what we've been up to

Gardening & mulching--I planted my first vegetable garden since living with my parents. I am starting slow with just 3 plants--grape tomatoes, orange bell peppers, and basil. Then I planted a hosta and a geranium. We also bought our first bags of mulch and put new mulch around our tree and the front landscaping, moving some of the old stuff to the back. I love gardening, so I handled the above, while Johnny mowed the lawn. Our old house had rocks instead of mulch for landscaping. Mulch is SOOOO much easier to plant and manipulate in my opinion. I do miss my rose bush from my old house though.










Playing in the pool & with neighbors--Getting out the hose meant that Henri wanted to fill up his little pool. He's enjoyed playing in that nearly every chance he gets. Since he wanted to play with the hose so much, it was our way of helping him to conserve water. Some neighbor kids have come over a few times to play with Henri in his pool. I have heard Henri explaining to them, "Don't take the rocks out of my pool. I'm building my house. Because I'm not going to live in this one (pointing to our home) anymore." I think he confused the elementary aged neighbors.














Running & bicycling--We've been jogging and getting out on our bikes. Cosette doesn't care much for wearing her helmet (it's the pink one behind Johnny), but we make her wear it anyway. She did well tonight, only crying through the last half of the ride.























Coloring ourselves--the kids that is. Twice now the kids have gotten into the markers and colored themselves. When Cosette gets a marker, she immediate puts it to her face like she's applying makeup. Once she starts, Henri joins in until we catch them in the act. Both times we thought they were reading books and playing nicely in Henri's room (once while just I was home and once while it was just Johnny).












Reading & researching--I've been reading books about education, curriculum, home-schooling, food allergies, and vegan recipes. We've also been researching schools in the area. Henri starts kindergarten in the Fall of 2009. Since we'll need to turn in applications by various dates (some as early as January), we're trying to figure out what we want to do. We're very interested in schools that provide a Classical approach to education, and I'm trying to be open to home-schooling though I feel stressed just thinking about it. We've found both private and public schools. We've visited a couple and hope to visit the rest in the fall. We also decided not to put Henri in preschool or activities this year. We're still working on our Total Money Makeover that we began over a year ago and throwing as much money as we can at our debt, so we're homeschooling to get Henri ready for Kindergarten, Johnny's going to teach Henri to swim, and we'll try to be involved in as many church and free activities as we can.

Teaching & reading--to the kiddos. We get a lot of books from the library, and read like crazy. I use a list from a book given to me by Johnny's Aunt Becky a few years ago to choose the books--The Read-Aloud Handbook. Though he's had little interest in coloring, drawing, or writing letters, Henri has been very interested in reading. After a number of months of him sounding out words, we began to have him try beginning readers. And he'd doing it! Henri has begun to read.

Talking--Cosette has been picking up new words. Her latest: "Wuh Wuh!" (Word World!). While I never let Henri watch TV at 18 months, I have allowed Cosette to watch Henri's favorite PBS show (Word World) with him if we're home. Sadly, she has come to enjoy it so much that the title has become a first word, and she screams in fits if I take her away from the screen while it's on.

Softball games & Parks--Johnny's church softball league season is in full swing, so we head out to the field and park every Sunday night when the games aren't late.

Johnny's job--Johnny's been working for his company for two years now. After a hard three years, he's finding some success in his work again. Praise the Lord! And we're finally starting to pay down our debt.

Otherwise not too many events going on here. Our schedule has been fairly free. Henri suffered from swollen itchy eyes last month that progressed into pink eye. His allergies are fairing much better this month.