Day Trippin' to Memphis...

This week is Spring Break and we are SO EXCITED! When you homeschool there are times that seem to drag on! Working with a Pre-K and Kindergarten child be overwhelming some days but we have a lot of fun!!! But this week was all about FUN! On Wednesday morning we headed to Memphis to go to the zoo. I have wanted to take the kids for a while and my cousin Kristy and her little boy, Carson, agreed to go with us, so off we went! We had the best day! That zoo is amazing! We saw Panda Bears, Penguins, Polar Bears, and Sea Lions. Ethan even decided to take a dip (ha! he was pretending to be swimming with the Sea lions!)

Carson is almost two but you would have thought he was the same age as the kids! He would run as hard as he could just to keep up with them. And NAP??? No way! He stayed awake the whole way there and home.

I love hearing the kids laugh from the back of the van. Even when you have no clue what they are laughing about. At one point Kristy turned around to see what was so funny.. and Carson was throwing and spitting gold fish everywhere! OOPS! Oh well, nothing a quick vacuuming of the van won't fix.

I would send hubby text message pictures all day and he definitely wished he was there to join us in our fun! We did too, we missed having him there with us. But after having so much fun, I am sure we will go back again real soon.

After four hours of walking around the zoo and chasing three kids we headed back to Little Rock. What a great day! :) Hope all of you on Spring Break are having a great time!

I have a Wall of Fame Child!

This weekend was pretty boring! I work weekend option so that I can be with the kids during the week and I dread Fridays! Mostly people look so forward to their weekends but not me! I know that I will at be work all night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. During my slow times I go to the nursery and rock the babies.. how fun is that!! I just love being over there in the nursery (when the babies are healthy and I am there simply out of choice) . Tiny babies that are just seeing the world are so precious, until there is fourteen of them crying at one time and that is my cue to leave! ! It definitely makes me want to come home and hug and kiss on my kids even though they are not really babies anymore. Do you ever stop referring to them as "your babies"???

On Saturday night we had some friends come up from Russellville for dinner and we went back to Cheeburger Cheeburger. We love that place! Ethan wanted to try the 1/2 pounder and have his picture made and be placed on the "Wall of Fame". I forgot all about that and being that he is "my baby" knew there was NO WAY this small child would be a 1/2 pound, 10 oz to be exact, burger. So I ordered him the kids meal. BIG MISTAKE! He devoured that burger in two minutes and was then ready for his 1/2 pounder. Reluctantly we finally gave in and ordered him the "big burger". The waitress seemed shocked when she asked if we wanted a to go box with it or if he was going to eat it there and we answered ".. no he is going to eat it here". We laughed with her and said "we knew he would only eat a couple of bites but he wants to try". Well, I guess fifteen minutes is about enough time for a Cheeburger Cheeburger kids meal to empty from a six year olds stomach because when the 1/2 pounder came it took less than ten minutes and it was GONE!!! Every single last bite GONE and he did not look the least bit uncomfortable. So, at the age of six he had just eaten more than his daddy! That scares me... I am not sure we will be able to afford the grocery bill for these two when he gets "older and eats like a man"!!!

The hoopla over eating the 1/2 pounder was what Ethan wanted. He had his picture made with the big burger, signed it and placed it on the wall of fame. I should mention that Ethan had a lot of motivation from Carter, my friend Kelly's eight year old that finished off the 1/2 pounder prior to Ethan! So, there stands Carter and Ethan side by side on the Wall of Fame at Cheeburger Cheeburger. If you go eat at Cheeburger Cheeburger take a look at my wall of famer son! :)

Happy New Year! China Style...

One of the great things about homeschooling my kids is that we get to do a few things out of the norm. We have a study called "Galloping the Globe" and we study all sorts of things about different countries. What better way to kick off a study on China than to celebrate the Chinese New Year, which happened to be today. We made our own fortune cookies.. which was a minor disaster! I do not recommend the recipe I used, or maybe I don't recommend asking me to make you any fortune cookies! They turned out horrible! It was great fun though, Ethan wrote his own fortunes so in the process he was working on sentence structure! English lesson, cooking lesson, and geography all rolled into one activity! Yippee!!!

We talked about China and their customs and traditions behind the New Year and made our own Chinese lanterns. I remember making these when I was little! How fun! I even
decorated a couple of lanters with glitter and pictures! The kids learned how to write "Good Luck" in Chinese, too. We had a great day and topped it off with a "New Year's Party". Ethan was so funny, he said it was a good thing the whole world didn't have a New Year's Party on the same day because if we did, the Earth "would be shaking from all the partying!". How funny kids can be!

It is such a great thing to be able to be with my kids and teach them even though a lot of days it seems like I am pulled in too many directions and that I am slacking in several departments. I hate missing all my weekends because I am working but I am working weekends to be able to be with my kids during the week. So many things, and so many ways the devil tries to discourage me but I try to stay focused and remember that I am doing all these things for their benefit. They are my focus and they are my prize! One bible passage I rely on daily is Phillipians 3: 12-14

2Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

What a great motivation that is! It is all worth the struggles to be with my kids. What a great feeling it is to see their smiles, even when their fortune cookies are a mess because their mother is a horrible baker! They thought it was the best thing in the world!!! I am so blessed to have my family!

What do you do to stay on track? Do you have a special verse or saying that helps you get through rough days? I would love to hear it.

Happy Chinese New Year to you all!

Happy Mardi Gras!!! Time to CELEBRATE!!!!

Monday was a great day! One of my friends from Russellville was in town and we went to lunch at Cheeburger Cheeburger. If you have never gone there I recommend it! They had the absolute best burgers! We liked it so much her whole family is coming back Saturday and we are going out to dinner again. Scarlett's first gymnastics class was Monday evening and she was so excited! She was dressed and ready at 3pm. She practiced her splits and sommersaults all afternoon! Once class started she did not want me anywhere near it so I got very few pictures. If she saw me she would say, "go, go, get away from the window!" Her she is doing her warm up stretches. How cute are they???

Today is Mardi Gras! We have a tradition at my house that we have a "Mardi Gras" party. We decorate the table and cook cajun food and have a big feast! Today I cooked shrimp gumbo, and the best muffaletta I have made so far! It was SO GOOD! I found some cheddar jalepeno bread in the Wal Mart bakery and just loved it! Worked great for that extra spicy sandwich. The kids enjoy decorating and helping me cook the food. We normally do a Kings Cake, but I slacked this year and forgot all about that until dinner was over. OOPS! Better luck next year! I was trying to explain to the kids about Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday and in the process explain lent.. I don't think I was doing a very good job! I knew it was not sinking in when Ethan asked me if "people in Arkansas had Lent, too.. or if that was just in Louisiana". Off to the internet for help! Here is a picture of my muffaletta. I used a roasted red pepper tampenade instead of black olive.. maybe that is why I liked it better.

I am looking forward to the rest of our week, we are going to have a blast! Tomorrow we are going to start making our chinese lanterns for a Chinese New Year celebration Thursday night! Can't wait!

This is Ethan...

I thought I would share a few favorite photos of Ethan this Friday. I realized with all the talk on my blog he is so low key and laid back that he has been forgotten. Ethan goes with the flow and really never causes a stir. That is left all to Scarlett and she does it well! If any of you knew me growing up and remember my brother Matthew, aka The Golden Child at my household.. well, Ethan is Matthew! Ethan is like Matthew in so many ways! (My "little"brother turns 25 tomorrow! I'll post about him then) Ethan has the same flair for sports and love of life! I love both my children so much, but it is funny to me how two kids with the same parents can be so different! We had guest over for the dinner the other night and when I call the kids in to introduce them and say "hello". Ethan grabs them with a big hug and a "Hi" and Scarlett yells "hello" as she is running through the room without stopping. Never a dull moment at my house!

The first picture was taken at a Travelers baseball game a couple of years ago. Ethan will start his first season of baseball this year and he is so excited! He is really good at it in the backyard, so I hope that translates well on the field. This picture to the left was taken at the beach this summer. Ethan has always been my little poser! You get a camera out and he turns it on. Whatever he is doing he will stop so he can pose properly for the camera! ha!


Lastly, This is Ethan and his Daddy at his first Razorback football game. He LOVES football! He knows all the rules, and actually understands them. His daddy and him have the same Razorback passion. Ethan was able to meet, what he called "the greatest backfield ever" this past football season. He met Darrin McFadden, Felix Jones and Peyton Hillis and was able to get his football signed by them. He was SO excited that day! I think he called everybody he knew just to tell them.

So, that is it, just a few of my favorite pictures of Ethan. So if it seems my day is filled with Scarlett... that is because Ethan is sitting at the table doing his work like I asked him to do and I am chasing her down, trying to convince her learning is necessary! Have a great weekend!