Yesterday Brian and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary! 

It is so easy to be married to this guy. He loves and adores me (a lot), he is a fantastic dad, and he has a huge heart for people. Without him I probably wouldn't care about other people at all. Through watching his example of caring for and serving people less fortunate than we are, I am growing in my love for others. He is a great guy and it is a joy to be his wife. I love you Brian! 

For our 7th Anniversary we went on an Alaskan Cruise so this year was much more low key, but we still had a great time together! We went out to my favorite restaurant in Morehead City! It is a tapas restaurant and every thing that we have tried there has been fantastic!

 We came home, watched a movie, and made Creme Brulee together! It was super simple to make and so yummy... Definitely a dangerous recipe for us to know how to make! 

Then it was time for monopoly and I WON!! That NEVER happens so it was a pretty sweet victory! Here is how Brian feels about my victory... 

Haha! 

Happy Anniversary my love! I hope we have 300 more! 

Preschool ABC Crafts

I feel like I can't really jump into blogging about our new school year before I back up and post all of the crafts from our first PrePreSchool year. I've been meaning to post these for such a long time now! 

A is for Alligator Craft by Me

B is for Bubbles Craft by Amie

C is for Cupcakes Craft by Amy

D is for Dots Craft by April

E is for Envelopes Craft by Me 

(I cut tiny envelopes with my Silhouette)

F is for Feathers Craft by Me

(I cut F's with my Silhouette and we covered the front of the paper with contact paper and had the kids stick feathers onto contact paper.)

G is for Giraffe Craft by Amy

H is for Horse Craft by April

I is for Ice Cube Painting by Me

(I filled an ice cube tray with super food coloring filled water and popsicle sticks and froze it, then the kids moved those around the paper to paint it.) 

J is for Jewels Craft by Me (This one was a last minute fill in) 

K is for Kite Craft by Me

L is for Ladybug Craft by Amy

M is for Macaroni and Cheese Craft by Me 

N is for Night Craft by Amie

O is for O's Craft by Amy

(They dipped water bottles in paint and stamped them on the paper.) 

P is for Pizza Craft by Me

Q is for Q-tip Painting Craft by Amie

R is for Rabbit Craft by April

S is for Scissors and Squares Craft by Me

(I cut S's out of paper with my Silhouette and added contact paper to the back. The kids were given strips of paper with lines on it to cut into squares then they stuck them on the sticky S!) This one was great for working on those scissor skills! 

T is for Turtle Craft by Amie

U is for Underground Craft by Me

(I took them outside and I let them drizzle glue on their papers and then dump dirt onto them!) 

V is for Vase Craft by April

(They used the bottoms of plastic pop bottles to stamp the flowers.)

W is for Watercolors and White Crayons Craft by Me

X is for X's Craft by Amie

(Those little X's are tile spacers!)

Y is for Yarn Lacing Craft by Amy

Z is for Zebra Craft by April

Claire's First Day of Preschool

 Claire's first day of Preschool was September 4th 2014! 

As homeschoolers, it may seem totally crazy and weird that we are sending Claire to Preschool one day a week... BUT since I am a Tutor at CC we would need to find childcare for Claire anyway. The church that hosts our CC Campus has their own Preschool and they have graciously offered to let CC parents enroll their Preschool age kids on CC Days. I am pretty excited about this because I know she will be doing fun school activities rather than just having 3 hours of free time and snacking! 

She was so excited that she gets to go to school too! 

 Brian and I were able to drop her off at her Classroom! 

I made first day of school presents for Claire's teachers! 

Her teachers said that she did an awesome job! When I asked her what her favorite part of the day was she said snack time. She loves her some cheese and crackers! 

Week 2 of CC Tutoring went super well! We changed classrooms and I LOVE the layout of me new classroom! It really helped for everything to run smoothly! 

Our CC Campus has grown so much that we needed to add another class and the new Tutor is going to be Brian! I am so thankful that he is getting to tutor and be apart of our CC Community! It is also super fun to work on our lesson plans together! 

Kenley's first day of Kindergarten!

Kenley started Kindergarten on August 28th 2014! We are homeschooling and are a part of Classical Conversations community. It has only been two weeks but we absolutely love it! We love the classical  method of learning, the format (tons of stick in your head songs), and that CC meets once a week to learn the new grammar for the week and do presentations! I really feel that through Classical Conversations we are able to give the girls the education that we wish we had! 

(Not that either of us had a bad education... we just don't remember any of it) :) 

Ready to go bright and early on our first CC Day! 

I am also Tutoring a class! Classical Conversations doesn't have "teachers" because we believe that the parents are the teachers, but we have tutors who introduce the new grammar for the week, facilitate science experiments, art projects, presentations, and review games! So far I am loving it! I have a great class! 

At CC Kenley is in Miss Michelle's Abecedarian Class! 

It look me like 3 months to learn how to pronounce Abecedarian :)

So far the only downside is that CC is on Thursdays and the Library's story time is also on Thursdays... This makes Kenley cry every time we go to the library and I have to tell her again (and again) that we aren't going for story time... Thankfully CC is only for 24 weeks so we will be able to get back to story time soon! 

As far as other curriculum's go, we are also using Saxon K Math and Spell, Write, Read. I've also bought Virtue Training Bible pages (similar to the Child Training Bible) and I think we will put that together as a family for Bible time in addition to the Bible stories and catechisms that we do at night! 

Craft Room and a peak at the Master

When I cleaned the girls room to get it ready for the bunk bed I also went on a little cleaning spree of the rest of the house. Since everything was clean I thought it would be a good time to take pictures for the blog! 

Welcome to my craft room / the girls playroom...

I cleaned our bedroom too! 

The Girls Room Before..

We surprised the girls with a bunk bed this week! They were totally surprised and they are loving their new space! I wanted to document what their room looked like before the bunk beds. It kind of breaks my heart that they aren't sleeping in their cute little toddler beds anymore. But it is so nice having more floor space for their toys! 

 Here is a little peak at their hall bathroom too!

Eventually I hope to hang some mermaid hooks on this wall and do something mermaid/ocean inspired over the toilet. 

I need to rehang some pictures in their room and once I get that done I will post pictures of their new big girl room!