We had a great time celebrating Celia’s upcoming 4th birthday at Build a Bear. Hello Kitty theme.
Everyone got to pick out a bear,
Celia chose Hello Kitty to stuff,
play some games with the bear,
catch hearts to stuff into your bear,
color pictures
clean your bear
and pose for pictures!
And what’s a party without cake?
She had a great time! And Momma didn’t have to clean house for this party!
Phase 1 of my kids’ rooms re-org began with moving Andrew into Jacob’s room.
Here are before pictures:
And here are pictures with Andrew’s bed moved in:
I am keeping Jacob in his crib probably until next summer. Then I might try re-painting the boy’s room and decorating it. I’ve decided to only tackle decorating one kid room this year and it’s the girls’ room. Tomorrow I’m buying their paint!
As I was writing my last post, my husband was just beginning one of the worst illnesses he’s ever had. He spent all last weekend with 103 or higher fever. And his fever reached 102 everyday until Thursday. Today was his first fever free day in 10 days! After 2 trips to the doctor and blood tests, chest x-rays, and flu tests, they still don’t know what caused all of it. We’re waiting on test results from more blood work. (The illness may be tick related!)
I am so thankful his illness came when it did! I spent a lot of time this week taking the kids out of the house so Joey could rest. How stressed out I would have been (even more than I already was) if I had school to worry about! I was supposed to start room re-arranging last week but that plan was put on hold. If Joey had gotten sick this weekend, I would have been in the midst of a painting project already! But because the room switch hadn’t happened, the painting will wait until next week. God’s timing is perfect!
Here are some fun photos of Jacob. I let him get messy one day before bath. It’s so fun to have a baby who loves to explore!
And with this being Mother’s Day, here’s a picture of me, my mom and my sister.
That’s it! Third grade and kindergarten are officially over! Today was our last day of school. We did 5 more weeks and 23 more days of school than last year. Beginning at the end of July really worked out well for us. Of course, it also helped that we didn’t have breaks for a baby, hospital stays, and broken arms like last year!
Andrew completed his last project today. He made an American flag (we’ve been studying the Revolutionary War.)
I cut out the fabric but he glued it all together. We’re both pleased. It will be added to our wall in the school room, showcasing different flags that have flown over the land of the United States of America at one time in her history.
I have purchased 90% of our curriculum for next year already. And I’m trying to finalize what to work through with the kids this summer. Also stay tuned for pictures of my re-org and updating in the house as well. Let Momma’s free time begin!
We finished our worldview curriculum this past week. I have really enjoyed Who Is God? In addition to keeping a notebook for this, we also worked on building a house called House of Truth. We laid our foundation, Wisdom, in the first chapter, built the floor in the second and then added the walls in subsequent. Apologia does sell a kit to construct this, but I just went to the craft store and bought a bag of scrap wood. Much cheaper! Here is what our first wall looks like:
In each book of the series, we construct another wall. I can’t wait!
I’ve also been having fun with the girls, doing girly things. Here is Charlotte’s hair in some braid constructions I copied out of book.
She didn’t like this one at all and immediately took it apart. I wasn’t too happy as I had to buy thick ribbon to do this!
This one she left in all day.
We’ve also had fun with nail stickers,
and with fake nails. I loved these growing up! They only lasted about 30 minutes on the girls.
This past weekend we started at the other end of the Rock Creek Trail. We parked at the funeral home parking lot and walked across Chenal. The trail starts in the wooded median. It’s paved and there was more evidence of the winter storm.
Then the trail meanders and eventually leads you under a bridge. Joey had to lift it up for us.
But, as soon as you go under the bridge, the pavement ends and its back to the gravel. We walked as far as the first big bridge. We saw lots of people this trip. There are several side trails that lead to the apartments on Chenal. Joey said he enjoys this part of the trail more than the first half. I like the serenity of the first half. It’s nice to be in the city yet feel like you’ve traveled far.
A couple of years ago, I introduced a bulletin board for the kids that allocates how much time they can spend with electronic media. It worked well for the first year. But I haven’t used it much in a while. They have outgrown its purpose. So, I repainted it and it’s now called the Privilege Chart.
I didn’t mean for it to look like a flag with those colors. I was trying to coordinate with my kitchen. Anyway, each child is given four privileges a week for their free time: watch TV, watch a DVD, play computer or play an electronic toy (DS or Leapster.) I call these privileges because these are not things they are guaranteed to have. Unfortunately, privileges do get revoked around here! Once a child has done that privilege for the week, I put a push pin on the board.
My main impetus for instituting this was because I am so sick of Andrew choosing to watch Phineas and Ferb every day! We recently got more cable channels and it’s really not a blessing in some ways!
