Photo Post from Palm Sunday Weekend

Lucas and Caleb, Caleb said make a funny face. He looks pained in this picture but these boys were happy to see each other and definitely having fun. This was at Milano's Birthday party on Friday night. The girls and I went too. They got to bowl, play video games, play laser tag and also eat plenty of oizza and birthday cake. Lucas was happy to get a chance to hang out with his buddies from his SA united soccer team.

Emaleigh and Sadie

Addie and Rahlynn playing air hockey.

Lucas was playing opposite of Raylynn.

On the next morning, Saturday, we took the kids early to Morgan's Wonderland for their Easter Eggstravaganza event. The park is specially designed for special needs children with special assessinity and extra sensory stuff. There were several egg hunts divided by kids ages but we just hung out and played until the soccer games started at the fields just next door. Emaleighninsisted to dress up and therefore had to change to soccer clothes in a flash. The other two were dressed for work. Lucas was in his soccer clothes and Addie was dressed for the TCC fundraiser that we all participated in after soccer.

Emmy and Lucas's games were at the same time and I actually didn't get any pictures of their games on Saturday. Our friends, the Stacey's showed up to watch with us. 

We headed after the game for a quick lunch at Sonic and then to Wal Mart to sell goodies to raise funds for the TCC. The whole family dressed in their Storming Normandy Tshirts. I only got a photo of Lucas while we were there. They all did great. Addie and Lucas each got several $20 donations from passers by that thought they were cute, interesting or knowledgeable. Addie holds a sign that says "Ask me about D-Day"  When people ask she gives them a quick history lesson.  Many people are shocked that she actually knows her stuff here.  One of the first times she forgot what she was goingto say next and fell into tears.  This was another Saturday over a month ago.  The history teacher she was talking to was still impressed and dropped back by our table on the way out and handed Addie a $20 bill. Even though she started in tears, she was so encouraged by this interaction she has answered the question since then with much more confidnece.  Lucas just tells everyone that passes in a cowboys shirt or a soccer jersey that he likes his shirt and they usually head straight to the table to stock up on chocolate.

Saturday evening we got to host our Stacey girls for a sleepover so mom, dad and baby could have a date night.  It has been since the weekend that baby brother was born in December that we got to have them here so everyone was so excited.  They played hard until the sun went down then we ate some pizza, watched a movie with popcorn and then settled into bed for the night.  They are awesome fun girls to have for a sleepover.  We all went to church the next day and headed after to a picnic/ Easter Egg hunt. 

The Boys (minus Kevin)  Hudson likes to be held facing out and when you talk to whoever is holding him he looks into your eyes and nods ,like he is listening. Austin serves the US military in the army at San Antonio Military Medical Center.  He is a heart cath technician and had alot of knowledge and encouragement when mom was in the hospital with he heart bypass surgery.

Addie and Lucas took the opportunity after church to hop rides into the Stacey's truck.  All their girls wanted to ride with us in the van.  The also seized the opportunity to be super silly with Easter baskets on their heads.

Addie Belle's Choral Milestones

Addie is in her second year now with the Texas Children's Choir. This has been the first thing to open up an incredible and dutiful passion for our oldest child. I have mentioned it before, but I just love how she has grown personally and socially I think because of her involvement with this just amazing group of kiddos. 

The choir practices twice a week for an hour and a half each day and one Saturday each month is dedicated to additional study.

  Along with these group rehearsals, Dr, Hardaway has also given the children self directed opportunities for further study. One of those is music theory by completing exercises in the book series Young Series Journey. There are five books total min the set. Once a singer completes the first two books and they are reviewed for accuracy by Dr. Hardaway then he has a special recognition and award. Particularly they receive special prism shaped color pencils to be used going forward for making special marks on their music. Addie hit the two book milestone in January and is shown here with her certificate and her director.

Today she was also recognized for finishing the third and fourth books. It is at this point that a Texas Children's Choir singer earns the designation as Choral Scholar. As a choral Scholar, her name is added to the choir's plaqu, she gets her own personal plaque and she will be denoted in performance programs to reflect this designation as well.

She has poured herself into the choir and this designation is a permanent representation of her work. We are proud of the intensity with which she has committed to the choir. Somehow this band geek and the guy who only learned to play guitar after college have produced quite the singer and actually quite the well rounded musician. 

Addie with Dr. Hardaway and her Choral Scholar Plaque.

Addie enjoying breaktime with her buddy Hannah.  They think TCC is all that and a bag of chips!

Pow! I'm Back! A Post About a Video.

Maybe I am back.  I don't know. I have been writing in this blog many times over the last year or so since my last post.  Those post have just been all in my head and didn't quite make it to the internet. If  I had written them they would have been:
1. My favorite unintentional benefits of homeschooling
2. Updates on Addie's fundraising for the Texas Children's Choir trip to Normandy for D-Day
3. Less is More, the Blessings in Getting Rid of Material Clutter
4. Ways my friendship with Dawn grew over a 9 days sleepover with their family.
5. 20-Yr HS Reunion Update, I still Love those Peeps!
6. My Nephew is HERE!!! And he's a red head!!!
7. And another few awesome babies joined us this fall.
8. My Quick Trip back to Vegas; Love on Baby Jack, Cordie and the Pellegrinos
9. How God used Health Hurdles to heal a family, mine (maybe still a post coming)
10. 39 for the first time and ready to party like it's 1999 in a year.
11. The Joy of Serving in Women's Ministry; the Incredible Way God gave me 6 more Sisters.
12. I Am Going to Read 40 books This Year: Give Me your Suggestions.

There is a cliff notes version of a few things in my head that almost made it to a blog post but then there was a squirrel!!!!

Well this video was posted this week.

 It includes the two songs performed by the Texas Children's Choir at the Miss San Antonio Pageant in their entirety.  Addie Belle Force is front center for both.  You might not recognize her because this baby of mine has grown up so much.  This choir commitment is a passion for her.  I can't remember being as passionate about anything when I was 9 as she is about TCC.  Look at her focus, her emotion and even her stillness as she performs. 

I am so proud to be her moma.  She has this wisdom of a much more mature girl, but the gentleness of a little girl and the sensitivity.  She sets tremendous goals for herself and over achieves. From time to time this practice does lead to frustration, but it is how she is wired.  She thrives to exceed.  So it has been awesome really to watch her develop with her participation in this choir.  She has busted out of the shell of a timid little girl and blossomed.  

She has found her natural fit in choir and in music. She loves to sing and does so incessantly.  She is also learning guitar and has been playing for nearly two years now and has recently started playing piano as well.  The second two instruments are entirely self taught so far, but she set's high goals for herself in these as well.  On the guitar she plays music with her daddy.  They play Led Zepplin, Jack Johnson and ofcourse there is some Taylor Swift in there too.  She is a nine year old girl afterall.  On the piano she has written her own pieces with help from her favorite co-conspirator, Haidyn, and has also learned to play some current Disney favorites and duets with her Janma.  I am showing you this video now.  Just wait!  I know there are some fabulous things to come from our quiet musician.

http://youtu.be/1xOlx2ndIt8

A homeschool day of fun

I spent a bit of time already looking forward to Spring Break next week when I get to travel with a sister and 5 of our kids to see out moma in New Orleans.  I am excited about the trip itself but know that it might all be wasted without a plan.  Not that it would be terrible for us all to wake up in the same place for a few days and stare at each other until somebody came up with some way to make it not boring because even then, atleast we would all be in the same place.  But a plan to have tremendous fun would be even better than an endless staring contest.  I only have a few ideas.  One was to have a little treasure hunt.  I collected these things around my house and snapped a photo.  I suppose that while they are rising to shine, my sister and I can hide these things around the house and give them each a photo of all the things they are to find.  Kind of like an egg hunt, only no eggs.  Ofcoure there are variations on this you are probably already thinking of that could be even more fun.  I am new at cool moma so just assume that I am going to do all those cool things too.

So while I was sufficiently distracted trying to plan fun stuff for us to do NEXT week, homeschool still goes on, right.  Addie was having a bit of trouble focusing too!  But she is generally ahead of schedule and he basic distraction is a book she can't put down so I am OK with that.  I decided to let her try her hand at baking.  I let her find the recipe, collect and measure ingredients and put the pumpkin bread together almost completely by herself.  I poured the batter into the pan because it was too heavy for her.  That was almost all the help I gave her.  She was pretty pleased with herself. It came out very well.

BUT you can't let Addie do something fun, NO FAIR.  Lucas helped me prepare some colored rice to use somehow I am not sure but definitely to play with next week.  This was fun.  Look how pretty!

Lot of shake shake shaking to get all that dye evenly spread.

Addie Belle and World's Finest Chocolate

I know you already have heard me say that Addie is in fundraising mode for her choir trip to Normandy France in June of 2014, right before her 10th Birthday.  She is actually participating in many fundraisers, but one of the ways she is currently raising funds is by selling World's Finest Chocolate.

She has already sold two boxes in two weeks for a total of $60 to her credit in chocolate sales alone.  She has set a personal goal to sell 100 boxes of chocolate over the next 15 months.  This amount of chocolate would pay for her trip entirely.  The trip is estimate to cost about $3,000.  She pretty much needs to sell a box and a half each week.

Did you know that World's Finest Chocolate is in the Guinness book of world records?  Did you know their record setting chocolate bar was produced in Chicago but the documentary about the 12,000 pound bar was produced by Broadcast Media Group out of Starkville, MS? Look at the size of this thing?

Dad, Sorry I missed a day

It seemed like nothing much happened except that enough happened that there was no time to say so. Sometimes staying at home and homeschooling gives me the opportunity to start several things and finish none of them hence, nothing to write about.
Today seemed mostly the same. I will
attach three photos to this post. Here is a short description of each. Sorry if you have to scroll up and down for this bit. My phone always puts the photos at the end of the post.
1. Emaleigh Lucille Force is officially reading at what I am fairly sure is a first grade level. I learned over the weekend what the public school's expectations for the kinder readers are by end of the year and she is there. She could use more practice with sight words but I do have some tools for that. She is doing amazing with this Dick and Jane reader that we picked up from a garage sale.
2. Addie was right by my bed when I took that photo of ELF and insisted that I photograph her fish face.
3. Aunt Claudia gave me the shirt that Addie is wearing in this picture over 9 years ago. It is really a sweet shirt that she got from the thrift store in Del Norte. I was never able to wear it. I was pregnant with Addie when she gave it to me. It fits Addie perfectly. We decided it made her look a bit French. This is her French pose.

Texas Children's Choir, Blue and Gold

The Texas Children's Choir was invited to sing at a Blue and Gold Ceremony. Blue and Gold is a bridging over ceremony for cub scouts to Boy Scouts. The choir sang the primarily patriotic songs. They started with The Star Spangled Banner. Then there was a break for Cub Scout announcements. They sang while the crowd of about 200 had dinner. The remainder of the songs were the following: God Bless America, America the Beautiful, Battle Hymn, and Chatanooga Choo Choo. Addie got to go he with her best bid after for a sleepover.

Unexpected Nicities

Today was full of surprises. Actually the two surprises I am thinking of came within the same hour or so. One was super awesome and one was a reminder that she who tries to do 70 things at the same time might not have enough brain left to remember to not...So the awesome surprise was a drop in by our friend and insurance agent, Tracey Blackwell. If you are not already friends with Tracey it is only because you haven't met her yet. She spills smiles wherever she goes so if you met her, you would love her. Kevin met her first and told me this. I met her second, he was right.At the beginning of this year, Tracey posted a status asking friends to comment if they wanted something from Tracey as part of Pay it Forward 2013. You may have seen posts like this, some said the friend would make a hand made item, some incldued a handwritten note or a date for lunch. I posted it as well and am pretty behind on handmade items for my list of people. Tracey brought to our home her smile and a bright purple box of Chalk-a-doos. There are like ten chalk holders, pre-filled with chalk, and stencils for making designs on the sidewalk. The little holders have fun faces like tigers,hippos, ladybug, elephants, snails and the like. It was a wonderful surprise at the start of the day for my homeschoolers and me.
From there, the principle of our school gave us a ride to the Chrysler dealership to pick up our van. We had a few things tweaked including taking care of a recall that was outstanding and getting a duplicate key made. When we bough the van in November, we were issued only one key which just made me really nervous. So so many reasons that it is better to have two keys. One of those reasons is incase I lock my keys in my car, Kevin, our homeschool principal, can come to my rescue with his copy. So the key is copied and crisis averted if it happened yesterday. Can I tell you that I locked my keys AND the copy in the car in the Frost Bank parking lot about half an hour after I picked up the van? Ugh, how embarrassing!
Well we made the most of our hour wait before pop-a-lock came to rescue us for a price by Journeying next door to our church and finding seething to entertain us in the pre-school room.
Aside: the pre-school room is where Kevin and I facilitate the Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. That is to say financial responsibility is so easy a 4 year old can do it.
So back to playing with the girls while we wait. There was this really cool build a track toy with wheels and spirals. Together we built a cool track to send marbles down. That right there was an impromptu lesson on gravity.
So two surprises, one awesome the other less convenient but ultimately a bit fun anyway. Now I have a friendly pop-aLock guy I hope I never need to call.

Blog about a Blog

My little Addie Belle has started her own little blog this week. It is called Sunshine Lemonade, a name she has retained from a lemonade stand she had on Lemonade Day May 2011...oh dear,no it was 2010. Geez times flies Anyway, she is currently in fundraising mode to raise funds to pay for her trip to Normandy, France with the Texas Children's Choir AND Lemonade stands will probably be a large part of our summer so she is bringing the name back and will be assuming it very soon. While she has not yet set up a lemonade stand in 2013, she has begun fundraising efforts for her trip to France. The tour has been put together by a tour group in Colorado Springs so she has an estimated cost/goal of $3,400. So far, between a bake sale and selling chocolate, beef jerky and a coupon book for The Wash tub, she has raised over $200. She has time and is optimistic that in the 16 months before her trip starts, she will get there. Our neighborhood loves chocolate!!We helped her set up her blog, but she has been posting without much input from us. She recognized that her posts were generally about two things in her day so she decided to be intentional with that. Check intoSunshine Lemonade to see what Addie Belle is up to. She will be blogging about fundraising efforts and hopefully if she is successful, eventually about her trip.

My Kids Go To Work

Last Friday the kids and I did a little brainstorming exercise. I asked them to tell me what they thought their chores were. The kids who could write had five minutes to write their list. Then I let Emaleigh tell me what she thought her chores were. Next I asked them to tell me how they were compensated and if they got paid for all of those chores or just some of them.
I was surprised about how many things they put on their list. It was evident though that they didn't really know what their work was worth. It was time to be specific and a little more detailed about what exactly was expected of each of them, what chores qualified as extra work and what the pay was for expected chores and for extra work. So together we made a list of chores for each kid. Addie and Lucas get 7 chores each and Emmy has 6. These are the chores for which they will earn a weekly commission provided they are done to be paid on Sunday. Then we made a fourth list of chores that they can do for extra money. The extra chores are worth a quarter each.
Today I finally finished putting our outcomes together on a board that is now hanging in our school room. The kids love it and as if on cue they got into chores as soon as it was up. I am optimistic that the brainstorming exercise means they have bought in to my plan for world domination by having them do all the housework leaving my more time for royal schemes.
In other news, Emaleigh ran inside from the back yard excited to tell us about the little creature with a fuzzy back that she found in the yard. I hope this little creature
didn't have any friends.

Twofer Tuesdays

That is just how Tuesdays go during soccer season which started again today. Choir practice and soccer practice both start at 5 pm and we have the challenge to get three kids to two different places. Did you notice that I said three? Today is Emaleigh's very first practice for her very first year playing soccer. She is really thrilled. She is a natural at gymnastics but this opportunity will allow her to shine for her daddy. Daddy doesn't get to see her practice at gymnastics on Fridays at 11, but he took her to practice tonight and she rode over there on a cloud. Her first game is this Friday.
Addie's practices with the Texas Children's Choir are every Tuesday and Thursday from 5-6:30 pm and once a month for a few hours on a Saturday. They have a performance this Saturday for a blue and gold ceremony. They are singing 5 songs AND dancing for one. Dancing is totally new for the choir since Addie has been with them. I can't wait to see how that goes.
So that's a typical Tuesday, rush to two places at once and then home to come together for dinner.
I need to say here, many days we would not have made it to our two places without the help of our great friends, the Huffs. D&D are almost like second parents to our three and I think we are for their three too! I guess somebody said it takes a village; for us life is definitely better with a couple of partners who love us and our kids as much as we do.
Actually we have a lot of helpers. We are so lucky.

We Are Going to France!

Did I ever post about Addie being accepted to the Texas Children's Choir? She auditioned in May and has been singing with them ever since with twice weekly practices even over the summer. She has learned a tremendous amount about singing techniques and about all music under the direction of the choir director, Dr. Thomas Hardaway, and from her peers as well. I am not sure what her favorite thing about the choir is but if I had to guess I would say that the friends she has made with girls of all ages is way way up there. All the extra time she spends with one of her besties, Haidyn, is probably there too. I didn't really know much about the choir when we brought her for auditions. I was primarily interested in getting her plugged into something that would be a social outlet for her from our Homeschool. But I really had no idea how amazing this organization was until we got into the Fall practice season. Kevin and I are so impressed with TCC. It is hard to explain it, but if you watched them once you would find it hard to believe that it is not a professional choir rather each person there is a volunteer. But I will make an attempt to give you my top five reasons I love the Texas Children Choir:
1. They provide an environment for vocal training that also encourages no expects respectful behavior, a sense of personal responsibility and all around good character.
2. They encourage development in all areas of music by giving each choir child a performance opportunity once a month with a three minute limit. Addie is learning to play guitar and has already performed solo in front of her choir. (Btw, about 53 other children ages 8-18)
3. There are ample opportunities to learn about teamwork not just because she is accountable with her voice, but we are becoming like family to this organization and other choir families. We team up to get kids to events, have them all fed and dressed and help them in other endeavors wether they be related to the choir directly of just to schooling. There is more than ample volunteer participation from choir parents to keep this well oiled machine moving and continuously improving. The kids are amazing but so are the parents.
4. The choir is a 501(c)3 organization . They almost never sing simply for the case of showcasing talent. Don't get me wrong they sing like angels, but these angels sing where they are invited and typically that invitation comes to honor a fallen soldier, a police officer killed in action, a family that has buried a child much too soon and the like
5. They are a small choir with a large recognition. The sing many ceremonies in the San Antonio area but not all invites are local. Last year at this time they were preparing to sing at Carnegie Hall in New York City. We weren't part of TCC yet. The current invitation is to sing in Normandy for the 70th anniversary of DDay next summer, June of 2014.

So we are all thrilled to be a part. Much more coming with this news about Normandy. Keep posted for updates regarding Sunshine Lemonade and Addie's own blog.

Hey, Are You Still With Me?

Well, I have taken an almost two year break from publishing on this blog.  Honestly I thought it was longer.  I just looked at photos from my last blog post and Oh my goodness! my cute kiddos have grown so much since then.  We have lost teeth, learned to ride bikes, excelled in soccer, tried dance, started school a couple of times too among other things.  So there, that is kinda the last two years in a nutshell.  Well, my readership is very quaint, so I know you all know that so much more has transpired during that time, but let's talk about now. 

Raise your hand if you thought I was crazy when I said that Kevin and I had made the choice to homeschool our children.  OK, our choice was well thought out, deliberated and finally sort of encouraged by our oldes,t who was just having repeated heartbreak on a daily basis at school.  Her heartbreak wasn't the only factor, just the deciding one. 

I spent a bit of time during Spring and Summer reading about homeschooling, unschooling, rules and regulations. I went to the FEAST (Family Education alliance of South Texas) homeschool curriculum book fair in May and was flooded with information that made me feel underwater. Were we going to be traditional, classical, unit study or living books homeschoolers?  Which curriculum would we use?  Would we choose one company for all or spread it around?  Or use none of the above and totally wing it with what life threw at us. Well one thing for sure that I did know was that I always want learning to be a joy. And I want our homeschool to be so much more than public school at home. So I guess that is two things then...

The most fun thing I found at FEAST was SimplyFun. I started my little play as a SimplyFun playologist. SimplyFun's call is to build smarter kids and stronger families through play. I saw these games and knew I had to have them for our family. Who doesn't love some family play time that can also be educational?

  I was drawn to the game, Sumology, first because I love math (if you didn't know) and to Let's Drive second because I love road trips, but feel fairly deficient in geographic knowledge of the northern USA.  I signed up to start sharing these games with friends and family that I thought might like to play to learn like us. Now I am hosting parties for friends who get to earn free games and I am making new friends. The kids and I got to go to the SimplyFun convention for playologists in Las Vegas where the kids all got a Tibbar rabbit for playing so well while mommy learned more about new games and sharing. So that's new.
 
And here we are in the second week of actual planned and scheduled homeschool.  Ultimately we chose to start somewhat with a traditional textbook approach for math using the A Beka curriculum.  Addie is moving along swiftly in her math so far.  Many mornings she is up and at 'em by 6:30 cracking her math book and trying to work ahead.  She is moving through these lessons at almost double speed.  We chose A Beka for math pretty much because I knew it didn't suck and I found it for $5 at a book swap.  AND eventually a friend passed more A Beka along for language arts and then another for reading.  So we are doing some traditional homeschooling using A Beka.  We have not chosen a curriculum for science, but we are currently studying the ocean and specifically sea turtles.  We have many books by scholastic that we found at our friendly neighborhood thrift store to support this endeavor along with a great book from the library and a movie on netflix.  Addie and I drew sea turtles together yesterday.

That was SUCH a learning experience for both of us. Did you know that Addie is not perfect?  She sometimes forgets.  We got started by tracing a circle, but when the next step called for a free hand leaf shape for the body that was pretty much symmetrical, she lost it.  I mean she had a total meltdown and my patience was being challenged too.  This was supposed to be a fun artsy break for my artsy girl that also tied into what we had been studying. When she couldn't get that body perfect in her eyes, it was like the world was going to end.  We tried to keep moving forward, but it was as if she were possessed.  This joyful fun girl was being brought down by an imperfect leafy sketch. REALLY!!!

 

Eventually, she threw herself down on her bed in her room and mourned her shortcomings. Next she came back to get her paper and pencil and brought it back to her room as if I were the reason she couldn't draw a perfect turtle. And then like magic, 15 minutes later, she re-appeared and was smiling. She gave me a hug and told me she loved me and finished her turtle.  What a struggle!  This is going to continue to be a learning challenge I know.  We navigated it for the first time and I expect not the last, but ultimately she was pretty pleased and easy on herself when it didn't look exactly like the example we were following steps from.  I told her it was perfect and she is now proud because she did it all by herself.  She did identify things she wishes she did differently and wants to draw another one to send to her Grandma Prewitt.

 

Emaleigh is also homeschooling with us. She is working primarily on writing. We have write-on place mats for her to practice writing letters and numbers and she has also learned to write her name.

 She can spell the names of everyone in our family.  Her daddy was so impressed with her at bed time last night that she kept asking for more tasks to show him her brilliance.  At bed time...I was exhausted but she was so cute giggling as she ran out of the room to go do something to impress her daddy. 

 

The girls started gymnastics last Friday which I honestly think if you ask them, it is better than candy and probably the only thing we now have take away power with for Emaleigh :)

 

So what about Red? maybe you are asking yourself.  Well that lucky duck got a homeschool pass because he is at James Masters Elementary in first grade with the best teacher EVER, Mrs. Gallegos-Perez.  She is amazing and we love her.  She was Addie's teacher for both kinder and first grade.  We love her because she obviously has a heart for the job she is doing.  She loves her students but even when it was just Addie in her class she started a relationship with Lucas and Emaleigh and has always been encouraging to all of our kids.  She teaches the kids to their level and challenges them appropriately rather than choosing a class pace based on the weakest link.  I just always loved that if Addie could do what Mrs. Perez was asking, then she changed it to something a little more difficult.  For me, she actually promoted growth rather than "good enough"  So Lucas is still in public school.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Here they are on the first day of school.  I love how Addie wore the tie dye.  That would never go at her public school.

 

Well Kevin just got home about an hour ago and told the kids they needed to eat dinner and take a nap or there would be no circus this evening.  I just noticed that there are empty plates and all three kids and one dad are napping so I am going to go grab a moment of peace.  Maybe I will read a book I like.  Have a Happy weekend.