Kelley's Birthday

 I have shared about my friend, Kelley, in previous posts.  We met only a couple of months ago, but in a short time have become very close.  My family and friends have welcomed her and her girls with open arms.

About a month ago, I was with some of my really great friends and we were talking about Kelley and her upcoming birthday.  They suggested that we take her out for a special night to celebrate and that is exactly what we did.  Her actual birthday is on October 24, but we went a few days early.  Joe watched  our girls and Kelley's girls too, 7 total, so we could have a fun night out.

We went to On the Border, ordered some yummy Mexican food and my favorite Sangria Swirl Margaritas.  It was so much fun for me to have Kelley there surrounded by my amazing friends, who loved her and made her feel so special.

 Tricia, Ali, Megan

 Hannah, Brittany

 Kelley and my mom, Beth

My mom was with me the day that I met Kelley and she has been such an incredible support and encourager to Kelley along this journey we've been on.

 I am truly surrounded by such beautiful, wonderful and amazing friends!

Unfortunately for Kelley she started experiencing some pain on Monday and had to go to the emergency room.  She ended up spending the entire day and into the night at the hospital, so we watched her girls for her while she recovered.   She had an ovarian cyst that ruptured and they found several more cysts as well.

 Here are some pictures to show some of the fun we had with 7 girls, 7 and under for a few days.

Please continue to keep Kelley in your prayers, for her health and future decisions.

She definitely didn't get to celebrate her actual birthday the way she would have wanted to, but at least she got to feel loved before.

Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We have Jaelyn in a 2 day a week preschool program at Happy Apple on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Both Joleigh and Noelle went there and absolutely loved it.  Even though we are homeschooling this year, we thought that it was important for Jaelyn to have this experience and have the opportunity to be in a social setting with kids her age to build some relationships.  

This week her class got to go on a field trip to the Tolmachoff Pumpkin Patch.  We would have liked to have taken all the girls, but decided that I would just take Jaelyn, leaving Joe home with the girls.  I am so happy that Jaelyn and I had this experience together. She is so precious to me and she loves her one on one time with me, as much as I do with her.  She even calls it our "private alone."

Here are some pictures of our time at the pumpkin patch:

 Jaelyn with her friend Anna.

 Learning about vegetables.  She was able to pick zucchini, cucumbers, radishes and lettuce to bring home.

 She was beyond excited to feed some to the horse.

 I can't even tell you how much this girl loves animals.

 She thought the horse was so funny.

 

Her class posed for a picture and this is her with her buddies, Anna and Brody.  Their dads work with Joe at the church.

 Jaelyn learning about corn.

 Walking through the corn maze.

Waiting to ride the train.

 

 Jaelyn and Brody.  

 These pictures are so great because these two rarely smile for the camera, especially at the same time.

 Next, she got to pick her pumpkins to take home.

 She found the perfect one.

 Finally, her class got an ice cream treat.  

We had so much fun together!  I adore this little girl!

Pumpkin Week

It was pumpkin week at our house this week, at least the beginning of it.  We will continue to learn more about pumpkins next week with more activities, art projects, experiments, crafts and treats as we get ready to celebrate Halloween.  

We started our unit by discussing what we already knew about pumpkins.

 Then talked about how they grow.

 Here are the stages of how the pumpkin grows. 

 Then we made some pumpkin pie play dough.

 They loved it, especially the way it smelled.

 I gave the girls some choices for pumpkin treats we could make and they choose pumpkin rice crispy treats.  We shared some with our friends and neighbors.

 Each girl was assigned a pumpkin for our next activity, for some pumpkin math and science.

 First, they estimated how big around the pumpkin would be around, by cut a string.  They then measured to see if they were correct.  

 Joleigh was just right.

 Noelle was too short.

 Jaelyn was too long.

 Next, we weighed our pumpkins, but first estimated how much they thought it would weigh.

 Jaelyn was the heaviest.

 Then it was time see if their pumpkins would sink or float in a sink full of water, after making their predictions.

 Surprisingly, Joleigh's bobbed in the water and floated.

Jaelyn and Noelle's pumpkins both sank to the bottom.

 We used the play dough we made to practice our spelling and sight words.

Jaelyn and Naya had fun playing too.

 We did some pumpkin themed math.

 We even made some pumpkin inspired breakfast this morning.

If I haven't mentioned it lately, I am absolutely loving homeschooling the girls and I am pretty sure they are too.  We are having such a great time together.  It has been so nice to have the flexibility with our schedule, especially since I was sick for a while.  Also, just getting to enjoy our time as a family and taking advantage of mornings at the park, Joe's days off, even this week I was able to take Jaelyn on a field trip and Joe taught the girls for the morning.  We are still planning on taking this adventure a year at a time, but so far this year we are enjoying our time together.