Blast from the Past 1

I have been trying to get all of my pictures in one place (instead of on 3 different computers and one cell phone) and into the cloud recently and so I've come across quite a few fun old photos.  Thought I'd do a couple blog posts centering around them.  Today's photos comes to you from the spring of 2002...

Emily, Jenn, Mandy and me 

Happy Graduation with the ones who funded it all.  Thanks Mom and Dad!

The top picture was taken around the end of my senior year of college.  I'd been student teaching and planning on spending the next year of my life in Germany before figuring out what was next.  These girls were some of my closest friends during those college years and I still cherish their friendships today.  In their own separate ways they helped me transition from crazy college student to real world adult.  Now I even have the extra special bond with Emily of being moms and living in the same town so our kids are friends (how lucky is that).

Then there's my proud parents.  I wonder what they were thinking?  Did they realize they weren't done financially supporting me?  I look back and the main thing I think is that I was really young.  I wonder if I'll think that about my present self in 10 years too.

Labor Day Weekend

We had a super fun Labor Day weekend with family and friends.  Here's the quick summary....

Saturday morning we got up early to head to a 5K our church was having.  On the way we picked up our godson, Mason, because his parents were going out of town for 2 days to celebrate their 10 year anniversary.  Matt had been running a little over the summer so he ran the 5K in something like 28 minutes.  I thought that was pretty good.  My plan was to walk half of it but I think I only walk about 1K because I wanted to cheer on the runners.  My parents also came to town so my mom could run it.  

After the race my parents came over and hung out for the day.  Matt and my dad were able to install 2 new ceiling fans that we inherited from my sister and her husband.  They are really nice, modern, and have remotes in the wall.  So too bad for them they had to move to TX to a house that they couldn't use the fans in but good for us.  

Bedroom fan

Playroom fan

Caleb and Mason

The kids eating

Sunday was a pretty laid back day going to church and hanging out more with Mason.  Monday we were really looking forward to a day with nothing planned.  The weather was beautiful so we decided to take the kids to Allerton park for the morning.  They were super troopers while we hiked around for almost 2 miles.  We did have to carry them some (especially Caleb) and I regretted not bringing the carrier for Caleb.  But it was still a blast.  Then in the evening we went over to our friend Lori's house to hang out outside and eat pizza.  It was a perfect day!

Striking a pose

Riding a fish statue

Caleb was not a fan of sitting on Matt's shoulders.  He was holding on for dear life.

The kids and me

Go Get Your Shoes On

About a month ago I think I reached a great moment in parenting.  It would be time to leave the house and I would tell the kids to get their shoes on and they would both do it. ALL.ON.THEIR.OWN. Grace has never really been a do it yourself type of kid so it wasn't until very recently that we reached this point with Grace and only with certain shoes.  But Caleb is highly motivated to do things on his own.  He is actually the one who encouraged Grace to put her Keen sandals on by herself since they are a little more complicated than their other pair of shoes.  I think she figured if little brother can do it why not.

So now all I have to do is say, "Go get your shoes on."  In theory we will be ready to walk out the door in a couple of minutes and while the kids are getting their shoes on I just have to gather kid supplies.  Now we should just work on potty training Caleb so after all is said and done I don't have to change a poopy diaper on our way out the door.

Grace's new tennis shoes.  I love them because they are so bright and happy!

Grace's fall/winter "dress shoes"

Quick Update and Foster Update

I may have just taken the longest break from blogging that I've ever taken since the Pennyrile blog was formed.  Don't worry we're still here.  I've really been working on settling into a routine and pace for the fall with the start of homeschooling.  We are now on week 5 and I finally feel like maybe I know what I'm doing for this semester.  The shock of all the planning and scheduling activities to do with Grace is beginning to wear off and I'm beginning to get a sense of right now's normal for us. And this is only preschool for one kid but I guess I'll grow into the role as it grows.  I'm starting to figure out when I might have some down time, how to get grocery shopping done (really needed to get back into a routine with this one), how to keep halfway on top of other household responsibilities, and stay faithful to my church and volunteer activities.  So those things are feeling good, yay.

Grace is almost 4 1/2 and proclaims that she always obeys now.  Not sure if she understands the word always but she has been fairly easy on that front lately.  Caleb is the opposite.  He was 2 1/2 yesterday so I'll put a post about him up soon.  For now, let's just say he's 2 1/2 and if you have or have had one of those you know what I mean.

I also want to update on where we are in the process of getting our foster care license.  Originally we were led to believe that we'd be licensed early summer, then it got pushed back to August and now we're looking at October.  The last update we heard was the most promising though.  Our agent was assigned to actual foster cases for the last 6 months and had to prioritize those.  Now she has closed on her last case and should be able to prioritize getting her people licensed.  She has to do the final steps of writing up our home study, visit one more time and have her supervisor sign off.  She anticipated that being done by early October.  I'm not keeping my fingers crossed but I'm really optimistic that it will be by the end of October.  We're close and I feel ok about where we are.  I think the longer wait just gave our kids time to get older and more mature before other kids come to live with us.  And who knows how long we'll wait to welcome a kid into our home after we are licensed.

That's all for now.  I gotta go to school across the room with Grace!  I've got a short list of posts I'd like to get up so hopefully that will happen soon.

Homeschooling: 4 Year Old Preschool

Over the last couple of weeks I've been thinking about what my strategy for teaching Grace this year is going to be.  And what I came up with is I really want to take this year to prepare Grace for kindergarten (and myself since we are planning on homeschooling and I will be her teacher).  But if for some reason I'm not her kindergarten teacher and we decide to send her to a school outside of the home I want her to go in confident and ready.

Right now our day is pretty simple.  Caleb usually starts his nap around 12:30 or 1 and Grace and I get to hang out until 2 or so when she goes to her room for a rest time.  So for right now this is our school timeframe.  I can pretty much count on this time being just us and every once in a while when it's not I'll just make sure to find a different time during the day to have school.  I'm so happy because she loves it and asks for school everyday!  Granted it's only been just over a week so we'll see how that goes.

This issue of curriculum is something I've really gone back and forth on.  I feel like we can accomplish a lot of learning without everything laid out for us and don't need a strict curriculum.  However, I am a structured person and taught from a curriculum when I was teaching high school math.  So, I really want to find a balance between curriculum and being open to whatever learning comes our way.

I ended up buying a $15 downloadable curriculum from a website I really love.  It's a kindergarten curriculum but geared towards preK aged 4-5 year olds called the K4 Curriculum.  This has a structured plan with activities 5 days a week for 34 weeks.  I have enjoyed using it as a foundation and will let those 34 weeks define our school year this year.  I'm also adding in a Math book (love it!) and Reading (still undecided if I like it).

In addition to all this we are having a calendar/weather time, some type of devotion/bible story, and reading together everyday.  Finally, we will be doing as many crafts as I can handle because Grace loves them. So, I'm going to try to do some every week depending on what her interests are or what she wants to learn about.  It may seem like a lot but it really only takes us 1.5 hours (or less) of structured time.

I think I got a good summary down in this post.  I really can't wait to go back and read this in a few months or at the end of the year to see how much things have changed or what we really ended up doing:)  I'm super excited about this adventure we feel our family has been called to for the time being.

I bought a laminator for $25 and I love it.  I just want to laminate everything.

Homeschool space.

Rite of Passage

I am officially a mom now.  Yes, I know I have been a mom for almost 4.5 years but I feel like I finally accomplished/suffered through a monumental rite of passage yesterday.  I caught Grace's puke!

By the grace of God our children have never really been sick.  They get colds here and there but not any kind of down and out sickness.  Every time I hear of other kids who are sick I count my blessings.  I still remember when Grace was three weeks old I watched my brother-in-law catch my nephews puke.  As a very new mom I thought that was parenting at it's finest.

Well yesterday we were at my nieces birthday party three hours from home and Grace was not acting like herself.  Granted she had spent the three previous days with her aunt and uncle and cousins.  So I just thought she was tired.  She actually fell asleep on me at 10:30 in the morning before getting sick (pictured above).  Then she didn't really eat her lunch and I still wasn't super worried.  But when she refused her cupcake and started asking to go home I was worried.  Not five minutes later while sitting on my lap she vomitted.  The rest of the story is she slept, played, and puked once more on the way home (thankfully we caught it and the car stayed clean) and the usual 3 hour drive took 4.

I'm not sure if she was overtired or ate something weird but it was very short lived.  I'm happy to report she is back to normal today!

Day in Chicago

I love my fun, city dwelling friend Jenna.  And Grace and I loved visiting her in Chicago almost two weeks ago!  After spending Friday, Saturday and Sunday with Matt's family in the suburbs and Wisconsin it was perfect timing for Grace and I to visit Jenna.

To begin, we hopped on the Metra train and rode into downtown where Jenna met us at the train station.  Then we took a bus to Navy Pier where we visited the Children's Museum and had lunch at Bubba Gump's.  After lunch we were planning on going to the beach but the weather was looking a little iffy so we opted to walk to Millenium Park.

Grace enjoyed walking through water at a the Crown Fountain and loved the Bean.  She was fascinated with looking at herself and dancing in front of the Bean.  After that we walked up and down Michigan Avenue with visits to the Disney Store and the American Girl store. Grace was just a cover for Jenna and I to go inside the American Girl store and gawk.  We loved it!  I'm not going to lie I really hope Grace is into American Girl and wants a doll someday.  I better start saving my money now but they are super cool dolls.

After shopping we went to The Grand Lux for dinner and split several appetizers.  Yummy!  Then we took a water taxi down the river back to the train station and Grace and I headed home.  She had a great day and I think her favorite part was the boat at the end.

Children's Museum

Boat

Train

Grace and Jenna

Crown Fountain

Bean