school time with my kiddos

I know these are three of the same picture, basically. But just tickles me pink when Jade is working and Cutter is trying very hard to copy everything she is doing himself:) 

 He has his own book open here, like Jade, "Coping" spelling words out of it. 

 here he's telling Jade "write that" 

more on Egypt

Something I'm loving about Tapestry of Grace (only three weeks into the school year, LOL) are the lapbooks for Jade to work on. It's a wonderful and fun way to review everything she is learning. 

Below is her completed lapbook for weeks 1-2. Under each topic they have a flap for her to fill in with answers, pictures or drawings. 

 For our craft time this week we did some research on the Egyptian water lily, the Lotus. I was going to have her sculpt her own, but sadly found my sculpting clay all dried out:( So she painted a picture instead.

 I think it came out so well I plan on framing it and hanging it in the school room:-)

Learning about Egypt

This month in school we are learning all about Egypt. Most of the geography we are studying is centered around the Nile river. As part of her activities craft we got to make "salt dough" or playdough. Jade shaped her's into a map of egypt, filling in mountain ranges, pyramids and part of the Nile, Red Sea and a bit of the Mediterranean. 

 After her salt map dried, I she got to paint it and mark what each part was.

Then, the homeschoolers at our church, just so happened to organize a field trip to the Pacific science center that was doing an exhibit on King Tut! The same week we were learning all about King Tut! We weren't aloud to take pictures in the exhibit, so here we are outside before and after, enjoying the lovely day. 

oh, and enjoying some large as life chess play. I think Jade won;)

Teaching

My sister recently posted a fairly humorous article on "facebragging". It was all about a sweet stay at home mom, who riddled her facebook page with her numerous daily accomplishments...mostly related to her amazing mothering. And how annoying it was to her friends...but was helping to teach then "godly character" to deal with her. (I'm dying laughing thinking of the self-rightousness of those having their character built up)

I relate to this article. Like this braggadocios women, I ADORE posting my parenting successes on facebook. Or cooking successes, or personal, etc...Is it not in our nature to brag about our children or dare I say...ourselves? hee, hee

In an attempt to not post to many bragging posts on my facebook (so I don't have to give my friends a reason to have their character built up, in order to deal with me), I'm going to try to balance out my awesome-ness, by using my blog a bit more. hee, hee

Today's brag. Jade and her flute. 

We just finished our second week of 1st grade, and so far, it's going pretty good. Nothing to awesome to brag about, but we are all alive and, so far, confidant the rest of the year (or semester) won't be an entire disaster. This past week we introduced music and some music theory. I'd LOVE for Jade to take music lessons in Jan, so to get her ready, I'm teaching her flute.

Now flute, can be a difficult instrument to learn at first. Simply because blowing into said flute, requires  precision and controlled breathing. It took three days, but Jade is finally able to get sound to flow from the mouth piece!!! Hence, todays' pictures and brag.

She had just been crying/throwing fits a day earlier over the fact she couldn't get any noise to come out of the flute. So to cheer her on, I took some pics of her "playing" the mouth piece and working on her timing/breathing.

I wasn't planning to teach Jade flute, I was "planning" to have her take piano and be taught by someone else. But now that we've started, I'm pretty excited to pass down my flute to her and teach her what I know.

In other news. I have baby on the brain something awful!

Having the green light to go ahead and start prepping the home with birthing related things (there is an actual "home birth" kit you can buy so that the midwife has everything extra she may need for the home birth). Today I'm hoping to go out and buy a few tiny infant hats, a few tiny infant onesies and maybe some new receiving blankets, cause heaven knows I don't have enough already! haha! I wouldn't want this kid to have ALL the hand-me-downs, right?

My Mom also bought me this adorable bag for my birthday, and I'm planning to use it as my diaper bag this time around. So I'm gonna go buy some fun new things to fill it with. Like a new changing pad and some miniature lotions, etc so it's all freshly stocked and ready to go.

I know, I have a ways yet (Oct 20-24-ish due date) but I have energy now, so better get cracking before  it takes a crane to remove me from the couch! HAHA!

3 of me at 8 months

I pulled out a brown tunic top that I only wore while pregnant with Jade. I decided to wear it today even though it's suppose to get up to 80! I just skipped the long sleeve top underneath:) It was then that I realized that the last time I wore the top was when I was huge pregnant with Jade. So then I had to go find a picture of what on earth I looked like at 8months preggers with Jade...which then lead to needing to find one of me with Cutter...and then post them all together!