September 2017

The highlight of September was our big trip to the beach!  I'll save all those pics for another post, but here are our September pictures around home. 

Early Saturday morning train building while Isaac was still sleeping.

Emma is such a helper and often surprises me by completing different chores!

We participated in a Family Sunday School class over the summer with Isaac!  (Next summer, Emma will be old enough to participate, as well.)  We studied creation all summer, and the class ended on Labor Day Sunday with a presentation from Brian Thomas of Institute for Creation Research (ICR).  Isaac especially loves dinosaurs, so he really looked forward to this morning!  This is a life size model of a T-Rex's skull.  

Tim and Susie (Papa and Nana) also came over Labor Day weekend, and we didn't take one picture!  We loved having them visit. Susie and I shopped, we swam, and we ate cream puffs!  :)

It was so hot one afternoon as we were coming home from the park.  Emma was sure she just couldn't walk another step, so Isaac carried her the rest of the way.  

Josiah all snuggled up for his nap, truck included!

Emma's class often practices their states and capitals with mini M&M's!  They love it!

While we were at the beach, Emma bought the hair clip she is wearing in this picture with vacation money she received from Mom-o and Pop.  She insisted on wearing it right on top of her head--so cute (and something I don't want to forget!).  These pictures are of Emma doing her presentation on the dolphins we saw on our trip to the beach!  

I needed (more) pictures of our trampolines for our fostering agency.  Isaac ran upstairs and took them for me.  Later, I also found this picture on my phone.  :)  

This is one of my very favorite pictures from the month--Isaac reading "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" on his own initiative.  We both read with Isaac a lot, and he reads to his siblings, Dave, and me for his schoolwork.  He has always loved looking at books, maps, almanacs, encyclopedias, dictionaries, anything, but he hasn't been quick to actually read on his own.  I knew his reading was within the realm of normal for boys, though there were times I was concerned he didn't want to read on his own accord.   But, homeschool podcasts, speakers at convention, and books I read kept reassuring me to not stress and just keep consistently reading to and with him!  Just in the past few months we have started to see the tide turning, and now Isaac is enjoying chapter books on his own!  It's so exciting!  (I even found him hiding in his bed with a flashlight and a new Imagination Station book the other night after we'd put him to bed!) 

The kids all got "real" haircuts at a kid's haircut place near our house.  Josiah was especially excited to sit in the airplane to have his hair cut.  We usually just cut their hair on the side of the tub!  ;)

After the kids got their haircuts, we walked next door to Carter's to buy a baby gift for a friend.  I reiterated we were only buying a baby gift and nobody was getting anything!  Isaac saw these Blue Angel shirts on the wall.  (My kids are crazy about the Blue Angels after we saw them in Pensacola while we were at the beach.)  He brought one over to me and said, "Mom, this is $16.  May I please buy it with my own money?" It ended up being a doorbuster special and was $7.  He was so excited about it, especially when he saw it also came in Josiah's size.  Part of the jet glows in the dark, so then he was sure Emma needed a shirt that glows in the dark, too.  We looked around and only found a pair of pajamas that glowed in the dark, and she definitely didn't need pajamas.  We asked the clerk if there were any t-shirts for girls that glowed in the dark, and she said there weren't any.  We walked by a clearance table, and there was this one planet shirt that glows in the dark just in Emma's size!  And it was $3!  Oh, I wish you could have seen their absolute joy!  The kids wear these shirts every time they are clean, and I often wash the Blue Angel shirts more than once a week.  

Isaac made this Blue Angel one afternoon while the other kids napped.

I had the sweetest birthday celebration with my family!  My Dad and Dave collaborated together on childcare for an entire Saturday, and my mom and I snuck away to North Park!  It felt surreal to have that much time away with my mom!  The highlight was our lengthy lunch at Nordstrom's Cafe with lots of great conversation, a few tears, delicious food, and coffee.  That night, my mom made my favorite birthday dinner and served us DQ cake!  It was a great start to year #36!

September 28

I am really enjoying my first round of teaching kindergarten with Emma.  We had a very exciting phonics lesson when Emma read her first two words successfully, "hog" and "log."  (I bought the curriculum second-hand, and the first 50 lessons had been completed in the workbook.  So, I am recreating the worksheets, which is why the hog is so "creative"!) :)

Emma's exciting phonics lesson came after a very rough school morning.  Dave came home mid-morning to find both Isaac and I had cried over a math lesson.  He encouraged both of us, and Isaac and I went outside to finish the lesson.  A change of location and fresh air helped tremendously.  Later that day, when I was thinking of the tear-filled math lesson and then the excitement of Emma beginning to read, I remembered that these highs and lows are a big part of why we chose to homeschool.  There are challenging days, but the Lord's grace is always sufficient.  The incredible joy I receive from seeing my child's "firsts" makes the challenging days and lessons overwhelmingly worth it!  

I had to take a picture of how Emma wrote her name.  We have been working very hard on her handwriting.  And, I love how she added the "V" for Victoria at the end!

Josiah is in a complete Thomas phase, and it's just so precious.  He was thrilled with this new Thomas shirt I found him at a consignment sale!  

Praise the Lord for these very full days!