Wrapping Up August

August Dates
I believe this is the first time we have had our dates at the same time. This month is crazy so we had to fit them all in at once. The girls dropped off the boys. It worked out really well.

Mother/Daughter - Starbucks and Sam Moon (accessories)

Father/Son - Top Golf (three floors of driving ranges basically...)

Birthday Party Fun
We had a blast celebrating Miss Aubrey's birthday with her and an inflatable water slide!

J and J Time
We always love getting time with these two. In this picture they are racing cars.
















Pool Fun
Still lovin' lots of swimmin'! Gotta enjoy it before the pools close! We had trouble finding diving rings, but were thrilled when we found diving squid. :) My favorite swim times are when we get done with school work by 11 or so, and then take about a 1 - 1 1/2 hour swim break before lunch! We have the community pool all to ourselves! :)

Project Mode
Honestly, Brad and I have been trying to squeeze in every minute of unpacking/setting up as possible! While adding part time teaching and planning the kids birthdays to it all, its been more than a little crazy. Working hard to balance that and fun! :)

(As you can see Brad and I aren't the only ones working! Amanda A. came over to help me make creature power suits for the kid's party we have coming up. I cannot even say how much help that was!!!)

Watermelon Day

Somehow this day seems to get downplayed a little more each summer. I'm telling myself its still a good memory making tradition, even if all they do is eat a huge slice of watermelon in the grass. :)

They still loved it. :)

First Day/Weeks Of First Grade!!!

I wasn't sure how this would go. New town, new house, new school, new grade...it is a good reason for emotions to run high.

Having Meet The Teacher the week before school started helped immensely. Not only did Lorelei get to meet her teacher, but she got to see her classroom and meet a few classmates as well.

The morning of Lorelei's first day I heard Makin ask how L was feeling and specifically asked if she was scared. "I'm really, really, really excited and just a tiny bit scared," was her answer. That gave me such a huge relief. She didn't even seem too nervous for her photo shoot! :) Loved it!

M and I hung out at Starbucks (we needed a date to help us both not be sad, and to show Makin there are perks to being younger!) and ran a few errands before heading home. Then we were super excited to see what L would say at pick up! This was my first-ever experience with a large school pick-up line. Will take some getting used to! Mrs. White brought her to the car and sounded as excited as Lorelei did. They seem to be a great match, which has me extra excited for 1st grade! The first words from Lorelei were, "Mommy, guess what!? I made new friends!" :) What a great first sentence to hear! She had nothing but positive things to say about her day, and gave me a super tight hug when we got parked.

We headed for our usual ice cream celebration (Braums!) and she was excited to see that a classmate was in the parking lot too! Her classmate's mom said, "She chose Braums because Lorelei was going there." :) Fast friends makes this mom one happy lady!

Friday came our chance to see what a more full home-school day would look like. It was a very hands-on day, which was great for all of us. Fun activities talking about the 5 senses, trip to the library, etc. One of the best things was that Makin could participate! (One of my biggest fears/challenges is going to be keeping him entertained while big sis needs quiet and attention to do her work.)

(For those of you studying our house in pics...
this was a table left on the patio from someone previously and has now been moved to the garage. :) )

We finally got a feel of our first full week of school this week. I do think that we will be able to complete all our work before lunch at this age, so very excited about that! (Mary is home-schooling Aubrey and she will likely have to go a couple of hours after lunch, but that is 3rd grade.)

Right now our biggest challenge is reading. Lorelei thinks she should just be able to read like a pro already and gets frustrated extremely quickly when she does not know a word, and does not think she should have to sound anything out. I plan to chat with her teacher about what I need to do to keep her from getting so frustrated. Right now she loves books but dislikes reading. :(  I think she is a little rusty from the summer, so I'm going to have to find some ways to give her extra practice to make her more confident and calm.

Makin seems to be getting the hang of keeping busy on his lessons and being respectively quiet for his sister. I'm going to have to have plenty for this kid to do though. He went through 5 worksheets by 10 AM! (No, he does not HAVE to do worksheets. He actually picked out a PreK/K book and asked for them. He also gets to choose anything quiet that is not distracting!) And no, I am not above bribing him with a chocolate chips reward for staying quiet while she does 20 minutes of reading. :)

This girl came home from school Tuesday elated to play her new musical instrument. Her class will be learning how to play the glockenspiel this year. I loved seeing how excited she was about this. She has music Tuesdays and art Thursdays.

In case you are curious about our exact schedule, here it is...

MWF- home school days. (So far, it appears Fridays are a bit lighter. Not sure we will get to the point of having them totally off unless there is a special reason...like a field trip!? Then we would have to put more time in on MW.) We get a checklist of lessons to accomplish each day from the teacher by midnight Saturday we print and then know what we need to do for the week.

T/Th - Grace Covenant. She gets dropped off around 8AM and picked up at 3:10. (And no homework after school!!!)

Now you have a great picture of our weeks around here! Hope you enjoyed! I'll have to see how we fit in these school posts with our everyday blog posts. :)

Swim Lessons

In addition to all the pool time at our community pool and pool play dates, we managed to fit in four sessions of swim lessons. On our first evening trying out our pool, we noticed there was a woman giving lessons to a couple of brothers, individually. I wanted to seize the opportunity to get her name for lessons next summer, and I was surprised when she said she could fit in a session the following week!

I wanted the kids to take lessons this summer, but with our schedule I had just resigned to wait until next summer. I knew Makin would benefit greatly from first-ever lessons and Lorelei would love improving on her skills and learning more. (I have noticed she really feels great about swimming, loves it and is confident in her abilities - so I'm excited for her to have a possible physical niche, even if it is only for now.)

Lorelei loved her lessons. She has come a long ways in just the last few weeks from the consistent swimming and she learned even more new strokes etc. The teacher said she will basically just need to work on stamina and technique moving forward. (If she wants to!)

Makin learned so much. He has always loved the comfort of the floatie, but has done lots of swimming and putting his face in with the floatie on, so he seemed ahead of the curve when he started. His teacher was impressed and he caught on quickly to what she asked him to do. He was almost a little too sure of his abilities after ONE lesson and just wanted to dive in and not have a floatie from then on. It reminded me a lot of when he was little and learned to walk so quickly. As soon as he had his first lesson he was determined to do things like his big sister; including diving in, diving for rings and doing underwater somersaults. A little more stressful having two kids in the pool now for sure!

Both kids are very proud they perfected the underwater somersault. :)

University Model School

Brad and I are very excited about the opportunity for our children attend a university model school. (Side note: Makin will not be starting here this year, but we plan for him to go to Kindergarten there next year. He was very, very sure that he wanted to do preschool this year, so he will be going two afternoons a week, and will get his very own post when he starts! :) ) It was a huge draw to bring us back to the area. It does not seem to be a very well-known type of schooling, so I thought I should give a little more information about it.

I first heard about it around 4 years ago when I worked a short shift at the church pumpkin patch. The mom I was there with just quickly explained why her daughter was not in school that day and I got a glimpse of the idea. Then I got to know another woman from church who became a teacher at that same school a couple of years later. It was always in the back of my mind as, "wouldn't that be nice..." and eventually became, "this is what I really, REALLY want for my kids."

When I explain it to people in short I just say that I love it because the kids go to school two days a week, and then we do home school the other days.  This particular school goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. UM schools were actually started in Texas, so there are quite a few around the area. There are other states that have them, but they are not really wide-spread yet.

What we love about UM schooling.

1.) We are still a huge part of our children's lives and able to teach them how we want. I love being able to teach/nurture etc with what we feel is important in steering them toward what God wants for their lives. Quality family time is very important to me and this gives us that, especially in these years we are still working so hard and building that strong foundation when they are so young and easily influenced.

2.) They get to experience having classmates and teachers. That was my main concern with home-schooling. Brad and I both had great experiences both making friends and with teachers. (The bad with the good, of course.) I love that this gives our children a chance for friends their own age consistently, as well as a chance to learn from another adult other than their parents. This is also important to me because both kids seem to be extroverted, and I know how much they love having friends to spend time with.

3) I do not have the stress of making sure all the requirements are met, like when they need to learn to divide or spell "rhinoceros". The layout of the lessons is given to me each week. I can elaborate however I see fit and tailor the lessons to each child. I can gear it more towards their learning style, or we can spend extra time on something if its really interesting to them. The teacher in me loves doing a lot of this, but I love that I am not solely responsible for it.

4) A Christian Education. Now, we had this at L's previous school, but its still worth mentioning. Brad and I both grew up in public schools but in strong Christian families, which is GREAT. In our small communities, we didn't have any other choices and thankfully many of the families we grew up with shared our morals. I love that in a Christian school you get so much more knowledge of the Bible than I ever spent time working on. Not to mention they are great about really focusing on, "What has God made you for?" and prayer. I am so excited to see L and M's faith grow through all of this.

To read an even better explanation, check out this blog...she knows exactly how to put what I'm thinking into words!
http://thehumbledhomemaker.com/2014/08/what-is-a-university-model-school.html


Another question we often hear is to what age does the school go? You can attend UM schools all through high school. I recently heard the idea of "no school decision is a forever decision" and I really felt relief when I heard that. While I think this is going to be the perfect fit for our family, I also have to keep in mind that it may not be the right fit forever. All I can do is give 100% to my family and pray about what is best for all of us each year. That being said, I'm so excited to see what the year brings! :)

Texas Once Again

Well, I'm not sure whether we are writing books or chapters at this point, but whatever you want to call it, we are starting another new one.

Movin'
We stayed with Aunt Heather on our drive south. The kids were thrilled to meet her new(ish) dog Lou. They also loved swimming at the apartment pool that night and special donuts for breakfast.

Around The House
The kids have done AMAZINGLY at keeping themselves entertained the last month or so with packing and unpacking. Quite honestly I'm just so impressed I cannot believe it. They have had arguments and melt downs occasionally, but way less than I would have expected with all the lack of attention and change coming their way.

(I typed this part about week or so ago, and have to add that there have been more melt downs following. Not sure if it was just a delay about the change or if they are more anxious about the new things coming up quickly. But, all will settle down soon!)

Fun With Friends
We jumped right in to play dates after a few days of unpacking. I'm telling myself I need to take my time to unpack...just hope that mentality can last. Its just so important that all of us have fun to keep sane along with all the chaos that the move brings.

When you move to Texas in August...there isn't much to do other than swim, swim, swim! :)

Hughes' community pool - Lorelei finally got brave enough to jump in after watching her friends do it many times!

Ok...one day we didn't swim. Hot Wheels track and face paint indoors!

Having fun in the Armstrong's pool!

School Prep
Intertwined with unpacking, play dates and every day life (those clothes and dishes don't wash themselves just because I need to unpack!?!) we are trying to get prepared for school. Back to school shopping and meetings I have needed to attend as a co-teacher for Lorelei have made our schedule a bit crazy. I cannot say how excited it also makes me. I have always felt 100% sure this is the school I wanted, but going to these meetings has made me exceptionally pumped. I'm beyond thrilled to see what the year brings and really can't wait for both kids to make even more friends. I'm also a bit overwhelmed. My usual prep work would involve having all of our school supplies nice and organized and have our school room ready for her very first day...that is not likely! I'll do a separate post on University Model schooling soon!

Finishing Up Our Nebraska Summer

Knowing we were moving for several months has often made us tired of waiting around for things to fall into place. As they usually do, they worked out with great timing and I feel really good about how we wrapped things up here before heading on our next chapter.

It may seem silly, but sometimes I get attached to things I really don't want anymore. There is just something sentimental about them. That was the case with our blue chairs. Brad and I were determined to fit into one moving truck and have been in purge mode over the last 1 1/2 years or so. One of our last items to go were the blue chairs. These were gifted to us from Brad's parents, so he remembers his sister sitting in them with labor pains with Hannah. Hannah, Karter, Lorelei and Makin were all rocked to sleep as babies in these chairs. So, had to get a picture of my not-so-little babies in a blue chair one more time.

Its hard to see, but in the background are two milk trucks. Almost every Tuesday morning Makin and I would see those milk trucks in the parking lot of Walmart before we shopped. They are transferring milk for some reason or another. When we pulled up we thought, this is the last time we will see the milk trucks! (Yes I know, something I never thought I would care about, and maybe I shouldn't care about!) So we took a picture. :)











Friends

After watching Drue for over a year and a half, it was hard to think of not seeing her two days a week! Watching her was such a great fit for our family. She was a great playmate for Makin, especially when he had to adjust to his big sister going to school. We loved that we could teach her and get her ready for her first year of preschool this fall too. Makin had a really hard time on her last day. They have great memories together and we are so thankful for her and her family. She will be missed!

Magna Tile Rockets and Lego Fun

Enjoying lunch on the patio, Hullabaloo (one of their fav games to play), and sandbox time.

On her last day we wanted to do something special, so went to the putt putt golf course. We have a tradition of taking pictures if the kids get a hole-in-one, and L got one, M got two! :) We had gorgeous weather to enjoy while playing.

Best Buds

The other advantage to having lots of time to move, is to plan fun things.

We enjoyed Sunday lunch and swim at the Becks.

Lorelei and Ellorie in the Beck's lake, literally in their backyard.

Bible Study group swim party at Jodi's house. (She also watched the kids on her own a few hours to help me out another day and they got to swim again!)

And a couple of last play dates, Lorelei went to her friend Anna's house and Makin and I met up with a couple of friends from storytime at the park.

These girls really love each other! There is already a paper waiting of a picture Lorelei drew to mail to Anna. They had lots of fun together in Kindergarten and are both equally excited about life. :)

Makin, Calan and Lily

Michelle P took the kiddos for an entire afternoon (a much-needed break the week Brad was gone!) and I got through all my school stuff that had been piling up and it was such a relief. The kids had a blast with McDonald's for lunch, a trip to the lake, and visiting her house where they could play with her dog.

Michelle S took the kids for the afternoon while our carpets were getting cleaned and I was finishing up the last minute errands I needed to accomplish before we left. She took the kids to HyVee (to get me the biggest Starbucks ever), McDonalds for lunch, home for rest and then to Pawnee Plunge to swim. Somewhere in all that they also loved playing with her dog and Evan's Nurf guns. :) Then she also fed us all a yummy supper. It was the prefect way to spend our last night in Columbus.

It took hours and hours of discussions between Brad and I and months of deliberating to make the decision to move. There is something special about Columbus that makes me feel very at-home there. We will miss our friends and so many things that make Nebraska special to us. We are thankful we have Brad's family in Nebraska so we get to go back! :)

Got this in an email. Thought it was a good fit.

“We change, but always at a cost: to win this you lose that.”

- Geoffrey Wolff, A Day at the Beach, “Apprentice”

We are sad but also excited for our next chapter. More to come on that soon enough. ;)
(Well, maybe not so soon...if you saw the boxes you would understand!)