October 2012 Already

Its been busy. We are at the farm every Friday morning.

Saturday mornings are soccer games.  Alexandra's team is called the Sharks.  They play 3v3 so they can play a little more easily.  She has had a lot of fun and improved immensely over the last month.

Hannah's first real hair cut

 Stuck in the mud on the farm.

 Lunch with friends at Canes.

 Oh yeah and we also do lessons. :) I thought she looked very studious here.

 "Recess"

 She can spend hours beading.  She has made many things including jewelry and little creatures.

 

 American Heritage girls.  We are going camping soon.

 My 30th birthday at Chuy's.  I should have taken a picture at the lovely party I was given.  It was so beautiful to be surrounded by by friends and family!

 Road trip to Hondo to see my cousin play volleyball.

 Alexandra's 5 year checkup- practically perfect in every way.

 Alexandra is the teacher now!

 Couldn't quite get Hannah to pose for this shot :)

 Trip to Emma Long State Park with Grandad.

 Feast of St. Francis of Assisi blessing of animals.

 Playing with cousins at McDonalds after a soccer game.

 Gattiland for Grandad's birthday.

 Tour of Blue Baker

 Followed by playing at the park at the Arboretum.

 Another beautiful morning at the farm.  Boy are we enjoying fall- it was so nice and cool that morning.

 We try to go to daily mass at least once a week.  Afterwards the girls enjoy praying (and playing) at the walking rosary at St. Margaret Mary's.

 This past weekend we went to The Fall Festival at the Y.  That evening Alexandra and I hear Mozart's Requiem at St. Williams.

So that pretty much covers September and October.  Tomorrow we will complete week 16 of our 32 week syllabus.  Alexandra has finished much of the work in our syllabus so we will start first grade math soon.  She is already reading easy readers and writes very well.  She loves to write letters to people.  Her newest hobby is writing books, mostly about butterflies.  I am excited about the spring semester- hopefully we can do a garden and start doing a preschool curriculum with Hannah. Since she will be 3!

Hannah's latest news is that she is potty trained!  A couple of days ago she showed an interest in wearing her panties and suddenly she was going all the time.  Even number two!  You can imagine how excited I was!  Hannah is getting plenty of candy as reward :)  I am pretty sure that was what motivates her.  She is also talking more and more clearly.  She loves to sing and pretend to be a kitty.  She will play pretend with her little people for great lengths of time happily making her people talk and play. 

This is their newest game in case you didn't see it on Facebook.

Snails

http://instagr.am/p/Q4vzQXxWO0/

Summer 2012 coming to a close

We have been keeping busy this summer!  We go to the pool a lot, the library, and every Friday morning we are volunteering at Pioneer Farms (A living history Park).  Our role there is to feed the animals.  It's a pretty big job but we enjoy it so much! Especially Peanut Butter the cat, the chickens, and just being out there in"the country" (in the middle of Austin).
We are officially in week 6 of school and so far its going well.  I am following a Mother of Divine Grace syllabus written by someone with more experience than me so that gives me confidence.  I have read a book by her and liked her ideas about classical curriculum and it is a Catholic curriculum.  Meaning we read books about saints during our "literature" time (sometimes) and do a craft or two.  Alexandra is progressing well, and I find it is a good motivator for her to focus on our lesson that we won't be going out or playing till we are done.
We are still enjoying our reading time together even though the summer reading program is over :). 

Also we had a shower at the end of July for my brother and his fiance. 
Our good friends have moved to California, so we had a nice visit with them before they left and got to spend some time with Kinsley.

This fall should be quite busy so I'm glad we went ahead and began school.  Sept 10 I will begin teaching Kindermusik Wednesday mornings and both the girls will take Kindermusik on Tuesdays.  Alexandra will be taking Young Child 1 - where she will learn to play the glockenspiel and begin reading music!!!
Also I am hoping to put her in soccer and maybe American Heritage Girls too... that might be too much... so we'll see.
So soon we will have many updates to make. I hope I remember my camera!

Portraits Summer 2012

Boy I am good at creative titles, eh?