One Year Old

Well the little guy turned one today. Yesterday we celebrated with a cake and ice cream. Since the other day when I found a spider in his mouth, we've been joking about him eating spiders. So we decorated his cake with a spider web and made spider cupcakes. He enjoyed the cake and ice cream. I think the m&m eyes were his favorite part.

Learning...

We are all learning this year. Last night we watched some old home videos of when our oldest was new. Life was sure different for him than it is for our youngest. I was home with just him able to focus my attention on him. Our youngest has three older siblings to entertain him and I'm homeschooling so my attention is divided. Not sure how long we will home school. We are in a great school district now and Saturday I saw the marching band practicing. My husband and I were both in band and learned a lot from the experience. Well, we don't have to decide yet. It's just the fourth week of school.

Don't fence me in...

The little guy likes to explore. And, at 11 months he likes to put everything in his mouth. So I'm often asking "what do you have in your mouth?" I've fished things out a number of things including: little sticks, grass, fuzz, tape, toys, leftovers (he and his siblings drop things once in a while), lots of little pieces of paper and yesterday I found a spider - little legs and crunchy body. I'm not sure if it was alive when it went in but by the time I got to it - not alive anymore. Well, we want him to be strong and courageous and now we know he's not afraid of spiders.

The big guy and the little guy like music!

Time for school...

It's September 1st and I'm almost ready for school.

The Steely Academy, located in Plainfield Indiana, will officially begin the 2007-2008 school year on Tuesday, September 4th. We have a second grader, a first grader and 2 preschoolers (ages 3 1/2 and almost 1year old).

The administrator/teacher (that would be me) is hopeful that the kids will enjoy the "structured" learning time.

My seven year old son loves to read... Encyclopedia Brown, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, signs, cereal boxes, e-mail over my shoulder, he reads everything. But, he has told me on more than one occasion that he doesn't like to write. That will be our challenge this year. Hopefully by the end of the year he will enjoy it or at least not hate it like he does now. I think it just takes a lot of effort and he's not really into exerting more than absolutely necessary.

My five year old daughter also enjoys reading she's not quite as advanced as the seven year old but enjoys Clifford the Big Red Dog, Mercer Mayer, Dr. Seuss, etc. And she loves to write. This year we will be working on neatness and spelling.

I love my kids and know that it is a privilege to be their mom and teacher.

Outside of school...
- My husband finally likes his engineering job.
- Our family is getting involved at Grace Church. My husband is excited to get back to working with the kids at church.
- We are volunteering with Exodus ( http://www.exodusrefugee.org/ ). We have connected with a wonderful family from Somalia. As we get to know them we are learning a bit of their language and helping them to learn English. (I think we have been being prepared for this as we've helped our four little ones learn to speak English. The two younger ones are still learning.)

My in-laws will be visiting tomorrow so I'd better do a bit of housework.
Hope September finds all of you who read my blog learning more each day.

One more thing, I'm not sure how to link to another blog but I've been reading one by a mom of six and it is just funny. I'm thankful my life is not as "exciting" as hers. I'll try and put the link here... http://www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/