Christmas Memories 2011

Away in a manger...

Christmas Morning...

Making gifts to give...

One Little...Two Little...Three Little Indians...

Four Little...Five Little...I guess we need a few more to make the song work;-)

What I Love About My Boys...

they bravely fight the battles...

they are always inventing something

or making something homemade for someone else...

they love to work alongside daddy...especially the youngest one

they almost always find a way to include their sisters unless the battle is far too fierce

I Felt Brave Saturday...

and decided to take the littles to Earlyworks all by myself...

it was lots of fun...but i had a hard time getting good pictures without daddy's help;-)

Nature Study With The Girls...

Miss LouLou has suddenly began asking almost everyday if we can go on a nature walk.

Her enthusiasm excites me:-)

We created a nature notebook for her awhile back.

Now we are slowly beginning to add sketches from our nature time together.

So far we haven't followed any lessons.  We've just walked outside until we find something of interest.

Like a cricket

or Plantain

Here we are collecting leaves in the woods.

Miss LouLou was very excited to see the surprise when she rubbed her crayon over her page.

We were blowing bubbles today and a ladybug landed on my hand.  That led to a story about ladybugs and a drawing in our nature notebooks.

This afternoon while baby sisters were napping she asked to go one a nature walk again.

 That walk ended with finding the seeds from the goldenrod and marigold plants left in the yard.

I showed her how to save the seeds from the marigolds and told her we could plant them in the spring.

Every Morning...

There is a battle raging in our yard 

and these boys are fighting in it.

Each morning I awaken to find these boys

outside with their new guns fighting the enemy in our yard...

They wake up some mornings before daylight...

quietly dress and tiptoe out so they can get some fighting in before chore time.

Only Our Four Year Old Girl....

would decide to decorate the Christmas Tree with...

hairbows...

bangle bracelets...

and ponytail holders:-)

I Love Vision Forum

I love Vision Forum!

christian books...movies...

toys for adventurous boys...

and things for sweet little girlies...

That's why I am so excited about these give-aways...

Smockity Frocks

The Modest Mom

 Raising Olives
Generation Cedar

What I Love About My Girls...

playing dress-up with their baby dolls...

little hands holding a teacup...

the squeals and giggles when I paint little piggies pink

long blonde hair and dirty blue jeans

Truthquest...

 This year I decided to combine the boys for history and science.

I had always planned to keep them separate, but combining them just felt right.

After talking to daddy and praying over the decision,

I began searching for a history curriculum that we could use together.

Having someone to share learning with is so much more fun.

projects...re-enactments...cuddling for stories together...

After a lot of searching, a friend suggested Truthquest.

I immediately knew this would fit us!

our love of history...our desire to acknowledge God as the author...our love of literature...

We began our journey through Truthquest in August of this year.

We are in no hurry...we like to take our time...to savor the books...working on our notebooks as we go along.

This week we began Jamestown.

We started with a documentary on Jamestown.

This is the first time we have watched a documentary before our new topic.

I really liked doing it this way...the boys seemed so much more excited.

My favorite part of all is watching the boys go dress up and re-enact what we read.

They even built a model Jamestown Fort out of Lincoln Logs

The Pilgrims at Plymouth are up next.

I wonder if we'll get there by Thanksgiving?

The Fort at Jamestown

Jamestown Explorers

Frontier Days

What fun it was to visit frontier days last weekend.

We drove over two hours for this event...but we are coming up on this time period in history...

and these two boys love history...so the trip was worth it;-)

One of the re-encactors let the boys hold his gun...

Feel how heavy it is...he asked them

With very serious faces they let me us know it was not too heavy for them.

We moved on to Fort Toulouse were we watched them cook, fire a cannon and looked at weapons.

The little ones could hardly contain themselves this was a perfect place for a game of defend the fort.

 Here are the girlies sitting on a bench overlooking the Coosa River

Daddy and four of the five little stair steps...

Here is Tiny Miss wedged in the wagon for the ride back to the van...