Literacy | The Sweet Life of Reagan, Emmy, & Max

April Showers of blessings!

April 24, 2013 By Rebekah Leave a Comment

When I reflect on these weeks and time with my babies, I am more and more amazed at God’s blessings on me. In the moments, it often feels like chaos, but really, my life with them is so full of joy and moments that you just can’t put a price on. I am trying to learn to enjoy these blessings more in the moment. After seeing a reference made by a friend on Instagram, I was intrigued to find out more about the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. To my surprise, I saw the book at my mom’s house last night. It had been gifted to her, but she hasn’t had time to read it yet. I brought it home and started it in the tub during my daily 10 minutes of ME time. After chapter one, I am thinking that this book will really be good for me! I do not take time for reading for myself these days, but it just feels like this will be worth it.

Rea’s art from TC “Springtime Cottontails”

I love finding lined up toys at the bathtub.

Reagan’s writing/drawing.

“I have a stuffed animal. It is a dog. It is really cute. It has crazy hair.”

When you’re in Kindergarden, The Netherlands can sometimes be confused with “Neverland”. haha

LaFollette Library books-

Dogs nap together on a sunny spring day-

We started using another education learning website. She is doing the 1st grade curriculum and handling quite well. Time4Learning.com

And this is why you should only have cordless phones in a house full of kids! I was standing right with him when he did this and of course, quickly took it off. But, this is TOTALLY something he would do. (It wasn’t wrapped nearly as tight as it looks in the picture!)

More space books from The Caryville Public Library-

Learning how astronauts use the bathroom is space was fascinating for Reagan- haha

Another trip to the Ponderosa Zoo-

My little photographer-

I had to leave my mom’s house to run over to our house to grab something. This happened right after I told the kids, “I’ll be right back.”

You see, they can be a little dramatic sometimes. “Don’t go, Mom!”

My growing Tucker boy-

Shopping at the mall with Emmy-

Making a birthday card for Gran-

Here’s Brycen getting the “Don’t leave!” treatment-

I had Daniel make them a spaceship out of cardboard. They were really excited about it.

Getting ready for a Sunday picnic at Gran’s-

Rea used her Solar System displays to do a presentation for the family after Sunday dinner on what she had learned. She did really good, I thought.

Turn blog music off on right sidebar before playing video-

Max was excited about getting pull ups-

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Filed Under: All Together, Family Day Out, Homeschool, Kindergarten, Literacy, PreK, Themed Activities, Videos

March Madness continued…

April 24, 2013 By Rebekah Leave a Comment

As promised, a trip to the Ponderosa for good behavior at their Easter Portrait Session– (also our first trip in the near year)

The Solar System study continued—- I was surprised when I found out by reading one of Reagan’s library books to her that there are only 8 planets now! Pluto is not counted at #9, anymore. It is only considered a dwarf planet! Haha! Who knew? Now I can have the pleasure of finally saying, “When I was your age…….” (there were 9 planets!)

Us girls decided one night that we were going to sleep in swimsuits instead of pjs! Max literally joined us.

Emmy at her home away from home.

Reagan doing jumping jacks in her PE class! She is the third one in the pink shirt/pants. I am glad that even though she is home schooled, she still gets to have some experiences like doing jumping jacks in an old gym!

Trying on chopsticks for size and discovering that she loved PF Changs! (one of my favs!)

The girls at their first baseball practice of the season (Emmy’s 1st ever) …. It was super duper cold.

A couple shots of randomness and awesomeness slapped right together by none other than Emelia Carter….

Rea sorting “ab” and “ad” family words-

We had a Saturday night at Pizza Hut and THE MOVIES in LaFollette. Max had to wear some baseball gear. I have learned to pick my battles-

A Sunday spread at Gran’s- (Yum!)

Tucker boy- cuddly boy, he is!

Some of Rea’s writings from the month-

“I like dogs. They are cool. I like dogs.”

“Tucker and Dixie- they had puppies. I love you. I love you, too. Dixie and Tucker.”

“A day at the beach. I saw a duck.”

She worked on this one for a few days.

“One day a unicorn went to the zoo. “Wow, the zoo is cool.” They had animals. She said, “I don’t know which animal to pet first. First, I will pet the seal. Now, I will pet the horse. Now, I will pet the zebra. Now, I will pet the cat.”

“I love you. You love me. We are happy as can be.” (real original, right!? haha)

We talked about and made craters with flour and a marble.

She created a display on the planets. We checked out a book on each planet from the LaFollette Public Library. She drew a picture and shared some interesting facts.

They planted sunflower seeds at Gran’s house.

We found a fun song/video on Youtube about the planets. It totally helped her learn the order they are from the sun almost immediately! Max and Emmy even learned.

We weren’t able to make it to the Light the Night for Kate event, but we still supported from home. I shared Kate’s story with the girls. I tried to explain to them what cancer was. It was incredibly hard for me to tell them. Maybe I shouldn’t have. I don’t know. It is hard to tell them the horrible truths about things that happen in our world (cancer, sickness, drugs, crime, etc.). They are just so pure and innocent. Their world isn’t one that has all that “stuff”. They were both literally moved to tears by Kate’s story. Even days and days after that night, every green bow in town was noticed by their little eyes.

And finally, Rea’s art from TC- “Metallic Fish”

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Filed Under: All Together, Family Day Out, Homeschool, Kindergarten, Literacy, PreK, Themed Activities

March Madness, indeed!

March 24, 2013 By Rebekah Leave a Comment

It would be fair to say that it is madness in our home no matter the month…

The girls spent the night with Aunt Mona-

Me and my cuddling buddy-

Dying eggs again at Gran’s-

We started a solar system study.

We borrowed a bunny for my Easter portrait sessions at the studio. Her name was Flora.

Surprise flowers from a good friend of mine!

Pretending to sleep with Flora-

Emmy & I discovered a new frozen yogurt place called Yogli Mogli that is right beside The little Gym. The yogurt is good, but we love going to play the board games! She beat me at Candyland and Chutes & Ladders!

We hit up Krispy Kreme after we picked Reagan up from TC.

Baby Chicks and ducklings at my studio-

We got to have a play date with some of our favorite friends. The girls loved meeting Hazel the Hedgehog.

Self-Portrait

Max got his first big boy bike at Gran and Papaw’s house.

We gathered a lot of sticks in Gran & Papaw’s yard just for Max to dump them. Typical.

I tried a panoramic shot from my spot in the yard at Gran’s.

Reagan’s writing (that she did all by herself)-

“My brother is a robber. He robs girl scout cookies.”

A trip to the library to check out some books on the solar system-

Reagan and Emmy pulled all these turnips at Gran & Papaw’s-

Another Thursday Yogli-Mogli stop!

Uh oh- this makes twice that this little boy has sat beside Emmy in The Little Gym and put his arm around her!

I got Reagan in all the classes I wanted for Thursday Connection! I was so excited. We’re most excited about the “Critters” class. Each week the Knoxville Zoo will bring an animal to class for them to study! How cool is that??

Spring weather = Happy Kids and Dogs

Jared gave us an old broken guitar. That’s all I really know to say about this picture. ha!

Tony took the kids on four wheeler rides around mom’s yard. They loved it!

We practiced baseball with the kids in the backyard. The girls did pretty good, but Max still has a ways to go…

(Turn blog music off on right sidebar.)

Sunday afternoon nap-

After church- cutie…

Here’s Reagan’s art-

“X-ray Style of Norvell Morrisseau”

“Zentangle”

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Filed Under: All Together, Curriculum, Homeschool, Kindergarten, Literacy, PreK, Themed Activities, Videos

February Fun continued-

March 24, 2013 By Rebekah Leave a Comment

Another visit to the animal shelter-

Working on Valentine’s cards-

Valentine’s Day was on Thursday so Emmy and I had some special time together in Knoxville while Rea was at TC.

Here’s Rea with all her Valentine’s loot- She was excited to go through it all on the way home.

Crazy kids-

I think it is safe to say that Dixie and Tucker have a sister/brother relationship.

Cuties- they do favor a lot!

Here’s a video of them playing on my lap on the couch (turn blog music off on right sidebar before playing video)

Praying for forgiveness for his bath time meltdown while getting ready for church…

The kids wanted to put a diaper on Tuck just for fun. He actually peed in it once. He doesn’t look too thrilled about it.

Another animal shelter trip-

We had just got home from the animal shelter when we got “the phone call” that Uncle Rick had been in a farming accident. Simultaneously, we heard the Life Star helicopter flying over our house with him in it going to UT Hospital. What a horrible feeling. We did not know much information about his condition at that time- only that it was critical. I quickly made arrangements for the kids and headed to UT Hospital where my entire family and a multitude of family friends gathered in the UT Emergency Waiting Room. To make a long story short, Rick was injured seriously, but was going to be OK. Praise the Lord, it was a miracle that he survived. We stopped by a few days after the accident for the girls to see him. They took him a flower and a strawberry milkshake!

My baby with her baby (Emmy)-

Tucker’s new spot-

A bottle for everyone, why not!?!

Dancing to the Reading Eggs songs- they LOVE these songs.

Rea’s writing-

Another one of Max’s injuries. Bless him- this probably was the worst pump knot he’d ever had. He has hit his head in this same spot SO many times, I think he is going to have a permanent knot.

Recovering well by the next day-

Play dough-

Max gets into lip gloss-

A Thursday morning breakfast with Em at Panera Bread.

A trip to the pet store. Emmy kept cracking up at this mouse and tried to convince me to buy one. She said, “Mom, I’ll twy to not let it wun awaaaay! I just want one!”