1st Day of School Photos

On Monday, we started our sixth year of homeschooling. It is hard to believe, but Alex is now in 5th grade!

This photo was taken on Monday at our annual back-to-school donut breakfast outing.

And, this photo was taken on Tuesday at her first day of co-op.

Photo of Daughter - Happy at Camp!

Thank you, my friends, again for praying for my daughter (and me) while she is away at camp. I was specifically praying that I'd see a photo of her on the nightly posts that would show me she is making friends and having a good time. I didn't see the post until this morning as they post them pretty late. And, at first I didn't see her picture. I had to open about 70 photos one at a time. But, almost at the end, there was this beautiful photo! Doesn't she look happy? (And, thank you, Lord, for showing me a photo this early in the week!)

I've been crying "silly mommy tears" (as my dh lovingly called them) for the past 10 minutes. I'm praising God that she's having a good time and for answering my prayer so specifically. Thank you again for your prayers and notes of encouragement! My mind is at peace, though I'm still praying for her safety and fun and learning and spiritual growth!

Summer Camp!

I just dropped Alex off for her first week-long camp! Oh, this is hard! But, I know she'll have fun. I actually didn't take any photos... she didn't want me to. But, here is Alex at the same camp back in November when we did mother/daughter camp. (We actually stayed in a boys' cabin that time, so hers looks a little different.) 

She is really excited, but also a little nervous. I would appreciate prayers for both Alex and myself... especially tonight and tomorrow. I think these will be the hardes 24 hours! Alex only knows one girl at camp, one of the girls from mother/daughter camp. But, we haven't seen her since November AND that girl is with a lot of friends from church. So, I'm praying that Alex makes some friends (or a great friend) quickly and that she really feels like she belongs. I'm praying for friendship and safety and that she will learn and grow. I'd appreciate my blogging friends' prayers, too! I think this will be a hard few days! (Oh... and this is a another picture from mother/daughter camp where her arm is in a sling... because she fell off the bunk and broke her wrist! Yep!)

If You Take Your Daughter to a Swim Meet

If you take your daughter to a swim meet...
it might last 7 hours...
and it might rain for 5 of those hours...
and your tent might leak...
and all of your stuff might get soaked...
and you might throw it all in the washing machine...
and you might end up with an umbrella that looks like this...

I guess there should be a label on umbrellas telling you to "hand wash only."

Tree Class & Pond Play

Today was nature day for our nature group. We haven't made it to many outings this year and I didn't know most of the people there. But, we did see some old friends, and we made some new friends!

One of the moms arranged this meeting at her house in the country. Actually, it is a neighborhood, but they have 10 acres... 10 beautiful acres! She brought in a horticulturist to teach us about the tress on her property.

Here he is answering one of my questions:

Q: What makes a compound leaf a compound leaf and not just a bunch of leaves? 

A: All of it comes from one leaf bud.

Another questions I asked:

Q: What makes a tree "mature"?

A: When it pretty much has grown full size - both in height and girth. He said scientist were recently surprised when they put sensitive growth monitors around massive sequoias and found they are STILL growing!

Of course, I had to photograph some critters. We found a lot of these caterpillars. In fact, the family said they are everywhere and constantly dropping on them. We also saw a deer as it stood and watched the children playing in the pond. I grabbed my camera, but I wasn't fast enough.

And, the kids had a BLAST playing in their pond! The family dug it out about 2.5 years ago. And, they never stocked it with fish but it now has 3 kinds of fish. How? Birds, like egrets and cranes, visit ponds and the fish eggs can get stuck on their feet and legs. Then, of course, when they visit a new pond, they leave the eggs! Wow!

This was the other best part of the day for the kids - the water slide, jumping platform, and zip slide. Alex's favorite part was the jumping platform. The moms basically sat in the shade and talked. It was a wonderful day!

Somedays It's Hard...

just getting out of bed!

Alex and I laughed when we saw our new dog, Chloe, lying like this "in" her bed. (And, yes, when she curls up, she really does fit in the bed!) This morning, we had fun coming up with captions for this photo. Does anyone have a caption they like?

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Meet Chloe

I've been meaning to post about Chloe and just haven't gotten around to it. So, here's Chloe...!

We have had our Chihuahua, Pandy, for almost 5 years now. (Her birthday is on the 12th!) I've always been a cat person, and Pandy was the first indoor dog I've ever had. (And, I love her dearly.) Anyway, I recently decided we should have a second dog in our family. My husband and Alex have been ready for a long time.  

A few weeks ago, we saw signs of a "found" Chihuahua in our neighborhood. After about a week, I gave them a call and asked if they were planning on keeping her if they didn't find an owner. They said "no" so I told them to call me back after the sign had been up 2 weeks. Well, we got the call! We went over that evening and met this sweet little Chihuahua (or Chihuhua mix). Pandy is only 5.5 pounds and this Chihuahua is 10.5 pounds - a big difference! We've had mixed ideas about whether she is a pure Chihuahua or a mix. Anyway, Alex instantly fell in love with her and they are already quite a pair. Pandy was supposed to be Alex's dog, but she preferred to follow me around. Chloe, on the other hand, acts like she is Alex's shadow. Here they are playing on their favorite new play place - the waterfall!

This last photo doesn't include Chloe, but I was enjoying playing with the color highlight function of my camera. Anyway, we took Chloe to the vet and found out she wasn't spayed. So, she got spayed yesterday and is doing well now. Also, she started puppy training classes 2 weeks ago! Oh... that was a surprise, too. We thought she was a full grown dog, but the vet told us they thought she was about 10 months old. We are really enjoying our new puppy... now if we could just finish housebreaking her!

Frontier Camp Fun, Friends, and Freaky Fall!

Alex and I went to camp this weekend... mother/daughter camp! It was Alex's first camping experience and we had a wonderful time! Here we are setting up our bunk area on Friday night.

That night, we had an opening session with the husband/wife puppet ministry. The 'wife' is sitting in purple - I'm in red stripes and Alex is a blur in orange. We didn't know anyone when we got there, but became good friends with the mother/daughter sitting across from us. They were in our cabin and we spent most of our time with them. After the opening session, we had a snack of fruit & cookies and played BINGO. Alex won a glow in the dark bracelet and I won a star necklace that you 'wack' and it lights up. (The theme of the weekend was 'glow in the dark.'

On Saturday morning, after morning session & breakfast, Alex and I played some ping pong and tether ball while our new friends went horseback riding. (We didn't sign up for camp soon enough to ride.) Then, we headed out to the giant swing! Joan, our new mom friend, took this photo of us as we wait our turn.

Joan took a video of our ride on the swing, but I thought I'd just post this photo of Joan and her daughter, Erin. Can you believe how high up they (and we) went??? And, I do not care for this type of ride, but did it for Alex. And to prove I wasn't chicken. :-) And, no, I really didn't care much for it - I felt rather sick to my stomach and I did scream a little. But, I'm really glad I did it!

Our next big outing was to a fossil hunt! We jumped on the hayless hay ride to head to the creek. Here are Alex and Erin.

There are lots of fossils of sea shells in this stream bed. We believe these shells got to this location in Texas during the Flood of Genesis. The water was really cold, but this was an incredibly beautiful weekend! As you can see, most of us were in shorts. The weather was in the 70's. Alex and I used hammers & 'chisels' and found about a dozen fossils which we got to keep.

Our next stop... skeet shooting! I have never done this before and only shot a gun once... when I was about 12... at some soda cans. Anyway, Joan and I did great! (She shoots sometimes.) I shot 20 times... and hit 8 times!!! In groups of 5 I hit... 1 of 5; 2 in a row of 5; 2 in a row of 5; and the last 3 in a row of 5. Joan and I and another lady won a prize (beach ball) for the most hits of the day! :-)

Here are Alex & Erin watching us shoot with their ear protection on.

Another shot of my shooting. And, yes, I'm quite sore today!

At our evening session, everyone was wearing their glow in the dark 'stuff.' Unfortunately, Alex's earrings didn't work.

Alex and me before Evening Session. After the session, we were going on a hayride to a campfire for a skit and fireworks!

But, Alex had to stop by the Infirmiry before the hayride. You see, she'd fallen off the top bunk a few hours before this! She was up there as we were changing shoes, etc, and saw a bug. She was backing up, and backed up right off the end of the bed!!! I didn't see it, but somehow she landed on her feet, and her wrist. We waited a few hours and it wasn't swollen or changing colors and she could move it. But, it was still hurting. We went to the infirmiry and the lady wrapped it and gave Alex a sling. She thinks it might be broken. We're headed to get an x-ray tomorrow to find out! Thankfully, she's not in a lot of pain - it doesn't hurt when she holds it still, but does hurt when she moves around.

The girls in our cabin signed Alex's sling. Here they are hanging out on my bed. (She slept on a lower bed that night!)

Here's the girls in our cabin minus Erin (they had to leave right away and this was as we were getting ready to leave). There are also several camp dogs that the girls LOVED!!! This one is Major.

Alex and Major saying goodbye... until this summer! :-)

And, the ride home....

Wonderful Weekend

We have had a wonderful weekend!

FRIDAY: Alex and I went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream put on by a local homeschool group. They are rhetoric students using Tapestry of Grace and they were GREAT! The show was 3.5 hours long! And, I even asked Alex if she wanted to leave during either intermission, but she didn't! I was so glad we'd prepared by reading and watching versions of this story before seeing it performed in Shakespeare's own words as it is sometimes hard to understand what is being said. But, these kids were great!

SATURDAY: Alex and I went to a Haunted Homestead. She dressed as Cleopatra and I thought she looked great! It ended up not being very scary, which was great for me! But, they'd given out most of the candy by the time we got there and Alex only got 5 pieces.

SUNDAY: We all went to the Texans game. It was Military Appreciation Day, and besides winning (Go Texans!), we had some other treats. Among them:

• Former President George Bush and Former President George W Bush were there as Honorary Team Captains! (Oh, how I hated that I'd JUST taken my camera out of my purse for the previous night!)

• Neal E Boyd, last year's "America's Got Talent" winner, performed "I'm Proud to Be an American." It was amazing! (And, I think he is amazing!)

• 
  
  The Silent Marine Corps Drill Team performed. We've seen them twice before and they are amazing!
  
  
  
• The US Army Parachute Team, the Golden Knights, parachuted in carrying and American flag and the game ball.

1st Day of 4th Grade

Monday was Alex's first day of 4th grade!

Alex and our chihuahua, Pandy

Alex set up the timer to take this photo of us on 'our' first day of school. We started the year with our traditional first day which includes photos by the pool and going out for doughnuts for breakfast!

Happy 4th Birthday to...

MY BLOG!!!

I started this blog 4 years ago as Alex was starting kindergarten. I thought for my blog's birthday, I'd post some photos from that first semester of kindergarten. (Many of these have to do with the Galloping the Globe curriculum - still one of my FAVORITE all time curriculum!)

a play dough model of the earth

the Eiffel tower

3 states of matter
FIAR snowman
leaning tower of Pisa

the Wright brother's Flyer

painting like Monet

building a pyramid

an "insect" dessert

learning about bee pollination... with Cheetos & a 'bee' finger!

So, where did the years go? Alex looks so young to me in these photos. I am so grateful that I not only took lots of pictures, but have been blogging about our experiences! I made her kindergarten years into a book and some day I need to do the rest of her school years. Maybe that can be my "August project."

 

I'd love it if you'd leave me a comment on this post so I can get an idea of how many people are reading my blog. Thanks to you all!!! I don't think I would still be blogging after 4 years if I didn't feel like people were reading it, enjoying it, and hopefully learning from it occasionally or getting an idea to try. Thanks for reading!!!

Back from Trip #1

Last night, we got back from trip #1 (of three!) for the summer. I drove Alex to Oklahoma where she could stay with grandparents and attend a family reunion. It was our first reunion (and I hated to miss it) and we had about 120 in attendance!!! Alex had fun and made a great friend of one of her distant cousins. (Above is the amazing view from our room.)

After dropping Alex off, I hopped on a plane for Las Vegas to meet up with my husband. One of my husband's best friends from college (and he lives nearby so we see him pretty often) was getting married for the first time. We had 4 days in Vegas - our first trip without Alex (except for one overnight stay) since she was born. We had so much fun!

Part of the time, I braved Vegas on my own and went to the Titanic exhibit at Luxor, watched the fountains at Bellagio, went to the Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay (where we stayed) and went to an art exhibit of Warhol, Lichtenstein and Friends at Bellagio. (photo: Hoover Dam in lower left.)

On the plane ride back, I made sure I set on the right side and I got to see both Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon! It was a great way to end a wonderful trip.

Locks of Love

Last week, I had 10 inches of my hair cut off to donate to Locks of Love. Two years ago, I first donated my hair after one of Alex's friends had her hair cut off and donated. So, I share about my donation hoping to inspire others. Locks of Love provides hairpieces to "financially disadvantaged children in the US and Canada under the age of 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis." It takes from 6 to 10 donated pony tails (must be at least 10 inches long) to create one custom hair piece.

And, here's the back of my new look! I thought Alex took some pretty good photos, and I'm enjoying my new look.

Pi Day

Yesterday, we celebrated Pi Day (March 14th or 3.14). Alexandra had lots of fun preparing a surprise "Pi" meal with her Nana.

For dinner, they made pizza pie with pepperoni (arranged as a happy face). They also made a fruit salad with all circular fruits. And, we had slices of cucumber and round chips with dip. For dessert, they made a giant chocolate chip cookie and she decorated it with the symbol for pi. (I forgot to take a photo of the finished cookie!)

Nana also had the neatest idea to make everyone round placemats out of old wrapping paper! They traced a large bowl and cut out individual placemats. They also made little round name tags that doubled as coasters. I thought they turned out great! And, they will last through several meals.

And, since we are visiting family, I had to share this cute photo of my little nephew. He just turned 10 months old and what a cutie!