Three Little Jewells

Archive for the month “September, 2009”

30 Sep 2009
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First Birthday Party

9/26/2009

On Saturday Mary was invited to her very first Birthday Party. Her cousin, Jenna, was turning 5 years old and they were having a Dora party for her.  Mary was so, so excited to be invited to a party.   She wore her pretty new dress and took great care with Jenna’s birthday present.   She had a wonderful time at the party- there were 8 little girls there- they did some crafts, danced the Hokey Pokey, played some games and ate entirely to much cake- perfect!

Here she is, all ready to go.

Posted in Mary Madison
29 Sep 2009
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Mary’s Math


Thursday’s Math

9/24/09- One of Mary’s math assignments on Thursday was this fun apple graphing activity- she did a pretty good job!  She only got one square wrong but the rest of it was perfect!

Posted in Homeschooling
27 Sep 2009

First Piano Lesson

9/22/2009

Piano Lessons began on Tuesday! Our teacher agreed to come to our house this year instead of me taking the kids over to her house.  This makes things so much easier for several reasons- She’s comes on Tuesday mornings as opposed to us going to her house for evening lessons.  I hate having to go somewhere in the evenings!  Also, it’s easier to keep Savvy occupied at home.

Nathan started piano last January but we took a two month break over the summer.  Mary is just starting so this was her very first lesson.    Both children did really well!

(It’s pictures like this that remind me that Nathan really is still a little kid.  He is getting so tall and he is SUCH a talker that sometimes I forget- he’s only 4!)

Posted in Homeschooling | Leave a Comment
20 Sep 2009
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We Have An Announcement!

YOU DO THE MATH!

We are thrilled to announce that our family will be growing by TWO FEET in late March!

“I remembered a quote from Elizabeth Prentiss that I had read the night before in her book, Stepping Heavenward.

She had just found out she was expecting her third baby and was delighted. Her sister-in-law, however, had a different outlook…

“She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing. Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers!”(Stepping Heavenward, p.228-229)

The world says that children are a burden. The Bible tells us they are a gift from God (Psalm 127:3). The world tells us that our significance is found in making a name for ourselves. The Bible tells us that we are to make God’s name great, in whatever He has called us to do. I need to remember, in however mundane the task, that God has bestowed on me the high and holy honor of raising children to live for His glory. May we embrace our calling as Mrs. Prentiss did, with great joy and purpose, making a willing sacrifice of time, love and leisure for the sake of the precious children the Lord has entrusted to us.”

To read the rest of this post, go to: http://www.girltalkhome.com/blog/gifts_from_god/

Posted in Family
18 Sep 2009

Card

The kids received this card from our cousin Agnes.   (Actually she is my Dad’s first cousin so she is the children’ first cousin, twice removed.  ANYWAY.)

Agnes is very handy with a computer… especially for someone in their 7o’s!   She took the children’s First Day of School Picture that I sent out last week and turned it into a card.   She also sent a $20 gift card to Wal-Mart.  I plan to take the kids this week and let them each pick out something-  a book or art supplies.  Something fun.

Isn’t this sweet????   :D

Posted in Family, Homeschooling | Leave a Comment
17 Sep 2009

Grocery List

Mary sat down at her little art table the other day and made up her own grocery list.   This is the first time that she’s attempted to write words on their own.   They are not spelled correctly but they are spelled phonetically, which is typical of early writers/young children.

I really loved her list- I’m saving it!

Posted in Homeschooling, Mary Madison | Leave a Comment
08 Sep 2009

First Day Of School

A New School Year!

We started school today and so far it has gone well.   I took a quick picture of the three children before we got started.  Savvy is, of course, not doing school but we could hardly leave her out of the picture.

School Schedule- Fall 2009

9:00-10:30am

Circle Time (weather, calendar) 10 minutes

Math 20 minutes

History Readalouds (Tapestry of Grace & Mystery of History)  30 minutes

Grammar (First Language Lessons) 10 minutes

Other- Geography or Art Appreciation or Activity to go along with History reading (each is done weekly but not daily) 20 minutes


10:30-11:30am Outside to Play/Weekly Craft/History Activities

11:30-12:30 Lunch

12:30-1:00 Science/Additional History Readalouds/Art books/Memory Work

1:00-1:30 Mary’s Reading Lesson (Other 2 kids went down for a nap at 1:00 and stay down until 4pm)

3:30-4:00 Nathan’s Reading Lesson/Preschool Books (Mary & Savvy still down for nap/quiet time)

6:45-7:30pm

Handwriting/Art Lesson and Piano Practice

Bible/Family Devotions

Memory Work

Posted in Homeschooling | Leave a Comment
07 Sep 2009

Summer has Ended

We had a GLORIOUS summer!

The last 5 years or so have not been good summers for us-

2004- Mary was an infant, I was pregnant with Nathan (they are 11 months apart) & my sister and nephew were living with us.

2005- Mary was a young toddler (15,16 months old), Nathan was a baby (5,6 months old) and I was taking care of my nephew 3-4 days a week.

Nothing really bad was happening those summers there were just incredibly busy taking care of 2 babies, keeping a 5/6 year old boy busy, etc.

2006- That summer we sold our house in July, bought our new house in July, renovated the new house in July & August and suffered a miscarriage the weekend we were moving.  Horrible summer.

2007- Kip’s Mother was in the hospital dying.  Kip was gone 18 hours a day- he’d leave at 6 or 7am, go see his Mom in the hospital/hospice, go to work, go back to the hospital and come home around 11pm or 12am and fall into bed for a few hours.  I was 8 and 9 months pregnant with Savannah and home with 2 *little* kids all by myself, 18 hours  a day, 7 days a week.     Savvy was born just 13 days after Judy passed away.    It was another very, very difficult summer.

2008- Nothing horrible that summer but we just didn’t do anything.  The kids swam 1 time between June and when we went to the beach at the end of August.   Kip worked a lot that summer- we didn’t go to  the Friday music at Friendly Center or go swimming or have popsicles or….anything.  It was just a blah type of summer.

THIS YEAR- we were determined to have a GOOD time!    The kids are older and it’s a little easier to do fun stuff and we had no unhappy things happening.

We ate more popsicles than the law out to allow.

In June we went to Tweetsie Railroad, stayed in a cabin with a loft (kids LOVED that!), & spent some time puttering around up in the mountains.

We joined the SouthEast pool and swam, swam, swam.

We made some new friends, which is always fun!

We spent 4th of July at a campground with friends and their 4 kids.

We played outside almost every day.  The children- especially Mary- are as brown as can be.

We didn’t do a lick of school.

We spent a week at Emerald Isle in August.

We start back to school tomorrow!  We’ve had a wonderful, relaxing summer and now it’s time to get back to a more regular schedule.   We’ve got field trips coming up & holidays around the corner.  Lots to do these next few months but that also means lots of fun.   Pictures coming soon of our first day!

Posted in Daily Life | Leave a Comment
01 Sep 2009
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2009 Beach Vacation, post #1

This was our third time going to Emerald Isle for an end-of-the-summer beach vacation.  We’ve gone in 2006, 2008 & 2009.   We love how quiet the beaches are and the relaxed atmosphere.   As usual, we had a wonderful time and wished we could have stayed just a few more days.  I’ve got to many pictures to post all at once, so I’ll be splitting them up in several posts.    Here’s round 1.

At the icecream store…  We love this little store- it’s  a combination ice cream/candy/gift store and it’s always fun to stop in for some icecream and then putter around  a bit.

Cape Lookout Lighthouse     Here is a good link with more info & pictures about the lighthouse.

This was one of the things Kip has been wanting to do for the last two trips now but we just hadn’t found the time to go yet.   We made it a priority this time and I am so glad we did- it turned out to be one of our favorite things we did while at Emerald Isle.

On the ocean side of the island, heading up toward the point, hunting for shells.

We took the first ferry at 8:15am over to the island that the lighthouse is on because we heard that there was good shelling on the ocean side of the island.   We were the first people out on the beach and had it to ourselves for probably 45 minutes  while the other tourists were still looking at the lighthouse & visitors center.   The island is uninhabitated by anyone other than the lighthouse keeper and wild ponies that are descendants of  Spanish shipwrecks in the 1700′s.       The shore was littered with shells, as you can see from below, and we had our pick.  It was SO FUN!




Hunting for good shells.

My BIG find!   This was even bigger than the samples that were displayed in the visitor’s center- the rangers were impressed with my find and I was SO thrilled- I never find anything good.   Kip has a better eye for spotting things than I do so it’s rare for me to ever find something on my own- he always sees it first.


Savvy was WORN OUT when we got back to the visitor’s center.  She walked for a good hour and a half, all the way across the island and then way up the beach and walking in sand is tiring.    After we took the ferry back to our car, she was asleep before we got out of the parking lot.

“Our” beach house- we’ve stayed here for three years.

The view from our porch.   This was the effects of Hurricane Danny rolling in.

We spent a lot of evenings down on the beach at sunset.  Kids loved it.


Savannah was NOT.TO.SURE about the ocean.   Her cautious nature kept her from enjoying the water much at all unless she was safely holding onto Daddy.




Mary was proud of her piece of shell she found- it must have been a big one when it was whole.


Nathan is apparently educating Mary about some topic he thinks is important.




Posted in Uncategorized
01 Sep 2009

2009 Beach Pictures, post #2.


On Friday we went to the NC Maritime Museum.   I should preface this by saying that I am NOT into ships, the sea, etc.  It’s not an area of interest for me and in fact, if I’m honest, I’d even say I think it’s a little boring.    However, the museum was SO cool!   We LOVED it!  The exhibits are just gorgeous and there was such a wide variety of exhibits- from how primitive people made boats, life saving techniques, diving (they had a real diving bell and an old fashioned diving suit), a motor repair shop, shell displays, beach trash & recycling, ship models, etc.   Blackbeard the Pirate’s shipwreck was found off the NC shore about 10 years ago so they have a very  nice display with artifacts brought up from the wreck, a model of the ship, etc.   There was a small boat that kids could climb in, a beautiful library.  It was very, very neat.   Across the street, they have a ship building warehouse that you can tour and watch small boats being built.



Replica of Blackbeard’s ship, the “Queen Anne’s Revenge”.

Learning about pulleys.  The more pulleys you use the easier it is to lift weight.

Savannah in the ship.

Mary putting together a 3 dimensional ship puzzle.

The kids on an anchor outside the museum.

Ship building warehouse.

On Saturday morning it was quite overcast due to the effects of Hurricane Danny.   We headed over to the NC Acquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, which was about 5 minutes from our beach house.    Below, just inside the entrance- gorgeous, isn’t it?

The kids attended several classes while we were there- including a “live dive” class in the shark tank.

A presentation on the otters and watching them being fed.

LOVE this picture- Kip took it.

Learning about horseshoe crabs from one of the museum guides.


Mary asking a question during one of the classes.   They also went to a class on Alligators and Crocodiles.  Nathan got called up to help illustrate how long a crocodile was- of course he was thrilled to get to “help”.

Sunset from our porch.

Kids on the beach at sunset.



I WISH this picture had come out clearer!   I love the movement of the water & Nathan’s expresssion.


Another picture from our back porch/deck.

sd

Posted in Vacation | Leave a Comment

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