First Day of School 2011

The summer went by so quickly!  We started the year early to make me feel better about skipping school most of December....honestly, how much real learning goes on in that month at school anyway? Still, starting early gives us flexibility.  I've tried to get my head around the new stuff that we're adding this year but you never know how things will go until you actually do them.  It's also a transition since I'm starting preschool stuff with Lincoln.  I made up a schedule that I thought was really good but didn't work.  Most of that was because I had some "grammar" to work on with Coralee which left the little ones with too much time on their hands.  She was also a little upset that her cousins had just left and I couldn't blame her.  There's no such thing as enough time together.... and my cousins only lived in another state not on another continent!  We started the day off with a Bible study/discussion about diligence (one of my weaknesses is making sure that's always a part of our day) & praying.  We did our calendar stuff and then moved on to Geography.  We're working on the "Great Circles" of the Arctic Circle, Tropic of Cancer, Equator, Tropic of Capricorn & Antarctic Circle.  I had Coralee copy all of the words which took a good bit of time.  Lincoln was a little antsy waiting for her to finish that.  Then we took time to do handwriting.  I had read a good large motor skill practice was to have kids erase their names off of the white board.  He used his fingers to trace and did pretty well.  I should've realized he couldn't do stuff on paper but tried anyway.  We'll be using something else tomorrow.  Coralee, on the other hand, did well.  We're working on re-learning how to write numbers correctly.  Laziness about that made her have issues with writing 6's backwards.  Amazing how starting in the right place fixes that.  I sent Lincoln & Lauramae to play for a little bit and then had them come back to do Lincoln's phonics/letter recognition.  Coralee read to Mae at that time and then we read about Shakespeare.  We finished the day with Math.  Lincoln got to play with pattern blocks while Coralee worked on her first assessment.  Made me realize that I made the right decision on skipping the first few lessons.  She made a 100 on it with little effort.  We'll definitely do math last since she does so well with it.  Reading causes us attitude issues.    

Cousin's Visit

The girls decided to dress like a "princess".  Oh how I love having girlie girls!  Lincoln didn't want to be left out, either.

Seriously, could she get any cuter? 

Cousins playing together. 

Mmmm..... sushi for lunch!

Riding the train at Zilker

Ken noticed that it's hard to tell which set of siblings since their hair is the same color and the boys' hair cuts are the same.

Hanging out at Philosopher's Rock

Waiting for Footloose

More waiting pictures.  We stopped by Whole Foods for picnic dinner.

Playing at the Quarry Splash Pad.... even better since we didn't show up until an hour before they closed so we didn't have to pay.

It was a little sunny!

We had a fabulous visit with Keegan (albeit short visit with him), Gyorgyi & the kids.  They headed here on Saturday and had really bad traffic on I10 so it took longer than expected.  The good thing about that was that the kiddos got a really good nap!  We made pizza for dinner on the grill and the kids played.  Keegan was leaving on Sunday evening so we decided to skip church to spend time with him.  After breakfast, we headed to Sheplers to get the Hungarian kiddos boots.  Lunch was sushi at How Do You Roll and then we went shopping at Barton Creek Mall.  Keegan left from there and we went to Sno Beach for sno cones & picked up dinner at Whole Foods.  We drove over to Zilker Park for picnic dinner, a little play time, a ride on the train & finally Footloose.  Monday morning we took a trip to IKEA to browse & the kids had fun at the kids' area.  It was our first meal there since Lincoln had his seizure.  Lincoln was tired & hungry and was a bear.  I think we spilled more beverages at lunch than we have in months.  The kids took a nap and after dinner we went to the Quarry Splash Pad.  Such a neat place; it was my first time!  We'll definitely be back.  Tuesday was the pet parade at the library complete with popcorn & sno cones.  Wednesday we headed to the LBJ library & had lunch at Chick-fil-A in Georgetown with Grandma & Grandpa.  Poor Belian got sick there and then Adelynne joined the party that night.  I'm so glad we had such an extended visit.  Coralee & Adelynne get along together so well.  I have such good (well mostly good) memories of visits with my cousins and I'm glad they'll have the same.  Maybe one day Belian & Lincoln will have fun together.