Favorite Photo Friday: A Windy Day

I do apologize that I haven't shared any photos of the kids in a while.  Before this photo shoot, it had seriously been a month since the last time I photographed them.  Pathetic.  Shame on me.  I love to photograph their precious smiles.

I just haven't had much spare time.  So we had a rare break in the hustle and bustle of our days last week, and I thought I would whip out my camera and snap a few shots our little dumplings.

After putting Madeline down for a nap, I went outside to read while Caleb played some basketball.  That's when I said "Hey, forget the book and get your camera."

Caleb has been playing a lot of basketball since he got his hoop at Christmas.

He is such an athletic little guy.  

Because of the brachial plexus injury to his left arm, he shoots one-handed and does a pretty darn good job with it, too.

Caleb was so patient with me as I interrupted his game to take some photos of him.  I just love this series.  I guess he got a little tired. lol.

Madeline finally woke up from her nap, just a wee bit cranky.

However, after showing her the photos I took of her brother and asking her if I could take some of her, she decided to join in the fun.

Still a bit tired though.

And a bit cranky.

Really, though, it was the wind she wasn't a fan of.  And boy, was it windy!  I think it was gusting to 

25-30 mph!

After bringing her back near the garage (these were all taken in the driveway), she was a tad bit happier.

This focus is a bit soft, but I just LOVE her lips in this shot.  

I tried moving her further away from the garage because the light was better.  Then she complained that she was so cold.  It was like 80 degrees.  

Anyway, it was fun to get out there and capture some sweet shots of the kidlets.  I've already told myself that I need to do a better job of photographing them this next month, no matter how busy we are.

If you'd like to see more gorgeous photos, be sure to check out Lisa's blog. 

Have a great weekend!

Have you heard the latest?

...number that is.  

Over the weekend, we attended a small party to celebrate one of our friend's 50th.  To say that he has a nice set up at his house would be an understatement.  He's a serious drummer. I can't even pretend to know a thing about drumming.  But I can tell you that the dumplings had an absolute blast.  Tony was so gracious to let them bang away and entertain themselves (and us, too!)

Here's Caleb on drums and Madeline on vocals, singing the latest chart topper "Have a great day!"

(Sorry that the video is so dark.  Tony has sound controlled lighting and fog....big hits!)

And if you think I've forgotten how to take photos of my kids, don't worry.  

I have another post coming soon with *gasp* photos!

More videos?

As if I haven't shared enough videos lately, I have more.  Yep.  I haven't had my camera in my hand much at all lately, but I always (most days, if you ask Patrick) carry my phone with me.

Once a month, Madeline's dance studio has an observation day, when parents can come back and watch the children during their lesson.  I was unsure how Madeline would handle Caleb being in the same room, and my suspicions were confirmed.  While they practiced their routine for their recital, she kept pointing her finger at her brother.  It was hilarious.  Although I videotaped that, I won't be sharing it here just yet because I don't want to spoil the actual recital performance.

However, I did get another video of her during her warm up.

And not to leave out Caleb...

We had some fun this week with science.  In addition to reading great quality, "living books" like Thornton Burgess' Bird Book and his seashore book and James Herriot's Treasury for Children, we still continue to work our way through Dr. Nebel's Building Foundations Through Scientific Understanding.  I really love his socratic approach.  I love how all the scientific disciplines are studied concurrently, so children can see how they're related, rather than seeing concepts as isolated and disjointed.

Anyway, this week's lesson was a part of our ongoing study on the particulate nature of matter.  We learned about how the air in the atmosphere is a mixture of gases: nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide.  We also learned that burning requires 1.fuel (in our case wax from a candle) and 2. oxygen.  Finally, we learned how carbon dioxide is a byproduct of burning, can put out a flame, and it's role in our own breathing and photosythesis.  Phew.

Anyway, before we talked about any of this, I mixed baking soda and vinegar together, resulting in a chemical reaction that produced carbon dioxide.  I then "poured" my jar of carbon dioxide over the candle, which consequently extinguished the flame.  Naturally Caleb was floored and not only wanted to see the demonstration done again, he wanted to create the mixture and "pour" the carbon dioxide on the candle himself.  I obliged.

(And yes, you did hear him say "carbon dioxygen".  How cute!)

Unfortunately with the rain we got on Friday, we couldn't do our weekly nature study.  So I was bummed about that.  A highlight one morning this week , for me at least (as the kids were still in bed) was seeing a male and female cardinal together!  I've never before seen a female cardinal.  So I was quite tickled.

Hopefully this week my camera will see some action, and I'll actually have photos to share.

Golf anyone?

Last weekend, Patrick took the kids to our itty bitty local driving range. It is literallly down the street, about 1/2 mile, just past our baseball fields. We live on a narrow island, so real estate is hard to come by, and as such, the course is also on the smaller side (par 68 I believe.) Anyway, it was Madeline's first time, while Caleb has been a few times already. I can't wait until we can all get out there together! 
 Enjoy!

Resurfacing

Gosh, I know I'm not the best blogger in the world, but I didn't realize how long it's been since I last posted.  Not too much has been going on lately, other than the typical- homeschooling, therapy, dance for Madeline, and life in general.

I previously mentioned that I would try to videotape Caleb narrating Shakespeare using his finger puppets.  In actuality, it's a bit hard because there are always several different characters involved, and I am always participating with him.  So I decided to ask him for a brief recap, after he had finished narrating one day.


 
 I just love how he says proper names he's not familiar with- just like my Gramma! It's so precious. 
 This week, I took the kids down to our local pier for a nature walk. This is something I've wanted to make a weekly occurrence out of, but unfortunately, that hasn't happened. I was thankful that, as we were preparing to head home, a snowy egret decided to make an appearance. 

The other thing we've been doing a lot of is reading.  Lots.  Caleb has recently finished Toad for Tuesday by Russell Erickson (awesome!), The Bears on Hemlock Mountain by Alice Dalgliesh, and The Courage of Sarah Noble also by Alice Dalgliesh.
For read alouds, we finished up Pinocchio.  Even Madeline enjoyed listening in.  I thought I might lose her because the language in the original is quite rich.  Nope, she hung in there.  There were so many lessons to be learned, too.  It was a great way to talk about how God calls us to act without sounding preachy (another Charlotte Mason nugget.)  We're now reading a great little fairytale The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin.  It was his only book for children, and boy, am I glad he wrote it!  It is a feast for the imagination.  Add it to the list of books "I wish I read this when I was kid".
And me?  In preparation for next years reading selections from Ambleside Online Year 2, I am reading Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan and The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Alongside Pilgrim's Progress I am reading Helen Taylor's Little Pilgrim's Progress.  The reason for doing so is because Ambleside spreads Pilgrim's Progress out across Years 2 and 3.  And although I love, love, LOVE the original writing, I prefer Caleb to read Helen Taylor's version for little children before I read the unabridged version to him in Year 3.  So far, I think she's done a fabulous job at staying true to the original. Really.  Amazing.  
If I'm being honest, this is my first time reading both Pilgrim's Progress AND The Wind in the Willows.  See?  I told you I suffered severely from exposure to literary masterpieces while growing up.  A Charlotte Mason education is not only a good choice for my children but for me as well.  In fact, after I read the first chapter of The Wind in the Willows, I wrote down my own narration.  Seriously, I rather enjoyed typing up my narration!
Anyway, as you can see, we've had our noses in books.  Lots of them.  And really loving it.  It just warms my heart to see Caleb reading to Madeline, as he does so almost daily.  And watching Madeline reading to her dolls, priceless.
Tomorrow we head out to celebrate the New Year with friends.  Hopefully, I'll take some photos (haven't done much of that lately) if we don't get rained out.

Sunday Snapshot: A little shaking and a little Shakespeare

Two weeks ago, Madeline began her dance class at a local studio.  She does a little ballet and then a little tap.

She get's very excited the morning of her class and can't wait until the afternoon rolls around.

(I know this focus is soft; I just couldn't resist her giddiness.)

By her appearance when class is over, it seems she's thoroughly enjoying herself.  Seeing how she loved playing with her skirt when I took these photos, I now know why it's completely backwards by the end of class. 
School has been going really well with Caleb.  A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we would be starting Shakespeare.  We are using Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit, which is a retelling of his plays in prose.  We are also using these fun finger puppets from Masterpuppet Theater to act out the scenes after he narrates.  A few weeks ago, we started our first play A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Oh, how did he LOVE it.  He particularly got a kick out of Puck.  I mean, who wouldn't?  We would read and narrate just a little bit of the play each day, but every morning was the same.  "When are we going to do Shakespeare?  I just love it!"
Well, I couldn't talk about homeschooling without including a photo of my precious boy.  I took these with my iPhone, so you'll have to pardon the poor quality.  I'm kicking myself that I didn't take any photos of him acting out the play with our finger puppets, but since we're going to start The Tempest this week, I'll have a chance to make up for that loss.   I'm actually acting it out with him, so it's great family fun.  Madeline even got in on the action one time. 

(He's actually working on math in these shots, but I promise to get some fingerpuppet shots next time.  I'll have to put my fingerpuppets down and pick up the camera.)
For more Sunday Snapshots, check out Stefanie's blog.

 

Favorite Photo Friday: Celebrating Caleb

I'm not gonna lie. These last two weeks have been rough. I've had zero desire to sit and blog. My heart has been in a constant state of pain. While we've had some wonderful times as a family these last two weeks, they have been clouded by sadness that just won't go away. I realize that sadness and pain is not what people want to read about. I'm just being honest here. My heart has been weighted down....terribly. But I'm gonna try to do my best to share some fun. Here goes.  

Doesn't everybody have one of these in their town? Yep. I think it's a given that most skating rinks are called Galaxy. At least that's been my experience. Anyway, we headed there two weeks ago this Saturday for some good ole fashion fun. The cousins were the first to get out there on the floor.
 

Little Joshua had to lay low this time around, but he handled it well.
 

Some of the party goers got out there for some Hokey Pokey fun.
 

Caleb had such a fun time. He was super speedy that even Mommy and Uncle Andy had a hard time keeping up with him. It was so precious.
 

The kids stopped a bit for some pizza, chips, and soda. Not quite what we typically serve at Caleb's birthday parties, but we had no choice. And it was an easy one.
 

The kids also had a chance to play in the fun zone when their little feet couldn't skate another step.
 

On Caleb's actual birthday, the 12th, we ventured over to the Magic Kingdom, as is the tradition. It was the warmest birthday on record visiting the Big Mouse, and we were not the only ones who thought it a great idea to do so. We did have some company that was clearly welcomed, though the longer than usual lines not so much. Our dear friends from our home town happened to be vacationing at Disney World all week. And as scheduling would have it, they happened to spend part of their Thursday (yes, last Thursday) with us! Caleb has always enjoyed his birthday at the Magic Kingdom. But I have to tell ya that spending your birthday at the Magic Kingdom with your friends just.can't.be.beat!
 

When not skipping around with his friends and riding on the rides in Tomorrow Land, Caleb did a lot of this.  

He loved locating things on his Disney map. It was so stinkin' precious. Before heading over to Epcot to eat, Daddy snapped a photo of Mommy with the birthday boy.
 

And then my dear friend snapped a photo (insert gasp) of the four of us!
 

Yes, I realize I'm blinking in the shot, but I just had to share it. 
 Anyway, as we waited to take the monorail over to Epcot for dinner, Caleb was very curious about the number of people celebrating their birthdays either the day before or the same as his. Here he is trying to count them all. 

We had a delicious dinner at the Nine Dragons Restaurant in China...naturally. Then afterwards, we watched the 360 movie. I can't ever watch it without crying. Oh, how it makes me want to go back. We also picked up a little gift for both Caleb and Madeline at a gift shop. The funny thing about the end of the night is that, while riding the monorail to Epcot, we met a lovely family visiting from Ohio (who also happened to be celebrating a birthday). Then as we were taking the monorail back to the Magic Kingdom parking lot, we ran into the very same family! It was like all our jaws dropped in unison. How funny! 
 Anyway, we truly had a wonderful week celebrating Caleb's birthday. And the thing that was so terribly precious was that Madeline wished Caleb a Happy Birthday a gazillion times. She would just randomly wish him a happy birthday throughout the day, in the sweetest little voice. Oh it was precious. 
 For more Favorite Photo Friday fun, check out Lisa's blog.