Curriculum in the works...

I finally have a starting point for my tiny tots home schooling curriculum!  I am not sure if anyone else has been thinking about home schooling, but there is just so much information out there to review.  I have already posted that I am just filling up a notebook with ideas, projects, games, printables, teaching toys... you name it, I have probably jotted something down about it.  While reviewing some of my notes, I am struggling to find a starting point!  So, a friend of mine directed me to our states kindergarten readiness calendar.  It was a checklist of 38 things your child should know or be aware of before entering kindergarten.

Kindergarten Readiness Calendar  

1.  speaks in complete sentences

2.  follows directions with at least 2 steps

3.  understands words such as top and bottom and big and little

4.  makes simple predictions and comments about a story being read

5.  matches 2 pictures that are alike

6.  looks at groups of objects and says which are the same shape, color, or size

7.  tells things that together (example:  spoon/ fork are for eating)

8.  repeats patterns you start (example:  jump jump step jump jump step)

9.  puts pictures in order (seed, flower grows, pick flower)

10.  says or sings familiar songs/ nursery rhymes

11.  retells a simple story (3 Little Pigs)

12.  works puzzles

13.  recognizes and names at least 5 colors

14.  recognizes her first name in print

15.  recognizes letters in her first name

16.  begins to write some letters in her name

17.  recognizes signs of a familiar place or thing (McDonalds, stop sign, Wal-Mart)

18. holds books correctly and turns pages correctly

19.  recognize rhyming words such as cat and hat

20.  recognizes at least 10 letters of the alphabet

21.  matches the letter with a beginning sound of a word (B for Banana)

22.  expresses ideas through pictures (draws a family and tells you who they are)

23.  counts objects

24.  sees a number and recognizes that this means there are that many objects

25.  adds and subtracts objects (examples with cookies)

26.  puts numbers in order (1 to 5)

27.  recognizes and names 3 shapes

28.  counts from 1 to 10 in order

29.  uses words like more and less correctly

30.  tells if she is a girl or boy

31.  tells first and last name

32.  can tell names of parents

33.  tells age

34.  takes care of own needs (dressing, feeding, toilet, washing hands)

35.  adjusts to new situations without the parents being there

36.  uses pencil, crayons, and markers for drawing and writing and scissors for cutting

37.  draws a line, circle, and a plus sign

38.  runs, jumps, hops, throws, catches, and bounces a ball

Yowza, what a great list!  I am sure that there are things that you may or may not have gone over with your child, but this is going to be a great starting point for me!

So, how did you prepare your tiny tots curriculum?

Did you create your own or go with one that was made for you?

Do you have anything that you would add or take off from the above list?

I guess I should get this ball a rolling and get to planning!  Let the learning begin!!

Playing School

Day 2 and the home school boat is still afloat!

I still have no idea what I am trying to teach or even the order in which to teach it, but boy do I ever have a ever growing notebook of wonderful ideas!  Now, I just need to start reviewing all of the ideas and try to put in place some sort of preschool/ tiny tot curriculum.  Until I get to all of that and try to make some of this more formal, we are still just "playing school".

The day has been fun, and very much going at Lil Red's pace.  She is calling all of the shots.  After about 10-20 minutes on 1 thing, she looks at me and says,"okay, I am all done."  Well, okay then, that's that.  Then she comes back in a few minutes and asks to play again.

I can tell that Baby Bear wants to do everything that his sister is doing, and if I am looking in his sister's direction he is quick to crawl on a chair, couch, or stool yelling to get my attention!  Sheesh!

Note to self:  When thinking of preschool/ tiny tot curriculum, I must also put somethings in place for brother to do!

Here are some pictures of things that we worked on for today.  I am telling ya, great stuff from that 1+1+1=1 blog.  She takes a lot of pictures, and I just kick myself thinking... humpf, why didn't I think of that!  Fun stuff!

Today, we talked about shapes.  Red pretty confidently calls out shapes (square, heart, circle, oval, octagon (weird, I know), rectangle, triangle), but today I started to ask her to draw circles around things.  Here is one of her circles (I was impressed).

I printed off some printables from the 1plus1plus1equals1.net website.  There is a lot of great stuff there.  On the site, the mommy talks about how she has put together a notebook for her daughter, and there are printables inside the clear paper holder thingys (totally drawing a blank so forgive as I call something a paper holder thingy), but then she got washable dry erase markers/ crayons and the child can write all over these things (and you do not have to print them off a bajillion times)!  So smart, I thought!  Red loves coloring the pages and you can even see that she kind of traced an A!  She loves to write/ scribble all over her pages.  We both call this her workbook!

Here is another page from the "workbook".  I let her play with the large dot art markers (I call then Bingo dotters), but I was asking if she could dot all of the A's on a page, or apples on a page.  This just gave us some more time to talk about the letter A.

She really enjoys drawing with the markers.  She looks up and says that she's writing.

Other things we have done today is going over the names of fruits.  My friend, Katherine, suggested that I talk about foods that start with the letter A.  Hello!  Apples!  So we would take a bite and say "Apple starts with A"!

We also played with Leggos and read some books, and worked on a few puzzles today.

The highlight of the day was probably going to our local gardening place, Bogle City, and picking up some flowers.  The kids were very excited to see their Aunt Erin and her new baby Lukas!  I shared in that excitement, but the bonus was to see all of the animals at the pond (swans) and the horses in the field.  Lil Red was all about feeding the horses some rocks (next time, we must bring apples!)

Lil Red.... The Reader

Lil Red is a reader!  I feel like I read this book, Polar Bear Polar Bear, constantly to the kids, and yesterday I just looked Sophia and said, "I have already read that book today, you read it."  She just picked up the book and started reading it to me and her brother.  I was so shocked!  She is like a little sponge!  Yes, I know she did not read every word, but she is trying really hard!  I just love love love it!  Then I knew that I had to get it on film for her Daddy, Honey and G-Daddy, Aunties and Uncles, and then Mossy and Bucky would for sure not want to miss out on this!

Enjoy a reading from, Eric Carle's, Polar Bear Polar Bear

Spending time with my boys

Could the weekend get any better?  On Saturday, I was able to spend the day watching the Razorbacks with 2 of their BIGGEST fans!

A day with my sweet boys

I know, instead of watching the Red and White game I am sitting taking pictures of me and Baby Bear!  Aron was embarrassed.  I kept saying Aron you hold him.... yal look at me and smile... Bray.. smile... Aron, you are squinting.  I am soooo the paparazzi!

Me and my baby sister, Katie.  She came down to the game with a friend and she rode back with us.

Not that I am a stalker, but I suppose that me taking this picture and then posting it on this blog may now qualify as "stalking", but when we went to sit down in our seats, which were on the first row in the corner of the field (but whatev), Ryan Mallett (who was the Arkansas Razorback quarterback) and went into the NFL and is now the back up qb for the New England Patriots, came back to support our team for the Red and White game.  He was just hanging out in front of us with these two people (which I think were his parents) and this very pretty girl (that I spotted him holding hands with).  It was so exciting.  I am such a people watcher that I just sat there with my sun shades on watching him.... I was so star struck by our "old" quarterback.  I am so lame!

Katie will hate that I posted this, but I do not care.  She is such a teenager and always turns her head when someone tries to take a picture of her.  So, now I have a photo of the sweet girl, me and the family will have a picture of our girl!

Woo Pig Sooie!

Today's post is brought to you by the letter A

Seeing as how I am so gung ho about the whole "tot schooling", I decided to try a few things today with Lil Red and Baby Bear!  (Yal, do not be worried, I am not being a knowledge pusher onto my 15 month old baby!  I was giving him things to play with, since he felt left out!)

We have been busy talking about the letter A!

A is for apple, alligator, ant, acorn (that is for those of you who do not know-ha!)

I think at first Sophia thought I was sounding craycray!  I was talking so slow and she completely lost interest!  Note to self:  she is not all about the slow talking!! Once she started ignoring me and went over to play with her building blocks, it hit me.... we will obviously be going at her pace, not mine!  It will not do me much good to schedule things, because scheduling.. well, it just is not the thing for Red!  After about 10 minutes of me sitting at the table with Bray, she came back and was ready to "play school".  From then on, the morning was a lil bit more successful!  Since she knows the ABC's I am wanting her to be able to really know the letter and yes, be able to pick it out of a line up (in time!)  I think that we will just go over a letter a week, go over some printables, talk about some things that start with the letter A, and then just do whatever else floats our homeschooling boat!

Our activities for the day:

coloring

puzzles

played Starfall computer program

Pansy Painting

I am calling this pansy painting because I was too afraid to really let the kids get all dirty with the "washable" finger painting.  So squirted some into sealed Ziploc baggies and taped them shut.  I saw this idea from a website and it kept the kids busy for about 30 minutes!  They loved pushing their hands down in it, combining the colors, making shapes, ect..

Then we played with magnetic letters in a baking pan (they were excited to see that they stick)

After lunch we went and played at Honey and G-Daddy's house and then came home for a nap.  So far, the day has been a success!

For the past few weeks, I have been "playing school" with Red, hoping that she would get excited about it.  I am noticing that throughout the day she wants to sit at the table and play school or do her workbook.  This "play" is really turning into an all day type of thing.  She does her school before bed, she likes to write on the chalkboard in the afternoon.  Both kids like to play "cards" (flashcards) when we are sitting down watching television.  So, maybe, just maybe this emphasis on tot schooling in our home could work!

So things that I am taking away from today: 

I like, I love to be in control.  I love a list.  I love a schedule.  I love to mark things off of said list and schedule.

My children like love to control things as well.  They are not fans of lists (they try to take them away from me, chew on them, or color them.  My people are not fans of schedules, they like to do things at their pace.

I find that if I throw out my list and quit eyeballin' the clock...  the world still be okay. 

What kind of activities do you do with your tiny tots?  Where do you get your ideas from?

Tomorrow is another day!

Homeschooling Tiny Tots? Anyone? Anyone?

I find it very funny that this post is going to be about homeschooling.  I was all pumped up for writing about this, I go and open up Blogger, and it is a new format!  Geez Louise!  If it took me 10 minutes to figure out this new format and then find the new spot to click on order to type out a brand new post... then maybe homeschooling tots may not be my forte!  Ha!

Anyways, yes, I have been doing some research on homeschooling.  I bet that some of you that know me are thinking... "ha, who is she kidding". This is something that I am thinking about VERY SERIOUSLY!  A week or so ago, I posted a question if anyone out there home schools or knows of any websites for me to check out.  I am so appreciative of sweet Sarah in Texas who directed me to the blog, www.1plus1plus1equals1.net  It is a tremendous blog, posted by a mother of 3 children (9 years, 5 or 6 years, and then a toddler (3), all of whom she is currently homeschooling.  The momma is so incredibly honest about their experiences and just has so many creative ideas for what is working for her family.  You can find their blog, under the header "Blog Stalkin'" on the right side of my page. 

So, over the past few days, I have immersed myself in anything and everything home school.  I have found a few ideas from the above website and read about other families that write about what they go through on a daily basis, list out their curriculum's, ways to engage your toddler with learning, teaching toys, and printables.  There is such a large pool of stuff for me to look over.  I am just drowning in stuff during nap times, and filling my notebook with different ideas that could be used with my tots! 

I do understand that I have already been homeschooling my tots.  Aron and I are constantly teaching them things (and sometimes we do not even realize it).  We play together, we read constantly in this house, we teach them songs, showing Red things on the computer and the IPAD, exploring outside, everyday there is a new and exciting learning going on. I am just thinking about continuing this practice in our home (with me being the teacher/ not only the mommy) for a little bit longer .  Lil Red will be too young to start PRE-K this year, but I was just thinking, why not go ahead and get the ball rolling in our house!

So far, our school, consists of flashcards (ABC's, numbers, shapes, colors, and animals).  We color and play with stickers, we are always going over our body parts, we do have some learning toys (shapes into holes kind of things), building blocks (LEGOS), painting (yes, in this house we are artists!), nature walks, and reading. 

For those that are concerned about my children's social development... FEAR NOT, they are social.  We have friends that come over and play, we go to church on Sundays and Tuesdays (they play with other children there.  We are involved in a playgroup that meets every other Thursday.  The kids have so much interaction with their family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins).

What are some things that you do with your children?

Is this crazy?

Is this something that is completely out of my grasp?  I do not even have a teaching degree, I majored in History and with all of the extra courses I should have minored in French and Spanish!  I guess, if it comes down to it, I could for sure teach my children all about History and some foreign languages!  My work history has been in decorating, painting, and apparel.

This might be nuts!

Is this nuts?

One thing I am positive about is that I have been loaned these two precious people!  Two people!  My husband and myself are solely responsible for them FOR-EV-ER!  We teach them to honor, to love, and to fear God.  We teach them to love one another.  We are always working on making good choices and choosing right from wrong.  If we are already teaching them that, hopefully the rest will just fall into place! 

I am hoping that I am not alone on this home school boat (I guess I will not be alone, I will have the kids with me)!

50 Shades of Red

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you may know that I am a fan of reading. I love books. I love to ask people what they are reading, then I like to ask if they have read something that they would recommend for me to check out. Over the past few weeks, I have been told, by a few people, about this book... 50 Shades of Grey. The people, who have talked about this book, have just made a few of these comments....

- Oh, girl, you will just love it.

- I could not put it down!

- I have tried to get it at the local bookstore and I couldn't find it anywhere... everyone is reading it!

- Such a great book

- Love it!

So, all in all, it seems to me (from what I have been told), that this is a book that I would love and that I would be voraciously reading. Great! Sign me up, thus my hunt for this book has begun.

To tell you the truth, I think that I may have brought this book up to my brother (who works for a bookstore in our area). I found it odd that he did not really say much about the book, he just looked at me funny. I did not notice this at the time.

I have even spoken about this book to my mother (who had not heard of the book) and to a few friends. "Oh, yes, I just can't wait to read 50 Shades of Grey."

Last Thursday, my girl friend, was in labor, and I was on my way to the hospital to sit with her and her family. I had no kiddos with me, thus the perfect time stop at the bookstore. Heck, I could possibly read a few chapters before the baby would be born.. WINNING!!

I walk in the bookstore, it was about 7:30 in the evening. I am walking all over the store looking for this book. Can't find it! I was so upset. I noticed there was a ever so friendly and all knowing worker of the book store establishment giving a book to another book store patron. I waited my turn, these college kids were looking over their book about taking the MCAT. I was looking at them, like la tee dah... thems are a bunch a smarties! Anyways, I am next in line, and with a big smile on my face and in an ever so pleasant voice I ask, "hi, could you please tell me if you have the book 50 Shades of Grey?" He looks at me, and the nosy worker bee behind him says, "is that in our EROTICA section?" I totally froze up! I suddenly felt like I was under water and all I could hear was blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah! The college kids stopped reading the MCAT book, and were now checking out the 30 something lady who was so eager to check out the EROTICA section of the bookstore. I started getting hot and felt my face turning 50 shades of red!! I could feel my hands getting sweaty and the deodorant on my arm pits was certainly NOT strong enough for a man and definitely not this woman. It was a slow death! I even had a flash of the upcoming church bulletin or even a write up in the Democrat... Good Girl Gone Bad... One Day Reading Dr Suess and the Next Day Reading Erotic Novels!!

During all of these thoughts, I am sure I was standing there mouth-breathin'! The lady, who answered my question (SO LOUDLY), walked from behind the counter, and motioned for me to follow her. So I did. With my head held high, I followed her to where no girl (not me) has boldly gone before. She stopped before we got there and said, "Oh, here it is. It is part of a trilogy." All I could do is look and shake my head yes. I said, "thank you" and picked up the book. I held it close to my chest (made sure that the cover was nestled against me), took a turn into the self help books, and placed 50 Shades on the shelf, and speed walked outta the store! I am sure they thought I stole the book! Haha!

Anyways, my friend (who was over at my house the other day) was talking about the book and told me that she was on chapter 7 or something..., she said it was very racy, but I guess it was not stopping her. I just acted like I still knew nothing about the book, and just said... "ooo- I cannot wait to read that!"

Then, this morning, the author, who just looks like a nice SAHM, was interviewed on the Today Show. They were calling her book.... mommy porn, and that it is a BIG book for women my age!

Geez Louise!

Hands Down Scariest Job Ever!!

Each day my husband comes home from work and I always ask, "how was your day?" The husband (who loves to talk... not so much), will go into deep detail talking about what he worked on that day. He talks about power lines, transformers, broke poles. Sometimes, he could talk for up to 15 minutes (uninterrupted). During this time, I just stare at him (blank stare), because I know NOT ONE THING of what he is talking about. I sometimes visualize myself banging my head up against the wall (just kidding). But really, when he talks about his work, it is like he is speaking Chinese to me... I just can't follow it. So, after he talks about his wildly riveting day and all of the situations that he has been involved in, I usually begin my splurge about all the happenings in Toddlerville. I tell him when we woke up, if anyone peed through their diaper, how many loads of laundry I have done (if any), what we ate for the day, what the kids squabbled about, how many dirty diapers I have changed.... ya get my drift. I am almost positive that while I am talking about my exciting day and the tiny tots, I can see Aron's eyes gloss over and he is probably picturing his self banging his head up against the wall. (haha). So anyways, this is sometimes what our talks start out as.

Most days, I walk away from this conversation thinking, this guy has no idea how easy he has it. I sit at home, love on his babies, have dinner on the table when he gets home, wash his shorts, and he is getting out of the house all day and hanging out with people all day, he is living the dream (I know.... that is not really what he's thinking!!). Usually, though, I am thinking my job is the craziest, busiest, hardest, and the scariest, HANDS DOWN!!

Until today.

That's right yal, today, I am a changed woman because my husband, sent me this photo at 8:30 a.m. (that's right, this morning)

Holy Ba-Geezus!

That is a 5 footer yal, King Snake (not poisonous), but to me it looks like an anaconda or something or other. It is obviously a crazy snake, it cared not one bit to be silently resting in the midst of a bajillion volts of power.. he ain't scurred!

If I saw this at 8:30 in the morning (okay, not necessarily in the morning anytime of day or night), I would have for sure died. Okay, I would have for sure peed my pants and then died! Never mind, I would have peed my pants, ran for dear life, then probably died!!!

I know! Have you ever seen anything so jaw droppingly scary! Now I did have to change an atrociously smelling water consistency diaper earlier, but I would change 50 billion more of those diapers instead of staring that in the face any day!

So, hands down, Aron WINS! He has the roughest, toughest, craziest, work EVER!

Thank you Aron, for going out each day and working so hard in the steamin' heat, the breath takin'ly cold weather, the rain, during tornadoes, and whatever else the day may bring. I am so very appreciative that you work so hard, each day, (and do not complain about it), so I can stay at home with lil red and our baby bear! I love you madly and will now picture you as an amazingly strong snake wrangler.... and I am so glad that you picked me to be the girl at home washing your shorts.... :)

Lawdy Gee at the Thoughts... (11 of them)

This is just gonna be one of those posts that, well, has no topic. In fact, I just have too many topics in my head so onto the blog they go!

1. With my mornings, days, and evenings being filled with my mommy, wifey, and any other duties that I am tackling for the day, I have been finding minutes here and there to READ! Yes, if I ain't sleeping, feeding, washing, cleaning, or loving on my people then I am curled up on the couch (which now has a big deep impression of my boo-tay) reading a book. Over the past few weeks I have read so many great stories, that I thought you may want to go out and grab one for yourself!

In case you are living under a rock and you have not picked up the latest issue of Teen Beat, Zac Efron is starring in this movie coming out this next week. This book, The Lucky One, by Nicholas Sparks. Yes, Sparks has written yet another tear jerker and I was on board and loving this book the whole time. I will not be the girl that tells you what happened in this book, but I will tell you that I read it in 2 nap times and 1 night before I went to bed! Could-NOT- PUT-It-Down! If you are wanting to read a story about people finding love in an unconventional way... check it out! (and yes, if we are twit or fb friends, you might be aware of my new found celeb crush on Zac. He is H to the O-T, Hot yal!

The next book I read is, The Secret Life of Bees. Honestly, I have had this book for at least 2 years in my closet, but never felt the pull to open it and read it. Well, I am glad I came across it, while looking for a flip flop, cause people.. it is good stuff. I love Miss Lily and found all of the bee facts (above the start of each chapter) interesting. Seriously, it is a great book!

Heaven is for Real (not that I had any doubt), but I found this book very exciting! I am already pretty pumped out about heaven, but to read about a 3 year old boys' account of the most wonderful place ever, the people he saw, and even the things they wore, left me with chills. So glad my sil handed this book over to me last year!

One of my BFF's (that is best friends forever, for those of you that are not up to date on childhood acronyms), Lindsay, called me a few weeks ago and was telling me about this book, My So Called Life as a Proverbs 31 Wife. Yal, I was so excited to read it just from hearing my friend Lindsay talk about it (she even hand delivered it to me right after our phone call). If you have not picked up your BIBLE lately, Proverbs 31 is the longest proverb ever, telling of the characteristics of what a God loving God fearing, wife, and mother, woman should be. The author tells funny stories about things she did in her own home (from showing kindness to her husband, being the wife with so many millions of things going on that she was still able to have a dinner on the table when her husband came on, to going back to work when her husband was unable to find stable employment. There is even a challenge that you can do in your own home. I did the challenge and could immediately feel a difference in the temperature of my own home! Read it. Love it. Live it yal! Love me some Sara Horn... thank you so much for writing this book!

So, there ya go. I have been on a reading kick!

RIF (another acronym) Reading is Fundamental!

2. Sorry, I did not think that # 1 thought would be so long, but it was. That comment was not part of #2. I am really excited about our dinner tonight. Chicken tacos (outta the crock pot)

Boneless skinless chicken in the crock pot- 4-6 pieces

empty a packet of taco seasoning over chicken

dump a jar o salsa over the chicken and seasoning

crock pot setting 4-6 hours on high

The chicken will be falling apart when you pull it out.

Put it on a tortilla or a taco shell. Add your favorite toppings (cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream, onions, jalapenos.... whatev!)

Your Sunday could be a lil bit better if you made Pollo (that means chicken) Crockpoto (that just means crock pot) Taco (this is just taco). Make it. Eat it.. Enjoy it.. Your family will Love it!!

3. My daddy is going to China tomorrow and then Vietnam later in the week. Praying for safe travels for him. Geez, I will miss him! (As I type this, I realize that this should be #1 request, but I am unsure how to place it above pollo crockpoto tacos and books). So imagine it is #1.

4. I am the playgroup coordinator for a group of women from my church. I just realized that I totally FAILED to organize playgroup for last week. Oops! Hopefully, those women and their children got together and played somewhere. Really, I could be the worst event email sender ever! I try. I promise!

5. I have fed my children chicken nuggets way to many times this week. Seriously, if they could talk and have deep conversations with me (which they do babble and stuff, but I don't get it... all of the time), I think that they would throw the nugget plate across the room and then demand a mommy that is more concerned about them having a more well balanced diet that would exclude the nugget of a chicken.

6. Did yal watch Grey's Anatomy last Thursday? Do yal watch Grey's Anatomy anymore? Well, I still watch and am so sicked out by Owen (the chief) who slept with some other woman... really cheated on Christina (the heart thoracic surgeon or is it thoracic heart surgeon). Anyways, really Owen, ya ain't that attractive and you are just making me crazy. Also, I am patiently waiting for McSteamy doc and lil Grey to get back together. So, if the Grey's writer... Shonda something or other could make that happen a wee bit quicker.. I would appreciate it.

7. As of late, I have started watching a MTV show, Awkward. I heart Jenna Hamilton and Matty. Does anyone watch this show. I know that I am way to old to be watching this show and too old to be watching MTV, but it makes me feel young again, and with two toddlers, saggy boobs, and a loss of my young girlish figure, the funny love stories of high school kids makes me laugh!

8. Today, I took both children with me to the Wal-Mart. Hold on... I need a moment. Apart from the crying because Brayden got his finger stuck in the front of the cart, some smashed strawberries underneath Sophia's feet, a cough attack in mid walk (which left me unable to cross my legs) and then caused me to pee my pants, and a 1/2 eaten bag of EL Fudge stripped cookies, I would say that the grocery shopping trip was a near success. Women (and men if you read this blog), sing praises to the women with multiple children in their shopping carts at the store, they probably would appreciate the extra encouragement. Do not stare at them and roll your eyes as if they could be cast an extra in a drive thru town circus. In all of that chaos, I ran into a woman that I had not seen in years, years yal, like when I was younger I just knew for positive that I was gonna marry her son (that obvi did not happen because I met my hunka hunka burnin' love), but I saw her and she just looked the same as I always remember her. She was probably thinking... glad my son didn't hop on that bus! Ha! (I normally hate looking a mess and running into people at the store, but today, I guess all of that went out the winder).

9. Does anyone home school anymore? Is this a thing of the past? I am trying to think of things that I could do with my lil red. We do letters, few numbers, talk about animals, colors, and shapes. Just curious.. does anyone know of a really great curriculum for pre-school/ toddlers? Anyone? Anyone?

10. My list of Things To Do is ever increasing and not a lot of crossing things off of the list. Are you like that? Well, my projects include: paint laundry room (Aron wants red, but I am not loving that idea), paint bathroom cabinets and the walls, make my backyard look like something P.Allen has had his gardening gloves all over, paint bedroom, when the funds allow it find a new comforter (our other one wreeks of 2006, and has a few stains that could be old baby spit up or spilled coca cola, and with its last wash has come undone on two corners.. it's a mess!), then paint my kitchen cabinets!! Did I mention there are 29 cabinet doors and 13 cabinet drawers that are in my kitchen! That's a lotta work, but I am a woman with big dreams of a kitchen with the most beautiful painted and distressed looking cabinets ya ever could see!

11. Lil Red has fallen asleep on my lap as I type out #11. She smells like soap and pepperidge farm cheddar goldfish. I really do love her!!

Happy 30th Baby Brother!

Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday to Richard!

Happy Birthday to YOU!

Today, my youngest brother has turned 30, the BIG 3-0!

We love you so much, and a day without you is... not any fun!!

Happy memories for your 30th birthday celebration at the Flying Fish!

Spending My Days with Red and Bear

I do not have a big post prepared for the day, but I did want to post a few pics of the kids for their Bucky and Mossy (these are the great grandparents yal). What do you call your grandparents? Sophia calls my parents, Honey (cause she sweet) and G-Daddy (ghetto, I know, but we like it!). I call my grandparents, Moss and Bucky (he used to be Poss, then we called him PopPop, other cousins call him grandfather (and that seems so formal?), I had a wonderful and amazing MamMaw and PapPaw, then there were the greats called MawMaw and PawPaw, and my sweet Mimi. TMI, I know, but some people have asked who is this Bucky and what is a Moss, thus the conversation! Anyways, for my peeps in the big beautiful VA... pictures of the wee babes!

Some of my favorite reds...Baby Bear showing us his teeth!

Red and the biggest blue eyes eva!Baby Bear and his baseball uniform... it makes his daddy happy!

I just wanted to document this day for myself, but some of my most precious friends are in a feva... BABY FEVER, that is.

March 20th, my friends Kristin and Chris welcomed sweetie pie Stella Monroe (doesn't that sound like movie star material..? Yal, I think that we will see that name in lights one day!)

Today, my Erin and her husband Jason welcomed handsome Lukas Ryder (sounds tough and rough, right?!)

Then, out of the blue, my long time friend....... (she will remain nameless) sent me a ultrasound picture, saying that I will be an Auntie! Love, smiles, and some tears (and it was only 8:30 this morning!)

Babies are such a blessing. I am so lucky to have two, and now to just see my friends share in this happiness is such a beautiful thing. GOD IS SO GOOD!

Gettin' a lil' nervous.... most fevers are contagious, and seeing these bundles of chubby cheeks and rolly polly legs is not makin' it easy on a girl like myself!! Just sayin!

Easter 2012 continued....

And there were more bunny sightings, people egg hunting, more picture taking, and more precious stuff that just needed to be documented!

Gotta love pictures of my bunnies!