Our First Harvest

If you read the blog frequently you know that we volunteer and have helped create a garden to help feed the animals at the zoo. This is our first harvest and we had lots of squash and a few zucchini. Yummy for the animals. If you don't know much about our zoo it is called Heritage Park Zoo and it takes care injured animals from the wild.

I had to add this picture of Shae and Nala as Shae loves it when the dogs sit on her lap so she can pet them. :0)

The moment

I look over the kitchen counter and I see this and took a photo. It is Shae entertaining the doggies while Kayla is trying to draw a portrait of the dogs. :0)
Shae got a hold of my camera last night and was having a blast and here is her shot of Kayla and I.

It's a TARANTULA! Yes, you read it right! It was in our front yard by the walkway on our return home from taking the dogs on a walk. YIKES!

Life is like a bowl of cherries! Isn't it?

Engrave

What is life really about? What am I here for? What am I supposed to be doing? What am I doing? Will I be healthy when I get older? How long will I live? What will my kids be like when they grow older? What will they remember about me?

Wow! All of these thoughts this evening. What is one to say to all of those questions? I just got done watching a show of an inspirational family and whose father just ended his battle with cancer. The family will move on and he will be remembered greatly.

Life is about engraving a memory and hopefully a wonderful one. I am here to make a difference in people's lives and especially for my 2 precious girls. I am supposed to be doing the right thing and making the right choices. I will mold and educate my children about life and all these things. I can't predict if I will be healthy as I grow old. I can teach my children of healthy habits and taking care of ourselves and that life isn't about what everyone thinks it is or how it should be. Everyone has a path and a road that they follow and later on they will be just fine. I am not sure how long I will live but I hope long enough to engrave that wonderful memory for my children and the people whom I touch. My girls will love themselves when they grow old. They will not worry too much about everybody else and everything. They will be happy with who they are and what they become. They will be great people and make a difference in the world and many people's lives.

"What will they remember about me?" .... I haven't thought much about this question but I will now and I will work harder at my engraving to instill the best memories possible for my girls without spoiling them with material things. Love, affection, attention, education, skills, love, attention, affection, embracing, smiles and lots of hugs.

TOO COOL 2 CARE

Cute shirt and love the colors and I got it as a "handy down" (this is my saying as Tom always correct me and says " It is hand me downs!") from a great friend of mine. Kayla has had it in her closet this summer but has not worn it yet. The other day Kayla handed me the shirt and said that she didn't want to wear it. I asked, "why?" and she said, " because it says I am too cool 2 care and I do care about others." I then went on to explain to her that it could mean a couple of things and yes one could be that she is too cool to care about people or animals or things or it could be that she doesn't care about keeping up everyone else or not caring about the pressure some kids enforce upon others.

She thought about it and decided that she still didn't want to wear it just in case others interpreted the shirt the wrong way.

My child always thinks of others and tries hard to do the right thing.

Bless her and her little mind!

"This is the worst day ever!" said Shae

Cotton has not been feeling well lately. A couple of weeks ago he had the sniffles and that never went away. A few days ago I noticed that he hadn't been running on his wheel like he usually does and his food was not being stored like he usually does as well. And just the other day Cotton's tummy was getting firm and bloated. Yesterday, I woke up and peeked on Cotton and his tummy was huge and he was barely moving and laboring with his breathing. I looked it up on the internet and it seems that he may of had a large rapid growing tumor. He looked terrible! Oh, Shae was going to be so sad when she finds out! I picked him up and his back legs were not functioning probably due to the pressure of the growth inside of him.

Shae woke up and I told her and showed her Cotton and we made him a nice bed and he instantly laid his head down on the plush bedding and barely took breaths. We brought him into Shae's room per her request and all cried and petted him for about 1 hour until he took his last breath.

Shae held him wrapped up in her High School Musical rag in silence. We then wrapped him up and put him in a little baggy and Shae said "here, put this picture of him when he was little in it." And I did. After we buried him Shae made him this cross.

"Good night cotton, we love you very much, we will miss playing with you daily and holding you while you slept in Shae's arms."

BEAUTIFUL!!

We had a beautiful day in Flagstaff and took a ride on the sky ride. The view was amazing and undisturbed. We went up to 12,500 feet and the weather was a bit cooler up there but BEAUTIFUL.

We got the volunteer ranger lady to snap a family shot of us but she forgot to hold it half way to focus but not bad. :)

Speaking of the ranger lady......... she seemed eager to speak to someone and tell about her knowings of the volcanic substance around us. The girls were very interested and listened with great respect. Afterwards the lady said "by the way, your girls are very interested in learning and very attentive and can speak to me very cordially and I like to see that." She then proceeds to tell me that she was a retired school teacher of 7th graders for many years. DO I DARE TELL HER THAT WE HOMESCHOOL? Sure! So, I then chimed in to tell her that I homeschool the girls and she said "what ever you are doing you are doing it right." :)

This moment captured our day with one on one time with each of our daughters in a beautiful place.
I am reading a new book this week called "Home Court Advantage" by Dr. Leman and he says and I believe ........

"If you think there's no difference between supermarket and homegrown sweet corn, compare what you get at your local grocery store with what's offered at a farm stand where they've picked the corn that morning. Your eye may not see a difference, but your taste buds will. The same thing is true with children. Many kids may seem on the surface to be well-mannered and polite. Get past those exteriors, though, and you may find that they play by the rules but lack the inner core of their own convictions.

There's more to having homegrown children than simply cultivating certain behaviors.

A home grown kid is like that sweet corn -- the secret lies inside."

This man speaks not of homeschooling but yet having that special relationship with our children.

Back to School

So, we are ready for our schooling at home. It will be my fourth year and we absolutely LOVE it! Homeschooling just happens to work well for us and so we go with it. That may change later down the road but for now we are blessed and love what we do together.

This year I am trying something different with our school schedule. I am going to break up the school year so we don't get burned out and that will free up more time in a lump sum of days.

We took off the entire month of June and then we started back schooling just 3 days a week for July. We will then start our new schedule.....

In a nut shell we will be schooling 3 weeks on with 1 week off from August thru May.

Kayla will be using ABeka Language, Math, and Health.

Calvert and ABeka Spelling

Harcourt Reading Skills and third grade readers

A Child's Study of Famous Americans and Smiling Hillfarm for History

ABeka cursive

Wordly Wise 3000 for vocabulary

and for Science we will use our various Harcourt texts and the "More Mudpies to Magnets" experiment book.

In between all that we will spend a good majority of our time in theatre rehearsing and performances and learning new guitar songs and Shae will start up Soccer in September.

All this fun stuff to do ............. boy am I lucky!

And for Shae ..... she will be working on handwriting and also Abeka cursive.

ABeka Language, Letters and Sounds, and Math

Harcourt Spelling

Shae will do health, history and science along with Kayla but at her level

Scorpions, Snakes, and Bees

OMG!!! We woke up this am to our normal morning routine and that is letting the dogs out to go potty and they like to be outside on the leash for a while. I barely got in the screen door and heard Tuesday scratching at something outside and my first thought was a "Stink Bug".
They like to play with the "Stink Bugs". Anyway, she yelped and held up her paw. I went outside to check it out and it was a scorpion. GREAT!! We immediately went online to see what to do and gave her a little Benadryl and luckily she has had no symptoms or swelling of the lips and eyes like the Internet said to watch for.
Next, the girls and I got home from working in the local zoo garden and Kayla noticed bee activity near our front porch. GREAT!! A sworm of bees has moved in! While we are looking out the kitchen window trying to decide what to do next Kayla noticed what appears to be a snake in the front yard. Yes! It WAS a snake's skin. So, where is the snake? GREAT! What a day! Tom is going to try to be the "bee keeper" man and squirt the bee nest with a hose. That ought to be interesting! If I can get a picture of the attach I will be sure to post it. Tee,hee,hee!

A fort with a porch??

The girls have wanted a fort or play house under the slide structure that we built over 3 years ago but we never had the time or motivation to do it. Kayla kept saying that all she wanted was a cute little porch. So, I designed the closed in area and before I knew it Tom was outside helping me and changed most of my plan and ran with it. He worked hard and diligently to get this cute little addition done for the girls.

It is now done and we painted the entire play structure.
Thanks dad!

WHILE YOU WERE OUT!

Buttercup says "hi!"

Kayla has been waiting for her own room make over ever since we moved to Prescott. Her room became a guest room and a school room and she is now ready to be in her own room. And of course Shae is ready to have Kayla out of her room. So, I had planned out all this in my mind and went shopping for fabric. What fun it was! Kayla wanted pink so that is what she got.

I painted and sewed for hours at night. Tom worked hard on the wall behind her bed and he did awesome! When we were ready to put the room together I sent them to a friend's house in the neighborhood and then it was surprise time. Kayla was speechless and didn't say much but gasped for air!

I had already done this mural for Shae's room but added a little to it and made some Hawaiian flowered pillows and redid her puffy bulletin board with the same fabric. Then I had Tom cut out a surfboard shape out of wood and I painted that and got her a round puffy chair for her room and last I purchased a grass table skirt and attached it to the wall above her window.

Now, Shae has a real beach hut room!

FULL WEEK!

Along for the ride .... after the Rodeo Parade we had a "friend" on the car window. Shae wanted to keep it so we told her that maybe it would hold on till we got home. And boy did it! Pictured here is a close up of our friend holding onto the glass of the driver door window.

**Note the antennas going sideways

We were driving 50 mph down Prescott Lakes Parkway down hill and this grasshopper held on the entire way.
Fourth of July was a blast and what a great view we had from our backyard!

The gang this year

The RODEO PARADE

The day before teh big Rodeo Parade Prescott has a "kiddie parade" and we usually watch but this year they wanted to be in it. So, they decorated their bikes and they rode in it proudly.

If anyone knows a min pin they love to be covered up and cozy. Our new rescue min pins love their kennel so I made a cover for it (due to its ugliness or a cage) and it now blends in with our living room. I also made them a bed out of one of Tom's sweatshirts. The key element to their new cozy home is a warm piece of fabric that is attached to the inside top of the kennel that hangs down so when they get in and turn around they are already covered and cozy.

Kayla is working on her time with walking them on the leash the "Dog Whisperer" way (collar up high behind the ears, head up, tail straight out and walking along side of the "master").