A Little Occupied.

It's been a while since I've blogged and in my defense, I'm shouting "Life Happens!" But I do have some pictures to share to keep you updated on some of the things that have been keeping us busy.

School Lessons

Of course, our school lessons take precedence over much of our lives. Here we have Marco working on some map skills as he memorizes the continents and oceans of the world. This is part history and part geography and lots of fun! If only history and geography were our only subjects to study...but we still have math, science, reading, Latin, spelling, grammar, and all the rest!!

Family Fun Nights

So you wonder how we spend our weekends around here? Well, movie night is at the top of the list (In this case we were watching "Zoom"). So it's either blog the night away or spend some time with the hubby and kids with lots of popcorn and drinks. I think you know which won! But since we've been without cable for quite some time now, we all look forward to watching a movie together on our giant wall. It's a movie theater experience!

Vacation Time

We have been known to take a few days off here and there. This time we decided to go to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. Perhaps this wasn't the most perfect family vacation....lots of walking, not many hands-on activities and little children don't mix too well with us. But we still learned a bunch and got to see some really neat things. Do I recommend at trip there? Ask hubby and he would say, "No!" Ask me and I say, "Try it with older kids." Ask the kids and they'll say, "Go to Disney World instead."

Field Trips

There's lots of opportunities to go on field trips around here. This time we settled on taking the kids to the apple orchard. Fun? Oh yes. The kids loved it!! Fun for mom? Not in 95 degree weather with a fussy baby. We'll try again next year and pray for cooler weather. Until then, I'm up to my eyeballs in apples! Any recipes??



American Girl Club
We are still going strong with American Girl Club. Isabella loves it and I love getting to do fun crafts with the girls. This time we hosted. Kaya was the inspiration for our corn husk dolls...a fun craft!



Birthday Fun
With 5 kids in the house, it's only a matter of time before it's birthday time for someone. This time we celebrated Anthony's 5th birthday!!! It was a blast and my little guy had a great time. He is a blessing to our family! And we all loved the cake too! Happy Birthday big guy!

Co-op Field Trip.

Today we went on a field trip with our co-op to the grocery store, Lowes. The kids really enjoyed it, although I wasn't exactly too happy with the presenter. The field trip consisted of a tour through the grocery store with stops in all the different departments. It was nutrition related, so the kids got to look at healthy food choices and even sample several food items.

We did have a pretty good size group, since all the co-op members attended. It's always so amazing for me to see a homeschool group gather with all their children. I am in constant amazement at how well behaved our group was and how all the children are able to interact with all age groups (from babies to adults!) without any problems. It makes me thankful that I do not have to send the kids to school!

Although I thought the presenter for the field trip could have been a little more entertaining, I'm glad that the kids still had a good time. At the end of their tour, they received a goody bag that included some healthy choices reading materials and a grocers hat. My kids spent the afternoon playing grocery store and enjoyed watching them!

Isabella take a listening break, while Anthony hold Melissa's hand. Melissa is our babysitter that I love and I take her with me whenever I need an extra hand!

Some of the co-op kids moving on to the next part of the tour.

The children all got to pet a lobster while on the tour.

Back to Nature.

This past weekend was the NWF's Make Tracks! Family Trail Weekend. We were lucky to have planned a weekend getaway in the mountains with some friends, so it worked out that we were also able to enjoy a few hikes. The weather was great and the leaves were beautiful! It was a weekend that went by too fast. Luckily, we were able to tie in the weekend events with our planned nature activity for the week.

There were so many great pictures! I decided to make a slide show and then post some favorites.

Yup. It's 65 degrees outside and there is DH & Marco in the cold water. Sliding Rock is located near Asheville, NC.

Looks cold!!

Isabella was not left behind on the adventure. A friend took her down the slippery rock.

Hugging my Little Guy.

Enjoying some free time!

5 out of 7 kids...not bad!

The kids admire a living statue in downtown Asheville.

Exploring downtown Asheville.

Butterfly Farm.

We took a field trip with our co-op friends today and it was lots of fun! They learned about the life cycle of a butterfly, differences between moths & butterflies, and they got to visit the butterfly flight house.





I wish I would have taken more pictures! I had a great time and we even came home with a couple of caterpillars to grow at home. We'll have to note their progress as they grow!

Nature Thursday.

Today was such a busy day! We headed off to the Piedmont Environmental Center in High Point with some other friends for a guided hike. Even though we were late, we were still able to make it on the hike without missing much. We really enjoy anything nature related, so this was a very much enjoyed field trip. I was definitely surprised that we had a nice size class, considering there were only 3 of us moms there...we totaled 13 kids (including babies)!!!

The guide taught the kids (and moms) about edible flowers, identifying poison ivy, and distinguishing between a green frog and a bull frog. Among other things, the kids each received a color swatch which they used to find something in nature that matched. Isabella was given green (she matched with a leaf) and Marco was given beige (which he matched to a rock). The guide was entertaining and kept the kids involved and interested. Overall, he did a really good job!

Isabella showing her color swatch and matching nature find.

Marco showing his color swatch and nature find.

Poison Ivy.

After our nature excursion, we headed over to a nice park for lunch and some playground fun. Unfortunately for us, there was a school field trip and the playground was overrun with kids. Not a good thing when you have little ones to look after...they can easily get lost in a crowd. But we were able to divert the crowd by eating lunch first and then hitting the playground after the school-bunch left. It's always nice to get the kids out playing while you get to chit-chat with friends.

Of course, this wasn't the end of our day. After getting home and taking a little nap, I had to wake the kids up in order to get ready for their swimming lessons. We took off at 3:30pm and were back home at 6pm. We ordered pizza, ate, and called it a day. Needless to say, the kids (and I) were exhausted!!! But it was a fun day, none-the-less.