3 weeks later....

.....and our schedule is *still* working!!  I'm so excited about this!  This is the first time since Little Man has been born that I have been able to not only create a schedule, but stick with one!  We are super busy, but we are getting so much done. It feels fantastic at the end of the day or week to stand back and take a look at what all we have accomplished!  Here is a sneak peek into what we've been up to the past 3 weeks...

First- the fun stuff-  we went to a birthday carnival for a very special one year old.  The kids had so much fun (and so did the adults!)  My kids are still excited about the fish head sticking out of our soap!  (makes no sense..unless you were there)  :)

Here is Little Man playing the pick a duck game...

 He loved sitting in this truck!!  Santa is going to have to bring him a big 4 x 4 power wheels or something!!!

 Here he is with Daddy feeding the cutest baby pig ever in the petting zoo...

 Here is BabyGirl after her face painting....

 We had an 18th bday party for Bubba Shawn.  Here is Little Man enjoying some yummy home made vanilla gelato!!!  He could eat his weight in ice cream!

 Part of our home schooling involves going outside every morning to observe nature.  This is a wonderful gift that we, as home schooler's have been given.  We treasure the opportunity to learn freely.  We do a lot of playing while we are out for those 2 hours every morning, but we also do a lot of discovering and learning hands on.  I try to take the camera with me to capture anything interesting we may find.  Here are a few of the best ones.

Here is BabyGirl smelling our beautiful Spider Lily's that opened up this past week.

 Here she is showing brother these interesting flowers!

 These amaze me every year.  I love them.

 Here she is with "Pepper", our new baby.

 Here is Little Man's grubby little hand holding onto some freshly picked plums he found.  He kept looking at the tree and yelling "Ball!  Ball!" as he saw more and more!

 Look at this beautiful web spinning by one of our 2 garden spiders.  Amazing.

 Here is #2. 

 Little Man has discovered how to get into any chair now, and loves to practice all he can!!

 As I was helping him up the ladder to the slide he looked up at the sky and yells "Moo!  Moo!"  I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked up...and, there in the sky, was a crescent moon.

 Here he is after we came inside.  He grabbed his juice and climbed into the rocker for a nice rock.

Recently, Little Man outgrew all of his shoes!  We went to the mall with Mimi to get a pair in Stride Rite.  After much fussing, we picked out a pair of boots.  The fit his fat little foot perfectly.  He calls them his "Boops".  (anything with a t on the end gets changed into a p)  He says "Daddy Boop!  Vroom!  Vroom!"  He knows daddy wears boots, too.  And, anything man-ish deserves a vroom vroom!!!!  :)

 Sissy had outgrown all of her clothes and needed a pair of Mary Jane's.  Here she is posing in a new outfit from Justice, and her new shoes.  Her socks have music notes on them.  She adores wearing those socks to music school and gets many compliments from the girls.  :)

We attended our first Roots and Shoots meeting.  It went really well.  The kids all got along splendidly, and the adults had time to discuss our upcoming year.  We have decided our first charity will be "Pennies for Peace".  We will be having a tea party where all of the children pay admission to attend with whatever pennies they have collected.  We have read the book "Listen to the Wind" to go along with our study, and are have discussed the book "Three Cups of Tea".  We are looking forward to our participating with this group.  It will be so fulfilling.

The children painted pots and planted flowers to symbolize our group "Roots and Shoots".  Here is a picture of BabyGirl's pot.  (she also painted a Sesame one for brother)  :)

 And, here is a picture of our shoots!!

 We have been enjoying our AIMS science!  Here is what we've done so far.....

We created a device to look through by using a toilet paper roll with black construction paper covering one end.  The black paper had one hole punched through the center of it.  You look through the open end at various sizes of spheres.  We held the spheres at different distances until they all appeared to be the same size.  This shows us how, even though the moon and sun appear to be the same size from Earth, they are not...and why.  These are how far our spheres had to be apart in order to appear the same.  The smallest was a marble, the largest was a baseball.

 Here is our model of the Sun and Earth, displaying the size difference.  The Earth is a tiny green circle on the bottom right of the Sun.

 In this activity we demonstrated how the rotation of the Earth creates dawn, mid-day, dusk, and evening.

We are LOVING our Oklahoma history!!!  It is so interesting and fun!!!  So far, we have covered the Spiro Mounds people, the Vikings and their rune stones (we plan on going to see some next weekend), all of the different explorers who have come through Oklahoma, and the 14 different flags that have flown over our state.  My husband and I learn something new with each lesson, and we never tire of discussing our topics over the dinner table.  Here are some examples of what we've done...

Here is BabyGirl wearing her arrow head necklace we made when we covered the Spiro Mounds.

 Here is the worksheet where she made each flag that has flown over our state.  She did such a great job!  Under each flag is the year it was flown.

 Here is the beginning of our time line....

Everything else is flowing as smooth as butter.  I couldn't be more happy with our progress! 

One other update....the other front tooth is out finally!!!!!!!!!!!!  Here she is posing after Little Man accidentally knocked it out.  (which is great because I had threatened if she didn't get it out soon I was pulling it that night)

Little Man just *had* to copy the pic!! So cute!!



Last, but not least....Little Man went pee pee into the big potty!!!  He stood right up on the step stool in front of it and went!!!!  He was so proud of himself.  Now, if I can just keep this up somehow...... :)

Until next time......