This past August and October both my oldest girls turned one year older. Sniff!!!

Madelyn turned 4 and Katelyn turned 6. I never wrote any kind of special posts dedicated to them so here’s my attempt to fix that.

We had a BBQ birthday party for Maddy ( the poor thing is probably always going to get that type of birthday since her birthday is a Summer birthday in New England)

The birthday girl

True to Maddy’s nature, she mostly hung out with her Papa the whole time. She wasn’t much for joining in the group games.

She did, however, choose to participate in playing with water balloons.

Story behind this cake: Tried to make her cake, it crumbled upon trying to remove it from the pan.FRUSTRATED. Bought one from Sam’s. Yummy cake.

Maddy has grown so much in the past year! She still continues to be my shy, quiet, loner cuddle bug. She’s content hanging out at home playing with her toys. We’ve tried to push her a bit by signing her up for soccer and AWANA. She’s hates the first and tolerates the second. We love her so much and wouldn’t have her any other way! God blessed us with our little blondie!

Since Katelyn’s birthday is in October, we’re never quite sure what the weather will be here in New England. In the past, it’s been cold and I just don’t have the room to host a whole party in my house at this point. So, we held her party at a dairy farm super close to our house. We’re so glad we found out that they did parties. It was so cute!

They provided the decorations. A cute cow theme.

We started off the party with a tractor ride to the barn.

The children then got to have a “tour” of the barn and learn how the dairy farm is run. It was pretty stinky in there as you can see by the children holding their noses!

Then it was back to their farm store for make-your-own-sundaes with their delicious ice cream! (Katelyn hadn’t started making her sundae yet in this picture)

After the sundaes the kids did colorful sand art in milk bottles. So cute!

The kids holding up their finished art.

Then it was time for the last activity of the day. Milking “Hazel The Holstein”.

Katelyn continues to be our adventurous go getter. She’s doing so well with her homeschooling and reads like champ! She is sweet, funny and loves to talk shop with the adults. She’s also doing soccer and AWANA and started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu a couple of months ago.  We are so thankful for our first born, big girl!

I love my two oldest and can’t imagine my life without them. God has truly given  us great gifts in our children. I know that God has great things planned for their lives.

]]> http://www.simplymelsblog.com/four-and-six/feed/ 0 http://www.simplymelsblog.com/preschool-parade-1312011/ http://www.simplymelsblog.com/preschool-parade-1312011/#comments Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:15:14 +0000 SimplyMel http://www.simplymelsblog.com/?p=2824

This is my first time to participate in the The Homeschool Village’s Preschool Parade held every other Monday. I thought it would be fun to do updates on how Madelyn is doing and not just updates on Katelyn and her Kindergarten work.

This is my preschooler,Madelyn.

She’s 3 years and 4 months and we’ve been officially doing Preschool at home since September.

She’s most definitely my laid back, Free Spirit. She loves to play pretty much anything. But her favorites are dress up and Barbies. She’s not really interested in anything academic.

On one hand, her willingness to play and keep herself entertained all the time without much help from me has been a huge blessing. On the other hand, it’s made keeping her interested in preschool work harder. My oldest daughter recognized all of the letters of the alphabet by the time she was 2 years old. She’s always been interested in writing, letters and numbers.I can’t take the credit for all of that. The credit goes to Elmo and Sesame Street.

Madelyn…not so much. I’ve never tried to do much academically with her because she’s always been so happy doing her own thing. I figured, why mess with that??

We started out the school year with her knowing basically nothing. (She knew her colors and shapes. How to count to 20. That was about it.) She didn’t now how to hold a pencil, crayon or marker the right way. She didn’t know how to trace anything or spell her name. She didn’t recognize any of the letters of the alphabet or any numbers.

Since September she’s made lots of progress.

~She knows how told a pencil with the proper grip. I don’t have to remind her anymore to hold her writing utensils the right way.

~ She can use scissors and cut like a pro.

~ She can trace and has now progressed to copying letters instead of just tracing them.

~ She can spell her name and usually can recognize it when she sees it.

~ She can memorize short memory verses.

~She knows the days of the week and can tell me what day it is.

~ She has come so far with her drawing! I’ve been so amazed. She draws pictures of actual things now and her pictures look like what they’re supposed to be instead of just scribbles.I just love seeing the things that she draws.

What we’re still working on:

~Recognizing the letters of  the alphabet.

This has been the most frustrating thing for me. Each week I focus on one letter and one number of the week. All of her activities center around that letter and that number. She colors, traces, makes mini books and does activity sheets. We have memory verses that focus on a specific letter. I have it posted on our Circle Time wall. We review it every day. From one day to the next she does not remember what the letter and number of the week are!! Some days from one activity to the next she doesn’t remember the letter we just talked about.  This past week I focused on reviewing all of the letters we’ve focused on from the beginning. She still doesn’t know a single.one.

I know she’s only three and still has another year of preschool to learn these things. I try not to get too frustrated but I really don’t understand why she’s not retaining this information!!

Other than that I’m happy with how my preschooler has progressed over this school year. I’m very proud of her!

In case you’re interested, here are some links to some of the activities I’ve done with her. Many of these posts also contain the stuff I’m doing with my Kindergartner as they do their schooling together and do many activities together.

A basic look at my weekly schedule with Madelyn

Our Homeschool Room

My Circle Time Routine

This Post is linked to The Homeschool Village’s Preschool Parade.

This post is also linked to the Hip Homeschool Hop hosted by Hip Homeschool Moms.

Yesterday feels like a black hole of time to me. From about 1:30 am Sunday morning Madelyn started vomiting every hour and half to two hours.  Seems she caught the stomach virus that’s been going around. She went through all of her clean sheets and several pairs of  pajamas. I thought an explosively puking child was bad. Turns out an explosively puking child in the middle of the night is worse. She couldn’t sleep because she was miserable and every time she did go to sleep, starting to throw up would wake  her. That is not a pleasant way to wake up. Since the girls share a room Katelyn woke up every time Madelyn threw up and started crying.

None of us got much sleep that night. Finally by 6 am Madelyn came crying into my room and asked if she could get in bed with us. I’m usually very strict about not letting my children sleep in my bed but the poor thing was miserable so I let her snuggle in. Of course, I was worried about her throwing up in my bed too, but I figured I have many more sets of sheets than she does and it was 6 am already. Almost time to get up. A few minutes later I heard the pitter patter of little feet and Katelyn asked if she could get in bed with us too.

The more the merrier!!

Madelyn did throw up twice more but thankfully I had a large bowl for one of the explosions. The other time I wasn’t so lucky.

We all got up after that and decided none of us would be going to church yesterday. Mike started feeling a little sick himself. Thankfully he didn’t get much worse than that.

We rested the rest of the day and Madelyn threw up many more times. Finally by the afternoon she was able to sleep restfully in Mike’s lap on the couch. She was exhausted and pitiful.

I dozed on and off the recliner in between bouts of  Maddy’s vomiting and having to get Mike and Madelyn stuff they needed. ( As Madelyn would not get out of Mike’s lap). Let’s just say I couldn’t wait for the girls to go to bed that night so I could go to bed!

During this whole ordeal yesterday Katelyn was having a hard time with all of the attention Madelyn was getting. She was getting into trouble left and right. Wouldn’t leave Madelyn alone. She kept wishing she was sick too. Was pestering us, complaining and misbehaving.  Mike finally sent her to her room. She went stomping up the stairs, making quite a nasty face.

After a while we noticed we hadn’t heard any noise from upstairs. Since I had to go the bathroom (again!!) I went up to check on her. This is what I saw when I rounded the corner….

“What the …??”  I thought. Katelyn had decided to put her pillow in the hallway and lay on the floor. She fell asleep this way. She did not want to be removed from us in her room so she thought the next best thing was laying in the hallway!

That kid….

She is definitely a piece of work sometimes!

Thankfully, Madelyn is feeling better today. And Katelyn is ….well….being Katelyn!

We celebrated Madelyn’s third birthday party this weekend. So, for my Top Ten today I give you my favorite pictures from her party!

For breakfast I let the girls have toast with Nutella as a special treat. Love their Nutella smiles!

The cake! It was a little lopsided and I had a super hard time using the frosting pouches and tips from Cake Mate (never again!!) so my writing was a little off. But still…

The theme was  just a Flower/Butterfly theme. Madelyn couldn’t decide one so I finally just picked some cute, matching party goods from the dollar store and went with that. I don’t think she really cared what the theme was!

This was the smallest party I’ve ever had. There were all the kids I invited, minus one. Madelyn doesn’t like a lot of commotion or large groups of people so a large party wouldn’t have been what she really wanted. We had a simple cook out.

Love this picture of Madelyn trying to open her gift. Like it required a lot of exertion! She received a lot of Barbies and Barbie stuff. She loves them. With every gift she would say ” I wonder if it’s a Barbie?” and then gasp and “oooh and aahh” over each new Barbie she got.

This is the best picture I got of her in her party dress. We got a lot of complements on it. My mother in law has good taste! From now on you’ll notice Madelyn is holding that Mermaid Barbie in.every.single. picture. She literally did not let go of  it for two days.

Cake time! She didn’t have any, by the way. Once she opened her Mermaid Barbie we didn’t see much of her after that. She’s my loner and perfectly happy playing in the corner by herself.

Madelyn holding her Mermaid Barbie? Check. Madelyn not eating her birthday cake? check.

For party games, I turned on the sprinkler and let the kids throw water balloons. Mike had them try to get the water balloons in the little basket ball net. They had a blast! I love this picture of the exploding balloon in Katelyn’s hands.

Post water play snack. Madelyn did not participate in any of the water play and instead chose to watch holding her Barbie.

This picture was taken after everyone left. The girls sat on the deck and played with Madelyn’s new Barbie Camper. It was so cute to listen to their play. It was a perfect day for a third birthday party and we all had a great time.

For more Top Ten Tuesday head over to Oh Amanda!

My cute, 9 pound baby girl went from this:

to this:

to this:

to this:

to one of the sweetest, most content and cuddliest almost-three-year-olds I’ve ever met.

To my sweet, adorable Madelyn Reese:

We love you and are so proud of you. We are so happy that God gave you to us!

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY!!!

Seeing her adorable, smiling face every day brings me great joy.

She’s my cuddly, sweet little girl

Who still needs her naps and

And loves  her sister and her friends.

She’s my adorable, almost three year- old ,second born and she definitely makes me SMILE.

This post is linked to  Wordful Wednesday over at Seven Clown Circus.

Are you purposeful in your parenting?

I’ve come to find out that I’m really not! As both my girls get older I’m finding that I can’t just “wing it” anymore. I can’t just send them on their way with a few answers and a snack. They were happy playing with their play-doh, coloring and watching t.v. There for a while they were too young to notice much and easily distracted with pat answers.I could tell them to “do as I say” and hope they didn’t “do as I do”.

I used to spend a good amount of time working on letters and numbers with Katelyn. She knew a lot more at almost three years old than Madelyn does at almost three. Madelyn is my laid back, easily pleased and content child. She will play with literally anything. Rocks, her fingers, bird feathers…..anything. She hardly ever asks for anything so when she does I’m happy to oblige her.  She  is happiest playing by herself, in her own little world. So, I think “Why disturb her to work on letters, crafts, spelling her name or numbers??” Madelyn is my “easy” child. So easy, in fact, that I can easily be unpurposeful in my parenting with her!

Katelyn constantly needs attention.

Ahhh…Katelyn. My precocious, impatient, stubborn, silly, inquisitive, strong-willed, beautiful almost-five-year-old. Let’s  just say she’s my “challenging” child. I don’t know how it happened but we seem to have raised a 4 year old little  demanding Diva. I’ve found myself butting heads A LOT with her and also getting very frustrated. I find myself constantly saying “no” to her and getting on to her. I want to say “yes” but her behavior here lately is pushing me to say ” no” all the time. She is really pushing the boundaries of the knowledge I thought I had on parenting. Some days she completely wears me down mentally, emotionally and physically. I’ve found those days to be a complete parenting FAIL. I’ve yelled too much. I’ve not been consistent enough. I’ve taken the easy way out. I’ve been short and irritable with her. I have been a terrible example.

I swear she is hitting puberty already. Her mood swings are unbelievable!  She is CONSTANTLY wanting, asking, wishing for or demanding something she can’t have at the moment. Or ever, for that matter. “No” ,”wait” , “later” and”not now” are not acceptable answers in her mind. She pushes,begs and argues with me to my pulling-my-hair-out screaming limit. We’ve really had to put our foot down and discipline her EVERY time she asks for something more than once. Whether we say “yes” or “no”. That’s one thing that drives Mike nuts as well. She repeats herself and argues all the time. (Maybe she’ll be a lawyer???)

Here’s an example of a typical conversation that goes on 50 times a day.

Katelyn: Mom, can I have juice? (have ice cream, have cookies, can you buy me a  toy on t.v, have snack right after lunch, have a sleep over, go to McDonald’s, go to Nana and Papa’s etc etc)

Me: Wait a minute. Let me finish (insert task)

Katelyn: (2 minutes later) Can I have juice? Mama CAN I HAVE JUICE??

Me: When. I’m. done. here.

Katelyn: (another 2 minutes later)  Can I have juice now? Mom, can I HAVE some JUICE?

Me: I SAID when I’m done! I will let you know when I’m done.

Katelyn: But, mom! I want juice RIGHT NOW.

Me: What have I already said????????!!!

Katelyn: (pouting) When you’re done…..

Me: Exactly. Go play.

Katelyn: ( 2 minutes later) Mooom, can I have juice now? Are you done now? You’re taking too looong!

Me: I SAID WAIT!!!!! WALK AWAY!

Katelyn: But mom…!!

Me: That’s it! No juice for you. You can have some water when I’m DONE HERE but no juice. I told you that I would GET YOUR JUICE AS SOON AS I WAS DONE HERE BUT YOU KEEP INTERRUPTING ME and you’re not listening. You need to learn to WAIT!!! Go  sit on the couch!

Katelyn: (Burst into tears) Mooom!!! That’s not fair. Waaahhhh

(Commence me feeling extremely bad and guilty)

These types of conversations go on all day long. Sometimes they are reasonable requests that just require her to wait a minute. Sometimes they are outrageous requests that she doesn’t understand why she can’t do or have.  And usually when I do give her something it’s never what she actually wants. She always wants something different that what she’s getting. She’s never happy the first time around. S the is in an extremely ungrateful stage right now.

I get so frustrated and think ” Oh my word! Why can’t this child just be happy with what I gave her? Why doesn’t she just give up??”

Then it hits me. That’s how I am with God. Constantly asking for stuff. Constantly being ungrateful for what he’s given me. Some days I think that the reason God isn’t giving me another child is that I’m not doing very good with the two that I have!

The Bible says to “train up a child in the way he should go” and that children are ” a gift” from the Lord. I have to start taking this parenting thing more seriously! I can’t parent each day absentmindedly, correcting and punishing haphazardly. I have to remember that these children don’t just know the correct behavior that is expected of them. I have to model and teach it to them. I can’t get angry and frustrated with their behavior if I haven’t taught and modeled the correct ones! If I’m short, irritable and impatient they will learn to be short, irritable and impatient. If I model discontentment they will learn discontentment.

I do need to take some extra time with Madelyn to teach her some basic, pre-school concepts. I need to make sure they are learning Scripture  consistently at home.  That I’m teaching them Biblical principles myself. Not just depending on Sunday School to teach them what they need to know about the Lord. The Lord has gifted me with these children and I HAVE to start being a better example and truly  “training” them in the values, principles and behaviors I want them to have as adults. God has entrusted Mike and me with their minds and hearts and we need to to be more purposeful about how we guide them. We only have a short period of time to lay these important foundations.

I think part of the problem is that I have been angry and discontent for a long time myself. As many of you know part of my problem is that I don’t want to be here in New England. I want to be in Texas. I don’t like New England. Plain and simple! That has been a source of discontentment with me. The other one is my desire and struggle to have another child. There are several other issues I’m working on but those are for my journal. I haven’t liked myself very much for a long while. And I’m not saying I have poor self esteem or hate my looks. What I haven’t liked is my attitude!!  I haven’t liked who I’ve become as a person. I feel as if I haven’t been truly living. I’ve been stuck in the if-onlys. I’ve had unrealistic expectation from people in my life. I haven’t accepted the way things are. I want to start living. Accepting how God wants my life right now. I want to start parenting purposefully and focusing on the children I have now.

God and I are having some words but God is truly working on and in me. I’m blessed right now and in the present.

And if you’ve read this far I thank you!! Thank you for letting me share what God is doing in my life right now.

“The secret to good makeup is not over doing it” says Madelyn to herself while applying her “makeup” the other day.

Those wise words were apparently spoken by Ruby of “Max and Ruby” fame.

Truer words (in regards to makeup) have never been spoken.

“I have a wonderful make-up crew. They’re the same people restoring the Statue of Liberty.” ~Bob Hope

“I will not retire while I’ve still got my legs and my make-up box.” ~Bette Davis

“Use a make-up table with everything close at hand and don’t rush; otherwise you’ll look like a patchwork quilt.” ~Lucille Ball

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.” ~Albert Einstein

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30

This post is linked up to Wordful Wednesday over at Seven Clown Circus.

*Quotes taken from BrainyQuotes.com

I got some really good shots this week of the girls playing with their umbrella outside. It was an overcast day and about to rain. While I was watching them play it hit me how God is our umbrella in life.

He shields us from the rains, big and small, of life.

We usually are happy to have God as our umbrella when life is sunny and there’s no rain.

Then life starts to get a little dirty..

And the rain starts to fall and the mud starts to fly

And God sometimes allows us to get a little wet and muddy.

Then we start to complain, worry and cry. Sometimes we lose faith and completely try to get away from His umbrella and do all our own protecting. But God wants the rain to draw us closer to Him. He wants us to gather even tighter under His holy, righteous hand.

No matter how strong the rain and how far away we stray from that perfect umbrella of His hand

He always welcomes us back.

Even if we’re still a little muddy!!

Psalm 84:11

¹¹ For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

Psalm 37:23-24

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand.

Okay, first of all, this girl needs to stop growing. She looks fourteen in this picture. See the shorter hair that is framing her face? Yep, that’s what she added herself. It was all one length before. She apparently was going for a “Rachel” hair cut.

Here she decides to start having fun with the fact that I’m taking pictures of her misbehavior. But, if I didn’t do that what kind of mommy blogger would I be?

Think she’s sorry???

Don’t answer that!

Here’s some shots of Madelyn’s hair. Who couldn’t be bothered with us while watching t.v. Or, she may have been sitting on her little potty at the time and didn’t like the fact that I was taking her picture.

But…whatever, right?

She seemed to only have chopped a little chunk of her hair. Her hair has various layers in it since it’s still growing out so this chunk blends in a little better than Katelyn’s layers do.

You can see the chopped layer where it ends right beneath her ear.

Do you think they have futures as hair stylists?

I wanted to share with you some of the funny stuff the girls have been saying recently.

Madelyn insists on being called “Diego”. If you call her “Madelyn” she will calmly say ” My name is Diego.” If Katelyn refuses to call her that she’ll burst into tears and go into hysterics over it.

The other thing Madelyn is going around doing these days is stopping and shouting  at me (or whoever else is near by) “ You’re out of  the herd!!!

She gets this line from ” Ice Age” which both of the girls adore. She’ll only say it on her terms though. If we stand on our head, bribe and beg her to yell ” You’re out of the herd!!” she refuses to say it.

Madelyn, who is usually my quiet and shy child, found herself quite fascinated by another little girl at dance class the other day. The little girl was playing a hand held video game and her bangs kept falling in to her eyes. Madelyn kept reaching over and wiping her bangs out of her eyes. The little girl just ignored her and kept playing her game. Finally Madelyn looked at me and said ” Does she talk?”

Katelyn has been obsessed with death here lately. She keeps asking me when she’s going to die. Then she’ll say she doesn’t want to die and that she just wants Jesus to take her to Heaven. I’m seriously running out of ideas to get her mind off the subject. I keep telling her she doesn’t have to worry about that right now because it’s not going to happen any time soon. But she’s the type that wants answers now.

Katelyn walked around the grocery store with four fingers in the air the other day. When I asked her what she was doing she said she wanted everyone to know how old she was.

She seriously embarrassed me with a comment at church a few weeks ago. We had been ooohhing and aahing over this tiny newborn girl. She was super dainty and adorable. We then walked over to talk to another acquaintance that has a baby boy who’s about six months old. He’s big and chubby and super cute. As we were walking away she said very loudly ” Mama, I want a cute baby. Not like that one”. I wanted the floor to swallow me up. I don’t know if the mom heard her or not because I just kept walking. I know what Katelyn was trying to say and it wasn’t that she didn’t think the little boy was cute. What she meant was that she wants a newborn, tiny baby. She doesn’t want a big, older baby. I also explained to her that she can’t say things like that because it will hurt people’s feelings.I  don’t know if she gets that yet.

I’m still walking around on a pregnancy high. I think it’s too early for me to really start feeling any pregnancy symptoms. I have been very tired but that’s it. I didn’t have morning sickness with either of my two girls so I have my fingers crossed that I won’t get it this time around either. I’m planning to post all about the day I found out I was pregnant.

For now I need to go to bed!