School Days

First Grade

How can six years go by so quickly? Wasn't it just yesterday that we were putting the crib together and washing those tiny pink clothes? And now, here she is, a first grader! Since we home school, it didn't make sense to take the traditional first day pictures with a backpack and lunch box, but I still wanted to commemorate the day!

Preschool

We are blessed to have a wonderful preschool program at our church. Nathan will be going to preschool three mornings a week this year. These are pictures from his first day, and he was so excited! He came home and told me that he had made lots of friends at school. I asked him what their names were, and he replied, "I don't know." Oh well! I'm sure he'll learn their names before graduation!

What We Do All Day

No, we're not playing, even if that's what it looks like! There are so many wonderful things about homeschooling, and this is one of them. Our science lesson today was about vascular plants. We were supposed to collect and examine leaves to see the veins that carried water through them. Since it was a beautiful day, we moved our entire lesson outside. It's easy to collect leaves when you're sittting in the middle of them!

Nathan enjoys refreshments during the lesson.


Collecting science specimens. Somehow, our study of leaves turned into a study of dirt, bugs, and a really scary looking caterpillar.

I'm sure it won't be long until Lily is toddling around behind her sister with a book in hand, begging, "Read to me!" You can see the adoring look on her face as Lydia reads Dick and Jane stories to her.



One of the first science lessons we had dealt with how botanists separate plants into kingdom, phylum, class, etc. Our book suggested we try this with our shoes. Here is Lydia sitting beside our giant pile of shoes, getting ready to put them in order.


Here we've separated them into four phyla: Sunday shoes, everyday shoes, boots, and slippers. Lydia really enjoyed this experiment and insisted on assigning each of our shoes a "scientific name." For example, I'm wearing a Sandalicus mommius as I'm writing this!


This is just a small snapshot of all that we've done this week. We've had a great start to our year, and I cannot express how excited I am to be homeschooling! We had a wonderful experience last year, and I expect this year to be even better.

Nathan And The Biker

I think the four most horrible words in any mother's vocabulary are these: "I forgot the camera!" Last weekend, Matt had to do a wedding in Henderson, TN. As I hastily packed for the trip, I forgot to pack our camera. Matt and I tried to do the best we could with our cell phones, but I'm afraid we missed some great photo opportunities.

We drove in Friday night for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal dinner had a luau theme, and we had a great time! During the dinner, Nathan and Lydia were given sun visors that were shaped like a shark and a parrot. Remember that, because it will be important in the later part of this story! We spent the night in a local motel. The wedding was not until 3:00 the next afternoon, and since checkout at the hotel was at 11:00, we had to find something to fill the few hours in between.

On the drive down, we passed the Pinson Mounds Archeological Area. We had no idea what that was, but it wasn't too far away and it sounded both historical and educational, so of course we had to go! What a fascinating trip! We enjoyed it so much that we're already planning a second trip when Lily's a little older and we have better shoes on. (It's hard to climb mounds in flip-flops.) While we were prohibited from climbing the museum, one of the mounds had stairs built up the side so that we could climb to the top. This mound is the second highest mound in the Untited States. It's a ceremonial mound and not a burial site, so we weren't being disrespectful by climbing it.

After we left the mounds, it was time for lunch. We had heard that there was a little diner in Henderson that offered the "best burger in West Tennessee," so we decided to check it out. After all, we could eat at McDonald's anytime, but how often would we have an opportunity like this? When we found the diner, the first thing I noticed was that there weren't many cars. There were, however, lots of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. I looked at Matt. Suddenly, the best burger in West Tennessee didn't seem like such a good idea.

"It's a burger joint," he said. "They'll clear out quickly." We went in. Sure enough, the diner was packed with bikers. But they weren't your average bikers. Take a moment and imagine the sweetest little old lady that you know. Now imagine her in tight jeans with a Harley-Davidson doo-rag on her head. These bikers were all senior citizens!

The highlight of my dining experience came at the end, when Matt and Lydia had gone to pay for our meal. Nathan had swapped the shark hat he was wearing at the park for Lydia's parrot hat. He was so enjoying wearing the hat that he refused to take it off. As we were waiting on Matt and Lydia, a very large and scruffy biker approached our table. He was huge. He was hairy. He was a little bit scary. He walked up to Nathan and said, "Hey, buddy, I'll trade my hat for yours." He held out a plain black baseball cap. Nathan wasn't intimidated in the least. He looked at the cap. He looked at the biker. And without a second thought, he replied, "No. I like my hat. I'm gonna keep it!"

Fortunately for us, this man was much nicer than he looked!

We had a great time at the wedding and enjoyed catching up with friends that we hadn't seen for some time. It is, as always, good to be home for a little while!

Forgive Me!

I wanted to take a moment to apologize to you all for not updating my blog recently! We've been busy these past few weeks! As soon as we got home from youth camp, Lydia and Nathan had two weeks of swimming lessons. Their lessons were supposed to be in the mornings, but due to lots of rain and an unusual cold spell, we ended up moving the lessons around on a regular basis, which meant that our days quickly fell into chaos! As soon as swimming lessons were over, it was time for Vacation Bible School, which is what we spent last week doing. Now that VBS is over, I'm desperately trying to get things in order to start school again. We are also going out of town this weekend for a wedding. One of the boys from Matt's first youth group at Merton Avenue Baptist is getting married, and Matt is doing the ceremony. So please forgive me for falling behind on my blog updates, and check back in a week or so. I hope to have some new pictures by then, and I'm sure that Lydia, Nathan, and Lily will provide me with plenty of entertaining stories!