Gymnastics Again

KFC has been asking all summer to start back in gymnastics. We finished at The Little Gym back in June and I knew I wanted her to take the summer off. I also wanted to start her at a gymnastics place that was right down the road from our house and they didn't start doing classes till their fall session. Her first class was this past Thursday. Its a nice gym! It has everything in it that you would need for a competitive gymnastics team. While I loved TLG, it was more for fun and play and something we could enjoy together while she was young. Now that she is a little older she will be able to progress more at a 'real' gym.

So far there is 2 other little girls that are sisters and 1 little boy in her class. The girls ages were 2 and 3, and the little boy was 3! While I wouldn't call KFC advanced, but she put those kids to shame! The instructors were doing very basic skills she learned back at TLG over a year ago. I will see how this weeks class goes, but I'm thinking the class she is in now is just too young for her. The next class up is Level 1 gymnastics and I'm not sure if she is ready for that. I just hate they don't have a 4-5 year old class!

This was my favorite that they got to do... They have a long rectangular trampoline that is built into floor level. The kids were to jump down it and into the PIT! The one thing I miss most about doing gymnastics was the pit ~ aka the big hole with the foam blocks! I think KFC liked it but she wasn't sure of it at first.

At the end of the class the instructor asked if KFC has had any experience before! haha She said she could tell. :)

"My Mama Learned Me"

Earlier this year I came across an excellent website that teaches kids how to read. I loved it because it teaches you a few similar words at a time and when you master that there is a 'book' you can read that incorporates those new words. KFC loved it because it seemed like a game. After finding that website I made a list of sight words and made them into flashcards. She hasn't been fond of the flashcards, so I will continue then as she shows interest. Over our summer vacation at the beach, my cousin brought a set of books that her son was reading. She explained the concept to me and I found 'book one' to look at and to my surprise KFC actually read the first book with very little help! She was all smiles knowing that she just read a book all by herself! I was told that Costco sells them, but for one reason or another I haven't made it to Costco in months!!! Friday, KFC and I had some free time so we strolled around Costco. At the end of the book table is where I found what I was looking for... "BOB Books"!. After digging through the stack to find 'Collection 1' and waiting in the check out line for over 10 minutes!, they were ours!

The box contains 18 books. You start with 'book 1' and move your way up when your child is ready. They progressively get harder with more sounds being added. It says by book 12 all letters of the alphabet will have been introduced. On the second page of all the books it has a list of sounds to go over before reading that book. 

KFC was very eager to look through them and had remembered reading the first one while at the beach. I am making her read one BOB Book a night before I read her a regular story book when we are settling into our nightly routine. Last night was the first night. She finished the first book no problem, she wanted to continue on to book 2 and did so fairly well, then we moved on to book 3 and she had some stumbles. Now I know which book she needs to continue learning on right now. 

I am very excited that she has a "want" to learn right now! A few months back I told myself that I was going to teach her how to read before she starts kindergarten, and I knew I had one whole year to do it. She is very sad that cousin B and others are already starting Kindergarten this year... so for her motivation I tell her that she can't start Kindergarten until she can read {or whatever else I need/want her to do!}. Working very well so far and I will continue to use it till it doesn't work anymore! haha

I also created her a little book that I made to take to the District Convention and meetings or just for her to do her 'school' work. I printed off tons of Pre-K learning pages, put them into sheet protectors, and put them into a notebook. She is able to use her dry erase markers on the sheet protectors to do the activities and then it wipes clean for next time.

We have also been trying to teach her addition. She picked it up fairly quickly. We started off by teaching her to count her fingers and has now progressed into counting objects. I picked up this little book thing from walmart in the back to school section a month or so ago that teaches you to write your numbers up to 30 and has two pages of addition.

I definitively don't want or think she should be home-schooled for her primary years, but I am committed to doing my best to teach her EVERYTHING she wants to learn when she is ready!

Egg-cellent Rainbow Craft

I came across an egg dyeing kit, I bought earlier this year when they were on sale, in our 'junk' drawer the other day. I forgot that I had it so I was excited to have a semi-fun craft for KFC and I to do. This was her first experience dying eggs. After finding the kit I decided to go ahead and hard boil the eggs to realize we only had a few white eggs, then realized we were almost out of vinegar! Off to the store we went. I let KFC do most of the prep work. We filled each cup with 3 tablespoons of vinegar then dropped the little tablets in. KFC thought it was cool that they fizzed. After all the fizzing had settled we add 1/2 of water to each cup. After 3 minutes of the egg in the dye they were good to go!

After we dyed all the eggs I cracked them open and showed KFC what the inside of a cooked egg looks like. Yes, she has never seen a hard boiled egg before for the fact that she is such a picky eater that I usually don't make them. She liked how 'squishy' the egg whites were! 

I made deviled eggs out of the dyed eggs. I am not fond of them so I sent these with Hubby to work the next day. Hubby likes his deviled eggs with jalapenos so I added in several of our jalapenos from the garden. Hubby said that all the eggs were eaten by 8:30 that morning!

I took the egg shells and broke them into smaller pieces. I kept each respective colors in a separate cup since these were going to be used like a mosaic. The kit came with all the colors of the rainbow. I printed off a drawing of a rainbow, added glue to each bow and let KFC add the colored shells. Came out pretty neat! We still have leftover shells that we can use for another project!

This craft went well with a real rainbow that we had at our house Sunday evening! It was just after we had a little shower that this very vibrant rainbow appeared! At the left side you can see where a double rainbow was starting. {I pieced two photos together so I could get the entire rainbow}

Pinkalicious Tea Party

Last Friday the library had a Pinkalicious Tea Party. I knew that since KFC loves the Pinkalicious books that she would love a Pinkalicious Tea Party, and she did! I was kind of disappointed that they didn’t actually serve tea at the TEA party, but they did have pink lemonade and it did go along with the ‘Pinkalicious and The Pink Drink’ book.

They started off with story time. Of course only reading Pinkalicious books.

After that the kids went back to the tables they had set up. They were given a coloring sheet and a wand they could decorate.

Then they brought out pink cupcakes and the pink lemonade.

Goodbye Louie ~ Hello Andy

Monday morning we noticed Louie not moving in his tank. I thought he was already a gonner, but after poking him his fins moved. His eyes looked funny and he wasn’t eating, so I knew it wouldn’t be long for him. KFC was upset but I think I was the most upset. KFC and I got Louie when Hubby was out of town. For that reason, having him meant something special for me. Anytime you walked up to his tank he would always come to the glass to greet you. Its almost like he LOVED when you would stop by to look at him. He was a happy fish because he made us so many bubble nests! I always felt bad when cleaning his water because it would usually mean destroying his bubbles- no matter how hard I tried to preserve them. Tuesday afternoon is when he finally died. Not sure of the cause because it could have been many factors… forgetting to change his water because of the convention, the car ride home, the immediate water change after the car ride, our water having some kind of problem with too much air in it, me doing a full water change and not a partial one, or the fact that I had never bought water conditioner.

After Hubby got home Tuesday night, we took Louie out to our woods to bury him. So far we have buried 2 chicks and 1 fish back there! :(

So long poor Louie! :*(

KFC and I went Friday afternoon to get a new beta fish. She has named him Andy. There wasn’t any there as pretty as Louie but this is the one she picked. He is considerably much smaller than Louie and Very scared. Louie always greeted us at the tank, this one just hides behind the octopus. He has a lot of living up to do and I really hope he does!

Soccer Camp ~ Days 2 & 3

The post title says it all… there was no day 4! By the end of day 3 KFC was DONE! She complained, whined, and decided she wasn’t even going to try anymore. I knew for mine, hers, and the coach’s sake I couldn’t bring her back for the final day. Made me kinda sad, but I just didn’t have it in me to fight it another day. Yes, it was Hot and the boys were super rough but I want her to learn to be tough and stick things out. She liked doing the activities but when he came to actually playing the game of soccer she wanted nothing to do with it.

Hopping over the hurdles

Playing

Playing soccer bowling. They had to kick their ball to knock over the cones, and some of the cones had ‘treasure’ (a jersey) inside! KFC never found any treasure.

At least we gave it a try!

2011 District Convention

'Let God's Kingdom Come' was this years theme of our 3 day District Convention.

Some friends of ours came up to stay with us for the weekend! We all stayed at Papa's house since it cut off a good 30 minutes of our drive than staying at our house! The Halls showed up late Thursday night. KFC was already asleep. That next day, Friday, I volunteered myself to watch their little boy K since Hubby and I had already went to the convention the Friday before. KFC, little K, and I went that morning to the grocery store. The kids were very good for me! He is also the most loving kid I have EVER met!!! Back at the house, we had lunch, a bath, a nap, then had to go pick Hubby up from work since we only drove one car to Papa's. To save money, we decided to eat at the house Friday and Saturday night, then go out to eat Sunday. Friday was my day to cook. I wanted to make sure dinner was ready by the time S&L got back from the convention. After they got through the traffic at the convention, stop and go traffic on the freeway, then having to stop to fix a break issue on their car, we finally got to eat around 8pm that night! I had made lasagna (surprisingly it stayed piping hot by the time we got around to eating it), a salad, and garlic Parmesan bread. Yummy! We put the kids to bed, finished watching a movie, then we all crashed.

Friday 7/29

Attendance ~ 7,985

Saturday 8/6

Attendance ~ 9,048

What happened to the kids legs! Hard on little ones to keep the seat down that always goes up!

KFC's drawing of her and little K

We had two people from our Congregation get baptized at this Convention. There were 49 people total that were baptized this weekend. Here is our friend AB!

Our other friends C&L came down also to attend Saturday and Sunday of our convention! Funny how they swear they will never nor want to have kids, but they always had little K and looked so natural at it!!!

Lunch Time! After eating, we took the kids to find cousin P and the rest of the family so they could get all their wiggles out!

We took this picture for Papa! NC State Wolfpack

Car rides! By the end of the day the kids were zoned out! Instead of touching each other, they just touched feet! They are so cute together! Bottom left picture I took while Hubby was flying around a curve, that's why L looks like she is hanging on for life!

Saturday night was LH turn to make dinner. That morning before we left, she put some chicken, corn, beans, etc. in the crockpot and left it to cook for us. She warmed up some tortillas to make chicken tacos out of it! C&L came over that night to eat and hang out with us! LZ made the guacamole! Hubby had a bunch of jalapenos so he made some sausage and cheese stuffed jalapenos as an appetizer. Then we had brownies and ice-cream for dessert! Super YUMMY!!! Bottom left picture is KFC with CZ's new mustache app where the mouth moves as you talk into it. After we put the kids to bed, we sat around laughing and having a good time enjoying each others company! So wish both of them lived closer!!! 

Sunday 8/7

Attendance ~ 10,058!

At the lunch time break, we made our way to the floor and found Chessy up there. We got her to take our picture. The bottom 2 pictures are of me trying to convince KFC to take her hands out of her mouth and smile at the camera, while Hubby was making faces! KFC was not in a good mood, since two little boys that were hitting each other accidentally hit KFC! WHY DO WE NEED BOYS! And especially why can't parents watch and control their ridiculous children! After I firmly told the boys to stop hitting cause they just kit my child, the parents made their way over and made the boys apologize... KFC didn't care, she didn't like them anymore!

Sunday afternoon is the day everyone looks forward to. It's when we get to see the Drama. This year it was a combination of old and new. Old being the story of Joseph, and new being a teenage boy accused by another teenage girl.

After the convention let out, we made our way back to the house to pack up and get changed. We were meeting at Mellow Mushroom for dinner! Can it be, 3 Yummy dinners all in one weekend!???

A Mushroom! See Two... See Three... See Five!

This years Convention was one of the most informative ones I can remember, and it was definitely the most fun. It was so nice to have great friends around us that we get along with so well! Thanks for making this year's convention a fantastic one!

Anniversaries

Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Hubby and I's 8 Year Anniversary! Unfortunately this year we didn't do anything. The day came and gone like any other day. Hubby even thought our anniversary was the day after! I had planned on surprising Hubby at work for lunch and was going to wrap him a present of a box of energy drinks... since that was the only {cheap} thing I could think of that he would have actually wanted! Never got to make it there because a friend needed a service partner that day for she was babysitting 3 kids and I had a van. Guess my time was better spent helping others! :) I'm hoping we will be able to take a postponed trip to somewhere in the fall. Just happy that we have made it 8 years as a married couple and 4 years as parents together!

Also, this past Saturday, the 6th, marked my 1 Year Anniversary on the creation of my blog! When I first was introduced into the blogging world, I was very ignorant in how it worked and what it was all about. When KFC was around 2 I started writing her a journal of what us as a family were doing and the special events we went to. I wanted some way of documenting her growing up, so that one day we could look back and remember the small details of that day that our brains decide not to remember! One Problem... I am NOT a scrapbooker and this journal was not big enough to include pictures (pictures are worth 1,000 words...plus the words I wanted to add to them!). Last year I decided to give blogging a try. I tried to keep my original intent of documenting our lives together. I have thrown in some posts here and there that were somewhat unrelated to our family as a whole, such as 'Meaningless Mondays', etc, but these posts included something about Me (figured in my journal I could be selfish sometimes), photography was a hobby of mine back in HighSchool and the meaningless mondays posts was where I could take random pictures of anything I wanted. 

My blog has had some tweaks over the year, making it more into what I was wanting out of it. I have learned how to create a banner to have at the top. I have changed up the dimensions of the columns so as to be able to make the pictures as big as blogger will allow me. Photographs I feel tell the story and my words just add the fine detail to the things we might not remember when looking back. I have added MANY other blogs to my side bar too. I have found TONS of inspiration and ideas ranging from arts/crafts, organization, freebies, sewing tips, and homeschooling help.

Here are some of my blog stats over this past year:

109 Blog Posts

3,480 all-time Pageviews

The post "Baby Chicks" got the most pageviews coming in at 44;

followed by my "Shingles" post at 23 pageviews! haha

'My Audience' pageviews- US(3,451), Belize(4), Canada/Germany/United Kingdom(3), Australia/Netherlands/Ukraine(2), France&Mexico(2)

~While I have loved reading all comment from my viewers, I have decided to remove the comments section from my posts. This blog was also created to be able to share with our friends/family the things we have been up to, but the sole purpose is my journal to my family. 

Thanks to All Who Have 'Follow'ed Us!!!

Louie's Present

KFC wanted to buy Louie a present. Hubby told her we could get him something when we went to the store. She and him first picked out a ridiculously large rock thing with a fake plant coming out of it. It was neat looking, but I had to remind them both what they picked out would have taken up Louie's entire tank! I directed them over to the small figurines. KFC finally decided on the octopus with a sign that reads 'No Fishing'. We put it in Louie's tank and I think he actually likes it!! He welcomed it and even looked like he kissed it. KFC was VERY excited to have gotten him a present! She kept saying "He really likes it!".

Soccer Camp

I asked KFC if she would like to try a soccer camp. It was only for 4 days and an hour each day. She seemed excited. I liked the idea because I would like for her to try all different sports and hobbies and this was one thing I had on my list for her to try out. I liked that is was only a few days, that way she got somewhat of an understanding of what soccer is about but if she didn't like it, then we were done after the 4 days.

I signed her up. I received a conformation email and it said she needed her own soccer ball and shin guards. We went to Wal-Mart last night and picked her up a purpleish-pink soccer ball. I skipped on the shin guards thinking she wouldn't really need them... toward the end of practice today she got kicked in the ankle and cried. Guess we did need them after all!

Today was the start of her 4 day camp. We were one of the first people to arrive, which got her familiar with where she was going to be playing. After signing her in, she went down to the field to kick her ball around. Another little boy came and took her ball from her, then as she tried to get it back, he ripped it away from her hands! She FLIPPED out!!! An older boy came and got the ball back for her. As she was sitting in my lap crying, all I could think was how I was going to find this little boys dad and let him know he needed to control his child better! My biggest pet-peeve is Parents not instructing their kids on how to act properly! Kids will be kids, but if KFC did that to another kid, I would have made her go apologize! Knowing KFC, once she gets upset, she doesn't want anything to do what she had been doing... this made me nervous since the actual soccer practice hadn't even started yet! She eventually calmed down and went back to the field when the coach came out to gather his age group of kids. The campers consisted of about 9 kids ages 3 1/2 to around 4, all boys but KFC :( The soccer field was Wet and KFC was a grassy mess by the end of it!

The kids started off by "dribbling" the ball around. They played green light / red light, dribble ball on green and stop the ball on red. He taught them to stop the ball first with their feet, then elbows, and I think their knees.

Next they played a game where there were different colored shirts randomly placed in the grass, this is what the coach called his skittles. The kids were to dribble the ball around and pick up the skittles to bring back to the coach. Guess he was trying to get them used to keeping the ball moving as they moved around.

The coach then set up different colored cones in the shape of a square. They were to set their ball on top and when he said 'blast-off', they were to kick their ball in the middle and dribble the ball to another colored cone he told them to find. It was funny when the coach told the kids to bring the ball back to a yellow cone, ALL the kids just kept kicking their ball around trying to find one... the cones were neon yellow, but the kids thought they were green so none of them could find a yellow cone!

They did this several times of kicking the ball off before moving on to head-butting the ball off and I think they also used their elbows and knees to knock the ball off.

Next they played 'red rover'. The coach lined them all up on one side. Then called out a color that the kids might be wearing to 'come on over'. Sadly I put KFC in pink so she 'came on over' by herself! I will dress her in more neutral colors from now on since she is the only girl!

Next, the coach somewhat paired the kids off into teams. KFC got an orange jersey, she never complained about the color so I guess she was okay with it! Some of the kids knew the concept of how to play soccer while others and mine did not. The bottom right picture shows KFC and another little boy standing when they should have been trying to get the ball! So Cute! The coach kept telling the kids to go GET the ball, KFC caught on, and this was when she got kicked in the ankle! She cried and told me she "never wants to come back here ever again!". I told her to get back out there, and after a drink of water, she ran away saying "that water made my boo boo feel better!". Proud of her for getting back out there!

After their soccer games, the coach made them all huddle in and shake hands with one another before departing! I was distracted by trying to get a picture of it, but I don't think KFC ever did shake any of the boys hands! KFC is NOT a fan of boys!!!

Over-all KFC did a good job and I think she sorta liked it. She has always been a lazy child, so for her to have basically run for an entire hour said alot! She kept wanting to quit and rest, but the coach let her know she had to keep going and that she needed to move a little faster. He was tough on all of them, but I think it was good for KFC not to be able to just give up when she wanted to. We need to toughen her up! Not sure if we will make it to all 4 camp days, but I hope she will find joy in it to keep wanting to come back each morning!