Tracing and School Projects

When Lily was 2, we started working on writing. Well, Iris turned 2 at the end of October and we are currently working on tracing lines. The main problem that I am having is having her hold the marker or crayon correctly. We had this same problem with her spoon and fork. Thankfully, it's not a very big deal and she's doing quite well if you ask me.

As I've mentioned before, as well as homeschooling, Lily is going to a private preschool here in town. I wanted to post all of her art projects that she does throughout the school year. She goes to a Lutheran school and for September the theme of the month was being "Fishers of Men." I don't remember the whole parable and whatnot that goes with that, but she did have a lot of fun. One thing that I forgot to add to the photo was this little water bottle that she had filled with sand, little plastic fish and blue water. It's super cute and up still as a decoration.

In October they did fall and Halloween themes as well as transportation. They worked on fire safety as well and Lily came home reminding me to stop, drop and roll if my clothes ever caught fire. Last month was Thanksgiving themed and they worked a lot on turkeys. The black feather used to have a little red headband to go with it but the girls fought over it and it fell off.

I have a bunch of other things she has worked on at school as well as the activities she brings for home, such as her Weekly Reader. I'm looking into seeing if I can acquire the WR after she's down with preschool for our homeschool sessions.

Corduroy Lapbook

Today was our first attempt at lap-booking. Until about last week when I joined a yahoo homeschoolers' group, I had no clue there was even anything called a lapbook. And only a couple of days ago did I actually *know* what it was. So, thanks to the lovely help from the HomeschoolShare website, we were able to try out their activities and try our first lapbook exercise.


This assignment was on the book Corduroy by Don Freeman (one of my favorites from childhood!) Lily had a lot of fun working on it, and it took a great deal of time for all the gluing and coloring and cutting. We enjoyed ourselves very much. Though we are a pretty secular bunch (mixed religions) I really enjoyed the Bible verse that was added to this activity and shared it with Lily, who agreed that it was a very wise proverb.


The mystery toy game was played by not only writing words for the clues but pictures. We had a fun time with that, and lily was super excited that she found the right toy with all the clues given. We actually did this a couple of times with different clues and toys than the one posted.


All in all, we had a fun time doing this and I am very much going to continue using lapbooks as a teaching and learning tool.

About Us

*waves* Hi there! It's Vonnie! I am 23 years old and I have three beautiful daughters between the ages of 4 months and 4 years that I have been teaching since birth. My husband and I first came to the decision of homeschooling when Lily, my oldest who will be 4 on December 26th, showed signs of brilliance. She was very ahead in many areas academically and was easily bored with the activities of other children her age. As she got older, we encouraged learning with fun activities and she has mastered a lot of things that most children her age have not.

My husband is incredibly intelligent, and I, though not as bright as my husband, was also a "gifted" student. Academically we were miserable in school. We did not feel challenged and learned very little through the public school system. Most of what we know now we taught ourselves growing up out of boredom. We were very hands-on kids who needed to have fun in learning to continue to excel. We did not get that at all from our experiences in public school.

Currently, Lily is attending a private preschool. She enjoys it very much, but for her, it's more of a social gathering than anything else. The things that are being taught in class for the three-year-olds are colors, and shapes, and the basics, which Lily was taught at least a year ago. Iris, my 2 year old, already knows what they are teaching in her sister's preschool. Though Lily is attending a class three days a week, we supplement her with other activities using worksheets and workbooks, and different forms of play. She works with the basics; reading, writing, and arithmetic, and we also add in secondary languages (Spanish and American Sign Language) and music. Whatever she brings home from school we use together to help her younger sister learn, too. Until I can find a good support group so that she can still have a bit of socializing with children her age, we are currently just winging it and letting her enjoy her preschool.

This blog was created to post pictures and progress of all the things we do. I'm trying different things until next year when I start a formal program with her since she is getting closer to compulsory school age.

I have another daughter, Rose, who is currently 4 months old.

xv: Labor and Delivery

Oh, holy crap, has it been three weeks already?! Well, I was waiting to be well-rested, so it's no surprise it's taken me this long.

As you already know, Rose came to this world on July 31. I was unable to have a vaginal birth as I had hoped. She was delivered through a scheduled cesarean at 7:28am. Now the funny bit was that I woke up at 2 that morning leaking amniotic fluid, but after two hours nothing else seemed to be happening so I went to the hospital for my surgery as planned since I had to leave at 4:30 anyway to get there before 5.

So I'm set and ready to go, jostling on the operating table, coughing because one of the surgeons is leaning against me. Someone was stuck and DID NOT want to come out. Here's a nurse and a surgical tech leaning back on their heels holding open my incision, and the surgeon and my OBGYN fighting with Rose who was refusing to come out. They were there for several minutes struggling with her because she was lodged in there tight. As soon as she was out she began screaming. She was an ounce away from being 8 pounds, being my fattest baby. I, being doped up on anesthesia and God knows what else, was an emotional wreck and started crying, so happy that I had another beautiful baby girl. Rose was pissed and just kept glaring at everyone after she finished crying.

I wasn't able to see her for a little over an hour. Her billirubin levels were a little high and they kept needing to check her blood. When I told them I had acquired the jKa antigen during my last pregnancy it seemed to calm my OBGYN a bit and they just checked Rose's blood daily to make sure she didn't continue having blood problems.

My stay at the hospital was great. Everyone was fantastic. I had three nurses and they were all up my ass trying to get me to stay in bed and rest. I was doped up on lortab and ibuprofen and kept getting out of bed and walking around and doing things and not sleeping. But I did rest. Kristen, Jere and Shelly took Rose frequently when she fussed a lot. They just loved her. There was only one other baby there who was jaundiced and so was stuck under the UV lights most of the time. Rose was either being cuddled by nurses, me, or eating. Even my doctor bought her a cute little yellow outfit with a large pink butterfly. She thought the yellow would look great with her skin tone. ;)

Now, things have calmed down a lot. My friend Meg baby-sat the girls while Justin and I were at the hospital and my mother-in-law was with us that first week which was great. I got all the rest I needed while she watched Lily and Iris or cuddled with Rose. Justin had taken that entire week off as well. I think most of us just caught up on much needed sleep. The second week was spent me trying to do my daily routine with an extra child—which was hard since I was so tired. My stress management skills need a lot of work. LOL. This third week my mother and brother surprised us with a visit and took care of the house while I modified my schedule with Rose, which I think I have finally gotten down. She was sleeping more during the day than she was at night. I think I have successfully turned it around.

She sleeps well, in four hour blocks at night. During the day she eats every two to three hours for 20 to 30 minutes each. She's almost 9lbs now and well over 21 inches long. She's the biggest one of my children so far. LOL. My back hurts from toting her around. I use my baby carrier a lot, which is nice.

And now I leave you with a super cute picture. :D

xiv: It's A Girl!

Rose Amelie
7/31/09 7:28am
7lbs 15oz 20in

(more info to come)

xiii:

Pregnancy: Had an OB appointment on Friday and was told I need to get an ultrasound done because the baby has been measuring too small. She's seems to be growing just fine to me. I can feel her regularly and I know for a fact she's big enough to shove her feet into my lungs as she does it frequently. However, my OBGYN wants to make sure she is developing just fine so Monday I have to make an appointment with the u/s tech to get measurements and proper sonogram pictures. I know our last "official" ultrasound was in February and that then Rose was measuring just fine. I'm not really worried about it. I'm not exactly "big" by any standard except maybe to someone with Dwarfism. Lily was incredibly tall, and still is. Iris was pretty average and still seems to be. Rose seems to have gotten the short gene from me. Poor kid. LOL

Anyway, my due date is in 2 days. I'm still going to be trying for a vaginal birth after a cesarean. My OB (who had a successful experience with this on her second pregnancy and who is not much larger than I am) is very confident. Either way, they won't let me go any further than 42 weeks so I scheduled a cesarean for July 31 at 7 am. So if I haven't contacted anybody before then with "please welcome to the family..." you'll know when she'll be here.

Iris: My family has a lot of skin problems, from Eczema, sensitivity, and just very dry skin. I am thankful that I only have a mild form of this, but still have to use certain lotions and treatments in certain areas. Unfortunately, Iris seems to have inherited this unpleasant condition. She currently now has a staph infection on her scalp. Apparently her scalp had become irritated at one point and she kept scratching at it. It then escalated when she scratched so much she broke skin. Then when it started to scab over she continued to scratch until it got infected. I had thought that maybe she had hit her head on the coffee table (which she has done numerous times) and those were just a result of a mishap. So I had cleaned them and left them alone checking up on them daily. On the third day, Friday, J and I realized that they had doubled in size so I took her to the doctor that afternoon and was prescribed some penecillin to get rid of the infection. *sigh* This poor kid. No matter how well we take care of her skin something always seems to pop up and get infected.

She's also been having nightmares. She'll wake up in the middle of the night calling for me. At first I thought it was just her teeth since she's getting all her molars at the same time, but last night I had given her pain medication for her teeth and she still clung to me (she's a mama's girl). She wouldn't let go of me for well over an hour or she'd start screaming. I had to literally lay my 150lb pregnant self in this toddler bed with her until she fell asleep. Every like 5-10 minutes she would suddenly wake and slap me in the chest just to make sure I was still there. I couldn't leave until she was knocked out and rolled away from me.

Lily: We were doing great with night-time potty training. She had been waking up and telling me when she had to pee. She had only had a few accidents here and there. Then the accidents became more frequent, almost every other day. And now it's gotten to the point where it's every day again. I've reminded her to call me if she has to go, which she does just fine when she's awake. But when she's knocked out she doesn't even notice. I even wake her up after an accident and ask her if she wet herself and even though she's completely soaked in urine, she still says no and is surprised when I wake her up enough to realize she's wet. I don't know what else to do. I've tried waking her up and taking her to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but that obviously hasn't worked. I'm just so tired now to even begin to think of something else to try other than putting her back in trainers at night time and I don't want to. :(

xii: One Week+ To Go

I had an OB appointment yesterday. All is well. Rose is still vertex but I'm not doing any dilating or effacing yet. My doctor give me an herbal remedy (evening primrose oil) to help my body going to into labor naturally without getting chemically induced or using anything synthetic. I still scheduled a cesarean for July 31 just in case, though. We'll see what happens.

Today is the one week point on time left. I've been keeping busy with cleaning all the things for the girls so by the time Rose gets here, I think the only thing we will have to do is a sink full of dishes, though I've tried to keep those well under control. All the things for the baby are ready and now it's just a waiting game.

There isn't much to report. Everything with the girls is pretty much the same. Iris is her weird self, and Lily had a physical on Friday. She needed one for her pre-school application; all went well. She is in excellent condition, and has 20/20 vision. J and I were cracking up trying to keep up with Lily on the vision exam; yeah, we are so blind. ;)

I just want this baby to hurry up and get here already.