Welcome to God's Family JP and Peter!!

What's that I see? TWO babies??

I'm sure all my blog readers have either heard about our crazy news, or have deserted me since I haven't posted in a month... in either case, this is why I haven't been posting, nor will post as consistently as before for awhile: TWINS!!!! I'm still in shock. I am living the life that happens to other people.. the kind you read about in the paper :-) 

Why didn't we listen to him?

8 months ago...

Daddy, talking to the kids at dinner time, "Hey guys, guess what?? mommy has a baby in her tummy!! You're going to have another brother or sister to play with soon!!"

E and Z: "yay!!"

Mommy: " Do you think it's a little brother, or a little sister?"

E: " I think it's a sister!!"

H: throws her bowl of food on the floor (about the only thing that hasn't changed in my life in the last month)

Z: " I think it's TWO brothers!!"

Mommy and Daddy: (nervous laughter) " uh... No Z, there's only one baby. A brother would be nice wouldn't it?.. I guess we'll just have to see what God wants to bless us with".

Fast forward to the afternoon of September 25th where we learn via ultrasound that we had two babies coming soon...

... sooner than we think!!

Sept 26th, 2006 around 4 am

the feast day of the TWIN saints Cosmas and Damian...

Peter Michael 4 lbs 11 oz

John Paul Joseph 5 lbs 7 oz

caught by daddy at home.

It seems like ages since I've had the time or energy to sit down and blog a bit about our life and our homeschool. My camera was mia for awhile too, so I didn't have any cute pictures to share.

I'm getting closer to the end of this pregnancy!! I can hardly wait to find out if we're having a little boy or a little girl. How exciting :-) The kids think it would be splendid to have a little boy, but I'm sure they would be delighted with a little sister. I can't believe E will be a whole six years older than this little one. What a treasure for her to have a baby around when she's old enough to really appreciate the sweetness. I know I always wanted my mom to have another baby when I was growing up. It seemed like it would be so much fun to have a little baby around to help take care of.

We're slowly getting everything ready for the little one.... firstly, we're trying to stuff E with lots of food so she'll grow to 40 lbs and move into a booster seat (finally!!) and then Z can have her carseat, H can have his, and the new baby can have hers. What a full van we will have with so many carseats stuffed into it! And the noise...I can already hear it in my head LOL.

There are so many other things I want to get done... wash the floors, clean the windows, clean out the fridge, wash the walls going up the stairs...all essential to a new baby LOL (guess I must be nesting?)

For homeschooling, we're winding down quite a bit here to give mommy more time to spend just having fun with the toddler, and the other two. I want to savour the last few months before the baby comes and needs a lot of my sleep and attention. We've been trying to go for nightly walks as a family, playing lots of games, reading lots and lots of stories, and going to the library.

We're keeping up with reading/spelling for now, because I don't want E to forget everything she's learned so far. She's doing great so far. Cursive is wonderful, and she's remembering her spelling words, and even using them on her own when she draws pictures. Today she drew a picture of her at the table doing school work with a cartoon text bubble saying "I em at home. I em doeng school". Cute. I just want to snuggle them all in my arms and have a nap :-)

what's new here

Bunk Beds!! (camera is MIA so i'll post a picture later)

In anticipation of a new baby in the family, we've turned the kids beds into a bunkebed so their not-so-little-anymore sister can join them in their room... for those of you who know our little H, it's a scary idea putting her in a room to sleep where there is so much entertainment to be had. I'm not sure if we'll ever sleep again in this house, but I wasn't about to trust her alone with the baby in the baby's room... and there is NO way she's going to sleep in my bedroom.

The only problem with the bunkbeds is they have ladders... and ladders are just the funnest thing to play on if you are almost 18 months old and a monkey. Yeah, that's right!! I found her halfway up the ladder this morning.

Microbes!!

We are now done weather and have moved on to microbes in science. This weekend E and her dad did an experiment growing bacteria and fungi. it's growing inside my book cupboard right now.. hope H doesn't get into it!!

Choir

E started her first day of choir today... she's really going to love it. More on this next week.

I"m off to bed... 33 weeks pregnant already!!

Grandmas are special

Yesterday we spent the morning over at my grandma's house. What a treat it is to be with her... she is full of knowledge, stories, smiles, treats, and good cooking. The kids love spending time with her. Even little H had a great time climbing into her lap, babbling to her about the toys she kept finding around the house.

Only a grandma has her house well stocked with toys decades after all her own children leave home.... and only a grandma has those toys from garage sales that kids love (and parents can't stand because they are so noisy and you just know exactly why they were in the garage sale in the first place). The favorite toys of this visit where the baby doll that talks and coos (very loudly) everytime there's a noise in the room (H loved this one), and the toy electric guitar that is straight out of the 80's that you can even hang around your neck and dance like a rock star.

We also got to hear stories of how Grandpa Pete built their house, and all the times he fell off the roof :-) , look at old pictures of everyone, and see her nice garden in the back... and we got to have lunch (she had some pizza in the freezer for any grandkids who might stop by), with a tasty dessert of fruit salad (E was so impressed we were having dessert with lunch).

When we left E told me that Grandmas are special (we talked about this when we were reading about St. Anne, the grandma of Jesus). She's right, I thought. Especially the ones who send you home with cookies, and home-grown cucumbers that are shaped like hearts when you slice them.

Another Art Lesson

After a week of crafts, I ran out of inspiring ideas to quench E's unstoppable thirst for creating... so I turned to her art curriculum for the next lesson... learning how artists use photographs for inspiration in their work. We studied a picture by Degas of a ballerina dancing. Apparently, he painted this picture from a photograph to help him capture movement, without the ballerina having to stand like that the whole time... (or at least that is how the grade one book explains it).

So we went hunting for some pictures of our own to paint from. We found a spider (from Grandma flash), and some animals from an animal fact book we have. She had lots of fun painting what she saw in the picture.

Later on, Z came down from his nap and drew his own version of a Zebra. It is just wonderful! One of the first times he has really drawn something recognizable on paper. We are so proud of him :-)

In case you think we never do any math or spelling...

E's Spelling Words for this week:

mother
school
street
are
say
play
home
time
was
has
had
have
must
jump
boy
man
dog
hand


We've spent a fair amount of time this week on the two biggie academic subjects of math and spelling/phonics/writing.

Each morning we start with about 30-40 minutes of practicing spelling/writing/reading. Today she took a spelling test and got 18/20. Isn't she doing great with her cursive?

For math, we've been learning the addition facts. She breezed through the +0 facts, and the + 1 facts... and so I thought we'd take it slower with the + 2 facts... but she surprised me and did the page really fast, without even using the blocks or her fingers. She did it all in her head.

We decided to make a fun math facts folder book (called lapbooks by some people) so she can practice her math facts and memorize them. We spent quite awhile picking out pretty paper, and cutting out the flash cards.

Ziggurat anyone?

History time!! We've been learning about Abraham and Sarah from the Old Testament (the next major characters in history after Noah) this week. We learned that they were from the city of Ur which was in Mesopotamia or Sumeria. Ur had some of the world's first great architectural structures: Ziggurats.

So, being the fun mom that I am, we decided to make our own ziggurats, using boxes, paint and cornmeal for texture. Messy, yes.. but E thought it was so much fun to make it. She designed the stairs, and did most of the painting. I did the cleaning up afterwards.

Later, while we were in the creative messy mood, we also made some ants out of egg cartons.

Z helped us make both crafts, but kept getting their names mixed up, calling the Ziggurat an 'antenna'.

" mom, where's our big antenna that we made?"
"huh??... OH! the Ziggurat? It's over there"
"thanks mom!" (and he runs off with his hands full of dinosaurs to climb the ziggurat stairs and worship some idols).

Who has time to go to school when you are busy being an artist?

We've had so much fun over the last week creating beautiful paintings, drawings and crafts that we haven't had time to do any blogging at all!

We started E's art curriculum this week with a trip to Michael's and bought a whole bunch of really nice and very enticing art supplies. As soon as we got home, E got right into them, creating many beautiful pictures:

Later she did her first lesson, and part of it was to draw something that she could see around her using her new special ebony pencil. We were sitting outside and so this is what she drew: (our front yard)
A few days later she did the second lesson, which was to draw and then color with watercolor crayons something that she loved about where she is growing up she should use her imagination and creativity. This is what she drew: (mom, E and Z watching a movie on our laptop, H and a friend eating at the table, and daddy making breakfast for everyone in the kitchen)
We also did a lot of playing with modelling clay this week. E made among other things, a bird and a triceritops:We also spent some time doing History drawings (Noah and his ark), and Religion (St. Anne). Whew! What a busy week, and that was just the fun subjects!!

Oh, the joyous sounds of home...

Z: ahhh! Ahhh!!

E (my little tattler): "Mommy!! H is hitting him!!"

Z (indignant): "No!! I'm hitting her!!!"

E: "Mommy! Z is hitting her!!"

... to which mommy says nothing and pretends she didn't hear for fear of three small children running to her and crying.... oh good, it worked! they are all happy again.

where did she learn that??

My always entertaining and somewhat exhausting little 16 month old girl H learned a new trick today:

She can make farting noises by blowing on her arm.

I thought only teenage boys knew how to do that??

She quickly taught her big brother, and now the house is filled with peals of laughter from the kids and daddy too.

Hope she doesn't use her new trick in church!!

Queens and kings and mary

Yesterday was the feast of the "Queenship of Mary" and so today we had fun making a little crown for our mary statue, and some big crowns for the kids. They had lots of fun wearing them around the house, and even wore them to my midwife appointment later in the morning.

H enjoyed the crowns too, although in her own way of course. At lunch time, while she was in her highchair I noticed she was eating something before I had given her any food... whatever could that be, I wondered, as I pulled out 5 sequins one at a time from her mouth. I guess she prefers to eat crowns. Maybe she was listening last week when we read Hansel and Gretel? I hope she didn't hear the part about pushing the witch into the oven :-)

The crowns inspired E to dress up in her cinderella dress, and then later to put H in her other princess dress (waaaaay too big). H just beamed as she looked in the mirror at herself beside her big sister. Then H spent the rest of the day wrestling with her big brother.

10 weeks to go until the new baby is here!! I'm not sure how much more fun this house can take :-)

Later on we spent time doing our new spelling words (some big ones including school and mother), and then E drew a lovely picture of Noah and the Rainbow in her timeline book.
She also did a math test and got 6.5/7

God must really love me :-)

After wrestling both mentally and physically with 3 children all morning, I climbed into my bed for a much needed nap after lunch time only to find out that my neighbours are having a garage built , and there is a bobcat digging dirt, and a big dump truck driving back and forth right under my bedroom window... sigh. I was so tired (urgh! my iron is low again, so my doctor tells me)...I prayed that God would help me rest regardless of all the noise happening out there and I closed my eyes...

... only to open them two hours later and wonder why it was so quiet, thankful for the long rest.

I looked out my window and what do I see? A firetruck, the Gas company truck and the workers looking rather sheepishly into the big hole that they have dug. The firetruck just drove away, so I'm assuming I don't have to evacuate my house... thank God, but I am very grateful for the quiet nap time that I was given.

How can you argue with logic like this?

The whole family is in the car coming home from a long day somewhere. Mommy looks back at the kiddies, and notices that E's shoes are on the floor of the car, and not on her feet where they belong (again).

Mommy: "ummm.. why are you shoes on the floor?"

E: "Mommy!" (with this tone of unbelief at my stupidity in not knowing the answer)... "there's dirt in my shoes and so I don't want my feet to get dirty".

Mommy: "uuuuhhhh" (speechless) "ok"

back at school

After a week of fun at Vacation Bible School, we have started back at schoolwork this morning.

We woke up early, made it to morning mass with daddy and then came home and got a good start on the day with

Religion (at snack time): learning about guardian angels, our 5 senses, and the difference between animals, rocks, plants and humans

Spelling, reading and writing: reviewing the 60 words that she has already learned to spell and read, and practicing her phonograms

Grammar: reviewing the poem she learned, and then illustrating it for her binder, and reviewing the difference between proper and common nous

Math: orally going through place value and reading and writing numbers from 0-999

Then at lunch time we pulled our food and an extra chair out onto the porch and had a lovely lunch of Macaroni and cheese (don't forget the ketchup!) together in the shade.

By this time, all 4 of us were tired, so we cleaned up (after picking H off the kitchen table 3 times... she thinks it's fun to climb up there and play with the salt and pepper), and read some stories.

E picked out a book on archaeologists, so we learned about how they search for clues about the past in their digs. This encompased both science and history for today... good choice!!

Now everyone is sleeping, and I am about to climb up to bed too... gotta get my rest in while I can before the new baby makes an appearance on the scene in a few months.

Vacation Bible School

We've taken a break from formal studies for an end of the summer field trip to vacation bible school each day this week. E had a wonderful time going all by herself to VBS each morning, doing crafts, learning songs, playing fun games, and eating candy.

The Vacation Bible School was a Catholic Kids Net and the organizers did a wonderful job. Today was the last day and they had a carnival for all the kids and their siblings. I should have brought my camera, because they had a great time there eating cotton candy, popcorn, chocolate, brownies, getting their face painted, watching the clown, playing games, and singing songs. Even the little monkey H got into the action... all the sweet little 8 and 9 year old girls kept bringing her candy and treats to eat. She's now zonked upstairs in her crib after all that sugar. :-)

Next week we'll start back with regular schoolwork. It's getting harder as my due date approaches, but I think we'll manage. My only real big goals for the year are to get Elizabeth reading well and adding and subtracting. She's really taken to cursive writing, so we don't have to worry too much about penmanship as she's already ahead of the game there. We are also looking into enrolling her in a Girls Choir this year. It's a teaching choir that has a few performances a year and 2 of her friends are in it as well. I'm sure she'll love it.

I'm off for my daily nap :-)

I'm not THAT big!! am I ?

E is at VBS again (vacation bible school) all week. She is loving it!
I'm having fun at home with the little ones. I can't believe that our youngest is already 16 months old!! how has the time gone by so fast?

Yesterday evening we went to the library, and the kids all picked out their own books. Little H was the cutest of all, going from shelf to shelf with pure delight in all the books, occasionally bringing one back to mommy or daddy to read to her.

Just before we left, everyone had to pick out which one they wanted to bring home. Elizabeth chose 2 magic school bus books (her current favorite,... a series on science). Z chose a book on dinosaurs which he was really pleased with, and a book on spaceships.

Heather walked over to a shelf, picked a big book from about 50 of them and brought it over... "There's a house inside my mommys tummy". Lovely.

camping with little ones...

YAWN is about all I can say

Seriously though, we had so much fun camping this weekend. On friday night after work, we packed up our new tent trailer, convinced my sister and her husband to come with us, stuffed almost everything we own into the van, and drove off to a camp ground a few hours away.

We didn't arrive until after dark, and lucky for us, homeschooling family that we are, our science class (we've been learning about weather) followed us out there in the form of big clouds, lots of wind, drizzle, downpours, lightening and thunder, etc... The only thing the kids missed seeing were a hurricane and a tornado. That was the first night.

The next morning when we got up, we got to see some of the fruit of our homeschooling efforts when our darling little grade one was explaining to her auntie that the drops of water falling on her head from the roof were not coming from the outside of the tent, they were from the water vapor in the air inside the tent that was condensing on the ceiling. LOL... I'm sure this didn't make auntie M feel any better about having a wet pillow and blanket, but I was happy to see that some of what we've been teaching is sticking.

One thing that I'm starting to see about homeschooling is that school teachers don't get that pleasure of seeing the fruits of their teaching as often as a homeschooling parent would. It's such a treat for me to be able to watch E understand and then apply her knowledge slowly over the progress of each year. For instance, later on in the day, when it was still raining and we were all having so much fun crammed into our tent trailer with a crazy toddler bouncing around, E eased her boredom by drawing, and then writing a story for us spontaneously.

My cat is red.
My cat is a good cat.
Good cat!

These are all words from our spelling lists, and I was delighted to see that she is actually learning them and not just straight memorizing them in one context.

Anyways, the rest of the trip turned out lovely. We spent the rest of the day at a very fun dinosaur museum where the kids had a great time running from exhibit to exhibit, thankfully burning off some of the energy that had built up over the past day hiding from the rain. My favorite quote of the day was my little 3yr old boy:

" mommy, why are dinosaurs called dinosaurs?"
....."ummmm... I don't know sweetie"
"hey I know!! Maybe they are called dinosaurs because they die all the time".

(He is becoming much more aware of sounds in words and breaking words apart into the sounds they start with. This is the first step of learning how to read, so it is really neat to watch it start. With my first preschooler, I was trying to hard to push her from one stage to the next, trying to be a good 'teacher'. With Z I don't have time to do that and I really enjoy watching him learn things as his development unfolds naturally.)

Below are some more pics of our trip... my favorite one being the first with H climbing into the exhibit... notice the sign right beside her :-)

Life with little ones

This is a beautiful post written by Elizabeth Foss, a catholic homeschooling mom in the states... I've been thinking more and more about how I need to limit computer time, and just really 'be' with my children. I love them, but I find that I can get into these ruts where I'm always trying to find something to occupy them away from me so I can get a breather. But, like I tell my eldest child all the time when she can't wait for the next fun even to come... Stop wishing your life away!!

They are my life and my vocation, and this period with them all so young is so shortlived that I want to savour it and enjoy it.

I know I'm one step ahead in the game already by not having a television to distract me or the kids with, but there are so many other things that can grab my attention and mind away from them.

Go ahead and read her post... it's very beautiful.. and then check out the rest of her blog and look at her series of posts on teaching and playing with preschoolers in the home.