Home Improvement

"Home-ownership is not for sissies." This is the title of a facebook photo album from one of my friends. If there's one thing I have learned in the past seven months, it's that she's RIGHT! But as Dave Ramsey says, "If you have money, owning a home is a blessing." I have also learned (as I anticipated) that it is so freeing to own my home. While we do have money in savings, we are making small improvements along the way and saving the rest of the money for actual emergencies. You never know when something will hit, so it's best to be prepared. With that said, I would like to show a few photos of what we've been able to do with our new home. A lot of what we've done has more to do with proper furniture, than with actually "fixing" the house, but it has made a difference to us. So here it is!  

I wish I had a before picture of this, and I probably do have one somewhere. But suffice it to say that the new tv stand and blue color have made this space look WAY better. 

The magic couch!

It's a couch, bed and storage all in one!

My favorite room in the house. It's a place for the kids on this side...

....and a place for business, crafting (please forgive the curtains in progress there on the ironing board and rocking chair) and entertainment on the other side. I love that the kids are not banished to their rooms to play with their toys. And, this room leads to the backyard where our small pool and sand box await their pleasure.

Speaking of the backyard, this may be the only actual fix on the house. The added on space did not have weep screed, so, we are making sure things get done correctly!

The boys' bunk beds! Callan isn't in there yet, but Asher was ready for a big boy bed, so we saved the step of getting a twin, and went straight for the fun bunks! The color is a stain from ikea that we LOVE!

Audrey's dresser. Can it get any pinker? She does not get to choose wall colors, so I thought I would let her choose the color of her furniture. She loves it, and that makes me happy, but gosh darn, it is SO PINK! Haha! The boys have the same dresser but we also stained that green to match their bed.

We needed a place other than the refrigerator to hang the kids' art and future schooling achievements. This is an empty, and oddly placed wall in our kitchen; the perfect place for such a need! Some sort of fun, childish sign would go well above it, but I just hung it yesterday, so, it shall wait. :) 

There is still a lot to be done, but like I said, we're taking it slowly. As time, inspiration and money dictate, our house will continue to transform into our home. I look forward to making it ours, right down to the little details.

Crazy Busy

This is the second week in a row that we have not made any progress towards homeschooling other than when opportunity presents itself. We did manage to set the kids up with a summer reading program at the library. Both Audrey and Asher LOVE the library, though Asher has a difficult time with the "quiet" aspect, haha. Once the program is completed, the kids will get a free ticket to a water park in town, which will definitely be on the list of summer highlights.
As for what has been keeping us busy, last week I was planning a friend's baby shower (she's have twin girls!) And this week has been fraught with home projects, day trips, and vehicle mishaps. Nonetheless, I have some fun family pictures to share.
My favorite day this past week was when we went up the nearby mountains. From our front door to the top of the mountain was only an hour drive. Eli and I kept asking ourselves why we don't take advantage of going up the mountain more often. Here in the Valley of Tucson, it's been triple digits every single day since June first. On top of the mountain, the weather is cooler, and shaded! There are trees up there! So, on a whim, we packed up the kids and drove to a veritable paradise. It was SO worth it. Asher, though small and mostly unable to keep up, loved the hike. I could tell that he loved it because he talked the whole time. Nobody understood what he was saying, but it was definitely joyful chatter. Audrey did a great job holding daddy's hand for support, but she is sure-footed and did not complain once. She was wonderful with
warning Asher and me about things to watch out for on the trail (she and Eli were quite a bit in front of slow-moving Asher and I). After the hike, we went to the cookie cabin in the nearby town, Summerhaven. They make plate-sized cookies and put ice cream on top should you desire that much sugar! Audrey and I shared the chocolate chip and Asher and Eli shared the peanut butter. Next time, we'll just get one cookie since two was way more than we could eat. I still have left-overs in my refrigerator. So, here a few pictures from that day.

There were several fallen trees, but this one was right on the path. So Audrey, Callan and Eli posed for a photo opp! 

Audrey actually found this treasure, but she let Asher carry it during the entire hike, along with her treasure bag (purse). 

This is where the hike ended for us as we were trying to get back to the cookie cabin before it closed at five. I grabbed a few branches to set up the timer on the camera. The running back and forth between the camera, uphill to the rock was a workout. It took probably ten tries to make sure we got a decent picture.

The other big thing this week was Callan's six month birthday! This baby boy is rocking my world and I am astounded at how a mother's love can just grow and grow with each new child. 

He's pretty much the happiest baby ever!

Love that squishy little body and he loves this toy! 

Sum It Up Saturday!

Here's to another week of homeschooling! Well, sort of. I don't know if "Around the World in 60 Days" really counts as homeschooling since the lessons are SO short, but we try to make the most of them. This week was spent in the "Down Under!" The first country we visited was New Zealand where we learned that the sheep population outnumbers the people population by six to one! That's a lot of sheep. The accompanying Bible passage was the one that talks about the shepherd leaving his herd to look for his one lost sheep. So, we pretended we were all shepherds and looked for our lost sheep that daddy hid in the back yard.

Here is Asher diligently searching for the lost sheep! 

Sheep like greenery, which is hard to find in our dirt pile.

Maybe it likes to burrow in the dirt. Better dig! (Don't ask me why my sweet daughter is wearing the warmest possible outfit in triple digit weather. She was born in the desert, maybe it's in her blood.)

Around the corner?

Still searching! 

Aha! After several minutes of searching, and a few hints from mama, our lost sheep was found! 

Can you find New Zealand? I love seeing Eli so involved in what the kids are learning. He's truly a natural teacher.

We also looked at Australia and Papua New Guinea and had equally fun times learning about those countries.

While doing some research, we discovered that the homeschooling program that we're looking into strongly recommends that parents wait for children to be six years old before starting homeschooling, even if they are advanced. Let me tell you, Audrey is incredibly advanced in reading. She rarely needs help sounding out words and can read chapter books on her own. Since this program focuses on reading a lot once you get started, we decided to take their advice and continue what we're doing for the reading part. Besides, there are other areas that we can work on while we wait to start the actual program.

As evidenced by last week's post, Audrey needs help with hand writing. So I found a book at target with those writing guidelines so she could practice. This one also had indented letters which makes it easier to keep her marker on the right path to form a letter. She has only done six letters, but they are LEGIBLE which is very exciting for everyone. Our goal is to finish at least one page by the end of next week, and I will post a picture of her work.

Check out Jenny's blog for the original Sum it up Saturday posts, and feel free to provide input and guidance on my blog!

Sum it up Sssss-Unday

My intention was to join my sister Jenny, in blogging about our home school week on Saturday, which she calls, "Sum it up Saturday." Well, yesterday got away from me, so here I am today with a short blog about our minor dabble in home school this week. Eli and I are researching options and discussing how to go about home schooling. We're positive that we do want to keep the kids home and teach them ourselves, but we don't have a clear path yet. So for now, to keep our very intelligent daughter's mind active, we just do little activities as opportunity arises. 

Audrey really wanted to do some math with the abacus. After a while of just speaking some simple equations for her to figure out, I decided to give her a worksheet. It worked out better than I hoped since when it was done, she was ready for another activity, and had a sense of accomplishment. I think she thrives off of the completion of a task. I decided to keep all the equations working with the number nine. She then chose random numbers to add and subtract, and I wrote them out for her. 

Here she is writing down one of her answers. I love the look on her face. 

Asher and I watched with enthusiasm as Audrey worked out problem after problem. 

The hands-on work with the abacus is great, I think. I'm not an educated teacher, but I am pretty sure hands-on is the way to go, at least for this very busy child. 

Audrey proudly displaying her work. Okay, so her writing needs a little help, but she's only four. There will be time for that, and she got every answer correct.

The other thing we are starting today (which was also supposed to have been done yesterday) is a program called "Around the World in  60 Days." It includes the study of different countries around the world, and how we can pray for them, even though we're so far away. I hope this spikes our determination to teach our kids at home and helps us learn a bit more about what works and what does not work for Audrey. Although, each "lesson" is pretty short, so I don't know how much we'll learn from it about teaching. At the very least, it will be a fun activity, and will lead to more investigation about these different countries.