Boo!

These goons terrorized the neighborhood tonight. Trick-or-Treat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkins and Ramblings

It’s that time of year again.

Time for pumpkins and pumpkin patches. This year we had some family here with us and we headed out to our favorite pumpkin place, Dewberry Farm. They have all kinds of rides, food, corn mazes and our personal favorite, the lighted pumpkin stroll.

We even stopped and snapped a family photo. But seriously, do you see why we have so few family pictures?

First there’s Mr. Sensitive Blue Eyes who has to have his glasses on in daylight, no matter what. Second,  only one of my boys is actually looking (very angrily I might add) at the camera. One of my boys doesn’t even have his eyes open at all!

Dear boys, in the future, please indulge your Mother who loves her treasured pictures, and smile for the camera. Thank you, your Mother.

 

On a complete side note, my blog is titled “Life in the Precious Moments” because these days with my little boys are precious. One day they will grow up and become independent men, have their own lives and Lord willing, their own children. Every single moment, every single opportunity with them is a gift from God. I was created to be their mother and they, created to be my sons. When they are grown and gone, I never want to forget these sweet times with them. And my memory stinks! So it must be written down.

Yesterday during a phonics lesson with Nathan he says to me,

“Mom, I like writing the letter “t”. I like writing it because, it reminds me that Jesus died for me.”

He melts my heart and God truly has special plans for this amazing boy.

But I thought to myself, there it is! The reason we homeschool. Of course, academics are important and we make every effort to prioritize our academia but more than that. My ultimate goal is to teach them about Jesus. To teach them about the One who paid our ransom that we might know God and make Him known. Not just through Sunday school but in history, geography and even math! That all our studies flow from and are created by the one true God!

This is the stuff, the stuff that gets me through the hard days. And yes, we have LOTS of those!

Swapping

This summer as I was planning out our current school year, I started thinking “What am I going to do with my two preschoolers?” This is the first year I’ve had to consider how I would manage two children in school and two children not yet in school.

The baby was a no brainer, he would be content to sit and play with toys, nap or eat. But my three year old is an entirely different subject. He is content with an activity for about 5 minutes! I’ve seen ideas for Busy Bags (activities geared for preschoolers that fit into bags) all over the internet and Pinterest and I knew my little guy would really enjoy them. But buying supplies for several bags and taking the time to prepare them all might be too time consuming. That’s when I thought, “I wonder if there are other moms that are facing the same issue as me?”

I’ve learned in my experience as a homeschooler that I need other moms. I need to learn from their insight and wisdom. At times,  I need their help. I always want to be encouraged by them. I need their shoulders to cry on. And sometimes, I just need some fun!

So I asked all my mom friends with preschoolers if they would be interested in doing a Busy Bag swap. To my surprise, there was lots of interest. Friends invited other friends and before I knew it, there were at least a dozen other women wanting to participate.

Here’s what I did, I created an online sign-up and each person signed up to prepare one particular Busy Bag activity, one for each member of the group. For instance, I signed up to make the alphabet match-up activity so I made one for each person in our group. Additionally, I set a price limit for each bag. Then, we arranged an evening together. Yes, there were desserts involved . We exchanged our bags so at the end of the night, each lady walked home with 12 different Busy Bags for her preschoolers!

These were some of the activities we created

Austin had been enjoying his Busy Bags this year. Even my big boys like to take a break from school and help their little brother.

I am so thankful to have such an amazing group of friends and other moms around me. They make activities like this one a possibility!

10 Months Old

This little guy is officially 10 months old. It almost seems as if I shouldn’t be saying he’s 10 months old but rather, he’s almost one. Yikes!

He has a mouth full of teeth. I swear he cut 5 teeth at one time. Yeah, it wasn’t fun.

 

Evan is a sweet, easy-going and happy baby. I told Ian the other day that my favorite thing about Evan right now, is that he laughs just because someone’s laughing. Not because he got the joke or because he understood what was going on, but just because. It’s awesome. I also like that his hair curls with the humidity, that when I hold him, he wraps his leg across me, that he makes some seriously funny faces and that his legs are still super chubby.

He has decided he prefers table food over baby mush-although I still give it to him with his meals. He his full force crawling which means lots and lots of trouble making! He gets away quick. Not too long after he started moving, he’d also began pulling up on things. He’s pretty close to cruising now.

Maybe all this exercise will help work out his potbelly .

He’s very good at saying “mama” and now he’s working on “dada”. I wonder what will come next? One of the brothers, “no” or something worse? He keeps getting cuter every month and I am cherishing the precious moments of the last of these baby days!