Well, today was the first day of school for Merrill Academy. I actually woke up at 7am this morning. I could not for the life of me fall asleep last night, I was so consumed with thoughts about today. But I did manage to drag myself out of bed on time and get our first day started at 8am sharp. We went over all of the expectations Daddy and I have for them, we went over the incentive program Daddy and I set up. And, the day went pretty well. Actually, it went great.
We got through all of the subjects we had scheduled for the day. Emily actually asked me if she could read to me. There was $ involved but hey! you do what you can, right? She took notes during history and actually liked the story. Hannibal. Seriously, the guy attacked his enemy with a herd of well trained attack elephants! What's not to like?
Grace did pretty good with her stuff. It's pretty light for her right now. I have to brag on her for a minute. My little 5 year old girl is such an amazing reader! That girl loves to read. She has been loving to read out loud to me lately, which I'm sure you can imagine is like hugs and kisses for me. To see her get excited about reading is so wonderful. I can't tell you how much I love it.
So, on the agenda for the year:
Bible
History (The Story of The World)
Math (Saxon)
Latin (Prima Latina)
Sewing Lessons (Jackie Gentner at Hancock...awesome!)
Swim Lessons (YMCA)
Cursive
Grammer
Handling $$ God's Way
Shakespeare Can Be Fun (Hamlet)
Answers (In Genesis) for kids
Poem Memorization
Scrapbooking (class to be held at my house)
Science
Some various lessons on reading maps, making analogies, christian hero's, that sort of thing.
Pray for us...I'm serious.♥
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tower Hill
Wow, I wonder how it got that name?
Had an awesome day at the beach with my good friend Andrea and her sweet boys. 4 of them to be exact. And, believe it or not I actually climbed to the top of that wretched "hill". I think I'm going to start a campaign to get some defibrillator pads stationed about half way up, or at least some kind of helio-port at the top to carry off the near dead. Never mind that dear Andrea did it while carrying her youngest. She's awesome.
A view from the top...
and the bottom...
And the whole gang, almost...
Monday, August 17, 2009
Vacation all I ever wanted
....vacation got to get away. Ahh, the Go-Go's had it all right didn't they?
So, a bit overdue (not unlike every book I've ever gotten from the library), here are some vacation photos...Our first stop was the Children's Museum in Indy. Oyyy, was it packed. Note to self, schedule next family vacation during the school year.
The first exhibit was the Dinosphere. It was loud and had lots of flashing lights and screeching sounds. So needless to say this is how Emily spent all of the dinosphere and most of the Creation Museum:
Poor child. The museum was cool, the girls enjoyed it. Emily's favorite part was the walk through maze up on the 4th floor. Grace liked the dinosaurs the best.
Momma's favorite part was running into friends from church. 3 hours from home and we ran into Jeff and Jodi Toner and their adorable little girl Mallory at the museum. That was a nice surprise...
I also loved the walk through Egyptian tomb:
After 7 hours of that we went back to our hotel , isn't it pretty...
...and on to Caribbean Cove!!! We spent about 6 hours there and about $1000. Just kidding, but seriously, my kids love ski-ball and I can't stop watching them play it so I just kept pouring quarters into that darn machine. There is something magical about watching those little tickets spitting out.
And for the first time, Emily stood under that huge bucket of water that dumps out on the kids heads every 20 minutes or so. Yay!! She loved it!
This is Grace on the lazy river. Is it just mama bear or does she look way too bitty to be going down this alone?
So, a good time was had by all.
When we were done here we went on to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Now THAT was awesome. I can't recommend it enough. I know this may sound tacky, maybe cliche, maybe (fill in the blank) but honestly, that trip to Kentucky changed my heart. I am so grateful that my husband felt so strongly about taking our family there. But, I must save that story for tomorrow, as I need to get this day started with my little bitties...
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Va-cay
So here we are in Kentucky. You should see this hotel. WOW. It's ultra modern, with a self check in kiosk and everything. The decor is unreal. I can't believe we found this place for just $66 a night. Hotwire.com baby. Anywho, more on that later, right now I must tell you that I have finished reading "I Love You Miss Huddleston" by Philip Gulley. And all I can say is put down whatever you are doing and get this book. now. It is a laugh a minute. Out loud laugh...out loud while you're sitting by yourself next to the pool laugh. That reminds me, the lady sitting next to me at the pool had on a shirt that had "I Put Out" emblazoned across the front of it. I'm serious. And she was there with her kids. Is there anything that would have been appropriate to say to her? Anything that I could have said without getting myself beat up in the elevator later, probably whacked on the head with my own book.
Well, I can hardly wait to get some pictures posted on here from my new fancy camera...come back in a few days.
BTW...I want to move to Kentucky. I even made a list of the pros and cons of moving here. Don't worry Mom, so far the cons have won.
Well, I can hardly wait to get some pictures posted on here from my new fancy camera...come back in a few days.
BTW...I want to move to Kentucky. I even made a list of the pros and cons of moving here. Don't worry Mom, so far the cons have won.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Check Me Out...
Mama got a brand new camera... 
Behold the Olympus Stylus 9000. 12Mega Pixels. 10x Optical Zoom. 2GB Memory Card and a lovely case. Oh and because I got it at Gene's Camera Shop I get a free class on my awesome camera and 144 free prints at their store!!! Love Gene's!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
bedtime
Ok, seriously, here is how my last 45 minuets or so have gone.
7:00 read to girls while they happily munch on blueberries
7:30 girls brush teeth and get ready for bed
7:35 pray with Emily
7:38 pray with Grace
7:38:15 Emily gets up to go into bathroom
7:38:25 prayer interrupted by Emily in tears standing at Grace's door asking if I can come into her room. I say no, I'm putting Grace to bed.
7:39 Emily is now in FULL PANIC MODE screaming her head off. I am not kidding.
7:40 finish prayer with Grace and go into Emily's room where she is screaming that she has something in her throat. We go downstairs to get a glass of water. She is screaming as though she has just swallowed a mouse.
7:42 I am screaming at Emily to for the love of all things drink the water and wash down whatever is causing her so much agony.
7:43 we go upstairs to the bathroom to see if she's going to throw up where she finally tells me she thinks she's choking.
7:44 I perform mini-drama in my bathroom to show her what choking actually looks like and try to convince her that she is not indeed dying.
7:45 I lay Emily on her bed and tell her that if she can stop crying I will come back to her room in 5 minutes.
7:50 I go back into her room where she is looking at a book and looking very very exhausted. I tell her I will come back again in 10 minutes if she can keep herself staying calm.
8:00 I return, she is ok. I ask her to forgive me for yelling at her. We pray together. I told her I'd come back at 8:30 to check on her again. She said she might have her eyes closed but she will still be awake.
Now: I am heartbroken and crying, wondering what to do and begging God to help me. help her.
7:00 read to girls while they happily munch on blueberries
7:30 girls brush teeth and get ready for bed
7:35 pray with Emily
7:38 pray with Grace
7:38:15 Emily gets up to go into bathroom
7:38:25 prayer interrupted by Emily in tears standing at Grace's door asking if I can come into her room. I say no, I'm putting Grace to bed.
7:39 Emily is now in FULL PANIC MODE screaming her head off. I am not kidding.
7:40 finish prayer with Grace and go into Emily's room where she is screaming that she has something in her throat. We go downstairs to get a glass of water. She is screaming as though she has just swallowed a mouse.
7:42 I am screaming at Emily to for the love of all things drink the water and wash down whatever is causing her so much agony.
7:43 we go upstairs to the bathroom to see if she's going to throw up where she finally tells me she thinks she's choking.
7:44 I perform mini-drama in my bathroom to show her what choking actually looks like and try to convince her that she is not indeed dying.
7:45 I lay Emily on her bed and tell her that if she can stop crying I will come back to her room in 5 minutes.
7:50 I go back into her room where she is looking at a book and looking very very exhausted. I tell her I will come back again in 10 minutes if she can keep herself staying calm.
8:00 I return, she is ok. I ask her to forgive me for yelling at her. We pray together. I told her I'd come back at 8:30 to check on her again. She said she might have her eyes closed but she will still be awake.
Now: I am heartbroken and crying, wondering what to do and begging God to help me. help her.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Camp
Oh dear...so I just spent my first night at camp. And yes I'm sure this whole story will have some of my friends rolling their eyes as they read but...I don't care. Humphffff to you!
Emily has been going through quite a phase lately. Really nervous, anxious about everything. She has had a hard time lately being away from me. She has this fear that she's going to get sick and throw up in front of someone. The poor child is tormented. But, I feel fairly confident that this is just a phase and that life will return to it's normal rhythm very soon. Until the next phase hits but hey, let me take this one psychosomatic day at a time.
Ok, so yesterday (Sunday) was supposed to be her first time getting to go to camp to spend the night. Now, months ago when we first brought this up to her she decided she'd go but wanted to take a friend. Fine. So about a month ago this new phase is all settled in and I happened to mention camp and she totally freaked. Complete terror. Will not go. So, I make a mental note not to bring that up again. Well, sure enough time ticked on like it has a way of doing and all of the sudden Mark and I are laying in bed Saturday night trying to figure out what to do. And the best we could come up with is that Sunday morning I would ask Kelly, a lovely and kind girl at our church who also works at the camp, if maybe I could come up with Emily and could they just put me up in a cabin somewhere. Kelly says that's fine so Sunday night Emily and Madison and Mom head to camp.
Now, I won't go into the details of the stay. I survived. Emily survived. I was given a lovely air conditioned room and was treated very kindly by many people. But I think I'll just leave that part of the story at that.
But I do want to share the highlight of our adventure together. During swim time Emily was on the deck wrapping her massive beach towel around her head, trying to look like me when I get out of the shower. She was laughing and looking adorable and wanted to look in the mirror so I pointed out the bathroom so she could have a look. A few minutes later she came out with a look of horror on her face. "Mommy, the sink fell off the wall!!!!" Now, I'm sure you can imagine my look of "what!?" She leads me in and yep, the sink did indeed fall off the wall. I asked her if she had climbed up on it and (thank you God) she told me the truth. So I had to go get the dean and let her know. In the meantime Emily is about to melt. out. of. her. skin. That poor child. So after the dean took a very confused look at the sink hanging from the wall, I told Emily she needed to go up to her and tell her that she was the one who did it and that she was so sorry. And do you know that my poor, fearful, and frightened daughter walked right up to her and told her what she had done.
So, you know what!? Say what you want about my poor parenting decisions. Say what you want about "gee, Emily, fearful? Why, wherever does she get that from?" Say what you want about our decision to homeschool our girls, because I've heard about enough about that this weekend too. Say what you want but here is what mama bear has to say...I have one awesome daughter!
Emily has been going through quite a phase lately. Really nervous, anxious about everything. She has had a hard time lately being away from me. She has this fear that she's going to get sick and throw up in front of someone. The poor child is tormented. But, I feel fairly confident that this is just a phase and that life will return to it's normal rhythm very soon. Until the next phase hits but hey, let me take this one psychosomatic day at a time.
Ok, so yesterday (Sunday) was supposed to be her first time getting to go to camp to spend the night. Now, months ago when we first brought this up to her she decided she'd go but wanted to take a friend. Fine. So about a month ago this new phase is all settled in and I happened to mention camp and she totally freaked. Complete terror. Will not go. So, I make a mental note not to bring that up again. Well, sure enough time ticked on like it has a way of doing and all of the sudden Mark and I are laying in bed Saturday night trying to figure out what to do. And the best we could come up with is that Sunday morning I would ask Kelly, a lovely and kind girl at our church who also works at the camp, if maybe I could come up with Emily and could they just put me up in a cabin somewhere. Kelly says that's fine so Sunday night Emily and Madison and Mom head to camp.
Now, I won't go into the details of the stay. I survived. Emily survived. I was given a lovely air conditioned room and was treated very kindly by many people. But I think I'll just leave that part of the story at that.
But I do want to share the highlight of our adventure together. During swim time Emily was on the deck wrapping her massive beach towel around her head, trying to look like me when I get out of the shower. She was laughing and looking adorable and wanted to look in the mirror so I pointed out the bathroom so she could have a look. A few minutes later she came out with a look of horror on her face. "Mommy, the sink fell off the wall!!!!" Now, I'm sure you can imagine my look of "what!?" She leads me in and yep, the sink did indeed fall off the wall. I asked her if she had climbed up on it and (thank you God) she told me the truth. So I had to go get the dean and let her know. In the meantime Emily is about to melt. out. of. her. skin. That poor child. So after the dean took a very confused look at the sink hanging from the wall, I told Emily she needed to go up to her and tell her that she was the one who did it and that she was so sorry. And do you know that my poor, fearful, and frightened daughter walked right up to her and told her what she had done.
So, you know what!? Say what you want about my poor parenting decisions. Say what you want about "gee, Emily, fearful? Why, wherever does she get that from?" Say what you want about our decision to homeschool our girls, because I've heard about enough about that this weekend too. Say what you want but here is what mama bear has to say...I have one awesome daughter!
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