Wilhites Living Life: Catching up, organizing, plus an announcement

Okay. It's been awhile. I've had difficulty finding the time to blog lately.

I have two little ones, ages 3 and 5. Plus, I babysit a 2 year old and a 1 year old. It's difficult to find time to do anything, really.

And here's the announcement: Jared and I have officially made the decision to homeschool the girls. And, since Izzy is 5 and will technically begin kindergarten in August, a lot of my time has been consumed with that whole endeavor - planning, gathering book lists, searching out any free resources that I can find, organizing space, reading about educational methods, and so on and so forth.

Here are some of the books I've been reading. Yes, I know, the bottom book has nothing to do with homeschooling, but I have been reading it...ssssllllloooowwwwllllyyyy (I'm imagining that last word spoken in super slow motion).

I've been reorganizing our "play room." I took all of the girls' books off of the book shelf and instead put them in baskets next to their bean bags - one in the play room and one in the living room. The books were constantly falling over and they could never put them back in a nice, orderly fashion. Instead, I put some puzzles and games on it, along with a few books at the top that I couldn't fit into baskets.

Speaking of baskets, I got all these baskets at a yard sale for 3 bucks - about a week after I did the above. Now I'm faced with the task of reorganizing my reorganizing. I've acquired more books for the girls since then as well, thanks to yard sales and my mom, so I'm going to be using probably at least two of these for storing books. I'll have to line them with fabric first. I'll get to it eventually.

I've also been working on "quiet time" boxes for the girls. Izzy hasn't napped for a couple of years now, and Addy's naps have become sporadic. So, I've been gathering little activities and stuff that they can do during naptime, which is now referrred to as "quiet time" - things that don't require my attention. Because, let's face it, I need some quiet time, too!! I've got books, puzzles, dominoes, and who knows what else in those. These are not finished, though.

The clear box closest to the bananas in the above picture has some colorful pattern blocks. These things are awesome. They're magnetic and Izzy especially loves to make little designs out of them. Lately, she's been making "cookies."

It's all been quite a task.

Plus, I'm a perfectionist and as a result, I'm probably spending a whole lot more time than most others would on this whole homeschooling thing.

And, I used to be a teacher and was not one of those "let's wing it and fly by the seat of our pants" kind of teachers. I had to have a plan; a schedule. I had to know what I was going to do and talk about each day - and it's carrying over to my planning kindergarten for Izzy.

Kindergarten. Not eighth grade or high school. Kindergarten. She's 5. (My point being it should not be that difficult.)

Anyway.

Long story short, blogging has taken a backseat. My children and husband are more important than the computer. My homeschooling my kids is more important than the computer (except to find resources and stuff).

I like to blog, but it's just not the right time in my life to make it a serious undertaking.

I would still like to finish my Ephesians series (wait, I'm still working on that??? I thought it was supposed to be 30 days of Ephesians??? Ahem.), and will eventually. I would like to blog about homeschooling plans, and probably will do that also - eventually - because I'll need to write out my plans for my own sake anyway. And, as always, I would like to blog about our family goings-on.

Now that I've got that all out of the way, here are a bunch of pictures from the last couple of weeks.

I had never been a fan of the water painting sheets in the past - I just didn't think they worked very well and Izzy would complain about the painting not being very neat and running all over the rest of the picture. Then it dawned on me: q-tips instead of paint brushes! Q-tips work sooooo much better, and this time they enjoyed it.

Silver Dollar City, again!

Addy just loves the carousel.

Izzy actually got a few targets this time!

Addy was kind of scared the first time through.

Froggy time - I know Nanny loves this ride :)

Oh, did Izzy love this water squirty area.

Back at home.

The girls have done swimming lessons for the last two weeks. These are pictures from the very first day. They have since improved tremendously, and I'll take more pictures tonight. They were very timid at first, especially Addy. Izzy was very scared to go under water, but now she'll do it all by herself!

Addy spent a lot of time either on the top step, or completely out of the water.

Bean bag toss. Addy had to stand right in front of it.

Izzy's not too bad!

Dominoes - a great learning tool.

And, of course, lots of outside time. These pictures were taken on a walk around our neighborhood. This is just an empty lot with a whole bunch of trees.

I just love wildflowers, and the girls love to pick them. For our first homeschool year, I would like to do a "nature study" and part of that will (hopefully) include wildflower and tree identification. I'd like to learn all of that myself!

Do you like how Addy held her flower in front of her face? :)

Izzy and her sticks.

More flowers.

And, more flowers.

Izzy had quite a collection.

These next few were taken at Nanny's house. Izzy, as I'm sure you know by now, is not scared of bugs. She's got a couple of roly polies here (I'm guessing that's how to spell roly polies).