that she gets most punny (haha) jokes and Corbin will laugh at anything if Jovi does so it is a lot of fun. Do you have any good jokes to share?

Homeschooling Update

2011-02-07T10:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated about homeschooling in quite a while. In November I realized how unhappy I was with most of the programs I had chosen. I blame it on a few things, but mainly on my inexperience, a lack of knowledge about my preferred teaching style with one student and a bad sense of how much time an activity should take. I still think the curriculum I chose, (Five In a Row) is an awesome curriculum, but it is not awesome for me. A curriculum is only as good as your implementation and I couldn't implement it well. My problem with FIAR was that I thought I would love unit studies, where you study one thing, in this case a picture book, in depth and then move on to a different topic. I found that I didn't like the constant changing of topics, I needed more continuity. The constant changing made me feel stressed. You are supposed to be able to use the FIAR lessons as is, just open and teach, but I felt I had to add stuff which was making me spend three or more hours lesson planning each week. This planning added more stress. Then, because I had planned so much we wouldn't get to everything (and Jovi was seriously young when we started so her attention span was pretty short) which just caused me to be more stressed and discouraged. We were getting further and further behind "schedule" so I just dropped everything except for reading and math. But then Jovi's math program, which was easy and she was speeding through, got very hard. There wasn't enough practice for her to master anything. She was getting frustrated. I was feeling frustrated and guilty for not doing more with her. We needed a change.

I did a lot more research and chose a new program, Little Hearts For His Glory (yes, it is as Protestant Christian as it sounds). It gives a biblical world history overview, includes every subject and is Charlotte Mason influenced, including the use of short lessons. We kept our handwriting program, Handwriting Without Tears, and our reading program, Phonics Pathways and Starfall.com, but switched everything else.  Without homeschooling experience I would have never chosen this program. I would have looked at it and said, "No way, this is not what or how I want teach.". I would have thought, "1-2 hours a day and I can teach all the schooling Jovi needs? No way!" I was very wrong. I have found it to be a perfect fit for Jovi and I right now and am so grateful that we switched.

The things I love about this program are: 1. It is truly open and go. I read the lesson plans for the week (about 15 minutes) on Sunday and am ready for the rest of the week. 2. The layout of the lesson plans is SO easy to use. Each day is shown on a two page spread with boxes around each subject. I can easily track what we have done and what we still have to do. 3. The lessons are short. We do at least 8 lessons/subjects a day, but since each lesson only lasts about 10 minutes Jovi stays interested in all of them. We can also easily do two days of work in one day because of the length of the lessons. I can occasionally add more things to do (like extra science and art) and not feel overwhelmed. 4. Jovi really likes the lessons.  A lot of them include acting stuff out which she loves.  5. The chapter books we read are wonderful. They are, Favorite Thornton Burgess Animal Stories Boxed Set (Sets). The chapters are short enough that she actually asks for more. The morals are wonderful and since they are "old" she is being introduced to a whole set of vocabulary that she isn't used to hearing.

The program is not perfect by any means. We don't use the devotional that was included.  Not only do I not agree with some of it, it is extremely harsh, there is so much talk about sinning and sinners and our evil hearts. It is not how I want my children introduced to religion. The science is extremely weak, we do extra science to supplement, especially since science is one of Jovi's favorite subjects.  The have craft projects, but we add extra art too. Overall though I feel it is a wonderful program for us. It is also helping me understand how to write lesson plans that will get done.  We will be using a different program next year, but I am so glad I found this one for this year.

Ice and Snow

2011-02-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

Last weekend the temperature was in the 60-70s. You didn't even need to wear a jacket. On Tuesday, the temperature dropped to below freezing and sleet fell all night. We woke up to an inch or more of ice everywhere. The city shut down, everything was closed. Wednesday and Thursday it continued with below freezing temperatures along with rolling blackouts to avoid power failures. We are very close to some nursing homes so we were not included in the rolling blackouts, at least I assume that was the reason why we weren't included. On Friday we were supposed to get 1-2 inches of snow that turned into about 5 inches of snow by the time it stopped falling. We had some fun playing in the snow yesterday. Unfortunately, it was super powdery snow, snowmen were impossible to make. We found ways to have fun anyway, like snowball fights and playing Jovi's made up game called "follow the snow tracks". Someone makes tracks to a hiding place and everyone else has to follow the tracks to find them. Today the snow is melting, but there is more winter weather in the forecast so we will see what the next week brings.

One good thing about an icy/snowy week is that we got a lot of school done and I was even able to sew a bit. We ended up doing 4 (modified) weeks worth of work in one week and now we are on schedule to finish school by the end of June. I made the kids a bunch of doll diapers, attempted tiny doll clothes (a bit of a disaster, but Jovi still likes them) and have started finishing all of my UfOs (unfinished objects). I now have one baby boy gift, and am working on a whole stack of baby clothes that will turn into future shower gifts.

Potty Training

2011-02-02T06:15:00.000-08:00

So, I go into a bit of detail on this post. If you are squeamish consider yourself warned. I am going into a bit of detail because I can't remember Jovi's potty training experience at all and wish I did, at least the basics. I know she trained shortly after Corbin was born (which might explain why I can't remember) and I'm assuming it was fairly quick and painless because I DON"T remember and I can usually remember traumatic events.

We tried potty training Corbin back about 6 months ago. He got the pee thing down really quickly, but refused to poop in the potty. Yes, I know we are supposed to use the correct words, but we don't. Then a week into it he decided he didn't want to use the potty at all. Several accidents later I gave up. We still talked to him a lot about using the potty. We read potty books. He would occasionally ask to pee on the potty, and go, so I knew the connection was there. He wanted nothing to do with pooping on the potty. I decided not to push until last month. I started telling him that three year olds at our house had to wear undies and use the potty. I was very matter of fact about it. It is just the way things are. He would say he still wanted his diapers. I would tell him all the great things he could do when he was potty trained like go to the IKEA kids class and stuff.

Then, the day after his birthday, I pulled out the undies, Jovi's old potty chair, some serious bribes (including M&Ms and monster trucks) and we were ready to go. If Corbin sat on the potty and "tried" he got a couple of M&Ms, if he actually went, he got more M&Ms, if he went poop he got a monster truck. The first two days there were some accidents, but after that he was pee trained. He has had 2 accidents since those first two days and he was really involved when they happened. You could tell he totally forgot he needed to go. Pooping was much harder, her really fought it. He would hold it and complain about tummy aches until he couldn't hold it anymore and then he would go, but it would hurt and so he wouldn't want to go anymore and hold it... it was a vicious cycle. About the second week he got a handle on it and I am happy to report he is now fully potty trained. The bribes went away very naturally, none were needed (or even asked for) by the end of the second week. I don't even have to ask him if he needs to go (the answer is always no when I ask), he comes and tells me. I have no more children in diapers, I can't say I'm sad about that. It is exciting to be a diaper free household.

Corbin's Birthday and Goodby Laura

2011-01-31T08:32:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago Corbin turned 3 years old. The night before Laura gave Corbin her gift, Superman pjs. Corbin loves Superman and he was so excited.

Laura also gave Jovi Tinkerbell pjs. They were both very grateful.

Corbin showing off his super strength.

Laura helping Corbin to fly.

These are now Corbin's all time favorite pjs and he wears them as often as he can. When he wears them he calls himself Superman and talks in third person. "Superman needs to brush his teeth." "Superman wants choose his book." "Superman flys to bed." are things he often says in the evenings nowadays. It is too cute.

The next day, decorating with the Superman party Cricut cartridge, Corbin got a Superman birthday.

We had a family celebration at Chuck E Cheese. For some unknown reason, last year Jovi decided she was very scared of Chuck E Cheese. This quickly went from avoiding him at the restaurant to refusing to even walk in, so we asked her if she would be ok with the party being there and after much discussion she said she would be ok. This lasted until she actually saw Chuck E Cheese. She freaked out and refused to move from our booth. My mom left with her early, but rather than that small snag we all had a great time. (I made the applique for Corbin's shirt with my Cricut and sewing machine :) ). Corbin got some great presents. I think his favorite was the Thomas Train trackmaster stuff from my parents. He loves running those electric trains.

My sister, Laura, has been living with us for just over a year. It started as a very temporary thing, because she thought she wanted to buy a house and didn't want to be locked into an apartment rent agreement. After a lot of looking she decided that she didn't want to buy a house right now, then she stayed because her rent was helping our budget. It was a fun year having her here for dinners and evening game playing, but I think the coolest thing was how my kids got to develope such a wonderful relationship with their aunt. On Corbin's birthday she packed everything she owned into her car (an amazing feat in and of itself) and left to do a year of service with AmeriCorps in Montana doing statistical analysis of their financial literacy programs. I think she is in for a fun and exciting adventure and I'm so proud of her for choosing to do something totally out of her comfort zone. I hope she has a wonderful year. We love you and miss you Laura!

First Snow Day of the Year

2011-01-26T06:37:00.000-08:00

The Sunday before Corbin's birthday we got 4 inches of snow, that stuck! Unfortunately, Juan had put weed and feed on the lawn before it snowed so we couldn't play there, but our driveway had more than enough snow to play in. I learned that my snowman making skills are sadly lacking and we really don't own the right clothing for serious snow playing, but we had lots of fun anyway.

Juan gave his car a Mohawk.

Seriously need to catch up

2011-01-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's been two months since I've blogged. Well, lots of stuff has happened. To catch up, We had a great time visiting the zoo with some friends.

We had a nice pre Thanksgiving with my family.

We had Thanksgiving with Juan's family at his mom's house (Unfortunately I forgot my camera.). We had a really great time with his family, great food and fun and games, but going home was less than ideal. Corbin cried the whole 2 1/2 hour trip home. Really, the whole time. We were considering going to Eagle Pass for Juan's grandparent's 60th anniversary which would have been an 8+ hour drive each way. We opted for sending a card. I'm praying he grows out of this because we are driving up to Minnesota this summer whether he does or not.
We are still enjoying going to the DMA's first Tuesday activities. In fact, we just became DMA members for the free parking perks. These are the Dr. Seuss hats the kids made during December's first Tuesday. We also decorated Christmas cookies.

Then my camera battery died and I lost my charger and I wasn't able to take any pictures (or upload the old ones) till I got a new charger right before Christmas. Honestly, December was pretty boring. The biggest news was that I started working for my sister who is disabled and has always had serious health issues. She lives with my parents and we go over and help her with errands and cleaning and stuff every Tuesday and part of Thursday. I had big plans for making Christmas items, making our family matching Christmas pjs and lots of baked goods to hand out to friends and family. None of it ended up getting done because two weeks before Christmas Corbin got croup which turned into pneumonia and had me sitting on a couch with him every day watching children's movie after children's movie. Juan and Jovi also got sick for part of that time. I got a lot of reading done, but not much else. Fortunately, everyone felt good enough to enjoy Christmas Eve at my parent's house.

Sickness reigned Christmas Day, but at least not for the kids. We were supposed to go to Juan mom's house, but Ruben's family was sick so we put that off till New Years Day. Then we were going to get together with my family for a Christmas lunch, but both my Dad and Mom woke up sick. We ended up spending a quiet Christmas day at home playing with our new toys. Corbin got a wooden train set, Jovi got a play laptop, Juan got a bunch of board games and I got a cricut. I totally wasn't expecting it and it is just as awesome as I thought it would be. I've been having a lot of fun playing with it.
That week we went to the Frisco Science Center where we have a family membership. It's small, but a lot of fun and they have a daily story time and craft. We go 2-3 times a month.

On New Year's Eve my family came over for a pizza dinner. Everyone hung out till we put the kids to bed and then my sisters left to go to parties. My parents stayed and played a game with us and then left. Juan and I rung in the new year on our own. On New Year's Day day we went to his mom's house celebrate Christmas. We had a lot of fun and the kids got some very nice presents AND Corbin only cried the last 30 minutes of the drive home (there is hope).

Next time, Corbin's Birthday and Laura leaving...

Kid Update

2010-11-15T12:37:00.000-08:00

Jovi has started spelling her name Joviey. Apparently we did not add enough letters at the end of her name. I've asked her why she wants to spell it like that and she says it's because she just wants to. Well, that clears everything up. I wonder how long she will want to spell her name that way. It's pretty funny.

Jovi really enjoys playing with legos now. Juan will build her a castle or car or whatever she asks for and then after it's built she decorates it and then uses the mini figures (which she adores) to play. It is SO funny watching her. We have a large collection of mini figures and she has them talk to each other, usually in quiet little mumbles. Yesterday I overheard her saying, "You're a Jedi? Jedi are cool.".

Which leads to the next thing that Jovi likes right now, Star Wars the Clone Wars. It is a cartoon that is supposed to take place between the 2nd and 3rd episodes (or 5th and 6th movies). We thought Corbin would really like it. It turned out that he didn't care much about it, but Jovi thinks it is great. We rented the movie and then have been getting the cartoon network episodes through Netflix occasionally. Jovi is a fan. She has asked for the movie for Christmas. My poor kids, with Juan and I as their parents they never had a chance to escape nerdiness.

Speaking of nerdiness, Corbin is an iPhone addict. My mom gave me her old iPhone when she upgraded (yes, I do have an awesome mom). I didn't want to pay for the phone service so I use it as an ipod touch and let me just say, it is SO much fun. Not only do I like it, but my kids can't get enough. I've bought them lots of age appropriate apps and both the kids will play with it for long periods of time. Corbin though will play with it till the battery runs down. I used to have it connected to our house wifi, but Corbin figured out how to get into the app store and after he bought one (fortunately only $1) I disconnected the wifi access. He still brings me the phone and asks me to buy new types of apps like a dinosaur app or a Star Wars app, but now I tell him that the store isn't working. It is a really fun toy though.

Corbin has actually started sleeping through the night sometimes. This is a huge, good change and offers me hope for the future. He has never been a good sleeper. He has never slept through the night, so even though it is only 2-3 times a week where he sleeps till 7am, it feels like a gift. Now I am just crossing my fingers that the trend continues.

Jovi's Soccer Season

2010-11-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

Jovi just finished her second soccer season. She was on the same team as last season, the Ladybugs, but they had a full 8 players this time instead of only 6 last season. Jovi's been doing really good this season. She scores about 2 goals a game. She really seems to enjoy playing too. Her most exciting game was one where she was one of only three other players, so she played the whole game. We were missing some of our strongest players and we were up against a tough team. The score kept going back and forth. They would score, then we would score and back again. It was the last minute of the game and we were loosing by one. Everyone was fighting for the ball in front of the other team's goal. Jovi kicked the final goal in and as it went in the ref blew the whistle and ended the game. It was out first tie ever, but Jovi kept it from being a loss. She is so happy when she makes a goal. It is too cute. Jovi did a great job this season and we are proud of her. Jovi loved it when her cousins were able to come and watch.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

We celebrated our Halloween a little early since this year Halloween falls on a Sunday. Our kids didn't seem to mind at all. Our celebration started over a week ago with a trip to a small Pumpkin Patch in Coppell. They actually weren't open, but we took pictures anyway and after asking permission in the church who was running the pumpkin patch we got two small pumpkins and left the money under a brick on the check out counter. I made Jovi's skirt using the very last of one of my favorite fabrics, some very cute orange corduroy with black polkadot fabric. I used this pattern, one of my go to patterns for cute skirts.

On Monday we got bigger pumpkins and carved them. The kids helped take out the pumpkin "guts" and got to choose the type of face they wanted on their pumpkins. I wielded the knife. That night we set them on our walkway and put candles in them. The kids loved it.

The rest of the week I frantically sewed together costumes for the kids. I'm kind of proud about how they turned out since I didn't use a pattern for either of them. Jovi wanted to be an Egyptian since we have been reading a lot about them in our history book. I thought it was a great idea and looked up some info on this very helpful site. Using some cheap linen look fabric from Joann and metallic fabric paint for the collar I feel I made a pretty cute costume. Jovi's favorite part was the wig. Corbin wanted to be a bug until his oh so helpful sister said, don't you want to be someone from Star Wars? Corbin LOVES Star Wars, so of course he wanted to be Luke with the all important blue light saber. Honestly, his costume took less time than Jovi's. I used a kid's Chinese robe that we had as my pattern (by the way, those robes are made of all rectangles, super easy) for Luke's shirt, made a little belt and added some tan pants and boots and we had a Luke costume. Corbin loved it. On Friday we went to our church Trunk or Treat. The kids had fun until Corbin saw someone dressed in a scary costume and he freaked out. He seriously acted like one of his worst nightmares came to life. He hung out with me and helped pass out candy after that, but we did end up leaving a little earlier than planned. Jovi had a great time with her friends and got a lot of candy.

Happy Halloween!!!!

Thursday was Apple Orchard Day

2010-10-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we went to our monthly Justin group field trip. This month we went to Henrietta Creek Orchard. I've been wanting to visit this orchard since I found out about it two years ago. At the time Jovi was three and I was teaching preschool. I called to see if we could go and the owner strongly suggested waiting till the kids were at least four. I thought that was odd since I thought kids of every age could enjoy an apple orchard. I now understand. The orchard was beautiful and we had awesome weather for our trip. We started in a pavilion with a school group and several homeschooling groups where the owners gave a very informative 45ish minute lecture. THAT was why they suggested the kids be older, our 4 and 5 year olds had trouble sitting that long especially since they were at the back of the audience. The younger kids, like Corbin just wandered around the orchard area behind the pavilion. I got some very cute pictures of the younger kids. Here is Corbin with Sara who he called Rosie the whole time. I totally didn't get it till a friend pointed out that was Caillou's sisters name. Then it all came together, Sara was an adorable little girl with light red hair just like Rosie.

Corbin and Carver watching an airplane.

Then we got to take a guided tour of the orchard. Part of the tour included picking an apple or two, washing them and eating them with honey from the farm's beehives. The kids loved picking the apples.

We had a good time, but it wasn't what I expected. I was thinking that there would be more apple picking and less touring. We had a wonderful picnic afterwards though. It was a fun field trip although I don't think we'll need to go back anytime soon.

Wednesday was State Fair Day

2010-10-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

The kids and I went to the State Fair on Wednesday with my mom and dad. This is something Jovi and I look forward to all year. She loves the rides, the petting zoo, playing in the new cars and the enormous sandbox. I love the arts and crafts section (I keep meaning to enter, but always forget), the live infomercials and the food. We got to do it all this year and had a great time. Corbin liked everything too except for Big Tex. He was very scared of "the big man" and needed to be held by me or Ganna or Grandpa anytime we went near enough to see him. The weather was wonderful, sunny and cool with a breeze and it only started getting crowded an hour or two before we left.

Here are pictures of the petting zoo. Jovi requested it be the first place we went. Corbin was reluctant to get near the animals at first, but he ended up liking to feed them with the provided shovels. Jovi liked feeding all the animals, her favorites were the baby goats.

Next we went to the kid farm where Jovi and Corbin got to be farmers. But first Jovi wanted to try out being Big Tex. It's a good thing Corbin didn't recognize him.

Here is a group photo from the day.

Corbin liked trying out the cars.

Jovi really enjoyed the rides, but Corbin did not. We ended up having to stop the ride and get him off because he started crying. Perhaps next year he'll be ready.

After the fair we went home and crashed. A trip to the fair is a lot of fun, but very tiring. My mom made this awsome YouTube video of our trip, thank you mom!

Homeschooling Now

2010-10-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

A friend expressed an interest in knowing how our homeschool adventure was going. I thought some other people might be interested and then maybe I might be interested in remembering in the future so I should probably write about it. The best of intentions often fall apart when things get too complicated and I unfortunately seem to like to complicate something that could be quite simple. My original plan required me to do several hours of planning each week and about 30 minutes of "getting ready" every evening or morning. I couldn't sustain it.  Sure it wasn't that much of my day/week, but it started to feel overwhelming especially when life interrupted my carefully planned week. It's pretty sad what that says about me. I want to be a scheduler, I want to organize my day, but it seems to just make me feel stressed out trying to get everything in and then overwhelmed when I can't seem to finish everything. Yes, I am crazy.

After six weeks of school I stopped planning, but I've only recently started to feel that this is OK. We didn't ever stop doing school, I just stopped planning it. Instead of having a daily plan, 3-5 days a week during the morning or afternoon I would tell Jovi it was time for school and she could choose Math, Reading or Handwriting/Journal to do first and then we would proceed to complete a page of each. We have also started reading The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor, Revised Edition because she does activities from it with the homeschooling co-op we joined. But I felt guilty about not doing our Five in a Row lesson or our Science lessons (which are very good, but require alot of teacher prep). Then I looked back at my goals for her for the year. They were pretty simple. I wanted her to be able to read, spell and write CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words, I wanted her to be able to add and subtract single digits, count and recognize numbers to 100 by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s and I wanted her to be able to recognize Texas on a map of the USA and the USA on the map of the world. (I have since added that I would like her to be able to name and recognize the 7 continents and 5 oceans of the world). What we were doing, without daily planning was directly correlated with most of these goals.

So, I no longer feel guilty about not planning. This method works better for me. I still do an occasional Five in a Row lesson, but without planning ahead. This week we had planned to go to an apple orchard on Thursday so we read How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World (Dragonfly Books) several times during the week. Then on Friday we shopped for apple pie ingredients and made a pie crust.  Today we cut up several types of apples and our whole family did a taste test of what type of apple we liked best (everyone preferred Gala over Fuji or Red Delicious). I even made a quick graph showing the taste test results to hang on our wall upstairs. Then we made the apple pie together and everyone ate it (a big deal since Jovi doesn't usually like pie). It was a lot of fun, but I didn't write down any of it and I didn't feel pressured, except by excited children, to do any of it. Here is a picture of Corbin with the pie, Jovi didn't want to be in the picture.

Just to brag a bit, Jovi can read! It is has been so wonderful to see how it all came together for her, letter sounds, to words to meaning.  Just this week she started reading  Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers, after she moves through set two I will start her on Starfall books (starfall.com). We will probably go back to Phonics Pathways: Clear Steps to Easy Reading and Perfect Spelling for more practice or to introduce more advanced concepts, but the books are much more motivational than the reader at the moment. She has started sounding out words as she writes too. She comes up with some very interesting spellings of words, but is so great that she is trying. I love being part of her ah ha moments. I hope we will have many more together.

The DIY Dish chance to win SEWING MACHINES

2010-10-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

The DIY Dish is back for its second season and they have one AWSOME givaway for the first episode. They are giving away an embroidery machine, a serger, and two $100 gift certificates to youcanmakethis.com and swakembroidery.com. The contest is open until the end of November so there's lots of time to visit the site and enter.

Funeral and Family

2010-10-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Juan's maternal grandmother died. She had been very, very sick for several months previously. I know that this life is not the end and with that knowledge all I can think is that at least she is no longer in pain and has found peace. I didn't know her very well, but from what I knew of her she was a wonderful lady. She was the mother of 9 children, 1 boy and 8 girls (in that order). She loved her family, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and loved for them to visit. She love sparkly things and Christmas. And she always made a granddaughter-in-law who only spoke a few words of her language feel welcome and cared about when we visited.

We were asked to wear pink at the funeral so I spent the day before we went to the funeral shopping for pink clothes for everyone. It is hard to find a men's pink dress shirts in fall, fortunately my brother-in-law lives near a JCPenney outlet and was able to find some very nice ones for a great price. We traveled to a small town halfway between here and Houston where the funeral was held. We stayed in a hotel with rooms right next to Juan's mom and siblings and their kids which my kids thought was the best thing ever. Corbin called the hotel "the building" and his cousins were "my friends" and was constantly wanting to go back to the building to play with his friends. It was very cute. We were able to take some nice family pictures while we were there.

The Flores kids with their Uncle.

The cousins (aka Corbin's friends)

The girls

Da boys

Jovi trying to get Corbin to smile. I was so sad that I missed the money shot on this one when she was actually holding his lips like a grin, very funny!

I got to meet one of Juan's aunts who I had never met before and lots of cousins and second cousins. It was a wonderful, although sad family get together to remember a wonderful woman and her life.

Good News

2010-09-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

Juan is starting a new job on Monday. About two months ago one of Juan's former co-workers from Nokia let him know about a job opening at Ericsson where she is currently working that she thought Juan would be a great fit for. Juan was ready for a job change, but there were few chances to move up in Coca Cola (without moving to Atlanta). Ericsson is a Swedish communications company and benefits are generally much better with European companies than American companies. We felt this was a great opportunity and blessing. He applied, he interviewed, a job offer was made and he accepted. We are super excited about this opportunity and the commute will be just about the same to the one he is making now. Ericsson's North American headquarters are in Plano so there should be lots of opportunities to move up within the company and maybe even move to a job site that is only 15 minutes away from our home.

Corbin Update

2010-09-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

Corbin got a new haircut a couple of weeks ago. The back of his hair kept getting tangled and I felt it was time for a shorter look. Now I miss the curls, but they will grow back.
Before

After

Corbin loves his Ganna (as you can see from the picture) and his Grandpa. He loves monster trucks, robots and bugs along with anything Jovi likes which includes unicorns, dressing up and hair bows. The other day he was carrying around his two favorite monster trucks and one of Jovi's stuffed unicorns all morning long, so cute. He is starting to like drawing and has shown some interest in learning how to draw shapes. He knows almost all his colors. He loves playing outside in the sandbox and digging in the dirt. He loves to sing and I regularly hear him singing Book of Mormon Stories (one of his favorites) while he plays in his room.

Corbin is not a very picky eater, he likes anything with rice and will usually eat a bite or two of anything I make. He likes to snack throughout the day though so he doesn't eat all that much in any one sitting. If you add up all he eats in a day though, he eats a lot. He doesn't like hamburgers, he says that he likes them because they are one of Jovi's favorite foods, but he rarely ever eats more than one tiny bite. He does love french fries and chocolate milk and (to show that I really do feed him good food) his favorite snacks are fruit like grapes, apples and raspberries.

A few weeks ago we had a tornado warning in our area. We watched the news for about an hour that evening and it had a profound effect on Corbin. He is now terrified of tornadoes. He thinks they want to eat our minivan. (No matter how often you explain that a tornado is not alive and they go away after a storm, a 2 year old will not understand. Everything is personified when you are two.) The worst part is that he is afraid to go to sleep by himself. Bedtime is now dreaded at our house by both parents and Corbin. I am hoping something changes soon or we might all go crazy.

Corbin is so funny. He loves to do things for a laugh and you have to be careful what you laugh at (like fake burping) because once he finds something that gets laugh he will do it over and over again. Corbin's favorite book right now is We're Going On A Bear Hunt . He asks to read it about every other day. Corbin is such a fun little boy, we are so glad he is part of our family.

Jovi's 5th Birthday

2010-09-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

I can barely believe that my little Jovi turned 5 on Saturday. About a month ago we gave Jovi a choice between having a friend birthday party or going to a castle for dinner (Medieval Times)on her birthday. Jovi chose the castle, so on Saturday, after her first soccer game of the season where she scored 2 goals she got to dress in her very own princess dress. (Made by me, Simplicity 5520).

This was originally to be a family only party, but Eden, unfortunately got sick and so Jovi got to invite her friend Julia. They were so excited!

When we got there the girls loved it. We got to meet the princess, see the horses they use in the show, and Jovi got knighted by the king.

Eventually we went in and sat down to dinner and a show.

The kids loved waving their flags and cheering for our knight, the red knight. You don't get any silverware to eat with and it took Jovi and Julia a minute to figure it out, but they ended up drinking their soup through straws, very funny. Corbin was a little scared at first, but he soon got excited cheering for the show. Jovi told me her favorite part was when the knights were jousting, it was a lot of fun. All the kids got a bit tired by the end and were asking when it was going to be over, but everyone seemed to really enjoy it. We had a great time.

After the show Jovi got to open presents in the parking lot next to the castle. She got several great presents from her Aunts and grandparents.

Jovi is a wonderful little little girl. She loves all things girly, especially princesses and unicorns. She draws the cutest unicorn pictures, but my favorite picture she made recently was a picture of our whole family as Mermaids, Mermen and even a Merdog. Jovi still loves Scooby Doo and Barbie movies. She likes doing school, she is learning addition and how to read cvc words right now along with some geography and history. Jovi loves playing with friends, including her brother. She is a great big sister helping her brother (when he lets her) and generally being a good example. She is very caring and tries to do what is right. I am so glad Jovi is part of our family.

Dallas Museum of Art

2010-09-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

On the first Tuesday of every month the Dallas Museum of Art has free admission and runs children's programs from 11:00-2:00. We went this Tuesday with friends from Justin and had a really great time. I think we will be going every month from now on. They had story time, some art projects and a family tour that we didn't get to do this time (something for next time). Jovi got to be the trash in a story about why the rooster crows in the morning.

When the story teller asked her name she proudly said Jovi Elizabeth Flores. She had a great bow at the end too, but I didn't get a picture of it.

I wasn't totally sure if it was allowed to bring in outside food and the DMA's website said they had kid lunches for $5.50 so we bought two. The adult food at the DMA restaurant may be nice, but the kid lunches were a disappointment. Half a sandwich, some animal crackers and a drink is not what I would call a great lunch. Now that I know it is totally acceptable to bring a lunch, we will be doing that from now on.

The kids got to do two art projects. They made a paper flower and then, after going though a neat instalment art piece they made a skeleton puppet. Corbin had fun making his, he cut almost the whole thing out himself, and then I spent the rest of the time chasing him around the kids area.

Jovi spent a lot of time on her skeleton. I thought it turned out pretty cute.

We had a great time at the DMA and a great time spending time with our friends.

Hopefully Helpful Links

2010-09-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

These are websites that I've found useful or inspirational for Jovi's school. I hope you find some of them helpful.

FREE CURRICULUM

BrightlyBeamingRescources this site will eventually have full lesson plans for 0-8 year olds. Kindergarten+ levels are not complete, but I really like the pre-K curriculum (it even has a weekly schedule) and what is there in the older areas is really neat.

ConfessionsofaHomeschoolingMom it's an awesome blog full of inspiration, great ideas and resource links, but she also offers a letter of the week curriculum, free if you download it in pieces or $10 for it all in one download.

Homeschoolshare One of my favorite sites that I've used more than any other so far (and listed as a link on this blog a bunch of times). You could use just this site for a really fun preschool program or add some math and reading for a kindergarten program. (they have mostly units based on literature, but have science, math and history units too, I found one on castles and one on princesses)

Tot School is curriculum for 2-4 year olds. I use the tot trays with Corbin right now and once he's ready for more I'll add some tot books and packs which can be used like Before Five in a Row lessons.

THIS website offers a compilation of free phonics programs and resources. The have a whole program that they offer if you want to print it. I've been very happy with our program/book Phonics Pathways: Clear Steps to Easy Reading and Perfect Spelling. It's been a great fit with Jovi and her needs, but might not be for everyone. It can't hurt to try a free program if you are looking for one.

Centre for Innovation in Mathmatics Teaching offers the math curriculum that England's public schools use. It is the complete program from PreK through high school. It is supposed to be a very high level program that works on a lot of mental math.

Starfall is a site that has interactive, phonics readers and worksheets. They also have books and worksheets you can print for free along with a lot of reasonably priced phonics materials.

Cullen's ABC's offers an online preschool with videos and activities. This one is new to me and I haven't looked at it much but what I've seen looks neat.

BLOGS and FUN STUFF

Superteacher worksheets FREE worksheets, just about any type you can think of.

HERE is a site that offers FREE arts and crafts.

Scriptures 4 kids offers 4 different reading levels of scriptures and other games to play using the scriptures. I keep meaning to get Jovi on this site and I forget. She really likes getting on the Friend website though.

This BLOG offers FREE, printable flannel board scripture stories.

Find FREE file folder games HERE and HERE.

Two paper doll sites, HERE and HERE. The first one has all sorts of fantasy paper dolls and the second has paper dolls from around the world.

LDSFamilyFun offers FHE lessons, you don't even need the videos.

Second Week

2010-08-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

I've learned several things through our first 2 1/2 weeks of homeschooling. The first thing I've learned the past two weeks is that my schedule is still a work in progress. Major tweaking to our daily schedule has been done since we started. We've gone from a 5 day a week schedule to a 4 day a week schedule (there always seems to be one day a week where we are busy all day long). I've cut out our manners program and Corbin's BFIAR lessons for now, decreased what we are doing with Jovi's FIAR lessons and added a ten week fairy princess program (it helps motivate Jovi to happily do her handwriting and reading lessons when she has something extra fun to look forward to).

The second thing I've learned that goes along with scheduling is to never do detailed lesson plans more than two weeks in advance because I'll have to pretty much rewrite them from scratch if I do.

The third thing I've learned, at least I'm working on learning, is that less is more. Sure, there are tons of fun, interesting things that I can teach Jovi. Things that we can have fun doing together.   But I have to focus on my educational goals for Jovi and plan the important stuff, like reading, math and handwriting first. Jovi can only deal with parent led activities (and it doesn't seem to matter what type) for about an hour before she needs an unstructured break so planning less content for other areas helps us get through everything in a day.

The fourth thing I've learned is to have outside time in the morning, it is just too darn HOT to go out any other time except for the occasional pool trip. (duh moment, how could I not have known that growing up here)

The fifth thing I've learned is that we are really, really addicted to TV.  Cutting down is easier when you have fun stuff to do, but the kids still watch a lot of TV everyday and request more than I let them watch. Does anyone have some suggestions? I've been thinking about totally cutting it out for a few weeks, but I'm a bit scared. What am I going to do when the kids are going crazy and I'm all out of energy or when I'm trying to make dinner and Corbin is either making a huge mess or tearing up things that don't need tearing up? Right now I turn on the TV and and we all get a little break. I've tried a few other options with not so great results, but I'm willing to try again. There are a lot of reasons to watch less tv with young children, my mom sends me research articles about it. Learning disabilities and ADHD symptoms are more likely in children who watch a lot (being more than 2 hours a day) of tv along with lower IQs, and that's not even talking about content and what kids are learning (although we rarely watch anything other than movies, PBS or qubo when the kids are in the room). Anyway, if you have some ideas, please send them my way.

So on to the actual week...Last week we read  Lentil (Picture Puffins) about a little boy who saves the day with his harmonica. I think it is a favorite with Jovi. With our new 4 day a week program we are doing a week and a half (or 6 days) with each book so we finished the lessons on Tuesday.  The two highlights of the week were getting Jovi her own ($3 from Walmart) harmonica and making lemonade (lemons play a big role in the story). Here is the lemonade that we made together, it was yummy.

Last week we did one Before Five In A Row Lesson, we read  Goodnight Moon and then we made puffy paint and painted moon and star pictures on black poster board. This puffy paint was a lot of fun. You mix 1 cup of glue, 3 cups of shaving cream and a little paint together, draw a shape on the poster board and then fingerpaint with it.

Here are some things I've learned about art projects, especially paint projects, with small children (most were learned through some painful errors). Do all art over tile or linoleum (never carpet). Have all supplies ready before starting. Have an art only tablecloth. Strip your kids, have them wear an art smock or clothing you truly don't care about because even if it is supposed to be washable, it isn't always true. The last and most important, don't do ANYTHING else except watch and help the kids during an art project. This is IMPERATIVE, turn your back for one minute and that awesome puffy paint could be all over your walls. Art is fun, especially using paints, but it does take some effort to have a positive experience.

Here are the two folders Jovi has made to go with her FIAR lessons. All the minibooks are from homeschoolshare . Jovi likes making things like this, otherwise I don't think I'd bother. I originally thought they would be great for reviewing lessons and what we learned throughout the week, but Jovi doesn't show any interest in reviewing things. It is a cool way for ME to remember what we've done and maybe she'll like looking through them some time in the future. (I can hope can't I?)

Hope you enjoyed. :)

First week of homeschooling

2010-08-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

Last week was our first week of homeschooling. It wasn't a "normal" week because we spent the afternoons helping my sister who has back problems, but we did get in almost all the subjects (missed out on science and manners). It's still early to tell much about the curriculum I've chosen, but the Five in a Row lessons went well and Jovi really likes the reading lessons. I had kind of planned for this, but Corbin is not always in a "lesson" mood so a few days last week we just played together which was fun too. So far I am not excited about the Math lessons. We've been doing colors, shapes and counting to 10 and that is with doubling up on lessons. She's willing to do it and likes the games we do before the worksheet, but she isn't learning anything new. I talked with someone and they said that Horizons Math starts out slow and then speeds up fast, I'd say we are ready for it to speed up. Our Five in a Row book this week was Madeline. We had lots of fun learning about France. Jovi is able to find France on our world wall map without help. This doesn't translate to other maps yet, but it was her first week of working with any maps at all so I'd say it is a good start. We put together a notebook with all the things we learned last week using lots of cute minibooks from Homeschoolshare so she will have a way to review her lessons. I'll try to take a picture of it and next week's notebook to give you an idea of what we are doing. On Friday we went to la Madeline for lunch, Jovi was very excited to find out that croissants were French and had a croissant peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

We read The Little Rabbit (Pictureback(R)) for Corbin's Before Five in a Row lesson. A very cute book. It is about a little girl who gets a pet rabbit. We talked about baby animals ,colors, pets and on Thursday went and got the kids their very own own pets. Two beta fish in their own PLASTIC bowls (our last beta died when its pretty glass bowl was accidentally pushed off the counter and shattered, very sad). I wanted to get goldfish, but they apparently need very large tanks and a filter. This is not what I remember as a child who had feeder goldfish as pets. They lived in a normal fishbowl and seemed to do just fine, but I guess betas are just as good and they are very easy to take care of. The kids were SO excited. Jovi named her fish Rainbow Rose.

Corbin named his fish Blue Fish. We got our last beta fish when Jovi was two and she named it Blue so I think it is an age thing. Kids this age are just really literal, it's funny.

I'm not planning on taking them to restaurants and getting them pets regularly or anything, but I thought we should do a few special things for our first week. It's been fun and we look forward to next week.

Favorite Color

2010-08-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

Jovi's favorite colors are purple, pink and rainbow (in that order). These were developed over time with no conscious push towards a specific color on the part of the adults that surrounded her. My best guess is that they came about because we DID buy Disney princess stuff for her and she has always liked "girl" stuff.

This contrasts strongly with Corbin's favorite color experience. Corbin didn't get a choice. About 6 or so months ago Jovi realized that blue is a boy color and so when getting breakfast, Jovi would inform us that Corbin needed the blue bowl. When getting drinks she would let us know that Corbin would prefer the blue cup. When choosing things Jovi would give Corbin the blue item saying, "Blue is for boys, you like blue right?". It was a well thought out and executed campaign. It didn't take long for Corbin to catch on and blue became the first color he could consistently name. It is also his "favorite" color and he likes everything that is blue and if it is blue it should be his. I think it is SO funny how these things develop. I wonder if this will be his favorite color forever or if it will change when he gets older and has a bit more freedom to choose. It will be interesting to watch and see.

Curriculum

2010-07-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

So, when I get excited about something I tend to obsess about it. I apologize to all my family who I'm sure are sick and tired of hearing about my homeschool curriculum choices, but I finally placed my final order on Friday and I think Jovi, Corbin and I are going to have a really fun school year. I've got some really great stuff and just for those of you who might be considering homeschooling, or preschooling your kids I thought I'd share what we are planning on using.

For my main curriculum I am using a unit study called Five In A Row . The idea is that you read the same classic storybook five days in a row focusing on a specific subject every day; Social Studies, Language Arts, Art, Science and Applied Math. Every time you reread the book the kids get a review of what they learned the previous days. As soon as I heard about this curriculum I knew it would be perfect for me and Jovi. I wanted something literature based and she doesn't like reading more than a few books a day. She is much more a doing girl than a listening girl. There are a lot of literature based programs out there, but most require several books and/or pieces of books to be read each day. I like this plan much better for our family. There is also a Before Five In A Row for 2-4 year olds, a lot less focused on academics and more on making memories that I plan on using with Corbin so he can have his own "school" time with mommy. I also found a wonderful FREE site full of ladies who love this curriculum and put together their own book unit studies and lots of resources for the Five In A Row books as well, called Homeschoolshare (really neat FREE stuff).

We will be using Horizons Math K for Jovi's math program. I really like the scope and sequence, the hands on approach and the colorful, appealing workbook.

I chose Handwriting Without Tears for her handwriting program. I previously wrote about my personal handwriting issues and decided that I just couldn't teach her D'Nealian. This program is supposed to be very developmentally appropriate and has lots of ways for children to avoid letter and number reversals (something Jovi struggles with)

Although science is covered with Five In A Row, I want Jovi to have a very strong science background and found the awesomest book Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding: A Science Curriculum for K-2 . Instead of giving an overview of science, touching on a topic here and then one there like most elementary science books do, Dr. Nebel takes a foundations approach having each lesson build upon previous ones so that children can see how all science is related. And you can't beat the price anywhere, $23 for 3 years of GOOD science lessons that teach the scientific method. I'm very impressed with what I've read in this books so far.

I agonized over the decision on how to teach Jovi to read, really, just ask Juan. Reading and a love of reading is THE most important thing I feel you can teach anyone because with that skill you can begin to learn just about anything else, so I wanted to make the right choice. I searched high and low and read tons of reviews. I made a decision and then second guessed myself, but I finally choose the very reasonably priced and very classic phonics approach used in Phonics Pathways: Clear Steps to Easy Reading and Perfect Spelling. It looks like a truly solid program, it is priced right and it includes several game ideas (something I know Jovi will enjoy).

For scripture study, I bought A Real Mom's Guide to Homeschooling with The Book of Mormon. It actually gives more information and activities than I plan on using. But it has all the things I was looking for; a weekly scripture verse to memorize (shortened for younger children), a children's song and a hymn to learn/sing, gospel art to go with the stories, and a family home evening lesson that goes with the weekly reading. Most of this is just a reference to other church publications, but it is SO helpful to have it already planned out. We should end up reading the Book of Mormon (Stories version) in 36 weeks.

I also have a manners curriculum that I plan on doing twice a week.

We will (hopefully) be starting school on August 16th. I hope you guys found something you could possibly use and I will blog about how all of it is working for us as we go along. Now to read all the teacher manuals and plan our days (am I weird that the thought of planning everything out makes me happy?).

Nocturnal Adventures

2010-07-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago we had put the kids to bed and I was downstairs. I thought Juan was upstairs so when I heard the laundry washer turn on upstairs. I thought it was Juan putting a load of laundry in. Fortunately, Juan went to investigate. Apparently Corbin had once again gotten up (the first time). This time it was because he was wet and wanted to change his diaper. He took his pjs and his diaper off and I guess he felt his clothes were dirty and in need of washing because he took them to the laundry room, climbed up and turned the washing machine on (I had NO idea that he could even do that.) and put his clothes in. Then he started putting other clothes in and a toy as well. That is when Juan found him. Corbin has always loved helping with laundry. He loves carrying dirty clothes in there and having me lift him up so he can put them in, but this was taking it to a whole new level. Now one of us stays upstairs after we put the kids to bed till Corbin falls asleep.

Jovi lost her second tooth this past weekend. It had been loose for a week before, but not ready to come out. On the 4th of July it popped out . Jovi was so proud she told everyone she saw. She got a whole dollar bill from the tooth fairy.

Calendar Time

2010-07-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

I found out the importance of teaching calendar time when I was teaching in a special ed. classroom. My mentor told me it was the best way to cover multiple IEPs (individual education plans) in a short amount of time and she was right. With the right calendar time, you cover lots of math, some science and social studies and can even introduce new vocabulary. It like higher level circle time. Anyway, I thought I'd walk you through what we do for our calendar time.

First of all, Jovi is almost always the "handy dandy helper" (a title she got from apple creek preschool). Occasionally I get to be the handy dandy helper and she is the teacher telling me what to do, just for variety. The first thing we do is sing our months of the year song. (Oh, jovi was a super, cowboy, cop? in the pictures)

Next she finds what day it is and moves the daily marker to that date. and we work on saying the date in the right order.

Then we sing the days of the week song and fill out our today is..., tomorrow will be..., yesterday was... chart.

Next we graph the weather and I ask her a few graph reading questions.

After that we play hundred chart games. There are SO many things you can do with a hundred chart. Jovi is working on number recognition above 20 so we play find the number, I give her a number and she has to point to it on the chart. She loves skip counting by ten. I will probably add skip counting by 5s and then 2s in the next few months. Occasionally I have her count all the way to 100. She also practices counting backwards using the board. Once I teach her addition and subtraction using a number line she can do that on a hundreds chart too.

I've already added talking about place value, by using something like this
We use the day of the month so we never get into the hundreds, but I might change how we do that in the future.

Other things I may add in the future are talking about odd and even using the day of the month and introducing daily/weekly vocabulary. I'll be putting up some wall maps in the future and I might add some geography as part of our calendar time, too. I might introduce some word families during calendar time once Jovi is ready for that. Really, calendar time can be involved and as long as you and your child want. We have fun with our calendar time right now.

Preschool, homeschool, kindergarten, whatever

2010-07-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

Jovi and I have been doing "school" at home for a month now. We've both gotten into it and been having lots of fun.  I was planning on doing a preschool, specifically a pre-k program, in the fall. But I only had one person who was even interested and as I worked with Jovi I realized that a slow moving, kindergarten level program would be more appropriate for her. I emailed the person who had expressed interest and told her that I was increasing the level of the program, but they were welcome to join us.

I feel like this is a blessing in disguise. If Jovi had been only two weeks older she would almost certainly be going into public school Kindergarten.  Since she cannot go to public school yet I get a chance to try out homeschooling with very little risk and a great opportunity for rewards. I have been interested in homeschooling ever since Jovi was born. I toyed with the idea, read books and curriculum catalogs, but never felt sure that homeschooling was the choice I should make...till now.  If Jovi and I love this year we will continue. If she learned a lot, but for any reason we feel like she would do better in public school I can test her into first grade. If this year just doesn't go well for us or she isn't learning much she can start kindergarten next year just like she is supposed to according to the state. I feel like I have so many options at the end of the year, that this year has no pressure and can be nothing but positive.

I've been having lots of fun looking for curriculum, but that deserves a post all its own. Instead, I will share how our upstairs living area has changed.  Everyone, kids and adults, love the new space and use it way more than we used to.

Next time a post about calendar time...

Bailey's Berry Patch

2010-07-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday we went to Bailey's Berry Patch. It is a pick your own blueberry farm. I had been planning this trip for a month and had to reschedule two times, so even though it was totally overcast and occasionally sprinkling , after a call to them making sure it wasn't muddy, I decide that we were going to go no matter what. I had read Blueberries for Sal (Viking Kestrel picture books) to the kids several times in the previous week and they were super excited too. It was an hour drive, and the kids did really well in the car. When we got there they each got their own little pails and we went out to pick some blueberries.

Corbin loved hiding under the blueberry bushes.

As Jovi and I were picking blueberries, Corbin was exploring the stump of an old blueberry bush when we heard him yelling about baby birds. We went to investigate and this is what we found.

There were two brand new baby birds and one unhatched egg. It was so cool. I took some pictures and the we walked far away so that Corbin couldn't touch them, something he desperately wanted to do.

We went and visited the the catfish pond instead and while we were there we were told that there was a free hayride available.

For part of the hayride they took us back down to the catfish pond and let us buy food to feed the catfish. There were some big catfish in that pond and a turtle too.

Then we had some lunch and went back to picking blueberries. Jovi decided to try some of the blueberries in her bucket.

Corbin, on the other hand loved the blueberries. One of his favorite things to do was grab big handfuls of blueberries from my bucket and stuff them in his mouth.

Jovi also enjoyed feeding Corbin blueberries.

And they took the occasional break together.

With Corbin eating large amounts of my berries, it was hard to get a full bucket, but I feel we got enough.

It was such a fun trip. I'm sure we will be going back next year.

Children are funny

2010-07-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

Juan and I put the kids to bed and were downstairs when we heard the noise of something falling upstairs. Juan went up to see what the noise was. What he found... well, I just have to shake my head and laugh. Corbin had pulled the box that holds the play doctor kit from the shelf in the upstairs playroom and that was the crash we heard. Apparently, Corbin had scratched a scab off on his leg while he was in bed and it had started bleeding. He got out of bed and tried to "clean" the ouchie hurt. This meant that he took off his shorts and diaper and used every diaper wipe in our 1/3 full box of wipes to try and make it stop. Why did he have to take off his shorts and diaper? I don't know. Then when that wasn't working he decided to try using the doctor's kit in the living room.

Juan called me up there and I took over "doctoring" Corbin while he cleaned up the room. I was working on getting the band aid and antibiotic ointment and Corbin was supposed to be sitting in a chair when I heard him in Jovi's room. "Look Jovi, ouchie hurt." , as he showed off his leg. Jovi looked down, "Oh, you poor baby." (said with real sympathy). I came and got Corbin out of Jovi's room, put a diaper and the band aid on him and put him into bed. I told him he couldn't get out of bed anymore.

Fifteen minutes later I heard noises upstairs. I went upstairs and checked in Corbin's room. The closet (that is used for storage and is normally blocked by a child sized couch) door was open. I looked inside and found Corbin sitting on a shelf four feet off the ground, once again without a diaper. I went and got Juan and Laura because I had to share. I wish I had gotten a picture. I put him back to bed again and was sterner in telling him he couldn't get out of his bed. I caught him just about to get off one more time, but then he fell asleep. Crazy night, crazy kids.

FHE for the 4th of of July

2010-06-28T06:06:00.000-07:00

I just found this and wanted to share. The church put together a bunch of lessons for Bicentenial of the Constitution and now they have it available as a PDF. The lessons in it would make great FHE lessons or just 4th of July week lessons. They have a lesson for older kids and a separate one for younger kids so there is something for everyone. HERE is the link.

Potty Training Woes

2010-06-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

A dressed up Princess Jovi just came up and asked me, "Do you have a secret past?" I said, "Noooo, should I?". To which she answered a decisive, "Yes." I said, " ok, I have a secret past.". Then she asked, "Where is it? Is it in your room?". lol Where do kids get these crazy ideas? I tried to explain what a "secret past" is, but I don't think she got it.

Anyway, I got on here to write about Corbin and potty training. (future info may be a bit graphic, I talk about poop) Corbin has occasionally been using the potty for a few months now and shows lots of interest. He wakes up dry from naps and very clearly knows when he is pooping because he hides and tells us to leave him alone. So two weeks or so ago I bought him some undies and even sewed him a few pairs (need to get a picture of them on here), but I used this pattern and really enjoyed making them. I got him a book and my mother got him an even cuter book. He sounded like he was totally on board, ready to be a big boy in undies.

He was not totally on board. He started out excited, but refused to poop on the potty. He waits till I put him in a diaper and when not offered that choice just goes in his undies. I don't know what to do about it, but it has lead to an overall potty training issue. Today he doesn't even want to pee in the potty. Whenever I ask if he wants to go he gets angry with me. Somehow forcing a wiggling, crying two year old onto the toilet seems worse than useless to me. He had two accidents this morning and after the first one he hid from me which scared me to death. He has started opening the front and back doors and ran outside and two houses down before I caught him a few days ago. I was SO afraid that somehow he had gone out the back door unnoticed, but he was hiding behind my bedroom door quieter than I've ever seen him before for 5 whole mintues. Anyway, after the second accident I put him back in diapers and he's been happy with that ever since. Maybe I need to make a bigger deal about diapers being for babies, maybe I just need to wait a few months. I don't know. Maybe it is just today and tomorrow will go better.

More Preschool

2010-06-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

The last time I blogged about preschool I said I was going to write my own preK curriculum. Just to clarify, while I have written curriculum in the past, it can be an insane amount of work and so, I am looking for quality curriculum to use with the program, but I am not writing it from scratch myself.

Anyway, I've been surprised how much Jovi wants to play school with me. Every day she asks to play more school, so I'm starting preK early for her. I say, why wait, she wants to learn and I am happy to teach someone so eager.

We got two completely unused math "workbooks", the kind they use in the lower school grades in the clearance section of Half Price Books. One was Kindergarten level and one First Grade level. I don't have the teacher book with the exact directions so i've been winging it, but I think I'm getting most of it right. Jovi has been going through the kindergarten book but has kind of gotten bored with it. When they have 5+ pages of drawing 1-5 objects and then writing the number I don't blame her for getting bored. SO, we started the preK touchmath program today. Unfortunately I think she would enjoy the Kindergarten program alot more. This would be a perfect program for 3-4 year olds, but is a little lower level that what Jovi needs. I have a feeling she will move through this really quickly, but at least she is having fun with it and learning her touchpoints. Once she learns the touchpoints I should be able to use any math book.

I am planning on going to Mardel's tonight, getting a calendar set and laminating it. I'm also laminating words for our word wall. I'll post pictures of our upstairs "school room" as soon as it is put together.

I was having terrible school flashbacks while writing the words for the word wall. I was attempting to write in D'Nealian style because that is what Frisco ISD teaches. It is also what I failed at learning when in elementary school. Handwriting was always my lowest grade and I dreaded those sheets coming back from the teacher with lots of red marks where I didn't quite have the letter shape touch the appropriate line and I never had the right slant to my letters and my curves at the end of the letters were always too big or too small. Oh, how I hated handwriting, that and spelling were my most dreaded subjects. I was in heaven when we got to start typing our papers, no worries about handwriting AND I could use spellcheck. Anyway, my sister was sitting with me while I was writing the words and gave me a nice dose of reality when she asked; "Are you really worried that your four year old will be judging your handwriting?". I know she will just be happy to have them available so she can write the words. Oh, here is a site that has lots of free D'Nealian worksheets, which I obviously need to use as much as Jovi.

I finally found a reading program and we started it yesterday. I love it. It is the phonics program on Reading A-Z. It is more expensive than just a book, but less expensive than a program with readers. I love that the lessons are fully developed with games and printable books. The whole site is FULL of printable books. We started the phonological awareness lessons and Jovi loved the first one. Each part of the lesson is short enough that she didn't get bored and then there is a game to reinforce learning and a read aloud book you can print or an option for you to use your own book (something I think we will be doing fairly often to save on ink). Once she is ready for the actual phonics program each lesson has its own decodable reader and my favorite part of this program is that it doesn't just stop at teaching CVC words, it has lessons for blends, long vowels, digraphs and more. It is a great site for the price.

I also got these:

I like that both Jovi and Corbin can use them and they are really cute. This way Corbin doesn't feel left out of the whole school experience.

I'm working on adding some science and art every day. I plan on having a fairly integrated program in the Fall, with monthly themes but right now I'm just adding things as I can get to them. It is so fun teaching Jovi when she is so excited about it. She calls me teacher and tries hard to follow directions. I hope she is this excited about school forever.

The Lost Vacation

2010-06-09T02:01:00.000-07:00

Last week was Juan's vacation. We had great, exciting plans like painting the interior of the house and going swimming with the kids and taking them to do other fun things. But you know what we ended up doing? Nothing, nada, very boring. The week before we found out that Juan and I had acute bronchitis so we spent our whole vacation getting better. Going outside made us feel worse, way worse, so we were stuck inside too, something the kids didn't appreciate. In an attempt to have some fun we bought a bunch of legos and I have to say they did brighten the vacation. Juan loved legos growing up and I had one city set I fondly remember so we thought we'd try getting some. Juan and I love them and Jovi thinks they are great. She loves the minifigures and "decorating" the things we put together. There IS a reason why they have the age 4+ on lego boxes though. Corbin finds legos frustrating because he is always breaking the things he wants to play with. We've ended up making them a nap toy to keep everyone happier. While we are not 100% better even now, we are getting there. I'd say we are 80%-90% better which is a huge improvement. I'm even thinking about taking the kids to the pool today, something I couldn't even consider last week. It is taking forever to get over this, but hopefully we are almost there and I am SO grateful that the kids didn't get sick. Hopefully next year's vacation will be better.

Preschool

2010-06-08T07:22:00.000-07:00

Jovi had a great year at Applecreek preschool. She had two wonderful teachers, Ms. Jenn and Ms. Caroline and a small class of friends. A few weeks ago they did a presentation for their families. It was super cute and had a dog theme. Jovi even had a speaking part, introducing the days of the week song.

Then after the presentation they got certificates for finishing the 4 year old program.

It was a fun day and I'm proud of how much Jovi grew this past school year. She is almost ready to read and her writing had gotten much better, she can count to 60, usually without mistakes. She has gained back confidence that she lost when we moved and goes to class (preschool and primary) by herself without crying. She loves to play pretend and write words, draw and play card games. One of her favorite things to do is play school with me. The other day we did 41 pages of a workbook because she didn't want to stop. She still likes Scooby Doo, but her new obsession is Astro Boy. We've been watching the anime series through Netfix and she just loves it, so does Corbin. Jovi loves her little brother and is a good big sister. She looks out for him and they like playing together most of the time. Jovi has a great sense of humor and is so funny. I'm so glad Jovi is part of our family.

A new Givaway at the DIY dish

2010-05-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

Do you like fabric? I LOVE fabric, some, my husband for example, may say that I am a bit obsessed with fabric. I can't really disagree. I have an extremely large fabric collection. My only saving grace is that I usually use as much fabric as I buy so that it isn't a growing collection, only an ever changing one.

Anyway, the DIY dish is giving away a $100 gift certificate from fabric.com. I really like fabric.com. They often have a great selection in their $1.95 a yard fabric and then there are always coupon codes so the price decreases and I have had excellent customer service with my past few orders. If you like fabric I recommend checking them out, and check out the DIY dish to enter the giveaway. Oh, they are sharing a FREE picnic quilt pattern this week too.

Addition to Previous Post

2010-05-06T12:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, after additional reading I am NOT going with Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. Apparently it is boring and can be hard to transition to regular print since they use special symbols with certain sounds. Instead I want to share a fun, FREE site that I used while I was teaching in special ed., Starfall. I actually taught children to read using this website and their books. They have really developed their program since then. I've let Jovi play on it occasionally and she liked it, but when I started her she didn't have the patience to go through each lesson. Anyway, being on the computer is really motivating for kids and Starfall does a good job introducing sounds, but you'll probably have to sit next to a younger kid to make sure they go through the lesson appropriately instead of just playing. I am thinking about getting their teaching guides and using it as my reading curriculum. We will see. It's a great site no matter what I choose though.

Preschool websites to share

2010-05-06T07:09:00.000-07:00

Starting in August I will be teaching two preschool classes. One for Pre-K and one as a mixed 2s and 3s class (if, by chance you live in Frisco I still have openings). They will have totally different curriculums. The 2s and 3s is pretty easy, it is an alphabet based curriculum, the same one I used with Jovi. The Pre-K curriculum though will be totally different and I'm writing it myself. It will have monthly themes with regular school subjects being covered daily.

Anyway, I've been doing lots of research and thought I'd share some of the amazing websites I've found. There are two blogs that have just blown me away with their generosity. This lady (i believe her name is Carisa) has put together a bunch of awesome resources. If you go into her tot books and packs she has all sorts of printable, themed activities that you can make into super awesome folder lessons (a step up from folder games). I've already printed out a bunch and will post pictures once I put them together. Her tot trays has a bunch of great ideas, especially for multi age or medium sized groups. You can focus each child on specific skills you want them to work on. The rest of her website has lots of good information too.

The next site I want to share, I found through the first site. This lady is a homeschooler and makes me want to homeschool with how organized and FUN she makes it sound. She finds and lists the coolest lesson resources and posts downloadable, printable items that she makes for lessons. She created her own alphabet curriculum and I'm thinking about buying it (it's only $10) to supplement what I currently have. The large percentage of what she has on her site is FREE, it's just if you want everything, all in one download that it costs money.

I want to warn you about the next thing I want to share, it costs money, a lot of money. It is meant for school use where no one thinks much of dropping several hundred dollars on a good curriculum. This curriculum is called TouchMath. The first time I was introduced to it was when I was an elementary school special ed. teacher. My mom also used it in her special ed. class. The teacher I took over for so she could move to a fourth grade class had used it for years and taught it to her fourth graders. Six years after I learned it so I could teach it, I still remember and use my touch points when adding and subtracting (before that I was a closet finger counter). Anyway, I cannot speak highly enough about this system. It makes math tactile without manipulatives and allows kids to see what is happening without a numberline. I just bought the preK program off of ebay. The company will send you a FREE training DVD and manual so you know how to teach using the system and they give you some FREE items with it. Anyway, I ordered the DVD and if I have 5 more people watch it with me they get all the free stuff along with it plus two more items they sale on their site. If you are interested let me know (if enough people from Justin are interested, I'd come up there to watch it). You can make your own worksheets and items once you know the system so you don't HAVE to buy their stuff, it just makes things easier.

And the last item I want to share is the one I know the least about. If you know anything about this book, I'd love to hear. I am thinking about using Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons as the basis of my PreK reading program. It is phonetically based and made for one on one use, but I hope to adapt it to a group. I've looked at it online and skimmed through it in a bookstore. I hoped my library would have it so I could make sure it was what I was looking for before I bought, but no such luck. I'm ordering it from amazon and will make a final decision about using it after I read through it.

I hope you found something useful in what I posted. :)

Pirate Dolls

2010-04-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

On May 1st, Jovi's preschool is having a family picnic and silent auction as a fundraiser for the preschool. The whole picnic is pirate themed. They asked for donations for the the silent auction so I made three pirate dolls. Hopefully the will find good homes on Saturday. All their accessories are removable.

I'm thinking about selling a few of these. They are a Bit of Whimsy pattern and she sells ready made dolls and patterns HERE. I have two more pirate dolls, a girl with red hair and a boy with black hair. I could also make plain dolls or dolls with matching kid clothes. You could choose skin, hair, eye and clothing color. I'm thinking about selling plain ones, like the one I made for Corbin (below) for $25 and dolls with accessories or matching kid clothes would be more. Email me if you are interested and we can talk about the perfect set for you.

New Blog

2010-04-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

I started a new blog. It is more of a personal, about me journal than this one. It's proabbly be pretty boring, really, but if you would like to read it you can check it out HERE.

More Bunnies

2010-04-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

A week ago we were working in our very small garden (we have three 2 foot squares). While I was adding some compost to the strawberries I noticed a hole in the dirt near the corner of the box. I investigated further, lots of grass and rabbit fur. I pulled it back and found five, yes FIVE, baby bunnies. Their eyes were open, but they were only the size of hamsters, smaller than our last set of bunnies. Unfortunately they were crushing my strawberry plants so I felt we needed to move them. Juan dug a burrow for them nearby and we all had fun moving the bunnies to their new home. I tried to get a picture of all of them, but it proved impossible, they were fast.

That night we saw mommy bunny come. We had a great view from our master bedroom windows into the yard. She was recognizably confused. It was as if she was saying where are my babies?!?! I was really worried that she wouldn't find them and thought about moving them back even if it hurt the strawberries, but by the morning she had obviously found them. Unless someone came into the yard she sat near the new burrow watching over her babies. We checked on them once each day and I am truly amazed at how fast they grew. By Friday they were a little bigger than the other bunnies we found and by Saturday they were gone.

Catching Up

2010-04-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted. This month we've been sick a lot, but have had some fun and exciting times too. Juan took off Friday the 16th and we went to the farmer's market and the Dallas science place. It was a lot of fun, but the bottom level of the museum, the part made for kids 6 and under was super crowded with a bunch of school groups. Friday is apparently field trip day. I recommend going on a different day. They had a light exhibit that the kids really enjoyed in the nature museum, or as Juan calls it, the stuffed zoo. Here are some pictures in front of the nature museum.

Jovi is growing up. Sunday, the 18th Jovi gave her first talk in primary. She talked about Joseph Smith's first vision. We practiced with her a bunch at home and she said she wanted to do it without our help, so on Sunday she stood up all by herself and gave her 2 minute talk and did a great job. That night she lost her first tooth. We had noticed that it was loose only the day before. After her bath I was just trying to see how loose it was and out it popped. She was so excited. I made her a super quick felt tooth pillow so she would have a place to put her tooth for the tooth fairy. The next morning she found a half dollar and a Sacajawea dollar. I've gotta say that there has been some hefty inflation on baby teeth since I was little and got a quarter for my first tooth. As you can see, Jovi was pleased.

Corbin is getting bigger too. He talks all the time, mostly in correct sentences. He wants to do everything Jovi does and it is a good thing he is super cute because he is two year old Trouble, if something can break or spill he is sure to do it. We went and saw How to Train Your Dragon earlier this month and Corbin loved it. He switched between sitting on his seat, my lap and Juan's lap the whole time, but stayed relatively quiet and very interested in the movie. He talked about the movie the whole week afterwards. He is very into TV and movies right now and wants the TV on all the time. I'm planning a TV free week next week I will try and post about how well that goes.

Easter Bunnies

2010-04-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

Let me warn you, this story starts out sad. Last Saturday Juan and I decided to work on our neglected yard. I mowed our two foot high weed patch in the back yard along with the rest of the yard and then Juan went around weedwacking. Well, while Juan was weedwacking he found that we had a family of baby bunnies living in our yard. One had come out of the burrow and was hiding in a weed patch near our fence. Juan felt so bad when he found out, it was too late for that bunny, but he was extra careful the rest of the time and found another bunny near the fence and their burrow with two more bunnies in it. These bunnies were about the size of large hamsters, they were old enough to have their eyes open and be venturing out, but not old enough to run from us humans. The bunny in the first photo what the second one Juan found and he just sat there the whole time Juan was weedwacking the yard. When he was done, he came in and showed me and I took the kids out to look at the adorable bunny. He let us come right up to him and then Corbin bent down and picked him up, ack! I took him away and said we would put him back in his burrow with his brothers, but before we did I let Jovi hold him. She wanted a picture to commemorate the event.

Here is a picture of all of them in their burrow.

Sunday evening mama bunny came around. (Look hard, she blends well with the grass)

Monday morning we had an empty burrow. We think mama bunny moved her babies away from our prying eyes, but it was so cool to see our back yard bunny family for the two days we knew they were there.

On Friday, 3/26 we went to our first Easter egg hunt held by Frisco at Pizza Hut Park. It was ok, nothing special except they had "healthy" snacks for the 2 and under crowd like cereal and animal crackers instead of candy Corbin barely grabbed anything because he was looking for the candy.

Last night we went to our next Easter egg hunt. On Sunday, sitting next to our Sacrament Bulletin (which was on a chair in the chapel) was a flier for an egg hunt at a Frisco park. I was excited, what a fun ward activity, so fast forward to Friday. My parents come over, we go to the park and see all these people from 5th ward out there (we used to be part of 5th ward till it split and now are part of 7th ward). Well, maybe it was a stake activity? No, no it was the 5th ward's activity and we crashed it. I was so embarrassed. None of the few people who were our friends were there either so it was just a bunch of people we kind of knew, but there was no way to explain that to the kids who had been looking forward to an egg hunt all day. I don't think anyone cared, but it was very embarrassing.

Juan and my mom went with Jovi to hunt eggs in her age group and I went with my dad and Corbin to his egg hunt. He was SO funny. He would pick up an egg, open it, make sure there was candy in it and THEN put it in his basket. He did it for every egg he picked up and then after the hunt was over, he threw out the plastic eggs and just kept the candy in his basket. He was very sure about what he wanted.

Happy Easter everyone!

Moments I Want to Remember

2010-03-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of this week Laura made the comment that she has had her dog (who now lives with us) for five years this month. Jovi latched onto this, "So does that mean that it's his birthday?". "What day is his birthday?" Laura suggested that we celebrate puppy's birthday on Wednesday, the evening she watches the kids while Juan and I go out. Jovi was so excited all week. "Does he have some dog friends he wants to invite." "I'll draw him a birthday cake since he can't eat any." "Can we have birthday hats?" Laura got birthday hats, noise makers, a few doggy presents (which Jovi wrapped) and cookies for Puppy's human friends. Everyone we met on Wednesday got to know about Puppy's party. And then at 7:00, right before Juan and I left we wore birthday hats and sang happy birthday to a dog who really could have cared less, but it made a four year old little girl so happy.

Yesterday the kids and I went on a walk. As we were walking Corbin was kind of skipping in front and then he turns around and says joyously "I'm so happy momma!" and starts skipping again. It made my heart want to burst. Later on the walk he slipped his little hand in mine and we walked for a few minutes like that.

These are the moments I want to remember forever.

Jovi the Soccer Player

2010-03-04T11:57:00.000-08:00

Jovi started soccer three weeks ago. She is on team Ladybug and has had two games. She loves it, she calls herself a soccer player and I have to say I love it too. I can't think of anything much more cute and funny than 4 year old little girls playing soccer. Juan and I just love watching her games. We are a winning team (although I don't think they keep an official score at this age) thanks to our powerhouse player A, apparently she has an older brother who has taught her some serious skills. A scored 10 goals the first game and like 5 the second, she is seriously impressive. Jovi is learning and doing great. She assisted on a goal in her first game and scored 4 goals on her second game; two of which were for the other team, but I guess they cancel each other out right? Jovi loves her coach and he has the best approach to getting the girls in the right place on the field; he picks them up and places them where they are supposed to be. It is so funny to watch. Here are some pictures of the first game.

(she is pointing to the goal she is supposed to score on, she gets confused once the teams switch at half time so the pointing helps orient her :)) I'm sure you will be seeing more soccer pictures, it's so much fun being a soccer mom to a 4 year old.

February Sewing

2010-03-01T18:56:00.000-08:00

I frequent a forum, Sewing Mamas and they held a contest in February called Stash Game. You are supposed to use up as much of your fabric stash as possible without buying any fabric during the game. Points are given based on yardage used and number of notions. They hold this contest twice a year and although I had signed up before, this is the first time I finished. Even though I wasn't even close to the winners and their numbers I feel proud that I finished. My final stats were:
32 3/4 yards of fabric sewn
19 items sewn
8 different patterns used
4 items for me

Please excuse the bad photos, i was trying to document the month and didn't get the nicest pictures. I started with curtains for the upstairs playroom using fabric I had bought for Jovi's room before we moved. I made a matching pillow, but I'm so NOT proud of it (really bad craftsmanship) that I didn't take a picture.

I also made curtains for the windows on the stairs. The have been covered with cheap curtains from Walmart that didn't even fit the windows since we moved in. Now they have nice, lined, white linen with aqua polka dot curtains. They make me happy every time I see them. Unfortunately they didn't photograph well.

I learned this month that I don't really enjoy making curtains. It involves a lot of measuring and ironing and then measuring again and then re-ironing, then measuring yet again and sometime continuing to repeat till the panels are exactly the same. The actual sewing is easy. Measuring super accurately is not so easy. I still am planning on making curtains for the downstairs living/ dining room, but I think I will wait another week or two to start them.

For Juan's Birthday I made him 4 extra long pillowcases as he requested. He said he didn't care what fabric I used so he got pink and purple pillowcases.

I also made him shark pajama pants.

For Valentines Day I made Jovi a reversible dress from this pattern. I've had it for about two years and only used it once. It makes a really cute A-line jumper and I will hopefully be making more.

I also made two sets of shorts and long sleeve shirts for Jovi to wear while she played soccer. I made the purple set she is wearing in the first picture.

One of my goals was to test out some patterns for me. I hate shopping for clothes for me. Most of the time they don't fit quite right and it takes so long to find just what I want and then it usually costs too much so... I got this pattern from fabric.com and tried it out with some cheap knit fabric I ordered from there. I will be making my own tshirts from now on. They are super easy and only take 1-2 hours from cut to finish. I love the pattern too and with a few modifications it will be perfect for me. I made the crew neck first and found the arms a bit tight and the shoulder seam a bit wide. Then I made the V neck and LOVE it. I fixed the problems I had with the crew neck and it is the first V neck tee that doesn't cut too low on me. I will be making many more of these, and the pattern is sized from little girl to adult so I can make the same tees for Jovi. And not only are my "muslins" wearable the fabric only cost $4 for each one.

Next I tried this pattern and I really liked it too. I made my own sleeve changes, but really like the gathering on the neckline and the hem band at the bottom which makes it very flattering when worn. And it only cost $4 too.

Last of all I made an A-line skirt using the basic skirt pattern from this book. It had darts and a zipper; two firsts in clothing construction for me. It fit just barely. I made it Sunday morning and wore it to church that afternoon.

It was a really fun month, but I'm taking a week long sewing break before I start working on new projects.

My Jovi

2010-02-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I got a clearanced i-dog dance. It was originally meant for me, so I could play my ipod wherever I wanted, but it was quickly adopted by Jovi. She has wanted a dog forever, but Juan is not fond of them and since I prefer small/ medium dogs I want to wait till our kids are not a danger to them. Babies/toddlers and small dogs just don't mix. The i-dog is interactive, barks, moves and has "emotions". Jovi has named him Meatball and loves him whenever I let her play with him, usually when Corbin takes a nap. Toddlers and pretend little dogs don't even mix.

Jovi is getting so big. She is such a good big sister and really takes care of Corbin, sometimes more that he would like :). Jovi loves to watch TV, especially Scooby Doo. She would watch all day if I let her. When she isn't watching Scooby Doo, I still feel it's influence. She likes to find mysteries that need solving. She makes maps and clues to solve her mysteries, it's pretty cute. She just started soccer and is super excited about it. We've been practicing outside when the weather is nice and she is getting pretty good and almost always remembers not to use her hands. Jovi is finally liking preschool and her teachers say she is doing great in class. She loves to draw and her drawings are awesome, lots of detail. Jovi loves spending time with her family. She calls my parents' house her other house and she loves playing with her cousins whenever she gets the chance. Jovi's a great helper in the kitchen, but is pretty picky about what she eats, her favorite foods are all the little kid staples like mac and cheese, pizza, hot dogs and ham sandwiches. She also likes eggs with green food coloring (like in the book green eggs and ham), but not regular eggs. She has really gotten into doll play and is a great pretend mommy. She loves clothes and dressing up, she has a good eye and some of the outfits she comes up with are really, really cute. I love my Jovi and am so glad she is part of our family.

Arghhhh!

2010-02-05T01:39:00.000-08:00

Corbin is two, he is just SO two in that hugely annoying and super cute at the same time sort of way. For example, the other day we were at the library and Jovi found a friend. Jovi is very good at making friends. Whenever we spend time at a place where kids are playing, the park, MacDonald's, the library, she ends up with a new friend. They might not know each other's names, but they are friends who enjoyed playing together, ah to be four again. Anyway, Jovi went off with her new friend to look for Barbie books while I was trying to read a book to Corbin. He looked up and realized Jovi was no longer with us. He immediately jumps up and starts yelling "Jovi" at the top of his lungs as he runs around looking for her. He finds her and then roars at her as loud as he can which startles Jovi and makes her scream. Ack, what is a mother to do? Whispering seems impossible for him even though I had talked to them both about being quiet in the library, in the car, on the way in, on the elevator ride to the kids area, walking into the kids area, well, you get the idea. All the other kids in the library seem to manage to be quiet, why can't my kid?

Then he was super cute while we were there too. He was standing behind a little girl when she tripped. He immediately went over, gave her a hug and asked if she was ok. She pulled away with this look of, "who is this kid?!?!", but he continued to try and pat her back continuing to ask "you ok?, you ok?". I had to intervene and tell him she looked like she was ok now. It was so sweet.

Last night my sister watched the kids while I went out and ran a few errands (thank you Laura). When I got back I went to check on the kids and found Corbin sleeping with his diaper pulled off and holding it in one hand. Fortunately the bed was dry and I put the diaper back on without him fully waking up, but I cringe at the thought of what could have been.

The other day I was trying to work in my sewing room and within five minutes Corbin had tried to touch and turn on all my sewing machines (big nono), grabbed my fabric scissors and was looking for something to cut and then when I took those away he found a permanent marker that I hadn't even know was on the floor and took off the top before I grabbed him and finally gave up working in there while he was awake. Honestly, I know better, but was in the middle of a project and was trying to finish up one last step.

The past three days we've been in the car at lunch time (I need to practice better time management) and he has had a drink in the car. All three times he has spilled a large portion of the drink on himself and/or the car. Before this week he really didn't cause much trouble with drinks, but after this third time I think I've finally learned my lesson.

I love the kid so, so much, but sometimes I just want to channel my inner Charlie Brown, bang my head on the wall and yell a nice loud Arghhhh!

Win one of two sewing machines

2010-02-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm sure you are tired of hearing about how much I like www.youcanmakethis.com but I just have to tell you about their latest "thing". The are starting a new website with FREE evideo tutorials on all things crafty, sewing and quilting. Here is a little intro:

To kick off their new website they are giving away an embroidery machine AND a sewing machine. How cool is that? There are a bunch of ways to enter. Go check it out, http://www.thediydish.com/ It would be too cool if someone I knew won.

Some Sewing Projects

2010-01-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

My sewing machine went kaput on me right after Christmas. I went back and forth for a few weeks about what sewing machine to get to replace it, do I go with a computerized machine with more stitches than I could ever use and lots of convenience items, like needle up/down, thread cutter button, etc. OR do I choose a vintage all metal machine that will last forever and I could do all the maintenance myself? It was a hard choice and I eventually chose a new Brother sewing machine that can do EVERYTHING. There is no way I will grow out of this machine. BUT the antique Singers were calling to me..., but that is a story for another post. Anyway, I've been doing a lot of sewing to try out my new machine and get to know it. We had a rocky start, but I'm really starting to like her and those convenience features are AWESOME.

One of my first projects was a receiving blanket and bib set for a friend who is having twin boys. It's not very exciting, but I got to try out a few of my new decorative stitches.

I made some down and dirty play curtains for the kids. These curtains can be taken anywhere and used to cover doors or hallways to make new rooms or give "privacy" (a newly important thing to Jovi) or be the bottom of a puppet show or, well, you get the idea. I didn't spend more than 30 minutes from cut to finish, eyeballing most measurements and unfortunately it shows because one curtain is 1 inch longer than the other. It is a good thing they are play curtains.

On Sunday I finished a dress for Jovi that I had cut out in September, crazy I know. It only took like 3 hours (with lots of breaks) to put it together. I don't know why I waited so long to sew it. It is the Farbemix Cara pattern and one of my favorite jumper dress patterns. After the first picture, I was trying to be a good photographer and use natural lighting, but my model was not facing the right way so I got lots of squinting, oops.

Here is a close up of the elephant embroidery, you can get it at sewingforsarahembroidery.com. She is an extremely talented digitizer and I love so many of her patterns, but her website organization is terrible. If you have an embroidery machine and a little patience to look through all her many, many pages of designs you can find some amazing ones.

And here is a picture of Corbin in his Sunday clothes just because he is so cute! That is his "cheese" face.

Thanks for visiting my site. I'm working on a cool giveaway so please check back in the next couple of weeks :).

Corbin Turns Two

2010-01-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

A week ago today, on January 13th, my baby turned two. It's hard to believe it's been two years. We started the day out with his mom and dad presents. I made him a 2 year old shirt and crown the night before while Juan put together his workbench.

Corbin and Jovi both enjoyed it when they woke up in the morning.

That evening we went to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate. We were Joined by my mom, dad and sister, Laura. Everyone had a lot of fun, but the kids are both afraid of the guy in the Chuck E Cheese suit. They hid out at our table till he left.

Corbin is SO two. He must have read a book on two year olds and decided to be a text book case. He gets into everything, EVERYTHING. Last Sunday got to call poison control for the first time ever. Corbin found some cleaner at the back of our bathroom cabinet that Juan and I didn't even remember was there, sat down with it and started trying to spray it in his mouth. I caught him before he sprayed it more than three times. He got very upset when I washed his mouth out. He seemed fine, but I called poison control just in case, they assured me he would be fine. Corbin also likes to talk, a lot. He loves his sister Jovi and wants to do everything she does. They play very well together most of the time. Corbin loves robots, dinosaurs, chap stick, bugs, trains, cars and dolls. He has started throwing tantrums which are usually pretty funny and he doesn't follow the "draw only on paper" rule like Jovi always did so I have to sit right with him when he draws. Corbin is very loving and cuddly, but doesn't like to give kisses. He likes reading books and some of his current favorites are Guess How Much I Love You (bunny book), Good Night Moon (night, night moon) and a Wall-e book we picked up at Half Price Books. He loves to get tickled (kickled) and is lots of fun to play with if you have time after cleaning up all the messes he makes. Corbin is a wonderful little boy and we are so happy he is part of our family.

My new favorite book

2010-01-12T11:34:00.000-08:00

I bought a bunch of Scholastic books through Jovi's preschool a few months back and put them away. I give them out for treats and surprises. Last week Jovi got a book for waking up dry 4 days in a row (she still struggle with nightime training). I gave her Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney. It is my new favorite book. I totally identify with llama mama and we have nightly llama drama at our house thanks to our terrible sleeper Corbin. If you haven't read it, especially for those of you who have kids who are hard to get to sleep, I highly reccomend this book.
Oh, Jovi and Corbin like it too.

Christmas Day

2010-01-07T07:12:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Day we woke up to my first white Christmas ever.

But before we could go out and enjoy the snow, there were Santa presents to enjoy. Jovi got a scooter and Corbin got a Tonka car garage. They both got lots of bath items in their stockings. They each got a pez despenser. Corbin got a dinosaur one which he uses to go arround and attack people with. It's very funny as long as you aren't the one being attacked, then it kinda hurts.

After breakfast and letting the roads melt a bit we went to vist Juan's family. His mom had made a wonderful Christmas lunch and you could choose, classic style with turkey or alternative style with caldo, it was all yummy. Jovi and Corbin got some cute clothes and fun toys. Ruben's family got a PS3 with Band Hero which we ended up playing all afernoon. It was alot of fun. The first picture is of Corbin with a grandma kiss on his forhead.

The Flores family had a great holiday season I hope all our friends, family and blog readers did to. Thank you for letting me share.

Christmas Eve

2010-01-05T05:32:00.000-08:00

We have had a busy winter break. We got to see lots of family and friends and had a busy fun time. On Christmas eve we went over to my parents' house in the snow, real snow. For me, a native Texan the snow was the most exciting part of Christmas eve. Before we finished making Christmas dinner, this is what it looked like outside.

After dinner my dad told the Christmas story while Jovi and Corbin acted out Mary and Joseph. Corbin stayed Joseph for about 2 minutes, long enough to take a picture. Jovi, on the other hand, got really into it. She was a great Mary and very serious about her part. It was so sweet.

I made a lot of pajama pants this year. I was able to get a really great deal on on a king sized flannel sheet set and there is a lot of fabric in a king sized sheet set. I used my normal kid pattern, one of my favorites you can find here. I bought the adult version, found here, to make the adult pants. It, unfortunately, will not be one of my favorites. The pattern works well for anyone who is skinny with very little butt, but is not a pattern for people with curves. It also runs a bit small. The first pair I made Juan didn't fit him well and the pair I made myself were a little tight, I made some for Laura and at least they fit well. I made a new pair for Juan on Christmas eve morning, I wore his and I gave mine to Laura who then lent them to Emma.

Even though I made Jovi a pair of pants I also made her a skirt out of one of the pillowcases. It was the easiest skirt ever. I cut the length I wanted, added elastic to the cut edge and used the pillowcase edge as the hem. I foresee a new skirt for her every Christmas. I showed her both in the morning and, of course, she wanted to wear the skirt over the pants. Here is our matching Christmas pants picture.

We had lots of fun opening presents. I made Juan, Jovi and Corbin super capes. It's something they've been wanting for a while now. I didn't use a pattern, I just cut a half circle and serged it . I did learn that I don't like sewing cheap satin, it stretches in weird ways, but I was happy with how the capes turned out, and, more importantly, so were they.

I also made Corbin a little boy doll with matching pajama pants for Corbin in a robot print using this pattern. Overall, I liked the pattern. It is the perfect size for toddlers, but the arms and legs are so skinny that they take forever to stuff. I love how the embroidered face looks. He was named Barney by Jovi and Corbin loves him. He has joined one of the three lovies Corbin sleeps with every night (bottom picture). It is so cute to see him fall asleep hugging all his lovies at the same time.

The kids also got several other presents including a soccer goal and soccer balls, a mister potato head for Corbin, a doll formerly known as baby Jesus in our nativity reenactment and now known as Ariel and some books along with some other stuff. Everyone likes buying stuff for our kids. It was a very fun evening and then we had an exciting drive back home in the SNOW.

My Little Model

2009-12-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

Last month we were at church and someone in our ward came up and asked me if I would be willing to have Jovi model for a photo shoot she was doing. I said sure. She got to model a skirt and some pants and we got to keep a couple of the photos. Jovi was so excited to be a model she couldn't seem to keep still. She kept jumping around and while she tried to listen to directions, she was really bad at holding any pose for more than a few seconds. Stephanie was really patient though and she was able to take some really great photos. Stephanie is a professional photographer and she takes awesome photos, HERE is a link to her blog. I just love the colors in her photos, they are so real and vibrant and she has a great eye. Here are my two favorite photos from the shoot.

Oh yeah, if you visit Stephanie's site she has a giveaway going on for some really cute hair accessories.

Funny story, a few days ago we were on a walk and Jovi looks up at me with this really guilty face.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, Jovi"
"Yesterday when you were putting Corbin to sleep for his nap...", she looks down and whispers really quietly, "I cut my hair."
"What?!?!", I say trying to see any difference in her hair. It looks the same it always does, super curly."
"I cut my hair mommy, I'm sorry.", she looks very sad and pitiful.
"Where did you cut your hair?" I ask still trying to see where she did this cutting.
"On the front, it kept getting in my eyes." I still can't see any difference in her hair, but I do notice that her front curls are hanging in front of her eyes.
"Jovi, you know you never cut hair."
"I know, I'm sorry."
"Next time, if hair is getting in your eyes, tell me and I'll put a clip in it."
"ok."
"Thank you for telling me though."

So what is Jovi getting for Christmas? Lots of hair clips.

I know I should have used the situation as a learning opportunity, to talk about guilt and telling me right away. There probably should have been some consequences too, but honestly I was so shocked by the whole thing I didn't think of any of that. Oh well, next time, because I'm sure there will be a next time even if it isn't with hair, I will work on the parenting thing. Jovi definitely keeps me laughing.

Pictures at JCPenney

2009-12-12T05:53:00.000-08:00

For my mom's birthday in June she asked us to all get together and take a family photo. Well, it turned out that we couldn't all get together till right before Thanksgiving. We wanted to take the pictures outside, but the weather was not cooperating so we ended up at the JCPenney picture studio and I have to admit that I was not impressed. The kids were not in a particularly photo oriented mood and our photographer was not good at kid photos in the first place. She also kept cutting off part of our bodies and put us in front of a white background even though some of us (me) were wearing cream. Anyway, we did get a few cute photos, here are the best of the bunch.

This is my favorite picture. I'm thinking about changing my header picture to this one. What do you think, should I change it or leave the "nicer" family picture up?

Christmas Stockings

2009-12-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to make Christmas stockings for years, a lot of years, but something always seems to come up and I never get around to making them. Saturday we put up our Christmas decorations and our new stocking hooks were sitting there, empty and forlorn on our fireplace mantle. I had to fill them up. Using the free patterns I got from HERE, but not the directions. I made a stocking for everyone. None of them are perfect, but I'm really happy with how they turned out.

The easiest stocking was Jovi's, but look at how cute it turned out and Jovi loves it.

Corbin's stocking was next. There is a tree on the other side too. All the stockings are double sided.

Next was Juan's stocking. He requested I use the green fabric which he calls a "kermit pelt". I personally think it is too shaggy to be a kermit pelt, but it does make a great stocking.

Then I made my stocking. I love buttons. They took a while to sew on, but I feel it was well worth the effort. My favorite part is the flower pin on the cuff. Jovi wants me to make a few for her now.

Last, but not least I made my sister, Laura's stocking. It took me a long time to decide on the theme. I kept going back and forth between classic or space alien (she is a big scifi fan). I couldn't decide so I combined them.

Close up of the aliens

Here they all are hanging from the stocking hooks.

One Christmas project crossed off, yea!

An old friend and SNOW

2009-12-08T17:56:00.000-08:00

Last week we got a visit from an old friend and I got to meet her son. I've known Alice since I was 3 years old and it is so cool to still be able to get together sometimes. I wish she lived closer. Her little boy actually got along fairly well with my two and we had a fun afternoon. Thanks for coming over Alice.

Two days later we woke up to SNOW, in Texas, in December. That is some crazy Texas weather for you. The kids watched thick snowflakes fall in our backyard through the windows and begged for me to let them outside. I told them that as soon as it slowed down they could go out, but by the time we got out there it was already melting. It didn't slow them down though. Jovi threw snowballs at the fence and at me. Corbin tried eating some (of course) and generally loved the messiness of it. They could only stand the cold for about 15 minutes so we went inside and had hot chocolate to warm up. It was a really fun morning.

FREE sewing/crafting patterns

2009-12-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share an opportunity to get FREE gift certificates for sewing patterns. You might have figured out by now that I am a big fan of some of the patterns on www.youcanmakethis.com . In fact, a few are some of my favorite patterns ever. They have lots of free patterns if you sign up for their newsletter, but most of the patterns cost money. During December if you go to their blog (not their storefront where you buy the patterns) they have a bunch of tutorials and if you answer a simple question showing you read/watched the tutorial you get entered for a gift certificate.

They are giving away a bunch of these, one for every tutorial they make so there are lots of chances to win. I'll be attempting to enter them all and wanted all my sewing friends to know about it and have the chance to enter too. :)

I'm still sewing...some

2009-11-25T13:52:00.000-08:00

I have been doing the occasional sewing project, but I haven't been posting many pictures of them. I need to do several more I even have some all cut out, but my sewing room has been a mess up until a few days ago and I never seemed to get anything done. Now the room is clean and I will hopefully be able to post pictures of several projects I will be working on for the holidays. Here are the projects I've completed over the bast two months...

Pajama pants using this pattern. It is an awsome (very fast and easy) pants pattern and she just came out with one for adults too which I plan on getting to make some Christmas presents. I'm embarrased to say that I think this is one of the only things I've sewn for Corbin since he was a baby. We were blessed with a bunch of hand me downs and he's had such a nice wardrobe that there really hasn't been any need for me to make him clothes till now. They were both happy with the pajama pants and I got these cute shots.

Here are some pumpkin throw pillows I made for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I sent the Emma one to my sister at BYU to spruce up her dorm room. The Jack o lantern one has velcro on it and on the felt pieces so the kids can make it have different faces. The pieces are kept in a pocket on the back of the pillow.

Thanks for looking :).

Halloween

2009-11-24T13:50:00.000-08:00

The State Fair

2009-11-23T13:40:00.000-08:00

I know that this was a long time ago, but the State Fair of Texas is something I look forward to every year. I love the fried foods, the petting zoo, the cotton candy, the live infomercials, the samples, the cars, the rides, the smells (well, most of them), the shows, the arts and crafts, the kiddie farm, all of it is so much fun. This year Juan couldn't get off work so the kids and I wend with my parents and we had a great time.

The Flu

2009-11-05T10:56:00.000-08:00

The end of October was a crazy time for our family. We got sick with the flu and now two+ weeks later we are all almost better; I still have a lingering cough. I'm really hoping that we got all of our sick days over for the rest of the year because I'm so tired of being sick and/or having sick kids it isn't even funny. I have lots of photos to share (during the times we weren't sick) though so look for a few new posts during the next few weeks.

Camping Trip

2009-10-10T17:42:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went camping at Joe Pool lake with some friends. Juan took off Friday and we were the first ones there. We got to scope out all the camp sites and found two that looked really nice. Of course those were taken, but we got two others that ended up being great. By the time we were checked in the Gandys were there too. We both set up our tents and got everything situated (ours is the tent on the right).

Funny thing, Jovi and the Gandy girls were all wearing the exact same shirt and our boys were both wearing orange, totally not planned, but it made for a cute picture. It was too bad Corbin refused to sit on the branch till Juan came over.

Corbin decided to relax while Juan started to build a fire.

The kids were all facinated by the fire. Later that evening we were joined by the Bastians and Hamblins. It was a fun night. We had BBQ ckicken and campfire asparagus (yummy) made by the Hamblins. I tried roasting apples in foil in the fire. The first batch burned horribly, but the second batch was pretty tasty. The next day Juan and I made breakfast for everyone. We brought WAY too much food, but everyone seemed to enjoy it :).

After breakfast we took the kids to play on old, slightly wierd playground that our campsites kind of backed into. The proportions were kind of off, the monkey bars were two stories high and the slide was super wide and had a huge drop, but the kids had fun playing.

Then we went fishing. This was part of the camping trip that Jovi had really been looking forward to. The day before we left we went to WalMart and got her a Barbie fishing pole and she couldn't wait to try it out. I got an adult fishing pole too, just for fun.

Corbin wasn't that excited about the fishing, but he really like the bait.

Soon after fishing it started to rain so I put up my camera before it could get wet. We did get to go visit an old farmstead which was really cool even if it sprinkled on us most of the time we were there. When we got back we found our tent was leaking and more rain was on the way. Even though we had planned to stay till Sunday we packed up and went home that night. Even though it ended early we had a really fun time and I hope to go camping again soon.

Jovi's Birthday Party

2009-10-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

Jovi had her birthday party a few weekends ago. We did it at our local park and were so happy to be blessed with a beautiful day for a park party. Juan and I wanted to do a treasure hunt for the kids so we decided to do an adventure party. The kids started out decorating hats and making telescopes. Here is a picture of Jovi decorating her hat and a group picture of kids making telescopes.

Juan made an awsome treasure map and I made backpacks with water, a compass, a magnifying glass, a pencil with blank book and pencil sharpener, a whistle and a flashlight.

I got all the kids together and showed them what was in their backpack and what it could be used for when going on an adventure.

Then I passed the kids onto Juan who helped them follow their treasure maps.

Their treasure ended up being lunch. They ate and then we got out the pinata, something Jovi deparately wanted as part of her party. She picked out a Hello Kitty one and I thought it was one of those pinatas that you pulled the ribbons on the bottom instead of hitting. Unfortunately I was mistaken, the ribbons were only decoration. Everyon had a chance hitting the pinata, even Corbin tried, but that thing was strong. We ended up tearing it open and throwing the candy at the kids. They didn't seem to mind.

After that we had presents then cake and ended with the kids playing on the playground.

I think everyone had a good time, I know Jovi did. It was a really fun day!

Jovi's First Pictures

2009-10-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

I just recently got around to downloading the pictures from Jovi's camera. There were over 200 shots, all indoors in fairly low lighting, MANY of them were pure black. As you can see this camera works best in lots of natural sunlight. We will have to hope the rainy weather goes away soon so that we can try taking some outside. Anyway, here are a few of her best first shots. My favorite is her self portrait (Emma, you taught her well), there were MANY shots to choose from. Jovi is definitely of the opinion that pushing the shutter button more is better.

The Herd Natural Science Museum

2009-10-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

I am very behind in my posts, hopefully I'll be able to catch up this week so look for several posts within the next week. Two weeks ago we went to the Herd Natural Scinece Museum in McKinney. It was my first time going and I'm sure it won't be my last. It's a small museum, but has lots of hands on stuff and there is an outdoor zoo component and...a butterfly garden which Jovi and Corbin just loved. Jovi kept trying to get one to land on her finger, but it didn't happen. She did get to pet a butterfly that had landed on a flower and was sitting surprisingly still. Corbin thought the butterflys were really cool and kept pointing "look" as the flew around him. He also found a huge mud puddle which he promptly stomped in. Here are some pictures:

Butterflys are such camera hogs!

My 4 year old

2009-09-12T19:23:00.000-07:00

Jovi turned 4 yesterday! The night before I stayed up and made her a birthday dress out of fabric she picked out (pattern found here I highly reccomend it). In the morning it was deemed the "perfect birthday dress". Here are some pictures:

Jovi is showing she is 4 (four fingers) in this photo:

We went and got doughnuts for breakfast and then my sister, Eden picked her up and took her to Build-A-Bear for her birthday present where she got a pink unicorn with its own ruffle dress, panties and bow for her unicorn horn, her name is Ella and Jovi loves her. That afternoon I spent most of my time making Jovi's birthday cake. She has wanted a Barbie rainbow cake for months now, ever since she saw one at Kroger. On Wednesday I went to order one and found out the were $40!?!!?!?! Wow, I mean, sure you get a Barbie as part of the cake, but $40 just wasn't happening and I thought, how hard can it be to make my own? So, I went to Walmart, picked up a $6 Barbie, 2 white cake mixes and a dozen eggs and made my own for less than $15 (including the stuff I had at the house). It wasn't perfet or anything, but the cake inside got to be purlple at Jovi's request and she got to decorate the dress with sprinkles herself. It did take both cake mixes though. We have SO much left over cake, anyone want some? Here are some pictures:
Jovi, Ella, and the cake

The purple inside

Corbin has be very sick this week with asthma (the drs won't call it that yet, but it is). He is on steroids right now which weaken his immune system. We were planning on going to Chuck E. Cheese, but my mom ended up staying home with Corbin and Jovi, Juan, my dad, Laura and I went to Gatti town for dinner and games and then went back to the house for cake and presents. Here are some present pictures:

Jovi opening Emma's gift (she loved it)

Her gift from Grandpa Thompson

My parents gave Corbin a gift so he didn't feel left out:

Jovi really enjoyed all of it and loved her present from Ganna and Grandpa best of at, a Vteck digital camera.

She has been taking pictures all day today.

We are hoping to have a friend party in a few weeks, since things just didn't come together in time for a friend party this week. Happy birthday Jovi, we are so glad you are part of our family!

My Ballerina

2009-08-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Jovi started dance last week, a ballet and tap combo class. She was SO excited, she kept telling strangers we'd see at stores that she was starting ballet. She would practice "balleting" at home asking for me to put on ballet (classical) music for her. Here are some pictures just before we left for class:

Jovi has 4 other little girls in her class. Corbin was so sad that he didn't get to go to class too. We spent a lot of her class time watching her in the tiny one way mirror that they have for parents. It was so cute watching her follow her teacher and adding the occasional spontaneous twirl. She came out of the class just as excited as she went in and wanted to go home and practice what she had learned.

I made a dance bag for Jovi and she has dubbed it "the best dance bag ever". It really makes the work worthwhile when she so obviously likes what I make her. I didn't have a pattern, just kind of winged it and ended up having to put tucks in at the bottom because the body of the bag was too big for the sides. I took the plung and put in my second zipper ever and I have to say it is much better than my first zipper (sorry Alice). My secret was wash away Wonder tape, a double sided tape that washes away with water. I put the zipper on with the tape and then was able to sew it without having to worry about it moving around. Now for the pictures:

Corbin Update

2009-08-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

My baby is getting so old. He'll be 19 months old on Thursday and is SUCH a toddler. He gets into EVERYTHING and anything on the edge of a counter will get grabbed. Even if it is not on an edge it may get grabbed. I heard a scraping sound coming from the kitchen the other day and this is what I found.

The second picture was after he saw me with the camera out. As soon as he sees a camera now he runs in front of it smiling his biggest smile and yelling cheese (as seen in the first photo). For breakfast we often share a bagel with cream cheese. The cream cheese is Corbin's favorite part and he usually licks it off before eating the bagel. A couple of morning's ago I left the kitchen for a few moments and this is what I found when I came back...

He isn't allowed to sit on the table and usually gets a time out, but I decided to forgo constancy and get the camera instead. He was just too cute up there. As you can see, he is insanely messy, I've never met a messier child. He loves to spill his drinks and splash in them and tear paper into little tiny pieces. He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. He pours out any bags/baggies of food he gets his hands on. But he is so much fun to play with.

Corbin loves anything that growls. According to him, dinosaurs, dragons, lions and sharks growl. He loves to play chase and hide and seek, but the giggling usually gives away his hiding place. He is obsessed with bugs. He watches them and tries to catch them and brings me dead ones when he finds them. We found a cricket in my bathtub the other day and Corbin thought it was the coolest thing ever. He kept putting toys in there for the bug. He is talking in two and three word sentences now, his favorite being I want... He knows lots of food and food related words along with his favorites, mine, bug, outside and everybody's name. Sometimes during the day he will ask "Daddy?" and I'll tell him "Daddy's at work." to which he will respond with a very knowing "Ohhhh". Corbin just adores Jovi and wants to do and have everything that she does and has. It is so cute to see them play together. He still doesn't sleep through the night which sometimes drives me crazy, but I love him so much and am so glad he is part of our family!

Three dresses for Jovi

2009-08-02T13:01:00.000-07:00

Jovi grows more and more from one day to the next and I recently had to switch her from size 4 to size 5. I try to stock up on clearance clothes when I can and so she has a decent wardrobe except she didn't have any play dresses in size 5. A chance to sew!!!

One of the things I love about our new house is that I have a dedicated sewing/ crafting room. It is wonderful. I can have a project in the works with pieces all over the room and not feel bad about leaving the mess from one day to the next. I know as we have more children I may have to give up my space so I'm enjoying it while I can. These past two weeks during Corbin's nap we would go into my sewing room where Jovi would make collages out of fabric scraps and I would sew till he would wake up. Here are the results:

This is a dress I promised to make Jovi before we moved. She picked the fabric from the Wal-Mart clearance section. It is NOT great quality fabric, but she really loves it. She wore it for three days straight after I made it for her. It definitely makes sewing worth while when I get to see appreciation like that. The pattern is Claire from Portabellopixie. This is the first time I've used it and I really like how it turns out. I would rate it as a beginner/intermediate pattern. I probably wouldn't suggest it as a first time pattern, but it's pretty easy to follow, MUCH easier than the big 3 patterns that you get from Joanns or Walmart. I will definitely be making more dresses using this pattern.

This is the second dress I made and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in it. It is way too big for Jovi which I guess means that she will get to wear it for a while. I tried to hem it, but Jovi insisted that she likes long dresses so I guess it is staying as is. I will not be using this pattern again though.

This is the last dress I made and my personal favorite. It's Jovi's least favorite of course. Why does it always seem to work out that way? This is the second time I've made this pattern, the first time was a top and this time I lengthened it into a dress. I love this pattern, it is an e-pattern you download and print off you computer, you can find it here. I think it would be an awesome beginner pattern, it involves some slightly advanced techniques, but the directions are extremely clear and the final product comes out looking extremely professional.

I have a skirt and three more dresses I'm planning on making for Jovi (two of them being requested specifically by her)so look for more to come.

A Family Weekend

2009-07-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

Juan's nephew came home with us after the 4th of July and spent a week at our house. I'm not so sure how much fun he had since our air conditioning was out most of the time he was with us, but hopefully it wasn't too bad. The kids just loved him. That weekend Juan's sister came down from Minnesota to pick him up and so his mom, little sister and brother came over to our house too to spend some quality time together. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone and visiting. On Saturday we took the kids to our local park which also has a splash area. The big kids weren't too impressed, but the little ones loved it. We took everyone to the pool afterwards which made both big and little kids happy.

4th of July

2009-07-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

We spent the 4th of July with Juan's family at his mom's house. She rented a big, huge water slide which we all had fun playing on helping us to keep cool throughout the hot day. We cooked out and there was even a pinata for the kids. Jovi and Corbin loved playing with their cousins. It was a really fun day.

Our Moving Adventure

2009-07-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since we moved into our house. I want to say a big thank you to all our friends who showed up to help us move on Saturday even though it was super hot and we hadn't 100% finished packing. We couldn't have done it without you. And thank you to the men from our new ward and Rea who helped us move our heavy furniture into our new two story house. I also want to say a SUPER big thank you to my family who watched Jovi and Corbin that weekend and came and helped unpack the kid's stuff before they showed up Sunday evening. After that the weeks essentially disappeared like this:
Week 1- unpacking basic stuff and trying to find places for it
Week 2- finalizing where big furniture should go, unpacking more, my birthday and that night the air conditioner broke (at the start of a holiday weekend, of course).
Week 3-Broken air conditioning for most of the week (you can't get anything done when it is too hot to move)BUT it got fixed in time for Juan's family to come over, hang out and spend the weekend with us which was a lot of fun.
Week 4-This week has been basically a recovery week from the three previous weeks, not much except basic cleaning has gotten done.
It has been a true adventure with unexpected twists and turns and one that I am totally ok with not repeating for a long, long time. You will notice that there are no pictures of the house because I still feel it has a long way to go, no walls are painted, no pictures or curtains are hung and the living rooms are the only rooms where we are pretty sure the furniture won't be moving anytime soon. Our bedroom has become the collecting place for all boxes full of stuff that doesn't have a place to go. I'll put up pictures as we finish decorating rooms, but everyone is welcome to come over and check it out in its unfinished state if they are in the area.

FINALLY!!!!

2009-06-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

We've sold our home. The papers were signed today! Tomorrow we sign the papers to buy the new home in Frisco. It is really happening. I admit that I doubted if this day would come, but I'm so happy it has. Saturday is moving day, hope to see some of you (or your husbands) there. Look for new home pictures in the next few weeks.

Crafting

2009-06-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

I packed all my crafting and sewing items into boxes thinking I'd be without them for about 2 weeks...well, it's been over a month now and I really miss being able to make stuff. Unfortunately I didn't pack anything so that I could get it out easily; even to hand sew I'd have to find and open three boxes. So, what is left to me? Window shopping for new craft stuff of course! I've found three awesome crafting tools I thought I'd share with you. Do I need them? Not really. Will I get them? Probably not, at least not anytime soon. BUT they are super cool.

It all started with an infomercial I saw for the Cricut. I'd heard of these before, but I'm not a scrapbooker so what did I need a dicut machine for? The infomercial opened my eyes. You can cut wall vinyl with it (something I want to add to Jovi's new room). You can make stencils with it. You can etch glass with it. AND you can cut fabric with it. I could make AWESOME appliques with very little effort. The initial price, while high isn't terrible, about $250 BUT you, of course would want to buy lots of cartridges to go with it and those cost $40-$80 a piece. There is software you can get that can turn any true type font into something the cricut can cut called Sure Cuts A Lot, but then that adds to the price too. Even with all the costs it gets a place on my wish list because of all the cool things you can do with it.

The next cool thing I found is a Xyron510 machine. You can make stickers or laminated tags or magnets with it AND it is easy and safe enough for a kid to use. Can you just imagine photo magnets for grandparent Christmas presents and homemade stickers out of magazine pictures for Jovi to use. This one is actually reasonably priced if you get it on sale, about $20, and the refills are sold at Joann so you could always get them for 40% off.

This is the one I think I want most of all, it is a yudu, a (relatively) easy to use screen printing machine. I've wanted to get into screen printing for a while now, but adding yet another hobby to my plate and the start up costs that go along with it just seemed like too much BUT since I'm window shopping it gets a top spot. Screen printing can be a pretty messy and unless you have a lot of fairly expensive equipment you aren't always guaranteed great results. The yudu stuck all that equipment into one big box, took away most of the messy chemical application and it only costs $200, of course you still have to get the ink and the stuff you want to print on, but, oh the possibilities! This would be the design for the first screen I would make.

Another Delay

2009-06-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

Well...after a hard three days of not knowing if we were going to sell our house or not, it has been delayed yet again. At least this time it is only a week delay. We should (crossing our fingers) sell our house next Wednesday and move next Saturday. I'm feeling very zen at the moment about the whole thing, if it is supposed to happen it will happen, right?