A few of my favorite things

I may only be mentioning three things here that are my favorite things but I have way more than three. But here are three I will share tonight because I happen to have a picture to match.

Favorite thing #1 Holding a sleeping child, especially this one. Anna is already 5 so this may be one of the last times I hold her as she sleeps. For one, she is getting quite heavy and my arm fell asleep after about three minutes. And two because she rarely naps anymore. Maybe once a month. I love holding her as she sleeps for so many reasons but probably the main reason is because it shows that she has a strong bond with me and that she trusts me an feels secure in my arms. You see when she came to us at 5 months she would not sleep in my arms. She had to be in her crib and on her own to sleep. It wasn't until after she had already been with us for about 6 months that she finally fell asleep on my shoulder. It was actually at her adoption hearing in downtown phoenix when her adoption was finalized. She slept through her whole court hearing and I didn't mind a bit because she has fallen asleep on me for the first time and I soaked up every minute. Actually my shirt soaked up her drool but I didn't care, she had fallen asleep on her mommy! She was secure in my arms at last. Now is it no biggie for her to fall asleep in my arms but now that she is older it just doesn't happen that much. So favorite thing #1, Annagrace sleeping in my arms. LOVE IT!


Favorite thing #2, I love Jadon's creativity. He has a gift for art and is very inventive and creative. I am not much of an art person so I enjoy watching him create. He learned how to make origami paper cranes in his art class and loved it so much he made 37, yes 37 of them yesterday. All in one day. That takes some dedication and talent. Watching Jadon be creative is one of my favorite things.


Favorite thing #3, This might be a stretch for some, but one of my new favorite things is my clothes line. I have never been one to hang clothes out to dry. I was under the impression our clothes would be as hard as bricks if I let them air dry. Afterall that's what happens to our wash cloths if they drip dry in the tub. But after talking to a friend of mine she was telling me how she line dries all their stuff and all she does is puts the fabric softener in her washer load and she doesn't have any problems with stiff clothes, even with Arizona's hard water. I then realized that we do have a water softener system so that would also help. Michael bought me a clothes line and I have been experimenting with it this week and I am in love with hanging our clothes out to dry. They are not stiff, they dry quick, they smell fresh (and also like downy fabric softener) and I am saving us money by not running my dryer 8 times a week. I still will dry a few things like socks and underwear, that is too tedious for me to hang each one up. I have also found that if I put our shirts on hangers and hang them on the pool fencing, they dry and then are ready to hang right in the closet. It doesn't waste time and I enjoy every minute of it. Who knew I could be so fond of a clothes line, but I am! So favorite thing #3, my new clothes line.

A day in the life of a homeschooler

I am often asked by people what exactly do we do during homeschool (it varies) and how long we school for (it varies), what the kids think of it (they love it, most days), how I like it (I love it, most days)etc... So I decided to take pictures of a typical homeschool day so you can see what we are up to. So this is what our day looked like today.
7:00, Mom and dad's alarm goes off and in walks Anna. She is usually up before 7 and when she hears our alarm she comes wandering in our room for some cuddles.
7:20 After two snoozes it is time to get up, Jadon and Camden's shade gets opened and they slowly get out of bed and make their way to the living room.
8:00 Breakfast is served.
We typically do get dressed in our day clothes but today we decided upon a jammie day, overcast days are perfect for wearing jammies and being comfortable.
8:30 The kids play Rushhour Jr.

While I read this outloud to the kids

I have found that if I just make the kids sit and do nothing while I read, they can't focus and get easily distracted but if I let them draw or play with legos or play Rushhour Jr., they listen well and hear every word I am saying. Interesting huh? Well, it works. At any given moment I can ask them what I just said and all three will repeat word for word the sentence I just read. So it works for us. We read chapter 5 this morning. I just love these books!
9:00, devotions begin. The kids grab their own Bibles and today they navigated to Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. Since Christmas we have been going through the Old Testament just hitting some highlights of each book. We got a great little guide from Berean that highlights each book and even points us to a few verses to read from each book highlighting the main theme/themes. The kids have also learned about the beginning books, the books of history, books of poetry, and the major/minor prophets. Next week we will dive into the New Testament and finish that this summer.

9:20, Chores. We incorporate some morning chores into our homeschool day. So after devotions the kids make their beds and feed the pets.

After chores were done they got a 10 minute break and the boys chose to do this

while Anna had to sit on her bed and do nothing because she got into some trouble during devotions.

9:40 After break it was time for spelling. Last semester I just worked with Camden on Level 1 of All About Spelling while I did a different spelling program with Jadon but this semester I brought Jadon into Level 2 of All About Spelling along with Camden (and Anna when she is not at preschool). I love this curriculum! I like how I can teach all the kids at the same time but still challenge each of them depending on their level.

10:00ish (I don't really look at the clock much during homeschool but I think our lesson was about 20 minutes today.)
The kids took another 10 minute break so I could make a phone call. Our daily work is written on the white board and we mark off as we go. This really helps Camden so he can see what still needs to be done and gives him a sense of accomplishment as we mark things off.

10:10 The boys worked independently on their grammar and math while I read with Anna. Jadon usually does his work at the school table

while Camden switches it up and works just about anywhere. Today he stood in front of the TV

Anna chose to read to me on her bed while wearing a blanket on her head.

10:35, Jadon worked on editing a story he has been writing. Our goal is to have them finished this week by Friday. Jadon's story is 5 pages long, written on college lined notebook paper, double spaced. It is about.....take a guess....reptiles of course. Since Camden finished his story on Monday, it was about Free Running, he had his reading time with mom.

Anna was playing a game by herself. The kids are pretty good about not interrupting me when I am working one on one. So Camden read this book today which is part of the Hooked on Phonics program we are working through. And he also worked on a 1 minute reading program that builds fluency.
10:55, Mom works with Jadon on reading. Today we read about classification of amphibians and reptiles. No surprise there. Jadon is working through a herpalogy lap book and the reading came from there.
11:10, I sent the boys to play legos while Anna and I worked on math while using these. Today we worked on subtraction.

11:30, We accomplished everything on our list and it was time to make lunch, eat, and get ready for Karate.

The boys opted for a pic nic in their room since they were very busy with legos. Yes, I let them eat in their room on the floor.

12:15, tummies are full and it's time to get dressed for Karate.
12:40, time to leave for Karate
1:00 to 2:20 Part of our homeschooling involves Karate at Kaizen Martial Arts Academy. I guess you can think of it as P.E. but it is so much more.



2:45 we pulled back in the driveway and our school day is done. Sometimes we will have work to finish from the morning but today we were able to get it all done before Karate. So it is free time the rest of the day. The boys have chosen to play legos while Anna is way too quite and I really need to go see what she is up to? Before I know it it will be time to make dinner, have some family time with dad, do our nightly chores, get ready for bed, plan for another homeschool day and then say goodnight world and wake up and do this all over again. I love homeschooling and I am falling in love with my kids even more, even through the challenges. Even though some days can be really hard (like Monday, bad. bad. day), we have days like today where everything runs smoothly and the work gets done and we all feel a sense of accomplishment.
It's now 4:28 and I really need to get some potatoes in the oven. It's baked potato night. Signing off for now, until next time!

Weekend fun!

Do you ever have those days that are simply wonderful! A day where everyone seems to get along and the home is just filled with peace, like ALL day long. We certainly have our moments but it doesn't happen that often where the entire day is filled with no fighting and where everyone just seems to be on their best behavior and nobody gets in trouble. Well, our weekend has been like this and I have soaked it in!

I also love it when we have a weekend with no set plans and we can allow spontaneity to take over. That is what Saturday and Sunday brought us and I am very thankful for that. The boys came home Saturday morning around 10 a.m. after a sleepover at Papa and Grandma's. They came home with their love tanks overflowing after having some special time with Papa and G'ma, we are truly blessed to have such wonderful grandparents for our kids.

After the boys got home and we finished Saturday chores, the kids got their weekly commission (allowance) and Camden had finally saved $20 so he could purchase a nerf gun he had his eye on for quite some time. I've mentioned before that saving money for Camden is one of THE HARDEST things for him to do so when he accomplishes it, it truly is a big deal. So we decided to head to Walmart so he could make his purchase, and that is exactly what he did. He was so excited he could hardly contain it. After Walmart we went to Toys R' Us to do some window shopping. We had not been there in some time so it was nice to wander the isles and see what is new in the toy industry. They sure think of everything. I will admit I am pretty fond of the Zhu Zhu pets. Anna has been spending her money on them. She has three now and they are quite cute. I hope her desire to collect them will continue because I sure enjoy those little critters. If you don't have a Zhu Zhu pet, you are missing out!

Here is Camden's gun.

He is wrapping it up so it can be safe when he is not playing with it.

After our shopping outing, it was back home for lunch and to do whatever. The boys quickly came up with a new game to play involving nerf guns and they disappeared into the great outdoors for about three hours and even let Anna join them until she got bored and had enough of boy stuff. Michael relaxed in his very comfy chair and I decided to sit on the patio and do some shredding of documents. I had a huge stack of papers and documents that needed to be thrown away dating back to 2006. I have been putting it off for quite some time and decided that it needed to get done. Now shredding doesn't sound very exciting but I have to say I had the most delightful time lounging on the patio with Anna as my helper. She went between playing with her brothers, coloring in her coloring book and occasionally sending papers through the shredder with a little help from mom. It was simply gorgeous outside and a few hours later the shredding was done! I love that feeling that comes after accomplishing something.

Michael then decided to make an impromptu visit to the grocery store so he could make fajitas for dinner, he had a craving. I'm glad he did because dinner was fabulous! After dinner our friends and next door neighbors invited us over to watch a movie with them. Their daughter came over and watched Shrek the 3rd with our kids and by the time both movies were over it was time to go to bed. The kids were up pretty late so we let them sleep in this morning and you can imagine our surprise when Michael and I woke up at 8:45 and the kids were still soundly sleeping. I don't think we were all up and moving until close to 10:00. We don't normally allow ourselves to do that, especially on a church day but today we just let it happen. We did enjoy home church this morning and Michael taught us about the Beatitudes. He did a great job and the kids enjoyed the lesson. Sadly daddy had to go teach a CPR class today so we left when he did and headed to the park. We didn't stay all that long because of the heat and opted for coming home for swimming instead. The kids swam, I could hardly even put my feet in and only made it up to my knees. They enjoyed it a great deal and I think our (I mean their) swimming every day has officially begun. While they were swimming I cut our oriental grassy bush back, it needed a hair cut in a bad way and when I was done with it, it had a nice looking buzz. Our backyard is finally trimmed and pruned for the summer months, all that is left is a HUGE pile of debris that needs to be taken to the dump but that will wait for another weekend.











So that brings us to the present time. We just finished eating lunch and the kids are watching a movie. I am blogging and we are looking forward to daddy coming home in a little bit so we can have some more family time before another busy week begins. Oh, and tonight the boys are going to make dinner. They are going to make sub sandwiches and we will be ordering from them just like we do when we go to Subway. Should be fun, and yummy! I hope your weekend was a great one too!

Field trip with Cam Cam

I came across these pictures tonight from the field trip I went on with Camden a few weeks back. We visited Schnepf's farm for a vegetable picking trip. We got to pick some spinach to take home, and boy was it yummy. I enjoyed seeing Camden with the friends he has made and I enjoyed chatting with the moms. I am so thankful that our boys can go to Eagle Ridge as an enrichment to our homeschooling we do at home. It has been a great fit for our family and I am very happy to be part of it. So here are some pictures from our time at the farm.
Camden and one of his good buddies.

Spinach picking time.

Spinach picking is serious work, guess the glasses needed to come off for this.

Special time with me and my boy.

On the hay ride!

I got the pants he is wearing here at Old Navy for $5, love the pants.

The peacock was showing off.

KbK monogram

I finally did something tonight I have been wanting to do since I launched KandidsbyKorri! I have been wanting to stamp my digital pictures with a monogram and I finally figured out how to do it. I am so thrilled, and I figured it out all by myself with some help from a tutorial online. So I have given myself a pat on my back and now I can have my KbK stamp on each photo with the directions "do not copy". I am still playing with it so I will figure out exactly how I want it, the only drawback is I have to do it with each picture and that will add a little extra time when I blog the photos. But it really only takes less than a minute to do so that's not bad. I just have to figure out how big I want the KbK. Here is a little look!

a little Easter photo shoot with miss Anna

I just couldn't resist all this sweetness. So here are a lot of pictures. And a few of Camden too. He wanted his picture taken but only wanted two, so here they both are. And the car is the newest addition to our family. It was time to put the pontiac sunbird to rest, it did us well while it lasted. We are loving our new used car. It's a PT Cruiser.