Homeschooling and Horses

Welcome to our schoolroom!   I finally took my dear husband's advice and moved all of our homeschooling things upstairs.  I have to give him credit...he was so right!  It is so nice to have everything in one place, and less distraction for me and for the kids.  We started August 1st, and had the BEST first day of school!  I was in tears over how well it went...only by the grace of God!  The kids are thriving in their new space.  I think they really needed that sense of "we're in school now - this is not play time"  They are doing so well and learning so much already.  

Which brings me to another thing that I'm super excited about for this year...Adventures in My Father's 

World - our curriculum for this year.  So far we are loving it!  Alex is doing parts of the My Father's World 1st grade curriculum - mostly just math and reading, and joining in Adventures for history, Bible and science.  

 A lady at church asked Emma what her favorite subject was, and she said "Clay!"  We don't really talk about subjects, and I realized that the kids think more in terms of "work boxes", so it made since that she would say Clay, since that's her favorite work box.  :)

Emma had her first horse back riding lesson on Friday.  It was amazing!  I am so thankful that she's getting to do this.  It is going to be so good for her, and she absolutely LOVES it!  She's our animal loving nature girl, and this is so her element!  She did great...so natural with the horses, and just wants to do anything with them...clean poop, brush them, hose them down - anything!  The horse's name is Pancho...what a great experience!  Hopefully I'll get more pictures up soon...

More Summer fun and Birthdays!

 Meet PJ!   The newest addition to our family...Emma is in LOVE with her bird!

Our day trip/mini vacation to Port Royal

                                                 

Emma had her 8th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese this year.  She was so excited about the ticket blaster (that's pretty much THE reason she wanted to have her party there  - you can only "experience" the ticket blaster if you have a CEC birthday!)  It was a ton of fun...she hasn't had a party in a couple of years, so this was a special treat.  ...Although I think my favorite special birthday thing for her was our mother daughter weekend trip last year...hoping for another one of those...maybe next year!   Notice my attempt at making Chuck E Cheese less cheesy...I tried...  :)

Alex wanted a Wii party...so perfect for him!  He absolutely loved it!  Mike set up the projector and darkened the windows upstairs, which was the perfect atmosphere for the party.  The boys played a HUGE game of Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. and New Mario Bros.  It was great...and I attempted to make some Mario star cookies, and cupcakes...Alex was so excited about all of it...so cute to watch him!  I cannot believe he is 6!  Both the kids were so sweet and fun at their parties....it just could not have gone better!
Oh yes...a word of advice to those who might consider using icing gel on the cookies that they slaved for hours on...DON'T!  It will NOT dry!  Wish I had known that before I designated the bigger cookies a "take home"!  Oh well...the kids still loved them.