Rachel, Henry, Mabel, Peter

One of the hardest parts about being in the military is not seeing family on a regular basis. We are truly, truly blessed to have parents who try to visit us here in Texas a couple of times a year (each set!).  We always plan one trip to Illinois as well, to see extended family and friends and spend more time with our parents and Evan's sister and her family.

But, another hard part is not getting to see the friends who have become family, like our Colorado family. Last year, we made a trip to Colorado to see my beloved friends Kim and Rachel and their families.  This year, they are coming down here to visit.  First to visit was Rachel and her three kiddos.  They made the almost 14 hour trip in one day.  Of course, Elisabeth and Julia were besides themselves with excitement because they love Rachel's kids like siblings, but Vivian did not remember them.  It did not take her long to warm up to them, though.  :)

Rachel and her kids brought rain with them (thank the Lord!), so the first day was spend getting reacquainted, watching tv, and reading.

 I did buy pumpkins to paint as an activity in case they were bored, so we did that the first day. (I can't help it, my default mode is teacher.)

 Yes, that is my mother in these pictures!!  She arrived via airplane the same day as Rachel and the kids. My mom came to stay for almost a month because she loves us.  :)

 When you come to visit us in San Antonio, if you have not seen the Alamo, than we will take you.  It is right downtown and free. Also, we will take you to the Riverwalk to show you how completely unimpressive it is, and so you can tell everyone you saw the Riverwalk because EVERYONE says it is a "must see!".  We, personally, beg to differ, but to each his own.

 This is Peter, Rachel's youngest, and my Juju.  They love each other. They have very similar character traits and are so sweet together. Peter is a little over 4.5 years older than Julia, but that has never stopped them from getting along so well together.

 This is public art. Peter loves public art.

 These kids are so big I want to cry. Henry is 13 for goodness sakes!  Ugh.

  Vivian really loves rocks. I find them everywhere--in my house, my purse, our cars. This rock bed in the Alamo gardens was like a goldmine for her.

 Our stroller basket via Vivian:

 I told them to all sit up straight and smile or I wasn't going to feed them lunch.  :)

 So, our crosswalks in SA are blind people friendly and will talk to you after you push the button.  Mainly, they say "Wait. Wait. Wait." in the most obnoxious electronic voice.  Peter could not stop pushing the button because he thought the voice was hilarious.

 Since it Rachel, my book soul mate, I took her to the Landa Library (the most beautiful library!!) and Half Price books while they were here.  The amount of books we borrowed and bought were borderline obscene.  I terribly miss book shopping with her. These pictures are from the library's gardens and playgroud:

 Her face here cracks me up!:

 No trip to visit us is complete unless we take you to Ft Sam's Quadrangle!

 The ducks and geese were all out in parade mode.  Wherever we walked, they were waddling behind us trying to catch up.

 And then I look over, and Mabel is HOLDING A DUCK!:

 How crazy is that?  She just swooped him up and carried him around to show us!

 20 minutes later, Mabel picks up that same duck, again!!!!  What duck *wants* to be held?  Julia was excited and also jealous; she wanted to pick up a duck but was just too nervous to try.

 There are bird feeders all over the Quadrangle, but no one had any quarters.  Julia figured out, though, that if she just shook the whole machine hard enough, some of the pieces would come out.  She was becoming quite popular with the geese which both frightened and excited her.  Hey, geese are funny but kind of aggressively scary.

 On the way back home, Ebeth found a ginormous patch of stickerburrs!  Here is just one of her shoes:

 Her other shoe was also totally covered and her socks!  Peter had been following her, so he had them too.  It took us 15 minutes to get those all off. Ridiculous.

They were here for 5.5 days and it just wasn't enough. It'd been too long since we'd seen each other and saying good bye was so hard because we aren't sure when we'll see each other again. Our kids keeping growing (though we tell them to knock it off, dagnabit!) and once a year makes that reality even harder.

But, even if it is a whole other year, I am so very, very thankful for friendships that pick up right where they left off, technology that lets us "see" each other almost daily, and friends who become family.

Oh, and also wine.  Cause I forgot how great a glass of wine is when talking to Rachel well past bedtime.

Little Girls, Little Girls

This week, I have been trying to keep my cool with two small girls who are both growing through physical and developmental growth spurts.  There have been lots of tears, whining, tantrums, and confusion. I've tried to put out small fires with cuddles, snacks, and wine (me only, not them) (unless someone tells me it will shut them up...).

But, in the eye of the storms of growth spurts, there have been lots of playing.  Julia got a porcelain tea set from us for her birthday and will weekly drag it out and have a tea party with Vivian (who is a questionably mannered guest).

 It's been hard lately having school with Julia because I am pretty sure that Vivian is trying to sabotage our school time.  She will refuse to sit, will demand snacks, will try to rip books out of my hands, or just cry and scream.  Super fun.  I have polled other homeschooling moms with toddlers around and I am not alone.  I have some new tactics to try to keep her occupied, but I am pretty sure I'm just going to put her in a dog pen...in the neighbor's yard...

Elisabeth just asked to compare hands with me.  They are the exact same size. Sigh.

I realize that i have not posted about her turning 11 (which she did this past Saturday), but I am working on it.  For some reason, her turning 11 has been harder to deal with than when she turned 10. Sigh.

Tonight, Elisabeth and Evan are going to the high school football game so Ebeth can participate in the pre-game Fun Run.  You get to participate by reading a certain amount of books for the month.  Shocking that Ebeth can participate, I'm sure. :)  Last Fun Run was a few weeks ago and Elisabeth asked Julia if she wanted to come along. So, Evan took the two older girls and took the camera with him.

 Evan is more pesty with the camera than I am.  I love that he got these bored, waiting faces.  :)

 This face cracks me up!:

 Julia had never been to a football game before.  She liked parts of it but found it long and boring.

 Except when she realized she could cheer.  "GO DEFENSE!!"

Mornings with Juju and V

I have come to the realization that I am not productive until at least 10:00am.  No matter how much sleep I get, not matter how great of a mood I am in, no matter my grand plans for the day, unless I have an appointment that must be kept, I am not getting out of my pajamas until 10:00am.  If it's a weekend?  More like noon.

I find it humorous that things I have subconsciously known about myself seem to become definite truths for me the older I get and the more I just start excepting that I am who I am.

Deep, huh?

This ends up being pretty conductive to homeschooling Julia.  How you ask?  Well, first off, she gets to wake up naturally.  Some days, that is before 7am, some days she gets up after 8:30.  There is no rush to eat, no "Hurry up!" to get dressed.  Julia's personality responds better to non rushing anyway.  

 We have a little school schedule that is working well right now.  We get dressed (no school in pajamas, house rules), she sets up the chairs in the play area for calendar time.  We say a morning prayer, go over the date, day, month, year, sing 3 songs of her choice (sometimes she even makes one up and serenades me), and then it's off to do some table work.  Right now, my focus is on penmanship and getting used to sitting to do writing.  I had an ABC workbook she flew through and now we're working on number penmanship. We do art, cutting, and reading for about 45 minutes to an hour. But, here's the kicker for me--Julia's started reading.  No, we aren't working on it, she has just naturally been trying to sound things out and now can read simple sentences.  It's amazing to watch it all unfold.

I realize that it seems ridiculous that a college educated former elementary school teacher seems amazed that she can, you know, TEACH her kid, but I am amazed.  I felt very insecure going in to this endeavor. I am a firm believer that kids don't need pushed to learn, even those who struggle. I also believe that parents are children's first and most important teachers, but that kind of all went to the wayside when we decided that keeping Julia home for kindergarten was best for her and us. I am very, very thankful that what I have always believed came to fruition with Julia.

We still make it to the Y a few days a week. The girls love going to the Y.  They have little friends there and know the teachers well.

 Half the time they don't even say good bye to me. Two days ago, for the first time, Vivian told me "No, Mommy, no leave." She was playing cars and did not want to stop.

 Both girls usually bring a toy to the Y to play with while they are there.  I'm sure you are shocked to know that Pink Baby is usually Julia's toy of choice.  Wednesday, as I waited for them to finish playing cars, I asked Julia where Pink Baby was.  "She's in the swing."  Dude, I thought a real baby was in the swing because it was on!  Nope, the teachers let Julia put Pink Baby in real baby things:

 This is how we roll at the Y:

 This morning, Julia decided to do an art project for school first. She had a wooden bird house from this summer that we never got around to painting.

 Of course, Vivian must do all the things that Julia does, so I got out some paints and paper for her too.

 I'm pretty sure Vivian will just skip kindergarten.  She's got two older sisters that love to teach her.  In fact, I could probably just hire them to teach Vivian and I could stay in my pajamas reading books EVEN LONGER!!!

I joke, I joke...I'd totally get dressed and read. Gotta keep up appearances.

Routine.

The days here are starting to get darker sooner, a little bit cooler (low 90s instead of 100s, which i will gladly take!), and our routine for this school year is set and running.

Julia loves being homeschooled. I'm focusing on practicing handwriting right now, and Julia's penmanship has really improved in just a couple of weeks!!  She loves to learn and is a sponge. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even need me right now. 

For right now, I'm planning on doing monthly science themes, and this month is animals.  We learned about mammals and have moved on to reptiles.  We're going to be spending some time at the zoo to round out the theme. She has so many interests that we should be able to fill out the school months with lots of fun themes.

 I'd definitely say, though, that Julia's strength is art.  The girl expresses all of her ideas and emotions by drawing them out.  She naturally takes things and creates with them. It's such a blessing that she uses this as a tool when upset because it's how we can figure why she broke down and wept like giants were pulling her limbs off when words escape her.

 Dearest Elisabeth is in her final year of elementary school.  She seems to like her teacher and has made friends in her class.  At her school, they have the opportunity to try out to be in accelerated extra curriculars--music, art, or drama.  They are basically clubs that happen during school hours.  She is trying out for all three (only 20 per extra curricular are chosen), so she's excited to see if she's chosen.

 She's got her sights set for drama, which is fitting for her.  :)

 Evan and I were just discussing the other day how Elisabeth is in this netherworld of childhood--still little enough to want dolls, but old enough to discuss concepts like The Civil War or inflation with (topics of interest to her currently).  Just the other night we were discussing that the other two girls don't seem as old or mature as Elisabeth was at their age.  Then we got to wondering if maybe it just seems that way because Elisabeth is the first--no one to compare her too, no idea how the whole parenting thing worked so learning as we went. We're trying to make sure we soak up this age because pretty soon she won't want those toys anymore, that netherworld will no longer be, and she will be more adult than child.  Being a parent is hard.  Why doesn't anyone ever talk about it?!  ;)

 Vivian is crazy.

 I'm not kidding.  She is just daredevil, future emergency room patient, crazy.

 She is as surefooted as a mountain goat and determined to scale the highest mountain her little 18 month self can find. And, she's just so BUSY. She needs lots of gross motor time, which with the cooler weather slowly rolling in, we can now give her in abundance.

I'm pretty sure if she had it her way, she'd just live on the trampoline and jump all the live long day.

The best part about our routine for the school year shaping out is that Evan has a job where he can be apart of it this year.  I don't have to drag all the girls to dance classes and try to contain Vivian. Evan is home on time for an early dinner and I get to take Elisabeth to her classes on Monday and Wednesday nights by myself!  I get to read for an entire, uninterrupted hour!  Plus, I get some quality alone time with Elisabeth.  Evan takes Julia to her class on Fridays, which is equally nice. We got so used to not having Evan around that I had forgotten how much easier it is to function during the week with two parents available.  He's home on weekends, all week nights, can get days off when needed. Good thing we like him so much, right?