This week is Letter I for inchworm. After circle time we got right to our theme mostly because I was so excited to show them gummy worms!

We used the worms to make the Letter I and then Timmy used measuring tape to see how long they were. 

    
 Sidenote: Gummy worms are not great for little ones to eat whole, learned that the hard way. Poor Grace choked on hers so we turned hers into mini inchworms.

Next we did some alphabet review games. I wrote all the letters on rocks. No matter where my kids go I will be sure to find rocks in their pockets so I knew this would be a hit. Anyways so they had to match the letter rock to the flash card and whoever got it right could put the rock in their dump truck.  

   
Then they had to match foam uppercase letters to their lowercase clothes pin. This was harder especially with letters who’s lowercase looks so different. It was still good for Grace’s fine motor skills even though she wasn’t matching the right letters.

 
Now Grace is begging for some Charlottes Web. This makes me so happy. 

On Tuesday we had a lot of fun. My most proud moment has to be that Timmy is almost saying the entire Pledge on his own. Luckily I got it on video! 

 We made the Letter I with playdoh and measured playdoh inchworms.  

   
I made the Letter I with painters tape and had them trace it with their cars.  

 
We reviewed our letters we’ve learned so far A, E and I by doing a letter search. They had fun with this.  

 
We did an apple craft because they ate apples for snack and were dead set on doing something with the seeds. I just quickly cut up some construction paper ta da Apple craft.

  
The most fun of all was playing grocery store. I remember loving this as a kid too. I found a fake money kit at Dollar Tree and then I set up my grocery store with all their kitchen food.  

 
Then a monkey got involved and it was a very hungry monkey. Timmy was trying to make him a special smoothie but he wasn’t fast enough 😂 

On Wednesday we went to a princess tea party. The city puts it on with cupcakes and a real princess, this time Tinkerbell. Timmy was in love. 

Grace dressed up as Minnie Mouse but ultimately ended up in a cape and some heels.

 
Thursday has been our longest school day yet. Everytime we finish something they are asking for more school.

We did out letter I do-a-dot and poking worksheet. It’s interesting to see the difference in their work.  

They colored and inch worm sheet and Timmy wrote out his numbers.  

   
They played some more with the left over gummy worms. We played outside with the spray bottles and window letters. 

They love board games. So far today we’ve played perfection and hi ho cherrio.
We did a hungry caterpillar puzzle, measured it because we have to measured everything these days and then we read the book. 

On Friday Daddy joined us for circle time. Then we made our memory bracelets, traced the letter I and sorted upper case I from the lowercase i.  

 Then Timmy worked on his pattern worksheet while Grace sorted inchworms by size. 

   
Then we had leaves bitten by little inch worms and we had to match the number of holes with the right number inch worm. 

 
We had a straw kit from Dollar Tree I let them put together at snack time. Very cool for $1 project.  

Grace always with a baby. And always thinking outside the box.

Now we are painting egg carton inch worms. If the had to choose crayons, markers or paint hands down paint wins every time.   

 Timmy painting with his mouth..interesting. 
  
Another happy homeschool week. This week I read an article about how wealthy families in Boston and NYC are homeschooling now. One of the girls the story was about just got into Harvard! It’s so awesome how even Top 10 schools are accepting homeschooled applicants. It excites me!

G-da is visiting for the week and he was sitting next to us while we read Charlotte’s Web. Typical G-da says, “Timmy do you know what manure is?” He so confidently says, “Yes it’s a vacuum.” And my Dad is like no buddy it’s poop. Timmy thought he was CRAZY!

Timmy and Grace are sleeping in the same room these days. Bedtime is glorious. At 6:50 we start our routine of teeth, stories and prayers. By 7:15 this house is silent. Sun still out. Tonight Timmy wanted to sleep on Gracie’s mattress. That’s a no no for us especially since he just started not wearing pull ups to bed {🎉🎉}. Anywayssss the sweet part is that Grace says to him, “Look Timmy I’m gonna sleep right on the edge.” So seperate mattresses, still close. 

The love they have for each other is so beautiful.

This week is all about Letter E, Elephants, Number 2 and Triangles. 

I see some improvement in the pronunciation of the Pledge. Timmy was able to start saying some of it by himself. Timmy knows all his months and days of the week and Grace has most of her days of the week down.

This week instead of using the kitchen table I’m trying to see if they focus better using their kid desks. They are very interested in what the other one is doing and it can be distracting.

Our circle routine takes up much of the morning with the calendar, weather, songs and then Timmys notebook pages.

We read We are in a Book because the main character is an elephant so it was fitting. Such a funny book too.

We did the block lettering with our color cubes. 

 
They each made memory bracelets. It has the number 2, letter E and a triangle on it. I think that’s a cute idea.

We played with Legos and measured how high we could build it. 

 
And right now they are making mud pies and I’m babysitting.  

Tuesday we laced, traced and bingo dotted Letter E. 

    
   
We did some more castle building. 

 
Timmy has really come a long way with cutting.  

   
Gracie was very proud of her color matching puzzle skills. 

Timmy asked to do bug counting. I bought two big dice and lots of plastic bugs. They roll the die and tell me how many bugs they get and then we count them all up to see who got the most. They love it. Grace really loves it as is seen in her frog kissing picture.  
  
Right now they are outside playing pretend chef I think. Timmy has an apron on and says, “Grace would you like to join me in the kitchen?” 

Later we watched some YouTube videos on elephants. Then we did some ABC mouse work. I’m struggling with technology use. Just one day of working it into our homeschool and he is begging for it everyday. It’s very frustrating. I’m keeping it at once a week until I see better behavior when I put it away. It definitely has its positives because we got watch elephants play at the San Diego zoo. Something we will never be able to do in person.

 On Wednesday we cut and pasted an elephant together. And Grace colored my very sad attempt at an elephant  
   

Timmy seperated upper case E’s onto a mama elephant and the lower case E’s onto a baby elephant. He did this all by himself. We did the letter paper poking. We also did prewriting sheets.

This activity I was excited about. Both kids liked it. 

  
Patterns are something new to Timmy so I helped.

   
They love these little plastic bugs. So here I had them place the right amount of bugs on each number page. 

On Thirsday we started by washing our babies like elephants do. Such an easy fun activity. Straws, a bowl of water and a plastic animal.  
    

Grace thinks those dots are for coloring but check her perfect pencil grip!
  

We laced our elephants.  

We used cheerios to graph the elephants in each box. Grace mostly just ate hers.
    

We mixed black and white to make grey for our elephant craft.
    
  

Then they put on one of Daddy’s long socks and pretended to be elephants. I challenged them to clean the playroom with their elephant trunks but the room looks messier now.

 And we had some music time. Now they are in the tub playing with foam letters. Alphabet overload over here.
 

This week was so successful. Everyday they were asking for more school. I was so thrilled. We finished all of our school work by Thursday. So Friday has so far been all pretend play. My house is a total mess but it’s worth all the small conversation I get to listen to. My favorite part of the week was both my kids snuggled next to me while I read to them Charlotte’s Web. 

Our curriculum is from: http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com

Yesterday my family was asked to bring up the bread and wine during mass. And they wanted Timmy to hold the bread… I was sooo nervous that he would drop it. But he didn’t. I nearly cried. How beautiful it is to walk with my husband, Grace by our side and Timmy in front of us holding the Bread of Life. 

I am so happy we have found this church family. Everyone there adores my children. People we don’t even know come up to me to tell me how Grace or Timmy made their day. I’m referred to as the mom of the curly haired blonde boy. 

I’m sure Tim wouldn’t appreciate this but after communion, when we go back to our seats to pray… I don’t. I just stare at my man, kneeled down, hands folded, eyes shut. I wish I could take a picture. Watching him speak to God is for sure the most beautiful thing. 

This Sunday happened to be Moms Only Beach Day! So after church all my girlfriends loaded up and headed to the water. How blessed we are that our husbands understand the need for us to have this down time. Not one complaint from any of the men. 

It was a beautiful day, start to finish. 

I’m so excited to be back at homeschooling. There’s something about fresh school supplies that make me happy. And my new favorite thing: laminating! Makes everything so official looking.

We are using Letter of the Week from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I adore her, especially her Homeschooling 101 book. 

This is her website. I don’t write this blog for an audience but I want to make sure I give credit where it is due. 

http://store.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/index.php?main_page&zenid=cm4t3irkb37d6c27mb3co5o0t2

We started each day with the Pledge of Alliegence. And it was so precious. We took turns each day on who would have the job of holding the flag and hearing them mispronounce all the new words of the pledge was so cute. 

  Grace is going thru a phase and wants to wear Timmy’s clothes. I’m not thrilled about it but I have to pick my battles. 
Next we did our bible verse, calendar and weather. 

   
    
    
  Timmy took this last picture himself. He really loves the camera. Says his little guy is only wearing sunscreen 😂. 

Gracie joined in when she wanted. She wants to be big so I just let her choose what she wants to be a part of. We colored a Letter A page. Timmy is very serious about staying in the lines and Grace not so much.

  
They love Playdoh. I gave them a Letter A stamp, cookie cutters and a plastic knife. Easily their favorite thing, if only it wasn’t so messy. I bought this playdoh at Dollar Tree, $1 for a 4 pack and it’s very comparable to the name brand and much easier to throw away when it gets gross 😉.

I wrote all the letters on a white board and he had to match the magnetic letter to it and then put it in the leap frog to hear it’s sound. This was a big hit.  
I used a car window marker and wrote the letter A on my sliders. Then gave them a water spray bottle and paper towel and told them to clean up. They love cleaning.   
 We practiced cutting. I was so surprised how well they both did. I forgot to get Timmy left handed scissors but these still worked.  
   
 I’m probably just gonna keep repeating myself about how great they are at everything. Lol. But really they were so good at lacing cards.  
  
We did an apple shape matching puzzle.

  
And a color matching one. These are too easy for Timmy but perfect for Grace. 

Making block letters they liked. I found these color cubes in the dollar section at Target.

I love that he always has his tongue out when he’s concentrating, just like his mama.

 This was serious work and a little hard for him. He had to match the lower case and upper case. He was so proud when he was done.

 He was really proud of this sorting puzzle even tho it was all wrong 😂.

 Mommy helped.

 With this they had to poke a toothpick through the letter outline. They both did it by themselves. Again mama was amazed.

  
 This week we read Ten Apples Up on Top because it worked perfect with our Apple theme. They had so much fun trying to act out the book. I plan on starting Before Five in a Row in January as a literature supplement for Grace once I get a good groove with Letter of the Week curriculum.

  

For this activity Timmy had to count the seeds on the apple and glue on the correct number.

   
Here he had to cut out the apples and paste them on the apple tree. Honestly I didn’t think he could do this and he DID! I forget that he’s getting so big 😢.

    
Looks perfect to me!

  Uh this face 😍 it’s so great when he gets so excited to figure out something new.  
Some pre-writing work.

 & perfect do-a-dot.

I think the week went pretty well. We did take Thursday off to spend with Max. The highlight for me was when I showed them the Letter A flash card and Grace yelled out A!!! We also learned number 1 and circle. 

I did have a small set back. On the first day when I told them it was time for school and we sat down at the table Timmy asked why he wasn’t at a red school and where were all his friends. My heart broke a little. However even if our intentions weren’t to homeschool he would not yet be in preschool. So I’m glad I’m starting early so that this will be normal for him once kindergarten starts in 2 years.

Homeschool is on my heart but I realize that maybe it won’t be what’s best for my kids. I do pray hard that it is. Here’s an example why. Tonight we had some friends over. Timmy wanted the ring on Mr. Chris’ hand and I said you will get one when you get married. Timmy was like what!! and looking at me all crazy. And then said, “Can I marry Jesus and get a ring?” Melt. This is our top reason for wanting to homeschool. I want to do my best keep that little boys love for Jesus alive. It is a blessing that we can start our school day with the Bible. 

Hmmm I wish it was the last day of summer. I’m so ready for chilly weather and pumpkin everything. In Florida summer doesn’t end until mid January 😳 so we just crank that ac down, light a pumpkin candle and pretend. 

So yeah I really did light that candle this morning lol but yesterday was a gorgeous summer day. It had a kind of twisted ending but none the less awesome summer fun.

Our neighbors invited us for jetskiing so we jumped on the chance. Tim loves water sports. That was kinda his thing back in his younger days. Water skiing is his favorite. Weird thing is he’s not at all a beach guy, hates it. Basically if you give him anything with speed he’s in. Ever since I had kids, I’m more like slower the better 👍.

The kids had a blast. We had the perfect set up too and there really wasn’t anyone else around. It felt like we were on an island vacation. 

   
 I am obsessed with Janie and Jack bathing suits. Luckily so is Gracies godmother because otherwise Walmart suits would be more our style. Seriously this flamingo one is adorable!
   I screamed the whole time.  
  Timmy wants one now of course. You can tell by that smile he was in heaven.  
 Grace is a beach babe. She has no fear of the water. I sounded like a psycho trying to reel her back in but she could care less. See you later mom. I’m really trying to work on not passing my fears on to my children butttt I’m not doing a great job lol. The ocean freaks me. So beautiful and so dangerous.   
  I love this daddy daughter moment.  
  Daddy took them tubing. That’s more my speed. 

Such an awesome end to our summer days. 

Bedtime has been so hard since we got back from vacation. We’ve decided to let them sleep together in Gracies room because they’ve been saying they are afraid of ghosts {something they learned from their older cousins 👎}. 

Tonight Grace was beside herself in tears and Timmy says “Grace it’s okay I’m here with you. Do you want to hear my Jesus song?”

& he starts singing Here I Am Lord and me and Tim just tear up. He is the sweetest.

When I went in later to check on them they were snuggled up in the same sleeping bag.

We have a new favorite song in this house. It’s BINGO but probably not the lyrics you are used too… “Old McDonald had a farm and Mingo was his Mango, B I N G O, B I N G O!” Makes me laugh every time. And they sing it loud.

Hearing this. “Come on Grace you want to go play?” “Yea!!” These two play so beautifully. 

Lite Brite is a big deal over here lately. Even Madison wants to play. 

   
This was Grace today. That’s my shirt she is wearing. I found her pulling things down in my closet. And that’s a baby doll pacifier. Only thing missing is her new pink boots that according to Grace go with everything. 

Timmy has decided he’s too big for baths. He told me today that he is an adult and adults don’t take baths. He also says he doesn’t want to use soap because he likes the stink on him. So I had to “buy” special stinky soap for him.

I love when we are driving and Timmy randomly points out a cloud that looks like a helicopter or a pancake.

So this is the conversation between Timmy and Grace: I’m going to spank just your bottom! No I’m gonna spank your bottom! No! Yes! No! Apparently we are pro spanking.

And this.. I’m a dinosaur. No Grace you’re a princess! Oh yea I am a princess!

While Daddy works in Jersey we are spending time with family on Long Island. We are staying with my cousin and her 4 kids. I knew she was a little nervous about entertaining us for a week but little did she know all we needed was a couch and coffee. My kids and her kids were in heaven playing with each other. I rarely heard from my kids the entire trip. The played hard and slept soundly. Even their enormous dog was in the mix. 

 
The first day I drove by my childhood house. Isn’t it cute?

Then I drove by my grandmas old house and took the kids to the park we use to play at and lucky them the ice cream man stopped by. I don’t know why we don’t have ice cream trucks by us. 

These powerwheels were a huge hit. The boys for sure think they are race car drivers. 

One day we took them to Adventureland. Best place ever if you’re a kid. I went every summer when I lived there.   

   
I even took them on the haunted house and they weren’t scared. 

Timmys first big boy water ride!  
Later we visited my great Aunt Lorraine & Grandpa Uncle Mike {Timmy added the Grandpa part lol}. Nicest people ever. The kids swam, we barbecued and then played with their pet lizard. Grace was in love, Timmy not so much. 

 
The next day we had a graduation party for my cousin Caroline. I was the only one there with kids. I had that feeling of being on display and of course my kids were not the best behaved. Timmy was running up and down the stairs and around the house, around the tent. He was a boy on a mission. I was a nervous wreck.  

    
 
The rest of the trip we just hung out. My favorite thing is just watching my kids have fun so I was so happy to sit back, relax and take in the view.

Grace giving Gabby a massage.   
Boys teaching Timmy about video games 😁

 
Uncle Chris taking Timmy in his monster truck.   
Watching puppies play. 

We took a drive to Port Jeff and got ice cream and the kids played on the shore. 

 Timmy was obsessed with Christopher. 

 & Uncle Chris! 

Target & Starbucks. Where moms find peace.  

 We took our kids to visit our Great Grandmas grave. Each kid gave her their favorite color butterfly. And then we got hit with the most powerful sprinkler ever created. Apparently it was watering day. Me and Keri were convinced that was Nanny telling us to bathe our children because honestly there was not a lot of that happening since they were playing so much and passing out every day.   

We are going to miss them soooo much!!!!               
  

“Mommy why are we driving backwards?” That’s just how they do it in Jersey Timmy… The trip back to New Jersey was the most miserable thing ever! It took 7.5 hours to drive 8 miles! That’s not a typo. 8 MILES. After that I am not ready to hit the road again to go back home.

We were about an hour from home and we were feeling a little delirious. Tim turned up the 80’s music and we all started jamming out like Rock stars. In the middle of it all something told me to remember this moment.