January Homeschool Update

I realize that I'm pitifully behind this month on staying updated.  To tell you the truth, things have been absolutely crazy around here.  Many things have happened this month, so here goes...

At the beginning of the month Nana Betty and Papa Doug visited us and stayed at our house.  It was such an enjoyable time.  Here is Nana with her girls.  We gave her birthday present to her while she was here even though it was a little early :-)

We also got some great news about our new baby cousin, Aamina!  She got to come home the first week of January.  She is so incredibly precious!  Here she is asleep on her flight home.  She's wearing a onesie I made for her :-)

 Isn't she beautiful?!?!?!?  Look at her precious little face!

 This month we also went to the Gilcrease Museum for an art lesson on landscaping.  There is a huge room of windows there with a beautiful view.  Although all the trees are dead, the view was still incredible.  Here is Zora taking it all in to prepare for her landscape drawing.

 This is the view she chose to draw.

 Lily was hard at work on her drawings as well :-)

We were also able to have a fun playdate this month with some of their little girlfriends.  They all enjoyed getting together to play with their American Girl dolls and we also had a tea party with real China dishes :-)

Then came our first snow of the year!  It was fun and beautiful while it lasted, but we were glad when the warm weather came to pay another visit! 

Zora enjoys the snow

 And, of course, we had to keep the tradition of snow rafting with the Fieldens!

Addie, Zora & Lily

 It's so crazy that one week we can have snow and just a few days later the weather is beautiful.  This weekend the weather was WARM and BEAUTIFUL so we took full advantage of it!  First, we celebrated a friend's birthday at Bounce U.  I tried to get some good pics of the girls having fun, but they were having so much fun that every picture is a blur....literally.  Here they are coming down the slide :-)

After the party was over we headed outside to enjoy the beauty and warmth of the day.  And what better way to spend a beautiful day than walking around the zoo, enjoying God's wonderful creation with cousins?!?!?!  Here is the cute bunch of cousins! I LOVE this pic!!!

Nate, Zora, Lily, Skylar, Alli & Kohen

It's also been a while since I've updated on our homeschooling, so here goes...

Zora continues to do well in math and is starting to enjoy it a little!  YAY!!!  She also continues to do well in phonics although it is quickly becoming her least favorite subject.  I've also started some timed reading lessons with her that will help her learn to not only become a faster reader than she already is, but also to work on her comprehension skills.  This year I have been working hard with her on some critical thinking skills.  It's been tough on her (and me) at times, but I really want her to be able to take information that she reads and learn to analyze and hypothesize things.  I want her to be able to think for herself and not be spoon-fed information!  It's a work in progress :-)  She continues to LOVE and BEG for History.  Last semester we studied a few ancient cultures, and then this semester we are learning about American History.  She loves it!  She begs for her lessons every day.  We've learned about the Revolutionary War, the Constitution, the War of 1812, and the Pioneers Moving West (Daniel Boone, Jedediah Smith, Steamboat, Gold Rush, etc.) so far.  The stories of our nation's history captivate her attention - it's great!  For science we are just reviewing a lot of what we've already learned.  I'm struggling with finding a science curriculum that we love.  Any homeschoolers out there got any recommendations????

Lily is blazing through her lessons.  Sometimes I'm not sure that what I have is challenging enough, but I'm not ready to begin pushing her through Kindergarten curriculum yet.  I want to make sure we have a solid foundation before we keep going.  She is continually improving on her reading skills - YAY! - but it is not something she loves to do :-(  It's hard for me to accept that because Zora always loved reading.  I hope that Lily warms up to it soon.  I was really proud of her tonight at church because she leaned over to me, pointed at the video screen where the sermon notes were projected and said, "Mommy!  I can read the top line!  It says LOVE THE LORD!"  She is also doing some IQ building workbooks every day, and her handwriting is impressive for a 4-year-old.  And the most exiting part for me is that MATH IS HER FAVORITE SUBJECT!!!!  She's been working on simple addition, subtraction, sorting, geometry and word problems. 

Ok, so enough of that.  Although school takes up a lot of our time during the week, we have enjoyed a few lazy days here and there.  On their "down time" the girls love to play their Nintendo DS games...

 ....and they also spend literally hours upon hours building LEGO masterpieces and playing "house" with the LEGO people in their LEGO villages.  It truly is an endless source of fun for them :-)

Now here are some completely random pictures that I captured this past month that make me smile...

Our dogs, Rosey & Shelley, learned to climb UP the slide and sit at the top of the swing set so that they can see over the privacy fence and know what is going on outside our yard.  They crack me up!

This is a pic of Lily enjoying some ice cream after church one night. 

I love that smile :-)

And this is probably my favorite of Miss Lily.  Every morning when she wakes up, if I am still in bed, she'll come get in bed beside me and want to snuggle.  I love this little sleepy face in the morning :-)

Well, that sums up the month of January!  Check back at the end of the week because we should have more pics of Baby #3!!!!

OH BABY!

I had my first official doctor's appointment today and we got to see the baby and hear the heart beat!  It's heart rate was 170 and the doctor said that everything looks and sounds wonderful :-)

The girls went with us and were very excited to see the baby.  They were a little disappointed, however, that there was only ONE baby... they were hoping for twins.  I, on the other hand, am very pleased with that fact that there is only one :-)  Stay tuned for more from Summers Baby #3!!!

It's Official!

Our house is up for sale!!!  Yay!!!  Right now we are going to try to sale by owner.  We'll see how that goes :-)  If you know of anyone who needs a home tell them about us - we would greatly appreciate it!  You can see all the details of our house on ForSaleByOwner or on Craigslist.  We will set up private appointments with buyers who are interested, but we will also be having an open house on Saturday, January 15th from 12:00pm to 4:00pm.

We are in the process of beginning our new home.  The footing has been dug and passed inspection so our next step is to get the footing poured, having the plumber come out, and then getting the foundation poured.  Here is a picture of our land. 

It may not look like much right now, but we can already envision our new house sitting there.  And in the summer (hopefully when we'll be moving in) we'll be able to look out the windows and see the beautiful trees and the animals that live there :-)

Happy New Year!

As we waited for the new year to arrive we thought about some of our  

favorite times in 2010:

The birth of my step-sister's little boy, Kohen

Welcoming many new babies into our circle of friends

Granny Robbie's 80th Surprise Birthday Party

Zora and Mommy going to church camp together for the first time

Going to the lake during the summer

Going to Flint Creek Rock and jumping off the cliffs

Joel taking me to Beaver Lake for a romantic weekend

Zora getting saved and baptized

Traveling to Arizona to help our Nana move 

(the trip was the exciting part...saying goodbye was NOT) 

Zora & Lily's first airplane ride

Finding out we were going to have another baby

This is the first year we didn't plan something with friends or family.  We decided to have a low-key celebration with just the four of us.  We started by having dinner together and then we let the girls pick some board games that we could all play as a family.  When they got tired of the games we had a Tom and Jerry watch-a-thon.  The girls absolutely love that cartoon and they laughed and laughed.  I took a little cat-nap on the couch :-)  That was nice.   After Tom and Jerry was over we watched the Times Square ball drop then we all took our showers.  We finished just in time to wish one another HAPPY NEW YEAR and give lots of kisses and hugs, and then we were off to bed!

Here are the girls stating their favorite parts of the year and wishing you all a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Christmas Time Is Here :-)

Our Christmas festivities have been in full swing around here.  Last week the girls made ornaments for all the grandparents.  This is an annual tradition.  Each year we do a different kind of ornament.  One year we did salt clay ornaments, another year was shrinky-dinks, and this year we did painted wooden ornaments.

Painting ornaments

Then last weekend the girls got to open early Christmas presents from Nana Betty since she was in town to help take care of my sister.  Since Papa Doug wasn't able to be here we Skyped with him so that he could see them open the presents, too.  The girls were hoping for some books and/or movies.  They got a BIG surprise!

I love to hear them squeal with excitement :-)  Thanks Nana and Papa...they LOVE their Nintendo DS!  And they love the Zhu Zhu Pet game!

She got them something else that is incredibly special to them.  They get it out everyday just so they can hear her voice.  They miss her so much since she moved to Arizona.  Here's the other gift she got them...

Twas The Night Before Christmas Book

(read by Nana Betty)

We've also had some special times with friends.  The Jones family came over for some fun.  The girls really enjoyed playing together, making sugar cookies, decorating the sugar cookies...

 ...and eating the sugar cookies too!!!

And of course we had a little gift exchange.  Little Levi wasn't quite sure what to do with his present since this is his first Christmas!

We also had a fun visit with the Voss family who came in from Arizona!  The kiddos had a fabulous time playing together.  We enjoyed our time together so much that poor little Noah crashed out asleep on the floor from exhaustion!

Christmas Eve was a special day with Joel's Grandmother and my Granny.  They are the last grandparents we have remaining so the time with them was very special.

The family with Gigi (Joel's Grandmother)

Cousins on the Henry side

(Jake and Canaan)

 (Lily, Camryn, Caylin and Zora)

Christmas Day proved to be just as wonderful and exciting.   We started the day off with some cinnamon rolls then opened presents.  I love the look on their faces when they open something!

Then we headed to Mamma and Papa's house for a fantastic lunch and more fun with the cousins.

Zora, Joel and London

 Lily and Keno

 Zora reads a Christmas book with Mamma

Later that evening we celebrated with my dad and sister.  I'm so glad she was able to be home for Christmas, but we missed her kiddos.  They were in Arkansas celebrating with other family members.  But we did get to see Jake in his cute little Christmas pjs :-)

Jake proudly shows off his Jordans from Jamie

Our final celebration was actually after Christmas.  We got together with my step-siblings for some more fun!  We had a simple dinner - just sandwiches and fruit, but it is the only thing that has tasted good to me in a long time so WOOHOO for that!  And my sister got to come with her kids and that was a tremendous blessing! 

Of course, all the cousins had a good time laughing and playing together...

Zora and Skylar

 Kohen - doesn't he have the sweetest smile?

 I love this little smile, too :-)

Lily

 Alli is happy with some moolah!!!

 Nate's "surprised" face :-)

Thank you to all our friends and family who celebrated with us this year.  We had a very special, fun, joyous and blessed Christmas with all of you!!!

Sister Update #5

So here's the latest update on my sister... it's BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS.

Monday she was scheduled for a test to see why things weren't functioning properly.  Bad news: the test was inconclusive.

Tuesday she was sent for a different type of test to see if they could find anything.  Good news: they were able to tell by this test that she did NOT need another surgery and that she looked great, just still swollen, so they told her to just give her body time to heal and all should be well.

Almost immediately after the receiving the good news she began to have severe pain in her left side.  The pain was so bad that they sent her for more testing.  Bad news: they found that she had a kidney stone!  Poor thing... as if she hasn't suffered enough :-(

Wednesday brought good news!!!  She got to go home!  Yay!!!  She still has the PIC line in her arm that gives her the majority of her nutrition, so home health care comes out to her house twice a day to check on her.  But she was able to eat mashed potatoes and tomato soup today and not get sick!  Yay!!!

Thanks so much for all your prayers for her.  Please continue to pray that her healing continues and she will get stronger every day.

Blessings to all!

Sister Update #4

My sister is still up and down from day to day.  Friday she had a fabulous day.  We were positive that she would be coming home this weekend.  But once again, her intestines had other plans.  She had a miserable night Friday and Saturday was equally as miserable.  Today was a little better, but not great.  They will be doing a barium test tomorrow and depending on the results they will determine what to do.  It is possible that they will do ANOTHER surgery Tuesday :-( 

Please pray that the test results will show an simple fix to her problem and NOT another surgery.  We really want her to go home before Christmas!!!