The Two Sides of Our Little Man

He was playing sweetly with this little plastic baby, and then, the next thing I knew.... the baby was on a train track! Hmm..

Homeschool Math with Army Dad

My mathematics goal for our first six weeks of homeschooling has been to focus on shapes and patterns. She demonstrated rather complete mastery of the basic shapes and isn't even too shabby at drawing them, so we have been elevating the difficulty level with the patterns we do with her. Today was a super special treat because I had planned to do potato stamping, and then, bonus, Daddy got the afternoon off and he and schoolgirl got to enjoy the activity together. So, seriously, homeschooling totally freaks me out and overwhelms me, but it is days like this that make every other schooling option pale in comparison

Comfortable in His Masculinity

He throws a ball with the best of them, rolls trucks and trains around all day, gets dirty, climbs, bangs, and rough-houses, so why can't a little man enjoy a quality pair of plastic heels every once in awhile? Besides, he is better at walking in these things than I am in the adult-scale version.

Bathed and P.J.'ed

Just the way every mother loves 'em.

Our Biggest Homeschooling Challenge

First Day of Homeschooling

I have decided that it is rather contrived to try and pinpoint "the day we began homeschooling." Simply because the way I intend on administering the home education of our chickadees is in a casual life-is-learning manner with an emphasis on reading and living the faith. In that vein, we have already been engaging in "home education" for several years. Nonetheless, all of the neighborhood buddies headed back to school while we were in Mallorca, so I chose to take advantage of the momentum to introduce Viv to the notion of a predictable hour or so of seated instruction in the morning after our breakfast clean-up.

I chose today as our "official start date" and was blessed that it coincided with a wonderful feast day in the Roman Catholic Faith - the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. It is basically a day to celebrate the centrality of the cross and the power of the sacrifice and suffering which Christ took on for our salvation. We learned about Saint Helena - Emperor Constantine's bad a#$ mother who went on a lengthy exploration and recovered several pieces of the true cross. Then we made homemade sun-dried tomato basil foccacia bread. Note to self for next year - don't allow the dough to rise for way too long, it will go flat again.

Running Home

We were not this:






excited to be leaving Mallorca, but what a beautiful week was had by all.

Beach Montage

Same Squinty-Eyed Grin, sorry Little Man
"oooohhhh"
the real exploradora

Inflatable Balls

Very helpful when traveling with a 19-month-old boy.

Ostrich

Loving one's children causes one to add items to a vacation itinerary that would never make the "must-see" list otherwise.

Like, for example, Mallorca's famed Wild Animal Safari park.

Sunblock

is very important.
Daddy was even kind enough to provide our family with painful scientific proof of said importance.

* *What a happy place and time to spend our 6th wedding anniversary today* *

Beach Babes

I am a child of the beach. I have met very few people in life who can spend as many continuous hours on the beach as I can. Motherhood, naturally, limits beachtime. However, this vacation revealed that we have two beach babies. What a gift. I am proud to say that there were several days when they outlasted me!

Beautiful British Apartment

We stayed in a one-bedroom apartment in Cala Egos - a quiet town on the southeastern coast of the island. The pool in the courtyard was totally rad.

Mallorca

In the vein of "hurry-there-is-another-baby-coming-we-must-get-the-traveling-out-of-our-system", we recently returned from a weeklong trip to the Spanish island of Mallorca. It has been a dream of mine to visit the Balearic Islands, and my husband allowed me to make it happen! I am going to keep this mainly photographic, and limit myself to seven pictures, one for each day of the trip. Ok, maybe eight.

DAY 1- parking spot inside an old bombproof German bunker in the long-term parking lot at the discount airport from which we departed