"Homeschool Preschool"

This year I am teaching Noah (and Isaac, kind of!) preschool at home. He calls it "homeschool preschool" but it's really not very formal or very time-consuming. We are just playing and learning letter sounds together.

Noah loves his new letters we have cut from cereal boxes. He likes figuring out how to spell things and naming all of the letters. He knows many of the letter sounds, though we are only formally through letter "F." I am loosely using a curriculum I heard of online called Letter of the Week.

Our "letter of the week" means we work on vocab and letter sounds for each letter. We also pick an animal that begins with that letter and get library books to learn about that animal. This week we are studying elephants and fish. We are doing two letters this week to play catch-up.

We try to do a playdate with our friends weekly for fun playtime. Noah is also learning Bible verses and practicing them with Mommy, making crafts, and participating in his preschool classes at Bible study and at twice a week at church. Nothing formal, just a lot of fun 3-year old playtime! We go to the library weekly and also regularly frequent the children's museum to check out the playscape, the planetarium star shows, and the exhibits.

It is really making me think twice about putting him in a formal preschool setting next year at 4.... $150-$200/month for preschool is nothing to sneeze at, and frankly, I really like teaching him at home!

still more tomatoes

One way we save money on produce in the summer is to grow it ourselves. I planted several tomato plants (I think it was 8 this year, still not enough!!!!) and as of this week, I am still getting tomatoes on my cherry tomatoes!

Isaac loves to pick the tomatoes and eat them for a snack while we are outside playing in the back yard. The problem is, he still doesn't really understand how to ONLY pick the red ones. He eats the green ones too. (Maybe that's why he got sick??)

Freshly picked and freshly eaten. Goodbye summer tomatoes. I know this is the last we will probably see of you!

feeding the sickies

Noah and Isaac spent much of the past few weeks fighting some kind of a stomach bug. After over a week of missing our normal activities (playdates, mom's service group at church, Bible study, working childcare at the gym, etc...), I finally took them to the doctor.

The doctor asked if I was feeding them the BRAT (Bananas-Rice-Applesauce-Toast) diet. I said, "yes," as I handed Isaac a handful of Goldfish crackers and a sippy cup of milk....

He said I needed to really do the BRAT diet exclusively. Ok, fine.

Would you like more carbs, Isaac?

No more milk. Noah didn't mind the Powerade that Grandma Judy brought over either. The boys were drinking a store brand Pedialyte and lots of water.

Thankfully they improved within a couple of days, and we were able to return to our normal activities.

another half marathon and hanging out in Berne

Jason and I finished the Fort Wayne half marathon in September. It was Jason's second and my third race of that length. So collectively, we have run 5 half marathons in the past year! Pretty crazy... Jason was pretty spot-on his previous race time, while I finished 10 minutes slower. (One of these days maybe I will actually improve my time!) We had fun meeting up with several friends since there were only a few thousand runners participating. Overall we thought it was a well organized small race, and it was a new little adventure to try out racing in a different city!

Back at the ranch, Noah enjoyed spending time with two of his friends, Mia and Layla. Here they are cuddled up on the couch probably watching an episode of Little Bear.

The boys love to read, especially Noah. Noah could probably do nothing but sit and read all day and be content. (I wonder who his parents are.....?) Isaac likes the board books. He is still learning how to sit and listen to stories. He has had a reputation for tearing the pages and a 5-second attention span, but he is getting better!

The boys loved playing with the train set at their grandparents' house. Typically Isaac loves to say "choo choo" and tear apart the tracks after they are tediously put together. Noah has a fiery little temper and promptly bops Isaac on the head (or other similar gesture of annoyance). Learning to share and live in harmony does not come naturally.....

Monster Trucks!!

A few weeks ago (takes me forever to post anything!) we picked up the Groupon for an auto parts / truck show at the fairgrounds. (And some kind soul unexpectedly gave us their free-t0-us Groupon tickets at the gate to spare us an additional $30 in entry fees!)

Noah was in an uncooperative mood (it was close to naptime), but he did enjoy checking out all of the giant monster trucks. The size of some of these tires was unbelievable!


Isaac is wondering what planet we are on. Nothing looks or sounds familiar....

We wanted to watch the monster trucks smash the cars, but we must have missed the time or something! We did get to see several truck races as well as monster trucks driving around the mud pit. The boys missed their afternoon naps, but all things considered they did really well.

I can't say I would really HAVE to go back again next year....

Picking at the Apple Orchard

Noah and Isaac have enjoyed apple-picking at our local orchard twice in the past few weeks. First, Noah always loves checking out the honeybees in the farm store.

Apple picking has been so much fun this year. Noah called yellow apples "tennis balls" and Isaac calls all apples "Balls" (his favorite word!). I love my little cuties!

Ready to make some apple crisp or muffins...mmmmm!

the Creation Museum

Jason and I enjoyed our much-needed mini-getaway for our 7th anniversary. We spent the weekend in Cincinnati while our boys spent the weekend with grandparents. Due to the gracious gift of passes from a friend, we took the time to visit the Creation Museum for two days.

We didn't take an inordinate amount of pictures, so there are just a few to show some of the highlights of the museum.

I like this comment...so true! Do we care more about what we think or what the Bible says?
Time to get the "storybook" Noah's ark picture out of the brain. Noah's ark was massive and very capable of holding the number of animals aboard. We got a chance to step inside a bit of Noah's ark.

Another focus of the museum was dinosaurs. The museum showcased their existence in total compatibility with a timeline that supports a Biblical worldview (age of the earth being approx. ~6000 years old). God created dinosaurs, they were aboard the ark, and lived among humans. (see Job 40-41). Recent discoveries have found soft tissue and red blood cells in dinosaur bones, making it nearly impossible that dinosaurs are billions upon billions of years old as taught in evolutionary theory.

The Grand Canyon has marine/ocean fossils in its top layers. Wow! Makes complete sense to me! ...And why don't people believe in a global flood again??

Mt. St. Helens provides excellent examples to show how our age-dating methods are not as accurate as we think they are. Many fossils created from the catastrophic 1980 eruption can be dated using the age-dating methods as billions of years old.... Makes me think twice about the general reliability of those methods, that's for sure!

We also really enjoyed the planetarium shows as well as a seminar about the relevance of the Bible in today's world. We definitely enjoyed our trip and felt compelled to continue studying and learning about our Biblical worldview.