Alabama Trip

OK it’s entirely overdue, I know! Better late than never they say.

So our month long trip was incredible!!! I think with the surprise of our elopement everyone forgot the REAL reason we took this trip to begin with. My Na-Na was diagnosed with cancer several months back and gave us quite a scare. Since then we made it a priority to go to Alabama again and see her. We had so much fun while we were out there and indulged ourselves with lots of family time. Here are several pictures we took while we were down there.

Here is Jazzy and my cousin Savanah swimming at my Na-Na's house. The kids devoured two shaved ice that afternoon, it brought me back to my younger years while spending the year with my Na-Na. she used to own a shaved ice place and I used to spend almost every day with her there with a never ending supply of flavored ice.

Jayvins new buddy! despite the age difference between my cousins and the kids (Savanah 12, CJ 8) they all got along really well. Savanah and CJ are so sweet with the kids and very patient.

How cute is this?! They almost look like sisters =) Savanah took such good care of her.

Lamberts Cafe is an amazing restaurant and now one of Nathan's favorite places to eat. They have amazing southern style food and a great family environment. You order an entree and then on top of that they have people come by with "extras" like fried okra, southern potatoes, mac and cheese etc and fill up your plate for free. The kids go a kick out of the rolls flying around. When you raise your hand up be prepared to catch a roll from across the room.

Here's the "garbage disposal" eating some butter

We also made our way to Gulf Shores and spent the day on the beach with all the kids and my Na-Na.

 The kids had so much fun diving in the water and building sand castles.

Jazzy got burried. I think this was Savanah's idea but she loved every minute!

This was my crazy idea. took all of 15 minutes to turn my beautiful cousin into a mermaid. She couldn't wait to get out of this.

Here's a pick of my Na-Na with the kids

Nathan also had his first attempt at Crawfish. the kids loved them to. Jayvin ate a tone, Ridge ate about 5 and then he said he was done. Jazzy didn't want to taste but she had no problem kissing them lol, I could not for the life of me get the little bugers out. I did fine the first several and of course by the time Nathan got me on the camera mine kept breaking apart. I'm having issues uploading videos but here is at least one

My aunt was so sweet and surprised us with a photographer at her house. we were supposed to do a session out side in front of my Aunts pond but we got rained out. Just as we were lacing up my dress it stared to thunder. we thought we could make it so we ran outside under the gazebo for a few shots when it started pouring. We tried to wait it out but it just wasn't letting up so I had Nathan and my Benji (My Aunts husband) with 3 umbrellas around me trying to keep my dress dry while we ran back inside. it was quite a sight especially since one of the umbrellas was a "sunbrella" and let all the rain in lol. Just as we got inside the neighbors motorcycle got hit by lightning and blew up.... luckily all the kids made it in safely behind us.

Here are a few pictures that we got in side. There are a ton more but I wont post them all.

The Kids School Progress

We have yet to “officially” start home school, however we do still put aside an hour a day for learning time. In the state of Arizona you can’t register your child intent of homeschooling till the age of six and you don’t have to register your child to start homeschooling till the age of eight as long as you put in an intent to home school through the state and just confirm you do not wish to start official schooling activities till the child is eight.

We will be moving into the family housing at the ASU polytechnics campus in end of October/beginning of November? We are still unsure what housing we will be getting but the smallest of the bunch will be a 3 bed/2 bath plus den. The den will be used for their home school classroom and we are already stocking up on supplies. We have decided on a Montessori curriculum which is something that we will just do on our own with no official school books. Montessori is all hands on and they spend little no time with book work.

As we go through our school year I will be blogging their progress and uploading videos on all the activities we do. Before we start I will have the kids re-tested to see about what level they are at. It’s been about 5 to 6 months (age 4 ½) since they were official tested by a professional. At that point the tested into a begging 1^st grade level and were reading at a beginner’s level (level 1). They knew how to add and subtract double digits on paper and how to add and subtract single digits by memory. They could right their name and copy full sentences. At this point I know they need to be re-tested because they are now reading at an advanced beginners (level 2), they can now add and subtract up to 4 digit numbers, they can do multiplication with numbers up to 10, they can do simple algebra (ex. 3 +__= 13 and 20 -__ = 15). they can also right full sentences by listening instead of copying.

Right now we’re starting to work with time and money so they are really excited about that. We picked up a teaching clock and are using a daily schedule that has a little picture of a clock next to each activity where you can draw in the hands yourself, this way they will have to figure out what time their next activity will be on their own. We also purchased a paper money and coin set to start helping with their money skills.

Like I was saying we do an hour of official learning time. Really it’s more studying then anything with practice writing and reading etc. But I’m really not a big fan of just sitting down structured learning. I rather get more hands on. So in reality we do school all day long. We always try to find ways of teaching while at the park, or the grocery store. For instance today while leaving the store jazzy noticed pigeons that were in the parking lot eating something off the ground. She pointed them out and just then 2 flew away. So I asked her how many was left. She answered 4, just then 4 more flew down, so I asked her “if there are 6 pigeons and 2 flew away and then 4 came back how many would you have” she answered 8. We are constantly doing real life riddles and word problems all day long. Our real life learning practice tends to hold up lines at the super market while we let the kids count out the change to the cashier and we definitely cause some road blocks in the isles while the kids are comparing prices lol but its 100% worth it!!

The kids are so excited to start school at the new house and we are excited for them!!!we will definitely keep you up to date with all our progress =)