School

As most of you know, we have decided to homeschool the kids. I have always done "learning" activities with the kids. Even as infants, we worked on language development & things like that. I start an actual "school time" with the kids when they are two years old. This means I will actually be teaching both kids at the same time starting in September. This will be an interesting adventure. I am very excited & a little nervous. I tend to do well with things as long as they are scheduled & organized. I have spent the last month, decluttering & organizing the house. I am almost finished.
I already have McKenna's two year old curriculum because I will re-use the stuff I used for Trevor.
I ordered Trevor's curriculum for Kindergarten today. I cannot believe he will bee in Kindergarten in the fall. He is such a big boy now. He absolutely loves to learn new things. I am very excited to watch him learn.

A Play

I took the kids to a play this morning. We have been before & Trevor has always liked them. McKenna has been but she was little the last time we went. I was not sure if she would sit quietly but she did pretty good. I only had to bribe her with animal crackers for about the last 10 minutes. She sat very well in my lap up until then.
We saw "Little Alice" performed by the Patchwork Players at Augusta State. It is an adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland". Trevor really enjoyed the play. After the play, we took a short trip to the library. We checked out Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". He is very excited to see if the story is the same as the play. I will read about a chapter a night to him until we finish. I am so happy that he is so enthusiastic about reading. I would have thought this book was way too old for him but since he asked, I didn't want to discourage him.

A Trip to the Park

After dinner we decided to walk to the playground at the school near our house.




McKenna loves to ride in her wagon. She is fascinated with the plastic eggs from Easter. That is what she is looking at. She takes at least one egg with her almost everywhere.

Trevor rode his bike. He would ride this bike all day, every day if I would let him.

You would never know that this playground is for elementary school age kids. She climbs on it like it is made just for her.

Sliding down the slide.

Have I ever mentioned that sometimes I think I have three kids? He loves to play just as much as they do. They love playing with their daddy.

This thing is pretty cool. It is like a big wave. It moves up & down as you walk across it. Trevor will walk on it by himself but when Daddy bounces on it, he likes to crawl across it.









Big girl on the slide. She can climb up & slide down all by herself.











They also have a little nature trail near the playground. Trevor likes to "hike" in the woods. He also likes to be the leader & show us the way.

NO MORE PACIFIER

I have finally decided to fight the battle of taking McKenna's pacifier from her. She is 21 months old. Both her doctor and dentist recommend taking it from her by the time she is 2. So about a week and a half ago I decided we would start by not letting her have it unless she is sleeping. She did really well adjusting to this. She only asked for it a few times during the first 2 or 3 days and I was able to distract her each time. This week I decided to take it away completely. The first nap went pretty much as expected. She cried on and off for about an hour and then calmed down and went to sleep. It took her a total of 1 hour 15 minutes to fall asleep for nap on that first day. I was excited. Then at bedtime on the first day, she never cried or got out of her bed. It took her about 2 hours to fall asleep but she stayed in her bed and just talked and sang to herself during that time. Again, I was very excited. This wasn't going to be as hard as I thought. Then nap time on day 2 came. For 5 hours (no that is not a typo) she fought going to bed. She cried on and off. She would not stay in her bed. She would get up to play. She asked continually for the pacifier. I was not giving in. I was committed to this. After the 5 hour battle she finally fell asleep. She only slept for about 45 minutes. Bedtime for day 2 was much easier but I think she was just so exhausted from the very short nap that she didn't have the energy to fight. I was very concerned about nap time for day 3. She cried on and off for about 5 minutes. Then she calmed down and sang to herself in her bed. She fell asleep after about an hour. I am hoping that tonight (night 3) will be easy also. I was going to try to take some pictures of her sleeping without the pacifier but she is a very light sleeper and I really do not want to wake her up. I am very excited that she has reached this milestone. Each and every milestone that my kids reach are so exciting to me. I love being with them every day to see them grow up.

Easter

We started our morning with some gooodies.

After a quick breakfast & getting all dressed up, we headed to chruch.





We had an egg hunt at church for the kids. We split the kids up into two groups. The one & two year olds were in one group. Then 3 year olds to 8 yr olds were together. Our church is very small so there were not than many kids in either group.


After chrurch we came home & tried to get some pictures. Unfortunately the kids were tired so ther were not very cooperative.



Mckenna would not sit with Trevor without crying so Mommy decided to have her picture taken too.

We finally got her to sit without screaming but she still was not very happy about it.







After pictures, the kids took a much needed nap. I made dinner while they were napping. After nap, we had dinner & then went to visit MeMaw & Pop Pop. Unfortunalely, I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures from our visit.