Do they look alike?

I ordered new 8 x 10 photographs of the children to replace the older ones on our walls. I always leave the old pictures in the frame and place the new one on top. I love to do this because when I order new ones, I get to go back and look in the frame at how they've grown from year to year. I decided to post a picture of all of them at the age of 2 to compare them. Of course, the bottom picture is of my youngest child and he is currently 2. The picture on the right is my 8, soon to be 9 year old, when he was 2. The picture on the left is my 5 year old when she was 2. So what do you think? Do they look alike?

Second week down

Well we completed our second week of school with only a few shed tears LOL :). It actually went well. We had to take a trip to Birmingham for a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. I also took the kids to the bowling alley and arcade one day this week to have some fun. In the beginning I wasn't sure if I should really do anything school wise with my 2 year old because he's so young, however, he loves it and is learning all the little rhymes in his Little Hands to Heaven book. I can't say enough good things about this curriculum. As I mentioned before it's Heart of Dakota. I had read lots of good reviews but wasn't sure how it would work for us working out of 3 different guides since my children's ages are so different. It's really not an issue at all for us. My oldest is working out of Preparing Hearts for His Glory, my daughter is working out of Little Hearts for His Glory and I already mentioned the book I'm using for my toddler. Here are some pictures from this week. 

Working in her Explode the Code workbook

Sticking banana stickers on the letter B 

Computer time

Etching project

Painting a rainbow after we learned about Noah's Ark

Sorting

Building the Tower of Babel

Appointment to the doctor's office at Children's Hospital

Fun in the afternoon

More fun in the afternoon

Fun in the afternoon 

First week of school

Because we homeschool, people always ask me if we follow the public school calendar or if I give them a summer break, so I decided to answer that question on my blog. Last year, we did follow the public school calendar pretty much, but not exactly. This year we decided to try things a little differently. We actually started this week and will go through mid September. We'll take our family vacation then and have a week off from school. Then we'll start back and go through the week before Thanksgiving. We'll take Thanksgiving week off and continue to be off through the new year. We'll start back in January and go through March, where we'll take our Spring Break and then back to school from March til early May and we should be through. This is approximately 180 days.  This is the schedule we have planned on paper at least. Hopefully, this will go well for us. 

As I stated earlier, we started back this week. This kids did great and were actually very excited to be starting back. I got them up at 7:00 and fed them breakfast and they were all ready to start by 7:45 each morning. I hadn't planned on starting til 8:00 but who am I discourage them from wanting to learn. I'm well aware that the excitement will calm a bit and I'll have a harder time getting them up but for now, I'll take it.  We are using Heart of Dakota curriculum this year as well. So far, I love it and the kids do too. My oldest even said he is enjoying it, which is a huge deal, since he's not a school person. We got done every day this week by 11:00. I think the latest we went was 10:45 a.m. That's not too bad and everyone has the rest of the day to play. Here are some pictures I took this week of them. 

First Day of School 

First Day of School 

First Day of School

First Day of School

Driving his cars on the letter A

Sneaking a Froot Loop

Gluing Froot Loops on the letter A

Cutting out her cross

working on her cross collage

Working hard

Coloring his Shield of Faith

P.E. (LOL) 

Friday morning mess

What a start to a Friday morning! I woke up very tired and wishing I could stay in the bed but my 2 year old woke me at 6:00 a.m., which is actually very unusual for him. He told me he wanted an egg for breakfast. He was very persistent on helping. I kept telling him that mommy needed to do this because eggs are too messy. (This is the child who got into the egg carton one day without me knowing and had a dozen cracked eggs all in the refrigerator, eww) Anyways, I put a bowl on the counter to crack the egg and he brought his little chair to come "help". I told him "No, mommy's going to do it". I moved the bowl to a different section of the counter to get it away from him and he followed with his little chair. So, I grabbed the bowl quickly to move it again out of his reach and I turned the bowl over and the egg went oozing onto my counter and down into the crack between the oven and the counter top. My husband had to come home and pull the oven out from the wall so I could get behind it and clean all the egg up. This was such a mess and to think, it all happened because I was trying to prevent a mess. Maybe, I should have let him help. Oh and let me add, he didn't even eat the egg.  

The Potty Train

Have you ever heard the phrase "scared the pee out of me"? I know it's not the nicest phrase, however, stay with me here I have a funny story. My 2 year old is potty training. He's doing pretty well. Of course, we're still having accidents but having lots of successes too. In fact, I took him to the store and let him pick out his very own big boy underwear and he was so excited!!! He wears underwear at the house but we still wear a diaper to bed and a pull-up when we go out in public. Well today, as it was storming at our house, my son was standing on the couch looking over the back of it out the window at the rain. I was in another room cleaning hamster cages out.  I heard a big clap of thunder, then he came running saying he needed to go "pee".  Well he already had gone, all over the couch. I said to him in a rather stern voice, "why did you pee on my couch?" He responded with little sad eyes and said "the thunder scared me". Poor thing, the thunder "scared the pee out of him". Ha ha, it was too funny and I couldn't be mad at him for that anymore. 

What a fun day!

Tuesday, the kids and I had a great day! We got up that morning and headed to the library where Big Mo from the Biscuits and a baseball player came to read a book, sign autographs, and take pictures with the kids. They come every year and the kids enjoy going. 

We left the library and headed to the zoo for a picnic and to see the animals, particularly the baby rhino on display. We also rode the sky lift  This was our first time on the sky lift and I was a little nervous at first about getting on with a 2 year old and the fact that my oldest would have to ride in the chair by himself,  he assured me he was fine with it and I decided it would be fun. So, after asking the man running the sky lift a million questions, like "has anyone ever taken a toddler on here before? anyone ever fallen off?" etc, you know the normal questions, we did it! I'm so glad we did, it was really cool and a great view of the zoo. 

It was so hot, so we left the zoo and headed to our next destination - the splash pad, which is always a fun time!

Then, we went home where thankfully I had put chicken tacos in the crockpot before I left that morning and my wonderful husband had everyone's tacos ready to eat when we came home. We ate, played in the backyard and then came in to watch a movie, Rio. It was a cute movie and then it was time for bed. This momma was definitely ready. We had a good time though and that's what matters, making memories with the these three is the best.