School Days

The next week after Grace's ballet class started, Zane started first grade homeschool! I have to admit that I was a bit apprehensive at first, seeing as my mom was such a great teacher, but we are settling in nicely. And I have discovered that I LOVE to teach! Zane is already doing wonderfully, and he looks forward to school every morning :)

This morning was our first library adventure day. I packed a surprise picnic lunch for us and off we went! We ate at the library park and the kids played for awhile on the playground there. Then we used our tree identification fanbook and walked all over the library grounds looking at and comparing the different types of trees, studying the leaves, and reading about each one and it's purpose. Way fun! Then it was time to start teaching Zane how to find books in the library. We had so much fun that Grace is sawing some serious logs, and Zane is now having some lego down time.






The squirrels were gathering all the acorns from the oak trees, and they looked so cute with their mouths stuffed full of nuts! Too bad they don't pose well...




These are all Ranger Rick Nature Science books I bought used from the library. They have a section now where they put books that are too old or that have newer versions, and you can take whatever you want and just leave a donation in a jar! Rock on! Couple bucks for fun nature books? I'll take it ;)

Ballet

Grace loves all things ballet and princess, and dances around the house pretending to be a ballerina. So, when our church announced that professional ballet teachers wanted to offer classes at no cost for church members, we couldn't pass it up! Grace will now be attending weekly classes for the entire school year :) Yay God!!!

Tonight was her first class, which she was a little nervous for. Thankfully, some of her friends from wee church are in the same class! Too bad they kicked all the parents out once class started, I didn't get any pictures of her actually dancing. Apparently, at this age having mommy and daddy oooh and ahhh over every cute thing their child does, is a huge distraction. I'm not convinced. sigh. Ok, pictures!


Checking in and ready to go!




She was a little nervous that we had to leave her.


Getting started.


She was radiant when we picked her up, she had such a wonderful time!


She gave us a little demonstration for what she learned in class.

When we picked her up, Teacher Hannah absolutely raved about Gracie's dancing skills, and told us that she is very much looking forward to working with her this year. I'm a very proud Mama right now :)

Casa Bonita

Since Dad has been here we haven't taken too many pics. Either the camera is dead or we think about it too late! But meeting the Barrientezes at Casa Bonita last night was a good opportunity :) Here's what I got!

PS. Mom, I'm hoping to get a really good one of Dad, Zane, and Grace together before he leaves Friday. We will send pics home with Dad too!

Thank you Nana and Papa Miller!

The last few months.

So, the last few months have been pretty busy for us. After our kitty, Alex, passed away, I went with Aunt Kellie to Florida for a mini vacay. It was so much fun to visit the Ringling Art Museum sans children, and actually remember what I looked at :) We were able to go fishing in the gulf several times, which is my all time fav thing to do in Florida! We also went to Myakka State Park and got to see wild gators! Ok, so maybe I have several favorite things to do in the Sunshine State. I also turned 27 on this particular trip, and was able to celebrate it with my dear Grandma and Grandpa; something I haven't been able to do in longer than I can remember. What a fun vacation, but I definitely missed my hubby and kiddos!

Then, after life started returning to normal, we decided to go to South Dakota for an extended weekend, just us and the kids. Talk about an adventure! We took a 1 1/2 hour tour in one of the longest cave systems in the world, visited the Mammoth fossil site, Crazy Horse Memorial, Mount Rushmore, Bear Country, and got chased by tornadoes!

Right when we got back from SD, it was time to start planning for Zman and Gracie's birthday party. Not to mention also planning around our cousin's wedding (Congrats Andy and Jess!) that happened to fall on Grace's birthday!

And just this last weekend we went camping with Ty's parents and bro, up the Big Thompson Canyon. It was a very nice and easy camping trip, except every one of us also got burnt! But we had great camp neighbors, fun fishing, and one beautiful, yet exhausting 3 - 4 mile hike :) Not to mention those yummy, kosher 'smores!

So it has been a fun last few months, just a little exhausting :) We have lots and lots of pics to upload too, so look for those in the coming days!

My little cuties!

Just a few recent pictures of the kiddos! Hopefully I can give ya'll an update in the next day or so :)

Zane with his new Buzz Lightyear Lego creation! He got tons of legos for his birthday.


Dressed up at Ty's cousins wedding last Friday.


Gracie in her new Twinkle Tiara we crafted together!


Such a princess :)

Is everyone sick of tutorial posts?

Last one, LOL!

Skirt Tutorial 2

Here are some videos for you mom, to help you figure out the steps. Please call me if you have questions! Even if I might be at work or whatever, you can leave me a message and I'll call you back ASAP to help :)



I'm having trouble posting the second video here, so I'm gonna try it in a new post ;)

Skirt Tutorial

This post is for Mom. Everyone is welcome to read it, however, the probability that you would still be awake by the end, is very minimal.

Obviously I deep sixed the tutorial idea for facebook. Even though it would be easier to upload the pictures there, It would be harder to navigate and get all the steps in the order they should be. I will add the instructions later tonight or tomorrow, but at least mom, maybe you can get the general idea!

...Ok, the first pic is corrupted, I'm gonna have to fix that.

This Blog

I see that the last time I posted was over a month ago, and that is just not acceptable. So, I have made a few decisions regarding this blog:

1. I will stop making myself feel guilty every time I go weeks in between posts. I do, after all, have two young children, a job outside the home, homeschool Zane, keep house, and with any free time sew, crochet, make jewelry, bake, garden, and read...

2. As per the above paragraph, if I do sit down to post, I am not always in the right frame of mind to write coherent sentences, so I give up.

3. Number two on the list above is not even a decision about blogging, it is just an observation.

4. I rest my case.

PS. Mom, I am putting the skirt tutorial on facebook in it's own folder. It's easier on my computer that way :)

Mr. Alex, our beloved kitty.

We have had Alex for nearly 8 years, since he was just 6 weeks old. He has been overweight for the better part of those years, we just never really understood why. A few days ago he stopped eating and I noticed he wasn't quite acting like himself. On Thursday he wouldn't move and he was breathing very heavily, so we decided to take him to the emergency animal hospital. They were able to figure out that he had an advanced stage of diabetes and was crashing from a lack of insulin. It seemed so simple to fix, until they were able to explain to us what exactly that meant. It meant that he would need to be hospitalized overnight, and needing several thousands of dollars of treatment just to get it under control. That didn't include all the vet visits he would need and twice daily shots, and blood sugar tests and such. In short, we couldn't afford it and we had to make the very hard decision to put him to sleep.

He used to be kind of a jerk to everyone. He used to make it hard to grow attached or truly love him (like we do our other kitty, Momo). But about 6 months ago, he changed. He began to crave our company and not be so mean. We learned to love him! So our decision was especially hard, having developed such a new attachment to him. Nevertheless, I am grateful that we had that time together! We love and miss our dear friend.

Saying Goodbye

Lunch at East Moon last Thursday

I've been having such a great time with my Mom and sis visiting! I posted pics from lunch 2 days ago, on facebook. Here are a few of the ones I posted:

Grateful

Praising God for a beautiful day today and a wonderful husband who is my best friend!

That's all :)

Denver Museum

Aunt Kellie graciously took us (the kids and I) to the museum last Thursday, and we had such a good time! Zane is starting to really get into dinosaurs and science, so this was especially fun for him :) It was fun for Grace too, but I think it was more of a "wow, I'm with Zach and Katie in this huge new place that I reallyreallyreally wish I could just run around in and touch everything in reach" kind of fun.

Aside from that, Zane read his very first book all by himself the other day! I wasn't actually home to witness it, but as soon as I got home, he was more than happy to demonstrate. I am loving teaching him at home; you can turn any mundane detail into a science, math, or reading lesson! In fact we went on a science/nature walk today in this beautiful 60 degree sunshine we've been recently blessed with.

Anyway, I have just finished posting pictures from our museum excursion, on facebook. I know that not everyone has a facebook account so I will post a few pics here too, for your viewing pleasure! Have a great weekend :)