Kipp's 3rd Birthday

Sunday was Kipp's Birthday.  It was a very busy day filled with tons of fun.  We started out doing the 5k at Bishop's Pumpkin Farm and finished up with a family birthday party, cooking hot dogs over an open fire.

Happy Birthday Kippy!!

We love you "SOOO MUCH"!!

Bishop's Pumkin Farm 5k Fun Run

WE DID IT!!  We ran our first official family 5k this morning.

We loved doing this together and to make it even better it was on Kipp's Birthday.  It was so fun!

Cael started out running with me and then climbed on about a third of the way through.  For the most part Sean pushed the stroller with the 4 boys and I ran beside them.  There was a small section that was pretty bumpy so Sean and the boys took pictures while I ran.  (This is why all the pics are of me running)

I loved the run!  It was so beautiful.  The morning was overcast and cool. 

You could not have asked for a more perfect morning or run. 

It was the perfect day!

 Enjoy!

 Check out Bishop's 5k here.  With our entry fee we got a train ride, corn maze, and the kids got to go down the coyote mountain slides.  And it benefited the American Red Cross, even better!

I will post more pics of our great day at Bishop's in later post.  Now I am off to celebrate with Kippy on his THIRD birthday.

the twins are 8 months

The babies turned 8 months old on the 13th.  I can honestly say I am not excited about this...  Well, it just seems it is going too fast!  Although, I am not happy about the months speeding by, I love seeing my boys grow and change.

Finnian, Mr. Content

He has shown no interest in crawling until this past week.  I think he scooted himself about an inch forward! :-D  And today he was in different spot, a good 4 inches from his original spot.  He just moved so slowly it couldn't be seen with the naked eye.  Now that IS hard to do!!

 I love my Finn, when he smiles the whole world lights up.  You just HAVE to SQUEEZE him!!

Remington, Mr. Busybody

For the first time, yesterday he...
said mama (he was calling for me, I know it!)
began pulling himself up &
crawled on his knees

Today in church he kept getting SO EXCITED and giggly that I had to take him out.  He is always happy, even when he is crying he still tries to smile.  He is going to be a character,  like his big brother Kipp.

I love my Remy, you just HAVE to KISS him! (on his neck so he squeals)

gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free.... YUM

As you know I am gluten-free.  I am ALSO dairy-free & soy-free due to my sweet little Remy having problems with dairy and soy and possibly eggs, nuts and who knows what else.  The poor little guy spits up like a MAD MAN if I have dairy and soy.  Even though I avoid them he still spits up several times a day and I don't mean just a teaspoonful!  We are still working through this yak problem... sigh.

I am praying this is just a result of an immature digestive system and he will be able to eat a normal diet as he gets older.  I cannot imagine living life without CHEESE, yogurt and ice cream! (Yes there are some tasty alternatives, but they are inconvenient, expensive and hard to find)

And I thought it was hard "just" being gluten-free!

Sometimes I feel like there are only three things I can eat and I already ate them all for a SNACK... Seriously, what's for dinner?!  Since I am nursing twins and running I am constantly hungry!  So I am always happy when I find fun things I can eat.

My most recent find is Luna & Larry's Coconut Bliss.  My husband brought home their Dark Chocolate Bars and I LOVE them!  They did not last long and I do NOT share!

WARNING:

If you want to live.... 

NEVER, NEVER touch a gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nursing twins mama's food!  Especially her new ONE & ONLY TREAT!  

(Can someone PLEASE, PLEASE explain this to my husband, for HIS OWN SAFETY!)

If you are searching for this yummy treat we bought ours at Whole Foods, of course (I will NEVER be able to live more than 20 minutes from them again).

Here is a pic for anyone else that is eating only yummy-free food.

Expecting! Pregnancy #3 and the big news

As promised the beginning details...

We found out we were expecting a week before Sean deployed to the Middle East in May of 2010. We were excited about welcoming a new baby, but a little concerned how the pregnancy would go, especially with Sean out of the picture for awhile.  The last couple of times Sean deployed while I was expecting did not go well to say the least!  We were praying that this time would be different.
At the beginning of the year I was diagnosed with Celiac's Disease (more on my gluten free life here).  I, not so promptly, changed my diet and even gained some weight (a good thing).  We were hoping now that we knew why I was so anemic everything would go a lot smoother with this, my third pregnancy.

Sean left for deployment and I took our two boys to go visit my family in IL.  Flying with two little ones can be exhausting, throw in a pregnancy and you have one wiped out mama!  We had a great trip with family and all seemed to be going well with baby, but I was anxious to get home and go to my first doctors appointment.

Back in California I asked a friend to watch Kipp.  Cael and I went to the appointment to see the new baby.  As soon as the ultrasound began I thought wow that looks like two babies... I must be seeing double!  At that moment the doctor said "I see two babies."  WHAT? Are you sure?  I don't understand.  TWO?  What a shock!  It was so exciting and scary all at the same time.  I couldn't believe it.  Nothing seemed real at that point.  Cael seemed unimpressed, but I was flipping out!  I couldn't wait to tell Sean, but of course I couldn't call him, he was deployed.  I had to wait for his phone call, so I called my cousin and told her the happy, scary news.  She was appropriately shocked and couldn't wait to hear what Sean had to say.  We were laughing excitedly about the news, but less than an hour later as I was pulling into town, I started crying.  Fear was slowly creeping in.  I knew that a twin pregnancy was considered high risk.  I also knew that out of the four people I personally knew that had been expecting multiples none of them had ended up with all of their babies.  It was time to start praying.

FINALLY, Sean called (less than 2hrs after the appointment) and I told him the good news.  Of course he didn't believe me.  Did he really think I would be crying like this if it were a joke?! Seriously!  He, of course, was super excited.  What a crazy adventure.

Never would I have EVER thought I would have twins.  It still seems so unreal, well, until they BOTH start spitting up or have an explosion at the same time.  Double the work makes it feel VERY REAL!  Even though these sweet babies are a lot of work they are even MORE FUN!  Twins are the best!

TWINS!

Our babies at 9 weeks

The Hard Truth about Homeschooling

Week 2
of the 2011-2012 school year started off a bit rough.   I will save you all the details and just say the babies were crying, diapers were “exploding”, Kipp would not stop singing at the TOP of his lungs and Cael an unwilling pupil.

After the fourth attempt to start school I gave up and sent the big boys outside to play, put the babies down for a nap and cleaned the kitchen.  Forty-five minutes later we began again for the FIFTH time.

Thankfully it went better and we even had a productive day.

The craziness got me thinking though...

Homeschooling is a TON of WORK!  

Although, I am enjoying it I am AMAZED that people actually do this with MULTIPLE children, for YEARS and even DECADES!!  I knew it would be hard, but seriously.

And this leads me to...

The Hard Truth
(to ADMIT that is....)

I have heard homeschool moms talk about how much they love having their children at home with them all day and some even go so far as to say how much they enjoy TEACHING their children.  To be painfully honest I must admit I have never believed them.  How could they enjoy all that WORK?  And what about having time to themselves don’t they miss it?  Please, please don’t hate me homeschool moms, but I thought it had to all be an act, so that you could look like super mom maybe? 

I AM SORRY!  I did not understand.   And how could I?  I had never been there.

I had not seen the joy that comes over my child’s face as he read on his own for the very first time or recited his memory work well.

Now here I am in the very beginning of our homeschool years and loving every minute, really.

YES, it is the HARDEST thing I have ever done.  To make myself prepare and teach lessons to a child, let’s be honest, that would rather be playing is no small task.  Then to do it while nursing twins, changing diapers, preparing meals, and doing tons of laundry seems down right NUTS, but...

It has been AMAZING.  I truly am enjoying it, it must be a God thing.  Being apart of Cael's triumphs and being there to cheer him on, is really beautiful.  I cannot imagine it any other way.  My child is WORTH all the hard work, the long days and the sacrifice.

Before I overwhelm you with all this mushiness.  Let me just say I cannot imagine doing this for decades either, after all it is still HARD WORK, but I am taking it one year, well one day really, at a time and will see where God leads.  At this moment I am just grateful for the opportunity to share in this learning experience with my son.

These days there is no alone time, free time or even me time, but now is the ONLY time I have to raise my children to love the Lord, to be men of character and to serve others.  My little blessings are worth way more than I can give.  Some of you, MOST of you are thinking "she IS CRAZY!"  NOPE-- just transformed by God!

Cael's Kindergarten Curriculum 2011-2012

It has been a fun process choosing curriculum for Cael's first year of school.  I find I am having to rein myself in!  There are so many wonderful options out there.  Who knew this would be so fun?

Bible- Daily Devotions & Bible Memorization

Devotions- We have two devotional books we are using right now.

Growing with Jesus by Andy Holmes takes a verse, discusses it and gives a very simple daily application for the topic.
My Bible Pals Storyboook tells a Bible story and gets the children involved by having them make hand motions or answer questions that go along with the story.  It contains a couple discussion questions, verse and prayer with each Bible story.  I love how concise, but lively the stories are.
These two books are great for our family considering our oldest is 5. 
We are also doing "character studies." I knew I wanted to pick something along the lines of obedience and character to work on, but wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to go about it. You can see how Erica does it over on her blog.  Unfortunately for us her character studies are a bit too advanced for my young children, but I am hoping to come up with our own simple version.

Memory- We memorize one verse a week.  Bible Forget-Me-Nots has been a fun way to get started memorizing.  The boys love listening to the CD that goes with the verses.
We also memorize verses they are working on in Sunday School or anything else we think would be valuable for their age.


Poetry- IEW Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization (Book & CD)
I absolutely LOVE this program.  The boys have so much fun listening to the CD and memorizing the poems.  To be honest I didn't know what the point of memorizing poetry was, but it seemed like a good idea.  :-D  But as we have begun to memorize the poetry I see how we are working on our vocabulary, annunciation, attention to detail, and public speaking skills (every stray person that comes to our home is another opportunity to practice our new skills!).  And we love, LOVE Andrew Pudewa's voice, the boys are always asking to listen to the CD when we get in the car.  I cannot say enough good things about this program.


Phonics/Reading- The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise
One of things I really love about this particular reading program is that it is scripted.  This is my first time teaching a child to read; I want to know exactly what to do and then I can build from there.  It contains 231 lessons beginning with the alphabet sounds and ending with sounding out words such as "extraterrestrial."  I can use this book for Kipp to start learning the sounds of the letters and for Cael who is beginning to read.  We will be getting plenty of use out of this book, let me tell you!  I like that I don't have to juggle several books.

Our beginning reader books- BOB Books & Playful Pals by Nora Gaydos
Today Playful Pals came in the mail and we have already read the first book 3 times, this is the same boy that would rather take a nap than read (he hates naps)!  He loves it!  It is very colorful, yet doesn't contain too many sight words.
 
Math- Right Start Math
I was able to purchase this previously owned, but unused.  Cael loves it, I.... ugh... it is a ton of work.  We are going to TRY to do it this year, with Sean's help.  There are just so many little parts.  It just doesn't seem realistic for us, but Cael enjoys it so much I want to at least attempt it for a bit longer.

Handwriting- Zaner-Bloser
Our writing curriculum is currently en route!  Cael's letters look nice, but we need to really get started with proper technique I really believe we should have started this a year ago with him.  I chose Zaner-Bloser because it is what The Well-Trained Mind (WTM) recommends and after looking at it online I liked it.  I am excited to see how it works for us.


Latin- Song School Latin
We have just started using this and love it!  I have been very apprehensive about teaching Latin since I DON'T KNOW Latin, but with this program I can see it going very well.  Our first lessons have gone great and are tons of fun.

Classical Conversations- I am VERY happy to announce we are beginning Classical Conversation (CC).  This is the first year for the program in our area and I am so happy we are able to participate.  We will be covering the following subjects with CC.

Subjects
History
Latin
Science
Geography
English
Math

Activities
Hands on Science
Fine Arts

Every week they also give a presentation in front of their class.  This week's recommended topic is "Tell a Bible Story" Cael will be telling Jonah and the Big Fish.  I love it!

I am still working on making Classical Conversations flow with what we are already doing.  The hard part is figuring out how to make CC work for us.  Eventually I want it to be our spine, but to be honest it may not happen this year.  It may work best for us to concentrate on phonics, handwriting & math with CC filling in for the other subjects.  This seems a bit bare bones, but with this being Kindergarten, our first year homeschooling and our first year in CC I am okay with that. :-) Once I have a better grasp of CC I know it will all flow well.  I am looking forward to a fun year!

Additional info on Classical Conversations:
Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood
Mt. Hope Chronicles: Classical Conversations In Detail: Part I

six beautiful years

Today is our anniversary.  Oh, happy day! 

I know I seem to be saying this a lot lately, but I cannot help it.  I am SO HAPPY!  Life could not get ANY better.  God is so AMAZING!  I have a peace and a happiness that I have never had before.  God has given me an amazing husband that gently leads me and blesses me every day.

Who knew life could be this FUN?! 

Thank you Lord for your many blessings!

Happy Anniversary husband, I love you more than ever.