Joe's Soccer Finale

Joe had his last soccer game of the Spring Season Saturday morning. He has played much better this season. He's been alot better about attitude, team participation and aggressiveness when it comes to getting in the middle of "the pack" to take the ball and run with it. I look forward to watching him improve more in the Fall and enjoyed watching him play this Spring too. He was so excited and proud to get his trophy:-). Below is his Spring '09 picture and a picture I took of him with his trophy.

Butterflies With Hanna

Every year since Hanna was 5 we have watched caterpillars go through the process of making a cocoon and then hatching into butterflies/moths. This is something she loves and is still fascinated by (me too!). Joe now enjoys watching this process along with Hanna. A few weeks ago Hanna found lots of caterpillars and she put them into her various "bug" keepers and butterfly tent so we could start the process.

We noticed today that four of them had hatched. We never know if our caterpillars will hatch into butterflies or moths. We usually end up with some of each every year. So far these have been moths and I assume since all the caterpillars looked the same the rest will be moths too.

I noticed earlier this evening that there are already a few more starting to hatch out of their cocoons!

Bird Watching At The Zoo

We went to the zoo today for a little science related bird watching. I wasn't sure how into it Joe would actually be. He surprised me again! He loved looking for the birds and tallying them on his bird color sheet we took along with us. After he looked at all of the birds in the exhibits he started looking for them in the sky, bushes and everywhere else as we walked along.

As we looked at the birds we talked about their homes, habitats and what he liked about each one. We also used this time at the zoo to make sure we looked at all of the "Bb" animals.

When we got home Joe counted the tally marks on his bird color sheet to see which color bird he saw the most. He also did an activity from his Bird/Cat lapbook about "camouflage". We took turns hiding birds around the room trying to camouflage them as we hid them and then pretended to be cats looking for them. The whole "bird/cat predator scenario" that we will learn more about next week.) All of this can be found in the lesson that accompanies the Bird/Cat lapbook.

Zoo Trip

I took the boys to the zoo this morning. They both had a good time. We didn't look at all of the animals. I just let Joe pick what he wanted to look at and we took our time, it was nice for a change to stroll through casually without walking the whole zoo. It's really fun right now to watch Jack's expressions as he sees the animals. He'll scout out the exhibits and then you can just see his face light up when he discovers the animal inside it. His favorites today were the colorful birds, a few of the small monkeys and the zebras. He watched the zebras for a long time, laughing and pointing at them saying, "See, See". Joe was really good with him today. He "explained" alot to him about the animals, really cute and sweet. The weather was perfect and we all had a great time. I didn't take too many pictures today. (All of the ones I did take are posted on my homeschool blog.) Here is one of Joe and Jack I got that turned out pretty good.

More Park Pics and My American Girl

We went to the park yet again after lunch today. We have still been making this a part of our (almost) daily routine. The boys are both having a blast playing and we've enjoyed meeting and playing with friends and going to different parks each day. We've also had a couple "picnic suppers" at the park which have been a nice change and fun for our whole family since Jamie and Hanna can both join us.

Today we went to Hollywood Park. We kind of forgot this park even existed. Over the weekend Jamie remembered it and suggested we go there for a change. We drove around for quite some time looking for it unsuccessfully. Thanks to my friend, Hannah, we rediscovered Hollywood Park's almost hidden location and enjoyed playing there today. This park is kind of tucked back behind pretty shrubs and flowers and a partial brick wall. The play equipment is off to one side complete with a fairly tall rock climbing wall and there is a large, grassy open area nice for picnics/kicking a ball around on the right side of the park. It's also nice because they have a couple different equipment setups--one for older kids that will even satisfy Hanna and a really small one perfect for little ones like Jack.

Joe had fun playing on everything and kicking his soccer ball around with Jack as well. He also picked some flowers and shared a couple with me. (The boys are really hot in these pictures, hence their red cheeks and sweaty heads:-).)

Jack had fun on the "little" equipment and the riding horse. He spent alot of his time playing and digging in the sand with sticks. In this last picture of Jack he decided he'd had enough and parked himself against the brick wall for a rest.

Lastly, tonight Hanna wanted a picture with one of her American Girl dolls and their matching PJ's. She looks adorable! We've had a great start to our week. Looking forward to doing lots fun things throughout the rest our week and weekend!

At the Park With My Boys

After lunch today I took Joe and Jack to the park to play for a while. They both had lots of fun. I got a few pictures. The one of the two of them together they both have goofy looks on their faces, especially Joe, he was so winded from running like crazy the whole time we were there. It was a pretty informative trip for me and a really fun one for Joe. Jack has fun anywhere we go. He's just happy to run/walk around and explore all of his surroundings. Joe had fun because there was a fair amount of kids there and he immediately went up and introduced himself by name (this is his routine when we go to the park and there are other kids there) and asked if they wanted to play. He played tag and chase with these kids the entire time. It was informative for me because one of the families there was a homeschool family and we talked alot about curriculums and I learned some helpful things/websites for future use. This mom has five kids and has homeschooled for 12 years now and brought three babies home during this time, very, very encouraging for me!!

On a side note--I started Joe's homeschool "preschool" with him this week. I decided I wanted to get into this school routine with him a few months before I start and incorporate Hanna's school routine into it as well. He is loving it so far! So eager to learn and he loves doing all the things I have planned for him each morning. When we finish each morning he looks at me and asks, "Is that all?" Today after we finished I asked him what his favorite thing was we did today was and he answered, "Everything sweetheart." It is definitely a positive start. I have pictures to post of our week of it that I'll post this weekend. For anyone interested, I found a great totally FREE preschool and 5K curriculum on a website (Brightly Beaming) that is listed in my sidebar. I am using this for his 4K year along with some other info I've gathered from the Homeschool Creations site also listed in my sidebar. I am so excited about homeschool. I have loved planning and working with Joe and can hardly wait to start with Hanna!

Memories

Jamie got me a printer this past week. I haven't had a decent printer in a few years and I've really been wanting one to print out homeschool materials. He brought one home last week, an all-in-one. I was really excited because it has a scanner on it. I've wanted a scanner for awhile now to scan old pictures of Hanna and Jamie and myself from when we were dating. I'd like to go back and scrapbook certain things and can do it now. Anyway....I figured out the scanner today and decided to look through old pictures and scan a few. Since I have lots of pictures of Jack on my blog as a baby and a good many of Joe to in my slideshow I scanned baby pictures of Hanna. She is so grown up and the time has passed in the blink of an eye!!

This is a picture of Hanna when she was two months old the day she was blessed. Her gown was beautiful and she looked like an angel in it. My mom had this gown made for her, it's beautiful.

Here is one of her at her first birthday party getting her first taste of cake. She LOVED it!!

Here are a few more of her. In the last one she is about 8 months old and the first two are between the age of one and two.

Here is one more of Joe. He was a little over one. We were at a picnic for Hanna's school and he had just finished a cookie. I love this picture of him. I love pictures, they capture memories we would otherwise never remember.