LOTS of Updates!

Okay, so I'm going to start with some great news! My little nephew, Kohen, got to go home on Friday, March 12 to be with his daddy, mommy and big brother! We are so thankful for God answering our prayers and we will continue to pray for him to get stronger and healthier each day!

Now I will try to catch up on everything else that's been going on around here. I'll start with our homeschooling updates. The girls are literally whizzing through all of their work and we will probably be finished with most of our curriculum in late April or early May! We will still do some academic work, but we are looking forward to an extra long summer break!!!

Zora continues to love History and Science above all other subjects. Her favorites lately have been the science experiments we've been doing. We've been studying matter and here are her two favorite experiments so far...

Discovering Solvents

Exploration with Liquids

We've also been enjoying some get-togethers with our TIE group. We recently met to make Mardi Gras masks. Here's Zora with her mask... and notice the toothless little grin, too :-)

Lily is doing exceptionally well with her school work. She sails right through everything I put in front of her. She is still working hard on her letters and numbers and we continue to practice reading small words every day. What she enjoys most right now are the assignments I give her to develop her fine motor skills (coloring, cutting, pasting, etc.) We have 3 bulletin boards full of her work as well as the "artwork clothesline" in our playroom.
Our biggest homeschooling change was made very recently. Every Friday we normally go to a homeschool co-op where the kids had really enjoyed learning from other moms. We covered a wide variety of subjects in that group, and although I truly believed it was a wonderful program, I had to step back and really focus on the "important" things right now. It's very easy to get too wrapped up in so many great homeschooling activities, that sometimes I get over-committed and the girls and I both end up exhausted. Although I want to set high goals for my girls and give them as many opportunities as possible, I must also realize that they are only 6 and 4 and that we've got many years and opportunities ahead of us. I also don't ever want to push them so hard that they despise learning activities. So, for now, we are going to focus on our learning activities at home and look forward to doing fun activities with our homeschooling groups!

And speaking of FUN, we've been having plenty of that lately, too! We've been to visit our new little buddy, Levi...
...and his big Sister, Aubrey. These three girls play great together!!!
We've also been having a lot of fun with our friends, Jennifer and Addison. We enjoyed a trip to the circus with them and also a trip to the zoo. As always, I'm a sucker for zoo pics...I just can't help it! I think I need a support group :-)

And now for the silly faces!

Digging around in the African village

Is it just me or does this tree look a little crooked?!?!?! I can't believe that this is the first time I've noticed it when I've been there a million times...
And now for a couple of animal pics... the big cats are my favs and the lions were very cooperative for pictures!

And you've gotta love monkeys in the trees...

I SPY three more little monkeys :-)