December Photo Project: Day 4

Most people know by now that we "officially" started homeschooling our kids this year.

It's been (mostly) a blast for everyone, in part because we're keeping it pretty casual. Our primary focus right now is learning to read. Though we have "real" school for reading and math, everything else is picked up throughout the normal day.

I like to think that I'm pretty awesome with how I pull lessons out of whatever we're doing each day. But Kim was the one with the brilliant idea to start teaching Yonah how to type.

I snapped this shot of his "type school" (a.k.a. Mavis Beacon) today.

December Photo Project: Day 3

Lights, Camera . . . 

December Photo Project: Day 2

Today we had a Christmas party with Kim's unit. While usually military shindigs lean toward the side of boring, the kids being old enough to actually participate in things made it more fun. Especially since they aren't old enough to participate in things without some parental involvement.

They responded to their first encounter with a "real" Santa as I expected.

Arabelle was the only one courageous enough to sit on Santa's lap, even though she wouldn't give a real smile.

I had to beg Yonah to stand near enough to have me be able to take a picture, and even then he would only do so if he got to hold his new Angry Birds puzzle.

Lila required both cookie incentive and Kim holding her down long enough for me to get a shot.

Kim took some pictures, too.

I especially like these ones. Usually I'm the one behind the camera, so I don't have very many pictures of me with the kids . . . Or me at all, really.

December Photo Project: Day 1

I was shocked to see that my last post was almost 5 months ago. Wasn't it last week? Wait a second, you're telling me it's December now? Sheesh. Where has this year gone?

I've decided to use the month of December to strengthen two habits that I can safely say are nonexistent. It started like this:

My friend posted a link to her blog today, in which she shared the first of a month's worth of photo-a-day pictures. It reminded me of how awful I am at updating this blog, and how awful I am at remembering to take pictures every day. So here I go. I am trying yet again, with the optimistic hope that I will be successful . . . and the pessimistic feeling that I won't.

I'm opening the door now for anyone interested to harass encourage me to see this through to the end.

There's also still time to join in if you want to.

Dreaming of Snow

is that a . . . ?

Yonah drew another picture. Can you guess what it is?

Why, it's a good witch, of course. The circle thing in the middle is her face, with eyes and smile. She is wearing a hat. What were you thinking it was?

future dreams

It's always the little things, isn't it?

Yonah presented me with a picture today.

He had drawn it, just for me. This in itself was noteworthy, as usually his pictures are drawn for someone else much more interesting than Mom.

But today's picture was also the very first that has ever been recognizable as what he had intended to draw.

Can you guess what it is?

Do you remember our previous conversation about going to the moon?

The other night, out of the blue, he said,

"Someday we're going to do the training to go to the moon, Mom."

I told him some such about how he could definitely find himself on the moon someday, if he worked hard. But also how the likelihood of me ever being on the moon was very, very small.

He was troubled by this. He thought that meant he'd have to go all alone. But when I explained that he'd probably have a team with him, he decided that was okay.

Going to space has been a big theme of his play since that night.

4th of July

We celebrated once again with friends and family.

We got the official celebration started with a new tradition.

Anything involving The BUCKET! of Safety is, inherently, safe.
(According to some people.) 

Even when it looks like this.
(Note: This picture is from 2011. In 2012, The BUCKET! was only this mild
at the beginning of the evening. I just didn't get any decent shots of it this time.)

This year saw a new safety measure:
If you saw something unsafe, or someone being unsafe,
you grabbed a water balloon and chucked it at the person or fire.

The traditional, and possibly vintage, finale: The Frog Prince.

Frog Prince meets The BUCKET!

Any time your 4th of July celebration ends with this, you know you've had
a good time.