Belle and her horse

**I need to get a picture of Belle and her horse to go along with this post. Maybe I'll work on that. **

No, we didn't get Belle a horse. If we did, we'd surely be the best parents EVER. Nope Belle read the book "Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse" about a year ago. It's all about a girl who wants a horse for her birthday and does everything to prepare. The party comes and her dad gets her a bike. She ends up pretending the bike is a horse and they ride off into the sunset.

Ever since then Belle's bike has been her horse. It's name has changed several times. From Star to it's current name Spirit (after She-ra's horse, I believe), and probably a million in between. She'll pull her horse out of the stable (the garage) and talk to it as she rides. It's cute.

Yesterday we took off the training wheels. She's awfully excited to ride like a big girl. And Belle is doing great as long as she doesn't put too much thought into it. She rode about 20 or so feet today without me holding on. But before she even got started she gave her horse a pep talk. I couldn't understand what she was saying exactly, she was whipsering to her "horse". Then every time Belle would make an attempt at riding she'd repeat to herself "I believe in myself, I believe in myself" over and over. She's so funny!!

Maybe I'll be able to post some video soon of my big girl riding without training wheels.

In Ethan news, his legs have finally grown long enough for him to really be able to pedal his trike. So he's off and running as well.

Kindergarten interview

The yummiest food to eat is: Corn

My favorite show to watch is: Ruff Ruffman

I love when I get to read: books about horses

The best thing about school is: playing together

The worst thing about school is: reading

The coolest person on earth is: my mom

I'm really super good at: playing tag

My favorite colors are: purple & pink

The best place in the world to be is: Mamaw's house

When I grow up I want to be: a horse rider

If I could do one thing all day it would be: playing

I really, really do not like to eat: hamburger

My best friend is: Audrey Parkhurst

Jesus is: powerful

When I was little I used to: chew on things

3 words that tell about me: Isabella, ballerina, pretty

This year I hope to learn: ballet

Labor Day trip to W. Va.

Well it had been about 10yrs since I've been down to see the Richmond side of the family. We were able to get everyone together to go down this year for the Pack Family reunion on Labor Day. We all had a good time, but ended up leaving early because Sara's kids were not sleeping well and were cranky.

I was surprised how well the drive down and back went. Not too many problems or whining. We just might be able to make a road trip again.

Of course my kids know no stranger and quickly made friends. Even had someone ask (jokingly)where they were adopted from because no child of mine would be that social. Belle spent her time playing with cousins Torre and Ciara and Ethan spent most of his time just playing with Brody. Although Ethan did come up to me during the reunion and asked if he could go play with the big kids. I'm always amazed at how well my kids are in new situations. They'll just go off and make friends with someone.

Dad with his siblings and grandma Richmond

Cooper and his bare butt.

 

 Didn't take long before the boys were wrestling in the yard.

Ethan playing with Uncle Johnny.

Belle and Torre.

Our family with Grandma.

 

All the Richmond grandkids and great grandkids minus one.

Cooper and Brody joined in with the singing.

Getting the stinkeye from Ethan.

School pictures

Last friday was the first day of our homeschool co-op. The week before one of the moms, a photographer, so graciously offered to take class pictures. We all met at the park and got a group shot as well as individual shots. Miss Belle was being such a priss that day and doing all sorts of poses. Take a look at the series of class shots. She changes her pose in each one. I was excited to get a good shot of Ethan, it'll count as his 3 yr pictures this year.

And since I had yet to take our own first day of school pictures, I decided to take first day of co-op pictures. =) We haven't been dressed in the morning enough to get pictures before then. We do school in our pjs. So when the kids were dressed in the morning for once, I took the opportunity and got our pictures on the steps like we have done in years past for preschool.

The kids had fun in co-op. Belle has a Magic Schoolbus Science class the first hour and then a music class the second hour. Mr. Ethan got to play in the nursery. Only thing the kids didn't like was sitting still during announcements/devotions. Hopefully they'll get better in the coming weeks with that. 

Nic and Sally

This will only be funny if you watch a lot of children's cartoons. I just happened to remember this conversation with Ethan and wanted to get it on the blog.

Apparently Ethan had figured out on his own what Nic's first name was. And he had been calling Nic by his first name all day. So I asked Ethan, "what's mommy's name?". And quite quickly he answered "Sally".

The kids do love "The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That" on PBS.

100% BOY!!

I wish I would have gotten a picture, but by the time I thought about it Ethan had scribbled all over the page. Ethan has started drawing people. They are still really rough, just a circle with eyes and two stick legs. But last night he added one more important piece, a penis. Yep, thats my boy. Then later drew blobs underneath this "person" and apparently that was poop.

Then as I was getting him dressed this morning, he bent over in front of me and said "see my butt!!" What an onry little thing he is! Good thing he's cute.

Indiana State Fair

Ever since the commercials started airing on PBS, Belle has been begging to go to the state fair. We ended up waiting for a cheap day and decided on a $2 Tuesday. Great decision. All the food vendors had $2 menu items, often just a smaller version of their most popular item. It was great to taste a lot of different foods and not totally break the bank.

Nic lost his cell phone. Thankfully someone found it and turned it into security at the Pepsi Colliseum. They called me (listed as an ICE contact) and we were able to track his phone down and get it back. Thank goodness. While Nic was getting the phone, the kids and I waited in the colliseum and watched the Clydesdales. The kids LOVED it! They would've sat there a lot longer. And really it was just Clydesdales pulling carts around in circles, nothing exciting.

We ended up finding someone else's phone which was funny. We picked it up and took it to the state police tent. There were no ICE contacts and I didn't quite feel comfortable just calling "Lil Mo" or any of the other contacts on the list. =)

I think I'm over the short hair. Or maybe just over the dark hair.

Still thankful for the wagon, but Belle is getting a little too big. There were lots of "he's stepping on my toes!!"

The kids got to pet an overly friendly cow. He thought Belle's shirt tasted good.

New Friends and the zoo

Man, I've been horrible this summer about taking pictures. I think I've just come to a point where I don't like carting around the DSLR anymore. Love it still, but it's been beaten up more than I'd like. So, I want a point and shoot camera for Christmas. One that doesn't take forever to take a picture. (In case someone was trying to think of Christmas gifts)

I happened to have my ipod with me at the zoo last week. We went with our friends Amy, Abby, Sammy, baby Henry, as well as Amy's friend Michelle and her two kids.

This might be Amy's kids first appearance on the blog. We are thankful for meeting up with them again. It's so nice to have a homeschooling buddy who has kids pretty much the same age. Belle and Abby were familiar with each other since they were both in the same ballet class (remember this post. That girl was Abby). They will also be in the same co-op class this fall.

We had a great time at the zoo. I thought for sure Ethan would fall asleep on the way home, but he didn't. We got home, I put Ethan in bed, set Belle up on the computer playing games and then went and laid down myself. An hour and a half later I woke up and couldn't find Belle ANYWHERE. I was realy starting to freak out until something made the computer wake up and I heard the game come on. I went upstairs to find her asleep behind the computer chair. This girl never naps!

Preschool

Well I figure I might as well see if I can teach Ethan this year along with Belle. So I have a "Letter of the Week" curriculum that I purchased really cheap (but haven't really used so far). Mostly Ethan will do his "I can Paste" book or his "I can Trace" book. I've put a few pages into page protectors and give him a dry erase marker and he really likes that. I do this in hopes of getting some uninterrupted time with Belle. Not always successful. He does love gluing though. If I can find a project that takes awhile I might be able to get more done.

This morning Ethan was up at about 7am. Belle has been sleeping in past 8am. So when Ethan caught me checking my email, he brought me his paste book. I figured we might as well do some preschool while we didn't have Belle around. We even did some tracing and I was quite impressed. Especially seeing how he's never traced anything before last week.

We got about 15mins of school time before this emerged. =)

First week of school

Well we made it!! Everyone cooperated (for the most part). I believe Ethan will be my biggest challenge this year. Just occupying him enough that I'm able to read or work with Belle. Hopefully he continues to nap so that I can get some school done at that time.

I'm liking Sonlight so far. I love that it's all planned out for me. Without that I know I'd be a huge mess. Belle is really liking her math and even asked to finish up some worksheets so that she could move onto a new lesson.

I just thought that I should take some sort of first day of school picture, but the week is over. Maybe a first week of school picture will have to do.

Here are some ipod photos from this week. And I'll load a pretty funny video of Ethan's "education" this week. (ignore the messy hallway)

Ethan's first dentist appointment

This morning was Belle's dentist appointment. Ethan went along for a "happy check" where they would test the waters and just introduce him to the dentist. They were able to get a full cleaning done on him. Such a big boy! The hygienist commented on how not to many 3 yr old boys will stand for a cleaning.
I think Ethan's need to do EVERYTHING Belle does helped us in this situation.

Belle on the other hand was jumping up and down excited to get her teeth cleaned and told the girl that she just loved the tooth polisher. Belle was also a big help and said she's stand beside Ethan when it was his turn in case he got nervous.

School Time

Well Back to School is in full swing. The stores are loaded with school supplies and everyone is enjoying the last few weeks of summer. I've learned that I have quite an addiction to school supplies. I can't pass up $.40 crayons and cheap notebooks. School Supply wise I really don't need a lot. I picked up markers and could stand to get a few more pencils and maybe some Kindergarten ruled paper.

I also realized that I need to decide when to actually start school. Last week I received the last bit of my curriculum, so now I'm set. I just need to start school. I think we'll wait til the middle or end of August and pretty much follow the public school calendar. Starting in September we'll have a few additions to our schedule. We'll be doing BSF on Tuesdays, MOPS on Wed 2x a month and Co-op on Fridays. It's a lot and I'll probably have to cut things out if it gets too crazy.

Here is a breakdown of the curriculum for Belle's Kindergarten.

History/Literature: Sonlight Core A

Reading/Language Arts: Sonlight Readers & LA 1, and possibly some Phonics Pathways thrown in since I just discovered that book.

Math: Math-U-See Primer. Belle is already about a 1/3 of the way through the book, we may have to order MUS Alpha or supplement with Kumon books or something at the end. She does seem to be motivated by colorful worksheets so I may find something to add with her black and white MUS pages.

Science: Co-op class. I believe they are doing some sort of Magic School Bus curriculum.

Music: Co-op. They will be practicing all year for an Easter Cantata.

Phys Ed: Cheer class on Mondays and I think sometimes the Co-op goes to Franklin College to have students over there do a Phys Ed class with the kids.

Art: Oh all important Art. You'd think this would be my forte. Belle informed me that it wasn't school unless there were crafts. As artsy as I am, I am not "little kid" crafty. I need to find a book to help me here. I'm thinking maybe one of the Usborne craft books.

I don't even want to think about all the money I've spent on school stuff. I mean I guess it could have been worse. Sonlight isn't the cheapest option out there, but I was able to cut some costs. I found a lot of what I needed at homeschool sales and got a lot of read-alouds from a gal on Craigslist. So I only really had to order the Readers/Language Arts program from Sonlight.

I also seem to have a weakness for the Art & Education Store. Don't show me some cool little learning gadget or game, I won't be able to pass it up.

Now onto the school room. I really didn't need a school room, lots of people do just fine at the dinner table. But it was fun to put the school room together. And pretty much on the cheap as well.

We scored desks out of an old schoolhouse for free. Add a can of spray paint and they look like new.  I paid for one drawer system but the other drawer system I scored for $4 at a garage sale. The drawer systems are for something called the Workbox system. I'm going to give that shot to keep us organized.


Nic got the whiteboard out of the trash at work. Another score. Paid for the bookcase though. =)


Look at all these books


The poster wall.

Amazing Race

Our church has a super fun event called the Amazing Race. This is the second year we participated. Such a blast. We ran all over the city and downtown completing tasks trying to get to the end. It was about 10pm when we finished and they were cleaning up when we left, but we did in fact finish.

We did such tasks as (in no particular order):
• used a robot at Perry Meridian High School to try and pick up balls.
• rode a bull at Cadillac Jack
• renewed our vows on the canal.
• shot basketballs at Jillians
• ate Sushi at Sushi on the Rocks (not really, Nic threw it in his mouth and then spit it in the trash on the way out)
• completed a three legged race at the Gathering Place (Nic barely made it, thought he'd have a heart attack)
• Threw rose petals on the U of I campus. We had to say something we loved about each other and we both completely blanked.
• Fished for plastic fish at a park. And then dug for jewelry in the sand at the same park.
• Tracked down a Love & Sex book in Borders and had to answer questions out of it.
• Ate fondue at the Melting Pot.

Lots of other stuff I can't remember. Some people even had to dive into a pool fully clothed.

Here are some pictures from the night.