Poppy: 12 months

At 12 months, Poppy is (most days) so fun to be around.  She is cutting a tooth right now, so that has led to some fussiness and poor sleeping. That brings our teeth count to 7.  She is one of the fastest crawlers I've ever seen.  She likes to do a bear crawl on her feet instead of being on her knees.  Poppy is my only child to not be walking at her first birthday.  She has taken about 15 steps in a row and gets more confident each day.

If she had her way, she'd spend the whole day eating tiny legos, climbing her brothers' slide, and eating the toilet brush.  Instead, she has to suffice for her real toys, though they pale in comparison. 

At the doctor, she weighed in at 20lb 2 oz (50th %ile) and measured 30.75 inches (91st %ile), so she's long and thin. 

She is still a great eater and tries everything we put in front of her.  Her favorite things right now are grapes, berries, and graham crackers.

We are working on her nap schedule.  She wakes in the morning between 6:30 and 7.  Her morning nap is almost 2 hours later for 45 minutes on a good day.  She skipped the morning nap a couple of days last week and it was awful.  Her afternoon nap is at 1 and lasts till 2:45 on a good day.  Bedtime is at 6:45.

I decided to try a cake smash photo shoot for the girl.  Before we brought out the cake, we did some girly tutu and pearly pictures.  I'm no photographer but thought they turned out cute.

This girl loves jewelry.

A funny face.

Excited about the jewels.  And the coming cake.

Let me just touch it first.

I need this whole piece for myself.

Yummy!  I love cake!

This is good stuff!

And what good is cake if you can't share it with your brothers!

Swimming at Gigi's

After naps at Gigi's house, it was time for some fun in the sun.  Everyone had a great time in the pool.

Poppy and I spent our time in the hot tub (don't worry, it wasn't hot) since that kept her away from the splashing.  She loved it!

 Reef and Jonas love the independence of swimming with a noodle.  Reef did swim across the pool that day though.  If Jonas would just try, he wouldn't be far behind.

We are looking forward to a summer full of pool time fun!

1st birthday party

We had a great time celebrating Poppy's 1st (!) birthday at Gigi's house.  The 4 hour drive was a bit rough on the birthday girl and no one slept fabulously, but the party was fun.  It was nice to celebrate with family who wouldn't normally get to be there.

Here's the birthday girl in her special tutu, made by Erin.

Sitting with great grandma.

A little fruit and cheese before the cake.

Look at this, Dad!

I think I like it!  She really enjoyed her cake and would've spent even more time with it if we hadn't cut her off.

Opening presents.  She has a one track mind; she wanted to play with the current toy instead of moving on to the next present.  I am excited to see some more girly stuff come into the house.

First doll house!

Thanks so all who made the party so fun!  We love you!

Daddy's girl

This girl has become quite the Daddy's girl lately!  He's pretty in love with her too.

Ninjas

These boys are currently obsessed with all things Ninja.  Reef has acquired quite the Ninja lego collection since his birthday and needed Troy to build a ninja house.  As usual, Daddy did not disappoint!

Kindergarten: Wrapping it up

Originally, I planned for our Kindergarten year to last until Memorial Day.  But when the other boys were out of school, Reef and I decided that we were done too!  Oh, the of homeschooling!  We will continue some math and reading work through the summer, as well as finishing up our Old Testament studies.

Our big end of year project came in our geography curriculum, Expedition Earth.  We ended the year with Brazil, a country near and dear to our hearts.  The big project for that country was a rainforest diorama.  We worked on it for several weeks, adding new stuff each time.  Here's the final product:

After Reef and I moved on to something else, his brothers decided to continue embellishing.  Jonas made a LARGE worm at school and knew just wear it should go.  Lachlan came home with a turkey that day, so it had to go on too.

Now's as good a time as any to give my thoughts on our first year homeschooling.  We loved it.  And hated it.  And everything in between.  Homeschooling with a baby (and an unpredictable one at that) was harder than I thought.  Most days were the "exception" rather than the "normal" I anticipated.  Hopefully next year will be easier in that regard.  I loved that we could accomplish pretty much all we needed to do in just 2-3 hours (and sometimes less).  Reef was also a big fan of the short days.  Whenever he complained, a quick reminder about his friends who'd been in school for 2 hours and still had 4 to go nipped that in the bud real quick.

As far as curriculum goes, we had hits and misses.  I really enjoyed Grapevine Studies Old Testament, and we will continue that this summer and do New Testament next year.  I also enjoyed Expedition Earth but found it overwhelming at times.  We didn't finish it but are breaking from it over the summer and possibly the fall.  The big miss was math.  We used Saxon Math, and it was a struggle almost everyday.  Reef is naturally good at math but found the constant review worksheets BORING.  We are switching to Horizons math next year and are hoping it's a better fit.  For reading and phonics this year, I kind of winged it with a little bit of 100 Easy Lessons, Bob books, the library, and Readingeggs.com.  While that worked okay and Reef is an amazing reader, I am on the hunt for a good curriculum next year.  We are also adding Apologia science next year and possibly a soccer class. 

Can't wait!

End of Year Program

In mid-May we ended (sadly) the preschool year.  Both Lachlan and Jonas have had a great time at preschool.  Lachlan loved being with this friends, Ms. Colleen, and "Mr. Cole" (or Ms. Nicole as everyone else knows her).  Jonas also enjoyed being with his friends and Ms. Theresa.  Jonas also came along way in terms of following directions and accepting when he didn't get his way.

As always, the kids and teachers put on a cute End Of Year Program.  These are always interesting because you always wonder if your kid will be the one who cries.  This year, we lucked out and both boys did great!

Jonas was all smiles when he got onstage and saw us.

Lachlan was doing his own thing for the whole program.  He sang when he should but also made funny faces.

And flashed the crowd, repeatedly...I guess Adam thought it was a good idea too.

Jonas's class sang a song about Eric Carle.  He did great.

We are missing our teachers already and can't wait for August, when Jonas will move to Ms. Berta's class and Lachlan to Ms. Theresa's.