I guess the biggest change that has happened since my last post is that we have moved in with my parents for a while. As I'm sure you could probably tell from previous posts, our credit isn't in the best shape. And my parents being the best in the world, offered for us to move in for no more than a year to help us get out of debt. I'll never forget their generosity as long as I live. Inviting a family of 5 (soon to be 6) to live with you is a BIG deal. But so far it has been going really well. :)
You may be wondering where we all fit :) Here you go!!
In one room :) And just when you thought that I couldn't get any crazier!!! But you know what?? It's really not that bad, and I actually mean that.
I think the family of five sleeping in one bedroom deserves an entire post to itself, so stay tuned!!
Other then that, the days have been starting out around 7:00-8:00 (if I'm lucky).
They have been filled with lots of this...
Load after load
And this....
Mess after mess
And this....
Living in the bathroom
BUT they also have been filled with lots of this
My sweet daughter's smiles
And this....
Hours of these two playing together
Playing with Daddy
There really is never a dull moment around here. I can vaguely remember a time when I used to be bored. It was before kids entered the picture. lol. I would choose the crazy, loving, chaos over being bored any day.
Homeschool preschool has been going great!! I can't believe how much Bear is learning. I have really tried to focus on reading quality books with all three of them, and having a laid back fun approach to learning. Here are some things we've been doing.
We read "We're going a Bear Hunt" and worked on our numbers in the teens by hiding a bear behind the cave numbers, then trying to guess which cave the bear was under. (Bear wanted his transformer in the picture :) )
We also took scissors outside, cut grass, and hid a counting bear in a tub of grass to find. We used our hands and then tongs to make it a little harder.
Lately we've been doing Christmas things. We're going to go cut down our tree this weekend, so this week is going to be all about Christmas trees.
We've been reading "The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree". My aunt had given this book to me and my sisters as a Christmas present when we were kids, and it's really a fantastic book. You should check it out.
I printed off a do-a-dot paper from pinterest, and wrote some upper case letters on the paper and matching lower case letters on the stickers. Bear then matched the upper and lower case letters, and he got every one of them right. :)
We also made a Christmas tree forest using play dough and a cookie cutter, then we "decorated" them with some pinto beans that we already had. Bear wanted to have 7 beans on a lot of them, so he would see how many he had on there already, and then quickly tell me how many he needed to still add. I was very proud of him. I think math will be a strong subject for him. :)
I'm loving having these precious days with my kids. They are hard and tiring, but so worth it. They all three get so excited when we sit down to have our reading time together. I can see they are already starting to form "relationships" with books. We'll take them to the library and they'll get so excited to see a book that we've already read together and beg to check it out again.
I'll be playing with them or doing "activities" (as we call preschool things a lot) and they'll come over and hug and kiss me or Bear will say "I love doing activities with you."
It warms my heart to no end.
Knowing me and the busy life I lead, I probably won't get to post again until after Christmas, so here's to wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and may God bless you all in the New Year. :)
