We almost made it.....

Today, August 11th, was our first day of school for this year. Jacey started 1st grade and Abbey started Kindergarten. The day started out well, with everyone excited. When you home school, I don't think the excitement is quite as grand as when you actual GO to school. I mean, we have new curriculum and stuff, but there's no new teacher, or classroom. No need for new clothes or shoes, pretty much the only thing that changes is the schedule at home and the pace of things.

Here we are ready to begin our exciting new journey....



As for the almost made it part, we made it until 2:25pm without anyone (including me!) crying. I thought we were going to make it the whole day, but I pushed just a little to hard for Abbey to color her drawing of the 3rd day of creation. I should have seen it coming, the pouty face, the whining voice, the "But I can't...", but I ignored ALL the warnings and pressed on. Hopefully, I'll do better tomorrow. I'm really proud we made it that long though!

I have lots more to write about, but I am trying to start something else new and radical here at home. I'm trying to get to bed at a decent hour! I know, it probably won't last for long, but to be honest, I'm exhausted and I don't want to be the one crying tomorrow!

Jacey's Six!!!!

Jacey turned six on August 7th. Her birthDAY has actually turned into a birthWEEK celebration. Here are a few pictures of the happy six-year-old.







On Friday we went to visit Aunt DeDe and Courtney at the campground. We went swimming and had a second celebration - with another cake!



On Saturday, we went to INK. It was a great day because a lot of our friends were there for the used curriculum sale. Here she is playing judge. She did a great job with all those 'bad guys' in the courtroom. When I asked them what role they were playing ALL the little boys were the bad guys!



And later on Saturday evening, we went up to Waters/Dicks creek for some fun splashing in the creek. Our friends the Sharpes went with us and all the kids (even the big kids) had a great,but very chilly time.



As if all THIS celebrating wasn't enough, we are having our Friend's party at the Sprayground this Saturday, and Abbey's birthday is just 3 short weeks away. Oh to be that young again!!

Clogging

The girls went to clogging camp this Summer and had a great time! They are going to be taking clogging lessons beginning next week. They decided to try clogging and give ballet a rest after 2 years. I know this is a VERY biased opinion, but I think they are truly adorable.

If you have a few extra minutes check out their performances from the Barnyard Bonanza recital.

The video is a little hard to see, but if you look closely, they are the two littlest ones. Video 3 showcases their individual dancing and is called a "Rise and Shine", the other two are group dances.

This clogging camp was planned and run by two of the sweetest 13 year olds you could ever meet. They did a great job with all the kids and I'm very proud of all they accomplished!! Great job C and B!!!!! (just in case your parents don't want your name on my blog!)

Where does the time go??

It's been almost a month since I've posted anything! I've meant to post, I've had lots to write about, it just seems that there are never enough hours in the day, days in the month...well, you get the picture. Here are some things that are going on with us.

1)Jacey accepted Christ as her personal savior on April 20th. Well, that's the official date that she went down front at church. She started talking about it on April 13th and I think that's the official date. This is just to important, so I'll have a separate entry about this later.

2)We finished Life School Musical at church. Production date was May 4th and it was FABULOUS!! Again, it is worthy of it's own post, and I will get to that soon hopefully! Thanks to my friend Jenny D. I will be able to put up a clip of Jacey singing her first solo ever. She also danced in the musical, but being technically challenged like I am, I can't figure out how to get the recorded dance out of the recorder and onto the computer. Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.

3)The girls had their first piano recital on May 10th. I will have pictures in the future, but for now they are in an old-time camera that requires development. Our digital camera broke on our hike up to Anna Ruby Falls. That hike actually deserves it's own post as well, so that makes three things I now need to post about.

4) Soccer season is over YEAH!!!! It was a lackluster season and I'm not sure we'll be playing again in the fall. There are several reasons, but mostly it's the time involved vs. the return on investment. Once ballet is over (end of this month) we probably won't be doing it again in the fall either, mostly for the same reason.

5) Abbey is finishing up her pre-k work and will be ready for Kindergarten in just a few weeks. She's really come along way this year in her number recognition (8 and above) and her ability to write legibly. She doesn't LIKE to write and complains about it a lot, but the hard work is definitely paying off!

6) Jacey is working HARD on her reading and phonics books. She's done with books 1 and 2 and should be done with 3 and 4 by the end of June. We didn't start this program until November which is why she seems a little behind. She's doing great though and she is becoming a really good reader. Her comprehension amazes me. She finished her Kindergarten math (Math-u-see) in March so we've kind of been taking a 'math-break'. She said today though that she wanted to get back to working on math so that's what we'll do.

We had ballet recital pictures last Friday. While I don't have the pictures back yet, our cousin Stephanie thought to bring her camera to the photo shoot. Here are a few pictures of the princesses. The little girl with Jacey and Abbey is Catherine, she's their cousin.

'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy

Well Now.... It seems I have your attention! Haha...

No, this post isn't about kissing, or guys, or even kissing guys. This post is about something that I have always enjoyed - misunderstood, misheard, mispronounced or otherwise mangled song lyrics. This has been something I have enjoyed reading about since I was 9 or 10 years old. It was at that time I received a book that has been one of my all time favorites. Misheard lyrics actually have a proper name it's Mondegreens. The term was coined by writer Sylvia Green in The Atlantic in 1954. A mondegreen is a word, phrase, line of poetry or song lyric that you hear incorrectly. Now don't say you didn't learn something today!!

You may be wondering, why in the world is she going on about mondegreens? Well, I'll tell you. Tonight as my beautiful Abbey was playing in the bath, she was singing, this is customary. What truly got my attention and made me laugh out loud was what she was singing. It went like this "Mama's little baby loves short men, short men, mama's little baby loves short men yeah". I didn't have the heart to tell her what the song really said, and besides, her version made just about as much sense! You may be wondering, where a four-year old heard a plantation song, which is titled "Short'nin Bread", it's all Laurie Berkner's fault.

'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy' is one of the most widely known mondegreens. The song actually says, "'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky". It's a Jimi Hendrix song that was popular in the 60's, but if you've listened to the radio (classic rock)in the last 25 years or so, I'm sure you've heard it.

Here are few more of my all time favorite mondegreens:

You made the rice, I made the gravy.
Actual lyric:You may be right, I may be crazy.
(Billy Joel)

There's a bathroom on the right.
Actual lyric:There's a bad moon on the rise.
(CCR)

The girl with colitis goes by.
Actual lyric:The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
(Beatles

She's got a chicken to ride.
Actual lyric:She's got a ticket to ride.
(Beatles

Jose can you see?
Actual lyric:O, Say can you see?
(The Star Spangled Banner)

I wanna know
Have you ever seen Loraine?
Actual lyric:I wanna know
Have you ever seen the rain?
(Creedence Clearwater Revival)

I'm noticing a theme here, it seems CCR and the Beatles have a lot of mondegreens. I wonder if that was a sign of the times (the 60's) or if they were just hard to understand?

If you want to read more and laugh til you pee, go here.

Thank you sweet Abbey for the laugh, and for the inspiration for this post.

Words of Five Year Old Wisdom

We had a little incident last week. Abbey lied to me about her dinner, she said she had eaten it, when in fact she had thrown it in the trash. Lying is something that we don't tolerate so the situation was dealt with accordingly. After someone receives punishment, I like to take the time to talk about it after the hurt feelings and DRAMA have died down. Well, as is customary, Abbey and I were discussing her infraction during a calm moment. Jacey happened to be right there with us, listening and taking it all in. When my oldest child opened her mouth to speak, my jaw hit the floor and my eyes filled with tears. She told her younger sister (younger by 12 months and 3 weeks), "The Bible says" (and this is her quoting!) "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are his delight." That's Proverbs 12:22 for those of you reading that might not know.

My sweet, wise-beyond-her-years, God loving child not only quoted scripture to her sister in a biblical way, but she also used it in the correct context AND got the verse right! PRAISE THE LORD for the AWANA program and the teaching children receive there! If you ever have the opportunity to work with this program or put your children in it, please look into it. It's invaluable!

As I've relayed this story to a few friends over the past several days, I find myself tearing up each time. I'm not sure what that's about. I don't think it's pride, because it's nothing I've done, it's all about the Lord. I've been thinking maybe it's jealousy. I don't like to think I'm capable of being jealous of my daughter, but I could be. I find myself wishing that at such a young age, I would have been on the same journey she's on in her personal relationship with God. I didn't even know a personal relationship with God was a possibility until I was in my 30's! I'm still not sure where all the emotions are coming from, but I do know that I thank GOD for her love for Him and I pray it continues to grow as she continues to grow. Thank you Jesus!

Our New Addition

I only wish it were a HUMAN little bundle of joy. But I suppose a puppy is the next best thing (well, maybe...). Our new little guy is Tucker. We got him at the soccer field last Thursday and he's been providing entertainment and a source of constant friction in our home for the last 3 days! Even though he has FOUR legs, Jacey and Abbey don't seem to think he can and/or should walk around. They carry him everywhere or he is constantly being held. Of course there is the obligatory fighting between sister, "She's had him for HOURS!", "I haven't gotten to hold him all day", "Is it my turn to hold Tucker?", I'm sure you're picking up on the theme here. At one point I had heard so much whining, complaining and DRAMA, that they were both put on puppy restriction for an hour. Of course the quite only lasted a short time then the question was, "How much longer until we can hold Tucker?" AUGHHHH!

You know how sometimes it's hard to pick out a name for a puppy, and then you wonder if you've named him the right thing? Well, our list of possible names was a short one, they included; Tucker, Clancy, Huck, and Dylan(that was Jacey's suggestion). We settled on Tucker and it has turned out to be the PERFECT name. He is ALWAYS TUCKERed out from being played with, held, drug around and loved on so much. Below are some pictures of him in one of his two states of being, in someones arms or asleep.