She's a Sensitive Soul

While I was walking past the computer I thought I heard sniffling coming from my little girl. I glanced over at her and, sure enough, she had tears streaming down her cheeks as she sat watching a video on Sesame Street's website.

The video? Lena Horne singing "It's Not Easy Being Green" with Kermit the Frog.

She is too much like her mama!

Make each day count!

Water Play

It was a beautiful day on Friday so we all went outside to play. Alex is a tough little bugger to take outside because he is always wanting to run out into the street, so I set a bucket of water on the sidewalk in front of the porch to keep him entertained. The kid loves water! He started splashing in it and that, of course, got all the kids interested in playing with the water. Not much better than a water fight on a hot day... except a swimming pool, but we don't have one of those :)

I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but we used to have these terrible neighbors living below us (we share a house that was converted to a duplex where the top level is one home and the bottom is another). So when our old neighbors moved out I was so relieved and excited, but nervous, about getting new neighbors! Thankfully, I can happily say, our new neighbors have been great! It has been so wonderful seeing all the kids get along so well and it has taken so much stress away from my daily life.

So anyway, here are the pics from the water fun-

Make each day count!

oops!

Geesh, where'd the week go?! I just realized I haven't posted since Sunday and even then, just a photo! I'll admit, I've been busy. The school year is winding down and, while we home school year round, everything seems to be coming to an end with ceremonies and what not.

Marah, in her Cubbies vest, watching Jenna's Awana award ceremony

Jenna accepting her participation award (she almost finished her book this year)

I've been working on lesson plans for the summer/fall which will go until Thanksgiving and then we will break from lesson plans and just freestyle learn through winter. After two years of homeschooling I have learned that winter just isn't a good time of year to try to have structured learning. Not even going to try it this year.

Anyway, I've got Science all figured out and a pretty good idea of History lessons. Also planning to incorporate Shakespeare, Fine Arts, Health, and Bible. With Bible comes a lot of history anyway, and then we will be picking our read-alouds and silent readers. Of course, not every subject will be covered every day, at least, not scheduled every day. If the kids get really into a certain subject then we will spend more time on that and less time on others or whatever. That's the beauty of homeschooling.

Things are pretty good here. Money is super tight (and looks like we may need to tighten up even more because we just found out that money we were counting on will be likely delayed by a few weeks) but we're hanging in there. Eric just finished his first year of college and will be continuing this summer so we're very proud of him! Jenna has her Brownie Fly Up ceremony next week where she will become a Junior Girl Scout and she is very excited about that. Marah is a typical five year old, full of questions all day long. Alex is charming as always and still isn't talking so we might have to get that checked out soon.

So there you go :) We are doing well. And finally, a few random shots I took of Miss Marah today (showing off, as usual)!

Make each day count!

My Wish

Spring Party

Today we celebrated Spring! The girls have been begging me to have a Spring party and I have been putting it off because I either forget until the day I promised comes along (oops!) or because it has been raining. Finally today I decided it was do or die time! It was still cold and windy today but at least the sun was shining. There was nothing super frivolous about this party, just a simple time of celebration of Spring.

We had a picnic on our new picnic quilt with meat and cheese and crackers (Marah's request) and raspberries and Dr. Pepper. It was seriously cold out there so the girls were snuggled up under a blanket, but we still enjoyed the time together and Marah and I stayed out there for quite awhile just chatting about future celebrations and watching the birds in the tree above us.

We also baked a simple box cake (again, nothing frivolous) with some vanilla frosting and springy sprinkles, had a pizza night and cherry 7Up floats, plus made some cute decorations that I think we'll keep up for awhile.

For the mini stained "glass" effect we cut out black cardstock and laid it on top of some clear Contact paper. Then we sprinkled tissue paper confetti on top of the sticky paper. Another layer of Contact paper was placed on top to seal it together.

For the tissue paper pomanders I took 8 sheets of tissue paper and accordion folded it lengthwise in 1 inch increments. Then I used a twist tie to clip them together with some matching ribbon for a hanger. Cut the ends either rounded or pointed (I tried both) and then fluff it all out for a very pretty, dramatic, and cheap party decoration! Cut the paper in half to make the mini balls. I can't wait to make more of these for future parties, they really dress up the room AND don't deflate or smell weird (like balloons, which Eric can't stand)!

Make each day count!

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty

All dolled up for a fine dining night with her Girl Scout troop.

Beast

Caught eating some chocolate that Marah found in the car and gave to him on the way home.

Make each day count!

Wordless Wednesday

Jenna teaching Alex to say "shoe" on the way to Awana Awards Night.

Make each day count!

Little Poser

My girls are away at a two night sleepover with my dear friend, Elizabeth's, family. She offered to take both of them and, while I am a little worried about how Marah will handle being gone for two days, they were both so excited to go and I could use the time to get some planning done here at home.

Anyway, this afternoon I caught Marah looking at a book and she just looked so cute that I had to pull out my camera. I tried to be discreet about it so that I could catch a few candid moments but Jenna loudly asked me what I was going to take pictures of and that peaked Marah's curiosity. So instead of catching candid moments, I caught these four very posed moments from my girl. She's quite the little actress it seems!

Yes, every one of these photos was completely staged with no direction from the photographer. Hilarious. :)

Make each day count!