{HomeSchool}: Weekly Wrap-Up

I totally slacked last week, and this was a review week...so work with me here.  I'm still doing the homeschool thing around here for Preschool, but the past two weeks with Thanksgiving (and then this review week), and then working up to Christmas...it's just going to be hit or miss.  It's crazy around here.

The past two weeks were focusing on "God Made Me: I'm Special."  Honestly, we're those annoying parents that tell him he's special every third minute.  We're absolutely making him a monster to society, but we'll deal with that later.  

At school last week, his teacher gave me these cute hand prints.  I think they are meant to be Turkeys, but with 2-year olds, you take what you can get.  I just love his hand prints, so I don't care what the purpose is.  

He and I talked about his hand prints, and how they are specific to him.  Only he has these prints.  

That works loosely with the theme:

We did our Christmas family craft a few nights ago, and went with the hand prints again. 

Stephen's are the bottom row, mine are just above his and Knox got the top two rows.  

Pretty dang cute!

Knox is so special, and God made him perfectly.  Just for us!

Pallet Love!

Stephen and I have been on a DIY kick recently, moving from room to room updating things that we can easily and cost-effectively. 

When we moved into our house, we had to buy everything brand new (furniture, tv's, electronics, cars, etc) since we sold everything off for our move to Belgium.  In an effort to save some moolah, we purchased a sofa/chair set that included this faux-leather ottoman.

It wasn't bad, and honestly was a pretty nice addition with a crawling baby and wobbly toddler with it's soft edges.  But it needed to go.  

I've been eyeing some rustic pieces in catalogs and on the internet, but all were pretty pricey.  Enter Pinterest.  I'd pinned a picture almost a year ago of a pallet coffee table.  Of course I figured it was too difficult to do, but I casually mentioned it to Stephen and showed him the picture.

While sipping coffee Saturday morning, Stephen just as casually mentioned that there was a man giving away free pallets in Lewisville.  After a few emails and a thirty minute drive, we were the proud owners of 5 free pallets.

Now, what to do with them.

We found one picture we liked, and tried to mimic it.  It took a little more elbow grease and problem solving (they were all rusted and split), but we did it.

And I'm obsessed!

And Knox does, too!  He's already claimed the antlers.

Since we had five, I grabbed the smaller one and updated our dining room decor.

Don't try and be sneaky and see the family pics...just wait for our Christmas card :)

Thanksgiving 2012

We spent Thanksgiving in Katy this year, and we had such a great time.  Knox loves playing at Mimi and Papa's house, which always includes the swing, watering flowers, playing in the fountains, driving Papa's car, and jumping on their bed.  He did all of these things a few times, and had a blast.

We had a delicious spread on Thanksgiving day, Glenda truly outdid herself.

So yummy that Knox needed to let off a little steam afterwards:  

Shooting us with a water gun from the comforts of his swing...

Then digging and dumping all of the soil in the back flower beds.

Once our food was settled, we had our dessert: pumpkin pie with cool whip.  Knox loves helping out, so Glenda would slice and Knox would put a dollop of cool whip on each piece.

I think he liked his job, and the perks.

Once we were all cleaned up and in our jammies, we made the Gingerbread Train.

I think he stole more than he helped:

But we persevered and completed the project!

Somewhere in all of that we did a little black Friday shopping and tv watching...perfect Thanksgiving break!

SIX

Stephen and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Sunday, November 18th.  Six years.  

It's crazy, and we're lucky, but it doesn't seem like it's been that long.  We can still remember, and we often do, every detail about our wedding and the fun reception.  We laugh about all of the things we've accomplished (wedding, first apartment, Belgium, two cars, house, KNOX, etc) and we feel so blessed.  

The past 6 years have definitely exceeded all expectations, and I'm so excited for what's to come...because no matter what, I get to share it with the love of my life. 

Blessed.

My babysitter took this picture...not completely in focus.  Oh well...we had our anniversary dinner at Tillman's Roadhouse in the Bishop Arts district.  Yummo.

Since we do the traditional gifts, this year was iron.  I bought Stephen a miter saw.  Romantic, huh?  But really, I can't wait to complete some projects with him using it. 

He got me a cast-iron skillet with a cookbook to make yummy stuff.  He knows what I like!

I've already made the bacon macaroni and cheese recipe, and it was delish.

On Sunday, we relaxed as a family and I took care of this while Knox napped: 

So excited to be entering the holidays, my favorite time of year.

Thankful.

{HomeSchool}: Weekly Wrap-Up

**If you are here from Facebook, please search for the past week's wrap-up posts.  For some reason, FB had my security settings at "only me," so you didn't receive an update!**

In continuing with the "God Made Me" theme, this week was focused on emotions.  We had fun with this one :)  We also reviewed colors, shapes (circle) and I added in a little Thanksgiving craft.  

My friend Andrea posted this craft on her FB page a few weeks ago, and I cataloged it in my mind for future reference.  Since Thanksgiving is around the corner, this was the perfect time to do it.

I drew the tree, and wrote "thankful" at the top.  Then, using a few different colors, Knox made the leaves.

After smearing it a few times, we worked on "tapping" the paint on.  Every time he sees the finished product in the living room, he says, "I made that.  I tapped really good."

I just love it...and it might stay in our living room for a lot longer than the Thanksgiving holiday!

Knox didn't want the painting time to end, so I let him have a little fun on a blank sheet of paper.  I'd say he did well!

One of Knox's favorite things to do in the car is to boss me around, telling me when to go, slow down or stop depending on the lights.  Of course, yellow means something completely different (GO FAST) in Daddy's car, but since I was leading the craft we went with slow down.

My little multi-tasker!

He was over the markers and wanted to paint, so we finished them off with some watercolors.

 Now, to actual curriculum.  The ABCJesusLovesMe website had a great idea for teaching emotions.  I printed out the circles, and had him paint them in the color he wanted.  I was really surprised when he wanted red for angry.  Total coincidence, or maybe he's REALLY advanced, ha!

While letting these dry, we worked on our letters some more.  He has a hard time with some of the letters (not saying them, moreso if I show him a letter, he doesn't always name it correctly).  

The bingo dabbers helped tremendously, and he loved the activity!

Then, it was nap time (can I get a Hallelujah?).  Before he woke up, I cut out the emotion circles, glued them on cardstock and then to a popsicle stick.  Once Daddy got home, we quizzed him.

He would look at the picture, we would tell him the emotion, and he had to mimic it.  

Y'all, hilarious!

Tearful

Sad

Angry (he's growling)

Surprised! Daddy helping him out is adorable, though he probably disagrees.

Excited!

HAPPY!

Later, we would give him prompts to see if he could pick the correct emotion (the sticks were lying in front of him).  For instance, Lightening McQueen walks into the room.  How would you feel?  

He picked happy.  Then we asked him how he would feel if I stole his car.  He picked angry.  

We thought we were working with a real genius until he chose happy and angry for every other question, and asked if he could eat with angry for dinner.  Thinking he just got lucky :)

We had so much fun with this activity, and can't wait to use them for practice in the weeks to come!

{HomeSchool}: Weekly Wrap-Up

This week in the "God Made Me" theme was "my body."  Knox knows where everything is on your body, but we added adjectives.  We discussed "long legs," and "short hair."  We looked through some magazines and worked on describing what we saw.  I was really surprised at how well he did, and at how many adjectives he knows.

This back-fired.  We were in target two days later and he saw a smaller lady and declared, "Mommy, she has short legs."  Oops.

Our craft for the week was coloring and assembling the boy/girl puzzles.  I let him color how he saw fit, but I added the features to make sure they were discernible.

His fave was the glue.

Once they were all colored and ready to go, I cut them up.

Then, I would call out a body part, ask him to add glue and he assembled.

He's sagging and I have a broken leg, but otherwise I thought he did an awesome job.  I asked him to name them, and he chose Knox and Mommy.  Love my little monster.