Picnic

Picnic

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Introducing Gilead Lewis

He was born safely at home by the warmth of the fire and the twinkling of the Christmas lights. With the support of 3 midwives and our close friend Terra by my side, it was a delight to finally meet my 9 lb 9 oz baby boy!  Welcome here Gilead!



Monday, December 9, 2013

Bee Tree Continued

We continued our rowing of The Bee Tree this week.  One of the characters in the story had just came back from a Klondike expedition, so we took a look at the gold rush in the Yukon, Canada.  We read several books from different perspectives.
We did a collage of things that are made from gold.  The boys paged through magazines looking for gold things to cut out.

While the boys cut and pasted, I read them a story about King Midas and his greed for gold.
Micaiah's collage on gold on the left (blue paper) and Abishai's right (orange paper).
We enjoyed this chapter book on the gold rush.  I can't believe the effort people went to just to get to Dawson City in the Yukon.  I was tired out just reading about it, never mind doing it.
Abishai's last gym class.

Our Christmas book selection from the public library.
Micaiah doing Christmas sticker fun. 
While Micaiah played with stickers, I made story disks to place on our world map for all the around-the-world adventures we're going to have through FIAR.
 Asher quietly played Ninja Turtles, cars, and nativity.
Abishai is working on common nouns of things right now.  He drew a picture of common things in our house.
Abishai shovelling the driveway.  Micaiah was out there helping too, but he came in before Abishai.
Asher pulled his pants and diaper down around his ankles and then waddled, tripped, waddled, tripped––full of giggles all the way to the bathroom. When he reached the toilet, he asked Daren to help him on.  Asher at 25 months has started his self potty-training. Since he's initiating this interest, I went down to the storage room to retrieve a potty seat so he wouldn't fall into the toilet.  He's pretty excited about his "new" seat and carries it around from toilet to toilet putting it on and taking it off.
Asher finding his own hiding spot during a game of hide and seek.
Micaiah resumed reading lessons after about a 6 month break.  He has known his letter sounds and how to sound out words for a while now but had difficulty blending those sounds to figure out the word.  After a bit of maturing he now has no trouble blending.  He's progressing quite nicely.
The boys helping to get ready for the new baby.

 Asher practicing his scissor skills. 
Waiting for the banana bread to be done for snack time. I found a healthy, but yummy recipe online.  I was going to share it with you, but couldn't find the blog where I found it.
Continued adventures with Batman and Robin.
In addition to Truth in the Tinsel for Advent, we added Jotham's Journey: A Storybook for Advent.  So far it's really engaging.  Love it! 
Story time with Daddy!  I love the closeness of our family at Christmas time.