Life without TV

It's not what you think. Really! We do have a TV, but a couple of weeks ago, someone hit the telephone pole down the street from us, caused a power surge, and blew out our new 40+" flatscreen TV, blu-ray player, and Wii! :-( I confess, it has been really hard for us to cope, and I didn't think I relied to the TV that much. *sigh*

So, anyway. We got our creative juices flowing and rediscovered some things from my own childhood along with revisiting some activities we had push aside in favor of television viewing and playing Wii.

1. Reading! With the summer reading program starting, it's typically for all of us to revisit our passion for reading. This year, my kids have realy dived in. Warrior has hit nearly 5 hours of reading in his first week, and Princess has already polished off 12 books (nearly all chapter books)!

2. Gardening! I honestly have the brownest thumb on the planet. I constantly joke that I can killed a fake plant. However, this year I decided to be daring and plant a little something (not to mention it was a great little project to wrap up our study of botany this year *wink* ). I planted pumpkins in my little space along the house and decided that I didn't really care if they grew or not. Either way it would be a learning experience. Well, they grew, and now the kids and I are excitedly watching them each day to see how much they've grown overnight. I can't wait until fall when hopefully we'll be picking our very own pumpkins!

3. Baking & decorating cakes! I did this all the time when Princess was little and really got into it when I was pregnant with Warrior; however since the arrival of Baby Boy, I've really let this hobby go. One the 1st of June, my sweet little boy turn one, and I mustered up the energy and courage to do a pull-apart cupcake cake! It's not my best, but it was my first buttercream transfer attempt.

4. Making tents! My sister and I did this quite often, and I was so excited to pass this little bit of fun down to my kids.

So, when you are without a TV or other usual entertainment, how do you fill your typical relaxation time?

Summer School

So, if you are a homeschooler, you know that learning never truly ends even when the calendar says "school's out". Learning does, however, tend to look much different than your Aug-May schedule.

Our summer this year is consisting of more learning activities than ever before!

Summer storytime is a carry-over from every summer I've experienced as a parent. Reading is so, so important to our family, and the summer gives my kids a break from the textbooks and dive solely in to enjoyment reading! Princess, who loves to read, anxiously awaits each summer when her sole responsibility is read as much as you want. Warrior, on the other hand, lives for the prizes that are handed out each week. LOL! Baby Boy will have his first storytime experience this year, and I'm hoping we have another book lover on our hands!

Princess will once again be attending VBS at our home church, although this year, it's a shortened week due to a jam packed church summer calendar. She's already talked about which friends she wants to bring, so they can learn about Jesus, too! Warrior has to wait one more summer for this one. I'm keeping my eyes and ears open for the community VBS program that welcomes kids as young as 3 that the two older kids attended last year. I know Warrior had a blast that week!

Two new things that have hit the summer schedule are church camp and cooking classes for Princess. Church camp is overnight, and I confess that I'm a tad nervous. Fortunately, Grandma will be a cabin mom for Princess's cabin, so I know everything will be fine. Cooking classes will be interesting as she will truly have a new teacher without a family member anywhere near! Plus she'll be in class with kids up to 4 years old than she.

Finally, I'm planning wrap up the summer with the Olympics! The kids will be allowed to stay up and watch them with me along with putting together a lapbook on all things 2012 Olympic Games. Neither have really experienced the Olympic Games even on TV. Princess is excited about seeing the gymnasts and cheering on the U.S.A. while Warrior is excited about doing "big kid school".

This seems like such a hectic schedule when all typed out, but I'm greatly looking forward to it. I like keeping to a schedule to a point, but I always love the changing up of things that summer always brings!

So, what are your summer plans?

My Summer Vacation

I never really like this back to school writing assignment as a kid, and here I am as an adult happily writing about our summer! LOL!

Most homeschoolers I know don't really have a summer vacation. We are fortunate enough to have vacations all year round whenever we want to take them! This year, though, I took a summer vacation from school. Between a new baby, our usual summer activities, major changes in my husband's work schedule and life in general, things were just too chaotic to add formal schooling into the mix.

Of course, that didn't mean the learning stopped! Really, does it ever?

My eldest two (we'll call them Princess and Warrior since that's basically what their names mean) participated in the public library's annual summer reading program. At nearly 40 hours of combined reading time between the two, Princess took top reader award, and Warrior place 5th overall! Not bad for a little guy competing against the "big" kindergarten aged kids! In addition to doing so well with their reading, they each won perfect attendance prizes, and all participants received a prize just for signing up!

Princess also spent two weeks at Vacation Bible School. In June, she participated in our home church's program using the theme "Hometown Nazereth". What an awesome time she had learning about life for Jesus when he was a kid! The end of July brought our community wide VBS program put on by 3 different churches working together. Warrior joined her for this week and was so excited to be doing "big kid" things with his sister! They made a splash with a beach theme for the week as the two of them learned that no matter what they have a friend in Jesus, and they can always rely on Him.

Last but not least both Princess and Warrior took swim lessons at the public pool. This was such a great experience for each of them! Princess started out the summer fearful of having her face in the water. It was a real struggle for her to go under the water, but under the guidance of her wonderful teacher she made it into the big pool and started jumping off the diving board and fully submersed (even if for a second) in the deep end! I cannot tell you how proud I was of her immense bravery in conquering her fear!

Warrior was a little bit different story. He is my water bug and had no problem jumping off the edge of the big pool and putting his face under the water from the very beginning. A couple of times he had Mama scared with his lack of fear of the water! It only took two days for him to be asking to go off the diving board, and he looked so tiny up there waiting to jump!

So it is with excitement that I say "hello" to a new school year and with many memories leave summer 2011 behind us.