oh....it's been SOOOOO long!

It's been a while since I've written on here. We are plugging along. Nothing too exciting to report! I've been working hard to get caught up on my hat business, and Jay has a crazy school/work schedule this quarter that has him gone all day Monday and Tuesday. Then on Friday he leaves after our co-op and doesn't come back until Saturday afternoon (at which time I usually head to work myself!) It's been very busy!
Alyssa has gotten the hang of addition! Today she was working on problems and didn't need to use any tools to answer a lot of them! I was really excited! She had previously been using dots to figure out her addition problems. Then one day my mother in law and I were at a teacher's store and saw a workbook that showed a bunny hopping up the number trail. They started the bunny at the first number of the problem and then the bunny hopped up the number of spaces of the second number. That made it easier for her to visualize the problems! I'm very proud of her progress. Already at such a young age she hates math! I'm trying to make it more exciting for her, but not sure how! I've always loved numbers and number problems, so I'm not sure how to make it more fun! Any suggestions would be welcomed!
She is also doing AMAZING at her cursive and typing. I'm really proud of that! She's trying so hard to learn the cursive writing. It's also helping her in her printing too! She's starting to write her letters all correctly.
Casten is reading :) He can read words that are spelled phonetically! It's so neat to see him learn! We are still working on number recognition with him. He can count pretty high, but he doesn't recognize numbers higher than 12 most of the time! (If I prompt him and tell him the name of a number like 35, he'll be able to figure out 31-39). Hopefully we'll move on to simple addition before the end of the year!
Maizie is just hanging out, along for the ride :) She hasn't had too much interest in sitting with us, which is fine for now. I think after Christmas, I'll start making her do a little work each day. She's such a strong willed child, I think it's better to get her sitting and listening at a young age!
We are LOVING our co-op! The kids are making so many new friends it's awesome! Casten is fitting in incredibly well! He's definitely one of the older ones in the group. Academically they are keeping him engaged, which is great! Socially he fits in so much better with the younger kids.
So that's what's going on in a nutshell! I'm hoping to have a lot more interesting posts in the near future!!

Alyssa's birthday is this Sunday! If you'd like to come by and bring your kids, we'd love to have them! Alyssa really just wants kids to come to her party, so if you are free, please don't worry about a gift, just come on by! We are having the party in the South Suburbs. We'll be at the Michael's store in New Lenox, on rt. 30 at 1:30!

First day of "School"

The big kids attended their first day of our co-op yesterday! It was so much fun! They had a blast and can't wait for next week. The co-op offers music, art, science and gym. I had Alyssa placed in the 2nd and 3rd grade group. Everything we do she's always the oldest. Since her birthday is so close to so many cut-offs, she was one of the oldest in her kindergarten class last year, she's the oldest amongst most of our family and friends (or MUCH younger) and most places (including church and this co-op) put kindergarten and 1st grade together. So I thought it would be good for her to be with kids that were closer to her age, and social abilities. She fit in so well I was excited! Casten has a friend that was in his class, so I actually was able to drop him off without tears! It was very exciting.

We also got a new addition to the family yesterday :)

I saw a listing on Craigslist for an American girl doll for $10. It's arm is broken, but they have a doll hospital and it's only $25 to get it fixed. So She got an american girl doll for $35! I thought this is a good trial doll. She really wants Elizabeth they are retiring her at the end of the year and she is Felicity's best friend, and I have Felicity from when I was younger!

But our new addition's name is Isabella Elizabeth Queen. Alyssa is just in love!

We didn't tell her what she was getting. Just that she was getting a surprise and that it was broken but we could fix it! We were almost there at this point, she was so excited!

She was so excited when she saw what it was! This is her walking back to the car!

And riding in the car. She was just SO happy!

She couldn't stop talking about her! She woke up this morning bringing out Isabella and Felicity, they wanted to watch TV :) I'm so glad she's so happy! It was a very special gift for no reason but that we love her!

Our little movie star!

Alyssa has been begging me to cut her hair short for months. Today I finally gave in and took her! She looks SO freaking cute!

Before (I didn't take the time to fix her hair before we left...I figured it was pointless!)

Back!

I LOVE September!

Okay aside from it being the month the best people in the world were born (My Aunt Gail, Uncle Gary, JoAnne, Myself...of course...my dad and my FAVORITE Godfather) it's the begining of the fall!
Yesterday I decided that since it was September I could wear my favorite pair of brown courderoy. If that didn't make me happy enough, on our way to Chemo, my mother in law and I stopped at Starbucks and they had pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin cream cheese muffins! Both my FAVORITE! Then at dinner at Olive Garden they had Pumpkin Cheesecake for dessert! YUMMMMMMM!!!!! There is nothing I love MORE than Pumpkin stuff!

I'm off to make some more flowers for hats today. I'm going to try to make some pumpkin hats too! LOL!

First Library Cards!

I took all three kids to get their first library cards (well Alyssa's second...) The kids were so excited, but Schaumburg Library is so big, it was more hectic than relaxing! The kids weren't allowed to be out of my sight or there was a librarian right on top of them. I am looking forward to going during the day when maybe it isn't so crowded.
Of course Maizie lost her card while we were there. I'm hoping they find it. I looked for quite awhile, even went back without the kids. The picture is priceless, since she is throwing a temper tantrum in the picture! (Like I've said before she's recently decided that she doesn't like to have her picture taken!)
Here are some pictures for fun!

Alyssa getting her picture taken!

Casten getting his picture taken

Maizie getting her picture taken!

Just to prove she's cute sometimes! LOL!

Everyone showing off their cards and certificates!

Alyssa's certificate!

hi ho hi ho it's off to work we go!

Yesterday we had a good day of workbooks. The kids sat and worked quickly through it all! I am trying to decide what to do with Casten and his math. He can easily do addition and subtraction (almost as well as Lyssi!) but he doesn't recognize numbers higher than 10! He can count to 50, he just doesn't know what the numbers LOOK like! LOL! He gets bored with learning numbers, but he really likes connect the dots so I think I'll continue to give him some of those and try a number a day until he gets to 20. He loves to do work with his sister and he learns so quickly!

Maizie is starting to get into doing table time! So now I'm going to have to make sure I have things for her to do. She especially loves sitting on my lap looking at books!

My big sleepy heads are still in bed. We should start our school day in about 2 hours!

What a weekend!

We had a garage sale on Friday and Saturday. We did pretty well, I was impressed! The kids had a blast and were pretty well behaved for the most part! Saturday night I let them go pick out one new toy with their money since they were so good at getting rid of toys!
Yesterday we went to the Schaumburg Flyers Basball game. It was pretty fun! We went with a pretty big group, which made it quite fun! Uncle Bill bought the kids all ice cream and after the game they got to run around the bases! The big kids were too fast for me to get pictures of, but Maizie stayed right by me so we got some of her!

Brianna, Casten, Trenton and Alyssa

Me, walking all the kids inside!

Casten and Brianna

Casten, Alyssa and Trenton

A VERY messy Maizie

My Billian (AKA Lilly)

Maizie running the bases!

All of the kids on the field! Lilly, Lyssi, Maizie, Trenton, Casten and Brianna

We are getting back into the swing of things this week. Everyone is healthy and we are ready to get back on track! We'll be focusing more on basics this week. We'll also learn about desert habitats, learn a bit more about Illinois and Schaumburg and be studying Noah for Bible study!