The beach (In October!)

I know it seems weird to some of you that we would be hanging out at the beach in late October...but we were.  Wednesday, mom came with me and kiddos to the beach for a little while.  We got there before it got to blazing hot.  Yes, my friends up north, while you were sheltering from Tornados and crazy winds...we were hitting records highs (90) and chillin and the beach.  Go ahead...hate me ;)

So, we got SOOO many cute pictures!  Wanna see?  Well, scroll down:-)

 Nicole enjoyed running through the birds and making them fly away

 This wasn't Nathan's first trip to the beach...but it was the first one he could really enjoy.

 Reacting to the sand on his hands.

 He spent a lot of time "scraping" the sand.

 Nicole loves to play on the shoreline.  I'm pretty sure she could do this every day.

 Yes, he is wearing an "Alaska" shirt on the Florida beach :)

 Yaya burried Hannah half way. 

 Nope...she wasn't having any fun at all.  She was so bored the whole time....N.O.T.

 Sandy toes

 After standing at the water's edge for a few minutes...Nathan began to sink down in the sand.

Hahaha...he's almost up to his knees in sand!

Softball

A few weeks ago (Ok, on October 4th, our anniversary if you MUST know), Jeremy's church league softballs season started.  YES, I let him play on our anniversary.  He took the Friday before off and we had a fun time together celebrating 7 years.  So, he played in the season opener ; )  Anywho....Jeremy LOVES to play softball.  Every week he looks forward to playing.  I'm glad he has something he likes to do that we can sort of participate in too.  I mean...we are there, semi-watching as the children run around and play.

This year I have been able to watch more because of a sweet little girl named Sarah.  Sarah is my friend, Eunice's sister.  She's nine and she seems to love to play with my girls and a few other children who are at the games.  Nicole and Hannah really like her.  When Nicole can't remember her name, she calls her "lady" hahaha. 

So, here are some sweet pictures of Sarah and the kids last week.

BUT...I have some VERY EXCITING NEWS to share with you.  This past Monday, My Husband, Mr. Jeremy Rearden....hit an in-the field HOME RUN!!!!!  Yes ladies and gentleman, he did !  I was so proud of him and screaming for him as he ran around the bases.  It was very exciting!  GOOOOOOOOOO Jeremy!!!!

Classical Conversations

A year and a half ago, while at a homeschool curriculum fair, I came across a new group in our area (although the national group was not new) called Classical Conversations (CC).  I knew immediately that I wanted Nicole to be a part of this group, except she had to be at least 4 years old before she could begin.  She had just turned 3, so we had a year to wait. 

To make a long story short, this past week, we found out that there was a group in Ft. Myers that had a spot open for a 4 year old.  Nicole and I went up on Tuesday for our first class, and we have decided to continue this group for the rest of the school year. 

What is it you ask?  It is a a program that help parents educate their children using the classical method, called the Trivium.  Classical Education trains students to learn any information through a
3-step process:

1) Memorize vocabulary and rules (also called grammar);
2) Process new concepts (also called dialectic or logic);
3) Clearly, persuasively and logically use grammar knowledge

to influence others (also called rhetoric).

—Leigh Bortins
from her book Echo in Celebration:
A Call to Home-Centered Education

Classical Conversations give parents the tools and classes to help educate their children at their respective learning levels.  Nicole is just beginning the program in a system called "Foundations".  She will spend the next 4 or 5 years working through three year long cycles to help her memorize a ton of information.  Then, she will begin Foundations "Essentials" where she begins taking the information she's memorized and begin processing the concepts and adding understanding to her knowledge.  Finally, when she is in late middle school, she will learn to take the knowledge and understanding to the next level of being persuasive in her thoughts through reports, debates and other writings.  Up until the early 1900s, all students were taught in a classical way...stressing the importance of memorization and knowledge before you can have understanding and before you can persuasively argue your point. 

This has been a big decision for us, because it works in a way contrary to the typical American school...the school you and I were brought up in.  There are some serious gaps in the way we teach our children today in America.  Now...I don't know how this is going to go.  We are going to give it our all and hopefully have a good grasp by the end of the year if this is the way for our family to educate our children. 

Classical Conversations is broken up into three cycles which last one year each.  It's really neat how it works because the children are learning all subjects in relation to each other. 

For instance, this year we are working through Cycle 2. 

History and Geography :Pre-Reformation World thru today

Science: Ecology, Astronomy and Physical Science 

Art: Impressionist. Drawing

Music: Composers, Musical theory (they are playing tin whistles right now.  I already know more about music than I did last week)

English: Pronouns, Adverbs, conjugations

Latin: Verb endings (conjugations)

Math:Multiplication tables, conversions, geometric formulas

Bible: Ephesians 6.

Each week, they are given a set of information to memorize.  Now, Nicole is 4....obviously she is not going to understand much of what she is memorizing...right now.  But, in a few years, she will already have the basic knowledge of historical timeliness, mathematics, science, grammar and Latin...so that when her mind is developed further into reasoning, she will be ready for it.  I know that I spent most of my high school and college years just trying to figure out what the grammar rules were, or who lived in what time period.  I was not able to think about why something happened, or why the mathematics laws worked...I was just trying to remember them.  The goal is that the knowledge is memorized, so that when they are older, they are able to move on to the "whys" and not just say "I don't get it".

According to the foundations flyer, these are the goals for ages 4-12....

To provide foundational instruction
for K-6th graders to enable them to
know God and to make Him known
• To participate in a rigorous memorization
program capitalizing on the
young child’s ability to absorb facts
• To instill a comprehensive understanding
of Providence by mastering
a timeline of significant historical
events
• To teach students to draw and label
continents from memory
• To develop a strong science
vocabulary, to participate in science
projects, and to teach the scientific
method
• To help students develop oral and
written presentation skills
• To model for students a respect for
God’s Word, the USA,
and one another
• To memorize the
major grammar rules of
the English language
• To demonstrate how
to learn Latin
• To master common
math tables, conversions,
squares, and cubes
• To encourage women to form
friendships and provide accountability
for educational excellence

This certainly is not right for everyone...and hopefully by the end of the year, we'll know if this is right for us.  It's an interesting way to teach your children, and I am really excited to be a part of it.

For more information, check out www.classicalconversations.com

Nap Time

Nate decided his crib was just not a cool place to sleep anymore. 

No, no, no...his new "ball pit" is much comfier!

Whoooo are you looking at?

Tonight is a night I have dreamed of for 4 years.  It was the first year we actually carved a pumpkin...as a family...with the kid's help!  For the past few years, Nicole was a bit freaked out by the pumpkin inside and didn't want to touch it.  This year however....she enjoyed every "ooey-gooey" moment.  She even named it "ooey-gooey-goo".  Hannah, with the encouragement of her bigger, braver big sister also got in on the action with very little complaint. 

Jeremy bought a pumpkin carving kit, complete with patterns to carve.  The girls picked out the owl pattern.  Enjoy these picture of our family working on the pumpkin. 

 The Dynamic Duo!

 Check out Hannah's expression in the background!

And....this is where Nate was for most of the pumpkin carving this year

Mommy Brain?

This is what happens when I run out to the grocery store...

Can I blame my mismatched shoes on "mommy brain"?

Girl-ology and Boy-ology - The Art and Science of gender specific parenting

This morning, our MOPS director, Jennifer spoke to our group about the differences in parenting boys and girls. 

I think the one comment she made that made an impact on me, and that I want to remember for a long time is this...

I am not raising a baby boy - I am raising a man!

Now, my son is only 11 months old, but already I have had conversations with friends about how I realize that one day I will not be "the woman" in his life.  My job is to raise him to be a Godly husband and maybe even father one day.  It's weird to think of your babies that way...but I think it is good to have the goal in mind at times.  As Nathan grows up, I need to be teaching, sooner rather than later, how to be a gentleman, how to treat women, how to control his energy and maybe even temper. 

There are certainly very distinct "girl" and "boy" qualities, that for some crazy reason our culture tries to blur together.  NO, I want my son to be a Man, and my daughters to be Women. 

Jennifer gave a short list of some ways we can be with our boys.
1. Encourage Adventure
2. Provide physical activity
3. Show him respect as a person (age appropriate of course)
4. Encourage a strong relationship with his father.
5. Teach him about Who he is in Christ, and what His roles are to be.

And a short list of ways we can help our girls be girls.
1. Embrace their inner princess (I think every little girl likes to dress up and ask if she looks pretty...but then to also remind her that it is her heart that is even more beautiful than the dress)
2. Help her discover her talents
3. Remind her of Who God says she is
4. Encourage a strong relationship with her daddy
5. Limit Media (check out this short video before of the evolution of a regular looking girl into a super model.  THIS is what our children (and us) see.  These people we see in magazine and on TV are not real...you can't call what they do "real".  We need to limit the amount of exposure our children receive to things like this)


There are so many differences on so many levels of how we need to be raising our sons and daughters in different ways.  This was certainly not an all inclusive list...but it gives you a place to start.  I have been doing a lot of thinking lately on how I will raise Nicole and Hannah in different ways than how I raise Nathan.

Garage Sale Saturday

This morning, I got to hit up several large garage sales, included a community garage sale.  I went all by myself, which was nice...but lately, Jeremy and the kids have been coming too, and that's also fun.  Today though, I parked my car and walked all over this community looking for some great deals. 

My favorite find was a large trashbag full of pit balls and a blow up swimming pool (the pit) for $3.75 (all I had left).  It is already a huge hit in our house. 

I also found this beautiful lamp shade.

It's exactly what I've been looking for to place in our bedroom.  I am slowly "re-decorating" it.  We have a black and white (with a little green) comforter, white shelves I bought at a garage sale and a few odd and ends to help tie things together.  So, now I have the lamp shade, I've been envisioning...but no lamp.  This is what I want. 

I am willing to find something in another color and spray paint it...be it at Goodwill, a garage sale or something.  I've also considered "making" a lamp if I find a really cool black pedestal that I can run a wire through.  Let me know if you find something to help me complete my piece.  I would LOVE to buy a new bedroom suite too...a black one, but I also think it's absurd to spend $1,000 on something I want but don't need.  Something like this or this,   Our bedroom furniture is great...it's lasted a long time, and I'm pretty sure it'll last many more years.  If I happen to find a great deal somewhere and we have cash on hand, maybe we'll "move up" to an adult set...if not, what we have has been working fine.

Also today I bought a lite-brite for Nicole for Christmas and Twister for a family game night.  I found a big giant, soft truck for Nathan to roll around and several great math books with lots of practice problems.    I feel like I had a pretty good garage sale day. 

When I got home, I took the kids outside to play in the water while Jeremy worked on the yard.  Check out these girls!

Last night after dinner, Jeremy was playing with the girls.  They were chasing around the house, throwing balls at each other, and basically just having a lot of fun.  But, at one point, he focused all of his attention on Hannah and she started screaming "No....No...Daddy No" (in anticipation of him tickling her or something).  Then she yells....

"No, Daddy....ME....Hannah...GIRL!"

Hahaha.  That was her way of asking him not to be to rough with her...because she is a girl.  It was so super cute and funny....and, smart. 

Boys....It Begins

Up until this point, when people ask if there is a difference between having  boys and girls, generally my answer is "Not really".  I mean, Nate was a little more gross than the girls were.  You know, some extra earwax...lots of gas....boy stuff.  But lately, I am beginning to see the "boyness" come out of him.

He is learning to throw things...which we stupidly encourage.  He throws everything and every time we applaud him.  He destroys my "baby cabinet".  You know, the one in the kitchen with the Tupperware and no door.  It's meant for the babies, buy my girls were never interested.  Nathan rips through that cabinet several times a day.  But, most recently, he seems to have an affinity for the bathroom.  If he's "missing"  that's always the first place I look.

What does he do in the bathroom?

Earlier today, I caught him crawling around the room, with toilet paper stuck to his knee...dragging it every where he went.

I came home from a night out with my mom this weekend, and I found toilet paper strung throughout the bathroom.  This picture was from this morning.

Crazy little boy.  I think he's going to be fun!  No, wait....he already is fun!  I love this little boy.

Hairspray

This weekend I took my mom to see Hairspray a fun musical that was being performed at a local dinner theater.  I bought tickets for us to go as her birthday present (yes, I know her birthday was a few weeks ago, but the show wasn't running yet).  We had a nice time.  The food was yummy, the dessert was yummy-er and the show was oustanding.  The singers were superb and the acting was wonderful.  It was better than the broadway show I saw several years ago. 
Here are some pictures of my mom and I.

First Fire of the Season

I don't know about the rest of the country, but we  had beautiful "fall like" weather here last week.  It's nice this week, but last week...oh, last week was wonderful.  The mornings and evenings were cool, there was a nice breeze throughout the day.  I even opened up the windows one day. 

So, of course, with nice weather, comes the desire to be outside more.  We like to eat on our back paver area and usually when we do that, Jeremy gets a fire going.  So, this weekend, we had the first fire of the season.  I wasn't prepared yet with marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate, but we did have popcorn, popped over the fire.  It was so much better than that microwave stuff. 

Looking forward to many more fires to come.

Atlanta

A few weeks ago, Jeremy had his annual AV convention in Atlanta.  At the last minute, I decided to pack everyone up and go with him.  We found a Days Inn in downtown Atlanta, and hoped for the best.  I was nervous about all of us being in a tiny room in the middle of a big city. 

What we found was a decent hotel one block away from EVERYTHING I needed to be near.  It was one block to the Children's museum, 2 blocks to the Georgia Aquarium, 1 block from the Olympic Centennial Park, and less than a 10 minute walk (through the park) to the convention center where Jeremy would be all day.  it was perfect!  We didn't have to drive at all in downtown Atlanta, I was comfortable walking everywhere, even by myself (well, not really by myself, I had three children with me of course), we could go to fun places in the morning and go back to the hotel for naps in the afternoon.  It worked out perfectly!

Except the first night when Nathan was up for a while crying in the middle of night.  The next day, we found the "miracle" blanket that makes his pack n play nice and soft and fuzzy...and bedtime was much better.

So, I took our children to the Georgia Aquarium the first day.  We had fun looking at amazing displays of fish

waving at SCUBA divers cleaning glass

looking at Whale Sharks

and Manta Rays

and sharks with big teeth.

We watched a 4-D movie which terrified Hannah and freaked Nicole out until she realized the fish in the movie wouldn't bit her.

We spent a lot of time in the beautiful park playing on really cool playgrounds, running in giant green spaces, and dancing at a family festival (see video)

Saturday we went to the Children's Museum.  If you are in Atlanta with small children...this is the place to be.  I hope our children's museum (which will be opening in the spring) will be like this one. 

The girls tapped dance (with Grammy...she was able to steal away from the show for a day and spent the morning with us)

Painted

Gardened

Fished

Maneuvered tractors

Climbed on a John Deere

Milked a cow (it even squirted water out when you pulled - yeah...a little weird, I know)

Played in the baby area (on a baby water bed....Nate went crazy.  Totally his favorite part of the day)

and played in sand.

We didn't get to see daddy much, but we knew that would happen.  He was out all day at his convention and had dinners each night with reps who were trying to smooze him.  But, he was near and that was what we wanted.  We did go to Hard Rock Cafe the last night with the company, which was a special treat.

In the past, I've always said I hated Atlanta.  I didn't feel hate this time (mostly because I didn't have to drive in rush hour traffic down one way roads).  We had a super fun time, and I would be up for doing it again.

Check out this video...it has a bunch of little clips including Nate on the water bed, the girls dancing at the park (they were imitating the girl dancing on stage), Whale sharks and manta rays from the aquarium...it's a fun video, I think you'll enjoy it.