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...

Honoring The Last Of A Generation...

For the last couple of years Veteran's Day has been a special day here at our house.

We have chosen to make cards and deliver them to the local nursing home in honor of the last few

men and women of the WWII generation.

We began the day with a story form the newspaper...a local veteran was a spy...

We'll read about a couple of more local veterans in the paper this afternoon and tomorrow...

real men...with real stories...

That's why we go to the nursing home to shake the hands of the men who fought for our freedom.

This is Mr. Ward...he spent two years in active combat..he was awarded the bronze star 60 years after he served.  We met Mr. Ward last year and have visited him on several occasions since...

We also met Mr. Ponder...he was stationed in Korea...he told us he was just thankful that he survived...

We had one card left...we were asked to visit "Etter"...she doesn't have many visitors...she's sad a lot of the time...

This was one visit that made my day...she reminded me of my MaMaw who passed away a couple of years ago.  She hugged all of the little ones...she was so happy with  the card LouLou made for her.

She told us she was 96 years old born in 1914...she served in the Navy.  Here she is showing the littles how she would crank the planes by spinning the propellers...

We left the nursing home with a smile on our face and plans to visit our new friends soon!

We decided to finish the morning with a trip to Veteran's Memorial Park.