Ev's Baseball Drawing

Ev draws pictures everyday.  Her artistic skills are improving on her own.  Yesterday she drew this picture of her and her friend Allie playing baseball.  Ev figured out how to draw Allie turned to the side holding the bat all on her own.  Her proportions are good too.  Check this out, not only was mommy proud, but dad was too, I think you know why! :)

Take and Go Princess Castle

I made this a while back since our little Ev loves her Princess mini dolls and castles.  We will be gone for a month so I thought I would make a castle that she can take on the go.  I got the idea from browsing etsy and made some additions/modifications.  We will be on several airplanes and this castle will be able to entertain her on the airplane and can fit in her back pack.  Just what we need!

Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快乐！

This was our first time to experience the Chinese New Year.  We live in a very large apartment complex.  When we moved in a few years ago they had only built 30 buildings ranging from 10 floors to 25, each having at least 3 if not 4 entrances to each building.  That is a lot of people living in our complex.  We live in phase 2 and now they've already built phase 3, you get the picture, tons of us call it home.  Now if you can imagine each of those buildings having the residents outside at the same time shooting off fireworks right over each building and water fountain for hours, are you picturing it?  Here anyone can buy fireworks and there are no codes telling you where to shoot them off.  Mix in the huge celebration of the New Year and you get people shooting them out their windows!  The people above us shot their fireworks out of the bedroom above our kids room.  I'm glad it is way to cold to open the windows or some of their fire works would have come into their room!  The noise was so loud that I woke up today with my ears still ringing and I had a headache.  The kids managed to sleep through some of the festivities.  I don't know how they fell back asleep but they did.

I stood on our balcony in the negative degrees to witness this amazing yet crazy sight.  We skyped some of our friends in America so they could witness via skype what was going on.  In a sense it was like a war zone! 

Pictures don't do it justice.  All of the debris is left on the streets for the poor street cleaners to clean up.  As I stood on our balcony and watched the fireworks going up over all of the buildings around us we even got debris in our house.  When I was taking pictures out our front window I put my camera out the window to get some shots and got hit by some debris so I quickly shut the window and took pictures through the window. 

 This was taken from our front window.  I quickly shut the window after I took the picture.  People are crazy they shot the fire works up the stairs into our building. 

 This is from our balcony.  Imagine this above every building in our complex all at the same time!

I don't think you can understand how close the fireworks really are.  This is through my window because it is just way too close. 

Just so you know we read that in the capital city they were having all their eye doctors on call since so many injuries occur over these next few days!  The fireworks finally stopped last night but we woke up to them starting back up again this morning.  It is going to be a long 15 days.  We leave for another city on our way out to Thailand in 15 days.  Lucky us we get to travel on the Lantern Festival where they shoot off fireworks all night too to end the Spring Festival called Chun Jie or the Chinese New Year. 

Teacher Ev, Swimming Suits and Someone Got a HAIRCUT!

It is so cold around here that it makes you not want to go outside.  I think the evenings have gotten in the negatives.  It snowed off and on this week making getting around town even that much harder not to mention everyone was out buying things, going home and preparing for the New Year around here. 

So in honor of my lacking in post lately I've packed this one with several things. 
As you know I have been trying to get myself organized for next year homeschooling year.  While I've been doing that I have been trying to get some preschool squeezed in.  One day I walked by our home school room to hear and see this.

Ev- "Elijah what day is it?"
Elijah- " Today is Monday!"
Ev- "Yes, that is right."
Ev- " Now what is tomorrow going to be?"
Ev was teaching Elijah and Ian just how I teach her.  I admit it is fun to watch.  Notice her dolls up by her feet, they are in school too.  I was just telling some friends that when I was little I use to line up my dolls in a row and teach them in my grandparents basement.  Ev is following in my foot steps but she has real people to teach!

Our family sent us a care package filled with our swimming suits since in 2 weeks we will go to Thailand for a month.  Todd opened the package and the kids were in awe of their "old" but new to their eyes swimsuits.  Even though it was snowing outside they begged us to let them put them on.  We did and as I came out into the living room this is what I heard, "Come on,  lets go, the carpet is the swimming pool!"  

Elijah has been growing out his hair to look like the pitcher Tim Liscicum.  We've asked him several times over the past months if he wants us to cut it and he's always said no.  The other day we were watching some home videos of him a few years ago in Thailand playing baseball and Todd asked him if he wanted his hair to look like that.  Surprisingly he said, "yes."  So he got an 3 inch trim. 

Ev's hair is getting long and fuller.  It took her a while to grow hair.  Being in America last year helped her hair get thicker.  Her hair is curly too but she doesn't like it.  I blow dry it straight for her. 

What Was I Thinking?

Not long ago I got the bright idea of organizing a whole year's worth of kindergarten curriculum so that I would get the bulk of my planning done at one time.  That was several days ago and I am still in the process.  I didn't think through my idea too well.  See, I am not only organizing but I am creating my own curriculum.  I thought it wouldn't be hard since I taught 1st grade for 6 years but since I am deciding what I want to do for everything I have gotten in a little over my head! 
I bought a Phonics curriculum from an consignment Home school store which by the way is amazing but after this year of doing Pre K with Ev I realized that we have already covered a lot of the curriculum - oops.  So with using some of my teacher resource books, things I did when I taught first grade I am creating my own phonics program.  I have gotten a lot of worksheets and resources off of the Internet.  Where were these things when I was teaching?  I am very thankful for all the teachers out there who have put their hard work out on the web for people like me to use.  So when I began my planning I thought oh I can plan for all 36 weeks, all subjects and it wouldn't be a problem.  So far I know what I am going to do for Science, Bible and Math.  I even know what I will do for every day for each 4 section of 9 weeks.  Crazy, huh?  I am still working on my phonics, reading,writing program.  And I need to figure out what we will do for Art.  I know as a homeschooling parent I don't need to do every subject but I just can't wrap my mind around that.  What I have decided is that every Tuesday and Thursday we will do Science, every Monday and Wednesday we will do Math and Fridays will be Art days along with Reading, Phonics, Poetry, Calendar stuff, etc. every day. 
I even have and have been finding assessment for everything and trying to coordinate everything too.  I guess that is why people just buy ready made curriculum.  My hopes is that I can finish this detailed planning so when next year comes I won't have to do as much prep.  I am going to be switching languages I am studying this Spring semester so I am going to try to go hard on this new (and very difficult) language and carry it over into next year when I am officially homeschooling Evangelia in Kinder.  How will I function next year as wife, mom, language student, friend, teacher - we will see. 

I have to admit as I have been spending multiple hours on the details for next year I have that happy excited feeling in my stomach.  I have been away from teaching in the classroom for almost 5 years now I have missed it and am excited about teaching Ev!

 This is just some of the things I am working on/using!

 I just had to show you cute little Ev's picture she drew.  The fun thing about teaching her is that she LOVES to learn and she loves to draw and be creative.  She told me today her favorite part is making the craft.  I better get working on my Art curriculum!

And yes all of the girls she drew have eye lashes, purses and after this picture she drew princess crowns on their heads.  Adorable. :)

New Years

We've been busy celebrating birthdays lately with Jesus' birthday all month, then mine the week after Christmas so  now the kids are asking, "is tomorrow MY birthday?"- sorry guys no one has one for at least 3 months! 

We did let the kids open their Christmas presents on New Year's Eve.  Even though we had presents under our Christmas tree for a long time they did a good job of not asking when we would open them.  Ev even started telling people they were New Year's Eve presents instead of Christmas presents.

Todd and I were able to go out on a date for my birthday.  We had pizza at one place and then went to a local coffee shop.  It was nice to get away for a few hours just the two of us.  We realized we hadn't had a date since we were in America over 5 months ago!

"The Natural" Wonderboy Bat

The kids love the movie "The Natural" with Roy Hobbs and his bat named Wonderboy. So we took the kids toy bat they play baseball with everyday and turned it into Roy Hobbs' Wonderboy Bat.

  Compare with the real Wonderboy from the Movie below. Amazingly Similar.