School Home~

All of a sudden, SJ has taken a big interest in doing school.

Yesterday she said, "Mom, I want to do school home."

aka~ Home School

I pulled out a few mazes and she worked for a long time on them.

She couldn't wait for her Baba to get home to see her work.

She has a very long attention span and will work as long as I am willing.

Today she worked a good 45 minutes tracing letters and names

I wrote with a highlighter.

She's very diligent and learning SO fast!!!

So proud of my baby! :)

Week 3~ Project Life & Cabinet Reveal

Week 3 has been an emotional and kind of slow week~

with the news of SJ's upcoming procedure

and just being home doing school with the littles...

I was able to capture a few moments with my camera.

Finally after a week or so

of going through tons of boxes from school~

the Home School cabinet is organized and stocked.

I LOVE that my stuff is in the house garage now

and I even emptied and moved a filing cabinet over

to hold all my files too.

Thanks to my sweet husband who never rolls his eyes

when I start some big project...

he knows I am going to tackle it no matter what

and it WILL get done with his help!

Looking forward to a great weekend

with all the chicks in the nest and Josh too!

So Cool and So Cold!

Last evening while cooking dinner,

I looked up to see this little

Fashionista looking at me all cool. :)

So Cool and Adorable...

You may remember from my first 2011 post,

I was going to Embrace Health...

something that has kind of fallen by the wayside

since going and coming home from China~

just hasn't been a priority.

It is now 7 days later and I finally took a step

toward this goal.

I enjoyed about 15 minutes of Wii Just Dance

(home version of Zumba) :)

then the girls and I decided to brave the cold

and go for a walk.

So Cold!

Fisher took the stroll with us as well.

And when we returned home,

some trays I had ordered for home school had arrived.

The girls were SO excited to open the box

and I began setting them up on the shelf...

BUT...

they weren't excited about the cute trays

with oh so wonderful things to do on them~

they were excited about the packing

that had about a million promising purposes. :)

A great day so far!!!

Home School & a Package

School is going well for the most part~

now that Jing has some sense of her life now

and we are in a somewhat routine.

Today when EK chose to write about our Christmas tree

Jing said, "I make a 'Chris-a-mas' tree too."

Thought it was the perfect time to work on shapes

so I drew one thing at a time and she colored~

then got to add the sequins.

She was very diligent and SO proud when finished.

When we were dressed and back in the kitchen for lunch,

Jing picked up her tree and said,

"I show Baba he get home. Be right back."

Just look how proud she is of herself.

Then we spied the UPS truck coming down the driveway~

you may remember from last Christmas

how much I love to see the brown truck! :)

He brought a sweet package from Jing's new friend

from China Olivia and her mom Robin.

She sent two gifts from Red Thread Maps~

A Putian City bear and tile with a Fujian map.

She loves them both

and the girls have already dressed the bear in a dress.

The tile map is in their 'China' cabinet safe and sound. :)

Home for a Month Today!

Home one month today...

everyone was back to school and work

so we decided it was time to get our new normal started

with a new routine and schedule.

After dressing, making beds, and starting some laundry,

time for back to school for EK...

she really hadn't missed a beat~

remembered all her sight words and wrote a very sweet story

among other things.

The tricky part was keeping Jing engaged

which she did pretty well on her own.

Here she is under the table playing with Unifix Cubes. :)

And when she was tired of that

I found her by the reading basket enjoying a book.

OR making a mess...

Or just wanting to sit in my lap.

All in all it was a successful day for both EK

and Jing!

They both made letter and word necklaces

to show Baba~ whom they miss SO much today!!!

After a couple of hours of school,

I was determined to get out for a bit of exercise!

I packed the girls in the wagon with snacks and books

and walked for about 30 min~

felt SO good to get out for some fresh air!!!

And just in case you think I have it ALL together

and made this cute Bento lunch for the girls...

FEAR NOT...

I had to take a check to the bank for Scott

and my car mysteriously pulled into...

and guess what Jing said???

"Happy meal!"

Hmmmm... have we been coming here too much?

And to make myself feel better about it~

a little of the proceeds from every Happy Meal

goes to the Ronald McDonald House.

Just trying to give back. :)

Back home to eat lunch

and now rest/nap time (ME time)!

That's why I have time to be on here blogging.

Not even going to try to plan the afternoon

other than some chores to get done (dusting)

and some outside time!

Hmmm... guess I better think about dinner too.:)

PS... Can't believe it has been a month home~

seems like just yesterday and yet like we have had

Jing forever!!!

Another Day

Our day is full of constant changes in activities

and have been careful not to offer too many

NEW things too fast.

Today we decided to try some art.

Jing saw the scissors and reached for them

so I thought I would teach her how to use them.

Well... she picked them right up and knew exactly what to do.

She constantly does this.

She took her cutting very seriously

and worked on cutting little pieces for about 45 minutes.

EK worked hard on a seal collage.

Jing also wanted to glue on beads...

excellent fine motor control.

We take outside breaks quite frequently

during the day.

Today Jing discovered the badminton rackets

and they played around...

with sweet Baba!!!

Seeing his truck pull into the driveway

sure puts a BIG smile on two little girls' faces!!!

Mine too! :)

Thankful Thursday

Today I am so thankful for a little girl
who doesn't mind if I pull her along behind me while I walk.
She so content with a pillow and basket of books.
It was homeschool at it's finest...
reading workshop in the wide open outdoors
reading her heart out and telling me all about her story.
Priceless!

Blessings,

Playing with Heart

So thankful EK loves to play contently
and has a precious sister on the way to play with.



As soon as EK is out of bed each day,
she is off to pretend and imagine all kinds of wonderful ideas...
including the day when sweet ShayleeJoy
is playing right beside her. :)

OR maybe she will choose to draw at her art table.
This week for school we added pics and names of special people
she asks to spell all the time... Name Wall.
Each day she draws and writes for one person on the wall
and we mail it off.



A great way to teach purposeful writing
and bless someone else at the same time. :)

Blessings,

Shaving Cream Fun!

EK went a little wild with the glue one day so there was a lot of dried glue on her table not to mention all the marker, crayon, and pencil marks on it. Thinking back on my K teaching days, I remembered we sometimes had shaving cream fun days with cleaning being the ulterior motive... kids having no idea because all they saw was the potential for a wild mess. :)


I sprayed some of Scott's new shaving cream and began rubbing it onto the table. It took EK a minute to decide she wanted to touch it... (sensory) but with just a little coaxing, she was having a ball.


We worked on letter formation- I wrote the uppercase and she wrote the lowercase. We sounded out words and practiced writing the numbers. While I used a scrapper to get the glue off, EK enjoyed drawing some of her favorite animals.


After what was a VERY fun activity, our table was clean as a whistle and ready for more glue, markers, crayons, and pencils... fine with me! :)

Blessings,

A Busy Girl!

EK has been a busy girl this morning! This is where she has been for over an hour- right in the middle of drawing books and paper. She LOVES drawing and writing.


Today she walked into the family room holding a drawing she had made. She asked me what her favorite bird at the zoo was and I guessed the toucan. She thought I had peeked and actually I did see a colorful beak through the paper. Why is this so special?


This is the first drawing she has ever made just for me. She drew it and wrote MOM on it. It is getting framed and going on my desk!!! :)

Blessings,

My Little Author

If there is one thing I have worked so hard to instill in EK, it is the love of writing. We have done 'writing workshop' ever since she was 3. Mostly it has been drawing together with me asking what she wanted me to write then moving to helping her hear sound and inventing the spellings.

Today we had a major breakthrough with no push from me... it was all her. She was at her school table with tons of paper and her drawing books. I was in the kitchen cleaning up from lunch when she walked in with this adorable story! What's so special?

She always wants me to be there with her but today she wrote independently.

She never wants to add the color... she says it messes up her details- well today she added the color.

I love turtles.
(She gave me lots of extra details when she showed it to me. :)

She usually needs a reminder to add words and then wants me to help her sound out but today... she wrote the words all by HERSELF and touched the words as she read to me. I am one proud mama!!! She is pretty proud of herself too!!! Whoo hoo!

This girl can go through some paper! I have to put her on a paper diet each day. I am also going to chop her paper in half so she has more.

I am a firm believer that teaching a child to write makes them extra good readers. So far it is working like a charm!!!



Blessings,

A Good Day

Today was just one of those stay home all day and just be days...

What do you notice about this pic?


I peeked into the sunroom and found EK drawing her heart out.
It's about 5 o'clock and she is still in pjs.
She's sitting ON the table drawing.
She's used about 20 sheets of paper (maybe more).
She's VERY serious about her work.





And no idea about St. Patrick's Day. But happy day to each of you!!!

Blessings,