First official day of home preschool

Ever since leaving my job last fall I've been immersing myself in the blogs of homeschooling moms in an attempt to develop a plan for Tyler and I.  One in particular has been an absolutely fantastic resource: 1plus1plus1equals1.  I've gotten so very many ideas, downloads, and links to great resources from her.  She's got a little guy about the same age as Tyler.  She used to be a Kindergarten teacher in public school so has lots of resources and ideas from that time in her life.

This morning T and I started off with some color and animal sorting disguised as trying to find all the pieces to the UNO Moo game he got for Christmas.  This is a wonderful game for preschoolers.  There are so many great things to do with it in addition to playing it as it was designed.  We sorted all the pieces into color-coordinated bowls and then found the matching animals from each color and discovered that we were missing a green pig.  Then I got out some tongs to exercise some different muscles.





Next we worked on several items from the Fireman activity pack found on Homeschool Creations.  I supplemented this with another Christmas gift: a giant firetruck floor puzzle from Melissa & Doug (one of the best toy companies around).  After building the puzzle, Tyler likes to sit on it and pretend he's riding to a fire.  He wanted me to drive.  We hopped on and then walked down the hall to put out a fire in Annali's room.  I picked up a red tube from our musical instrument stash and pretended that was our fire house.  We got out a step stool to be our ladder.  We put on bicycle helmets to be our firefighter helmets.  Tyler got a blanket for the people inside the burning building so their clothes wouldn't smell like smoke.  He's such a considerate boy!  I wish I would have gotten pictures but I chose to be in the moment instead.  So fun!!



Tyler's attention span was running out of steam so we took a break and he watched 101 Dalmatians.  After lunch we played with our Math Link cubes and another print out from another print out from 1plus1.  The page was meant to be used with pom poms but we matched up our cubes instead.






Right now he's playing with a plush nativity set we picked up from Mardel yesterday.  Great bargain at 75% off; however, I just realized we are missing Joseph so we'll have to trek back out to the store soon to make an exchange!  Next we'll be taking a nap.

A good first day!!

PS: Tyler is 49.5 months old

Our newest pet

Slimy up close
Originally uploaded by Qcaller

Do you like him? We found the shell at the park today. I assumed it was empty but after I had carried it for a bit, I noticed a dark blog sticking out. We brought it home and fed him (her?) some leaves and named him Slimy. All four of us got very excited when he finally started coming out of his shell.

The same, and yet, completely different

Hellooooo!  Anybody out there?  Not sure if anyone still has this blog on their radar.  Between my crazy job and my personal crazy (depression) all my creative energy just got sucked right out of me over the past year.  There's been no blogging and almost no digi scrapping.

I'm still battling depression and probably always will to one degree or another.  However, this Fall I am starting on a new season of life.  I quit that all-consuming job to focus on sanity and family.  I've been working 15 hours a week for the past month (loving that!!) and will quit completely on 10/21 after training my replacement for a total of 15 hours.  Hope she's a fast learner.

Annali started Kindergarten this fall and is quietly brilliant.  Somehow I got elected head room mother and will be coordinating the fall classroom party over the next couple weeks.  After I completely quit working, Tyler and I are going to be holding preschool here at home.  He's also going to speech therapy and Kindermusik.  We'll be searching out lots of fun, FREE activities around town.  Alex is working tons of overtime to make up for my loss of income.   He has been my rock throughout my personal struggles.  I couldn't ask for a better husband or kids.

Money is the thing that scares me the most about this new phase of our life.  I want to be frugal without making my kids feel poor.  We are all going to be learning new habits.  We've been much too loose with our money and have often given in to buying worthless trinkets for the kids.  I've been totally inspired by a blog called Filth Wizardry into exploring our creativity and using things we have on hand already.  My friends at work blessed us with a gift card to W@l-M@rt.  Today we stocked up on some art supplies to supplement the recycling bin.  I'm looking forward to lots of creative fun with the kids.

Wishing you all the best,

Pam

Wild Things

Alex and the kids were having a silly time with all the stuffed animals.  They kept egging him on to pile "more, Daddy, more!!"  I just love listening to the kids being silly with their Daddy.  I love watching him be an awesome father.

Digiscrap Credits:  Papers and elements from Jungle Boogie by Kay Miller.  This started from a template by Misty Cato but was altered significantly.

Tyler2008Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

testing

testing a new feature

Shoot the pig

Well today was Study Day 0 in our participation with the sw!ne f1u vaccine trial. Both kids had examinations, blood draws, and shots. Tyler was a trooper and very quickly got over the trauma of the needles. Miss Thing, on the other hand, was quite upset. It didn't help that I had told her a few days ago that there would be shots involved. She worried herself to tears for several days and then was tense every time someone walked into the exam room. While we were waiting to be randomized (apparently involving faxes back and forth to Wash DC study HQ) she fell asleep crying that she didn't want any shots. When they finally brought up the vaccine, she awoke to Tyler crying while getting his shot. Next thing she knew, she was being held down to receive her shot. Not a wonderful afternoon for anyone, including PoPo who was a trooper about entertaining and distracting the kids. We all survived and now they can tell Daddy what brave kiddos they were. Only 2 more blood draws and one more shot to get through. They are definitely earning their study stipends. Now on to our daily diary documenting temperatures and degrees of irritability. Right now they are laughing and jumping into a pile of pillows so I don't think anyone is wounded for life.

TTFN