catching up with Apple and Blueberry

Now on to you babies. Although you both have been growing so much, I think I can fit both of you in to the same post, since you have just about the same milestones.

1) You both talk A LOT! Apple, you do more cooing and seem to make sentences with your voice inflections. Blueberry, you make more babbling sounds, working on the mechanics of the sounds more. Both working on the same thing, in different ways, which is totally how you work!

2) While grandma was watching you girls one day, Blueberry kept giggling and keeping Punkin from taking a nap. The next day, Apple giggled and kept Punkin up! You both laugh a lot and smile almost constantly. Every stranger that walks by, it seems, remarks on how smiley you babies are.

3) When we were in Farmington for my uncle's funeral, great grandma loved playing with both of you. You'd both smile and laugh at her. She even taught Apple how to bang on the table, which she does all of the time now, not only with her hands, but with anything her hands are holding.

4) You are both rolling around on the floor all the time. You can roll from one side to the other. I thought you'd both crawl quickly because I put you on the floor so much. However, I'm beginning to think that you'll both be like your older sister and your cousins and learn how to crawl the week before you start walking. Rolling seems to work well for you girls.

5) You both eat a lot, too. We go through half a gallon of goat's milk a day, plus I try to feed you two baby food meals. You're eating apples, carrots, winter squash, bananas, rice cereal and oatmeal.

6) I bought high chairs for you and you love to sit in them scooted up next to each other. The first day I bought them, I looked up just in time to see Apple look over at Blueberry's hand, reach over and grab it with both hands, stick it in her mouth, and bite it! Since then, I've witnessed the same scenario many times over.

7) Another thing that you girls do is steal things from each other. A favorite is to take the pacifier out of your sister's mouth and put it in yours. It's super cute, but annoying to the other. Taking toys away from each other, or having a tug of war with toys, especially in the high chair, is another common occurrence.

8) We've gotten in a new routine- Blueberry (usually) wakes up around 5 am and crawls in mommy's bed. Apple sneaks in about half an hour later. Punkin is third, and usually wakes us all up. Then we all cuddle and giggle. It's a routine that I'm going to try to keep going for a long, long time!

You are both growing up so quickly! Blueberry, just seven months ago, you were the same length as Uncle Ben's arm, from his wrist to his elbow. Now, you're the length of my torso! You're both very happy babies. Even now, you both have a cold, yet you're not whiny. I couldn't have asked for happier babies!

catching up with Punkin

A lot has been going on. However, I've finished nursing school (hooray!), so it seems to be letting up a bit.
I'll start with Punkin. So much to say! Every day you come up with something new! I'll just list as many as I can think of.

1) "Dad, I want to tell you about bird poops." Totally out of nowhere as we were driving one day.
2) I don't normally post pics (maybe I'll have to change that), but how could I not post THIS?!?!?!

 Don't worry, tho. You cleaned it all up- WITH GRANDMA'S TOOTHBRUSH!!!! (I'm still cracking up!)

3) We went to Farmington for my uncle's funeral a few weeks ago. While at Grandma's, you said, "Great Grandma, where is Great Grandpa?" She said, "He went to be with Jesus." You said, "Oh. He's not dying anymore?" Oh, the wisdom of a child! No, my dear, he's not dying any more. He's doing sooooo much better!

4) Also while at great grandma's house, you decided to feed peanut butter to your twin babies that grandma gave you for Christmas. You then neatly washed their faces- and the rest of their little cloth bodies. I do, by the way, allow you to help me feed your baby sisters. You're really good at it!

5) For about a week, you had a thing about getting up in the middle of the night to do crafts, of course while everyone else was far off in the land of Nod. The first time, you decided to glue all- and I do mean ALL- of the mail together. The second time, you painted lots of things red with nail polish, including the refrigerator, my ceramic fire holder vase thing, several baby toys, bumbo seat tray, etc. The third time, you just used the markers to color a few things, although I don't remember what.

6) Last night, you said, "Daddy, want to watch me dance?" You were standing on the coffee table and looking at yourself in the dining room mirror. Of course, he said okay. You danced, then asked him the same question at least ten more times! I'll have to get a video of that!

I'm sure that I could put ten things on here every day. You're getting so big and so helpful.

punkin boston cream pie!

We went to this great little bakery the other day that has all of these fantastic little pastries, The Rhinelander Bakery in old town Arvada. They have beautiful cakes in a display case, with a door where the customer can open it and take one out to pay for. In that display case, they had a Boston cream pie with fondant poured over it, among many fantastic and pricey cakes, along with plastic "Happy Birthday" cake toppers surrounding the cakes. I'm not sure if you can see this one coming or not, but, let me tell you, I was blindsided, as was grandma! As we longingly gazed at the pastries, Punkin, you were busy sticking those cake toppers right into that beautiful fondant so that they were sticking into the cake by the letter "y." Fortunately, they didn't make us buy the cake, but were able to pour a little more fondant over the holes. I told you that we don't decorate other peoples' cakes, but couldn't really punish you, as I always let you decorate our cakes at home. You were upset, anyways, as you always are when you see that panicked look on my face, so I think that was punishment enough. We bought a mocha cream horn and a cookie, as well as drinks and sat out in the wonderful fall air to eat them. All in all, it was pretty funny, even right when you did it. I'm just glad they didn't make me buy the cake!

Peace

A friend came over the other day and was amazed at how quiet and happy you girls are and how peaceful our home is. Punkin was "reading" a book, Apple was asleep and Blueberry was sitting and smiling happily in her chair. Just to be clear, this isn't always the case. However, it usually is. It's not by chance, either. There are several contributing factors. In Zechariah 8:16-17, it says, "This is what you shall do.... give judgement in your gates for truth, justice and peace." I love these verses in their entirety. I do my best to institute this one in our home. Our peace is directly related to following God. In order to have a peaceful home, we don't watch much television. The drama on every show, used to create excitement, forces an excitement level in the home that I don't want. I play music almost constantly, but I'm very careful about what it is. I play classical, jazz, kid's songs, Spanish kid's songs, audiobooks read to music, worship music and sermons. I also do my best to not get excited when things go wrong. For example, if you break something, Punkin, like you JUST did, I tell you to stand still and I pick you up and put you elsewhere. Then, I clean it up. After that, I ask you what happened. If it was an accident (like it always is), I tell you what not to do next time. If it was done purposefully (which has never happened thus far), I'd tell you that we don't do tat and you'd stand in the corner for a few minutes. But I do my best to never raise my voice. The only loudness is Bob barking or kids playing. If it gets too loud, I'll send you outside to play. I think that peace in our home, though it may sound boring, is incredibly comforting to you. You still get excited, but you control yourself more and unleash when it's more appropriate, like outside. The peace helps you to learn more, too. You are able to cure your boredom yourself with exploration (like how you're putting dogfood in the dog's water right now....) and you're able to concentrate on puzzles or whatever you're doing a lot easier than in a loud or over-stimulating place. I hope you all grow up to be peaceful girls!

Managing our busy life

I get asked a lot how I manage to go to school, raise you girls and do all the other stuff we do. Well, today seems to be a slower than usual day (or I'm running faster than usual due to all the coffee I drank this morning), so I'll explain.

I am a firm believer in doing chores. So, our morning goes something like this: change (and bathe babies) and feed everyone, read my bible, make beds, unload the dishwasher, put a load of laundry in, briefly clean bathrooms, exercise, then shower and/or bathe Punkin (usually babies eat while Punkin and I exercise, then fall asleep, giving us time to shower). This takes until around 10:30, depending on the day. Around 12, we all have lunch. At 12:30, Punkin watches cartoons and I put the babies to sleep. You all usually sleep until around 2:30. During that time, I fold laundry and do homework. Computer time is usually interspersed throughout the day, mostly when I get tired of working. I try to limit it to ten minutes at a time, tho, or I'll get behind. In the afternoon, we go to the store as needed, pick up the house, make dinner and load dishes. At night, we eat dinner at 6:30, change into  jammies and feed babies around 7:00, put babies down at 7:30 and put Punkin down at 8:00. We wake up around 6:30-7:00 and start all over.

It's really not that hard. We're pretty scheduled, tho. You go to sleep faster when you know what to expect. While I'm working around the house, the babies will roll around on the floor and Punkin will play with whatever school project I put out that day. A lot of things we will do outside, such as eat breakfast or lunch, read the bible or I do my homework (if it doesn't need exclusive attention on my part). A lot of those things, like cleaning the bathroom or picking up the house, go super quickly when I do them every day, leaving us with time to explore outside or go to the Apex to swim or play.

Anyways, that's how your days go, girls!

Pasta and oral exploration schools :o)

Punkin- Today, you went to pasta school :o) ! Well, you didn't really go anywhere. You played with Wacky Mac, which consists of four different pasta shapes (wheels, spirals, penne and shells) in four different colors. First, you sorted them. Then, you weighed each different shape. Then, you poured them from one container to another and back again, including through a funnel into a jar. Finally, you glued them to pieces of sponge to make stamps. We haven't used the stamps yet, but we probably will tomorrow.

Apple and Blueberry- You orally explored some plastic chain linking toys and looked at the three different colors of them. It doesn't sound super exciting reading about it, but you both really seemed to be learning a lot. Maybe we'll try something squishy tomorrow. Unless you find something else you'd rather explore ;o) !

Lists for homeschooling

Things to help guide our homeschooling. I'm sorry so much has to do with homeschooling lately. I'm on a bit of a roll right now.

Our Five Priorities in homeschooling:
1. Relationship with God.
2. Relationships within family.
3. Character qualties.
4. Work ethic.
5. Academics.

Learning percentages:
-90% retained through teaching it to someone else with immediate application of what they learned.
-75% retained when practiced.
-50% retained when discussed in a group.
-30% retained when seen in demonstration.
-20% retained through audio-visual teaching.
-10% retained through reading.
-5% retained through lecture (so I probably won't lecture you often ;o) )