Looking for Input

Lately I have been thinking a lot about alternative options to public school for my children.  Yes, I know that Adeline is only 2 years old, but I am at home all day with the kids and I have a lot of time to think about this kind of stuff.  The more I think about it, the less I want to put my kids in public schools.  I went to public schools and I taught in public schools for 5 years, so I know the pros and cons pretty well when it comes to public schools.  I want my kids to learn more than is available in public schools.  I feel like the biggest thing I learned in schools was how to follow directions and test well.  I obviously learned the basics as well, but I know I have/had the potential to learn so much more and that’s why I want more for my kids.  I want to give them the opportunity to excel at things other than following directions (ironically, this is what I am trying so hard to get Adeline to learn right now!)

My dream for my kids is that they will love to learn, know all the basics in reading, writing, math, history, science, etc and then choose to learn more based on their own interests—be it math, science, art, music, writing, etc.  I want them to be critical thinkers, to learn to work well with others, to learn leadership skills, entrepreneurial skills, business skills.  I want them to understand politics, be financially intelligent, be athletic, have friends, be spiritually minded, socially well-adapted.  I want them to learn about things that interest them and spend their time becoming this person instead of sitting in a classroom learning how to succeed in a public school. I know this is probably a little idealistic, but if I don’t start idealistic, I may just settle for the everyday public school thing.  And lets be honest here, I may be so ready to get my kids out of the house when it comes time for them to go to school that I’ll just scrap all this talk of the ideal education for my kids and use that time to go back to school myself (or sit around the house watching soaps, eating bon bons and napping all afternoon…if only…)

So this is where I would like some opinions.  Have any of y’all looked into home schooling, charter schools, Montessori schools, community schools, starting a school, or anything else of the alternative schooling nature?  Have you read any books on education that you would recommend?  Do you have friends who have gone down any of these roads?  Are you sitting around all day and thinking about the same things? I’ll take all the input you’ve got!

Utah Vacation

Still trying to catch up on my blog!  We have internet on our computers now (but we’re still waiting for the good, aka unlimited, internet to come…I think I saw them laying cable today!!)  so I’ll try to post what I can for now!

We took a 10 day vacation to Utah at the beginning of June and had a great time visiting with friends and family.  We hadn’t been back to Utah together in over 6 years, so it was fun to go back and take a trip down memory lane.  We stayed with my sister, Kelsey, in her awesome new house in Riverton, but we drove all over Utah, from St. George, to Provo, to Salt Lake, to Layton, and even a quick trip up to Mountain Green (where I was born) and Morgan.  Needless to say, we put a lot of miles on our rental car.

Traveling with 2 children under the age of 2 is harder than I expected.  It probably would have been worth it to buy the extra seat on the airplane for Adeline, but we survived!  Bobby loved being toted around the airports in his carrier.  This picture just gives me the warm fuzzies!  This boy is too cute!

My Sister Britney also came down from Seattle with her daughter, Grace and we had a great time getting to see them as well.  It’s too bad my kids don’t get to see their cousins more often. We went camping in St. George and then played in the sand dunes at Snow Canyon.  It was absolutely beautiful!  We also visited Rob’s Grandma Gretchen while we were there.

We also were able to visit Rob’s Grandma Patsy and Grandpa John.

We saw lots of other family, but I guess we didn’t take pictures with them, but it was so fun to see everyone! 

And here’s just a bunch more pictures of us that I thought were cute!  

Adeline says the darndest things

"Change you, please! Adeline dirt in the bum!". Translation: Please change my diaper. I pooped.

"Adeline's eyes make rain!". Translation: I am crying. This is so cute, especially because she says it in between sobs. She really likes to tell us about her emotions while she's having them. Sometimes when she laughs, she stops laughing to say "Adeline laugh."

"Daddy's blue dress" Translation: Rob's blue scrubs

"Daddy farting!". No translation needed. She announced this very loudly while we were shopping. Rob claims it was the shopping cart making a funny noise. Needless to say we got a few funny looks and some stifled laughs from our fellow shoppers.

"Bobby's awake!" Translation: I just heard a noise. She says this in a surprised voice even when Bobby is playing right next to her and she hears a noise.

"Daddy's awake!". Translation: Daddy has his eyes open during the prayer.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Show and Tell

Here are some things I've been wanting to "show and tell." The pictures are from my phone so they're not the best quality.

This is a our latest craigslist find. It is nice and solid and we got a great deal on it. It originally had some outdated hardware on it, so we put the new hardware on and it matches our kitchen really well. I haven't decided what to put in it yet (we don't have China, or anything fancy like that) but its a great piece of furniture!



This is my latest project. I've been trying to come up with some affordable/nice looking storage solutions for all our stuff, and I thought these would be so cute for Adeline's room. I got the idea from pinterest, which by the way, I am addicted to (thanks, Hannah!). I have one more blue one to make, but I need to buy some more supplies before I can finish it.



This is a little glimpse at Adeline's monster birthday party! I will do a whole post from her party soon, so this is just a little preview. These are the goodie bags that I made. I sewed up some super easy monster bean bags and then just glued googley eyes on a few little treats. I also found some super cute monster stickers that you can "build" your own monster with. I had so much fun making all kinds of fun little things for her birthday, so Get ready for tons of pictures coming soon!






And this is an empty GALLON of gatorade that I had to gulp down last night because I am apparently super dehydrated! Yesterday morning when I got up off the couch to go get Bobby up from his nap, I got super dizzy and passed out. I hit my head on the corner of the wall and was pretty shaky when I came to. It freaked me out pretty good because I realized that I could very easily have been holding one of the kids, or been going up or down the stairs. I called Rob and he was able to come home from work to make sure I didn't pass out again. It turns out that I was just really dehydrated so I have been drinking a TON and trying to take it easy. Rob is always on my case about staying hydrated and I usually just brush it off and think "I drink enough, I feel fine" but this little instance has scared me into making sure I drink more!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

May

May was an extremely busy month for us, with Rob taking boards, Bobby’s baby blessing, getting ready for vacation, packing up to move, buying a house, and finally selling our house in Augusta.  We did make it to the beach a few times (as you saw in my last post).  We had a very fun weekend when my parents and Rob’s parents both came up to Virginia for Bobby’s baby blessing.  We didn’t get as many photos from that day as I would have liked (or if we did, I just don’t know where they are) but here is a family shot we got.  Of course, it is next to impossible to get a good picture with both kids cooperating and Rob and I looking decent at the same time, so this is the closest we got.  We actually got one almost perfect one, but it wasn’t in focus!  (Isn’t that always the case?)

And here is one other picture that I found from May that just melts my heart, so I thought I’d post it as well.  Don’t you just love when you can catch moments like this and freeze them in time to remember forever?

PS…A side note on all of the pictures I’ve been posting lately.  These are mostly just roughly edited photos that I have done on my own.  I want to say that in case anyone is looking at them and thinking “Rob sure is getting lazy with his photography lately.”  He is way too busy to work on these photos right now, so if they are not up to his usual high quality, its not his fault, its mine! 

Beach Bums of Virginia

As if I haven’t already posted a gazillion pictures from the beach, here are a bunch more!  These were taken in May and June at Sandbridge beach (Virginia Beach), Yorktown Beach, and Buckroe Beach.  We are thrilled that we moved even closer to the beach than we were in Virginia, so if you don’t like beach pictures, you may want to quit reading my blog for the next 4 years!

This little girl seriously LOVES the water!

Best Friends Hug!

The girls “swimming”