Daybook: December 12th

(This post was originally written Monday the 12th, and I didn't get around to adding photos until today, December 30th. I am hoping to get something new posted once we're back after all of our Christmas travels. Until then, I hope you all have had a blessed Christmas season! P.S. I have no idea why my blog is looking weird and most of my post is highlighted in white. Try to bear with me...)

Outside My Window: ...its dark and another cloudy night. Looking at the forecast, it seems as though we're expected to have a lot of cloudy weather this week.

I Am Listening To: ...the hum of the refrigerator. Beyond that, the house is quiet. Brinley seems to have had an easy time falling asleep (which rarely happens now) and Bruce retired early after feeling worn down today.

I Am Wearing: ...a pair of Bruce's flannel pajama pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Quite honestly, this is what I've been wearing all day. Nothing better than staying in pajamas on a dreary winter day.

I Am Thankful For: ...time spent with family. Yesterday, the three of us went out to my grandparents' farm for lunch, and afterwards I drove Bruce, Brinley and Grandma down to the river (Colorado) and then to the fish ponds on the Ranger. Bruce, nor Brinley, had ever been down to the river or seen the fish ponds up close so we went on a little afternoon ride. When we got back to the house, Brinley made sugar cookies with her G'Ma and Auntie Shirlene.

I Am Pondering: "Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?" Ann Voskamp

I Am Reading: ...a book about the Amish that my grandmother is lending me. I can't remember what exactly it is called and I'm not going to risk disturbing Bruce by wandering in the bedroom to find it on my nightstand. I'm also listening to Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts through my audible.com app. If you haven't heard of Ann or her life-changing book that has been on the New York Time's Best Sellers List for a bazillion weeks, than you should really check them out. I promise, you are in for a treat. While I'm slowly but surely just getting around to reading/listening to Ann's book, I've been following her blog for quite some time, and the words that she writes are just as beautiful as the photographs she takes and vice-versa.

To Be Fit And Happy: Bruce and I started WeightWatchers about a month ago to help get us both back on track. Now that we're back in the land of amazing food, we needed to be reminded what a portion is exactly. You know...three tacos are okay to eat. Six...not so much. Anyway, things seem to be working well, as we've both already met our first goals. One thing that has helped tremendously is my grandparents gave us a treadmill that they were no longer using. My goal is to walk/job at least 5 miles per week, but last week I sailed through that and did nearly 7. Slowly but surely I'd like to work myself up to a goal of at least 10 miles a week.

From The Kitchen: I'll be honest...not much has come from my kitchen lately. Like I mentioned previously, yesterday we ate at my grandparents and today's supper came from Pizza Hut. Thinking back, Friday evening Brinley and I did make Gingerbread Cookies--both men and women. As you can imagine, Brinley had a blast decorating them and snacking on some too, of course.

I Am Thinking: ...about anything and everything that needs to be done over the next week. Laundry, gift-wrapping, lesson plans, packing for travels, etc.

I Am Creating: ...nothing lately. I'm just working on getting presents shopped for and wrapped for all of our Christmas festivities. If Brinley's lesson plans and activities count, then I've been getting those together for the next few weeks since we'll be traveling quite a bit.

On My iPod: Nothing new lately...most of the time I listen through my Pandora app.

Towards A Real Education: Brinley and I have been having a blast with her 'schoolwork'. Since the week of Thanksgiving we've taken time off from the letters and that week we had Thanksgiving-themed activities, and now for the past couple of weeks we've been doing some Christmas-themed activities. I figure we'll probably get back to doing letters of the week after the Epiphany.

Towards Rhythm and Beauty: Decorating for Christmas...something I look forward too all year long. We brought Christmas decorations in from storage shortly after Thanksgiving and Brinley and I had a blast hanging all the ornaments on the tree. Other than the tree, we really haven't decorated much due to little extra space in the apartment. We did hang up stockings, but that pretty much covers it. I think Brinley's going to be a Christmas-lover just like her Momma because she loves to watch Christmas shows and listen to Christmas music. Hopefully there's not going to be too much fussing when its time for the tree to come down after the Epiphany.

To Live The Liturgy: Focusing on making our little domestic church as peaceful as possible during this time of year which seems to be more of a challenge this year than in the past. When we lived out-of-state, we came to Texas whatever weekend we were able to, saw who we could and that was that. Now that we're closer to family and friends, we're having to pick and choose who we can see for the holidays because there are only so many weekends during advent and the Christmas season and everyone is fairly close.

I Am Hoping And Praying: ...that the sun will continue to shine.

In The Garden: I guess its time to delete this category since we don't have a garden or any kind of lawn here. Hopefully in the Spring, Brinley and I will get a few potted plants and flowers on the patios. I could write about those... ;-)

Around The House: And I guess this category needs to be changed to 'Around Our Home' since technically we don't live in a house anymore. Anyway, aside from 'decking our halls' we really haven't been doing a whole lot. We're still moving furniture around here and there, but the nice thing about living in an apartment is there are no little projects to do, nothing to fix and no lawn to take care of.

On Keeping Home: I'll be honest, this is an area I've been struggling with ever since we moved in. As you can imagine its been a little difficult squeezing a three-bedroom house into a two-bedroom apartment. To prove it to you, I could post a picture of a stack of boxes in our master bedroom closet that haven't even been touched since we moved, but we don't need to do that...I don't want to scare anyone.

One Of My Favorite Things: ...spending time with family.

Brinley Anne This Week: ...continues to surprise Bruce and myself. One day this week, Bruce was giving Brinley her bath and he kept hearing Brinley say, "pouring the agua". He peeked around the corner to the living room and asked if I had taught her that water is agua in spanish. I said no. To this day, we don't know where she picked it up from--no Dora in our home--other than the spanglish that Bruce and I throw around between each other every now and than.

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: Let's see...Brinley and I will have schoolwork on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday Morning. On Friday, we'll probably do our errands for the week. I also need to get busy wrapping Christmas gifts. The three of us will be celebrating our family Christmas this weekend as well as going back out to the farm Sunday afternoon to visit with more family that we didn't see last weekend. Also, sometime between now and this weekend Bruce or I will need to put together Brinley's big present that we have in storage.

A Picture I'm Sharing:

She's ready for a ride in the Ranger down to the river.

Looking at the view of the Colorado River from G'Pa and G'Ma's farm.

Making Sugar Cookies with Aunt Shirlene and G'Ma.

~Our Little Chef~

Living and Learning

I can hardly believe that it has already been a month since my last post. As promised previously--yet, arriving in a less timely fashion than I intended--here are some pictures of Brinley that I took during her first couple of weeks of school. I know that the idea of homeschooling is foreign that many of you so hopefully these pictures will give you a better idea of what our days and her schooling consists of. As I mentioned in my previous post, I am using curricula from Homeschool Creations, 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler.
I initially thought that we would school all five days during the week. However, in order to ease both Brinley and myself into the schooling atmosphere I've decided to school 3 mornings per week--Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That leaves a couple of mornings for us to concentrate on 'life skills' as I like to call them--grocery shopping, errand runs, baking, visits to the park, traveling, etc. Also, you'll probably notice from the pictures below that I try to move her around throughout the morning. I *try* not to keep her in the same spot for two activities in a row, but sometimes it just can't be helped. We do go over our morning board (explained more below) in the floor, but then I might move her to the table to to a writing or coloring activity, then back to the floor for a more hands-on activity and then to her white board to end things for the day.

Brinley's First Day of School Tuesday, September 6, 2011

(Please excuse the bruise in the middle of her forehead...she and her push-buggy and a run-in with each other the day before.)

To begin each morning we go to our morning board and go over things like the weather, the day of the week as well as the date, what season we are in, our memory verse that is based on whatever letter of the alphabet we are studying that week as well as the Pledge of Allegiance.

'A' is for apple tree. Brinley coloring an apple tree and tracing letter 'A'.

It was her idea that the tree had both red AND green apples.

Brinley working a letter 'A' lacing card. These are made by printing out a large letter on cardstock, laminating it and using a hole-punch to create the holes.

All done!

Next activity was to put together a 6-piece puzzle. This was a puzzle that I printed out on cardstock, laminated and then cut into separate pieces. The recommended was to start with six, but Brinley breezed through that just by reading the sentence that was on it and putting it in order by that. So, I guess from here on out I'll be cutting them into 9 pieces or maybe even 12 to be more of a challenge for her.

The last activity for her first day was to match colored magnets to each of the the white circles on the picture.

To start off on Wednesday, Brinley worked on a cutting practice worksheet.

Next she used Do-A-Dot markers to stamp an uppercase and a lowercase letter 'A'.

All done!

Matching the number card to the number of apple seeds on the apple pictures.

Lastly, she used an extra-large thumbtack--under careful supervision--to poke holes along the lines of an uppercase and lowercase letter 'A'.

All done!

On Thursday, she matched apple halves of the same color.

All done!

Next, she did some writing practice. Again, these are pages that I print out on cardstock, laminate and then she practices with a dry erase marker. It is a little more work for me initially than just printing on pieces of paper, but I like that she can re-do the sheets as many times as she wants without having to waste an abundance of paper.

Lastly, she put apples of various sizes in order from smallest to largest.

The following Tuesday, Brinley started the day by matching lower and uppercase apples with those on the apple tree.

Then she found and circles the letter 'A's' in short stories.

Wednesday, Brinley laced an apple. I couldn't find the extra shoestring that we used the week before so I just grabbed a hair ribbon from her bathroom drawer.

To end our letter 'A' lessons, Brinley and I baked an apple pie that had a top crust made of letter 'A's'. (I'm sure some of you saw a mobile picture of it that I posted on Facebook and few weeks ago.) In closing, I hope you enjoyed the pictures of Brinley and they were able to give you a better idea of what our school mornings are like. I initially went into homeschooling thinking I would be one of those blogging moms that takes pictures of nearly every lesson, but I've found that's just not us. The camera just seems to be to big of a distraction for the both of us in more way than one. As you can imagine, we have been using a lot of cardstock, laminating pouches and ink. And, my evenings usually consist of prepping materials (making lesson plans, printing, laminating, cutting, etc.) for the next week (thus my lack of blogging this fall). I'll be the first to admit that it is not the most interesting way to spend my evenings, but seeing the way Brinley's face lights up when she understands a concept completely makes up for any time, money and work that goes into her lessons.

I can hardly believe that it has already been a month since my last post. As promised in my last post--yet, arriving in a less timely fashion than I intended--here are some pictures of Brinley that I took during her first couple of weeks of school. I know that the idea of homeschooling is foreign that many of you so hopefully these pictures will give you a better idea of what our days and her schooling consists of. I initially thought that we would school all five days during the week. However, in order to ease both Brinley and myself into the schooling atmosphere I've decided to school 3 mornings per week--Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That leaves a couple of mornings for us to concentrate on 'life skills' as I like to call them--grocery shopping, errand runs, baking, visits to the park, etc. Also, you'll probably notice from the pictures below that I try to move her around throughout the morning. I *try* not to keep her in the same spot for two activities in a row, but sometimes it just can't be helped. We do go over our morning board (explained more below) in the floor, but then I might move her to the table to to a writing or coloring activity, then back to the floor for a more hands-on activity and then to her white board to end things for the day.

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Brinley's First Day of School Tuesday, September 6, 2011

(Please excuse the bruise in the middle of her forehead...she and her push-buggy and a run-in with each other the day before.)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am using curricula from Homeschool Creations, 1+1+1=1 and ____. To start off each morning we go to our morning board and go over things like the weather, the day of the week as well as the date, what season we are in, our memory verse that is based on whatever letter of the alphabet we are studying that week as well as the Pledge of Allegiance.

'A' is for apple tree. Brinley coloring an apple tree and tracing letter 'A'.

It was her idea that the tree had both red AND green apples.

Brinley working a letter 'A' lacing card. These are made by printing out a large letter on cardstock, laminating it and using a hole-punch to create the holes.

All done!

Next activity was to put together a 6-piece puzzle. This was a puzzle that I printed out on cardstock, laminated and then cut into separate pieces. The recommended was to start with six, but Brinley breezed through that just by reading the sentence that was on it and putting it in order by that. So, I guess from here on out I'll be cutting them into 9 pieces or maybe even 12 to be more of a challenge for her.

The last activity for her first day was to match colored magnets to each of the the white circles on the picture.

To start off on Wednesday, Brinley worked on a cutting practice worksheet.

Next she used Do-A-Dot markers to stamp an uppercase and a lowercase letter 'A'.

All done!

Matching the number card to the number of apple seeds on the apples.

New Beginnings

As some of you probably know, the past couple of months have been a little on the crazy side for our little family. I guess you could say it all started back in March, when a close friend/colleague of Bruce--we'll call 'J'-- started a new job that moved he and his family from the Mississippi Gulf Coast to the Houston area. After a few weeks of being at his new job, 'J' caught wind of the company needing to add an engineer to their staff. Knowing that Bruce and I have been praying for a job opportunity in Texas to come our way since our engagement, 'J' mentioned Bruce's name to his bosses and told Bruce about the position. After a phone interview, Bruce was flown out to Houston for a face-to-face interview with the company's president and vice-president. By mid-June, Bruce had a job offer, accepted and we had our house on the market. We decided for the sake of our sanity, to not plan on relocating for a good three weeks. That gave Bruce a couple of weeks to tie-up any loose ends at his previous job, us some time to do a few touch-up projects on the house (with help from his parents), as well as time to get our moving arrangements in order. We made the big move on the 22nd of July and Bruce started his new job on the 25th.

Of course, there has been a lot of adjustment going on. Not being familiar with the area, we decided to temporarily rent an apartment instead of buying a home. So, although the apartment itself is fine, we have no yard which is an enormous change for us. Of course we miss our dear friend back in the Mobile area, and Brinley is slowly becoming more acclimated with her new room. Before the move--really since she was an infant--she has been a great sleeper. Now that we've moved, she has a really hard time falling asleep most nights, and some nights she wakes up three or four times upset. As you can imagine, this makes for a tired little one, as well as a tired momma. Things are slowly getting better, though. There were a couple of nights last week that she slept through the night so hopefully it will continue to get better. I've joked to Bruce that she'll probably adjust and start sleeping well around the time the we're ready to move again...geez, I hope that is not the case!

Over the past month, we've gotten most things unpacked, and I'm slowly starting to get things hung on the walls. My main priority after getting things unpacked was to get Brinley's school work together for this fall. Luckily since we're homeschooling, we can start our school year whenever it is best for our family. Now that we're settling in, Brinley and I will start her lessons this week! After a lot of deliberation (mainly on my part), we've decided to keep things a bit simple this first year and use a letter of the week curriculum. For the first week we'll study A, the second week we'll study B and so on. In all of my research and networking, I've come across a few blogs--Confessions of a Homeschooler, 1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations--that I've acquired some of our worksheets, crafts ideas and activities from. I'm hoping that during our week, I'll remember to snap a few photos and post them so that you all can get an idea of what we're doing and how much fun we're having! I have to mention, as I've been getting Brinley's lessons together over the past week or two--and it has been strewn all over the living room--she has been super excited about her 'school work'. I keep having to tell her that we'll have to wait 'X' many days until we can do it. She loves doing workbooks that I've picked up here and there, so I think that she's really going to have a blast with our lessons.

I hope each and every one of you were blessed with a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Until next time...

The Lazy Meme

Jess, over at the blog Making Home posted this meme and invited fellow bloggers to give it a try as well. The instructions with this are to bold the ones you've done, leave the others in normal type. Here goes...

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii (I would love to go if it wasn't for the LONG plane ride.)
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain.
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child (Maybe...)
16. Had food poisoning (Thankfully, no!)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (Also needs to be on my 'bucket list'.)
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train (I've always thought this would be neat...don't ask me why.)
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort (We don't get THAT much snow in Texas.)
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29 Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise (After 5 years of marriage, Bruce is still trying to convince me to do this.)
33 Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (Hmm...not sure I want to go to the Czech Republic.)
35. Seen an Amish community (Would LOVE to! I've always been fascinated by their lifestyle.)
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41 Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant (I REALLY need to do this...soon!)
44. Visited Africa
45 Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance (No....thank the Lord!)
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (Another thing I would like to do.)
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60 Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching (Not unless you count SeaWorld.)
63. Gotten flowers for no reason
64 Donated blood, platelets, or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66 Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67 Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt (Hopefully, one day...)
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79 Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book (Maybe one day...)
81. Visited the Vatican (Would LOVE to.)
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Why I Could Never Be A Children's Photographer For A Living...

Okay...for the third time or so in a matter of months, I am going to attempt to write AND post an update on our blog. As most of you have noticed--and some even expressed to me--my lack of writing over the past several months, my number one goal this weekend was to get at least a little something written and posted. I started early in the week (Tuesday, maybe) by planning to dress Brinley up in something a little special and take a picture of her by mid-morning before it reaches 100* outside. So...we ate breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen from our meal and I put the sweet outfit that you see pictured below on Brinley. We head out into the backyard, I move around a few 'props' and set Brinley down on a bench that I had moved underneath a cluster of shade trees. Obviously it had been a while since I had tried taking pictures of Brinley like this because in my mind, I played out the scene that I would set her on the bench, snap a few shots and be done in a minute or two...thus being able to get the picture I needed of her without even breaking a sweat. Boy, was I in for a wake-up. Below you would be able to follow our little adventure--

"Hmmm...what's this here on the bench?"

Then she decides to look at something else--besides the camera.

"Gee Mom...all those embarrassing antics you're pulling just to get me to look at the camera and smile."

"Cheese!!!" ('A REALLY big cheese' as she says.)

Don't even ask me what goof-ball was doing in this one because your guess is as good as mine.

"What was that Mom? Did you say something about a COOKIE?!?"

I don't bribe too often, but when I do, I pull out the 'big guns'.

Finally...

By the way, I must mention that the lovely outfit was made by my Grandma. Brinley says, "thank you G-Maw!". And in case you are wondering, yes, her toenails ARE painted bright red. :-)

In case you were beginning to wonder if our little family had disappeared off the face of the earth, over the past month and a half, we've attended 4 birthday parties (all on separate weekends), one baptism, as well as traveled to Texas for Easter weekend to visit with family, some of which we haven't seen since Brinley's first birthday. Needless to say, we've been a little bit too on-the-go for me to be able to sit down and write. Below are a few pictures from the past several weeks starting with Brinley's birthday--

Happy 3rd Birthday Sweet Girl!

By the way, the above picture was taken by a dear friend and talented photographer, Amanda before she and her sweet family made the move from Mississippi back home to Texas. If any of you readers in the Houston area are looking to get some pictures done, I highly recommend her! :-)

Next, at the end of March, we attended a neighbor boy's 4th birthday party at a local kiddie party venue (think: Chuckie Cheese-type-of-place). Brinley had a blast monkeying-around on all the indoor playground equipment, riding the kiddie train and, of course, munching on pizza and cake.

"Hold on Snoopy...we're going for a ride!"

Eating pizza...

~Happy Birthday!~

Then it was W's first birthday party-- W being the little one that I care for in our home during the week.

Brinley and her daddy eating lunch.

"Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You..."