Back to School in 2015

The children started school on August 24th. This year all three are attending the same elementary school, which makes things simpler for our daily schedule. We get up at 6:15 and are out the door by 7 a.m. to do the morning mile. Adam comes along for the ride and I walk with him in the front-pack carrier. After our laps are done, Anwyn mans her safety patrol post (recording the morning mile laps for 2nd graders), and I walk Lily and Zach to their classrooms. The children ride the bus home from school and I meet them at the bus stop at 1:55 p.m.

Anwyn is in 5th grade

Zach is in Kindergarten

Lily is in 2nd grade

 All of the kids have at least one friend that they know in their class, someone who lives in the same neighborhood that we do. That is one nice benefit of living in the same house for 3 years without moving--we are getting to know lots of nice people.

The evening before school started we had a "Back to School Feast", which you can read about here.

Adam at four months

This month Adam has learned how to roll over. Adam rolled over from his back to his front three times one week, but I guess that was enough for him since he didn't do it at all the next week. He has been sleeping okay. He goes to bed sometime between 8-9, but he usually wakes up to eat between 2-4 a.m. and goes back to sleep for a few hours. Once he woke up at 5:30 a.m. and was up for the day which was a little early, but usually he sleeps longer. He does the eat, awake for 2hrs, sleep, then eat, awake, repeat cycle. The sleeping part is still variable, sometimes a 30 minute nap and sometimes a 2 hr nap. He has sweet smiles and cute laughs and pulls everything into his mouth. He is a quick nurser, generally 5-7 minutes on each side.

At Adam's four month check-up h measured in at 16b 13.8 oz, and 26.26 inches. He had a fussy day after getting his shots. He has developed some pretty bad skin rashes behind his knees, so we are working on remedies for that. Anyone have any great solutions for dealing with eczema?? In the meantime, he is very vocal and smiley and started playing peek-a-boo this week. He is getting better at grabbing things and bringing everything to his mouth (including Jared's iPhone). His sleeping/nap schedule has been a little erratic this week, but I am trying to relax about that (I thrive on predictability).

We sometimes like to style his hair up.

 

Adam loves to suck on fingers! 

 

Summer 2015 Fun and Activities

We enjoyed a very nice summer. It was nice to have the children home for more hours. The main activities of the summer were snuggling and taking care of Adam, reading lots of books, doing our daily morning mile, and swimming at the neighborhood pool.

Our kids did so great with Morning Mile at school that we wanted to continue it over the summer. Everyday except Sunday our goal was to walk, run, scooter, or bike a mile. We had to go early before the day got too hot. We kept track of our miles and the kids earned little star beads as motivators. We invited friends to join us, and the Forbes family and the Likens family were faithful in joining with us almost every Wednesday.

The Morning Mile crew (the day after we make tie-dye t-shirts at the Forbes House).

You can see our Summer by the Numbers post at my Nurture Mama blog, but here are photos to go along with some of the activities. 

Everyone reading after a trip to the library.

Balancing Robots

Paintings inspired by Kandinsky art.

Dressing like cows for free dinner at Chik-fil-a

Playing with our version of oobleck.

Lily's pioneer wagon

Edible wagons for pioneer day

3D hand art

Geo-Trax trains take over the living room.

Zach's Lego house

Lily's Lego house

July 2015 Family Staycation

Jared had some vacation time saved up, so this summer we had a "staycation-vacation". That was the easiest plan with new baby Adam, and the most economical plan for our budget right now. It was certainly nice to have Jared home with us!

 Monday was our beach day. We had a scare when Zach was lost for about 10 minutes. Jared and I (with Adam in the front-pack carrier) were setting up our tent canopy while the three kids went to play in a nearby tide pool area (away from the ocean). After a couple minutes I looked over to check on the kids and I didn't see Zach. The girls said he had said he was going back to the tent, but he hadn't made it. I started scanning the shoreline for him and couldn't see him, then got Jared looking for him as well. We didn't see him anywhere, and we were getting worried. I was pretty sure he wouldn't go in the water without us, but he had disappeared. I went to the lifeguard station to alert the authorities and Jared kept looking down the beach. The guard radioed out a description of Zach and within just a few minutes he was found by the lifeguards in their truck (but Zach ignored them because they were strangers). When Jared found Zach, Zach was jogging down the beach back towards where we were set up. One of the lifeguards was jogging by him. He had missed seeing our canopy and kept running down the beach looking for us. He had gone a good distance before he realized he should turn around and come back. It was very scary and we were so thankful to have him back safe. We had all been praying as we searched and we are grateful Heavenly Father heard our prayer. Something interesting to note: we decided at the last minute to go to Crescent Beach, slightly different from our usual Butler Beach. Crescent has life guard stations, Butler does not, which proved to be helpful to us. We went on to enjoy the day in the sun, water, and sand.

Adam does well and is happy at the beach, but he still managed to get a little sunburned on his face (even with a hat on the entire time and remaining under the shade of the tent). I don't think we will take him on any more beach excursions this year.

Tuesday was $1 day at the movie theatre, so we went to see Home. It was okay - the children enjoyed it, and Adam cooperated and napped through a good portion of it. We had FHE that night (we had been worn out from the beach on Monday). Anwyn taught a pioneer theme lesson, and we had homemade ice cream for a treat.

Wednesday was our usual morning mile and swim with friends, and I had a piano lesson to teach in the evening. In the afternoon we got yummy milkshakes from Steak n Shake --Jared scored us a deal and we got them all for free!

Thursday morning Jared took the kids to the springs. I stayed home with Adam to keep him out of the sun. They went to Poe Springs, the closest free springs to where we live. The water was shallow and a chilly temperature of 72.5 degrees. They floated around and had a picnic lunch and had a nice time. 

Friday was a Harry Potter birthday celebration. There were activities at the library, and then we watched the first movie and part of the second.

Golden snitch face paint

Broomstick face paint

Saturday was a really rainy day. I dropped Jared and the children off at the Florida Museum of Natural History, then went to do some shopping. The kids all got a new pressed penny to add to their collection.

Watching butterflies hatch

We continued our Harry Potter trend and finished the second movie. Jared and Anwyn and I watched the fourth movie (Anwyn's first time to see it), while Lily and Zach played Lego video games. Our general family rule is that you have to have read the Harry Potter books on your own before watching the later movies (although we delayed Anwyn watching until now).