Back to School...formal schooling at least

Ahhh, another year of homeschooling for our family begins. This year Delaney begins Kindergarten. She is excited to do "school work" just like her big brothers and sister. She enjoys fun ways to learn and explore phonics and learning to read....I remember hating phonics, so I hope to make this fun for her. She loves doing math....she especially enjoyed our first 'math is fun' workshop-- which will be every Thursday night with some of her friends.
Connor wants to learn about Botany this year. That, along with the basics of writing, grammar, vocabulary, spelling and of course math will keep him busy. He too, will enjoy having fun playing math and logic games with his friends the Mattson's this year.
Cailin, ever the animal lover, wants to study more about animals this year. She'll get that opportunity with our geography studies this year. As we travel the globe she'll learn more of the amazing animals that live in those areas. She'll also study plants along with Connor. What's really fun is that the curriculum we're using for the botany studies takes a bit of a geographical approach. So these two subjects will blend quite nicely together. A new addition to our class room this year were desks for everyone. They were excited to have a place to call their own and not have to share the kitchen table to get thier school work done.
Connor, Ryan and Cailin will also be busy helping me with Delaney and Liam. They will have time periods through out the day where they will play learning games, read books and play with toys (legos, trains, blocks etc.) with them--when they are with Liam, this will give me the time to spend with Delaney on her 'studies' or with the baby when she arrives.
Ryan will be tackling American Government and Constitutional Studies, Chemistry, Algebra/Geometry (a weekly tutor session with Chris Mattson will be inclued every Thursday, which is why the younger kids get to have a fun math games workshop) Of course the various subjects encompasses with in language arts--a study of various literature, grammar, vocabulary, and a wonderful writing intensive program that we all started late last year will be included. He's also starting early morning seminary this year.....up at 5 am and in class by 6 am. Yesterday he spent the time with his class helping paint the class room getting things all spiffed up for the new year. He came back very excited and happy about seminary starting.
Our first day back into the 'formal schooling' swing of things was Tuesday. It was a bit of a roller coaster day....some good moments and some rather rocky moments, but the ending was great. We started our geography study with reading the book "How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World" by Margorie Priceman. This wonderful book took us to various places around the world as the main character gathered ingredients to make an apple pie. Soooo, we too, went around the world to gather apples and ice cream (lucky for us we had everything else at home to make our pie with). Our first stop was just outside the front door to our apple tree, however, the tree was empty. Thus a trip to "Washington...or Vermont (like in the story) was in order. We all piled into the van and took off on our trip. The kids enjoyed picking out their apples, some for the pie and some to enjoy eating right then (their favorite to eat is granny smith). The next stop was on to "Jamaica and England" (aka Food City) to gather sugar cane and english milk, as in the book. Once there, we decided to ditch the sugar cane and milk and go for French Vanilla icecream, already made, mmmmm that will be delicious! A quick voyage over the ocean and we were back and ready to bake.....not quite, it was dinner time and I was tired so we put off the baking of the pie till the next day.
All ready once again....yum an apple pie to make. Cailin and Connor enjoyed peeling and slicing the apples
I'm terrible at making pie crust, so I'll never be able to teach my kids how to make a pretty crust. Connor and Delaney did well in rolling the crust out. It may not have been a Martha Stewart look alike, but it did taste good, not tough, which, in my book, is all that counts.

Mmmmmmm all that hard work paid off. The pie was delicious. A wonderful begining to hopefully a wonderful school year.

Connor's Lego Creation

I recently bought a few new legos that opened a lot of new possabiliteis, one of which is the tank that is shown. It took me two hours to build but, it was fun.

Happy Birthday Liam.....yep we're in the thick of terrible twos now.

This is so cliche' yet, I can't believe it's been 2 years since my little one was born. Here he is at 6 to 8 weeks old.

I look how small he was and not only has he grown quite a bit, but so have his siblings.
Now you are two and such a little man.

Some of your likes:
Shoes....he loves to put on all kinds of shoes. Everyones shoes in the house has at one time or another been on his feet.
Cars....he love to play with cars. This outfit is favortie because of the red cars.
Girlie things....make up, hair bows, fingernail polish, playing with Barbies. Whatever he sees his sisters doing, he wants to do too. (yeah, he may hate me for mentioning this when he is older :)
Pop pops...aka-- ice pops or popsicles. One can never eat to many of these cool summer treats. Fudgesicles are great too.
Playing outside...he loves the swing and could sit there having someone push him for hours.
Read Aloud...he's just begun to love having story books read to him. His favorites right now are any books having to do with dogs (esp. Clifford) and one certian book on ladybugs.
Being with Daddy on the riding mower... The other day, he heard a neighbors mower start up and just knew that it was Daddy mowing our grass. He kept calling and walking all over the house for him and when he wasn't able to find him desperately tried to get outside to find him...he was certian that he was missing a great mowing session.

Dislikes:

Bed time
Not being understood....many pinches and bites have been given to us and siblings beacause we just don't understand what he is trying to tell us...but we are getting better....of course this leads to another of his dislikes--"Time Out!" Since I know that most of the tantrums, hitting, pinching and biting comes from not being able to tell us what you want, we are all trying to learn Liamesse.


His birthday day, started out with an outing to the creek. As I was telling everyone to get ready he found his sisters swimsuit and was adamant about having it put on him. He rarely melts down into a fit like the one I got that morning....it was a classic terrible twos tantrum. He wanted nothing to do with his swim trunks until I told him that Amber, his friend, was waiting for him and we had better hurry. That...the promise of seeing Amber, was the only thing that got us out the door that day. I wasn't able to strong arm him into his swim diaper and shorts, he kicked everything off that I tried to put on him.
He and Amber traipesing through the creek.
We had a great afternoon picnicing and playing in the creek with our friends the Brame's and Mattson's.

Once Daddy got home from work we had dinner and then the long awaited birthday cake and ice cream. Liam just glowed as we all sang to him. He loved being in the spot light.
Mmmmmmmm...I love cake!
Enjoying his presents from family near and far.
What a joy you are to our family. I love your smiles, singing (especially to Joesph and the Amazing Technicolor dreamcoat, I'm amazed at how many words you do know from that song track) and all the love and joy you give to us. We love you Liam!

Evening the Score

As many of you know we are expecting our 6th child. We had the mid-pregnancy ultrasound this week and it shows that the score is evening up! We're having a girl.

Time with Granma and Gramps

Yah...Grandpa and Grandma Stumm are here. For a while the kids have been eagerly waiting for the arrival of their grandparents from Spokane. We had a great time wtih them; many wrestling and tickling sessions, board and computer games played and other fun activities done.
One such outing was a picnic and walk along the New River Trail near the Shot Tower.

Can't get enough of Grandpa!
A beautiful butterfly that we found along the trail. Keep reading for more of what we did while they were here for a visit!

Wishes Do Come True

A few months ago, early in the spring, while we were shopping at Lowes, Delaney spied the large wooden play ground structures and told her daddy "I know you can't afford one of those right now, but I know that you'll get me one when you can, right Daddy?" Thus began her desire for a wooden playset and Barry's desire to fulfill that wish.
A month or so later while we were at 84 Lumber we found a kit with all the hardware and plans discounted from $100. to $34. Grab it, what a deal. Now, we just have to save the money for the lumber and find the time to build it.
Next came the phone call from Grandma and Grandpa...."we're coming to visit in July!"
Great, Grandpa is fantastic at building things, just the person to spearhead this project!
It's looking like Delaney's wish will come true.
So in July and a trip or two later to Lowes for supplies and the men were off....building an amazing playset.

Ryan and Connor helped some too. Here the men work hard trying to get the last few boards of the the floor down before dusk moves to night.
A few days of hard work and the amazing playset is finished....well almost done, setting up the swings (Delaney's favorite part of the set) and the canopy still have to be put in place. An impromtu splurge and unplanned purchase later, we have a climbing wall that all the kids love. (Definately worth the beans and rice meals for a while.)
After much hard work the guys get to play some too!
"Thank you Daddy and Grandpa, I love it!!"

Baking with Grandma

One morning Cailin woke up and claimed that we had nothing good to eat for breakfast ....."Ahhhh that's to bad. I guess you'll be hungry till lunch time" was my response. She, being Cailin, nagged and nagged till I finally asked what is it that you want for breakfast. "Cinnamon Rolls!" Of course, sorry Cailin, we don't have any, you're out of luck. This time Grandma chimmed in...."I have a wonderful recipe Cailin, how about you and I make some later today." Okay! it's a deal. I still don't know what she ate for breakfast, but at least she stopped whinning about food choices.
They had a good time making the rolls.....they are looking so yummy.
Mmmmmm 2 pans full. I wish that I had got a picture of the final product, they looked so good and tasted wonderful too. They were gone rather quickly. I definately will make these again. There was pudding in the dough and a cream cheese frostening. What's not to love. I know that Cailin sure did love spending this time with Grandma too.

Out and About....visiting different history sites

Towards the end of the time with Grandma and Grandpa we took off to Northern Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania to see some sites. First stop was in Manassas, Va where we stopped at the Manassas Civil War battle field--this is where the Battle of Bull Run and 2nd Bull Run were fought. We enjoyed and indoor audio an lighted map telling of the first battle. This was the first battle of the civil war. The kids weren't really into it so Dad and Barry took a short tour and then off again...next stop--Uncle Brian and Aunt Risa's home in Maryland to bed down for the night.
Up and at 'em....okay, who's kidding, it's hard to get off really early in the day with kids, but we were on the road by 9:30 (I think) and we headed north to Gettysburg Civil War Battlefield. Boy has this place changed since Barry and I were last there, a mere 15 years ago. They now have an amazing museum with a wonderful movie about the civil war and the cyclodome picture with an audio telling of the war. Again, the kids weren't really into this place, which somewhat suprised me because, the boys especially, have been excited about going on a trip this summer to see these very same places with their Dad. I guess having the sisters tag along kind of ruined it for them....who knows, anyway, after a picnic lunch we headed further north to Hershey, Pennsylvania. The home of Hershey Park.
Here we wait in line for the train trip telling of the wonderful world of chocolate, how it is made and all the steps it takes to get from a cacao bean to the wonderful yummy chocolate we all love to eat.
The narration of the train trip is done by this bull.
After the train ride we found ourselves in the chocolate shop/market. (A stroke of genius on the Hershey park corporation's part) They all had big eyes hoping to get some chocolate. They all enjoyed picking a delicious treat-- which they all said they would pay for on their own-- yet, we still haven't recieved any money for yet, I doubt that will happen anytime soon. :)
After the fun of Hershey Park we needed to head home and Grandma and Grandpa needed to head back to Brian and Risa's place. It was sad to say goodbye, but, we've all had a wonderful time and can't wait till we can have fun once again with Gramps and Grandma.