Weekly Wrap Up: Homeschool when Mom's Down

Our homeschool this week: Mom's back is out so I've been playing with photo filters and I love seeing how black and white can really change the feel of an image. I did manage to take Mr. T to see The Velveteen Rabbit at the CPVA in Newnan. It was a great show and he sat through (minus one potty break) all 50 minutes! He even waved bye bye to the bunnies.

This is major progress and for you moms with 2-3 year olds, bite the bullet and start them early WITHOUT technology. If you want your kiddos to learn how to sit still and use their big kid manners, teach them from the beginning. If you provide an iPhone at 2 and 3, at 13 you will wonder why they can't get through a church service without "entertainment". Do the hard (and sometimes embarrassing) work when they are little. If you have to get up and leave after 20 minutes, celebrate the 20 minutes and shoot for 30 next time. It will pay off!

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LEGO's! They are wonderful For speech practice, for encouraging reading, and for keeping little minds occupied while riding in the car. The creativity that these blocks bring out in children is wonderful. The DUPLO Read and Build sets are so cute and lots of fun as the story shows your little one how to build the characters!

Brothers: We have had a huge amount of sibling bonding. I would love some tips to encourage this to continue.

Family: We had family portraits made by the lovely Katie Snyder, Atlanta Photographer. Mr. F fell asleep on the way there. It was the first real family portraits we've had made since I was 7 weeks pregnant with Mr. F. They were a tad overdue. While we can't afford professional portraits all the time, I do want to be more intentional about making sure the 4 of us are photographed together more. Is there something you are trying to be more intentional about?

Phonics apps are wonderful and we got this one when it was on sale, but it is totally worth the $19.99! Phonics and Reading with McGuffey is one of Mr. T's favorite things to do on the iPad. Another great homeschool investment. There are so many great apps, I really believe it pays for itself in the workbooks and toner and paper it saves.

Mr. F is enjoying lots of fun sensory play and Montessori activities. He loves our Melissa and Doug puzzles. And playing peek a boo. Our read aloud time currently include Raggedy Andy Stories . They are so sweet and I just love reading them. The boys play quietly and I think they like the time together.

Gluten Free: We found Glutino Toaster Pasteries. GF pop tarts. Oh my! I was so exited and Mr. T loves them! Yay for a new treat!

What fun things did you do in your homeschool this week?

Organizing The School Room Wrap Up

This week: Organizing the Homeschool Room! And Decorating the boys' bedroom. I finally decided to go ahead and do what I could with what we've got and I will just keep on keepin on with all the lovely projects as time and funds become available.

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I got crafty with the glue gun, some scrap fabric and a couple fern pieces we got 50% off at Hobby Lobby. I wanted to make a cute book basket for the boys bedroom and the canvas scrap I had was perfect! I think it looks adorable between their matching rockers. The basket was actually part of a lovely gift from Mr. T's baby shower. My how time flies!

There are a few things worth keeping your 3 year old up way past their 7:30 bedtime for. Chasing fireflys is definitely one of them. Mr. T had the biggest time chasing down the bugs, and we even found (ick, I touched it! Major milestone for this boy mom!) a tiny frog in the front yard. You can see the little guy below. Mr. T was very gentle with the firefly he caught and when we were finished we let them all go from his Sunny Patch Bug House and he thought that was really amazing.

On the gluten free front this week, I baked a YUMMY loaf of bread! So exciting! And we are doing better with converting regular recipes to gluten free, too. It's trial and error but if it keeps Mr. T healthy it is worth it!

I finished the birdhouse as Mr. J requested in Rock City fashion. I forgot to put away the paint pen and Mr. T was so proud of the two letter "t"s he drew and his squiggle that I couldn't even get upset. I'm thrilled that he loves to write and draw so much!

The aforementioned frog. Cute, right?

And the biggest reason I haven't been on much this week. The homeschool room which is still Mr. F's bedroom and also the playroom. The closet is on the honey-do list of Mr. J. Full built in shelves on one side and a very cool reading nook on the other. I'm thinking it may be Poky Puppy themed. I want the boys to have a quiet retreat where they can hang out when they need some alone time.

You can't see much of it, but one of my absolute favorite things is on top of the book shelf in the picture. A laminator. If you have preschoolers you need one! This is the one I have: Scotch Thermal Laminator 2 Roller System (TL901)    I love it! And it's on sale on Amazon Prime right now, too!

The chair is mine for read aloud time. There is also a Cars rug that is designated "sit here" space during read aloud time. If you want some great read aloud suggestions, The Read-Aloud Handbook is the place to find them! 

Mr. F is growing and teething. He is also a bed hog. We are hoping and praying that his teeth come through and he returns to sleeping better very soon!

We had some super sweet friends, Mary and her little G, stop by and they brought us lots of goodies and we were able to have tea for a few minutes and chat. Mr. T played with the Magnetic Dress-Up Doll for the rest of the day! We got lots of delightful books to go through and find room on the shelves for, too. I feel like books are one thing you can't have too many of. Do you agree?

We have 2 of those cafe chairs. They are not aging well, so I'm in the process of recovering and repadding the cushions and refinishing the wood. And with two boys, it is definitely a process! Did I mention I'm also refinishing out kitchen table top? It's a summer of projects!

I love having people over for tea. It's as much about the cups and saucers and scones and the warm fuzzy feeling of settling down to really share a moment with someone as it is the tea. Though good tea is as important as good chocolate and I have long been a loyal sipper of Republic of Tea! You should check them out! The Blackberry Sage is amazing!

I hope you have a blessed weekend!
Lara

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2 Week Wrap Up

We've been busy and having fun! Mr. J and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on April 26th!  I can't believe it's been 5 years! We took a trip to Nashville to see B. B. King at the Nashville Symphony. It was awesome! And we got to stop by the LEGO Masterbuild (you can see that below) and I think we may have another LEGO fanatic on our hands! (Mr. J is a LEGO maniac from waaaaaaaaay back ;)

Our yard is exploding with awesome nature finds! We have seen Luna Moths (I am thinking I may catch one to preserve), our tulip poplar bloomed, my roses are blooming and I have a very few fushia blooms left. Mr. T is really developing a love of nature and of gardening with me. I hope I can foster that into many years of enjoying God's creation for him.

We took a field trip to Whitley's Berry Farm. Ya'll, we picked 5 1/2 pounds of strawberries! But we must go back and pick some more. Last year we did Strawberry honey jam. This year we will do that again, strawberry apple sauce, and strawberry pie filling I hope! Mr. T did such an awesome job! Mr. F was riding somewhat happily on my back in the ERGO . If you have an infant or young toddler and don't have an Ergo, you should! They are awesome. So are the strawberries from Whitley's!

Goose!

The mural in the boys room is coming along slowly. It's difficult to work on it with them in the room, and you can see Mr. T's bed. So I can't work on it after he's asleep. It will get done, eventually. We saw the neighborhood Goose while waiting to go in for Mr. T's speech therapy. Mr. F isn't a big fan of geese. And we've been playing with sidewalk chalk to help Mr. T get more into the whole writing thing.

Mr. F turned 9 months old on the 29th! Where has that time gone? He's such a sweet little thing and his budding personality is that of a ham and a charmer. Definitely a winning combo! And Mr. T LOVES his baby brother so much! 98.5% of the time, anyway. He likes to help push the stroller and get diapers and feed him, and it's such a blessing to have a little helper even if it gets messy sometimes. I think a lot of his helpfulness is due to the Montessori learning we do!

Mr. T aslo has a keen fashion sense. I should take some lessons, I think!

Here's the LEGO action! The build was for monuments, cities, or landmarks. We let Mr. T build whatever and he made a boat. So we deemed it the Charleston Naval Yard and to the LEGO USA Charleston it went!

Charleston Navel Yard in place!

I also got to review an awesome parenting book, Parenting the QBQ Way and have a giveaway here!

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Friday Wrap Up

We've had a fun week! I meant to get this up earlier today, but we had an eventful boo-boo filled morning so I just added a picture of that below :)

We had a lot of fun exploring outside this week! Mr. T has been working so hard on his motor skills with his occupational therapist! At Christmas he had difficulty pedaling his bike more than one rotation forward and this week he was pedaling like a champ! We went for a couple nature walks and our neighborhood has been overtaken by caterpillars I have yet to sit down and identify but Mr. T loved pointing and petting them! And we are putting a jungle mural on the wall in the boys room and I sketched out the two love birds so mommy and daddy could be part of the mural, too. The boys are represented by two monkeys :)

We had a new visitor this week at our feeder on the deck! I have to tell you that out of all our field guides the iBird Yard app is my favorite! It's worth the $2.99! We are going to make a picture list of all our regular diners and when Mr. T is a little older we can learn more about each one! One fun game is that you can hear their calls through the app and play it for the birds to see if they will answer back.

Mr. T was walked into his preschool by daddy which was a big treat for him! He's also a big fan of books and he was reading Night Night Blessings this week before bed. It's a sweet little book from Tommy Nelson! And I finally got him to eat sweet potatoes some other way than baked! This is a major accomplishment.

And here are pics from this mornings debacle. Mr. F fell and scraped above his eye on the rocking chair. Mr. T decided Mr. F needed a band aid. He applied it and kissed the boo-boo, then not to be left out he pretend banged his head on the wall and told me he needed a bandaid. I applied and kisssed his "boo-boo", he proceeded to play with brother and all was right with the world. Whew. Is it nap time yet? :)

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Wrap up number 2 - Collage Friday

We have had a great 2 weeks! Here are some highlights! Mr. T looked dashing for picture day at his preschool where he goes 2 half days a week. It has been so great for his speech and learning more about boundaries. We got to visit daddy at work and saw Seussical, which was awesome! I made gunny butterflies for Mr. T's class for my day to bring snack. You seriously should make them, they are delish! (And I found it on pinterest, you can find it here). And then Mr. T decided to roll the house with paper towels. Did I mention I'm trying to be much slower to speak and to anger? We are doing the Beth Moore James study at church. Boy is is awesome, and boy do I have a lot of work to do!

Some cute moments with Mr. F and me. He's so precious and he loves blowing raspberries right now! It's adorable, and very wet. Especially with all the slobber from teething.

These are my favorites from our butterfly unit. We've had such a great time with it! I'm thinking a nice art intensive unit for the rest of spring. Mr. T is quite a painter.

I took a weekend off facebook and most social media and I painted. It's been years since I painted, but I really needed to let off some creative steam. I find that to be an area I'm lacking since I (gladly) gave up wedding design to be a full time mommy to my boys. It was fun, but I'd like to see if I'm still any good with oils and that will take longer than one weekend!

We collected lots of goodies on a nature walk, and Mr. T got his first boo boo of the summer. He loves his BandAngels!I think they are pretty cute, too. And my hyacinth have bloomed! Even with this cold snap, it means Spring is just around the bend!

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