Abigail and Bethany's First Day of Preschool

How did this happen? How did the time go by so fast?! Abigail and Bethany are going to preschool at Ferry Farm Baptist Church this year. Abigail is going 2 days a week and Bethany is going one day a week. They each got the own lunch boxes and back packs. I even took them to the store to get new school clothes. They look like such grown up little girls! They were excited to see a little girl that Abigail knows from Sunday School at Spotswood Baptist Church, Natalie. Her mom is also in our ABF class. The best moment was when we were dropping Bethany off at her room, Abigail, said, "Wait!" and ran back to give Bethany a hug and kiss and told her, "love ya, gonna miss ya" So precious! When I went to pick Abigail up at the end of the day, she was crying. I thought something was really wrong. Turns out she just didn't want to leave. Lots of kids were crying when their parents dropped them off, mine was the only one crying when it was time to pick her up :)

Fredericksburg Agricultural Fair

Has it really been that long since I posted on this thing? I started the year off with the best of intentions, but you know how that goes.

Last night we went to the Fredericksburg Agricultural Fair. It is the oldest Ag fair in the country, which is pretty cool. It was on the small side, but was not crowded at all, which was great. One of the main reasons that I wanted to go, was because Miss America was going to be there. She actually held the title of Miss Fredericksburg Fair. I didn't realize that we were going to be able to meet her, so I didn't bother dressing up or dressing the girls up. Well, she was signing autographs, so we waited in line for one. The girls really didn't understand who she was. I shared with her that I was a former, but she didn't seem overly impressed - LOL. Maybe it is because I had no make-up on and a baby tied to my chest. Boy how times have changed!

The girls rode some midway rides. Abigail loved it! It was great to see her having such a great time. The smile on her face was just priceless. One of the rides actually took her away from us around the fairgrounds and she didn't seem scared at all. She just waved and said, "bye mommy and daddy". Where did my baby go?!

Bethany on the other hand had a rough way to go. It all started with the "blue guy" (one of those things that you see waving around at car dealerships). She was so scared of it. She rode the merry-go-round with her hands over her eyes. Then when riding the bumpy boat ride she got really scared. The look on her face when it started to move was priceless. How come parents can get such a kick out of seeing their children scared sometimes? Finally, the ride with the fire dept didn't go well. They had to bring her back to us about 1/4 through because she was crying. I think we sometimes forget how young she is and that she may not be ready for some of this stuff.

Brand New Year, Brand New Start

The new year has brought lots of exciting changes and activities at our little castle. First, I have started preschool homeschool with the girls. Since before I even met Steve, I have a calling to home school my children. I went to a wonderful public elementary school, but I still had a difficult time reconciling what I learned there about things like Evolution with what I was learning at Sunday School about Creation. My private Christian middle and high school was really not that great at all and the education or lack there of is a running joke in our family. Finally, the time that I spent traveling as a speaker to schools of all types confirmed my decision. While I saw some really great schools with wonderful teachers, I also saw a lot of horrible teachers. I guess I just feel like God has entrusted Steve and I with these three precious princesses and that it is our responsibility to educate them. I also hope that homeschooling will cause us to have a close-knit family through the quality time spent together. Plus, how great will it be to head off to Europe when we study medieval history! That will be quite the field trip.

Bethany is only two and a half, so I am not really pushing her with this, but just taking her along for the ride with Abigail. I started this week with a site called Letter of the Week. It is a free curriculum put together by another homeschool mom. This week was all about just immersing them in the alphabet. We have been doing alphabet coloring sheets using the letters of their name, reading alphabet books, playing alphabet games (Abigail loves alphabet bingo!) and watching videos about the alphabet. Next week we will start with lessons about the letter "A". I definitely need to spend several hours this weekend putting it all together, instead of waiting each night when they go to bed to do the next days lesson.

At breakfast time, we have a bible story, devotional and then a prayer. We have several little bibles and a great "GiGi God's Little Princess" Devotional book that we are using. Bethany seems to like this part best. One morning I forgot to do it and just started eating and she said, "prayer. bible story, mommy". I really hope she is listening, because she is the one that needs it most right now (more on my terrible two year old later).

We have also started to use a Calender and Weather pocket chart each morning. We go over what day it is, what yesterday was, and what tomorrow will be. The month, the year, the date and finally the weather. Choosing the weather cards seem to their favorite thing to do. We are singing songs to help them learn the days of the week right now.

Finally, I have started using a chore chart with them. I found one on the Internet that focuses on hygiene type activities like getting dressed, brushing teeth and making their bed. They are on the fridge and they get a star for each completed activity. If they get all their stars for the day they get a treat at bed time.

We also started dance class and soccer this week. More on that in my next post . . .