Winterfest 2013

Traverse City had a great Winterfest and Comedy festival this past weekend. They blocked off Front street and put an ice skating rink in, brought in snow for a sledding hill, a Ferris wheel and at night a huge bonfire. All of this was free and a great time with family and friends. Cahill and I went down and she tried ice skating for the first time with her best bud Brooklyn. We then headed to the sledding hill and finished the date with hot chocolate. She had a blast and did such a great job skating, momma was proud!

Valentine's Day

It was an incredible day from start to finish. I was able to be the volunteer and snack mom at Cahill's co-op for the first part of the day. Cahill received a whole bunch of love in her Valentine bag around 25 cards. I was so happy that I was able to be there and see how excited she was to hand out her cards and to read all the ones she received. We did a couple of homemade card drop-offs to Megan and Nanna and then headed home to celebrate the day with Ashlynn and daddy. Kurt and I bought each other some sweet little gifts to remind us everyday how loved we are.

Ashlynn's first official haircut

I have waited months to take pictures of Ashlynn's first haircut especially the black and white one. The idea has been floating in my brain for quite awhile..I love how these turned out and how animated she was during the haircut. She was not quite sure what to think about the whole thing but I do know she hated the spray bottle.

Homemade Ice Cream

Since Cahill and I are studying the letter C and everything anyone would ever want to know about cows we decided to make ice cream. It worked out perfectly as we had fresh beautiful snow to use and Nathan and Megan came to visit. Nathan loves to join and be involved in making things and he is a perfect assistant. So we dug up 6 quarts of snow and went to town. We made a creamy vanilla ice cream and it was amazing! I think all three kids were so excited that it was made from snow ! As you can tell my girls enjoyed the morning treat a little too much. and no I do not normally allow my girls to lick stuff while it is still on the beaters but just this time I let is slide...

Valentine's Day

We have had so much fun making homemade Valentine Day cards for all of our love ones! I can not imagine a better holiday then a day to celebrate love. A day to remember our greatest command to love one another as Christ loves us. To share this love with extra kisses, hugs and homemade cards made from the most special little people alive..(oh and practice our letter writing skills hehehe)

Happy Valentine's Day !!!!

We are also excited as we are snack mom for Cahill's co-op class so we get to make rice krispie hearts. This year we will be handing out over 50 cards between AWANA and TEACH! We are also planning to attend a little party at Interlochen library with some good friends..

Insects

I am super excited to say that Cahill and I have made it through half of our kindergarden curriculum. What a amazing answer to prayer this year has been. I knew in my heart that the Lord was calling me to school my babies but had no idea how I would carry this out. But true to his word if he calls you to do something he will provide the mentors, the education and research and the energy and strength to accomplish it. I trusted him on this decision and boy has he provided in amazing ways. I have grown closer to Cahill and enjoyed learning right along side her. In this next unit we learned all about the creepy crawlies and read some fantastic books that both girls enjoyed a little too much. Ashy joined us in a little finger painting lady bug making. We made our very own bee hive learning about hexagons and overlayed it with wax paper. We are finishing up the Goat unit and learning about how Jesus died for our sins out of great love. This tied in great with our AWANA about loving our neighbors and our weekly bible verse. We go onto a bunch of farm animals and processes. Keep us in your prayers as we continue our first year of education.

Even the Octopus Praises the Lord

After dinosaurs we learned all about Octopi and then followed that with a Water unit. I find some of this stuff interesting because every unit we study I learn stuff I never knew.  We did some experiments with a paper boat that propelled itself across the water with nothing but a drop of dish soap. We also created rain in a jar with ice cubes. We practiced out letter writing on the front window and made our very own rainbow fish together.

Dinosaur Unit

Okay so we are going to blog again about schooling as we have had so much fun learning and experimenting together. Before the holidays we learned all about the dinosaurs. We read about Job describing a dinosaur in the Bible and that Big or small God made them all. We made dinosaurs from pills that expanded, we made clay dinosaurs and painted them. We even made a dinosaur egg with paper mach'e and had our own archaeological dig. Either way we had fun together and read some great books and perfected our letter D skills.