First Day of Enrichment!! Kindergarten and 2nd Grade. :)

First Week of School!!!

Breakfast on our first day of school.  :)

Our annual First Day Picture.

My little Kindergartener!

Hard to believe he is already in 2nd grade.  :(

This one loves his special time with mommy doing explode the code!

And this one is just happy to be alive!

Measuring our shadows for science.  :)

Taking a break from shadow tag.

Baylee does not want to stop!  She has been begging for an afternoon session each day!  She is doing so well, we are having a lot of fun.  :)

We found this guy outside and got to have an impromptu science lesson, that is what I LOVE about homeschooling!

Also, he was a good model and I got some cool pictures of him.  :)

This one is my favorite!

We also found a lot of caterpillars outside and took the opportunity to catch them and set up our butterfly habitat that we never go to use last year.  :)  The kids are so excited!  Hopefully something comes of it!

Apple Picking

We went up to Pulford Family Orchard last week for our annual field trip/apple picking adventure.  :)  Here is Farmer John explaining to the kids how to graft a tree.  Tony wanted to know if I took advantage of the opportunity to tie that into our spiritual grafting into the body of Christ... obviously he has never taken 3 small children on a field trip with all of their little friends.

Next, they learned how the apples are cleaned and sorted and stored.  They even got to go into the giant refrigerator which was a nice break from the heat.  (Yes, we were a little over dressed!)

Jaden was excited to get the apples!

I still made them take a couple of pictures with the inevitable results.

Then, they got to start.  We were thrilled this year to find some tart green apples.  (Last year we only got sweet red apples, which were still wonderful, but we much prefer the green ones around here!)

Aubrey had fun and managed to find every apple in the orchard that had been eaten by a bird or bug.

Jaden did much better this year  though and found lots of huge flawless apples.

Baylee and Matt :)

They were very excited to get home and make some yummy apple recipes.

Especially Aubrey!  It is hard not to just eat them all up plain, but we have a few pies and breads planned that everyone is very happy about.  Happy Fall!!!

First Day of School, Take Two!

Today was the first day of enrichment classes at Valley Oaks!  There are a lot more of Jaden's friends at school this year.  Here are a few of them posing before classes start.  :)

 

Here is the same group, plus a few more.  They were all so excited!

This is where they line up while we listen to announcements and do the pledge of allegiance. My kids all have it down, even Aubrey because we do it every day before school starts.  I am such a cheesy homeschooler.  :P

It was Matthew's first day of Kindergarten and he did great!

Here are the kids and Becky (Jaden's resource teacher) walking over to the tractor.  (They load onto the tractor and it takes them to their classes because they are pretty far away.)  They LOVE that part!

Here is my sweet Jaden before the tractor took off.  He is officially a first grader now.  He did well in his classes today and I wasn't even worried about him.  He is getting to be so grown up.  He was thrilled that August was in his class again this year, along with Luke, Matt, Reese, Kimberley and Owen.  It should be a fun year!  This quarter they are studying insects, camping and music.    Right up a little boy's alley!  I just love our little school.  :)

First Day of School!!!

The big day finally came on August 23!  The first day of school!

Everyone was very excited to get started.

I gave them all new supplies.

We worked on Language, History, Biology, Art and Spanish...

Most of the time Aubrey played a crayon battle, but I think he absorbed a little bit of it. :)

The after all of the hard work, we had a water balloon fight!!!

What better way is there to relieve the stress of a hard day's work than pummeling your siblings with water balloons?

Well, actually your children.  Most of the pummeling was done by Daddy.

We decided that Jaden would be a much better pitcher than catcher.  :/

His new name is butterfingers....

But he had a blast, and he sure earned it.  He is doing great so far in school and I am so proud of how hard he is trying this year.  His little work ethic has improved tenfold from last year.  He starts everyday excited and energetic.  I know that is a blessing and am trying to really enjoy it.  It looks like it is going to be a really fun year!