Too Cool fer School

Lucas' first attempt at spelling each number and saying them aloud

 We had a few rough days at 'school' this week, as neither they or myself had patience. But we persevered and are chugging along. We are more than halfway through the curriculum books already, but I am more focused on getting them familiarized with colors, numbers, shapes, letters and phonics. Lucas has begun spelling some words and his writing is very clean. I almost think his legible writing compensates for his somewhat troubling speech, but that has also improved. He writes all his words very clearly, and his spelling of all his colors and numbers is excellent---but for a few letters he gets stuck on. Like "H"--when that happens we watch a youtube video, and he learns much quicker--example:

They are both doing great at shapes, and love to say 'trapezoid!' (who doesn't?) Lucas can tell you how many corners each shape has, and which shapes only have curved lines or straight lines, as well as which letters have straight, curved or both. 

   Our stupid printer has run out of cyan ink, and the slumlords at HP have made it so you can't print anything if you're out of any given color. All I really need is black ink, and it won't let me print just black or grayscale. Jerks. The kids were almost done making their favorite "Itsy Bitsy Letter Books", so I had to just draw their letter sheets to color for fun. They also are almost through all the worksheets in the preschool book. 

 Olivia's drawing of Lucas, herself, Susan and Norman (mom & dad were on back)

 See how clear Lucas' writing is?

The other fun thing we do is at night we turn on the red light for Nicodemus, as I guess it simulates a softer light like the moon (I don't think they see red?). He is nocturnal and becomes very active then. I played a soundclip of a happy white's tree frog singing, and Nico responded! He jumped all around the cage looking for his "friend" and croaked a little for me. The next morning he was found hiding (their favorite thing to do during the day, besides sleep) under the driftwood I just bought for it---and he had turned a brownish purple! They change colors according to temperature, mood, and sometimes to camouflage (which I think it was, in blending in to the dark wood underneath in the water). I took him out on my hand and he tucks his little legs under himself for warmth and turned green again :) 

Can you find him in the pic above?

Listen to him sing...so cute. never been an animal lover, but I got a thing for Nicodemus. :)

Aunt Susan is in TX :)

Susan has moved in with us from CA this month. I have been meaning to post about it, but we haven't had a chance to take any pictures and I don't like to post without pictures. So I took some pictures with Susan's camera at the pool today. Susan likes the community as much as we do and it's going to be nice to relax at the pool for the rest of the summer, and until baby Frankie comes.

   Susan was staying with her grandpa (Grandpa Charles--the only grandpa I really knew, although not biologically mine) and he's unfortunately fallen one too many times due to strokes and his dementia has taken over. He has been put in a nice home that is taking care of him, near his son Jon, Susan's dad in Riverside CA. We pray for him daily and hope that when it is time for him to go, it is peaceful.

     So Susan (who had planned on moving to TX for a while) has moved in with us in our home in Savannah. She starts work at the new walmart near us next month. Norman is still doing well on nightshifts at target, and if all goes as planned, we may be buying another rental property in Houston next year to rent to Susan and Norman-- mainly so that Norman can do the program John sold him on a while ago, which is a 2 yr degree program in process technology. They unfortunately do not offer it out here in the DFW area. John knows Norman can get a good job out of it, as many of his coworkers have. It'd be a win-win to have another investment in Houston, as the values are going up fast.

   It was pretty hot even after 5pm so we didn't stay too long, but the kids had fun as always.

  I think Susan has to be here for every baby birth lol. Frankie can't be skipped!

 No idea what Lucas was doing here and you can tell by his face he doesn't either..

He kept running around the misters and fell and scraped his knee. Here's his 'ow' face he re-created for Susan's picture.

Walls of Clay

 I promised the kids that once they filled their homeschool charts with stickers (meaning they did all their daily work) they get a special treat, like a field trip. Today we went to Walls of Clay in Mckinney and I decided to paint with them too. They really enjoy it and we will make daddy pick one to paint next time too. they will be cooked in the kiln this week, and the colors will brighten and get glossy :)

Discount for "quality care?"

Pretty gross.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/20/Orlando-FLA-Abortion-Clinic-Offers-100-Off-Coupon-For-Sunday-Abortions



It's disturbing to know the abortion industry thinks abortion should be as nonchalant and common, that they require cutting coupons. Even worse to imagine the type of person that saves these and keeps them with their food coupons or 'living social' deals.

Nicodemus & Luigi

So, although I had some doubts about getting our snake Bubbles, (out of concern for when he gets big enough to harm my babies..) John really wanted to keep him and so I talked to the breeder who sold them to us. He lives in the town next to us, McKinney. He told me that this kind of python, (jungle carpet) does not get nearly as big or fat as other pythons. Although it will probably grow to be 5 ft long, it will be lean. It also won't grow as fast as I thought, and will take ~4 yrs to grow to it's adult size. By that time, Frankie will be too big for him to hurt him. The cage we got is very secure, in that it's not just a tank with a mesh screen on top. It only opens in the front and has two levers to keep it shut. I told John that as it gets bigger, I want him to buy a tank that has a key-lockable door so the kids cannot open it.


Anyway, the other day, Susan went out for a run and in came a tiny little baby lizard. John caught it in a container, and the kids asked him to keep it...We named it Luigi. When we went to the pet store to get a tank for it, we ended up getting another pet, but one that can't hurt us. It's an adorable tree frog. John is re-living his boyhood by getting himself reptiles, and I am glad that it makes him happy as long as he will continue to take care of them and their cages, keep them secure..and that they don't stink the house up. The kids really like the frog since they can hold it and it's so pretty! It's legs stick to you, and it likes your warmth. This terrarium was half price so we spruced it up and let the lizard and frog live together. The lizard is so small it mostly hides, (and we know the frog might eat it) and the frog sticks to the plants or wall and sleeps. We named him Nicodemus....I honestly only recently learned that Nicodemus was a pharisee, and later a saint....I had only heard of that name from one of John's favorite movies, "The Secret of NIMH", in which the wise and mystical rat is named Nicodemus...

So our classroom is full of reptiles, music and crafts. They like school :) We can even dissect a frog when we get to biology. Just kidding--I actually like Nicodemus. 

 We put some small crickets in, but I haven't seen the lizard at all, and I haven't seen Nicodemus try to eat any...I hope it's not too distressed.

If I had cable, I'd be a fan

Duck Dynasty is very popular, and I know very little about it. But the more articles I read about the men on the show, the more comforted I am that people like their show. We cancelled our cable about a yr ago, mainly to save money, but also to not be so attached to the TV, especially since it seemed the majority of shows mock our values. Glad to see a show fighting against that.

Check out one of the guys from the show:


Listen, from the time you started inside your mother's womb, Thomas Jefferson had it right, you have the God-given right to life for crying out loud. You're this long (pointing to his finger). You're a week old inside your mother. They suck you out of there when you're about like that (point to finger again). You wouldn't be here tonight!

"And, when you got to be the size of my thumb, they suck you out. You wouldn't be here.  Then, you grow a little bigger, like my fist - and finally eight, nine months later you come out.

"And we debate whether it's a - some woman's right to tear you out of there a piece at a time! C'mon! You have a God-given right to live. And of all places, inside your mother - what in the world happened to us?"

Who's the dancer?

 We had a good school day today, and learned about the Assumption of Mary. They are both writing better everyday, and Olivia is spelling and writing her name almost as well as Lucas can. Then we got ready for dance class and had a little warm-up session on home. Lucas is really into it...I think I will enroll him next semester, as long as we can keep up with both their schedules. He is supposed to be assigned his tball team by tomorrow. :)

 Here they are getting down to some of their favorite songs: 

 Olivia showing off her dance bag where she keeps her tap and ballet shoes, and a little water bottle. 

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my 29th bday :) We went to Carino's Italian. My spicy romano chicken was good, but the service took long, and John's squid wasn't good. It was nice to have everyone together though and the kids behaved very well.

     I've been avoiding the camera for a while since I've gained so much weight this pregnancy, but my birthday had to have me in it didn't it? I can't wait to lose weight again and fit in my clothes.  I am in my last trimester now..I predict Frankie will come a little bit early, probably closer to Halloween. :) Maybe for my birthday next year I'll get that mommy makeover :P

Music

I hadn't played music for a while...until the other night, a young gal came over, because her mom had appreciated my music so much at my last gig at NYLO last month. Her daughter is a singer and wanted some pointers on playing  live gigs, accompanying yourself, and what styles I  played etc. Although we didn't have the same taste, she liked the few I showed her, and my equipment--specifically my harmonizer pedal. I was out of breath quicker than usual, since i've gotten so pregnant, but it was nice to play again. I think I might try and record a new one for Youtube again soon---been a while and its' nice to have something recorded to keep..and show the kids and my grandkids someday :P I'm so nostalgic.

    But I have been listening to lots of different music. I have Iheart radio on my IPad to listen to at night when I do my puzzles, or crossstitch, or latchhook etc lol. It's great for talk radio, but also convenient to enter in artists/songs you like, and tailor stations to your taste. Not always perfect, but it has exposed me to new voices I like. This is one I like called Magnet:

.

And although I never cared much for Bob Dylan, I like this song of his, covered by Magnet and Gemma Hayes (the girl looks scary in the video to me, but I like it. Reminds me of Trailer Park Boys!)

School Update 8-14-13

The school routine has been going very well; they even tell me "mommy, let's play school now." We have been steadily working on days of the week, letters, colors, shapes, straight/curved lines, phonics, art crafts, following directions, critical thinking skills, math basics, and prayers/commandments. They can now both verbally spell their names, and Lucas is a pro at writing it. Olivia just started writing her name without my "dots" to trace.

 We made these books for the letter N today. There are so many great free preschool ideas online. :)

 We started learning The Lord's Prayer this week. I don't specifically remember saying it in front of Olivia too much, but she seems to remember certain parts...I forget she has the memory of an elephant. I downloaded a kid's song version to play today and they liked it. It's sometimes seems like it will be difficult explaining concepts from the Bible to such young kids, but they are pretty receptive to the lessons about being fair and just and forgiving. The only funny thing is that Lucas tends to say "Kevin" instead of "Heaven" :) There are some questions that are harder than others to answer...we recently watched "The Prince of Egypt", and Olivia asked, "so if you're bad, God takes away your children?" I didn't know exactly how to answer..I told her God took the children to Heaven with Him, but wanted to send a message to the adults that they were doing wrong by enslaving the Hebrews. I tried to just say that yes in the earlier days, God would punish people for not listening to His rules. Then He gave Moses the commandments to share with the people, and eventually His son Jesus came to save us, but we still need to listen to Him and be good to each other. She didn't ask anything else so I guess that was satisfactory for now..

 These were fun for them to do. Matching ice cream cones/scoops according to the number, shape, upper/lower case, and colors. Anything using gluesticks excites them. haha.

 They've pretty much memorized the commandments (and throw them in each other's faces when they aren't behaving..). 

These are the manuscript books. I write the upper/lower case once for Lucas (left) and he writes the rest of them all the way across. For Olivia (right) I lightly write upper/lower case all the way across for her and she traces them. I think she will soon be ready to write them on her own. 

 These are the full curriculum books we ordered. We do about 5 pages a day. Here's an example:

I found these books for $1 at target (lots of good stuff at dollar store too). I didn't incorporate it in "school time", but instead gave it to Lucas in his free time, to try to keep him from playing too much nintendo lol. He worked diligently on his own for a while and look how well he did: 

 Lucas has been writing his numbers 1-10 on his own daily...he loves to write the number 5....he says, "it looks big and strong like daddy!" We have to laugh, because he evidently thinks the big belly on the five looks like daddy's, and that it equates strength :) I'm surprised he didn't call me a 5 yet, but I supposed my profile would look more like a big ass B!

We started 11-20 today. Writing them was no problem, but he has trouble pronouncing 13 and 14--they sound the same from him (it's hard for them both to pronounce "th")

We were working on our last name yesterday (spelling it aloud is always more difficult for him than writing it). And he has trouble remembering some of the names of letters. I know he learns best with video/song, so youtube is another 'resource' we use. A week ago he kept calling "S", "the snake", because he forgot its actual name is S. A couple Youtube videos later, he was yelling out "ELL  YOOO  CEEE    AY    ESSSSSSSSSSSSSS! LUCAS!"

  (as opposed to "ell yoo cee ay snake" lol) 

I wish I had been doing this much earlier, especially since neither of them ever had any preschool or class experience. But I think they will do great as long as I persevere.